Israel has lost the world's goodwill and the moral high ground

For about a week, or maybe more, in October, Israel had the goodwill and sympathy of the world. 

Since then, as Israel doubles down on its impossible goal of eliminating every last man-jack the Hamas organization, and proceeds to obliterate legitimate Palestinian communities and indiscriminately bomb civilians, hospitals and refugee camps, people are starting to remember that, oh yes, these are those guys who have been illegally settling Palestinian lands, carrying out extra-judicial killings and imprisonments, and maintaining an almost-complete blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Most major Western governments are still carefully sticking to the agreed formula that Israel has a right to defend itself, but Israel is doing very little defending and a whole lot of brazen attacking right now. And the people those governments represent are long past sympathizing with Israel, horrified by its disproportionate response to what was admittedly an inexcusable act by Hamas. Even the supportive governments are starting to show their frustration at the way things are going.

After seven days of "humanitarian pause" and a promising swap of hostages and prisoners, Israel has ramped up its rhetoric and its attacks still further, and it is all starting to sound increasingly hollow to Western ears. The moral high ground has been well and truly lost, and global goodwill has been squandered.

No-one pretends that Israel has ever had an easy time of it, plonked down in 1947 in a place they had not lived in for almost two thousand years. But, after decades of poor decisions and wars, a bigoted and arrogant political class, and a population with a sizeable chip on its shoulder, they have done themselves no favours. 

I will probably be branded as antisemitic for such sentiments. That's the usual come-back whenever the state of Israel is criticized, because it tends to shut down the conversation instantly because no-one can conscience being labelled as antisemitic. But you might notice that at no point (until now!) have I used the word "Jew" or "Jewish". This is not about religion, it's not even about culture. It's about a particular nation-state and its political boundaries and ambitions. Semitism or antisemitism doesn't (or shouldn't) come into it.