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By Jonathan S. Tobin
(April 5, 2024 / JNS) The debate going on in the United States about Israel’s war against Hamas took a new and disturbing turn in the last week. But there was one thing missing from the discussion. Many of the Jewish state’s enemies talk a lot about the mythical power of the “Israel lobby” and supposedly nefarious Jewish influence over Washington, which betrays the antisemitism that runs through much of their discourse. But mobs chanting for Israel’s destruction and terrorism against Jews in the streets of American cities and on college campuses have become commonplace. And those advocating for a ceasefire in the war that will let the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacres get away with mass murder also seem to have enormous, even decisive influence with the Biden administration.
But there seems little indication that the legacy Jewish organizations that claim to speak for American Jewry are using much or any of their vaunted influence to halt the momentum of those working to destroy the U.S.-Israel alliance. Nor is there much sign that the organizers who helped turn out 300,000 people for a “March for Israel” in November have seriously contemplated what it means for the Jews and other pro-Israel Americans to concede the streets and campuses to extremist Jew-haters as has largely happened in recent months as a surge of antisemitism continues to grow.
After months of slowly moving away from its initial position of strong support for Israel, the Biden administration took a crucial step towards pleasing its left-wing critics. So-called “progressives” have been calling for President Joe Biden to put the screws on the Jewish state to make it stop the war against Hamas. As a result, the president has abandoned his previous positions on Hamas and is now clearly more worried about losing left-wing voters in his campaign for re-election—particularly in the state of Michigan, which has the highest Arab population in the United States—than he is about eliminating the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacres or the influence of Iran.
Who does Biden fear?
It’s not just that he is in thrall to a vocal ideologically woke anti-Israel protest movement that commands the support of most of the activist wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal corporate media. Biden also seems to think that he will pay no political price for abandoning Israel.
That was the context for Biden’s phone conversation this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though supposedly a response to the accidental killing of seven aid workers in Gaza, Biden’s threats and demands seemed to make it clear that he was prepared to do as leftist allies bid him.
That means that if Israel continues its necessary campaign to eradicate Hamas and seeks to finish off the last terrorist strongholds in Rafah in the southernmost part of the Strip, as well as failing to make even more dangerous concessions in the hostage ransom talks which Hamas has been emboldened to stonewall, Biden appears ready to punish it with a cutoff of military aid. On the other hand, if Netanyahu—buffeted by criticism from home and abroad, and worried about whether his nation can stand alone—bows to these demands, then he will essentially be conceding defeat in the war begun by Hamas on Oct. 7 with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. And that is a decision that would guarantee even more horrors in the future from Israel’s array of regional enemies.
It’s hard to imagine any Israeli government, no matter who led it, being willing to let Hamas win in this manner. Israelis elected Netanyahu in November 2022 but are deeply divided about his continued hold on power. Nevertheless, they overwhelmingly support the war on Hamas and want their government to finish off the terrorists in Gaza, and then neutralize the threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north by one means or another. But should the United States join the growing movement to isolate the Jewish state, it would be foolish to think that the consequences would be anything but dire.
This would seem to be the cue for the pro-Israel community to find its voice again. Yet outside of the usual staunch voices like that of the Zionist Organization of America, Jewish leadership is largely silent. Mainstream entities can be counted on to denounce antisemitism, as is their job; however, their leaders and likely many of their main politically liberal donors are too invested in support for Biden’s re-election campaign to be willing to speak out against the administration’s pivot away from its initial post-Oct. 7 positions.
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