The increase in settlers and the growing stranglehold of religious orthodox minorities on the Israeli state have also increased the divide with the more moderate politicians in Antlantic powers. Though not taking the form of a rift, we can very clearly see a relationship in flux. Compounded by the increasing reach of J Street in the US, where AIPAC has lost it's monopoly on a jewish truth in America and European nations vexed by the increased intolerance of Likud and the Israeli far right, these evolutions open a window on a future alltogether different from what even the boldest of liberals might have predicted.
In September, when the Palestinian Territories will claim the independence they cannot attain in any other apparant way, they will garner support from many European nations, including France and Great Britain. Even the German position has started shifting, having shaken much of it's former guilt-induced foreign policy stature this last year. In a context where Israel's most staunch ally, after having taken a series of baffling humiliations, has made it increasingly clear that it wants things to move, the Israelis should take note that if they want to maintain a credible international posture, they may very well have to act very boldly, very quickly.
In a world where every other nation condemns Israel for their obvious and reproachable attitude towards the Palestinian Territories, the United States government cannot afford to stand alone with it. The shifting balance of world politics has not been in eithers favour and the US will refuse to become isolated in an a world where it's hold is as tenuous as ever. Thus, the current Israeli posture will eventualy result in a position of complete international isolation, comparable only to that of South Africa in the 1980's. The Israeli state has as much a right to exist as the Palestinian one does. But if the Israelis do not want to end up a despised pariah-state and possibly, a despised minority within a single Palestinian-Israeli state, they had better start working on a compromise.
