While Daniel Gordis was not pleased by the results of the Jewish state’s most recent election, he has little sympathy with “the seemingly incessant torrent of woe-is-us columns” penned by “American rabbis and communal leaders of all sorts, . . . declaring Israel-as-they-knew-it dead, bemoaning the fact that they can no longer support the Jewish state.” To the authors of these columns, he replies:

What does it say about your worldview when the country that you did decide to wash your hands of is the only country on the planet whose express purpose is saving the Jewish people? An election goes a way you don’t like and you announce that you’re done? If that is what Jewish communities are willing to call leadership, then let’s be honest: we don’t even deserve to survive.

Gordis, an American rabbi who left his pulpit to live in Israel as an author, teacher, and university administrator, also questions how well his former colleagues really understand what is going on inside the Jewish state.

If they don’t read the Hebrew press, those who say that Israel’s enlightened days are behind us have no way of knowing that in . . . Makor Rishon, a religious paper with a definite right-of-center bent, . . . on the front page, there was an opinion piece by the unquestionably Orthodox Rabbi Ḥayim Navon pointing out that the election was democratic and that [the new coalition was] elected properly, and yet, at the same time, urging [its most controversial members]—Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Avi Maoz—to remember that the campaigning has now ended and it’s time to start governing, not only on behalf of those who voted for the government, but also on behalf of those who voted against it.

Moreover, Gordis notes, there is a significant gap between pre-election rhetoric and post-election policy. Take, for instance, the case of Avi Maoz, who has joined the government as the Knesset’s sole representative of the Noam party, whose main concern is the normalization of homosexuality in public life:

The Knesset member Amir Ohana, openly gay and religiously traditional, was just confirmed as Israel’s first openly gay speaker of the Knesset. With his partner sitting in the gallery of the Knesset, Ohana put on a kippah due to the sanctity of the moment. Guess who voted for him? Yup, Avi Maoz. Why? Because it turns out that politics are not simple, there are lots of considerations in every step. If Maoz couldn’t even muster a negative vote in a case where his voting “no” wouldn’t have made a bit of difference, he evidently understands something about the terrain.

Gordis goes on to argue, that centrists like himself must consider that, when it comes to judicial reform or better policing in the Negev, the right has some important and wholly legitimate concerns.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.