What Diaspora Jews Could Learn from Israeli Arabs

In the newspaper Haaretz, the journalist Odeh Bisharat recently urged his fellow “Arab leaders of public opinion to say outright” that, despite “a mountain of problems,” Israeli Arabs “have it good” in Israel. Indeed, notes Evelyn Gordon, a number of surveys have shown that, whatever their politicians and media may be saying, this is the opinion of most Israeli Arabs:

The latest evidence came from last month’s Peace Index poll, [which] found that Israeli Arabs are actually more optimistic than Israeli Jews about the country’s situation—in sharp contrast to what one would expect to find if, as both Israeli and foreign-media outlets like to claim, Israel was suffering from a rising tide of [Jewish] anti-Arab racism. . . .

Nevertheless, there’s one very real barrier to further improvement: Israeli Jews largely believe that most Israeli Arabs care more about the Palestinian cause than about their own country’s wellbeing, for the very good reason that this is what they hear, over and over, from Israeli Arab leaders. This obviously encourages anti-Arab sentiment and impedes integration. And as Bisharat correctly noted, it will be very hard to change this perception as long as Arab-Israeli opinion leaders refuse to say publicly that it’s false.

Bisharat’s advice, however, is no less applicable to the Jewish world—there, too, the refusal to “say outright” that things are good in Israel, despite the problems, is causing serious long-term damage. . . .

All you hear from most liberal Zionists nowadays, both in Israel and abroad, is a vile caricature of Israel: occupation, settlements, racism, discrimination—every evil in the modern pantheon. And when that’s all the kids have ever heard, why wouldn’t they end up thinking a Jewish state is a bad idea?

Problems obviously shouldn’t be swept under the rug; Israel is a good place to live precisely because it tries so hard to keep improving. But you can have too much of a good thing, and with regard to obsessing over Israel’s flaws, that point was passed long ago for both Israeli Arabs and Diaspora Jews.

Read more at Evelyn Gordon

More about: Israel & Zionism, Israel and the Diaspora, Israeli Arabs, Israeli left

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF