Israel: Overnight, From A Source Of Pride To Embarrassment

With the formation of Israel’s most far-right government, American Jews can no longer defend Jerusalem as they have for the last seven decades. And many may choose not to.

The new face of Israel? Itamar Ben-Gvir, unknown to most Americans until this week, is a devotee of the late militant Rabbi Meir Kahane, and poised to play an outsized role in the next Israeli coalition.

The ongoing tensions between ‘Israel as a Jewish state’ and ‘Israel as a democratic state’ reached the breaking point with this week’s national elections. The result: an increased threat to democracy and a championing of fundamentalist religious institutions, presenting an unprecedented challenge to the majority of American Jews. 

With his clear victory, Benjamin Netanyahu, the twice and future prime minister, is now in the process of forming a coalition that almost certainly will include ultra-nationalist cabinet ministers who espouse anti-democratic, racist and homophobic views. They seek full annexation of the disputed territories, distrust all Israeli Arabs (20 percent of the population), pledge to weaken judicial oversight of government – and stand ready to pass legislation giving Netanyahu a reprieve from a possible jail sentence. (He is currently on trial, charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud.) 

In addition, charedi parties, back in power, will bolster the die-hard chief rabbinate on a range of religious issues, including conversion, kashrut and praying at the Western Wall. 

How will American Jews who value religious freedom, diversity, inclusion and tolerance respond to a Jerusalem government like no other, one that seems poised to damage Israel’s standing in Washington, around the world and deepen the already dangerous divide within our own community? 

The third largest party in Israel today represents the ugly transformation of the once-respected Religious Zionist Party, led by ultra-nationalists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, inciters of violence against Israeli Arabs, who will become key ministers in the coalition – the price Netanyahu is paying to assure his election and put an end to his current trial.  

“A superstorm is about to hit American Jewish institutions, and we are not prepared,” noted Michael Kaplow, chief policy officer of Israeli Policy Forum, in an essay in The Forward. He warned that “the days of business as usual when discussing Israeli democracy, and shared values, are over.”  Such talk, he said, “will increasingly sound off-base and tone deaf.”

Bipartisan support in Congress has been the mainstay for Israeli government policy since the founding of the state. But as prime minister, Netanyahu dramatically changed that approach in 2015, offending Democrats with his Washington speech openly criticizing President Obama’s efforts to pass a nuclear deal on Iran. Now, the prospect of Netanyahu, heading a government that includes racists and extremists and seeking billions of dollars in U.S. aid from a Democratic administration, appears to be an awfully tall order. Suddenly, the “unshakeable bond” between the U.S. and Israel, so often referred to by American presidents, is trembling.

Perhaps most vulnerable will be Jewish students on university campuses, already feeling on the defensive regarding Israel and the Palestinian conflict. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, former president of the Reform Movement, observed that “campus Israel-haters will be dancing in the streets,” holding BDS protests and passing out “flyers with Ben-Gvir’s picture and past statements … distributed on every elite campus in America. 

“Those of us,” Yoffie continued,  “who have made the case for decades that Israel is not an apartheid state will find ourelves contending with quotes from two members of Israel’s cabinet that sound quite a bit like support for apartheid … and we have no compelling response.”

Leading up to the Israeli election, several major American Jewish organizations, including AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America chose not to speak out against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Instead, they  “issued statements focused only on expressing gratitude for Israel’s robust democracy,” JTA reported this week. A notable exception was the American Jewish Committee, which issued a statement that did not name the two provocateurs coming into power but clearly referred to them:  “For AJC, and for many Jews in America, Israel, and around the world, past statements of some potential members of the governing coalition raise serious concerns about issues we prioritize: pluralism, inclusion, and increased opportunities for peace and normalization,” the statement said.

The headline to Thomas Friedman’s column in The New York Times online was more blunt: “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.” He writes that as the “previously unthinkable reality takes hold, a fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: ‘Do I support this Israel or not support it?’”

It’s an open question for the moment, but it shouldn’t have come to this.

While liberal Jews are shaken by the dramatic turn in Israeli politics, much of the Orthodox community is rejoicing, particularly those who want to see a “more Jewish” Jewish state and believe that Israel’s borders should reflect the biblical vision of Greater Israel in Jewish hands. And the fact is that Israeli society has moved increasingly right in its politics since the devastating Second Intifada that took so many lives in terror attacks. Last year’s outbreak of violence by Israeli Arabs against Jews in a number of cities was another setback for Jewish-Arab relations. Though it occurred while Netanyahu was in office, many, if not most, Israelis see him as their trusted protector. 

As for Netanyahu’s relations with the American Jewish community, he has long said, in private, that non-Orthodox American Jewry will fade away as assimilation increases but that he is not worried because his support will come from Orthodox Jews and, especially, tens of millions of Evangelical Christians. 

He may be right, but his decision to embrace the Ben-Gvirs and Smotriches of Israeli society is hastening a day of reckoning, not just for Jews but for America and the rest of the world.