They had about a six month window to go in and do what they need to do with Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the rest of the Iran/Russia cavalcade and then proceed down the less militarized path.
They didn't. It's almost two years, and they're still leveling the place. The humanitarian situation is unacceptable. The West Bank settlers are emboldened rather than curtailed. Likud radicals have not been brought to heel. It's an untenable position that makes even the most pro-Israel person squeamish.
And I do consider myself pro-Israel. It has a right to exist. Hamas are not freedom fighters. Colonial/oppression politics is just anti-western adolescent rebellion wrought from poorly understood freshman sociology classes, and the protest movement has been extremely comfortable wallowing in the warm, seductive waters of blatant antisemitism. Horseshoe theory went so hard, they built their own anti-Jewish stable out back. It's non-stop "I'm not racist, but . . ." Yes, a healthy component of that protest movement is racist. Sorry. Own it already. No one believes otherwise. It's pretend debate. It's that whole "What do you call three people having dinner if one of them's a Nazi?" element.
But even with all that said, Netanyahu has to go. Full stop. It's indefensible. The grace period is long, long over for the military solution. There's some sort of last gasp of the neoconservatives as they take a big final swing at Iran and Russia in the Middle East with Trump bereft of the mental dexterity to manage it as deftly as it requires. I don't think Trump's getting what he wants. I think he is literally too stupid to know what he wants there. So he seizes on whatever seems the "strong" play at the time.
Foreign policy can't be run like this. America should not be supporting it. Someone needs to needle Trump's ego re: Netanyahu. We've gotten glimpses of it during the recent Iran conflict, but I think Trump can be instigated more. Hopefully someone is working on that.
= new reply since forum marked as read