The Evolution will be Televised...

Long-term thinking:

[E]very time a conflict like this breaks out — especially if Israel continues to elect governments hostile to a viable Palestinian state — the American mood will incrementally shift. Already, Israel has lost Jon Stewart, the most influential spokesperson for America’s liberal young. By the next Gaza War, if God forbid it comes, Israel will have lost MSNBC too. And eventually, the political fears that have restrained Obama will not restrain his ideological successors.

 Remember how change really comes about?  As the people lead, the people's leaders will follow.  It's not so easy being brave. 
No wonder the president capitulated to President Netanyahu so quickly...

But it turns out today, the alleged captured soldier was dead on impact*, the immediate civilian deaths necessary to bring back his body were unnecessary, except to stoke further public support, I suppose...

Evolution comes quickly, when it comes, and anybody who's been observing the president's political career even casually knows how quickly his outlook can change, depending on who he thinks he's throwing in with.  The more our domestic oil fields produce, the less likely America's tomorrow people will have to go along with this, as apparently the Democrats too tell us we have to today...

As America grows less nationalistic, less hawkish, and less religious it will grow less sympathetic to an Israel defined by exactly those characteristics.  

By Peter Beinart, Haaretz
...
Obama has been cautious. He’s put far less pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to stop settlement growth than George H.W. Bush put on Yitzhak Shamir. He’s been far more indulgent of Netanyahu’s war in Gaza than Ronald Reagan was of Shamir and Menachem Begin’s war in Lebanon.  But although Obama has not changed the American debate over Israel, the Obama coalition has.
...

First, young people:
According to Gallup, while Americans over the age of 65 support Israel’s actions by a margin of 24 points, Americans under 30 oppose them by a margin of 26 points. 

Second, racial and ethnic minorities:
White Americans back the war by 16 points. 
Non-whites oppose it by 24 points. 

...

The America that exists in Netanyahu’s head—an America populated by conservative, fervently nationalistic, white Christians who believe the civilized West must wage a global war against barbaric Islam—is slowly dying...

On questions of culture, war and peace, younger Americans often think more like their European counterparts than their own parents and grandparents.

In 2013, for instance, Pew found that Americans under 30 were 24 points more likely to approve of the United Nations than were Americans over 50, the largest age gap in any of the seventeen countries Pew surveyed.
...
As America grows less nationalistic, less hawkish, less religious and less inclined to consider its own culture superior, it will grow less sympathetic to an Israeli government defined by exactly those characteristics.

When will that change American policy?

I'd say, sooner rather than later.
As the people lead, the people's leaders will follow...

Yesterday's entrenched pundits and educational leaders have more competition with students and independent thinkers today. There is a more robust marketplace of ideas, not dependent of well-paid columnists and established professors on even liberal campuses.

The more people who choose to think critically for themselves (and here I am thinking newcomers, not so much the elite young millenials coming up and being rewarded for getting along by going along w/ the current status quo...), the more we practice independence.

So the soundtrack for this Sunday?

"Let's Hang On... to what we got.
Don't let go, cause we got a lot..."

White phosphorus powder got nothing on love, President Netanyahu.
--------------------


*

The Goldin family was notified of the decision to declare the lieutenant dead by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and two officers, including the chief military rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz. The family said that they accepted the military’s conclusion and thanked the people of Israel for their support. A group of people outside the family house in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv, were singing the Israeli national anthem, and some burst into tears when informed of the death.

Lieutenant Goldin is a relative of Mr. Yaalon. Mr. Yaalon’s grandfather and Lieutenant Goldin’s grandmother were brother and sister. The families know one another and Mr. Yaalon lectured at Lieutenant Goldin’s school. Israel’s military censor had blocked publication of that detail of their family relationship until the death was announced Sunday, concerned that Hamas might profit from that knowledge and demand a higher price for his return. International journalists must agree in writing to comply with the censorship system in order to work in Jerusalem; Friday was the first time in more than six years that the censor had contacted The New York Times.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

Later Sunday, Mr. Yaalon tweeted in Hebrew: “Hadar Goldin of blessed memory was a member of my family. I have known him since he was born. He and IDF fighters who fell went to battle to return the quiet and the security to Israel. I embrace the families.”
...
On Friday, Israeli forces immediately used a protocol for captured soldiers known as “Operation Hannibal” to pursue the Hamas squad into the tunnel and try to cut off any possibility of escape. Hannibal includes hot pursuit and an option to engage the enemy “even at risk of the soldier,” Colonel Lerner said.

Israel has said that the attack occurred during an agreed cease-fire with Hamas; Hamas has said variously that it took place before the cease-fire went into effect and that it had never agreed to a cease-fire that would allow Israel to continue destroying the tunnel system. But the incident put an end to a cease-fire effort pressed by Washington and the United Nations.