We need to start getting used to the idea that Breaking the Silence, the organization of IDF veterans who have been publicizing allegations of army misconduct, will be neutralized. Or that it will be outlawed. Or that its activities will be curbed in a way that will make it ineffective — not that it is effective now.

The organization lost its most important battle before it even started: the one for Jewish public opinion in Israel. It’s a lost cause. The group is positioned far beyond the Jewish consensus. Neutralizing it would be welcomed by most of the Jewish public.

We also need to get used to the idea that the Arab members of the Knesset will be neutralized. Their capacity to express a Palestinian perspective in the Israeli political arena will be critically damaged. The liberal democratic camp in Israel will look on helplessly at the obliteration of the backbone of Breaking the Silence and the Arab Knesset members. It will write articles, it will grumble bitterly, it will circulate petitions on Facebook, and it will speak out, but to no effect.

We also need to get used to the idea that the strong Jewish lobby in the United States will continue to root for Israel as one would for a soccer team — through thick and thin — no matter what it does on the playing field or how dirty it plays, no matter what values it espouses, who is playing in its lineup or what it seeks to achieve. Israel will still be their soccer team. Israel represents them, and they will fight for it like lions. We need to start getting used to the idea that, against any Zionist logic that should be guiding them, these Jews will continue to assist the Jewish republic that was established here in destroying itself and in sinking into the depths of binational apartheid.

We also need to get used to the idea that no American president will force Israel to halt the occupation. Obama won’t do it as his presidential term draws to a close. Hillary Clinton won’t do it. Trump won’t do it. They won’t save Israel from itself. They won’t condition continued military aid on ending the occupation. They won’t support United Nations Security Council resolutions recognizing a Palestinian state. American interests don’t include ending the occupation at any price. The interests of a sitting American president do not include picking fights with wealthy Jewish donors.

We also need to start getting used to the idea that the governments of Europe, which are afraid of Islamic State terrorism and Islamophobes and need Israeli intelligence, will not force an end to the occupation. The European public opposes the occupation, so their governments throw them crumbs: a minor boycott of products from West Bank Jewish settlements or a small threat of action in the UN Security Council. Academia gives Israeli universities a slap on the bottom. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement may look good in front of the camera with megaphones and placards, but we need to realize that what may look like a well-publicized foreign relations tsunami is all shouting. It’s one big wave that may sting the eyes a bit. But after the wave breaks, you spit the salt water out and it’s over.

We need to get used to the idea that justice in Israel is what is already being openly called "national socialist," with the National Socialist associations of its definition: Justice for Jews alone, if at all. Justice of the fourth generation of the Holocaust and of care packages to Israeli soldiers on Purim. We need to get used to idea that there is no force on earth — no country, no organization, no retired head of the IDF or former Shin Bet security service head — who has the power to halt the collapse of the Jewish republic that was once Israel. The contemporary protest is not a rear-guard battle but rather an involuntary bodily spasm. Democracy for Jews alone will not let anything interfere with the occupation. As the Israeli writer Meir Wieseltier once wrote, we need to anticipate disaster with equanimity.