In 1950, when it had become apparent that there would be no mass immigration of American Jews to the new state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion voiced the conviction that the Hebrew language, along with Jewish scripture and support for the Zionist cause, would serve to maintain the connection between Israelis and their American co-religionists. Alas, writes James Loeffler, this has not come to pass, creating a gap between the two communities that is more profound than attitudes toward religion or politics:

On Thursday, when the news broke that Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz had agreed to form a national-unity government, pundits and politicians on both left and right seemed to agree that the incumbent prime minister had managed to outmaneuver his rival. But as details of the coalition agreement emerged, this interpretation began to seem less convincing. Haviv Rettig Gur explains: