What’s different this time?

I’m intrigued by the number of pundits who previously professed strong support for Likud’s policies are experience a crisis of faith this time around. (Prominent examples: Linker, Sullivan, Chait, Klein.) Don’t get me wrong, this is a very welcome development–the fewer “what else can they do?” dead-enders the better–but I’m curious what’s motivating it. What new information does the current war provide that the 2011 and 2012 iterations (to say nothing of the staggeringly inhumane treatment of Gaza over the last decade, or the refusal to lift a finger to meaningfully curb settlements) did not?

One possible answer is that the quiet part is being said rather too loudly, as calls for ethnic cleansing becoming rather more frank and unambiguous, and coming from more prominent sources. But I don’t know.

Update: readers inform me that Sullivan’s position is not new, and that he has been a critic of Israeli foreign policy for some time, and he doesn’t belong on the above list. I’m only an occasional reader, but upon reflection this seems correct; his inclusion on this list was inappropriate. I’ll leave the link up because it’s worth reading.