if it walks like an Israeli duck and quacks like an Israeli duck...

A Palestinian man holds damaged loudspeakers belonging to a mosque after it was demolished by Israeli bulldozers in Khirbet Al-Taweel village near the West Bank City of Nablus April 29, 2014. Israeli forces demolished several structures, including a mosque, in a Palestinian village, the day a deadline for a deal in now-frozen peace talks expired. A Reuters correspondent witnessed several hundred soldiers deployed in Khirbet al-Taweel, in the occupied West Bank, around daybreak. They guarded six bulldozers that reduced to rubble buildings that were constructed without Israeli permits. Palestinians say such documents are nearly impossible to obtain.
REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Meanwhile:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday he had chosen the wrong word in describing Israel's potential future after coming under withering criticism for saying the Jewish state could become an "apartheid state" if it doesn't reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.

I don't for a moment believe that the Palestinian outlook or actions are filled with nothing but sweetness and light, but there is something galling about a United States that waffles and wobbles and cannot call a spade a spade as it seeks to keep a foothold in an oil-rich part of the world. Once, the United States was called a "beacon of democracy" in the world. Perhaps it still is. But what sort of democracy is it that is willing to write off those who have been written off? Didn't/don't we do that with blacks, with gays, with women? What sort of democracy is it that cannot take a stand when called upon by the truth to do so? I don't know about anyone else, but I prefer to trust that which proves itself trustworthy.

If it walks like an Israeli duck and quacks like an Israeli duck ....

Hell-o, apartheid!

And then of course there are the 14,000 new Israeli houses planned ....