No matter what the Israelis do, they proclaim themselves the "victims".

I've notice that. Going back however-many-thousands of years. To be fair, they were the primary (but not only) victims of the Holocaust. That was a full-on attempt at genocide.

Not quite sure how they earned their negative reputations. Hitchens thought it was at least in part because they rejected all religions/deities/prophets that sprung from their religion. Maybe in the iron age (and after), but what about before 1AD? I really don't get hatred of "the Jews". Seems as irrational as hatred of any group, like the Kurds**. How did they get to be the scapegoats?

Modern Israel has been fighting for its existence for 80 years now. They were attacked first, in that case. But they have been rampaging around smiting folks off-and-on for at least 40 years. Sometimes as retaliation, sometimes not.



**I knew an Iraqi, and he did NOT like the Kurds. He said "you give them an inch, they'll take your arm". Dunno why he thought that. Like the Jews, the Kurds just want a homeland. Which may not be feasible. Again, dunno. At some point you'll just have to accept that "your lands" aren't yours anymore. The First Peoples of the Americas have to do that, for example (neither the US nor Canada is giving the land back to them). If you're left in peace, maybe that's good enough.