The title is borrowed, deliberately, from Ronen Bergman's acclaimed book, Rise and Kill First. But this piece is not about Israel. It is about us.

A nation state's policies are determined by its cold national interest. The national interest can be a subject of speculation and debate but, if truth be told, it is essentially a cold calculus of ways and methods to improve the nation's chances of survival and success. Emotions, ethics, morality and ideology have nothing to do with it. Do not get me wrong. These are clever devices for policymakers and the elite to move their constituents, consolidate power and perpetuate policies.

But politics is a secular business and does not have any truck with such high-sounding concepts. Some politicians and states may claim to have a moral or ideological core but such claims are secondary to the merciless, hard dynamics of power. Likewise, democracy, institutionalism and constitutionalism all sound great but, hiding behind such useful fiction, power wants what it wants anywhere else. So forget about the texture of a polity for a second and remember that even if you give your lawnmower another name, its key function remains mowing down grass.

For the greater good of your nation sometimes you have to make unsavoury choices. Two ideological states near us, Iran and Israel, may use religious and ideological language and symbolism but the past two decades of their actions bear testimony to states seeking influence in the secular domain. It is stunning that despite their professed ideological differences they have exhibited many similar behaviours to........

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