Israel has had a problem since its inception. It's a terribly serious, existential problem; one that existed since its realisation as a European implantation in sea of Arabs, and it continues to haunt it today. Israel is a tiny state built on the ruins of another nation.

What began as a Zionist dream to transform the Jews of Europe into a modern nation soon turned into an Arab and Jewish nightmare upon its collision with reality:

The homeland chosen to build their state, Palestine, belonged to its Palestinian inhabitants. But Israel went on to expel or dispossess most Palestinians from their homes and take control of their entire homeland.

To maintain and enforce its gains, Israel had to keep the Palestinians down or out, the Arabs away, and draw the West in. For this, it needed to employ pre-emptive and overwhelming force, while at the same time embrace, even embody victimhood, to elicit western as well as Jewish sympathy and support. After decades even centuries, of being victims of repression, the Jews couldn't afford to have the image of aggressors.

From the 1950s through the last decade, the likes of Ariel Sharon, "the Bulldozer", mastered violence just as the likes of Shimon Peres, the great communicator, mastered the art of public relations. This was best captured by the Hebrew phrase, "yorim ve bochim", literally "shooting and crying".

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