You are an experienced journalist and you have a column in a major newspaper. You interview a powerful man who talks of his fine moral instincts and how the pain suffered by others in foreign countries affects him. How do you react?

With a careful dose of skepticism, perhaps? Maybe by comparing the powerful man’s talk  about events beyond his control with his deeds regarding matters where he has real power? The answer for Roger Cohen is “None of the above, I’d rather accept this fine gentleman’s words at face value”.  Take his latest column, based on an interview with Recep Tayyip  Erdoğan, prime minister of Turkey. A choice quote:

The Turkish prime minister, who leads Justice and Development, or AKP, a party of Islamic inspiration and pragmatic bent, earned hero’s status in the Arab world when he walked out on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, during a debate earlier this year in Davos. Any regrets?

“If I had failed to do that, it would have been disrespectful toward myself and disrespectful of the thousands of victims against whom disproportionate force was being used,” Erdoğan said. He alluded to the children killed in Gaza - 288 of them according to the United Nations special rapporteur - and asked: “What more can I say?”

Erdoğan is the prime minister of a state which has denied the existence of its Kurdish minority since the day of its foundation and which has fought a devastating counter-insurgency campaign against Kurdish nationalists in its south-eastern provinces since the mid-eighties. This conflict has caused tens of thousands of deaths and seen hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. It has also involved cross-border raids on a considerable scale by the Turkish armed forces.

Cohen chooses not to mention these unpleasant facts because he, like many other people these days, is only interested in human rights if the state that might be violating them is Israel. Tough luck if you are Kurd in Turkey, Roger doesn’t give a damn about you and sure isn’t going to ask the leader of the regime that’s oppressing you any embarrassing questions about you or your rights.

And before anyone rushes in to say it, let me get there first: none of the foregoing  seeks to except Israel from intense scrutiny of its actions. One would indeed not be content to say that all was well with Israeli behavior simply because the butcher’s bill for its conflict with the Palestinians pales beside that arising from the ongoing conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurds.

Still, some people really do have a special knack for seeing the good side of anyone ready to criticize Israel.