On Monday morning, Israel sent Iran a strategic message that echoed far beyond the borders of the Middle East: it acts according to its own independent interests.

It is true that US President Donald Trump said in several interviews on Sunday evening that he did not want Israel to act. It is also true that the American pressure on Israel to restrain itself was real. And yet, Israel did what it believed it needed to do and what it determined was in its security interests. While this may appear to be a direct challenge to Washington and the president’s policy it is more likely that this was a carefully coordinated move: America remains outside this round of fighting, while Iran learns that Israel is capable of acting – and willing to act – even without explicit American backing.

Technically speaking it is important to keep in mind that Israel would not be able to carry out a strike against Iran with the Americans knowing. The American military is deeply embedded within IDF bases today and US Central Command is deployed heavily across the region. Planes that take off from Israel and fly to Iran are going to be seen by the Americans.

But more important is the message that the strike sends Iran and it is critical because, over recent months, the regime has been engaged in a clear strategy: buy time, drag out the negotiations and conduct them largely for appearances’ sake.

While diplomats worked to reach an agreement that would extend the ceasefire, Iran continued to spread instability throughout the region. It attacked the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait, including the strike on its airport several days ago, an incident that was nearly forgotten amid the never-ending news cycle. Iran was playing America and was exploiting Trump’s desire to secure a deal to buy time, rearm, and expand its influence.

Then came yesterday.

After weeks of coming under Hezbollah missile fire including almost daily casualties from drone attacks, Israel decided to bomb Beirut. The Iranians used that attack to respond by firing a salvo of missiles at Israel. Its rationale was simple – it wants to exert its influence over Lebanon and protect its proxy, Hezbollah. The regime believed that Trump would restrain Israel and that Iran would once again demonstrate that it is the one setting the rules in the Middle East.

That is why it would be a mistake to view Iran’s first missile attack solely as a military event. It was a strategic declaration by Iran which was trying to show that it has the power to determine what happens across the Middle East, including Lebanon. This is not the behaviour of a regime preparing to sign an agreement or make concessions. It is the behaviour of an adversary that feels immune, that believes its position is secure, and that America is so determined to avoid escalation that it will do almost anything to prevent another round of conflict.

That is why Israel had no choice but to retaliate. It needed to teach Iran a different lesson.

While Trump publicly called for restraint, Israel showed that its security does not depend on external approval. An “American green light” is not always required for the IDF, and even if some coordination took place behind the scenes, the outward appearance is one of Israeli independence – and that, in itself, strengthens deterrence.

It is possible that this is exactly what was agreed upon quietly between Israel and the U.S. America has an interest in ensuring that Iran understands that the equation has changed and that negotiations cannot be dragged out indefinitely. Iran needed to learn that there is a price to be paid for exploiting Trump’s desire to reach an agreement.

In that sense, the new equation may actually serve Trump’s interests. He can tell the Iranians that he is trying to reach a deal, but that if they refuse to compromise, he cannot control Israel. If the ayatollahs want a deal, he will be able to tell them, they will need to do it now.

The question that remains is whether Tehran will draw the right conclusions. Will the regime understand that its strategy of delaying has reached its limits? Will it recognise that operating proxies, and issuing threats from afar no longer provide the protection they once did?

Or are we headed for yet another round – more missiles, more airstrikes and more attempts to secure a fictitious ceasefire that will only allow Iran to rebuild and continue back along the same path?

Either way, Israel made one thing unmistakably clear: it has no intention of waiting for an answer.

Jewish Chronicle

The post Striking Iran without US green light strengthened Israeli deterrence first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The postmortem seems to have raised more questions than it answered—and the role of pro-Israel policy may only be one of them.

Yet when the autopsy finally arrived, the much-anticipated words (or even topics) “Gaza,” “Israel” or “Jews” did not appear even once in the 192 pages of what “Pod Save America” host Jon Favreau called “gobbledygook.” Finally, it seemed to some that transparency would distinguish legitimate policy debate from claims that unfairly assigned collective responsibility to Jewish or pro-Israel Democrats.

However, rather than accept the data and analysis of the report, progressives pivoted again—suggesting that the glaring exclusion of Gaza was suspect and that their suspicions about its role in 2024 remain.

What can be made of these sins of (possible) omission, and where does this leave some Jewish Democrats who still feel singled out for blame at the ballot box?

At very least, it was clear from the summer of 2024 that Gaza was emerging as a divisive issue in the campaign—and therefore could be considered as part of a multi-causal analysis in the autopsy. After all, by the time Harris became the Democratic nominee without competing in a primary, she had distanced herself from then-President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war but didn’t offer much in the way of her own alternative vision.

The matter came to a head at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when the “Uncommitted” movement, primarily composed of Arab and Muslim voters, and progressive and campus activists, was not offered a speaking timeslot (although the Goldberg-Polin family was). Controversy also swirled over the vice-presidential selection process, including as Pennsylvania’s Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro later confirmed in his best-selling memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service, that he had been grilled by vetters asking whether he had ever worked as an agent of Israel.

While Harris highlighted her family connection to the Jewish community, she offered few specific commitments on issues many Jewish and Zionist voters prioritized, and spent considerable energy appealing to other constituencies.

After the election, progressive activists and Democratic-adjacent commentators leaned into the explanation that Gaza—or, more broadly, Israel and the pro-Israel community—was a decisive factor in the 2024 loss, and could endanger both the midterms and 2028. Several Democratic figures and candidates, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California, and presidential hopefuls California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, wondered aloud about allegations of genocide in Gaza, conditioning or cutting U.S. aid to Israel, and a reassessment of U.S. relations with Israel and the Palestinians.

In her 2025 memoir 107 Days, Harris criticized Biden’s “blank check to Netanyahu” and “inadequate and forced” concern for Gazans as contributing to her loss. The DNC seemed to have engaged with the role of Gaza when it leaked to Axios that it was working with the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, to investigate the issue, although IMEU later accused the DNC of burying their contribution. By spring, when Harris began gearing up for a renewed presidential push, she pointedly told donors that she wanted the autopsy released.

Is the report’s omission of Gaza suspect or simply not relevant? Certainly, it was a divisive issue, and a lack of data on voter attitudes and behavior in the report means that we can’t know how determinative it was at the ballot box either way. Further, the fact that DNC chair Ken Martin suddenly reversed course in hastily publishing the report, with the caveat that he felt under pressure to release it and didn’t “endorse” it, hasn’t helped allay concerns about what it does and does not contain.

Democratic analysts have also noted other striking omissions and incomplete sections, including discussions of Biden’s age and health status, and Harris’s rushed nomination. Was this a report that wasn’t quite ready for primetime, though it generally contained the major explanatory points? Or was it an unfinished document that didn’t follow through on its remit, by omission, commission or otherwise of topics that related to the 2024 defeat?

The postmortem seems to have raised more questions than it answered—and the role of pro-Israel policy may only be one of them.

But acknowledging the odd and opaque circumstances surrounding the report does not justify saying that “the Zionists,” Jewish donors, or pro-Israel Democrats cost Harris the election. The question is not whether Gaza and Israel matter to many Democrats. The answer is still that Gaza and Israel are unlikely to explain everything about the 2024 election.

The Democrats have many lessons to learn about their failures for the midterms and the 2028 general election. But the most important should be that a blame game can’t replace rigorous data and analysis-driven interrogation of the party’s successes and failures at the ballot box, especially at the cost of its loyal Jewish and Zionist constituencies. If it takes a second autopsy to get to the truth, including about Gaza, so be it.

Posted in JNS

The post The DNC autopsy doesn’t mention the Jewish state first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The latest scandal that emerged overnight marks a troubling escalation in the subterranean conflict unfolding within the American establishment against Israel.

The dramatic leak to NBC News, according to which the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) raised Israel’s espionage threat level to the highest “critical” category, is not a routine security incident. To understand its significance, historical context is essential.

Since the Jonathan Pollard affair in the 1980s, Israel has been careful to avoid spying on U.S. soil or monitoring senior American officials. For that reason, the current report raises numerous questions, particularly given that the leaked document reportedly contains no forensic evidence or concrete findings proving a breach, only alleged “concerns.” The absence of evidence raises an obvious question: Is this merely a coincidence, or could the document represent a kind of land mine or parting gift left behind by departing intelligence officials? To answer that question, one must look at the timing.

It is highly noteworthy that anonymous intelligence-community “sources” chose to leak the information precisely as Congress is considering Section 224 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027.

A dramatic initiative

Section 224 is a dramatic and critical initiative intended to deepen, synchronize and accelerate U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation. The provision focuses on shared challenges at the forefront of military technology, including counter-drone systems, missile defense, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

It requires the Pentagon to appoint a senior official to coordinate that cooperation, ensuring that American and Israeli forces maintain a qualitative advantage on the battlefield. The isolationist wing in the United States has mounted a forceful campaign against the provision, spreading what the author views as myths that it would “merge” the two militaries, give Israel influence over Pentagon supply chains and, above all, grant Israel unrestricted access to sensitive U.S. military data.

Now, just as the provision faces a critical test, an intelligence document surfaces warning that Israel is aggressively spying on the United States. The institutional logic of the leakers is, in the author’s view, entirely clear: How can Congress approve legislation that expands information-sharing and technological cooperation with a country simultaneously designated a “critical espionage threat”? This amounts to a targeted effort to derail the legislation. To connect the dots behind this campaign, it is worth revisiting the controversy surrounding Joe Kent’s departure two months ago.

Kent, the Trump-appointed director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), resigned and launched an unprecedented attack on Israel. He argued that Iran does not pose an immediate threat and accused Israel and its supporters of dragging America into an unnecessary war. He also linked his wife’s death in Syria to a conflict that he claimed Israel helped create. Kent is not operating in a vacuum. Does his worldview also reflect the outlook of former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard? Throughout her tenure, Gabbard displayed deep opposition to any military confrontation with Iran. Although she presented her resignation as a personal decision related to her spouse’s illness, there are indications behind the scenes suggesting that she was actually forced out because of those disagreements.

Tying the president’s hands?

The DIA is structurally subordinate to the Pentagon, but as director of national intelligence, Gabbard controlled the National Intelligence Program budget and defined intelligence priorities.

Could the bureaucratic infrastructure left behind by her and Kent now be producing documents lacking forensic support in an effort to derail Section 224, tie the president’s hands and deepen the rift between the two countries? But the broader picture extends far beyond a struggle within the intelligence community.

The isolationist and nationalist current within the Republican Party and Trump’s political orbit is waging a multifront campaign to distance the United States from Israel. Intelligence matters and legislation are only one vector in that effort.

Another major vector currently being employed is the Christian issue, which played a significant role during the campaign in Lebanon. To understand this from a geostrategic perspective, one must remember that Trump pledged to protect Christians wherever they live around the world. Supporters point to actions such as the use of military force against Boko Haram in Africa, which Trump described as part of protecting Christians globally.

Against that backdrop, the unusual invitation extended to the Greek patriarch to visit the White House should be viewed in a different light.

The patriarch is not a head of state who would ordinarily be expected to meet with the president of the United States. Rather, the author argues, it was a calculated move by the same nationalist faction seeking to advance an anti-Israel narrative. The patriarch focused specifically on Lebanon and the Holy Land when he said that ancient communities seek to preserve their faith and freedom of worship, and that ensuring access to the Holy Land is a prerequisite for regional stability. Those pressures, according to the author, were reflected in a heated exchange between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump regarding the continuation of military operations in Lebanon.

It must also be acknowledged, the author argues, that the campaign there was ultimately affected by irresponsible actions by some Israeli soldiers who desecrated Christian symbols, including a cross associated with Jesus and a statue of Mary. Such conduct, together with the troubling phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting at tourists and clergy members in Jerusalem, provided officials in Washington with precisely the ammunition they were seeking to constrain Israel’s actions.

Add to that inflammatory comments from politicians discussing the takeover of southern Lebanon, including Christian villages, and a perfect campaign emerges portraying Israel as carrying out ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has been making important efforts to counter what the author describes as this distortion on social media. In that context, the recent decision by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to appoint a special envoy at the ambassadorial level to engage with the Christian world deserves mention. The appointment of Ambassador George Deek to the position is a strategic step intended to bring order to the issue, moderate tensions and centralize engagement with these communities, with particular emphasis on Christian Zionists.

When all of these developments are viewed together — the allegedly evidence-free DIA leak coinciding with the advancement of Section 224 in Congress and the pressure campaign surrounding Christian communities in Lebanon and Jerusalem — they form a coherent picture. This is a coordinated effort by the isolationist camp to apply pressure on the president and drive a deep wedge into U.S.-Israel relations.

Published on Ynet

The post The espionage affair: Who is driving a wedge between the US and Israel? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Not long ago, in partnership with the Pittsburgh JCC, I helped convene a conversation that many people assumed could no longer happen: Bret Stephens and Jeremy Ben-Ami on the same stage talking seriously about Israel, American Jews, and the future of the US-Israel relationship.

I wanted to test whether civil discourse and reaching across the aisle still mattered. I hoped to show what I already believed: despite sharp differences, they shared substantial common ground.

Early on, Jeremy conceded that his side too often minimizes Israel’s legitimate security concerns and needs to correct that. Moments later, as he warned about the perilous erosion of Israeli democracy and the threat posed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bret echoed his alarm – and added that the lawlessness in the West Bank is profoundly troubling.

That experience matters because a nervous refrain has been growing louder among Israeli and American Jews: support for Israel in the United States is not merely ebbing; it is undergoing a historic realignment, and no one should assume it will reverse on its own. The evidence is no longer anecdotal. Recent Senate votes seeking to block specific arms sales to Israel, Pew findings showing increasingly negative views of Israel’s government, and Gallup data showing Americans’ plummeting favorable views of Israel and rising sympathy for Palestinians, especially among young Americans, all point to a tectonic shift. The old bipartisan cushion around Israel is thinning.

The shift is changing what it means to be pro-Israel in America. It is also making it far harder to inhabit the space between the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and J Street. For decades, those two organizations have served as shorthand for two instincts that many American Jews once held together: a deep commitment to Israel’s security and a conviction that Israel’s long-term security depends on democracy, diplomacy, and a credible political horizon for Palestinians. For many people, that was not a contradiction. It was the essence of responsible Zionism.

That middle ground still exists intellectually. Politically, it is becoming much harder to occupy.

Part of the reason is simple: American public sentiment has changed, and political organizations respond to incentives. When a large and growing share of the electorate distrusts Israel’s conduct, lawmakers and advocacy groups sharpen their messages. Donors treat contributions as signals. Activists demand clarity. Politicians hear that mixed positions are not thoughtful but evasive. In that environment, institutional brands harden. AIPAC’s security-first message becomes more emphatic. J Street’s insistence on accountability becomes more urgent. The space between them becomes more perilous.

A deeper reason is that the US-Israel alliance is no longer judged solely by what happens in joint command centers, intelligence briefings, or on battlefields. Tactical cooperation, however real and important, does not immunize Israel from scrutiny when its domestic politics and wartime conduct are seen as raising moral or strategic questions. Judicial reforms pursued without broad consensus, extremist settler violence in the West Bank, inflammatory rhetoric from senior Israeli officials, and a failure to articulate a post-war plan for Gaza have not gone unnoticed by many Americans. When those issues accumulate, sympathy erodes, and nuance evaporates.

Support for Israel is being reshaped

The problem is exacerbated by a political culture that prizes binary narratives. Presidents are cast as either “loyal friends” or “betrayers” based on episodic policy choices. An ally who once received unconditional praise can be labeled hostile in the quick wake of a disagreement. Social media accelerates this polarization, rewarding clear, uncompromising takes and punishing complexity.

Israel is either an apartheid genocidal state, or it can do no wrong. The result is that the political currency of being a bridge-builder has depreciated. Attempting to straddle both AIPAC’s concern for Israeli security and J Street’s insistence on democratic accountability invites attacks from both camps and diminishes one’s ability to influence either.

This is not only an American problem. It is also a failure of Israeli strategy. Too often, Israelis ascribe declining US support to external problems – antisemitism, a generational turn – rather than as warning signs of how Israeli actions are being read. That’s a dangerous intellectual posture. If you cared about preserving the alliance, you would discipline public messaging, curb extremist violence decisively, muzzle incendiary rhetoric, and articulate a coherent political vision for Gaza and the future. You would recognize that strategic success requires both battlefield competence and diplomatic literacy. Decisions made in Jerusalem play out in American living rooms and congressional corridors.

So can AIPAC and J Street coexist? In communal life, yes. They must. Quiet, behind-the-scenes bridge-building still matters – working on pressing communal concerns, fighting antisemitism, ensuring Jewish student safety – but the era in which a visible public figure could reliably represent both camps is ending.

Leaders in Israel and the American Jewish community must reckon with that truth. If the alliance is to survive and thrive, it will require more than military might; it will require a sober rethinking of strategy, messaging, and moral clarity. The middle ground is inherently noble, but nuance is valuable – as long as it is coupled with discipline and credibility. The question for Israelis and American Jews who care about the future of the alliance is no longer, “Can you be both AIPAC and J Street?” It is: “Are we willing to change our behavior so that ample space for common cause remains?”

If the answer is yes, the work must start now – in Jerusalem as much as in Washington. We need more conversation between Bret Stephens and Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Can AIPAC and J Street coexist? The shrinking middle ground in US-Israel support first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Israel has stumbled into a dangerous gamble with historic consequences. Its relationship with the Trump administration, for better or worse, has become the beating heart of its national-security doctrine. A foreign leader, however friendly, is imposing his policy on Israel and making decisions, independently of us, that determine when the Israel Defense Forces may act and when they must hold back.

There is no way to dress this up: since US President Trump’s second election, some of Israel’s core national-security decisions are no longer being made solely by the Israeli government or the security cabinet. They are increasingly being shaped in conversations between the prime minister and the US president – and, judging by recent reports, often in accordance with the president’s demands.

The reported exchange in which Trump allegedly berated Netanyahu over Israeli military actions – in the roughest, most candid of terms – is noteworthy not just because of its tone, but also because of what it suggests about the relationship itself. If such reports are accurate, they point to a reality in which Israeli strategic choices are being constrained not through formal alliance mechanisms but through the personal leverage of a foreign leader.

It is hard to overstate the enormous value of the enduring alliance with the United States: technological advantage, diplomatic backing, security assistance, international deterrence. Trump upgraded that alliance when the US military flew wing-to-wing with Israel in the war against our greatest enemy, over Iranian soil. We are the “bestie” of the king of the world. Lucky us.

But all this largesse, it is becoming clear, comes at a price. Israel is failing to translate the IDF’s extraordinary battlefield successes into decisive strategic outcomes. Iran is recovering from severe blows while preserving key capabilities. Hezbollah continues to exact a heavy price from our soldiers and has not allowed the north to return to normal. Hamas is reestablishing effective control over significant parts of Gaza.

These developments run counter to Israel’s security interests and erode deterrence. Yet Israel has accepted growing constraints on its freedom of action because Washington’s priorities have become an increasingly decisive factor in determining when and how force may be used.

Israel’s surrender – temporary? – rests on the assessment that the broader Israeli interest, especially in the campaign against Iran, requires this “flexibility” and that the benefits outweigh the costs. Really? In the immediate term, there is no telling how all these ongoing campaigns will end. The current situation is unsatisfactory. If it becomes entrenched over the long term – because of an agreement between Iran and the United States that the Gulf states embrace and that forces Israel to restrain itself – we may now be building our enemies’ launching pad for the next major war.

Our conduct toward the Trump administration at this moment may one day be seen, historically, as a shift from a partnership between states to a small country’s dependence on a global power. The difference is a matter of mindset, but its implications are critical: a sovereign state is not a protectorate.

The reported confrontation between Trump and Netanyahu is therefore troubling not merely as a diplomatic episode. It symbolizes a deeper shift. When a foreign leader can reportedly speak to Israel’s prime minister in such terms while simultaneously influencing Israel’s operational decisions, the relationship begins to resemble dependency more than partnership.

The same is true internally, in our own sense of ourselves. Consider Trump’s scandalous intervention in the criminal proceedings against the prime minister, which some on the extreme right greeted with applause. Or the hoisting of American flags everywhere on Israel’s Independence Day. A troubling change is taking shape in Israel’s understanding of its own independence.

The difficulty is exacerbated when we assess, without naiveté, the depth of the bond with the United States. Cultural changes in our country and theirs are undermining the closeness between the two societies and Israel is increasingly seen as a burden by broad swaths of the American public.

Will Israel’s security remain a central consideration in American foreign policy after the Trump era? Does the special relationship have an expiration date two and a half years from now? And if so, what must be done today?

A common answer is to make the most of the current window of opportunity. But such a strategy assumes a stable foundation. Trump is many things, but stable and predictable are not among them. His abrupt reversals, shifting priorities, and highly personalized style of decision-making make him an uncertain basis for a long-term Israeli security doctrine. Building strategy on such ground is like standing on a trampoline: it may lift you higher than expected, but it may also throw you off balance without warning.

The fear is not imaginary. It is not certain that Israel’s security is a central consideration for Trump. It is more reasonable to assume that he acts out of interests – some detractors would add, also personal ones – and those interests, by their nature, shift as events unfold.

Israel does have something to “sell” the United States and Trump: we are a sophisticated forward outpost of the West in the great zone of friction with the East, and we create real value for American security. But the balance of interests may change.

Trump’s top priority is the global competition with China. If he concludes that improving relations with key Muslim states better serves that objective than maintaining Israel’s current standing, there is no guarantee that Israeli interests will prevail. Israel remains valuable to the United States, but value is not the same as permanence. The Gulf states understand this and are working energetically to reshape the balance in their favor.

What is needed is a weaning process: a measured, calculated descent from the Trumpoline to more stable ground. Let me stress: I am not proposing that Israel shift its orientation from the United States to some other great-power alternative. No such alternative exists. But we must navigate our relations with “the world” in a much more informed manner, neither out of despair nor out of aggression.

We need a more balanced approach toward friendly countries in Europe and beyond, and we must rebuild our relationship with the American public across the political spectrum. American Jews, most of whom are not Trumpists, remain a critical bridge to the broader American consensus and to younger generations increasingly distant from Israel.

This requires two things. First, Israel must treat international legitimacy as a strategic asset and stop squandering it through undisciplined and inflammatory public messaging. Second, strategic planning must account not only for immediate military gains but also for the long-term diplomatic and political conditions that determine Israel’s freedom of action.

These are not alternatives to military strength. They are forms of risk diversification that responsible leadership must pursue before today’s dependence becomes tomorrow’s vulnerability.

Published in TOI

The post Get off the Trumpoline first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

A few days ago, in a move that carries considerable tactical and operational significance, Israel’s Golani Brigade recaptured Beaufort Castle – 26 years after it was abandoned by the IDF. Depending on one’s point of view, the circle has either closed or reopened.

The 12th-century fortress is an integral part of the southern Lebanon landscape. Built on a mountain more than 700 meters above the surrounding terrain, Beaufort dominates key approaches in southern Lebanon. From such high ground, the IDF can improve observation, strengthen forward defense of northern Israeli communities, and complicate Hezbollah’s efforts to move fighters, anti-tank teams, and sniper cells south of the Litani River.

It can make Hezbollah’s tactical life more difficult, and it may help Israel enforce ceasefire understandings in an area where topography really matters.

The move also has significant psychological implications.

Beaufort Castle overlooks Nabatieh, the largest Shiite city in southern Lebanon and one of Hezbollah’s most formidable strongholds. It sends a message to Hezbollah and to the Lebanese state that Israel is prepared to expand its ground presence north of the Litani River as well, if necessary, to bring about Hezbollah’s disarmament – even within the current ceasefire framework and under American pressure.

A powerful Israeli national image

Israel’s return to Beaufort Castle is the kind of feat that invites talk of historical closure.

A flag on the ridge, a Crusader fortress overlooking southern Lebanon, and Golani soldiers back in one of the recognizable symbols of the old Security Zone create a powerful Israeli national image. Beaufort may improve Israel’s local military posture, but it does not solve Israel’s strategic problem in Lebanon. Beaufort Castle is also a central fixture in the collective memory of Israel’s long and costly presence in Lebanon before its 2000 withdrawal.

The significance of recapturing Beaufort should not be underestimated, but neither should it be overstated. The move does not fundamentally change Israel’s strategic problem in Lebanon: Hezbollah. The organization, an Iranian militia, is supported by a large segment of Lebanon’s Shiite community. It threatens Israel from Lebanese territory and, despite current peace talks between Jerusalem and Beirut in Washington, refuses to accept state control of military weapons.

At the most basic level, no localized (re)capture, however significant, can solve this problem.

Add to this the drone threat, which is increasingly one of the most significant operational challenges in Lebanon. This threat is not shaped by the classical principles of war, and Hezbollah is likely to continue launching drones at IDF forces operating in southern Lebanon, exploiting the asymmetric advantages inherent in the use of such systems. The IDF may be able to use its control of Beaufort to raid key nodes in the drones’ value chain, but it will likely be no more than a band-aid. In Ukraine, for instance, fiber-optic drones can reach ranges of up to 50 kilometers, while cellular drones can reach ranges of up to 2,000 kilometers.

Beaufort is a relatively isolated compound, and reaching it is complex, requiring slow, cumbersome, and vulnerable supply chains. This is a daunting challenge for the IDF, which will have to defend not just the outpost itself, but also the road leading to it. It must be remembered that a significant part of the blood price paid by the IDF during its years in Lebanon stemmed from Hezbollah’s ability to exploit the slow supply convoys to the outposts in striking Israeli forces.

The IDF will have to ensure that a battlefield advantage does not turn into a point of vulnerability and that the routes leading to the Beaufort remain safe and open for the movement of military forces.

It will be a Sisyphean task; there is a diplomatic horizon

Viewed soberly, the capture of Beaufort is an important move within the framework of the IDF’s activity in southern Lebanon, but it is not sufficient in and of itself, nor does it provide Israel with a strategic advantage in the struggle to disarm Hezbollah. To achieve that, the State of Israel needs full freedom of action against Hezbollah anywhere in Lebanon. Crucially, Israel must complement the military effort with effective diplomatic activity that leverages the historic crisis Hezbollah is currently facing in Lebanon.

With few allies left, declining support among the Shiite community, and growing pressure from the Lebanese state, the organization is increasingly isolated and vulnerable. It will be a Sisyphean task, long and complex, but for the first time, it is possible. There is a diplomatic horizon.

Israel would do well to focus more on these efforts and less on triumphalist rhetoric about the capture of Beaufort, important as it may be.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post IDF recaptures Beaufort in Lebanon, is this a tactical win or a strategic illusion? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Last week, we celebrated Shavuot, the festival commemorating the giving of the Torah. The Sages called it the “elixir of life.”

But an honest assessment of the Israeli reality shows that it is becoming, in some hands, an elixir of violence and death, of exploiting others and shirking responsibility. Yeshiva heads and TikTok rabbis are leading large groups of believers down a path that heads in the opposite direction from the Torah path.

The festival of Shavuot, and these days in particular, are an opportunity to recalibrate our moral compass and steer those who seek to receive the Torah toward better places – out of responsibility for a country whose Jewish identity and values should be a moral beacon to the world. The data increasingly shows that young Israelis, and Israelis in general, want more Judaism. The Jewish People Policy Institute’s Israeli Society Index, for example, found that 35% of young people say their belief in God has strengthened because of the war; 33% report observing more Jewish practices; 38% pray more; and 27% read the Bible more.

Among traditional and religious young people, the numbers are even higher. These findings join a long line of social and demographic indicators. Israel was, and remains, a Western and secular state. However, the religious turn among many Israelis is felt everywhere: Jewish-traditional symbols, rituals, and language are becoming a more natural and accepted part of the identity of many Israelis. But what kind of Judaism do these “strengthening” secular and traditional Israelis consume? A scroll through the “Judaism feed” of Israeli TikTok yields depressing conclusions. The language of many of the rabbinic “preachers,” who command large audiences of believer-followers and rack up millions of views, is often violent and crude.

Alongside the glorification of mitzvah observance, many of these videos negate the other – the secular Jew, and certainly the non-Jew – and, here and there, implicit calls for violence against anyone who does not fall into line with this religious “theology.” The most extreme result, but one that lays bare the distortion of Jewish values, is the horrific footage from the Independence Day murder scene of Yemanu Binyamin Zelka, the 21-year-old Ethiopian Israeli. Videos from outside the pizza shop, where Zelka worked, show a pack of bloodthirsty youths, tzitzit fluttering from beneath their shirts, beating Zelka and ultimately murdering him in cold blood.

Another grave result – also a growing phenomenon – is violent attacks on businesses that operate on Shabbat. Jewish terrorists in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) pose a different kind of challenge in the name of Torah. The images are familiar and harsh: hilltop youths with oversized kippot and wild sidelocks (peyot) lynching Palestinians or committing “price-tag” attacks in their villages, leaving trails of smoke and destruction behind them.

Here, too, a dangerous brew of false doctrine and racist nationalism – concocted by the young but nourished by their rabbis – leads to disastrous outcomes far removed from the Torah of Sinai, its commandments, and any semblance of Jewish values. And finally, there is the distorted Torah of many haredim (ultra-Orthodox): a Torah whose spokesmen are “the great sages of the generation,” but which should make any Jewish heart shudder. In this Torah, the commandment “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” has been erased, allowing many to carry on with their lives while their non-haredi brethren buckle under the burden of war and sacrifice, defending them.

That directs their young people, and their vast broader community, to disavow any responsibility for the whole of Israeli society and any share in carrying its burden. In the name of heaven, it often teaches them to treat the State of Israel like a feudal lord whom one may, and even must, cheat and steal from. The Torah of Sinai and the Jewish values it espouses are the very heart of our national heritage. The Torah we received at Sinai has 70 faces. The task of every generation is to interpret it and adapt it to its time and place. Our generation has been given a historic mission and responsibility.

Judaism the moral foundation for Israel

Judaism, expressed also through the Torah, is no longer the private affair of the believer or of the community in the ghetto. It is the central moral foundation for renewed Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Therefore, we are obliged to reveal its luminous and ethical face: the face grounded in the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” – even when the other does not share our values or belong to our people. We must not turn it into an elixir of death.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Israeli society must reclaim the Torah’s moral core first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The war with Iran that began on February 28 will be remembered as the moment the US-Israel alliance reached its highest point – and its most politically dangerous one.

On the battlefield, what we witnessed was unprecedented. For the first time in history, the American and Israeli militaries fought as a single, unified force. American and Israeli F-15s and F-35s flew side by side in simultaneous strike packages. They shared intelligence, relied on the same refueling tankers, and divided up targets inside joint command centers, where Israeli officers adopted English as the primary language of the war.

This was not the old model of the alliance, where one side supplied weapons and political backing while the other did the fighting. This was something entirely different.

From the first days of the war, the division of labor between CENTCOM and the IDF was clear. The US focused on protecting its regional bases from ballistic missiles and drones, while also targeting the Iranian navy and working to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Israel, meanwhile, concentrated on the regime itself – its institutions, its command structure, its senior leadership, and the missile stockpiles that threatened the Israeli home front.

The moment that perhaps best symbolized this partnership was the strike that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei. According to the account that has since emerged, the CIA obtained precise intelligence from a human source about Khamenei’s location. That intelligence was passed to Israel.

Israel then launched a massive air operation into Tehran, sending roughly 100 aircraft to strike the compound and eliminate not only Khamenei but also other senior officials around him. Whatever one thinks of the war, it represented a historic moment in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. It involved not only intelligence sharing or diplomatic backing. It was a level of trust and battlefield cooperation unlike anything the two countries had ever demonstrated. In some respects, Israel functioned in the role that Britain filled during World War II.

But while American and Israeli pilots were flying together over Iran, the public foundation of that alliance inside the US was eroding.

America’s public support is slipping

A pew survey published on April 7 found that 60% of American adults now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% just a year earlier. Only 37% said they viewed Israel favorably. That is a stunning figure, considering that for decades Israel has been one of America’s closest allies and one of the largest recipients of US military assistance. Even more troubling is the trajectory. Since 2022, favorable views of Israel have fallen by roughly 20 points.

The generational breakdown paints an even bleaker picture. Pew found that roughly 70% of respondents under the age of 50 expressed unfavorable views of Israel. Among Democrats, the numbers were even more alarming, with about 80% holding unfavorable opinions. Republicans remain more supportive, but even there, the numbers are not what they once were. Fifty-eight percent reported favorable views, while 41% said they viewed Israel unfavorably.

A Gallup poll showed a similar trend right before the war broke out in late February, when for the first time in 25 years of polling, more Americans said they sympathized with the Palestinians than with the Israelis. The margin was not significant, but the trend was impossible to ignore. Support for Israel had dropped sharply in just a year, and the country’s favorability was hovering near a historic low. Think about the contrast for a moment. On the one hand, the US and Israel carried out what may have been the most sophisticated and ambitious joint military operation in the history of their alliance. On the other hand, the very public on which that alliance rests is drifting away.

That is not something Israel can ignore. Alliances are not sustained just by generals, intelligence sharing, and political friendships. In democracies, they endure because the public supports them and because voters believe they have value. Once that support cracks – especially among young people – the strategic consequences may take time to appear, but they ultimately do. For decades, Israel’s strength in the US rested not just on shared values and common enemies, but on bipartisanship. Republicans and Democrats disagreed about many things, but Israel largely remained above the fray.

This allowed Israel to assume that whoever was in office and whatever political reality reigned in Washington, the underlying foundation of support remained bipartisan and broad enough to withstand it. Now, with the consensus frayed on both sides of the aisle, that assumption no longer holds. What makes the current moment even more concerning is that Israel’s critics are no longer confined to one political camp. The hostility is on both extremes.

On the Left, progressive lawmakers like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have for years framed Israel as a colonial aggressor and human rights violator. Their rhetoric, once seen as marginal, has steadily moved into the mainstream of progressive discourse. What used to be the language of the activist fringe is now heard in congressional offices, on university campuses, in major NGOs, and in large parts of the Democratic coalition. But what is newer – and in some ways more dangerous – is the shift in sectors of the Right. Listen to some of the arguments coming from far-right media personalities like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and, at times, even Megyn Kelly, and the overlap is impossible to miss. The language may differ in tone, but the substance is the same: Israel is manipulative, drags America into war, and has interests that are not aligned with America.

This is why anyone who cares about the future of the US-Israel relationship has to ask three questions. First, how did we get to the point where the relationship has become so polarizing? Second, can that erosion be reversed? And third, if it cannot, what does that mean for Israeli security, which remains deeply dependent on American support, assistance, and diplomatic backing? One of the difficulties in discussing this issue is that people tend to blame whichever political side they already oppose. For many Israeli centrists, liberal American Jews, and Democratic voters in the US, the culprit is obvious: Benjamin Netanyahu. He is the Israeli prime minister who, in their view, turned Israel to the far-Right, aligned with Kahanists and the ultra-Orthodox, and moved Israel away from the shared values.

In addition, these people accuse Netanyahu of politicizing the relationship with Washington, identifying Israel too closely with Trump and the Republican Party, and turning one of the country’s most vital strategic assets into a domestic political tool. While this is an exaggeration, there is always a foundation of truth. One recent example came in late January, when Netanyahu declared that Israeli soldiers had “lost their lives” in Gaza because of an “arms embargo” imposed by the Biden administration.

That framing was political and designed to serve Netanyahu at home, and shift the blame from his decisions and policies to president Joe Biden. It turned a strategic disagreement between allies into a domestic talking point. By doing so, it treated Israel’s most important alliance not as a national asset to be protected, but as a political football to be kicked around for short-term gain.

It was not the first time Netanyahu had done this.

One of the clearest examples was in 2015, when he traveled to Washington to speak before Congress against the nuclear deal – the JCPOA – that president Barack Obama was promoting. Netanyahu believed the deal was dangerous, and while he was right on the substance, the manner in which he chose to fight it – by publicly aligning with Republican leadership against a sitting Democratic president – was seen by many Americans as blatant interference in US domestic politics.

Three years earlier, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Netanyahu hosted Republican candidate Mitt Romney in Jerusalem for a high-profile visit that was widely interpreted as an implicit endorsement. And during Netanyahu’s first term as premier, in the late 1990s, his relationship with Bill Clinton was also tense and politically charged.

From the perspective of many Democrats – and especially American Jews, whom mostly vote Democratic – Netanyahu long ago became a partisan figure on the opposite side of America’s own political divide. There is a counter-narrative, one that resonates deeply with many Israelis, especially on the Right, and cannot be dismissed. According to that view, Netanyahu did not politicize the relationship out of recklessness, but because he believed that defending Israel required standing up even to friendly American presidents when their policies endangered the Jewish state.

It is an argument that draws on Golda Meir’s famous line: If the choice is between being dead and pitied or alive with a bad image, we would rather be alive and have the bad image. There is truth in this argument since, after all, Israel’s leaders are not elected to win editorial-page approval in The New York Times. They are elected to keep the country alive. If an American administration is pursuing a policy that Israeli leaders believe will endanger the country, they have an obligation to speak out.

The problem is that this entire conversation is too simplistic. Hinging the relationship on one person such as Netanyahu ignores the demographic and ideological changes reshaping both countries, as well as the complicated history of the US-Israel relationship itself. While US president Harry Truman’s immediate recognition of Israel in 1948 was historic, the following two decades were characterized by strategic distance. Washington did not want to alienate the Arab world and refused to sell weapons to Israel during the War of Independence and also during the 1956 Sinai campaign. The US viewed the new state with sympathy, but not as a strategic partner.

The change started in 1962, when president John F. Kennedy approved the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel. Even then, the sale was justified on the grounds that these were defensive weapons. The deeper shift only came after the 1967 Six Day War, when Lyndon Johnson began to see Israel as a valuable regional asset and the US gradually emerged as its chief arms supplier. Then came the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when president Richard Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass, the airlift that resupplied Israel with weapons and equipment at a moment of existential danger. It was a pivotal shift in policy that demonstrated Israel’s reliance on the US.

From Cold War distance to strategic alliance

But even that high point was followed by strain. In 1975, president Gerald Ford imposed what became known as a “reassessment,” a diplomatic move designed to pressure Israel into territorial concessions. The 1980s were similarly mixed. President Ronald Reagan elevated strategic cooperation and deepened the military relationship, but tensions flared after Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, and again following the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The early 1990s brought renewed optimism with the Oslo process, but that too gave way to friction when Netanyahu took office in 1996 and clashed repeatedly with president Clinton. Then came the Obama years, marked by some of the lowest personal chemistry ever seen between an American president and an Israeli prime minister. Yet, from Obama the relationship moved to Trump, and from one of its most strained phases to one of its warmest. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US embassy there, recognized Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords.

Most Israelis concluded from this that while the relationship was affected by personalities, it was still stronger than any one person. It was rooted in shared interests and values, as well as genuine friendship. The relationship, people believed, was dynamic, but it did not break.

That was true – until recently.

What is happening in America is not just about extremists on campus, social-media influencers, or antisemitism. It is about how regular Americans view Israel, the values Israel appears to project, and the story it is telling the world today. It is about whether large parts of the American public still see the Jewish state as one that they share not only interests with, but also democratic norms.

The war that erupted after the Hamas-led terrorist massacre on October 7, 2023, landed on top of an existing American debate about Israel’s direction – one shaped by the judicial overhaul crisis throughout 2023 and by a broader perception, especially among Democrats and many American Jews, that Israel’s democratic character was changing. Israel itself has shifted to the Right – not only in domestic politics, but also regarding how it approaches security, territory, religion, identity, and the use of force. The rise in Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, and the government’s failure to allocate the resources needed to stop it, are part of this picture.

This “values” dimension is often dismissed in Israel as naive. It should not be. In American politics, values are not just fluff. They are how large parts of the Democratic Party decide which foreign actors are “like us” and which are not.

A rights-based framework now dominates parts of the Left, and Israel is increasingly viewed through that lens regardless of the enemy or how it fights. That is how accusations of genocide and war crimes gain traction, no matter how the IDF conducts itself. On parts of the Right, the problem is different but no less serious. There, an “America First” worldview questions why US resources should fund overseas commitments at all, including to allies such as Israel.

Age makes a huge difference. Older Americans grew up viewing Israel as a vulnerable, threatened country surrounded by enemies, often through the prism of Holocaust. Millennials and younger Americans view Israel differently. To them, Israel is a regional superpower with a purported nuclear arsenal and one of the world’s strongest militaries and economies. They don’t believe they have a moral debt to Israel, and want the relationship to be looked at as a modern foreign policy choice.

For Israel, the repercussions are dramatic. Yes, the relationship is mutually beneficial. Israeli intelligence, technology, and regional capabilities provide enormous value to the US. Israeli operations help counter Iranian aggression, but this is still not a symmetrical relationship. It is obvious which side depends more heavily on the other.

Which means Israeli politicians who speak carelessly about America, who use the alliance for domestic political gain, or who assume that support will always be there are playing with fire. The over-identification with Trump comes at a price, since the pendulum will swing back and a Democrat will one day return to office. When that happens, Israel will face a new reality. In addition, the belief that Israel dragged the US into the Iran war will carry a price, even if a Republican remains in office but adopts a more isolationist posture. The assumption that military success can compensate for political alienation is dangerous and false.

This does not mean Israel should stop fighting the wars that it needs to fight. It does not mean Israel should adopt policies purely to please American editorial boards or activist groups. But it does mean that Israel cannot behave as though there are no consequences to what it says, what it does, and how it is seen. When Israeli government ministers pop open bottles of Champagne to celebrate the passing of a death penalty in the Knesset, Americans notice. When there is no political horizon to resolve conflicts after two and a half years of war, Americans notice. When Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is tolerated, and domestic democratic norms are under attack, Americans notice.

And they draw conclusions.

That is why the lesson of this war is not only military. It is political. Because what once looked like a relationship protected by bipartisan consensus is today exposed to demographic change, ideological realignment, culture-war politics, and growing skepticism on both sides of the American spectrum.

From a security perspective, one of the most immediate challenges Israel faces is whether it will receive approval from the Trump administration to renew the 10-year aid package under which the IDF annually receives $3.8 billion in military aid. The current MOU – signed by the Obama administration in 2016 – will expire in September 2027. That may sound like a while away, but in strategic terms it is around the corner, and if Israel wants to secure a new agreement, discussions need to have begun already.

The next MOU matters for two reasons. First, because the aid is needed especially in a post-October 7 reality, when the threats against Israel are not abstract. Second, it has value as a symbol of an alliance which illustrates that no matter who is the president – Obama or Trump – the institutional relationship remains resilient.

Interestingly, in 2016, before Obama approved the MOU, there was a debate in the government whether to close the deal with Obama or wait for the next president. Netanyahu ultimately chose to sign with Obama for one simple reason: he knew what he was getting. Hillary Clinton was expected to be supportive, but Trump was an unknown quantity at the time, and his “America First” rhetoric worried Israeli defense officials. Fast forward to 2021. Under president Biden, some inside the Israeli government quietly explored the possibility of beginning talks on a future MOU even though years remained on the current one. The logic was that Biden was also a known supporter of Israel, and it would be better to lock in a deal while the opportunity existed. Then came October 7, and the MOU talks were pushed aside.

There is already a growing understanding in Israel’s defense establishment that the next package will be the hardest one to secure, and that Trump is the last American president who would even consider offering a major long-term aid package. According to this thinking, whoever succeeds him – Republican or Democrat – would balk at a deal.

This is why some Israeli officials have proposed a new model – one based less on dependence and more on partnership. The idea would be to use the next MOU not merely to procure weapons, but to deepen joint development, production, and operational integration.

The recent war with Iran only strengthens that logic. If the two militaries can fight side by side as partners, then perhaps the alliance can be framed less as America subsidizing Israel and more as the two countries investing together in technologies, capabilities, and systems that serve both. That is an important conversation. But it should not create illusions. Although Israel can build greater defense independence, there are limits.

The IDF’s reliance on the US is not just about artillery shells or one-ton bombs. Every aircraft flown by the Israel Air Force except one is American-made – F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, Apache helicopters, Black Hawks, CH-53 helicopters, C-130s, Gulfstreams, and Boeing refueling tankers. This means that if a US administration wants to stop an Israeli war, it does not need to withhold one-ton bombs, as Biden did. All it needs to do is slow down the flow of spare parts for combat aircraft. Without spare parts, planes will not be able to fly, and if planes cannot fly, Israel will not be able to fight.

Which is why the future of the US-Israel relationship cannot be reduced to slogans. Israel needs to invest in independence where it can, but it also needs to invest more in strengthening support in the US.

The same war that revealed the astonishing operational partnership has also exposed how vulnerable that alliance is in the years ahead. This is the real danger, and while Israel’s leaders do not control the polarization in American politics, they do control how they treat the alliance and whether it receives the seriousness it deserves. They can decide whether to preserve it as a national asset or exploit it as a partisan tool. Only they can decide whether to govern in a way that widens the gap with America or narrows it.

Israel has spent decades building a relationship with the US that no other country in the Middle East has ever had. It would be a historic act of negligence to assume that because it exists, it will simply endure on its own.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post The US-Israel alliance reached a military peak, but its political future is under threat first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Political violence is like pollution – no matter what the source, it threatens everyone. Rav Joseph Soloveitchik, the great 20th-century sage, explained that Jews still fast, mourning the assassination of Gedaliah ben Ahikam in 586 B.C.E., because “the enemy was not from without but from within… It serves as a reminder that we are our own worst enemy when we allow internal strife to eclipse our shared identity.” Nevertheless, this third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump triggered another round of hypocritical attacks blasting political violence – from the other side.

On CNN, Dana Bash asked Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who has called Trump a “fascist,” a “tyrant” and a “gangster” guilty of “murder”: “You have, as many of your fellow Democrats, have, used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?” Raskin stunned everyone by sounding stunned, asking: “What rhetoric do you have in mind?” Similarly, Trump’s press secretary blamed the assault on the Democrats’ “systemic demonization” of Trump amid a “left-wing cult of hatred.”

This is not the pathway to healing. Sanctimonious calls for unity in between partisan rants only backfire. Speaking out of one side of your mouth won’t stop this scourge. All must condemn left-wing, right-wing and Jihadi terrorism consistently. Today’s scorching political rhetoric fuels this exhibitionist violence, as indoctrination eclipses inquiry, certainty banishes uncertainty, and demonization discourages debate – online, on the air and even in too many classrooms.

Increasingly, with only one in four attending religious services weekly, Americans are replacing their grandparents’ overriding faith in religion with political orthodoxy. Many fill the God-sized holes in their hearts with simplistic slogans shortcircuiting their brains – and curdling their souls. More and more seek out romantic partners who agree with them politically, while avoiding conversations with those who dare to disagree.

This polarized environment has even colored how people view the violent acts that recently wracked the nation. Three-quarters of Democrats deemed the 2020 George Floyd protests peaceful – despite rioting that caused over a billion dollars of damage and killed dozens – while 54% of Republicans deemed the protests violent. Yet, 81% of Democrats called the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot an “insurrection,” with 74% of Republicans disagreeing.

Partisans keep confusing ends and means. Believing in your cause doesn’t require justifying violence carried out in its name. Actually, the most fervent believers carry special responsibility – they have the street cred among their comrades to discourage violence.

Instead, while pro-Palestinian groups have been most identified with the dishonorable, nihilistic, antidemocratic (and antisemitic) cry “by any means necessary,” it’s become an all-purpose rationale whenever your allies overreach. We need the opposite. We need Palestinian and Muslim activists condemning anti-Zionist and anti-Western Jihadi terrorism, socialists decrying the December 2024 murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, liberals mourning Charlie Kirk and conservatives condemning attacks targeting Democrats ranging from Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi to Pennsylvania’s Governor Josh Shapiro.

Instead, too many political leaders and influencers are so angry, they forget that their political rivals are fellow citizens too. In November, President Trump condemned six Democratic lawmakers for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Even all the Washington “swamp” talk is rabble-rousing – swamps are toxic and must be drained.

Similarly, Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) shouldn’t have called the duly-elected President of the United States an “existential threat to democracy,” while her Michigan congressional colleague Rashida Tlaib (D) shouldn’t have branded him a “war criminal.” And anyone romanticizing the murderer of Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO, or, like the influencer Hasan Piker, invoking “social murder” to “explain” it, is part of the problem.

Amid so much media noise, with social media creating Algorithmic Radicals, spiraling deeper and deeper into violence-inducing echo chambers, many believe the shriller the better. But words matter – and tone matters too. It’s no better to have Candace Owens calling Democrats “demonic” than for Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, Professor Robert Reich, to say “Donald Trump poses a threat to civilization.”

In “The Nature of Prejudice” (1954), Harvard’s legendary social psychologist, Gordon Allport, studied racism to show how words can kill. His five-point scale built from “verbal violence” – trash-talking – to snubbing, discriminating, wounding then killing. With so many angry, lost, broken Americans today, the overheated rhetoric creates armies of rageoholics ready to fight on the street – or hunt down political enemies.

Long before the Internet monetized today’s aggression-attention economy, America seemed addicted to political violence – roused by waves of barn-burners. Historians have long speculated about what causes this bloody red-white-and-blue affliction. It’s resulted in four martyred presidents, Civil War, and so many riots – against immigrants in the 1850s and by immigrants resisting the draft in the 1860s; by antiwar forces and pro-war forces a century later; and by racists against Blacks, and by Blacks against racism, among other manifestations. The violence may come from America’s wild, rollicking, frontier origins; many demagogues’ need to rally around some enemy; the alienation people feel in such a diverse, rootless, mobile, society; or the anxiety they feel amid America’s dynamic but chaotic economy.

Often, like today, high-stakes clashes over complicated challenges leave even reasonable people worried that their political opponents pose unreasonable threats.

Fortunately, America also has a rich history of leaders who stirred what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” George Washington faced down a potential mutiny with his Newburgh Address in 1783, warning that “the flood Gates of Civil discord” would only “deluge our rising Empire in Blood.” By simply fumbling with his spectacles, the aging general broadcast a sense of humility and patriotism that calmed the furies.

In 1838, Abraham Lincoln’s “Lyceum Address” offered a “simple” answer to the great threat that most feared America faced –  collective suicide through internal dissension: “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”

And in 1968, still mourning his beloved brother John’s 1963 assassination, Robert Kennedy soothed angry mourners in Indianapolis minutes after Martin Luther King’s murder. RFK proclaimed: “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another….”

If our leaders, our social media influencers, our Facebook “friends” cannot model such behavior – these historical voices must resonate throughout the land. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was filled with Trump Administration officials – and critics. But bullets, like pollutants, threaten everyone, whether they’re on the wrong side or not.

Americans need not bury the hatchet – but we must lower the rhetorical temperature. Jews have long appreciated the power of machloket, constructive, even if impassioned, debate. The Progressive educator John Dewey was right: “Democracy begins in conversation.” But democracy only survives when watered with self-doubt, open-mindedness, and respect for our fellow-citizens – especially when they exasperate us.

Published in Jewish Journal

The post Are Americans Finally Ready to Denounce Violence — Left, Right and Jihadist? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.