The Only Way to Understand Israel Is to Go Beyond Jewish History

There is a tendency in some corners to see Israel ’s war in the context of Jewish history.

But Israel also needs to be understood as a nation-state, one that has power, political and military, as other nation-states do.

This war, too, is impossible to separate from a Jewish context, in that it is being carried out by the Jewish state.

Frida Ghitis : Israel is held to a different standard than other states, but to deny that Israel is capable of doing what other states are doing is to implement another double standard.

She says Israel is a nation-state with a government and an army that is currently waging a war that has killed 27,000 people.

Ghitis says it's hard to hold two truths: Jewish history is full of pain and victimhood and being the target of ethnic and religious violence.