Israel’s three-year-long war on Gaza has had a transformative impact on multiple levels—all relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

Most obvious are the changes in US public opinion. While Americans’ views towards Israel have been souring for more than a decade, Israel’s conduct during the war has accelerated and deepened this negative trend and given it new content.

Going back three decades, polls showed that Americans had very favourable views towards Israel and not-so-positive views towards Palestinians. Still, pluralities were opposed to the Israeli government’s policies of violating Palestinian human rights and persistent settlement construction in the West Bank. This disconnect—between liking Israel but disapproving of its policies—deepened among Democrats during the Obama administration because of Israel’s rejection of the president’s insistence on freezing settlements and Israel’s very public campaign opposing the US-negotiated Iran nuclear deal.

The US partisan split in attitudes towards Israel widened during the first Trump administration in reaction to the president’s full embrace of Israel’s prime minister. But even then, Americans’ favourable........

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