Israel is a democracy, the only one in the Middle East. This fact is often used to as part of an explanation of US support for Israel, but is it a good reason?

For a democracy, Israel has a remarkably old fashioned way of dealing with the world. It seizes the land and property of another religo-ethnic group and confines them to ghettos in the name of its own survival and security. It brands many members of this group as criminals and administers justice by summary execution of the offender, and, for good measure has a policy of destroying the property, if not the bodies, of the offenders immediate and extended family. You might call this behavior “medieval,” but one could probably look further back to see it codified.

But, surely, it is a democracy, in which case, the majority of its citizens bare the responsibility for such barbaric policies.