Congratulations, Hamas.

[The Magistrate]

65. Israel Has Lost The Political Dimension Of This Conflict, Sir

Is is not wise to dismiss as 'an internet PR war' the expression of people's feelings and reactions to these events.

Guerrilla war is more a political struggle than a military struggle, and generally is won on the political rather than the military side, or at the very least, the conditions in which a military victory can be achieved are created by victory on the political side. Israel is without question losing the political side of this struggle, not only around the world, but in the United Stats as well. Israel's leadership imperils the state of Israel if it ignores this, and does not find policies and actions which will address it.

As you observe, Israel has only one friend, the United States, and there are dangers to being dependent on a single patron, however powerful. The unquestioning support a government of the United States gives to Israel is, at bottom, dependent on genuine popular feeling among the people of this country that Israel ought to be supported, which is in turn dependent on genuine popular feeling that Israel deserves to be supported. The recent exercise of force in Gaza has frayed further the popular feeling, even in the United States, that Israel deserves to be supported. You will be aware that I have been for many years here a leading supporter of Israel, and by my lights continue to be a supporter of Israel, but I cannot support or defend as proper action the recent Israeli use of force in Gaza. I think that, without valuing myself overmuch, this hints at a real problem, because I cannot but believe a number of people who share my general sentiments and attitudes exist, and that they must in part at least similarly share my view of these recent actions of Israel.

People often have a faulty view of erosional processes; they have the idea that small changes follow small changes and still more small changes, and so there is never a point where you can see the thing altering before you, but only after ages does it become apparent there has been a change. But in fact, most erosional processes are punctuated by large and sudden alterations; water and ice make a crack in rock, and widen it and widen it and widen it until, one day, gravity takes over, and in an instant great slabs of rock peel off a cliff-face and tumble into the canyon below.

Support for Israel in the United States is starting to take on the lineaments of opposition to allowing homosexuals to marry one another on the same terms as heterosexuals. It is becoming increasingly concentrated among older people, particularly older white people, and among people devoted to fundamentalist Christian sects. As recently as ten years ago, opposition to 'gay marriage' was considered a sure winner by rightist political operatives, and correctly so, but today it is considered a losing proposition, and support for 'marriage equality' is seen to be the main-stream view among the people of the country regardless of the fact that older people and fundamentalist Christians continue to oppose it by large margins. The erosional process that began with mimeograph pamphlets of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis sixty years ago crippled on down the decades, grain of sand by tiny pebble at a time, until in the last few years, a great slab calved off the cliff-face and the landscape changed.

It is this kind of shift in popular opinion here in the United States the leadership of Israel is courting by its present attitude. Their recent actions in Gaza have helped to move this change along. They cannot afford much more of this.