Ezra Klein joins Jon Chait's despair:
In recent years Israel seems to be making its problems insoluble. The continued growth of the settlements is morally indefensible, but it's also deeply counterproductive: every Israeli home built in the West Bank makes a two-state solution that much harder. Israel's peace movement has collapsed, and its government has become more bellicose and aggressive.
More incisive is this passage from Jeffrey Goldberg, who, as Klein notes, is "more sympathetic to Israel's operation in Gaza" than either Klein or Chait is:
Reversing the settlement project, and moving the West Bank toward eventual independence, would not only give Palestinians hope, but it would convince Israel's sometimes-ambivalent friends that it truly seeks peace, and that it treats extremists differently than it treats moderates.
This has puzzled me for some time. Israel's spokesmen can't say it enough: This war could be over in an instant; all Hamas need do is cease firing rockets. But seldom do we hear American analysts declare that this war could be over in an instant; all Israel need do is renounce its policies of illegal settlements and brutal blockades and earnestly commit to a two-state solution. Such an act would end the rockets, the bombings, the slaughter of women and children.
Politically unrealistic on Israel's part, you say? That might be, for the moment. But so is it unrealistic to think Hamas can back down. It is now fully invested in this war, because Israel is fully invested in policies of oppression and land theft--as it has been invested for decades. And that should settle the question of which side, from an ethical point of view, should back down first.