Israel assassinates a top member of the government of Gaza. What if the shoe was on the other foot?

Suppose the headline read ...

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak killed by bomb in Jerusalem. Hamas takes credit for the kill.

Can you imagine the response? Dozens of warplanes would be turning Gaza into a smoking cinder ... women and children be damned ... before the ink was dry. Yet, Israel feels perfectly entitled to assassinate the parallel official in Gaza. Today, they bombed a car in Gaza specially to kill the head of the Hamas military. And official Israel sources are thumping their chest and saying, "Yeah, we did it!  And what's more, we'll do it again just as soon as we get a chance."

Where do they get this feeling of entitlement?

From the United States, basically. If we weren't willing to back up Israel - right or wrong, crazy or sane, yesterday, today, and tomorrow - they would never be able to get away with it and they might think twice before annexing yet another part of Palestine for their "Lebensraum". (To steal a phrase from Hitler that fits perfectly.) This singular fact is responsible for the hatred directed at the Israel and the US throughout the middle east and the Islamic world in general. There simply is no balance, no shared set of values. The massive double standard - one life in Israel is worth a thousand or so lives of Palestinians - stands out like a huge banner for the world ... for everybody except Israel and the US.

Where is the balance?