Two weeks ago, my co-bloggers urged the American government to press Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza strip. I was skeptical that American pressure would be effective. One universal truth of sovereign nation states is that no one appreciates self-righteous foreigners telling them what to what to do, especially self-righteous foreigners with their own tainted records. Prime Minister Netanyahu will not lose any elections by standing up to Obama, but he might lose his coalition if his hard-liner constituents think he's a sucker.

There is only one group of people that has any real influence over the Israeli government's policies, and that is the Israelis, particularly Israeli Jews. But the Israeli Jews overwhelmingly support the Gaza blockade--by 73 percent according to one recent poll. Furthermore, 91 percent support boarding any ships that try to break the blockade, indicating just how prickly Israelis are about foreign interference.

As long as most Israelis support the Gaza blockade, browbeating Netanyahu or even sanctioning Israel will achieve nothing except to stir nationalist sympathies. If we want Israel to lift the blockade, we will have to persuade the Israeli people that it should be lifted.

The best way to fail in this endeavor is to insult Israel, or worse, the Jews. Not only was Helen Thomas's snarling demand that the Jews vacate Palestine offensive, it was utterly counterproductive. Insults reinforce Israelis' perception that the world doesn't give a damn about the Palestinians; the world just hates the Jews. This perception is not without basis. Anti-semitism reminds widespread around the globe. In addition, though critics of Zionism often speak of the suffering of the Palestinians, few do much to help them. A number of Arab nations, for example, belie their expressed concern for the Palestinian people by mistreating their own Palestinian minorities.

The best way to convince Israelis that the Gaza blockade should end is not to attack them but to help them. The Israelis, it seems, have forgotten how to empathize. Decades of war and terrorism heaped onto centuries of persecution will do that to a people. When you see a man as your enemy, you do not care that he has no job, no money, and little food, that his children have no schools and no hospitals, that his father's lands were taken, and that his people have been reduced to a huddling mass of refugees. You see only that he wants to kill you. To the world, the Palestinians may be victims; to the Israelis, they are enemies.

Thus, too many Israelis simply don't care about Palestinian hardship. Their callousness informs not only the Gaza blockade but every aspect of Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people--from the security wall to the expansion of settlements to the lethargy of peace negotiations. In short, Israel's Gaza blockade is symptom of a deeper problem. For the Israeli government to fix its policies, the Israeli people need an attitude adjustment.

But no one can force an attitude adjustment; we cannot tell Israelis how to feel. The best we can do is to tell Israelis how we feel, to show them the path to empathy through our own empathy. The "freedom convoy" might been a perfect vehicle for highlighting Palestinian deprivation. Instead, the violent resistance of the Mavi Marmara crew changed the story back into the old evil Zionist narrative that serves only to heighten Israeli defensiveness. The protesters screwed up.

So keep sending convoys by all means, but please do not resist the Israeli navy. Keep writing articles, but do not insult Israel or speak of the evils of Zionism. Write instead about the Palestinians. Write of their suffering and their losses, their hopes and their dreams. And slowly, though it may take years, the Israelis will relax their guard and learn to feel compassion again.

I do believe that the moment is ripe for such a change. Israel vanquished the Arab nations in the 1970s; the country is no longer in mortal danger. Terrorist attacks replaced invasions, but those too have begun to subside in recent years. The last bomb attack was a year-and-a-half ago. Rockets attacks have also diminished. Without the constant threats, more and more Israelis may soon be able to stop seeing the Palestinians as enemies and start seeing them as victims. That's when Israeli policy will begin to change in earnest.