The Times They are a-changin

A few days ago the New York Times, which has been a longstanding supporter and defender of the Israeli state, editorialized:

“The U.S. commitment to Israel — including $3.8 billion a year in military aid, the largest outlay of American foreign aid to any one country in the world — is a reflection of the exceptionally close and enduring relationship between the two countries. A bond of trust, however, must prevail between donors and recipients of lethal arms from the United States, which supplies arms according to formal conditions that reflect American values and the obligations of international law.Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-liners in his government have broken that bond, and until it is restored, America cannot continue, as it has, to supply Israel with the arms it has been using in its war against Hamas.”

Shifts like this should be welcomed, not cynically dismissed out of hand. Or, minimized as too little too late. Or characterized as nothing but a smoke screen. Not by itself, but in combination with the shifting positions of other political actors, including the Biden administration, and the actions of protesters on the street, they are the stuff out of which majoritarian movements are born and morph into the powerful engines of substantive and, hopefully, enduring change.

I saw this phenomenon decades ago — ancient history for some —with the rise of the Civil Rights in the “sixties.” Since then other movements (or perhaps, more accurately, coalitions) that are diverse in their political and social makeup and loosely united around a political objective have arisen. Of recent vintage is the anti-Trump, anti-Maga coalition whose work is obviously not done and whose attention is increasingly on the November elections.