In 1942, Elmer Berger, an American Reform rabbi unhappy with Reform’s decision to drop its opposition to Zionism, founded the American Council for Judaism (ACJ). Its purpose was to oppose Jewish statehood on the grounds that Jews constitute a religious group rather than a people, that Jews should be loyal only to the countries in which they live, and that, in Berger’s words, the “integrity of Judaism” needs to be defended against the “pollutions of Zionism’s politics.” As a result, Berger developed a friendship with an Arab intellectual who would later become involved in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and gave lectures on such topics as “How Should Arabs Present Their Case to the American Public?” His writing would be translated into Arabic and cited heavily in works produced by the PLO Research Center.

Jonathan Gribetz cites one of these works:

As Anis Sayegh wrote in his foreword to the April 1969 book Isra’il wa-Yahud al-‘Alam (“Israel and World Jewry”), the links Israel claimed to Jewish citizens of other countries made it an exception in the world of modern states. Indeed, according to the author, the asserted links between Israel and world Jewry were “illegal in terms of international political principles and international law.”

[The book’s author] identified what for him was a “glimmer of hope”: that many Jews opposed Israel’s claims of responsibility for “the Jewish people.” The publications of Elmer Berger and others associated with the ACJ filled a significant portion of [the] bibliography: twenty of the 85 English-language sources listed were either written by Berger or published by the ACJ.

What’s noteworthy about Sayegh’s argument is that, even as it draws on Berger’s case against Jewish nationalism, it also boils down to an assertion that Israel is bad because it is Jewish—not because it (for instance) oppresses Palestinians. Gribetz than takes a closer look at Berger’s career:

Berger’s motivations remain open to debate. What is clear, however, is that he was right on the money in thinking that the more his views were perceived as part of internal American Jewish discourse and motivated by “authentically” American Jewish values and interests, the better these views served Arab critics of Israel.

Another layer of complexity . . . is the fact that Elmer Berger apparently had, as late as the 1950s, professional ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. The historian Hugh Wilford has argued that the network of the ACJ and the American Friends of the Middle East, on the board of which Berger served, was “both a government front and a lobby group with an agenda of its own.”

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.