If President Barack Obama is about to usher the U.S. back into the “world family,” it is high time the world started to face up to some of its family issues. Simply put, we have at least one relative who has become the family addict. And we family members live in a deep, almost impenetrable state of denial.

Stepping back from the various news reports and commentaries about the Israeli-Hamas battle, a simple notion accounts for most of the arguments on either side—responsibility. How responsibility is allocated among the parties determines virtually everything that is said on the topic.

In short, those who in some sense side with Hamas or the Palestinians in general necessarily hold Israel responsible for Palestinian actions. This is the very same process addicts utilize to rationalize their own behavior, and the Palestinians and their sympathizers have employed it for decades.

Similarly, many others who hold Israel guilty are fulfilling the same function that enablers perform in complementing the addict’s role. The two work together, with an almost unquestioned certainty, to support a narrative that allows the addict to continue his or her behavior. Maintaining the status quo is the hidden joint goal and the Palestinians have performed brilliantly in preventing any real change from disrupting their addiction.

Just as an addict inalterably blames his condition on others, Israel (and peripherally the U.S.) is held responsible for Palestinian terrorism and hatred. A laundry list of excuses and rationalizations of causation have been spewed and accepted across the world. Like a Mad-Lib, one can simply pick from this list at anytime when confronted by an “intervention” attempt to urge the Palestinians to change their behavior. The list includes such items as occupying Palestinian lands, pulling out of lands (Gaza), building settlements, establishing long checkpoint lines, depriving Palestinians of full economic opportunities and so forth. Former President Jimmy Carter, in need of immediate help from Al-Anon, added to the list such items as Israel’s refusal to expand “ceasefire talks” beyond Gaza and the legitimizing of Hamas’s rockets as the only reasonable response to Israel’s starving of 1.5 million Gazans. Carter’s disease led him to even label Hamas’s tunnels — through which it smuggles its weapons –  “defensive tunnel(s).” What is constant is the presupposition that Palestinian behavior would be different if Israeli behavior were different.

The list also covers all of the Islamic based rhetoric that not only Hamas but the so-called “partner in peace” Palestinian Authority (led by Mahmoud Abbas) broadcasts daily to Palestinian people (with a focus on brainwashing Palestinian children). These broadcast ideas include the notion that there is nothing more honorable than dying as a Jew-killing martyr, that Jews are Nazis who are executing the real holocaust on Palestinians, that Mohammad promised that the Jews will be killed, that one goes to heaven for killing Jews, that Jews kill Palestinians to use their blood, and so on. Child abuse in just this form is a daily product of the supposed “moderate” Abbas-led Palestinian Authority. And while recent terror funding laws in the U.S. forbid this behavior, the U.S. sees fit to look the other way while continuing to fund the PA.

The enablers (including most of the media, elites, diplomats across the world, and U.N. admirers, to name just a few) augment these “hold Israel responsible for Palestinian behavior” rationales with nuanced arguments such as: Israel is failing to respond proportionally to the Palestinian threat as required under international law, the conflict can be resolved by starting mature negotiations for the right “transaction” that the Palestinians are supposedly ready to consummate, aggressive Israeli responses will only harden Palestinian hatred and hopelessness, Israel and the U.S. need to work to “isolate the extremists” and strengthen the so-called “moderates” and so forth.

None of these are valid. Neither Israel nor the U.S. signed onto the Protocol I Additiona to the 1949 Geneva Conventions standards of “proportionality” that are being asserted by others. Is it also not the case that the proportional response to the random bombing of innocent civilians is the random bombing of innocent civilians, something that Israel does all it can to avoid? And to what should proportionality apply? Typically, a thousand or so Palestinian prisoners are exchanged for one or two Israeli prisoners. If that exchange rate applies, Israel’s account should entitle it to kill many more Palestinians without criticism than its actual history reflects.

Nor is the overarching conflict a transaction that simply depends upon the proper skilled statecraft for resolution. To paraphrase historian Bernard Lewis, if this is about land, a deal is easy to reach. If it is about Israel’s existence, it will never be resolved. Palestinian behavior over past decades has made it clear this is about Israel’s existence. And the Hamas, Fatah, and  PLO charters reinforce this point, regardless of the rhetoric that Palestinian advocates broadcast to Western enablers.

The entire concept of a “peace process” is, perhaps, the enabler’s most seductive tool. Peace does not require a process. When peace or the cessation of violence is traded for some asset or benefit, it is everywhere else called extortion. Responsible parties necessarily presume peace as a backdrop (and by definition recognize each other’s existence) and negotiate for other terms. Nor does peace need to take any time. If the Palestinians truly wanted peace, as is so often claimed, they could have it instantly. Act peacefully and then enter a “process” to negotiate whatever else is desired. Rather, what Palestinian leaders have engaged in is a decades-long "extortion process" that has directly caused the misery of the Palestinian people. One of the addict’s twelve steps should include the elimination of peace process from his lexicon.

Like so many addicts who often waste an array of talents and gifts, the Palestinians have much to offer in terms of a trainable and price-competitive work force. Many opportunities exist to carve out an economics-based transaction that could be valuable to both parties. There is no external reason why the Palestinians could not rapidly develop a well functioning economy and society. However, when violence (or its cessation) is the currency, no room is possible for constructive exchange. It is precisely that guarantee of failure that holds the addiction in place.

The start and stop of the peace process is consistent with an addict’s typical behavior. Addicts often move back and forth between attempts to go clean and dramatic benders. The Palestinians have moved between periods of extreme violence and intifadas to those of intermittent co-existence (coupled with the language of peacemaking), only to wind up with terror as the norm once again. The Islamic notion of accepting only temporary cease-fires, along with the world’s constant blaming of Israel for all Palestinian behavior, helps to keep this back-and-forth structure in place. And despite the apparent desire of the world to see peace in the region, this back and forth is fundamental to the disease as it both keeps the enablers invested through false hope while insuring that the addiction is never forfeited. That extremely alluring notion that “Now is the time to move forward to peace” is no different from the utterances of addicts that “this time” they will quit or from enablers that “this time the addict is serious.” The appearance of a potential solution craftily masks the intention to remain the same.

Another one of the most destructive enablers is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (“U.N.R.W.A.”), one of the addict’s  suppliers (along with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many others) hiding under UN legitimacy (contradiction in terms). As Claudia Rosett reveals, UNRWA, originallyintended to suppply three years of relief aid, has supplied and protected the Palestinians’ addiction for almost 60 years. It has uniquely passed on refugee status to the descendants of refugees, just as alcoholism is believed to have a genetically passed component. UNWRA promotes and funds the enabling family drama; always framing the Palestinians as victims of Israel.

Moreover, there is an attitude often expressed by members of the elite media that parallels that of parents of addicts. This view places the addict in the role of a child who simply needs some proper reason applied to his circumstances; that which can be applied by a “responsible and sensitive adult.” Much of the media discussion of the conflict is primed with an attitude that the Palestinians and Israelis are both little children who only know how to resort to anger and force to address their grievances and, consequently, are stuck in need of Western diplomats to institute a rational approach. James Zogby says there is “no adult supervision.” Both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft outline in American and the World  this very notion that the hostility on both sides is so great that they are unable to solve the conflict without mediation assistance from the U.S. This view, (dangerously false as it both draws an invalid equivalence among the two parties and ignores that both parties are fully competent negotiators who know exactly what they are doing), simply allows Western enablers to continue the status quo while appearing to attempt to change it.

And such improper equivalences are an addict’s staple. Equating the Palestinian people with Israel, a state, terrorism with self-defense, random uncontrolled bombing with responsible targeting, the goal of annihilating the other with the goal of co-existing with the other, genocide-motivated extremists with right wing politicians who wish to protect their land and populations, leaders who take a negotiation seriously to those who use it to re-arm and create other justifications for violence are just some of the habitual practices that serve to reinforce the addiction.

Interestingly, just as many male addicts treat females in their lives with brutality and disdain, such is the norm in the Palestinian tribal culture. Culture plays a crucial role in all addictive behavior and such is certainly the case here.

This cycle of violence to “peace process” to failure and renewed violence is precisely what holds the addictive structure together. When Israel attempts to solve the problem with military force, it is ultimately stopped short of full military victory. Media outcries, coupled with world political statements against Israel, matched with a flood of “skilled” diplomats pressing for a ceasefire as a matter of humanitarian principle, together lead to a termination of violence. This cessation then leaves in place all the conditions for the Palestinians to obtain a show of western guilt in the form of continued large sums of aid, sympathy, and various other new demands. All is granted in exchange for nothing other than the promise to cease violence- hence the “extortion process.”

This is the same cycle that occurs between enabling parents and addicted children whereby after the addict “acts out,” the parents flood the child with liberties in various forms in exchange for the child’s forfeiting of his troublesome behavior. Everybody feels good for awhile as the parents convince themselves this may mark the end of the errant behavior while the addict has re-acquired the comfortable environment in which no change is demanded of him. It feels good, that is, until the next cycle begins and the parents realize once again they have been manipulated.  

As with all addictions, recovery is an extremely difficult path. And as with all families of addicts, recovery requires drastic changes in the family roles that family members have become addicted to and comfortable with themselves. The addiction serves all of the family in some way and, often, titanic changes in perception and behavior are required. These changes are, by definition, resisted, viewed as nonsense, counter-instinctual, and difficult to maintain. On the other hand, there is no better choice.

It is often said that an addict can not really change until he hits rock bottom; a state so uncomfortable that he becomes aware that he has no better choice than to truly change. As difficult as it is, it becomes necessary for those who love the addict to counter-instinctually allow the addict to crash. Acceptance of this reality is, perhaps, the most difficult aspect of the recovery of the enablers as it seems to violate every ethical value held. Yet, ultimately, the fortunate enablers are those able to realize that continuing what they considered their “loving” behavior was truly anything but as it helped the addict to habituate himself to his destructive behavior.

This lesson is the critical one that the world’s enablers must learn. As with all enabler recovery, everything will initially be done to justify continuation of all the enabling behaviors. As those behaviors are challenged, the enabler’s anger will also increase until he is forced to accept that there is no choice but to step away and allow the addict to fall. And, predictably, as Israel continued its carefully targeted assault on Hamas in Gaza, the enablers’ anger predictably rose while the important concept of allowing the Palestinians to truly hit bottom appeared to them unethical, irresponsible, and possibly criminal. This resistance is only fortified by the Palestinians themselves who make every attempt to show how victimized they have become. This is standard behavior.

Sympathy is itself a major tool of the addict and the Palestinians have invested decades in promoting it throughout the rest of the world. Yet, sympathy never leads to recovery. Instead, it serves only to strengthen the addict’s behavior. Israel is often attacked as having created the conditions that lead to Palestinian hopelessness. Therefore, the argument suggests, it is incumbent upon Israel to create first the proper conditions to lead to hope such that the Palestinians can then be able to act differently. This is the language of addicts and alcoholics. It is the Palestinians, contrary to Israel as suggested by Aaron David Miller, that require a strong dose of “tough love.”

And this is precisely the critical issue. Responsibility for their condition and actions must be fully allocated back to the Palestinians by everyone in order to help teach them how to live more successfully as a free people. Their genuine freedom requires cessation of all excuses, all demonizing of Israel, all suggestions that more is required before they can begin to act “sober” and so forth. Similarly, the enablers must accept their responsibility to eliminate all contributory behavior. Aid and benefits must be earned rather than spoon fed for real change to occur.

The road toward freedom from tyranny is a critical part of this recovery process. Many critics of President Bush’s efforts to spread democracy in Iraq focused on the fact that simple elections do not a democracy make. These critics correctly argued that democracies are more than elections and require established institutions (originally absent in Iraq), legal and otherwise, to hold the political entity together. And, efforts have been made in recent years to better establish such institutions in Iraq.

The enablers must further learn, however, that democracies also take time. Democracy is itself a process that teaches its constituents over time to be responsible for the choices made. That is how peoples learn to grow; creating and re-creating themselves as they develop. This growth is complex and often involves painful adjustments.

With addiction, one is sober or not. The notion of any middle ground is nothing more than sophisticated denial. Similarly, there is only one path toward freedom and a society is either on it or subject to tyranny in one form or another. The critical consequence of tyranny is that the people have, albeit unwillingly, transferred responsibility for themselves to the leadership. As alcoholics say, you can’t have a bottle, the bottle has you. To take their freedom back, they must take back full responsibility.

It is not enough to argue that Hamas was a validly elected government and then hold Israel or the U.S. responsible for all else that occurs to the Palestinian people. (This is similar to the notion that Israel is responsible for Hamas’ behavior today since it is alleged to have originally facilitated Hamas to offset Fatah). Rather, Israel’s recent actions are holding the Palestinian people responsible for their choice. This is how the Palestinians will learn for the future and this is why so much world resistance is generated. Britain and Europe did not accept Germany’s election of Hitler by accepting responsibility for all the harm that occurred to the German people on Hitler’s watch. The German people were not spared in lieu of Europe’s appropriate response to Hitler. And the German people have certainly learned not to repeat that choice, at least for as long as the population continues to be properly educated about its history.

Similarly, many throughout the world have seemingly held the U.S. responsible in many ways for its choice of George W. Bush just as he ultimately held Saddam responsible for his twelve years of U.N. violations. While Obama may destroy what has been built to date in Iraq, it is Bush’s hope that the people of Iraq have begun the long and difficult process of learning how to integrate greater freedoms into their society as they accept responsibility for their choices.

Nor is it appropriate to argue, as do many media commentators, that it was a mistake to push for some greater degree of representative government for the Palestinians as evidenced by their choice of Hamas. (Once again, fault is displaced upon Bush). The correct answer is not that it was a mistake but that the process of democratizing takes time and often requires very painful changes that a people will often initially resist, and subsequently struggle to implement. This can be witnessed all around the globe. The Gazan battle is just another step along the way, not evidence of democracy’s failure.

It is often uttered that if only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved, then the parties could start to reduce and eliminate the hatred that exists between the two. This is simply another enabling theme, backwards as it is, that hides the simple fact that the conflict is generated by that very Palestinian-promoted hatred. The conflict for the past decades has not been an unstable peace with intermittent periods of war. It has always been for the Palestinian leaders a war to eliminate Israel with intermittent peace in order to re-arm. If one side engages in war, the other is necessarily at war. And wars and their associated hatreds, as traumatic, distasteful, and even immoral as they may be, are ended only when one side is beaten or surrenders. It is no more complicated or “nuanced” than that.

The Palestinians must be held fully responsible for the behavior of their leaders. That is one of the costs of greater freedom. Once started, the path to any form of democracy must be embraced with all its hardships. As with any addiction, the road to recovery is exceedingly arduous. But what is the alternative? The current lesson for the Palestinians is a necessary one and one which the world must help them toward, rather than shelter them from, learning. The many rationales, excuses, denials, and other distortions by Hamas and its enablers only delay the necessary adjustment and ultimately raise the cost of their freedom. If we truly want a world family, we must learn the critical family lessons.