Now that elite opinion has coalesced around the idea that Israel has (caveat caveat caveat caveat) gone a bit too far, I really would like someone to explain what changed between January (let alone October) and April?
I'm just a simple city blogger and my opinion was clear from the beginning: whatever the conflict, de-escalation is alway the right guiding principle, and the assertion of "no red lines," combined with everybody with a microphone screaming at and trying to ruin the careers of people who thought otherwise, was not good!
There was a weird regularly repeated notion after 9/11, that somehow the event of that day gave us "the right" to respond by killing a bunch of people, as if satiating the desire for wanton revenge killing was some sort of dispensation you could be granted.
You get to kill a lot of people, as a treat.
To be fair to Israel, their strategic goals are probably much more clear than ours after 9/11, though "clear" does not mean good!
