I just spent a week in Israel and, while it may not look as if much has changed — the grinding war in the Gaza Strip continues to grind — I felt something new there for the first time since October 7, 2023. It is premature to call it a broad-based anti-war movement, which can happen only when all the Israeli hostages are returned. But I did see signals flashing that more Israelis, from the left to the centre and to even parts of the right, are concluding that continuing this war is a disaster for Israel morally, diplomatically or strategically.

From the political centre, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote an essay in the newspaper Haaretz in which he pulled no punches against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition.