Is West Bank settler violence the hill that Israel’s friends want to die on? I ask as a lifelong admirer of the Jewish state. I marvel at the achievement of maintaining an open society in a lawless region. I remember the warm glow I felt, two decades ago, when the IDF general who had laid out the West Bank barrier, the defensive wall that runs along the green line, showed me where the Supreme Court had made him alter its course, giving up some strategic ground so as not to violate the property rights of a Palestinian farmer. In no other state in the region, I reflected, did soldiers obey civilian judges. In 2010, when I was running the alliance of European conservative parties, I made sure that Likud could join as a full partner.

Israel has been unpopular before, of course, but this is on a different scale. Anti-Zionist sentiment is rising among the groups that used to be most supportive: Americans, conservatives, even diaspora Jews. People of my sort of age (born 1971) grew up thinking of Israel as a dependable Cold War ally. The way young people talk of the state today shocks us.