I was on a working visit to the US when the October 7 massacre happened. The next morning, I was on the first flight back to Israel. I came to a different Israel, steeped in trauma and anxiety. I have recently returned to the US for the first time after the massacre, and found a different American Jewish community, saddened and confused.
The current disagreements, unlike past ones, are not just between Right and Left, but more between those who would stand behind any decision made by the Israeli government and those who would allow its decisions to be criticized. The actions and policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “fully right-wing” government, and its ingratitude toward US President Joe Biden, the most Zionist American president in the history of the Israel-US relationship, have garnered criticism even among those who used to believe that any such criticism endangers Israel.
There is now a dispute even over the US commitment to supporting Israel, and over Zionism itself, which used to be the basis of most American liberal Jews’ self-identity and has now become a point of contention.
In the wake of the extreme right-wing government in Israel, of its attempted anti-democratic judicial overhaul, and now of the images emerging from Gaza of destruction, killings, and hunger, many among the young generation of American Jewry are losing hope and getting lured by dangerous conceptions that no longer regard Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, but rather, as an oppressive colonial power.
When Peter Beinart, a writer, publicist, and prominent Jewish thinker in the US, says that Zionism and liberalism are incompatible, that American Jews must choose between supporting the right of the Jewish people to a national homeland and the liberal values that constitute the core of their self-identity, that is just one example of the crisis facing the largest Jewish community outside Israel. But Beinart is mistaken and misleading.
The need for progressive Zionism in the US
Against simplistic worldviews that see the world and Israel in black and white, the mission of liberal Jewish organizations such as J Street becomes more important and more challenging than ever. Against criticism from the left of J Street’s backing for US support of Israel, it is more important than ever to present a position that combines resistance to the current Israeli government and unequivocal support for Israel’s security.
Members of J Street contend daily with the need to create and sustain a space for progressive Zionism, in an environment in which Zionism, or Zionist, has become a negative term, a slur. The challenge, and mission, is to continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorism and the need to remove that organization from its position of power and control in Gaza, while at the same time demanding that the Israeli government end the disproportional killing of innocent civilians, allow into every place in Gaza the humanitarian aid needed to alleviate the current starvation, and articulate a political vision and horizon for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I have met in the US with Jews who painfully empathize with the trauma and sense of insecurity of Israelis and at the same time are hurting for the suffering residents of Gaza; Jews who pray for the return of the hostages and for the end of suffering in Gaza; Jews who believe that defeating and removing Hamas is necessary for the restoration of security and for progress toward a peaceful solution, but do not believe that these can be achieved by military means only.
Jews in the US are horrified to learn that most Israelis are unaware of the full extent of the suffering in Gaza, and of the moral and strategic harm it does to Israel. They think Netanyahu has been not merely ungrateful to Biden and his overwhelming and unprecedented support of Israel, but actively trying to undermine Biden’s campaign for a second term.
For many American Jews, nothing could be more dangerous for the future of the free world and of US democracy than a Donald Trump win in November; and the thought that the Israeli government might play a role in bringing it about is horrifying.
Polarization over Israel is present all across the US liberal public – in the Jewish community, in the Democratic Party, on university campuses, and in society at large.
Today more than ever it is essential that there continue to be Jews in the US who object to the policies and actions of the Israeli government, but who at the same time are proud Zionists. Jews who believe in the right of the Jewish people to a national homeland, but who also understand that in order to protect that very right, the US must use every possible lever of power to save liberal Israel, which is being oppressed by the Netanyahu government, and thus help Israelis and Palestinians escape the never-ending cycle of violence.
The writer is J Street-Israel’s executive director. He has served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and Boston and as a political adviser to the president of Israel.