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September 6, 2026
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- Urge your Michigan friends to vote for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, not because he's perfect, not because you agree with him on everything, but because he is better than his opponent, Mike Rogers, and because control of the Senate has never been more important.
- Israel's standing will continue to deteriorate among Jewish Americans and Americans generally until Israel changes its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The answer is not to blame those who won't close their eyes, but to press for constructive solutions instead of blaming descriptions of reality on antisemitism or hatred of Israel.
- Happy Labor Day. I won't be sending a newsletter next Sunday because of Rosh Hashanah. Thank you for your loyalty and support. L'Shana Tova. See you in 5787.
If you're feeling guilty because you have not yet made a voluntary contribution to support my work, you can chip in via credit card (you do not need a PayPal account), Zelle (contact me for info), Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four digits, 9479), or check.
Friends,
Even if you agreed with the cause, would you attend a rally featuring as one of its speakers a "Muslim-hating, antisemitic, annexationist extremist" with a history of deeply offensive comments, including bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community?
With Rosh HaShanah coming up, I have a confession to make. I did. I knew he'd be there, too. But I attended the November 2023 March for Israel despite my contempt for Hagee and what he stands for. I felt it was important to support Israel and the hostages.
While I disagreed strongly with Jewish Federations of North America's (JFNA) decision to invite Hagee, I figured they invited him because the organization he leads, Christians United for Israel, has millions of members, many of whom probably see Hagee's bigotry as a feature rather than a bug, and he has a huge platform. JFNA welcomed his support on an issue they agreed with, despite his repugnant views on so much else.
Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed campaigned with Hasan Piker prior to the primary a couple of times not because El-Sayed agrees with everything Piker says but because he wants to use Piker's platform to reach his audience.
That's a hard tradeoff, even though Piker does not have the money or platform that John Hagee has, nor does Piker advocate for policies as dangerous to Jews and American democracy as Christian nationalism.
Troubled by El-Sayed's relationship with Piker? JD Vance's relationship with Tucker Carlson is worse. JFNA's relationship with John Hagee is worse. Mike Rogers's (El-Sayed's opponent) embrace of Donald Trump is worst of all. How about if we have the same standards for all of our politicians, organizations, and countries rather than selective standards for our favorites?
For Rogers, it doesn't stop with Trump. Oddly enough, those pressing El-Sayed on Piker don't seem to be pressing Rogers on his ties to a billionaire Christian nationalist who gave $5 million to Rogers' SuperPAC.
El-Sayed's opponent in the general election is not his twin who did not campaign with Piker in some alternative universe. That would be an easy choice. El-Sayed's opponent is Rogers, a Trump sycophant. That's also an easy choice.
Control of the Senate, and with that the ability to block Trump cabinet-level and judicial (potentially at the Supreme Court level) appointments, could hinge on the outcome of the Michigan election. We cannot afford two more years of a Republican-controlled Senate more loyal to Donald Trump than to the U.S. Constitution.
On most issues, El-Sayed is where we are. He is vehemently opposed to antisemitism. The problem is that nothing El-Sayed can do or say will convince those who don't want to be convinced. If you don't believe me, as if on cue, Paul Waldman explained this depth and urged Democrats not to fall into the denunciation demand trap.
For example, El-Sayed apologized for his Temple Israel comments even though his response to the attack on Temple Israel was not a brusque, "hurt people hurt people." He did say that. If that's all he said, if he dismissed the attack with those four words, it would be beyond the pale and completely unacceptable. But that's not all he said. I urge you to watch the full four minutes and keep track of how many times he unequivocally condemned the attack.
Yet El-Sayed apologized because he knew that some people were nevertheless offended (I wasn't). Do you think the self-described Michigan "Democrats" who are supporting Rogers despite his ties to Trump and Christian nationalists will reconsider?
On Israel, some of us, to varying degrees, disagree with El-Sayed. He will be one out of 100 senators, but he could be the deciding vote on a Democratic or Republican Senate leader. El-Sayed might not be your ideal candidate. He's not mine. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we think our country will be better off under a Democratic majority that includes El-Sayed or a Republican majority that includes Mike Rogers.
Am I giving Israel short shrift? This is hard for some of us to accept: The problem is Israel's policies, not those who call them out. We might find it easier to look the other way. But the younger generation, including the younger generation of Jews, cannot look the other way. Neither can members of the older generation who see things as they are, not as they would wish them to be or as they once might have been.
This is not about antisemitism or hatred of Israel. The reality, as Michael Koplow writes, is that "when the most recent pictures to rocket around the world of masked men carrying weapons and riding pickup trucks on their way to brutalizing innocent civilians is not of Hamas terrorists in the Gaza envelope but of Jewish terrorists in the northern West Bank, maintaining the decades-long clear and simple Israeli narrative is not so easy.
"When Israeli officials in one breath decry the Palestinian Authority for being too cowardly to crack down on their domestic extremists, and in the next breath claim that they can’t find their own domestic extremists because they quickly run away, and make not one arrest despite camera footage of dozens of Israeli marauders, comparisons to Palestinian inaction fall flat."
Israel's Minister of National Security posted this video, leading Nathan Robinsom to ask an interesting question. Ben-Gvir was not fired immediately. You might not be among the 39% of Jewish Americans (52% of Jewish Democrats) who think Israel is guilty of genocide, but you can kind of see why they might think so, can't you? Do you expect lawmakers to ignore this? Reasonable minds differ on the genocide question, but it is not an unreasonable position.
You might not like it when Israel is accused of Jewish terrorism, ethnic cleansing, or Nazism, or when the lawlessness in the West Bank is compared to the Holocaust or deemed a threat to Israel's democracy (upon which the U.S.-Israel relationship rests), but when those accusations come from retired Israeli generals, how can we expect American politicians to look the other way? How can we look the other way? Or are we better Zionists and more pro-Israel than Israelis who served at the highest levels of Israel's military (most of the generals quoted in that article are members of Commanders for Israel's Security)?
The ball is in Israel's court. Most Democrats who now oppose, to varying degrees, aid or arms sales to Israel did not wake up one day and decide that they hate Jews or Israel. They are reacting to the actions of the most extreme, Messianic, right-wing government in Israel's history.
Israel is no longer the plucky, socialist underdog of the 1950s and 1960s that most Americans admired and supported. The issue is not Israel as a state but Israel with a government whose policies have changed. With those changes have come changes in public opinion on Israel.
Advocating for unconditional aid to Israel never made intellectual sense. How can we justify giving any country aid with no conditions? It would be almost irresponsible not to impose conditions on the aid we provide. But as a practical matter, it was not an issue because it was clear why we were giving Israel the aid and what it would be used for.
The actions of Israel's current government have exploded those assumptions. The U.S.-Israel relationship is based on shared values, which is why we hold Israel to the standards we expect of Western democracies, not dictatorships or allies of convenience.
The question is not whether we should condition aid to Israel (or any country). The question is whether the conditions to be imposed are reasonable. If they are unreasonable, we should oppose them. If they are reasonable, then the potential aid recipient has a choice: Reject the conditions and lose the aid, or comply with the conditions and get the aid.
The question we should ask candidates for office is not whether they support unconditional aid to Israel but what conditions, if any, do they support putting on that aid. If a candidate opposes all arms sales to Israel or only the sale of offensive weapons, the question we should ask is under what circumstances would they relent in their opposition (and in the case of offensive arms sales, how they define "offensive"). We should then evaluate the reasonableness of the answer.
Israelis need to choose wisely in October. We need to choose wisely in November. The trajectory of the U.S.-Israel alliance and the fate of democracy in both countries hinges on the choices voters in both countries make.
In Case You Missed It:
- The vast majority of Democrats voted against the so-called Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, a sham bill that the GOP sold as an anti-BDS bill that actually conflated Israel with settlements and violates the First Amendment. All but two Republicans supported it. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) spoke for those Democrats who did not take the bait.
Reminder: Be careful where you get your information. We should treat Jewish Insider with the level of trust that we would Fox News.
Social Media of the Week. Paul Rudnick, Alex Shams, and God.
Video Clip of the Week. Who is Mick Jagger?
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. Rolling Stones “Brown Sugar” Los Angeles Forum Live 1975.
The Fine Print. Read the fine print before you reply or send me anything.
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