It was always the practice for Israeli leaders to insist that the survival of the State of Israel and its acceptance in the family of nations required that Jews throughout the world and especially American Jews never criticize the actions of Israeli Governments. Rabbis and communal leaders in America urged America Jews—certainly in public--to support the actions of the Israeli Government even when they disagreed. The refrain was that if you live in Israel, you can criticize the Government as do citizens in any democracy. If you are an Israeli, you vote in Israel and you serve in the Israeli Army. Criticizing Israel from outside of Israel when you are not throwing in your lot with the country was unacceptable. American Zionists and supporters of Israel who publicly disagreed with the actions and statements of Israel were regarded almost as traitors.
Today, nearly 75 years after its establishment, Israel is a country which has achieved remarkable stature and recognition throughout the world. While it remains geographically small and at risk, few nations in the world deny the meteoric rise of Israel as a player on the world stage: economically, culturally, militarily, and geo-politically. Nevertheless, Israel continues to face existential threats especially from Iran, but it is no longer the weak, vulnerable country it once was. It is in that context that one needs to understand why American Jews—as do many of their brothers and sisters in Israel—feel it is their legitimate right to criticize the dangerously anti-democratic direction in which the new Israeli Government appears to be moving, and to do so in public.
Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are undeniably on the rise in the U.S. and throughout the world. The BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement is growing and not exclusively on college campuses. Without addressing the details of the politics of her removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the fact that the House even debated over ousting Representative Ilhan Omar was a degrading act of political posturing in a contest for who was Israel’s best friend in Congress. The very fact that the debate even occurred, evidenced that support for Israel was under stress in Washington.
The difficulty that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s new Government is experiencing is largely of his own doing. Bibi assumes that he can flaunt democratic values in the eyes of Israel’s friends without ever facing any consequences from diaspora Jewry. When military arms sales or American support for Israel in any international body is needed, Israeli Governments have assumed that American Jews will urge any Administration and the Congress to meet Israel’s needs—unconditionally. It is now, when the new Israeli Government is proposing to restructure the power of its judiciary—among other things--that Israel believes it also should not receive any push-back from American Jews.
Netanyahu is making demands on American Jews by drawing a false analogy with security needs. Jews and most concerned citizens can recognize when a country faces an existential threat, but domestic structural institutional changes which will affect the character of a state are not a national security threat. It is a reflection of the character and nature of the Israel’s national ethos and the body politic’s willingness to compromise its historical values. In this instance, many Americans believe that Israel is rejecting the fundamental tenants of democracy upon which it was founded.
More specifically, as was noticeable from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s remarks last week in Jerusalem but is equally clear from an array of voices within the American Jewish community, Americans are exceedingly uncomfortable with the direction of the new Netanyahu Government. It is not only the apparent desire to undermine the role of an independent judiciary, but other factors as well. They include increasing the power of rabbinical authority, changing the educational system, dismissing environmental protection regulations, and, most important, challenging the civil rights and civil liberties of both Jews and non-Jews. These positions as well are contrary to many of the values and principles of most Jews around the world; which explains why the times are changing.
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