Israel has won the latest military battle with Hamas by a large body count, but it’s lost the public-relations war by an even wider margin. That’s the kind of thing that occurs when there’s one dominant force in a government that doesn’t have to answer to internal dissent. In the case of Israel, it’s the current hard-right wing. America displayed the same type of tone-deafness during the Iraq War, when neocons made us unpopular the world over. That’s not to say that some of the criticism of Israel hasn’t been commingled with anti-Semitism–there are sadly still a lot of those feelings in the world–but that Israel, like America, is a deeply polarized country, and the current regime is directing it in a path that’s injurious to others and itself. I mean, it’s made Hamas seem sympathetic to a lot of people!

From Julia Amalia Heyer’s Spiegel interview with Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz, an explanation of how Israel swung so far to the right:

“Spiegel:

Why is the right so strong at the moment even though there are far fewer terror attacks in Israel than there used to be?

Eva Illouz:

Entire generations have been raised with the territories, with Israel being a colonial power. They do not know anything else. You have the settlements which are highly ideological. They expanded and entered Israeli mainstream political life. Settlements were strengthened by systematic government policies: They got tax breaks; they had soldiers to protect them; they built roads and infrastructure which are much better than those inside the country. There are entire segments of the population that have never met a secular person and have been educated religiously. Some of these religious segments are also very nationalist. The reality we are faced with in Israel is that we must choose between liberalism and Jewishness, and if we choose Jewishness, we are condemned to become a religious Sparta which will not be sustainable. Whereas in the 1960s, you could be both socialist and Zionist, today it is not possible because of the policies and identity of Israel. Then you have the role which Jews who live outside Israel play in Israel. Many of these Jews have very right-wing views and contribute money to newspapers, think tanks and religious institutions inside Israel. Let’s face it: the right has been more systematic and more mobilized, both inside and outside Israel.”