I have always been what you might call a philo-Semitic. I believe that one of the best things that ever happened to the US was the influx of Jewish immigrants around the turn of the 20th century and after World War II and the holocaust.

This attitude used to extend to Israel. Although I was aware of Israel's fraught origins and less than compassionate treatment of Arab residents and neighbors, I always thought of Israel as a bastion of Democracy and rational culture.

No more. However heinous the Hamas slaughter might have been, the Israeli retaliation against Gazans was disproportionate beyond justification. Israel is now clearly a fascist theocracy pursuing an imperial agenda based on millennia old myths. It has taken me a long time for me, and I think many others to come to this realization.