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February 19, 2023
Key Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Netanyahu's government is undermining the shared values that underlie the U.S.-Israel relationship and endangering Israel's status as a Jewish, democratic state.
- The pro-Israel community should side with the Israelis who oppose these measures while continuing to support Israel's safety and security.
- A two-state solution is not a favor for the Palestinians; it is an existential necessity for Israel if Israel is to remain Jewish and democratic, which means Israel must find a way to get to a two-state solution despite Palestinian intransigence.
- Even though Nikki Haley is unlikely to win the GOP presidential nomination, we should remember that she would be a terrible president--for America and for the Jewish community.
- The fourth season of Fauda is absurd and compellingly watchable.
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, and two important upcoming events about the situation in Israel that you will not want to miss.
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Hi Steve,
Pro-Israel means supporting the values and interests that bind the U.S. and Israel and speaking out when either country weakens those pillars of support. Pro-Israel does not mean blindly supporting the policies of whatever government happens to be in power in Israel and then turning on a dime when another government is elected, just as "pro-America" does not mean blind allegiance to the policies of Joe Biden (or Donald Trump).
The U.S.-Israel relationship is grounded in shared values and shared geopolitical interests. Geopolitical interests can vary over time and can conflict even among allies. That's why shared values have been the bedrock of the U.S.-Israel relationship for the past 75 years. Actions by Israel's new government to weaken Israel's democracy and push a two-state solution further out of reach are inconsistent with those shared values.
Zionism expresses "the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State." Zionism does not require the rejection of the Palestinian national identity, nor does it require Jewish control of the entire Jewish homeland: Israel accepted U.N. Resolution 181, which established an Arab state in what is now called the West Bank and put Jerusalem under international administration. The Arabs, not the Zionists, rejected partition of the land, and we need partition (two states) today for the same reason we needed it then.
The pro-Israel position, or at least my pro-Israel position, is that Palestinian nationalism must be effectuated in addition to, not instead of, Jewish nationalism. Neither side can or should abandon its narrative. Jews do have historic ties to cities and land in the West Bank. Palestinians do have ties to pre-1967 Israel. But both sides will have to give up land they believe is theirs if both sides are to live together in peace and security, and while neither side has to agree with the other side's narrative, each side must give up land that according to its narrative should be theirs.
Palestinians bear their share of blame for the current situation, but that doesn't excuse actions by Israel that make the situation worse. A two-state solution is not a favor for the Palestinians; it is an existential necessity for Israel: If Israel is to remain Jewish and democratic, Israel must find a way to get to a two-state solution despite Palestinian intransigence. As former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote in his memoir, "the whole Zionist project was based on the idea of taking our fate into our own hands, and actively trying to change the reality around us."
Israel Policy Forum stated on February 13 that the Israeli government’s decision to retroactively legalize nine illegal outposts across the West Bank “makes clear that the Netanyahu government is set on undermining any potential future negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, betraying its commitment to previous agreements with the United States, and making a farce of its commitment to the rule of law…it is the embodiment of an approach that declares any two-state outcome completely off the table for Israel and that seeks to ensure that no future Israeli government will have the ability to pursue it, irrespective of any political changes that may occur…ultimately Israeli security, democracy, and Jewish character can only be preserved through a two-state outcome.”
There is no contradiction between standing with Israelis who share our views and strongly opposing dangerous actions undertaken by Israel’s government while simultaneously supporting Israel’s safety and security. As State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on February 13, “there is no question that Israel faces threats to its own security. We have seen examples of that, just horrific examples of that in recent days alone. At the same time – and this goes back to what I was saying about the shared values being at the core of our relationship [the United States] has supported a two-state solution as the only viable means by which to preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and a democracy. So we’re going to continue to support that. We are going to continue to stand by Israel’s side when it comes to the security threats that it faces, even as we use our voice and we coordinate with other parties and partners in the region to oppose these sorts of steps that actually undermine the prospect for that very two-state solution.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that Israel’s government was on track to “not only harm key shared values between the United States and Israel, but also further undermine desperately needed lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people.” Other pro-Israel stalwarts in Congress shared Durbin’s views, and Tom Friedman explains that while Israel's interests have (and currently do) deviate from American interests, the relationship has endured because of shared values.
Maybe you’re among those in Israel and the U.S. who, despite Israel’s Declaration of Independence and the goals of classical Zionism, don’t care if Israel is democratic as long as it’s Jewish. Maybe you don't share the values that have underlain the U.S.-Israel relationship for 75 years. That’s up to you. But remember that if the U.S.-Israel relationship is not based on shared values then it’s purely transactional, and transactional relationships last until one side finds a better deal.
On Monday, the UN Security Council is likely to vote on a resolution that would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Michael Koplow reminds us that these resolutions are often biased against Israel and that "protecting Israel from unfair targeting in international institutions is a strong U.S. interest, but shielding Israel from the full consequences of its actions when they contravene U.S. policy is not."
Previous administrations, Democratic and Republican, have often abstained on or supported UN resolutions against Israel. This trend changed under President Obama, who vetoed more resolutions critical of Israel than any other president (Obama cast 21 of the 53 total U.S. vetos of resolutions critical of Israel). The Biden administration's response on Monday will depend on the wording of the resolution. An abstention or a vote in favor means opposition to a particular policy of a particular Israeli government, not opposition to Israel itself. Alon Pinkas provides a must-read analysis of the options available to the administration, along with the pros and cons.
Nikki Haley is running for president. She launched her campaign with an invocation from John Hagee, a pastor who blamed Catholics for the Holocaust, called Hitler a "half breed Jew," predicted the Anti-Christ will be gay, and predicted the end times were beginning in 2014.
We are not talking about some long-lost photograph of Haley and Hagee. She chose Hagee to give the invocation to kick off her 2024 presidential campaign last week. This is not hyperbole from Joshua Shanes; he backs it up with facts: "John Hagee is a Muslim-hating, antisemitic, annexationist extremist. He’s no friend of Israel." But he is a friend of Nikki Haley.
Stuart Stevens explains that "no political figure better illustrates the tragic collapse of the modern Republican Party than Nikki Haley," alluding to Haley's reversal on the Confederate flag, defending it only a few years after taking it down as governor; her unequivocal praise for Donald Trump after ridiculing him when he first ran for president; and her "rare trifecta of flip-flop-flip" on Trump.
Haley's tenure at the UN was characterized by blustery speeches but few results for the United States. As governor of South Carolina, Haley signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law, banning most abortions in the state after 20 weeks. She took down the Confederate flag in 2015 but defended it in 2019, claiming it symbolized "service, sacrifice and heritage.”
As ambassador to the UN, after losing her password (who among us, right?), she sent confidential information over a system meant only for unclassified material. She baselessly accused leading Democrats of mourning the death of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani. She congratulated QAnon supporter Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on her initial victory, choosing to tweet out a photo of Boebert wearing a gun.
After Trump incited the insurrection and was impeached, Haley said “I don’t even think there’s a basis for impeachment. They beat him up before he got into office. They’re beating him up after he leaves office. At some point, I mean, give the man a break!"
Calling Haley a "profile in appeasement," William Saletan reminds us that Haley "excused Trump’s false statements about the 2020 election, insisting that 'genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged.' Then, after criticizing him for January 6, she backed off and said she would support him for president in 2024. Then she went to Mar-a-Lago to make up with him." Now she's running against Trump for president.
Does Haley sound too bad to be true? See for yourself. Here she is explaining why states should be allowed to secede from the Union, here she is on Donald Trump, and here she is defending the Confederate flag, insisting it isn't racist and saying the Civil War was about "tradition vs. change."
And for this week's moment of Zen, here's John Hagee ranting in 2013 that rock music “is nothing more than Satanic cyanide” that needs to be removed from the home and burned. Good choice Nikki!
My Review of Fauda, Season 4. The fourth season of Fauda is compellingly watchable and the most absurd season yet. Does Israel only have five people capable of doing this type of work? Is there no age limit for this type of work? Is it protocol to take rescued hostages home with no security or special care and if not, why doesn’t anyone object? How can Doron go all over the place unrecognized after all he's done? If Adel now knows everything the Captain knows, wouldn’t he write it down so it wouldn’t be lost if he was killed? And the unnamed IDF soldiers who always get killed when they hang around Doron’s unit–shouldn’t they be wearing red uniforms like the unnamed crew members on the original Star Trek series who beam down with Capt. Kirk for the sole purpose of getting killed by aliens? And yet I watched the whole series and I’ll watch the next season too. Maybe in Season 5 they’ll infiltrate the Republican Party; the unit's experience masquerading as non-Jews could come in handy.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. No one brought any mistakes to my attention last week, so it looks like last week's newsletter was perfect.
In Case You Missed It:
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Statement of Ken Stern (lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism) urging the American Bar Association not to adopt the definition (good news--it didn't).
- On February 8, Pew released a survey showing that more than half of Republicans support Christian nationalism, which might explain why Haley chose Hagee to launch her presidential campaign. The survey also found that Christian nationalism sympathizers are "significantly" more likely than most Americans to think that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States, that Christian nationalists are more likely to hold anti-Muslim views, and that "Christian nationalism adherents are nearly seven times as likely as Christian nationalism rejecters to support political violence." These findings support Jennifer Rubin's explanation of GOP objections to, for example, singing of the "Black national anthem" at the Super Bowl: "In their concept of the United States, America is a White and Christian country, and every other group is a footnote — peripheral to the majesty of the 'real' American story."
Tweet of the Week. Andrea Junker.
Video Clip of the Week. Stephen Colbert on Nikki Haley's announcement.
Upcoming Events. Join Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), the national voice of Jewish Democrats, on Thursday, February 23, at noon CT for a special briefing on the future of Israel's democracy, featuring former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel Dan Kurtzer and Dan Shapiro. (Kurtzer serves on JDCA's Board of Directors.) The conversation will be moderated by author, speechwriter, and JDCA New Leadership Council Member Sarah Hurwitz. RSVP here to get the Zoom link.
Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania (DJOP) presents Israel's New Government: The View from DC and Jerusalem on Sunday, March 19, at 10:00 am CT moderated by Jill Zipin with panelists Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), who will have recently returned from a J Street Education Fund trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories; Nimrod Novik, Israel Policy Forum’s Israel fellow and a member of the Executive Committee of Commanders for Israel’s Security; DJOP Board member Martin Raffel, previously senior vice president and director of the Task Force on Israel, World Jewry & International Human Rights at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; and Steve Sheffey (me). RSVP here to get the Zoom link.
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