These days, when Americans elect Democrats, the result is inevitable crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. That is because American liberals live in the world of fantasy, and mistake media narratives for reality.
There are three realities that the Biden administration does not get. One: the Palestinians are not a peace partner. Two: Israeli weakness encourages terror. Three: the judicial reforms are mostly ordinary.
Part of the reason that Biden & Co. do not understand these realities is that the media, who create reality for the D.C. elite, do not get them, either, and the Israeli media are no different in this regard.
In fact, one can describe the ongoing domestic political crisis in Israel -- as well as the crisis in U.S.-Israel relations -- as the result of poor reporting, especially in the English-language Israeli press.
Take, for example, the recent Knesset passage of a law enforcing the 2005 "disengagement" and its prohibition on Jews entering northern Samaria. The U.S. brought in the Israeli ambassador for a rebuke.
That in itself is an extraordinary measure, not undertaken since 2010, when the Obama administration hauled in Michael Oren over Israel's decision to build some apartments in a Jewish area of Jerusalem.
The U.S. treated the Knesset law as a violation of a 2005 deal on the disengagement -- as if the disengagement were still a valid policy, as if Palestinians had not turned Gaza into a launchpad for terror.
Worse, it was almost impossible to find any explanation in the English-language Israeli press about why the Knesset passed the law. The impression was that it was a nod to future settlements.
In fact, the law was not passed to facilitate new settlements, but for much the same reason that the U.S. Congress is about to repeal the authorization for war in Iraq: to correct a historic policy mistake.
The only place in which this was explained in English was on the right-leaning website Israel Hayom, where an op-ed described it as a statement to Israel's enemies in the wake of an outbreak of terror.
There is not much outrage over recent Palestinian terror from the Biden administration. And no wonder: the wave began shortly after Biden was elected and restored funding to Palestinian groups.
It is no coincidence that the 2021 Gaza conflict began just weeks after that ridiculous decision. The U.S. media failed to hold Biden accountable -- and barely reports the ongoing attacks in Israel.
The judicial reform, and the protests against it, are front and center. Here, again, the media have failed. The reforms are actually quite moderate, and parallel existing U.S. practice, with a few exceptions.
American Jewish groups have protested the reforms as an affront to Jewish values -- which must mean that they consider their own judiciary an affront to Jewish values, since it works in similar ways.
American judges, for example, are not just appointed by politicians, the way Israel's judges will be in future; many are even elected by the public and run on specific platforms to enforce this law or that.
There are complex issues underlying the protests that have nothing to do with judicial reform, as a recent article in Tablet pointed out (noting the destructive role of U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides).
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/tom-nides-israels-arsonist-in-chief
But what is worse is that some Israelis have taken the hysterics over reform so seriously that many secular, moderate Israelis are looking for ways to leave the country, as the Jerusalem Post has reported.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-734950
Though the phenomenon is real, the Post hints -- unintentionally -- at a more basic problem. The reporter falsely claims that U.S. Jews once considered leaving because they were afraid of Trump:
"In the weeks leading up to the United States’ 2020 presidential election, inquiries to law firms specializing in helping Americans move abroad saw a sharp uptick in inquiries — many of them from Jews fearful about a second Trump administration after then-President Donald Trump declined to unequivocally condemn white supremacists. When President Joe Biden was elected, they largely called off the alarm."
Perhaps there were such inquiries. But there never was a threat to U.S. Jews from Trump (the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish president since Truman) and he certainly condemned white supremacists.
The low standard of reporting here -- the reporter may genuinely believe what she wrote -- indicates that similar myths may be afoot in the Israeli media. And we Jews, immersed in media, believe them.
Amid all the chaos, it is noteworthy that Benjamin Netanyahu and his government remain united -- all the more so because of the anarchic nature of the opposition, which has made the price of defeat clear.
I would predict that Israel will emerge from this crisis, for that reason alone. Strength and success encourage unity. You win the PR war by winning the actual war -- the legislative war, in this context.
But something has to be done about the sorry state of the media. At the very least, English-language outlets in the U.S. and Israel need to be conscious of their left-wing bias, and reach out to conservatives.
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm