While it is old news that hostility toward Israel is part and parcel of far-left ideology, American Jews also face other, perhaps even more insidious, threats from the new progressivism. Jack Wertheimer and Samuel Abrams write:

Increasingly, Jews are defined as being on the wrong side: they are castigated as privileged, white, and part of the oppressor class, never the victims—even as the incidence of anti-Semitism has exploded in America, including on campuses and in class discussions. Tragically, many American Jews naively internalize this hostile critique and blind themselves to the scarcely veiled anti-Semitism motivating it.

Worse still, some Jewish day schools and other Jewish educational institutions are conveying to their young charges that by virtue of their skin color, they are responsible for wronging others and must atone. This is the stuff now being taught to preschool and elementary-school children who do not yet have a sense of history or an ability to think critically about the race theories. Do proponents of new curricula seriously believe that evoking guilt in students for being white will make them more tolerant? What, aside from demoralization, can such pedagogy hope to accomplish?

Equally dangerous, if not more so, is the new doctrine that elevates “equity”—or uniform results—over equality of opportunity, undermining the very system that has allowed Jews and countless other immigrant groups to flourish in America.

Jews face discrimination because they allegedly are co-conspirators with white supremacists or are simply part of the undifferentiated mass of American whites, the oppressor class. The name-calling and stereotyping are bad enough, but if the equity agenda is broadly enacted, Jews will find few opportunities to land jobs in the civil service, education (especially in higher education), corporate America, and the innovation-based, creative economy emerging today. After all, Jews constitute only 2 percent of the population, but they are overrepresented in these fields.

In the cause of pursuing equality of outcomes, quotas are now proposed as the solution to ensure proportional representation by every subgroup in every sector of the economy. Jews have seen this movie before: their numbers at European universities were limited, as was their representation in the civil service of some countries. . . . For a small minority population, this would lead to marginalization and downward mobility, and eventually emigration to countries that value merit.

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the history of the Israel-Arab conflict, it’s never to be confident that an end is in sight. Ehud Yaari nevertheless—and with all due caution—points to some noteworthy developments:

The absolute primacy of “armed struggle” in Palestinian discourse has discouraged any serious attempt to discuss or plan for a future Palestinian state. Palestinian political literature is devoid of any substantial debate over what kind of a state they aspire to create. What would be its economic, foreign, and social policies?

One significant exception was a seminar held by Hamas in Gaza—under the auspices of the late Yahya Sinwar—prior to October 7, 2023. The main focus of what was described as a brainstorming session was the question of how to deal with the Jews in the land to be liberated. A broad consensus between the participants was reached that most Israeli Jews should be eradicated or expelled while those contributing to Israel’s success in high tech and other critical domains would be forced to serve the new Palestinian authorities.

Yet, the ongoing aftershocks from the ongoing war in Gaza are posing questions among Palestinians concerning the viability of armed struggle. So far this trend is reflected mainly in stormy exchanges on social-media platforms and internal controversies within Hamas. There is mounting criticism leveled at the late Mohammad Deif and Yahya Sinwar for embarking upon an uncoordinated offensive that is resulting in a “Second Nakba”—a repeat of the defeat and mass displacement caused by launching the war in 1948.

To be sure, “armed struggle” is still being preached daily to the Palestinian communities by Iran and Iranian proxies, and at least half the Palestinian public—according to various polls—believe it remains indispensable. But doubts are being heard. We may be reaching a point where the Palestinians will feel compelled to make a choice between the road which led to past failures and an attempt to chart a new route. It will certainly require time and is bound to cause fractures and divisions, perhaps even a violent split, among the Palestinians.