@Alon @BenRossTransit @phillmv (sorry to have had to disappear!)

before Oct 7, i agree Israelis (i think i only really talk to center left Israelis) were not thinking much about Palestians at all. it was out of site, out of mind.

we diasporites would afflict the question on them, though, when it was more comfortable to agree on the many awfulnesses of Netanyahu or dislike the subsidies and privileges of the ultra-orthodox together. 1/

@Alon @BenRossTransit @phillmv when the subject was uncomfortably broached, so also was a real chasm. that's when, from my perspective, i'd hear you just won't understand, but this is necessary and therefore ultimately it is right, 40% of them actively support the terrorists, etc. not the settlements, of course! but the walls and checkpoints, indefinitely, without any foreseeable resolution. 2/

@Alon @BenRossTransit @phillmv i never, in those conversations, heard the view that you are suggesting, that Israel can just withdraw and it would end, that would be the resolution of the conflict.

that's a view i associate more with Americans much more than my (very small!) sample of Israeli locutors, from whom I've heard justification combined with a kind of fatalistic regret more than any hope of resolution. /fin