Pop Quiz on the Middle East

1. Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons? 
2. Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? 
3. Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions? 
4. Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
5. What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)? 
6. In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed? 
7. What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war? 
8. What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses? 
9. What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated? 
10. In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?
11. In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister? 
12. What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors? 
13. What country in the Middle East employed a spy to steal classified documents from the United States and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union? 
14. What country at first denied any official connection to the spy, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant him a full pardon? 
15. What Middle East country allows murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody? 
16. What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 people while they prayed? 
17. What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders? 
18. Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a U.N. Refugee Camp and killed 103 innocent men, women, and children? 
19. Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes? 
20. Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid yet is the 16th richest country in the world? 
21. Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.? 
22. Which country in the Middle East routinely insults the American people by having its Prime Minister address the United States Congress and lecturing them like children on why they have no right to reduce foreign aid? 
23. Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because " We control America?" 
24. What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 homes as a means of ethnic cleansing?
25. Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children? 
26. Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?
27. Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing? 
28. Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children? 
29. Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?
30. What country in the Middle East is the United States currently attacking because of fear that it may be a threat to us and to our allies? 

The answers, of course, are all "Israel" except for the last one, which is Iraq (as of this assignment - April, 2003). 

This is a 'quiz' that has been quite widely published in the media. If nothing else, perhaps it serves as an example of one rationalization for the widespread distrust of the US in the Arab world. Why is Israel allowed (and encouraged?) to get away with such violations of international law, the thinking goes, when other countries are dealt with severely for similar transgressions? The analogy that came out in class was the feeling of disrespect and anger that students have for a teacher who is seen pampering the 'teacher's pet' and looking the other way when he/she misbehaves while disciplining another student for the same offenses.