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March 12, 2023
Key Takeaways:
- Our responsibility is not to support the current government of Israel but to support the State of Israel and the Israelis fighting for a vision of Israel that will ensure that Israel remains Jewish and democratic.
- Pro-Israel members of Congress are rejecting the misguided notion that speaking publicly will harm Israel or that speaking out when Republicans are silent is "partisan." You want bipartisanship? Speak out and encourage Republicans to join you.
- Aside from the extreme right, the Jewish American community is united in its opposition to the ruling coalition's proposed judicial coup. If there is a rift, it is between those who oppose only the judicial coup and those who also oppose the current government's plans to expand settlements and push a two-state solution further out of reach. Steps that diminish prospects for a two-state solution diminish Israel's chances of remaining Jewish and democratic.
- There is no contradiction between criticizing particular proposals of a particular Israeli government and supporting the safety and security of the State of Israel and its inhabitants.
- Hang on to your hope. We don't need everyone in the U.S. and Israel to agree with us. We need just enough.
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, my upcoming event with DJOP and Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) one week from today, and if you missed it, my appearance on Edwin Eisendrath's "The Big Picture."
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Hi Steve,
I am confident that Israel will overcome the threats to its existence posed by its current government for the same reason I am confident that the United States will overcome the threats posed by the insurrectionists who run today's Republican Party: The people--not all of them, but enough of them--have not given up hope.
Our responsibility is not to support the current government of Israel but to support the State of Israel and the Israelis fighting for a vision of Israel that will ensure that Israel remains Jewish and democratic.
The Israelis we stand with include the hundreds of thousands in the streets every week. They include the elite commando squad that rescued hostages in Entebbe in 1976, which slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “sacrificing the State of Israel and the people of Israel for your own interests.”
They include reservists affiliated with the Israeli army’s elite Unit 8200 who threatened to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the judicial overhaul passes. They include former Israeli army chiefs of staff Ehud Barak (subsequently prime minister), Moshe Yaalon, and Dan Halutz; former Shin Bet security agency chiefs Nadav Argaman, Yuval Diskin, Carmi Gilon and Jacob Perry; former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo; and National Security Adviser Uzi Arad.
They include the Israeli who risked his life in the special operations force of Israel's military intelligence branch of the army and on March 6 praised the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists who refuse to volunteer for duty: "We will win," he said. "Until then – our protest is our reserve duty."
And our duty is to speak out and stand with those in Israel fighting for the values that underlie the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Pro-Israel members of Congress are rejecting the misguided notion that speaking publicly will harm Israel. The refusal of Republicans (who don't even care about democracy here) to speak out doesn't mean that Democrats should follow suit for fear of appearing "partisan." It means Democrats should demonstrate by words and actions that speaking out is pro-Israel. If that seems partisan, then the blame lies with Republicans for remaining silent instead of joining the pro-Israel community in solidarity with Israelis demanding that Israel's government live up to the ideals of the State.
On March 8, 92 members of Congress, led by Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Jim McGovern (D-MA), commended President Biden's efforts to deescalate heightened tensions in Israel and the West Bank and urged him "to use all diplomatic tools available to prevent Israel’s current government from further damaging the nation’s democratic institutions and undermining the potential for two states for two peoples." Their letter condemned Palestinian violence against Israelis, including the killing of Jewish worshipers and children in East Jerusalem.
On March 9, Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Brad Schneider (D-IL), along with a strong majority of Jewish members of Congress, sent a letter to Israel's leaders expressing their profound concern about proposed changes to Israel’s governing institutions and legal system that could undermine Israeli democracy and the civil rights and religious freedoms it protects.
The members of Congress who signed one or both of these letters are supporting the State of Israel by speaking out at this critical time. They deserve our thanks.
The members of Congress who signed these letters continue to support Israel's safety and security and know that Israel continues to face serious threats. As Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog said, Israel's "enemies do not distinguish between those who support judicial reform and those who oppose judicial reform."
What about organizations that claim to speak for the Jewish community? Tom Friedman wrote that legacy American Jewish organizations and their leaders have "been built to rub elbows with Israeli dignitaries, pose with Israeli fighter pilots, visit Israel’s tech scene and do whatever Netanyahu tells them. They have never been asked to choose BETWEEN Israel’s prime minister and its fighter pilots."
This should be an easy choice, and it's a choice years in the making. Right-wing, ostensibly pro-Israel organizations looked the other way, but as Rabbi Jill Jacobs reminds us in this thread, many organizations have seen the threat for years and have been speaking out. Maybe we should start listening to the people who were right instead of those who were wrong.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's Finance Minister, arrives in the U.S. today. Other than the Orthodox Union and Israel Bonds, most Jewish organizations will not meet with him. About 70 Jewish organizations signed a letter protesting Smotrich's racism, and I was among the more than 120 Jewish American leaders who signed the Israel Policy Forum letter urging pro-Israel Americans not to welcome Smotrich.
Aside from the extreme right, the Jewish American community is united in its opposition to the judicial coup. If there is a rift, it's between those who oppose only the government's judicial proposals and those who also oppose settlement expansion and creeping annexation. Do those organizations speaking out only against the judicial coup want democracy only for Jews? That's not democracy. Israel can only remain Jewish and democratic only if it achieves a two-state solution, and that means rejecting once and for all the goal of a Jewish state from the river to the sea--and siding with those in Israel fighting for real democracy.
Netanyahu's government has laid bare what some in Israel, including some in power, think Israel should be. Emily Tamkin writes that "some American Jews are now confronting, more fully than ever before, the possibility that this extremist government is less outlier than culmination of a process that has been unfolding in Israel for a very long time." (Spoiler alert: It has been unfolding for a very long time.)
Tamkin's well-sourced article concludes with three possible outcomes of the current situation in Israel: The first is that American Jews will become "more critical of Israel, and maybe even apathetic about it or distant from it."
The second is that "the shock will fade, and the outrage will, too, and there will be what there has been: American Jewish organizations stating their commitment to Israel and their shared Jewish and democratic values, and American Jews by and large believing them or not—but not challenging them."
The third is that "things are now finally, obviously, dramatically bad enough to snap people into action. American Jews and Israelis will commit to liberal values, and human rights and peace will prevail. In this case, universal human dignity, including the concerns of Palestinians, will not be treated as a side or separate matter, but understood as core to the issues of democracy and liberalism. And to liberal American Jewish values, too."
Which scenario is most likely? That's up to us. I'm working for the third scenario. Am I naive? I don't think so. Throughout history, humans have thought theirs might be the last generation. To us, the threats of climate change, nuclear war, cyber war, and biochemical war, as well as the malfunctioning of democracy throughout the West, seem objectively worse than anything previous generations faced, but previous generations viewed themselves on the cusp of apocalypse too, and later generations will look back at us the way we look back at them and wonder what the fuss was about (if there are later generations).
Fifty years ago, E.B. White wrote that "as long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
"Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
"Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day."
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:
- Not a single Republican on the House Oversight Committee could bring themselves to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy.
- The Biden administration sanctioned those connected with human rights abuses in Iran.
- On March 7, the Democratic House Steering and Policy Committee named Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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Democrats need to stop talking about the deficit like economically illiterate Republicans. They can start by watching this short clip from Professor of Economics Mariana Mazzucato (via Stephanie Kelton) explaining that “this whole notion that you run government like you run a household…is a complete myth.” Unlike households and state and local governments, the federal government issues its own currency. The question is not what we can afford, but what we need--the only constraint is inflation, not the extent to which tax revenues exceed expenditures. Former Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), Chair of the House Budget Committee, gave a master class on how to talk about the deficit. Watch at least the first ten minutes of this interview.
- As of today, 71 days into 2023, we've experienced at least 105 mass shootings and 7,947 gun violence deaths. Republican control of the House means zero chance for meaningful gun legislation during the next two years. If you want to save lives, work to elect a Democratic House and at least 51 Democratic senators who support gun legislation and abolishing the filibuster. I won't say that if you vote Republican you have blood on your hands because you might consider that offensive. I will say that if you vote Republican, you are voting against Congress passing meaningful gun legislation. I'll leave it to you to connect the dots.
Tweets of the Week. T'ruah and marina Z (if you don't get it, scroll through the replies until you do).
Twitter Thread of the Week. Shai Franklin.
Video Clip of the Week. The struggle of unsubscribing (but not from this newsletter; not that you'd ever consider it).
Upcoming Events. 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 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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