When last week I saw a White House spokesman say that Israel’s bombing of a UN school was “totally indefensible”, I briefly thought that I had witnessed something new. Surely the Americans had never before been that strong in condemning Israel? But a colleague with a longer memory reminded me that Israel’s siege of west Beirut in 1982 had provoked President Ronald Reagan (yes, Reagan) to telephone Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister, and accuse him of perpetrating a “holocaust”. There is nothing new about Israeli military action killing hundreds of civilians. There is also nothing new about the international outcry it provokes.
In the 32 years since Reagan called Begin, the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union has collapsed, China has been transformed, apartheid has ended and the internet has revolutionised communication. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rolled ever onwards – with two intifadas, three invasions of Gaza, further wars in Lebanon and innumerable failed peace initiatives.
While the Israelis and the Palestinians remain locked in bloody conflict, however, the region around them is changing fast. For the moment, those changes are actually making Israel less vulnerable to international condemnation. In the longer term, shifts in global power suggest that Israel’s future will be bleak, particularly if it does not make peace with the Palestinians.