Why Israel must be punished

I am the youngest sibling. My elder brother was a cunning kid. Our parents would send him off to buy small amounts of groceries such as a kilo of potatoes or maybe some onions, as back in those days, I can't recall any families doing weekly groceries as has become the fashion now. He was always very good with coming back home with the desired shopping list but also pocket a decent amount of money for himself. His method was simple; he would bargain the price with the vegetable vendor but inflate it in front of parents. And he would pocket the difference.

Obviously my parents were smart enough to know his little games. However, the mistake they always made was to praise him for this so-called talent. I remember those days, when my only ambition was to be able to become such a smart guy who would also be able to play with numbers and steal money from my parents. Because I saw that that behaviour was praised and rewarded.

Israel has attacked Qatar. The rationale for its attack, if one could even make one in the absence of self-defence, is that Hamas leaders were there. The truth is that Hamas was seriously considering Trump's warnings about peace negotiations. That is why they had converged there. And that is also why Israel attacked them. Because peace will kill the prospects of Israel's ever expanding borders. The absence of war and perpetual conflict in that region will kill Israel's excuse to continue to snatch Palestinian land.

Israel attacks Syria everyday. It kills people in Gaza and the West Bank everyday. It has designs to keep the Middle East under its hegemonic control. And now it has attacked Doha, which is where the largest US military installation called Al Udeid Airbase is. Does anyone genuinely believe that Israel will stop here? This attack speaks less about a violation of Qatar's sovereignty and a violation of international laws and more about Israel's aggressive attitude of creating new norms.

Previously no-go zones in the Middle East would also come under Israeli attack and there is not a thing the US or anyone else will do about it. That is what this is about. All the conspiracy theories talking about Israel's long-term plans of annexing all of the Arab world sound more plausible today than the so-called rationalistic approaches we have spent years reading in textbooks.

The United States rewards behaviour that makes a country a textbook rogue state. Libya sacrificed its nuclear weapons programme. Look where it is today. North Korea didn't make that mistake. It can threaten the strongest nation on earth, even if only verbally. Iran did not go nuclear and it gets battered by the US and Israel all the time. Israel attacks someone in the world everyday and the US rewards and supports it everyday.

The lesson for all nations on earth is to continue to defy global norms, whatever that even means, and ignore being the player that plays by the rules. Such a behaviour can get you killed in this jungle.

While my parents obviously didn't punish my brother, we all grew up to learn what decency meant. But nations do not grow like siblings do. Nations behave like Pavlov's dog. Killing people earns rewards and speaking up against that results in punishments. If that equation is flipped, however, then we can correct the course of history. If Israel is punished then the nations of the world would have a different story for their Pavlov's dog behaviour. And it would become costly for the US to fight a war for Israel when Israeli aggression is punished by other states. Israel attacks without alerting the US. When it cannot fight the war, then it calls Uncle Sam to come fight for the Jews.

Israel controls the American political and media landscape entirely. The only way to stop this terrorist state is to contain or pressure it and most importantly stand up to it, which nobody in today's world is willing to do, with the sole exception of Iran.