I don’t think Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians have telegenically dead people. I think their problem is that they started a war of choice and they aren’t achieving their goals and are showing signs of being more vulnerable than ever. I don’t care how much vacuous analysis is published in the United States, if Israel cannot stop the rocket fire then they are not winning this war.
By blowing off the United States’ effort to achieve a peaceful settlement, Israel has basically no standing to complain about their predicament. They’re actually lucky that the administration is officially backing up their right to defend themselves because it’s actually quite clear that the administration thinks Israel has blundered into this conflict and they want it to end now, even though that would be a gigantic defeat.
The latest setback is that the FAA has banned American airplanes from flying into Tel Aviv because of concerns about rocket fire.
I don’t think this is how Netanyahu envisioned things going when he made the decision to attack Gaza.