Video footage of a young girl trying to flee an inferno caused by a Monday Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinians including her mother and siblings sparked global outrage and calls for an immediate cease-fire in what one former Israeli prime minister called a “war of extermination.”
That definitely may have been the case post-‘70s oil crisis, but it does feel as though the current Bibi administration has gone feral.
The US is not going to ever admit that it has lost control of the leash, as doing so would probably hurt them more than tacitly endorsing the genocide - but I still would argue that fear is one of the primary driving factors.
They know that their time is running out. Younger generations of Americans are not pro-Israel, so political support will be drying up in the coming decades. And then there’s the even bigger issue of climate change, which is coming for all of us but is going to hit certain areas sooner than others.
It’s probably more like institutional inertia. It takes a long time to stop a ship that big.