Tzipi Livni says Iran should be treated like a child

Israeli and US statements about the Middle East often seem arrogant. These statements are arrogant, but there is something else going on that may be more subtle. Livni, Netanyahu, Obama live in a world where there is no opposition to the idea that there should be an Israel. No opposition to the idea that the rights, priorities and sensibilities of everyone else in the region should be considered secondary in importance to ensuring that the five million Jewish people of Palestine have a majority state.

Any interference in that opposition-free world they've constructed for themselves and each other is met with the most vigorous and hostile reaction, until they convince themselves again that opposition to their ideal of Zionism, at least reasonable opposition, does not exist. This is the process that comes before the arrogant and insulting statement that Tzipi Livni made at the AIPAC summit in Washington DC.

(On Iran, Livni drew furious laughter by saying the world ought to tell the Iranian government, “Stay in your room until you learn to behave.”)

I think the correct response to such statements is not to point out the arrogance or degree of insult in the statements, but to challenge the underlying idea. If a majority state for five million Jewish people in Palestine requires limiting who can hold office in Egypt with its over 60 million people, then a majority state for Jewish people is too expensive. If a majority state for 5 million Jews means Iran's over 70 million people cannot have the same technology Japan and Brazil have, then a majority Jewish state is too expensive, there should not be a Jewish state.