Hurting Your Cause

One one hand, I give the Obama administration a lot of crap for getting smacked around by Israel.  On the other hand (as BooMan points out) the Palestinians have only made US support for Israel stronger since 9/11.

While bin-Laden did achieve his goal of expelling U.S. troops from the land of the two mosques (Mecca and Medina), he absolutely destroyed support for the Palestinians with the American people, whose support is crucial to getting American politicians to force Israel into making needed concessions. If the name of the game is to sway American public opinion, the Intifada and the Second Intifada (combined with 9/11) had the exact opposite effect, making the use of terrorism about the most counterproductive and pointless exercise imaginable.

Terrorism, in other words, is a really, really lousy way to get your point across.  Support for the Palestinians has remained around 15% since 1988.  Support for Israel on the other hand has gone up significantly.  The only difference is how many undecideds there are.  The Palestinians try an Intifada, America's undecideds go with the Palestinians until they get sick of the Israelis blowing up the West Bank.  However, post 9/11, the Palestinians have gotten crushed opinion-wise.  The best they were ever able to do was the first West Bank incursion by Israel back in '07.  That got the Palestinians up to a whopping 20%.

At this point, we're at a juncture where Israel can declare war on the West Bank, drop phosphorus weapons in, and nobody really gives a damn in the US.  Palestinians respond with rocket attacks however, and nobody likes them.  When you've been the terrorist for 35 years, nobody really much listens to what you have to say, even if you do have a point.