Today, a bill banning the filming of any Israeli soldier on duty “with intent to harm the morale of Israel’s soldiers or its inhabitants” made it out of committee in Israel’s Parliament.

The bill will begin to be voted on by the entire Parliament as early as this week, and if enacted, would carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

So far this year, at least 148 Palestinians including 22 children, and 6 Israelis, have been killed in a centuries-old conflict over land that both sides claim a divine mandate to inhabit.

In April, as mass Palestinian protests overwhelmed Israeli forces along the border with Gaza, a video depicting an Israeli sniper shooting a Palestinian man who appeared to pose no threat made international headlines.

In the video, which has become emblematic of the degree to which Palestinians have been dehumanized by the militaristic nationalism prevalent in Israel’s institutions, another soldier can be heard cheering as the man crumples to the ground.

In response, the US is threatening to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council unless it reduces the number of Israeli violations it addresses. In May, the Council voted 45–2 in favor of investigating killings in Gaza and potential excessive uses of force by Israel, with the US and Australia casting the two dissenting votes.

The US also has our own history with the Human Rights Council, which in 2015 issued a report recommending the Obama Administration provide reparations to victims of CIA torture, adopt federal policies to punish law enforcement for excessive uses of force, and “halt the detention of immigrant families and children, seek alternatives to detention and end use of detention for reason of deterrence.”

In 2017, a UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights spent two weeks traveling the US on a fact-finding mission. Then, he released a report calling the American dream an “illusion” and concluding “the reality is that the United States now has probably the lowest degree of social mobility among all the rich countries.”

The report detailed not just the depths of poverty we allow people to fall into, but the culture that leads us to believe poverty is a result of some character flaw and therefore neglect to solve the institutional injustices causing it.

Of course, there are few more poignant manifestations of Americans’ attitude toward wealth and identity than the political phenomenon that is Donald Trump. Despite being a misogynistic, billionaire born with a silver spoon in his foul-mouth, Trump managed to win over disaffected white working class voters and white evangelical voters because they trusted that he had their best interests in mind.

Or, as President Bartlet put it, “that’s the problem with the American dream, it makes everyone concerned for the day they’re going to be rich.” Ronald Wright made a similar observation, noting that “socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

From food-stamp recipients and laid off factory workers who voted for Trump in the bible and rust belts to young first time parents settling into their homes in newly approved settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, these seemingly disparate people all share a common experience.

They have all been manipulated on the basis of their identity into supporting political regimes primarily concerned not with their quality of life or quest for meaning, but with consolidating power.

One need only notice the severity of the investigations working their way through both Trump and Netanyahu’s circles to see that the public image these men present is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their real lives.

Trump’s former campaign chairman was imprisoned this week for witness tampering as the President awaits the results of special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation, and Netanyahu’s wife is set to be indicted for misuse of state funds while the Prime Minister awaits a decision from Israel’s attorney general following a police recommendation in February that he be indicted for bribery.

Meanwhile, they sit atop a military machine that kills civilians without consequence to perpetuate a clash of civilizations narrative with little regard for democracy or the defense of human rights.

Though every politician comes with an expiration date, whether as the result of intensifying investigations, or a cardiac arrest made inevitable by an endless diet of McDonalds and cable news, the forces that brought them to power will endure.

Belief in American and Israeli exceptionalism, the idea that our nations were founded upon a divine mandate, will outlive any individual opportunist who uses it for their own ends. The question then must become a collective one, of whether we are content to continue living under the regime that was handed down to us.

As one of my favorite professors pointed out in class a couple years ago, Israel can be a Jewish state, and it can be a democratic state, but it cannot be both. Similarly, the United States can be a Christian state, a socially Darwinist state, and a democratic state, but we cannot be all three.