Trick me once, shame on you; trick me twice, shame on me

During the second Lebanon War, Israel denied using white phosphorus bombs and then admitted that it had used them afterward. Now it seems that the same is true for the Gaza War.
The old adage, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission is at work here in a very screwy way. Of course, Israel will not ask forgiveness, but the government has and will admit to a lie after it received the support it needed during the war. Permission for breaking the Geneva Conventions and all international standards of warfare is not even an issue. Nobody asks and both sides break the conventions.
The main issue is whether we want to be a nation that doesn't respect its own citizens, its own laws and its own values. A lying government that reveals the truth after the fact is not the way of my people as I understand us. Disrespecting our own laws has become very common place, but it is also not the way of our people and abandoning our values is like taking away what makes us distinct among the nations. If this is our path, then we are basically saying that we are Jews as an ethnicity or because there are anti-Semites in the world, since Judaism, as a system of practuice and values, is not tying us to our tradition. This is the biggest shame of the Gaza War and the conduct of Israel, as it is only out of love for ourselves that we can move forward.
Love thy neighbor as thyself, means we need to love ourselves before we can love our neighbors.To fulfill this task, we must be honest with ourselves and choose leadership that is honest with us. And we must stick to the rich tradition which has produced our distinct ethical and moral way.