Is Israel Alienating American Jews, or Are American Jews Alienating Israelis?

When the Israeli cabinet froze a plan, approved last year, to designate a space for mixed-sex prayer at the Western Wall, a great many saw in this a rejection of American Jewry by the Jewish state. Evelyn Gordon argues that the rejection may be mutual:

The confrontation [over the Wall] ended as it did partly because too many American Jews have delivered a resounding message [of “You don’t matter to us”] to Israelis in recent years. . . . [And] it’s not just because of fringe anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace or even the growing ranks of the utterly indifferent, but also because of the attitudes of many American Jews who call themselves—and in many ways genuinely are—pro-Israel. . . .

It doesn’t seem to matter [to these Jews] that after almost 25 years of failed peacemaking efforts accompanied by vigorous internal debate, a solid majority of Israelis has reluctantly concluded that while a Palestinian state might be a good idea in principle, in practice, for the foreseeable future, there’s no better alternative to the status quo.

[Instead], liberal American Jews are convinced that they know better—that the continued “occupation” is mostly Israel’s fault, that Israel must end it immediately regardless of the price in Israeli blood, and that their job as American Jews isn’t to support Israelis’ painfully reached conclusions but to pressure Israelis to disregard the lessons of their lived experience. If there’s a better way of telling Israelis “You don’t matter to us,” I don’t know what it might be.

Moreover, pursuant to that attitude, many American Jews—and again, not just fringe groups—are actively undermining Israel in various ways. Mainstream American Jewish groups, including some (but by no means all) campus Hillel houses, have repeatedly hosted speakers from organizations that spew outright lies about Israel, such as Breaking the Silence, which even recycles the medieval blood libel about Jews poisoning wells. American Jews also provide substantial financial support to such organizations, mainly through the New Israel Fund. Rabbis and Jewish organizations provide cover for anti-Israel activists. . . . American rabbinical students term Israel’s very existence a cause for mourning and engage in anti-Israel commercial boycotts. The Union for Reform Judaism urges members to step up their criticism of Israel. And on, and on.

Read more at Evelyn Gordon

More about: American Jewry, Israel & Zionism, Israel and the Diaspora, Western Wall

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