On the Gaza Situation

by Cheryl Rofer

There are increasing indications that Americans are becoming less supportive of Israel's doing anything it wants to the Palestinians.

A Rasmussen poll:

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

While 75% of Republicans say Israel is an ally of the United States, just 55% of Democrats agree. Seven percent (7%) of Democrats say Israel is an enemy of America, but only one percent (1%) of Republicans say the same. For 21% of Republicans, Israel is somewhere in between, and 28% of Democrats agree.

Just over half of adults (51%) fear Israel’s actions will cause more terrorism against the United States, with 17% saying that is Very Likely to be the case. Nine percent (9%) believe that future terrorist attacks on America are not at all likely because of Israel’s attacks on Gaza this week.

Rasmussen is not the most reliable of polling organizations, but these numbers seem pretty decisive.

Roger Cohen in today's New York Times:

I have never previously felt so despondent about Israel, so shamed by its actions, so despairing of any peace that might terminate the dominion of the dead in favor of opportunity for the living.

Rashid Khalidi on What You Don't Know About Gaza:

This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

Gideon Lichfield (of The Economist) on Fighting to Preserve a Myth:

What Israel should do now is work for a cease-fire on terms that allow both sides to save some face. It should then do something it has done far too little of in the past: improve Gazans’ living conditions significantly. The aim should be to construct a long-lived state of calm in which Hamas has more to lose by breaching the cease-fire than by sticking to it.

But perhaps we have some distance to go relative to the rest of the world:

...the United States is virtually alone in its steadfast support of Israel, which most of our European allies see as engaging in reckless brutality.