We’ve been playing this game for months now. First with Michael Flynn. Then with Stephen Bannon. Now with Sebastian Gorka. Liberals accuse a Donald Trump adviser of having ties to right-wing anti-Semites. Trump’s Jewish supporters defend him. And, not content to stop there, they throw the charge back in the accusers’ faces — claiming that they have ties to left-wing anti-Semites. …
In sports, spectators generally watch the ball. In politics, they generally watch the people who govern. Often, however, important dynamics occur offstage, as parties out of power remake themselves in exile. That’s likely happening to the Democrats. Quietly, in the shadow of Trump, the party will move left. The Democrats will never nominate another presidential candidate as friendly as Hillary Clinton was to a mainstream ...
I have a theory about American Jewish kids and Israel. I’m trying it out on my own children. My theory boils down to “Love first, truth later.” When my kids near adulthood, I’ll encourage them to visit the West Bank. I’ll encourage them to see for themselves what it means to hold millions of people as noncitizens, under military law, without free movement or due ...
At the J Street Conference on February 27, Bernie Sanders delivered one of the most intriguing Israel-related speeches an American politician has given in years. Read it carefully, and you can grasp Donald Trump’s radicalizing impact on the America-Israel debate. The more Trump and his advisers question long-standing taboos by shifting right, the more Democrats will do the same by shifting left. …
For almost two decades, American presidents have supported a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Last week, Donald Trump questioned that commitment, thus potentially changing the course of Middle Eastern and Jewish history. Why did he take this momentous action? The most plausible answer is that he’s too ignorant to understand the consequences of what he’s done. …
Almost two years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went before Congress to denounce President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. The deal, he warned, “could well threaten the survival of my country and the future of my people.” Then, in the closing moments of his speech, Netanyahu addressed the late Elie Wiesel, who was seated in the crowd. “Elie,” he declared, “your life and work ...
Let’s try a thought experiment. A blatantly anti-Semitic candidate runs for president. In a CNN interview, he declares that “Judaism hates us.” He falsely accuses American Jews of cheering on terrorist attacks against the United States. He calls for “a total and complete shutdown of Jews entering the United States.” This candidate then wins the presidency. …
In our annual progression through the Torah, we are now deep into slavery in Egypt. And each year, around this time, as I read the first Torah portions in Exodus, the same thought occurs to me: Why is all this necessary? By the end of Jacob’s life, he’s back in the Land of Israel, the land God has given him and his progeny. Why must ...
When the mass violence starts, and some Israeli Jews die, and many more huddle in bomb shelters, I won’t write a column like this. I won’t write a column like this because when Jewish blood flows, it changes the conversation. American Jews became less tolerant of criticism of Israel. And I feel less comfortable offering it. When the next intifada begins, I’ll write more cautiously ...
If there’s one thing conservatives hate, it’s “identity politics”: the claim that membership in a particular ethnic, racial or gender group gives someone special authority over policy toward that group. Tell conservatives that women should make abortion policy, or Latinos should make immigration policy, or African Americans should decide whether affirmative action is fair, and they’ll howl. So how do conservatives feel when Jews — ...