I experienced this recently. A person I've known for a long time went ‘nuts’ (such a good word to describe the reaction) when I dared to suggest that Israel was killing far too many Palestinians on the hunt for members of Hamas. Same as you, what followed was a deluge of information seemingly meant to rationalize the current events. Heaven forbid me from saying that I felt waterboarded at that moment because I know I would have been labeled as anti-Semitic. I suppose another Jewish person at the table amplifying the human-centric arguments I presented might have helped.

No one, I suppose, wants to be a part of the group seen as wrong.