The George Orwell classic, “Animal Farm”, features an imaginary farm in which the animals rebel against their human masters, demanding equality, with the catchy slogan, “Four legs good, two legs bad”. Once they have achieved their revolutionary goals, the pigs brutally repress the other animals, claiming that some animals are “more equal” than others.

Orwell’s powerful, but not so idyllic animal fable was based on the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of Communism, but there are analogies that can be made concerning the conflict between Israel and its enemies, as well, especially as it relates to American foreign policy.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has implicitly declared that American foreign policy has entered the surreal realm of Animal Farm, with her criticism yesterday of Israel after the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) shot dead a 17 year old Arab teenager who was throwing firebombs at Israeli motorists near the community of Ofra, here in the region of Samaria (the northern part of the so-called West Bank).

The young attacker, apparently caught in the middle of the attack, happens to be an American citizen, thereby raising American ire above the usual levels. Said Psaki, “The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor, who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces during clashes in Silwad (an Arab village near Ofra) on October 24”. Calling for “a speedy and transparent investigation”, Psaki said officials from the US consulate in Jerusalem were in touch with the family of the slain youth.

While it’s certainly understandable for the American government to show some concern for all American citizens, even those who may have committed crimes, such public concern in this context seems obscene when viewed in context. The young attacker wasn’t killed “in clashes” – he was throwing petrol bombs at Israelis, seeking to maim or kill them.

Furthermore, the juxtaposition of events is even more disturbing, coming on the heels of the Islamic terrorist attack in Jerusalem just a day earlier, when a three month old Jewish baby Chaya Zissel Braun was murdered by a rampaging terrorist who slammed a car directly into a crowd of pedestrians coming off a Jerusalem light rail train, killing the infant and wounding eight others.

Baby Chaya was an American citizen. While there was an eventual statement from the US State Department after the attack, the fact that the murdered infant was an American citizen was only mentioned as an afterthought.

Which brings us back to the surreal world of Animal Farm – Are American citizens who carry out terrorist attacks “more equal” than American citizen victims of terrorist attacks? Is the teenage firebomber who throws petrol bombs at Israeli vehicles seeking to kill babies deserving of more concern than the baby victims themselves? Where are the U.S. State Department’s ex‎pressions of deep concern for the families of the victims?

There seems to be a warped sense of values here that needs to be fixed.