From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Israeli Analysts Worry the US-Israel ‘Special Relationship’ Is Waning As American Jews Abandon Israel
Date January 27, 2023 1:05 AM
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
[ A leading Israeli think tank warns the countrys “special
relationship” with the US is in danger due to a progressive shift
among American Jews, which poses a strategic threat to Israel.]
[[link removed]]

ISRAELI ANALYSTS WORRY THE US-ISRAEL ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’ IS
WANING AS AMERICAN JEWS ABANDON ISRAEL  
[[link removed]]


 

Jonathan Ofir
January 24, 2023
Mondoweiss
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ A leading Israeli think tank warns the country's “special
relationship” with the US is in danger due to a progressive shift
among American Jews, which poses a strategic threat to Israel. _

Major General (Res.) Tamir Hayman, The Chair of The Institute For
National Security Studies (Inss). (Photo: Wikimedia Commons),

 

The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli military
outfit housed at Tel Aviv University, just delivered its strategic
assessment report to Israeli President Isaac Herzog yesterday, January
23. The report is not yet available for viewing, but it’s being
widely reported on and partially quoted in Israeli Hebrew-language
media. 

The main takeaway from the report is that Israel’s “special
relationship” with the US is in danger.

The report attributes the reason for this change to a generational
shift in American politics, expressed in “the influence that the
progressive young generation has had in denying the legitimacy of
Israel and Zionism, which they see as expressions of white-colonialist
supremacy.” 

The report speaks of being “challenged by social-political
developments which are internal to America, and are due to the
distancing of Jewish [American] communities from Israel, due, among
other reasons, to what goes on in the country [Israel].”  

This threat, of course, represents Israel’s greatest strategic
threat above the danger of a third Palestinian Intifada and above the
supposedly ever-looming “Iranian nuclear threat.” 

The chair of INSS, Major General (Res.) Tamir Hayman spoke on Channel
12
[[link removed]] with
Oded Ben Ami, explaining that this phenomenon of “distancing”
between American Jewry and Israel has been a long-term issue, and he
said that it is really mostly about developments inside the US:

“In the long term, without it having to do with Israel, due to
internal processes inside the USA — social, political, and other
[processes] that have changed the social value structure of America
— a crack might form in the values that connect us to the United
States”. 

Hayman says this ‘crack” doesn’t really have to do with Israel.
It’s just about the United States becoming more progressive. But
what about Israel becoming more visibly regressive and oppressive? And
what about young Americans reading multiple reports from the whole of
the human rights community that Israel is practicing apartheid? In
general, American Jews are getting the message – already, one out of
four Jews in America realizes that Israel is an Apartheid state.
[[link removed]] The
younger are even quicker to understand it — when it comes to Jews
under 40, that understanding goes up to 38%. 

Hayman, who is the former head of Military Intelligence, spoke of the
“position of the Israeli supreme court and the legal system in
Israel” in terms of securing Israel’s position as it is seen by
liberals. “The Israeli justice system, [being] independent and
critical, has a very good reputation in the world,” he said, and
this reputation “has been a defensive wall against demands for
external investigations and meddling and restricting of operations of
the IDF in anything that relates to Judea and Samaria [biblical names
for the occupied Palestinian West Bank] and in the Palestinian arena
in general.”

The protests of the many thousands in Israel for “democracy” is
very much about securing the fortitude of this “defensive wall”
for the “Jewish democracy”. It is very much a conceptual wall.
Hayman’s point, applying the Israeli militant jargon of “defensive
wall,” is also echoed by recent protests at the President’s
residence by opponents of the judicial reform which would weaken the
supreme court powers:

“The High Court is the flak jacket of IDF soldiers, it is protection
for our sons and daughters that serve in the army, from attempts to
petition against IDF soldiers at the International Criminal Court in
The Hague,” warned Rachel Azaria
[[link removed]], a former centrist
lawmaker, now CEO of Darkenu, in one of those protests.

But let us remember that the Israeli refusal to criminally investigate
the targeting of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last year was before
this current government. That was the supposedly liberal Defense
Minister, Benny Gantz. 

Nonetheless, a weakening of the supreme court would reduce Israel’s
image as a state with a robust and critical judicial system. Its
supreme court has actually legitimized all the major principle
violations of the Apartheid state’s occupation — its illegal wall
(declared so by the ICJ in 2004 but contested by the supreme court),
the illegality of its settlements, the whole occupation (which the
court first regarded as temporary and then as merely “prolonged”)
as well as the racist and discriminatory “Nation state” law of
2018. 

Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy writes in his recent article
[[link removed]] concerning
the mass protests: 

“Even if all the demands of the protesters are realized, the Supreme
Court carried aloft, the attorney general exalted and the executive
branch returned to its rightful stature, Israel will remain an
apartheid state.”

But keeping the mask is a prime strategic security concern for Israel.
It cannot stop its trajectory of apartheid. Indeed, it is becoming
increasingly explicit, although it didn’t start with this government
and will probably not end with any “government of change” in the
foreseeable future. Young Americans are seeing it — they are neither
blind nor stupid, which is a problem for Israel. American Jews,
especially the younger ones, who have been taught that Israel is part
of their identity, feel betrayed. 

The message of this INSS report for Israel will mean one thing: more
Hasbara, more Zionist propaganda — the only tool Israel knows
besides repression. 

Since Israel simply can’t change from within, it needs to change
everyone else’s minds. 

_H/t Ofer Neiman_

_[Mondoweiss [[link removed]] is an independent website
devoted to informing readers about developments in Israel/Palestine
and related US foreign policy. We provide news and analysis
unavailable through the mainstream media regarding the struggle for
Palestinian human rights._

_Founded in 2006 as a personal blog of journalist Philip Weiss,
Mondoweiss grew inside the progressive Jewish community and has become
a critical resource for the movement for justice for Palestinians. We
continue to follow debates over the role of Israel and nationalism in
Jewish American life while seeking to reflect a diverse community of
views on issues of international importance. We recognize that Jewish
voices are often prioritized in discussions of Israel and seek to
challenge that dynamic by bringing a universalist focus to an issue
that is commonly dominated by narrow points of view._

_We publish original on-the-ground reporting, analysis by scholars and
personal stories. As the site has grown, we have developed a large
group of regular contributors who are committed to high journalistic
standards of documentable evidence and reliable sourcing._

_Mondoweiss editors select content for the site on the basis of our
shared commitment to news professionalism as well as justice for
Palestinians. We do not have a single editorial position on specific
issues, but aim to build a diverse online community, with special
focus on viewpoints generally ignored by large media outlets. Writing
published on Mondoweiss represents the views of its authors and does
not necessarily represent the opinions of the site or its editors.]_

* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Jewish community
[[link removed]]
* American Jews
[[link removed]]
* U.S.-Israel relations
[[link removed]]
* Mideast
[[link removed]]
* US Mideast policy
[[link removed]]
* U.S. foreign policy
[[link removed]]
* Middle East
[[link removed]]
* zionism
[[link removed]]
* Benjamin Netanyahu
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]
Screenshot of the email generated on import

Message Analysis

  • Sender: Portside
  • Political Party: n/a
  • Country: United States
  • State/Locality: n/a
  • Office: n/a
  • Email Providers:
    • L-Soft LISTSERV