I like Britain. In the early 1960s I spent the first three years of my life here. My memories are of the taste of rain, dogs barking in the park and the smell of Dove soap.

As an adult, I still feel affection for the country. But as an Israeli, in the past years I’ve suffered from one of the British traits I like the most: support for the underdog.

You always favour the underdog — any underdog. They seem to be right because they are weak, and in the best tradition of British gallantry you want to protect them and hit the stronger party over the head with your umbrella.

The strong, in our case, is Israel. We have the bad luck of being the stronger side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which causes many in Britain to prefer the other side. They like themselves much more when they stand by the weak Palestinians and miss the fact that being weak is not the same as being just. Israel’s military strength protects a fighting democracy. During Operation Protective Edge last summer, I was one of eight members of Israel’s security cabinet. It’s amazing how many hours we spent discussing how to limit civilian casualties. I can’t count how many air strikes were cancelled because satellites photographed unarmed people in the vicinity.

And still, more Palestinians were killed than Israelis. Why? Because we’re the stronger force, and we have the technology which allows us to protect ourselves. The Palestinians have squeezed every last drop out of being the underdog. While asking for your support, they fired mortar shells directly at children in their kindergartens, placed snipers in mosques and UN schools, fired rockets at Israel from hospitals and used civilians as human shields.

Read the article in full at The Times.