“Israel is Winning Battles, Hamas is Winning the War.”

So ran the headline in the Jerusalem Post atop an analysis of the Gaza war, which began, “The IDF is registering great achievements in Operation Guardian of the Walls, but meanwhile the house appears to be collapsing from within.”

Hard to disagree.

Consider this New York Times commentary about Israel’s prime minister from the runner-up to the Democratic presidential nominee in the primaries of 2016 and 2020, Sen. Bernie Sanders:

“Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism …(and) legitimized these forces … by bringing them into the government. … Racist mobs that attack Palestinians on the streets of Jerusalem now have representation in its Knesset.”

Sanders’ wing of the party is moving toward the Palestinian side of the conflict. “Israeli air strikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism,” says Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Tweets Michigan’s Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “Israel targeting media sources is so the world can’t see Israel’s war crimes led by the apartheid-in-chief Netanyahu. It’s so the world can’t see the killing of babies, children and their parents. It’s so the world can’t see Palestinians being massacred.”

While Israeli attacks are killing Hamas commanders and destroying the sites from which Hamas has fired 3,000 rockets, Israel is suffering serious and intangible losses.

Palestinians in Jerusalem and on the West Bank have risen in solidarity with Arabs and Muslims in Gaza. A dozen were slain last week.

Beyond Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel, Lebanese and Jordanians are protesting on the border. In U.S. and European cities like Berlin, London, Paris and Madrid, protesters numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands are marching in solidarity with the Palestinians and condemnation of Israel as a racist and an “apartheid” regime.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden have come out in defense of Israel’s right to attack sites from which rockets are being fired into Israel. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, however, has been more muted in backing Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

The GOP seems more solidly behind Israel. More than three dozen Senate Republicans last week urged Biden to “unequivocally” support Israel’s right to defend itself and to “immediately” end negotiations with Iran on sanctions relief, charging Tehran with supporting terrorist activity by Hamas against Israel.

Where Israel goes from here, however, is currently unclear.

Clearly, the principal winner from this conflict is Bibi Netanyahu, who was within days of being replaced as prime minister by an opposition coalition when fighting erupted. He is now seen by Israelis as a decisive war leader, defending the country from thousands of rockets and severely pushing the enemies firing those rockets.

As for the two-state solution to which the world has been committed for decades, that prospect seems further from reality than ever.

Having seen what Hamas is capable of and willing to do, what Israeli will be eager to enter a peace agreement with the Palestinians that would mean vacating much of the West Bank, sharing Jerusalem as the capital of both countries, and a Palestinian right of return to lands from which their families were driven in the 1948-1949 Israeli War of Independence, which Palestinians remember as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

A military truce may be at hand, but that is all it will be — a truce before the next round of fighting.

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