While the rest of the international community is aghast at the deaths of some 200 Palestinians in the ongoing Gaza conflict, the White House is loudly cheering the ongoing conflict, saying Israel’s killing of large numbers of civilians is not “disproportionate” to the zero Israelis killed in the fighting.

With the UN and other international groups pushing for a settlement of the conflict, the Obama Administration maintains Israel has every right to continue attacking the tiny strip going forward.

The timing couldn’t be worse, as Egypt’s junta is seeking to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to put the question to the security cabinet on Tuesday.

The Egypt proposal is the first of the current conflict to have any momentum behind it, but the loud US endorsement for the war may damage efforts to get Israel’s cabinet to agree to it.

That’s because within Israel, the primary impetus for a ceasefire would be to avoid international censure over the mass killings of civilians, and so long as the US is endorsing the killings there is no reason to think any UN resolutions calling for an end to the violence will get anywhere.