On the evening of Aug. 3, the chairman of the opposition, Knesset member Isaac Herzog, and US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro arrived together at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba to visit people wounded in Operation Protective Edge.

Two days earlier, on Friday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scolded Shapiro over the phone, demanding that the US administration back him up while he deals with Hamas, rather than doubting his intentions. Given the tension between the two governments, it seems as if the ambassador considered Herzog’s invitation a good opportunity to declare to the media that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself. Meanwhile, Herzog went out of his way to praise Israel’s friendship with the United States for its help in funding the Iron Dome defense system.

On Friday morning, Herzog, accompanied by two Labor Party Knesset members, Stav Shafir and Merav Michaeli, gathered 50 foreign ambassadors in Tel Aviv for an overview of the operation in Gaza. Throughout his talk he threw his support behind the military actions taken by the Netanyahu government. On more than one occasion, when asked difficult questions about Israel’s aggressive behavior in the Gaza Strip and about the killing of civilians, he found himself forced to defend the prime minister.

Given all the critical barbs that Netanyahu faced throughout the war not only from his coalition partners, but even from senior members of his own party, he could not have hoped for a more supportive and statesmanlike opposition leader. Herzog and almost all the members of his faction gave real-time support for the military operation, distinguishing them from the Meretz Party, which positioned itself overtly to the left of the Labor Party and has called for a cease-fire from the start of the campaign.