The tale I am about to tell started out as a feel-good movie of the week and ended up as a two-hanky tearjerker of bitterness and betrayal. From solidarity to the nearly unsalvageable, within a matter of decades.

Five months ago, Hamas deliberately broke a ceasefire with Israel, resuming a war that began nearly the moment Israel abandoned the enclave back in 2005. A familiar reprise took shape over five wars: Hamas instigated hostilities; Israel retaliated, resulting in many Palestinian casualties of war; Hamas claimed victory in the battle for public opinion.

“The Ally,” a new play by Itmar Moses, is running Off-Broadway at The Public Theater through March 24. It is an excellent piece of dramatic storytelling that commands one’s full attention.

With the NFL football season over and the Kansas City Chiefs crowned champions (and Taylor Swift anointed the People’s Princess), March Madness not yet begun, and the Oscars still a week away, Americans can be forgiven binge-watching the sideshow that is the country’s evolving presidential race.