Louisiana State University’s (LSU) student newspaper The Daily Reville most recently printed a piece by journalism student James Richards, in which the opinion writer characterizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an Islamophobic republican on steroids and questions whether the state of Israel should even exist.

Here’s the full opinion piece by Richard:

Get your fingers ready to type out obscenities and flaming rhetoric in the comment section of this story. I say this only because the Israeli government pays university students to spread their

propaganda across the Internet.

So, if your GPA isn’t doing so well and the scholarship money is drying up, consider spending some time calling everybody against you anti-Semitic under the latest CNN article.

If that doesn’t illustrate how pathetic the Israeli government is, allow me to inform you why they have to pay people to support them.

Here’s a hint: They’re not very good neighbors.

Before we get into specifics, let me make my position clear. I’m on the fence about whether the state of Israel should exist. It’s the cultural home of the Jewish people, and Jews were moving into Palestine long before the state of Israel existed.

With that out of the way, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is like war-hawk, Islamophobic Republicans on steroids when it comes to their treatment of Arabs, particularly

Palestinians.

In that sense, it’s no surprise Netanyahu is coming to speak to the U.S. Congress on John Boehner’s invitation. Despite opposition from nearly every democrat on Capitol Hill and even the Jewish-supporting Anti-Defamation League, the PM will peddle his anti-Iranian talking points right before elections in Israel.

Last Thursday, Israel filed papers to build 450 new settlement homes for Israelis in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory that Israel has illegally occupied since Aretha Franklin and The Rolling Stones were chart-toppers.

Nearly 500,000 Israelis are already living there illegally, and the government is fighting tooth and nail in the courts to keep it that way. Yesterday, after a 7-year court battle, a group of Palestinian land owners won a case to take down the homes built on their land but won’t see it happen for another two years.

The reason it’ll take so long is because the Israeli military is in charge of the planning and zoning of Palestinian communities. The level of control Israel exercises over the Palestinian people is unparalleled in the world today, except maybe the North Korean government over its own people.

What’s even worse is some Israelis don’t support their government’s actions. More than 500 rabbis recently signed a letter urging the Israeli government to stop tearing down Palestinian homes and give the legal power back to the Palestinian

Authority.

If you think settlements look bad for Israel, it gets much worse. When you look at the military conflict which has raged ever since the establishment of the modern Israeli state, you’ll want to lace up your boots and pledge fealty to Hamas.

Palestinians have responded to Israeli aggression with aggression of their own. When they do, Israel puts them down brutally. The death tolls between the two don’t match up.

Take the 2014 Gaza conflict as an example. According to estimates from the United Nations, Israel lost 66 soldiers. On the other hand, Israeli soldiers killed more than 2,300 Palestinians.

Soldiers who’ve sworn to protect their people are expected to be the casualties of armed conflict, not civilians. The Geneva Convention explicitly condemns the

killing of innocent civilians.

In the Gaza conflict referenced above, five Israeli non-combatants died. On the Palestinian side? Estimates put the number at more than 1,600, with children making up about a third of the dead civilians.

This isn’t an isolated case either. In nearly every military engagement between the two, many more Palestinians die than Israelis. Metaphorically, Israel brings bazookas to the knife fight.

I’m not going to act like I know the answer to this conflict, but I do know one thing for sure. The Israeli government needs to get off its high horse and make some concessions. It’s absolutely on the wrong side of international law and human rights and must recognize this before it can expect an end to hostility.