There is a version of the last two and a half years where Israel emerges from October 7th with something it rarely gets: near-universal global sympathy, a clear moral case, and the credibility to lead on a genuine peace process. That window existed. From a progressive standpoint, it closed because one man chose his own political survival over Israeli security, Palestinian lives, and Israel’s long-term standing in the world, and his name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

The sympathy Israel had, and lost

In the days after October 7th, condemnation of Hamas’s attack was close to unanimous, including from progressives who have spent years criticizing the occupation. That baseline of solidarity mattered. It gave Israel room to respond in a way that isolated Hamas rather than isolating Israel itself.

Instead, the war that followed produced a civilian death toll in Gaza that human rights organizations, UN bodies, and much of the international community consider indefensible by any standard of proportionality. Mass displacement, the deliberate restriction of food and medical aid, the destruction of hospitals and universities, and a West Bank where settler violence has expanded with the tacit blessing of ministers in Netanyahu’s own cabinet: this is not what security looks like. It’s what........

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