Whatever you view as the source or sources of the problem, it seems clear enough that Gaza is a mess. A tragedy for Gazans, a humanitarian crisis (discussed as such even in outlets like the Free Press), and a PR disaster for Israel, that is, if you can speak about a country hated whatever it does as experiencing something of the kind.

And you can do this, to a point. Yes, Israel will be hated by many no matter what it does, just as Jews were (forgive me for stating the obvious) widely hated prior to 1948. Those who speak of this war as though Oct. 7 either didn’t happen or did happen and was justified, they hate Jews, case closed. That Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman associated with a ‘Jewish space lasers’ conspiracy theory, is now the Republican with the harshest words for Israel is more of a that tracks situation than an indictment of Israel.

However. The view that the war has gone on too long, and for the wrong reasons (i.e. to keep Netanyahu in charge as versus to free the hostages and prevent another Oct. 7), has now become commonplace in mainstream Jewish communal media, and more to the point, among Jews, including some, like myself, who consider themselves Zionists or otherwise pro-Israel. Some who are, themselves, Israeli Jews, living in Israel and everything.

And it’s the perspective from within Israel that interests me the most, for there have always been some diaspora Jews who confuse the happenstance of our ancestors having been let into the countries they were for some kind of moral superiority.

Per The New York Times, the war, in its current incarnation, “is now increasingly perceived, in Israel and beyond, as a strategic, diplomatic and humanitarian failure, especially as starvation rises in Gaza.”

Writes journalist Patrick Kingsley: “[Netanyahu’s] critics say the war’s extension is at odds with the interests of Israeli........

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