Even the decision this week by several western states, led by the UK, to ban the entry of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, is not quite the pushback it is meant to seem.
Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway may be seeking strength in numbers to withstand retaliation from Israel and the United States. But in truth, they have selected the most limited and symbolic of all the possible sanctions they could have imposed on the Israeli government.
Their meagre action is motivated solely out of desperation. They urgently need to deter Israel from carrying through plans to formally annex the Occupied West Bank and thereby tear away the last remnants of the two-state comfort blanket - the West’s solitary pretext for decades of inaction.
And as a bonus, the entry ban makes Britain and the others look like they are getting tough with Israel on Gaza, even as they do nothing to stop the mounting horrors there.