Mr Blinken’s chilly reception was one sign of mounting anger at Israel’s war in Gaza. Now in its second month, it has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians and damaged or destroyed more than 11% of the buildings in the enclave. It has enraged the Arab world, inflamed Western capitals and drawn condemnation from many world leaders.

Israeli generals still talk about waging a long campaign that will last up to a year. On November 7th Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told ABC News that Israel would be in charge of Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period”. In practice, though, what Israeli officers call their “window of legitimacy” is probably far shorter. How fast that window closes will depend largely on America, which supplies Israel with munitions, diplomatic support and an aid package worth perhaps $14bn. If Joe Biden wants the war to end, Israel will be hard pressed to ignore him.

So far, he does not. Although he now supports “humanitarian pauses” to allow more aid to enter Gaza, Mr Biden has rejected calls for an outright ceasefire. But administration officials have made clear, in a series of leaks, that they doubt Israel has a coherent exit strategy in Gaza. They complain that Mr Netanyahu is barely willing to discuss the topic, and say they want to put their concerns on the record now lest the war end badly. To think a war risks becoming a quagmire but to support it nonetheless is an untenable position—especially when American voters agree.

A poll by The Economist and YouGov found that a plurality of Americans (41%) believe Mr Biden is handling the war badly. A Quinnipiac survey of registered voters found that 51% of independents and 66% of people aged 18 to 34 disapprove of his policy. His ratings have plummeted amongst Arab-American voters, which could hurt him next year in crucial swing states like Michigan. Sources in Washington think it will still be several more weeks before Mr Biden pivots to talk of a truce—but do not doubt that he will make such a shift.

Arab states certainly hope so. Fears of a multi-front war, which were acute in the days after Hamas’s massacre, have eased. Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia militia, continues to fire rockets daily at Israel, but Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, signalled in a speech on November 3rd that he was not yet interested in all-out war. The Houthis, a Shia militant group in Yemen, have lobbed drones and missiles at Israel but are too far away to pose a strategic threat.

Many autocrats across the Middle East would be happy to see Israel smash Hamas. But they are also nervous that the war will mobilise their subjects, many of whom are already restive about awful economic conditions. This adds to pressure on both America, which has heard their fears for weeks now, and Israel, which is keen to preserve its recent diplomatic gains in the Arab world.

So far, most countries have made do with symbolic rebukes of Israel. On November 2nd the lower house of Bahrain’s parliament announced that the country would recall its ambassador from Israel. The chamber has few powers; recalling ambassadors is not one of them. Envoys from both countries had gone home weeks earlier. Parliament, in a fit of populist politics, made it seem as if lawmakers had decreed their return. Officials in both Bahrain and Israel say diplomatic ties remain intact.

Four days later King Abdullah of Jordan announced that his air force had dropped a shipment of medical aid into Gaza. Jordan would not have taken such action without seeking Israel’s approval, which the Israeli army later confirmed it had indeed given. By omitting that detail from his announcement, though, the king could act as if he had challenged Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Such gestures do not earn much goodwill at home, however. Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel’s closest Arab ally, has grown increasingly critical (at least in public). Anwar Gargash, a foreign-policy adviser to the UAE’s president, said at a conference on November 4th that America should push for a ceasefire, “the quicker the better”.

Then there is Israel itself. Morale is high in the army, and Israelis seem willing to accept far more casualties than they normally would (34 Israeli soldiers have been killed so far). But the public is furious with a prime minister more concerned with his political survival than with battlefield strategy. Protesters gathered at Mr Netanyahu’s house on November 4th to demand his resignation.

Another question is the economy. The month-long Lebanon war in 2006 cost around 9.5bn shekels ($2bn at the time), whereas the last big Gaza conflict in 2014 cost 7bn shekels. This one may be even costlier. The Bank of Israel thinks the government’s deficit will climb to 3% of GDP next year, compared with a 0.6% surplus in 2022; some outside analysts put the estimate above 5%. Mobilising 360,000 reservists has also left parts of the Israeli economy with a shortage of workers, even if some of them have now been sent home.

Israeli officials hope that the fierce bombardment of the war’s first month is now giving way to a new phase. Gaza city is surrounded by the IDF, and ground troops and armour are drawing closer to the area where the IDF says Hamas has its headquarters and where a nucleus of its fighters and leadership are holed up underground. If the IDF can soon destroy these facilities and kill large numbers of militants, some officers believe that it will have partially met its mission of depleting Hamas’s ability to run Gaza. The war would then move into a more limited campaign of ground raids.

That could ease international pressure, which spikes every time Israeli jets bomb a bakery or a refugee camp, and ease pressure on the economy by allowing the army to release some reservists. The Israelis also recognise that relieving the humanitarian crisis in Gaza could buy more time. On November 6th the UAE announced that it would set up a 150-bed field hospital in Gaza, a move co-ordinated with Israel. Mr Netanyahu now says he is open to “tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there” to allow more aid to enter.

Arguably, though, the biggest challenge to Israel’s international legitimacy is Mr Netanyahu himself. His government is stacked with radicals. Amichai Eliyahu, the heritage minister, recently suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Zvi Sukkot, the new head of a parliamentary committee that oversees the occupied West Bank, is a far-right ideologue who has been investigated by Israel’s Shin Bet for his alleged extremist activity.

When they met in Ramallah, Mr Abbas told Mr Blinken that the Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, could return to Gaza to govern the enclave after the war. Such an outcome would please both the Israeli army and the Americans.

But Mr Abbas added that it would only happen “within the framework of a comprehensive political solution”—in other words, as a step towards a two-state solution, which Mr Netanyahu has spent his entire political career fighting against. If he remains in office, there will be no serious talk of an endgame in Gaza. America’s patience will run out and Israel will find its room for manoeuvre increasingly limited.

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