Mondoweiss
Netanyahu ditches US Jews for alliance with Christian evangelicals and the
alt-right
Jonathan Cook on December 5, 2017
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Evangelical Christian
movement and a mission of approximately 800 members of Pastor John Hagee's
Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organization, in Jerusalem on Sunday
night MArch 18 2012. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/Flash90)
For decades most American Jews have claimed an "Israel exemption":
resolutely progressive on domestic issues, they are hawks on their cherished
cause. Racism they would vigorously oppose if applied in the United States
is welcomed in Israel.
Reports at the weekend suggested that Donald Trump is about to recognise
Jerusalem as Israel's capital, throwing a wrench in any peace plan. If true,
the US president will have decisively prioritised support for Israel - and
pro-Israel lobbies at home - over justified outrage from Palestinians and
the Arab world.
But paradoxically, just as American Jews look close to winning the battle
domestically on behalf of Israel, many feel more alienated from a Jewish
state than ever before.
There has long been a minority of American Jews whose concerns focused on
the occupation. But until now their support for Israel itself has been
unwavering, despite its institutionalised racism towards the one in five of
the Israeli population who are Palestinian.
A Law of Return denies non-Jews the right to migrate to Israel. Admissions
committees bar members of Israel's Palestinian minority from hundreds of
communities. A refusal of family reunification has torn apart Palestinian
families in cases where one partner lives in Israel and the other in the
occupied territories.
Most Jews have justified to themselves these and many other affronts on the
grounds that, after the European holocaust, they deserved a strong state.
Palestinians had to pay the price.
Given that half the world's Jews live outside Israel - the great majority in
the US - their support for Israel is critical. They have donated enormous
sums, helping to build cities and plant forests. And they have lobbied
aggressively at home to ensure diplomatic, financial and military support
for their cause. But it is becoming ever harder for them to ignore their
hypocrisy.
The rift has grown into a chasm as Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing
government widens its assault on civil rights. It now targets not just
Palestinians but the remnants of liberal Jewish society in Israel - in open
contempt for the values of most American Jews.
The peculiar catalyst is a battle over the most significant surviving symbol
of Jewishness: the Western Wall, a supporting wall of a long-lost temple in
Jerusalem.
Jews in the US mostly subscribe to the progressive tenets of a liberal
secularism or Reform Judaism. In Israel, by contrast, the hard-line Orthodox
rule supreme on religious matters.
Since the 1967 occupation, Israel's Orthodox rabbis have controlled prayers
at the Western Wall, marginalising women and other streams of Judaism. That
has deeply offended Jewish opinion in the US.
Trapped between American donors and Israel's powerful rabbis, Netanyahu
initially agreed to create a mixed prayer space at the wall for non-Orthodox
Jews. But as opposition mounted at home over the summer, he caved in. The
shock waves are still reverberating.
Avraham Infeld, a veteran Israeli liaison with the US Jewish community, told
the Haaretz newspaper this week that the crisis in relations was
"unprecedented". American Jews have concluded "Israel doesn't give a damn
about them".
Now a close ally of Netanyahu's has stoked the fires. In a TV interview last
month, Tzipi Hotovely, the deputy foreign minister, all but accused American
Jews of being freeloaders. She condemned their failure to fight in the US or
Israeli militaries, saying they preferred "convenient lives".
Her comments caused uproar. They echo those of leading Orthodox rabbis, who
argue that Reform Jews are not real Jews - and are possibly even an enemy.
According to a report in the Israeli far-right newspaper Makor Rishon, which
is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a US casino billionaire and Netanyahu's patron,
the Israeli prime minister set out his rationale for sacrificing the support
of liberal Jews overseas at a recent closed-door meeting with officials.
He reportedly told them that non-Orthodox Jews would disappear in "one or
two generations" through low birth rates, intermarriage and more general
assimilation. Liberal Jews were a "lost cause" in his view, and wedded to a
worldview that was incompatible with Israel's future.
Both on demographic and ideological grounds, he added, Israel should invest
in cultivating stronger ties to Orthodox Jews and Christian evangelicals.
Netanyahu's demographic predictions may turn out to be faulty, but they are
clearly now driving his policy towards liberal Jews at home and abroad.
In fact, as Israel's attacks on liberals in Israel echo Trump's rhetoric and
policies towards minorities in the US, American Jews are gradually being
forced to reassess their longstanding double standard towards Israel.
For some time the Netanyahu government has tarred Israeli anti-occupation
organisations like B'Tselem and the soldier whistle-blowing group Breaking
the Silence as traitors. Last week it widened the assault.
The education minister, Naftali Bennett, accused the veteran legal group the
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) - Israel's version of the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - of "supporting terrorists". Forty
years of ACRI programmes in schools are in jeopardy.
The move follows recent decisions to allow pupils to provide racist answers
in civics exams and to expand gender-segregation to universities. Meanwhile,
two new bills from Netanyahu's party would crack down on free speech for
Israelis promoting a boycott, even of the settlements. One proposes seven
years in jail, the other a fine of $150,000.
New guildelines have empowered the police to bar media access to incident
scenes to prevent critical coverage, especially of police violence.
Defence minister Avigdor Lieberman is seeking stronger powers against
political activists, Jews and Palestinians alike, including draconian
restraining orders and detention without charge or trial.
And for the first time, as Mondoweiss recently reported, overseas Jews are
being grilled on arrival at Israel's airport about their political views.
Some have signed a "good behaviour oath" - a pledge to avoid anti-occupation
activities. Already Jewish supporters of boycotts can be denied entry.
The Netanyahu government, it seems, prefers as allies Christian evangelicals
and the US alt-right, which loves Israel as much as it appears to despise
Jews.
Israel is plotting a future in which American Jews will have to make hard
choices. Can they continue to identify with a state that openly turns its
back on them?
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.