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Just as the memory of the massacre of Jews in communities in southern Israel and at the Nova music festival has been largely erased from the mainstream media by the drumbeat of invective about the alleged suffering of those who launched the war, the sense of American Jewish solidarity with Israel has also seemed to be diminishing. In the weeks following the D.C. rally, the news was filled with stories about increasingly aggressive anti-Israel rallies on the streets of American cities and especially on college campuses. The hallmark of these events was the unfiltered antisemitism on display with not just chants for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet (“from the river to the sea”) and for terrorism against Jews wherever they live (“globalize the intifada”), but also violence.
While many, if not most, community members are still anguished about events in Israel and worried about their own future, it seems to be largely business as usual in the organized Jewish world. Jewish groups have raised money for Israel and lobbied members of Congress to stand fast in their support for the Jewish state. And it’s true that some courageous Jewish funders began a movement pushing back against the tolerance for antisemitism that was common on elite college campuses—symbolized by the congressional testimony of three university presidents who managed only to say that it depended on “context” as to whether calls for Jewish genocide were against their codes of conduct.
The streets belong to the antisemites
But since that November rally, the public square has, with a few exceptions, increasingly belonged to the antisemites who often block traffic or tunnels and bridges with impunity. It’s not just that Jews are usually cautioned by their leaders as well as public authorities to steer clear of confrontations with those smearing Israel or cheering those who spill Jewish blood. There also seems to be a general consensus that Jewish interests are not best served by mobilizing the Jewish public again in that manner. After months of American Jews being subjected to the incessant incitement against Israel in the liberal media outlets that the majority of them read, listen or watch, perhaps that’s also rooted in fears that another mass response in the manner of Nov. 14 isn’t likely.
Just as troubling is the general acquiescence with which major Jewish groups who purport to speak for the community have greeted the turn against Israel on the part of the Biden administration. While President Joe Biden was rightly lauded by Jewish groups for his pro-Israel stand at the start of the war, including his support for the elimination of Hamas, he has gotten a pass from legacy organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League for his campaign of pressure aimed at hamstringing the efforts of the Israel Defense Forces to achieve that goal.
Just as important, his constant invocation of the need to create a Palestinian state after the war has been met with either silence or approval from the same liberal groups that still claim to be steadfast in their post-Oct. 7 pro-Israel advocacy. That is also true of Biden’s decision to go back on a Trump administration ruling that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria were not illegal, coupled with gratuitous sanctions on Jewish settlers; both seemed aimed at preparing the way for a renewed campaign for forcing Israel out of the territories.
So, what’s behind that Jewish silence?
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