"You (USA) Did it First" Argument גם עשית את זה (טיעון פגום)

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"The USA committed Hiroshima, Iraq, etc, so criticizing Israel is hypocritical. But the leftist American sees the USA as wrong then as Israel is wrong now."

You (USA) Did it First Argument

But let's continue on the topic of flawed arguments. Because there are, unfortunately for Israel, a whole bunch of them, and we haven't even gotten through half of them.

The next one is the, well, you did it first argument. What does that mean? You see a lot of Israeli defenders. A former prime minister the other day was on TV, said it. And it goes like this:

You, United States, or sometimes you, Europe, usually you, United States, you were responsible for Hiroshima. You were responsible for the Gulf War, for Afghanistan. You were responsible for carpet bombs, collateral damage. You, United States, you did all these things. So therefore, when Israel does a lot less, you, United States, can't say anything. It's hypocritical.

The point here is obviously to show that there's a double standard. But where's the flaw? Is when you go and you speak to CNN, and you speak to MSNBC, and Bernie Sanders, and the average American university student, and you tell them what the United States did in World War II, in Vietnam, in Iraq, their answer is, "Yes, that was terrible. What the United States did then was terrible. And what you're doing now is terrible."

So instead of showing the double standard, what Israel, the Israeli speakers, representatives are actually doing, is reinforcing the argument of the leftist Americans, of the Westerners, of those who say that Israel in the wrong, because they completely agree the United States was in the wrong previously in those cases.

What they fail to understand, the speakers, the pundits, is that there's no continuity in the United States, as there used to be. So an American today is not responsible for what happened previously.

We're talking about a new America, an America that views its own past with as much disdain as it views Israel. Don't forget the burning of the US flags, the changing of the national anthem, the removal of historical statues, the changing of the names of donors on buildings.

Now, Israel makes the same mistake policy-wise. They assume there's some kind of continuity. And why? Because the United States for probably over 100 years, from the time of, let's say, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, World War I, up until the Bushes and Clinton, there was an idea of US dominance in the world, striving to attain and maintain US dominance. And that is over. That is finished.

Biden may hold some of that sense of responsibility, but the United States is entering very different times. So you say, okay, Ariel, very nice history lesson.

So here it is. Here's a short point. Is that when we, when Israelis argue using the past history of the United States as a point, as a point of contention, as a point of argument, it's a dead end. It only reinforces the opposing argument. Many Americans don't feel obligated to defend their past. They're actually against it themselves.