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.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
