Last week, I argued that Israel’s cratering support in the US and globally isn’t simply the fault of one man: Bibi Netanyahu. While he bears significant responsibility, Israel’s current predicament stems from policies and actions that have unfolded over decades.

If I’m right, then an election in October and a change in prime minister won’t solve the problem. Something more fundamental is required: a change in direction.

While Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their allies are shaping Israel into something unrecognizable to many long-time supporters, there remains a real opportunity to choose a different path – one that leads to a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people living in peace with its neighbors and ensuring freedom, dignity and prosperity for Palestinians in a state of their own.

In elections this fall, Israelis will face a stark choice: continue down a path toward being a kind of “super Sparta,” condemned to live forever by the sword, or move toward a future that brings regional acceptance and normalization.

Still, I know that this focus leads many – sometimes critics, sometimes people genuinely wrestling with whether they should engage with us – to ask: If you’re truly pro-Israel, why spend so much time criticizing what Israel is doing? Why not highlight what’s good?

It’s a fair question. But it rests on a misunderstanding of what it means to support a country you care deeply about.

Being pro-Israel can’t mean going easy on policies that endanger its future. It means confronting them – even, and especially, when doing so is uncomfortable.

And it means standing with Israelis who are doing exactly that – often at great personal pain and cost.

One of the clearest examples of that kind of leadership comes from Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), an organization made up of many of the most senior figures ever to serve in Israel’s defense, intelligence and diplomatic corps.

These are people who have devoted their lives to defending the state. They understand, better than almost anyone, the cost of weakness and the necessity of strength.

And, in recent weeks, they have issued a stark warning about a growing threat from within.

In a letter to the head of the IDF’s Central Command, they wrote that settler violence in the West Bank has become “a daily, permanent, and terrifying phenomenon,” not the work of a few fringe actors but “an organized system” aimed at driving Palestinians from their land.

In a follow-up letter, they underscored that allowing such violence to continue is “a blow to state security” that diverts forces and risks opening another front.

This is not the language of Israel’s adversaries. It is the language of some of its most seasoned defenders.

And it is, in my view, the very definition of patriotism.

These are individuals who built the institutions now under strain – and are now willing to say publicly: this is wrong, this is dangerous, and it must change.

These are also the Israelis who organized an alternative Independence Day celebration this week, warning that the country has been “hijacked.”

Two former leaders of the nation’s military - yes, former Chiefs of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - wrote in an op-ed inviting fellow citizens to join them that the country’s leaders:

“… are trampling over the values by which this country has been founded: equality, liberty and justice.”

That is what it looks like to fight for Israel – not just with weapons, but with values.

It is also a reminder that criticism and love of country are not opposites. Often, they are inseparable.

There is another Israel I want people to see as well.

This week, in Tel Aviv, Israelis and Palestinians gathered for a joint Memorial Day ceremony – bringing together those who have lost loved ones in the conflict to mourn and to affirm a shared commitment to a different future.

Writing in Haaretz, Linda Dayan captured the ceremony’s spirit:

“This is the Israel I love. This is the Israel I choose each day to stand in, to make my home, to work toward improving.”

That line captures, in a very human way, what being pro-Israel actually means for those of us loudly opposing where it is heading.

The Israel of Commanders for Israel’s Security – the Israel willing to confront moral failure because it understands the stakes. And the Israel of the joint Memorial Day ceremony – the Israel that insists on shared humanity even amid grief and loss.

That is the Israel I advocate for.

That is the Israel J Street stands for.

If Israel is to regain its standing in the world – if it is to maintain the support of even a fraction of Jewish America under age 35 – that is the Israel we have to fight for.

And fighting for that Israel – by telling the truth about the one we see today – is what being pro-Israel demands.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Following the vote this week by 40 Democratic Senators to disapprove sales of bombs and bulldozers to Israel, I’ve been hearing a lot of anxiety across Jewish America – in chat groups, in the media, in communal conversations – asking a version of the same question: Has the Democratic Party turned anti-Israel?

The short answer is no.

Democrats refusing to sell bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank isn’t evidence of abandoning Israel or the Jewish people.

It’s evidence of something else: a party trying to reconcile its values with the reality of what an American ally is doing – with American support and American weapons - in Gaza and on the West Bank.

This isn’t about Israel’s legitimacy. It’s about its policies.

And that leads to the next question I keep hearing: will this tension go away when Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer prime minister? Can things just go back to “normal”?

Again, no.

That hope – that everything can return to a more comfortable “before time” once Netanyahu is gone – was actually at the core of early Biden administration thinking when the Bennett-Lapid government took office in 2021. The assumption was simple: new leadership, more moderate tone, fewer problems.

So the strategy became: don’t push too hard. Don’t force big changes. Manage the conflict.

We now know where that mindset led.

For years, “managing the conflict” meant accepting a reality in which millions of Palestinians live without basic rights, under indefinite military control, with expanding settlements and periodic eruptions of violence. It wasn’t stable or just – it just looked containable for a while.

Saying that doesn’t ignore the other reality: Israel faces real threats. It has enemies. It needs to be strong and able to defend itself. And the senators who cast these votes were clear about that as well – they want to stand with Israel and its people.

But they are no longer willing to provide a blank check for permanent occupation.

What’s changing – especially among Democrats, but also among Republicans – is a growing recognition that unconditional support for policies that entrench occupation and deny Palestinians basic rights is at odds with both American values and American interests.

And there’s another piece of this that often gets missed.

Those – like J Street – criticizing Israeli policy aren’t just reacting to what they oppose – they have a vision for what Israel’s future could be.

A future where Israel is fully integrated into the Middle East: secure, recognized and normalized not just with a handful of countries, but across the Arab and Muslim world. What we’ve called a “23-state solution” – Israel alongside a sovereign Palestinian state, with normalization across the region.

But that future isn’t compatible with permanent occupation.

You can’t have both. You can’t deepen normalization while indefinitely denying millions of Palestinians basic rights and a path to self-determination.

And that reality won’t change with a new Israeli prime minister. Because the issue isn’t one leader - it’s a system that’s been in place for nearly six decades.

I’ve been struck by how many people still believe that once Netanyahu exits, things will reset – that tensions will ease and bipartisan consensus will return.

I think that’s a misread.

Netanyahu has made things worse. But he didn’t create the underlying reality.

Meanwhile, Israel finds itself in a kind of strategic cul-de-sac – stuck in a pattern of recurring wars and ongoing control over another people, without a real political horizon.

More force – more raids, more demolitions, more military operations - hasn’t resolved the conflict.

It can’t.

You can’t bomb or bulldoze your way out of a political problem.

Only a political solution – one that ensures rights, freedom, security and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians – can do that. And only that kind of shift can put the U.S.-Israel relationship back on stable, sustainable footing in American politics.

So what happened in the Senate this week isn’t Democrats turning on Israel.

It’s Democrats refusing to ignore the contradiction between supporting Israel and supporting a permanent occupation.

That tension has been building for years. Now it’s out in the open.

And it’s not going away with a change in leadership or better messaging.

Because this isn’t about Netanyahu.

It’s about the occupation – and the growing insistence in American politics that it has to end.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

In January of this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Economist:

“I want to taper off the military aid within the next ten years.”

Asked if he meant reducing it to zero, he replied: “Yes. We’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”

Within hours of Netanyahu’s interview, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – one of Israel’s staunchest Republican allies in the Senate – tweeted that he would propose accelerating that timeline:

“I will always appreciate allies who are trying to be more self-sufficient,” he wrote. “Given what the Prime Minister said, we need not wait ten years.”

Subscribe now

Both Netanyahu and Graham pointed to the same underlying reality: Israel today has one of the most dynamic and advanced economies in the world. With a per capita GDP higher than countries like the United Kingdom, France and Japan, Israel is more than capable of paying for its own defense – just as America’s other wealthy allies already do.

Yet the United States provides Israel with $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing - more than half of all such funding the U.S. distributes globally – on top of an additional $500 million/year for joint missile defense systems and other occasional significant supplemental appropriations.

That reality raises a straightforward question: why should American taxpayers continue to subsidize the defense budget of a prosperous ally, particularly at a time when the U.S. faces its own significant fiscal pressures?

Netanyahu and Graham are not alone in this view. For years, analysts and policymakers across the political spectrum have been arguing that Israel no longer needs generous economic subsidies.

On the right, in 2023, Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz wrote in Tablet that the relationship should become “more forthrightly transactional,” noting that ending aid would not mean ending cooperation. On the contrary, they argued, it would clarify mutual interests and strengthen the relationship.

Six years ago, former Israeli Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin and former U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer proposed phasing out security assistance, arguing that it would ultimately benefit both countries.

Similar arguments have emerged on the left as well. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently noted that Israel is “well able to fund the Iron Dome system,” and Congressman Ro Khanna argued that when it comes to Iron Dome – a system he called “important and saves lives” – Israel should be able to buy it on its own.

Across the political spectrum, a growing view is emerging: the US-Israel relationship should be “normalized.”

Supporters of Israel - many raised on the vision that the Jewish people just want Israel to be treated like all other countries - should welcome the development. The benefits of disproportionately large financial assistance today are outweighed by the damage to Israel when that financial support becomes a divisive wedge in American politics.

To be clear: a call to end American financial subsidies for Israel’s defense is not a call to end the U.S.-Israel security relationship.

Israel faces significant threats and security challenges - from Iran, terror groups and more. The United States should continue to support Israel in confronting those threats in a host of important ways including intelligence sharing, operational coordination, joint exercises, and cooperative development of defense technologies.

Security assistance does not have to - and should no longer - take the form of unconditional financial subsidy. Instead, it should resemble the support we provide our other advanced allies.

Arms sales – paid for by Israel and governed by U.S. law - should continue in accordance with all relevant statutes including the Leahy Law, the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act.

The U.S. should continue to sell Israel important - and jointly developed - air defense systems like Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.

I cannot emphasize enough how important missile defense systems such as Iron Dome are to the Israeli people.

Over these past weeks and years, these systems have saved the lives of countless civilians. The technology underlying them was developed jointly by Israel and the U.S. and the manufacture of the interceptors and launchers is governed by bilateral agreements.

The United States should continue to supply what Israel needs for the defense of its people from Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi missiles - but the time is coming for Israel to pay for what it needs, as other prosperous countries do.

This approach aligns with the center of gravity in American Jewish opinion - reflecting the emotional attachment that 70 percent of Jewish Americans feel for Israel and simultaneously the opposition of 70 percent to unconditional American military and financial assistance.

Congress should retain, exercise and expand its authority to review and, when necessary, block specific weapons sales that do not align with American law or interests.

Too often, when it comes to Israel, enforcement of our laws has been inconsistent or avoided altogether.

In recent years, Israeli military actions and policies – from Gaza to the West Bank and now in Lebanon – have increasingly crossed lines that raise serious questions about whether U.S.-supplied weapons are being used in ways consistent with American law, policy and stated interests.

That’s why J Street supports the Ceasefire Compliance Act, new legislation which would ensure that if Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza and the West Bank that run counter to American interests, it should not be able to use U.S. weapons in those areas.

This too is part of normalizing our relationship with Israel. Congress regularly places conditions on the support we provide to recipients of American assistance including Ukraine, Colombia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf States.

It’s also why J Street urges Senators this week to vote to disapprove two sales to Israel - one of large bombs and one of bulldozers - both to demonstrate consequences for misuse of these items in Gaza and to express consistent opposition to the war in Iran.

A transition toward a more normalized security partnership would not weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship. It would strengthen it.

It would place the relationship on a more sustainable and less politically polarizing foundation. It would align U.S. policy with Israel’s own stated aspirations for self-reliance.

The technological, economic and defensive achievement that Israel has accomplished and that make it self-sufficient should be a matter of pride for Israel’s supporters around the world. These are developments the founders of the country would have deeply valued.

The exact timetable for phasing out taxpayer subsidies should be worked out carefully. The United States should honor existing commitments, including those in the 2016 memorandum of understanding, through their conclusion in the next two years.

But after that, a responsible yet rapid phase-out is needed – a step that would move the U.S. and Israel toward a more mature, balanced, and ultimately more resilient partnership – one grounded not only in shared interests, but in shared standards and accountability.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

J Street released new polling this week examining Jewish American views on the Iran war, Israeli and American political leadership, and U.S. assistance to Israel.

The results underscore something that should, by now, be unarguable: there is no single “Jewish position” on any of these issues. Nor is the community divided into a simple pro- and anti-Israel binary.

We fall into three distinct camps.

Roughly a quarter of Jewish Americans fall into a grouping that strongly supports the Iran war, views both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu favorably, and believes the United States should provide Israel with military and financial assistance without conditions.

Among those who strongly support the war, 86 percent view Netanyahu favorably, 75 percent voted for Trump, and this group nearly unanimously sympathizes more with Israelis than Palestinians when forced to choose.

At the other end of the spectrum is another roughly quarter of the community that has moved in a very different direction. This group overwhelmingly opposes the Iran war, holds deeply unfavorable views of both Netanyahu and Trump, sympathizes far more with Palestinians than Israelis, and supports ending U.S. military and financial assistance to Israel altogether.

There is almost no overlap between these two camps. They are divided not only by policy preferences, but often by political identity, religious affiliation, and generational experience.

For instance, support for the war is almost nonexistent among non-Orthodox Jews under 40, while there are virtually no Orthodox respondents who favor ending aid to Israel.

But these two poles do not define the center of political gravity in Jewish America.

The largest group – roughly half of Jewish Americans – falls somewhere in between. This middle camp is more critical of Israeli government policy than the first group, but not prepared to abandon the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Large majorities of those who view Netanyahu unfavorably support conditioning or limiting U.S. assistance rather than ending it outright. They are also far more likely to resist binary framing – expressing sympathy for both Israelis and Palestinians rather than choosing one side.

These are not marginal positions. They define the mainstream of Jewish American opinion.

And yet, it is not where much of the American Jewish establishment is anchored.

This gap – between established Jewish leadership and the communal center of gravity – has real-world consequences – for the United States and for American Jewry.

First, American policymakers who look to established Jewish organizations for insight into community sentiment are not getting an accurate picture. When nuance is flattened, when diversity of opinion is presented as unanimity, the American policy debate is shaped by an incomplete understanding of Jewish communal views.

Second, the same dynamic plays out in the broader public square. When criticism of Israeli government policy – with which large segments of Jewish America agrees – is cast as out-of-bounds, it narrows the space for engagement and damages relationships with allies, with other communities, and within our own.

Finally, within the Jewish community, the consequences are increasingly visible.

Many younger, non-Orthodox Jews do not see their perspectives reflected in the positions taken by established institutions. Too often, they see their views dismissed and portrayed as failure or disloyalty.

This significant segment of the community – the very children and grandchildren of today’s organizational leadership – is pulling back from institutions their families built and supported for generations.

But this is not a story of disengagement from Jewish life. It is a story of evolution. Across generations, Jewish communities have always adapted – building new institutions, new spaces, and new forms of expression that reflect a contemporary understanding of enduring values.

That is happening again now.

The question is whether established institutions will adapt to these changing realities – or continue to define themselves in ways that place them at odds with the evolving center of gravity of the community.

If they do the latter, they will not disappear. But they will shrink. They will represent a smaller and more specific slice of Jewish America – more politically aligned with the right, more religiously traditional – and they will forfeit the ability to speak credibly on behalf of the community as a whole.

That is not inevitable. But it is where current trends lead.

At the same time, there remains broad agreement across the community on at least one point: the vast majority of Jewish Americans believe it is possible to be both pro-Israel and critical of Israeli government policy. Yet creating space for that position – to be expressed openly, debated seriously, and engaged respectfully – is still too often treated as an act of institutional courage.

It should not be.

It should be standard practice.

Peoplehood cannot mean only the people we agree with.

The community is already changing. The data makes that clear. The only open question is whether our institutions will recognize the moment – and meet it.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Are you a “Zionist”? I get the question all the time - from all sides.

When those to my right ask, what they’re really saying is: Can I trust that when you and J Street criticize the Israeli government, you’re doing it out of real concern for Israel and the Jewish people?

When those to my left ask, what they’re really saying is: Are you a racist? An ethno-nationalist? Do you support the oppression of another people?

“Zionist” is rarely used today as a description of political belief. It’s a test – of identity, loyalty, or morality. Sometimes it’s simply an epithet.

And arguments over the label often distract from the more important debate about underlying realities - much as disputes over terms like genocide or apartheid do.

Subscribe now

Discussion of Zionism has always been more complex than a yes-or-no answer allows. There has never been consensus in the Jewish community – about supporting it or about what it means.

Over the last century and a half, many Jews rejected it. Some saw Judaism as a religion, not a nationality. Some feared Jewish nationalism would undermine the fight for equal rights where they lived. Others believed the Jewish future lay in universalist ideologies like socialism or liberal democracy, not nationalism.

Twenty years ago in early discussions about J Street, we understood how much baggage the word carried already then. The occupation was decades old, peace efforts had collapsed, and Israeli politics had shifted rightward.

At its core, J Street was built around a simple question: can one be a Zionist and openly oppose Israeli government policy?

My understanding of “Zionism” is straightforward: The Jewish people have the right to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Modern nationalism - the idea that peoples have a right to govern themselves in lands to which they have deep historical ties – emerged as a potent force in the 19^th century. It’s no surprise that Jews, after centuries as a vulnerable minority, embraced the idea.

My own family was part of that story. My great-grandparents left the Russian Empire in the 1880s to escape violence and build new lives in their people’s historic home.

It is equally unsurprising that the Palestinian people came to seek that same right – in the land their families had called home for centuries.

Zionism does not deny Palestinian nationalism. It depends on it. Without it, it cannot succeed. The Jewish national project cannot be secure, democratic, or true to its values if the other people living alongside it is denied those same rights.

I understand why some resist calling Zionism a “project.” But it is an effort begun more than a century ago that remains unfinished.

Israel today lacks internationally-recognized borders. It remains mired in ongoing conflict and rules over another people denied equal rights.

Its current leadership is increasingly militaristic and undemocratic, pursuing policies and expressing views that violate core Jewish ethical values.

That is not the fulfillment of the Zionist vision. It is its distortion.

Jewish sovereignty is a test of whether a people long denied power can exercise it faithful to the moral principles we claim to uphold.

At this moment, we are failing the test.

My hope is that my children and grandchildren will one day feel pride in the country our family helped build. For that to be possible, Israel must recommit to the moral values at the heart of Jewish tradition.

That means rejecting the idea that loyalty requires silence. It means refusing blind allegiance to policies that deny another people freedom and abandon the pursuit of peace.

Zionism was – and remains – a project of the entire Jewish people: those who live in the land and those who do not. Jews in the diaspora helped build and sustain the state. We therefore have both a stake in its future and a responsibility to speak out about the direction it is taking.

So when I am asked, simply, yes or no – am I a Zionist?

Yes.

But my Zionism is not a slogan or a loyalty test. It is not an endorsement of what the current Israeli government does.

It is a commitment to a democratic national home for the Jewish people and to the equal right of the Palestinian people to their own state in that same land.

When that reality is achieved – and it must be – the idea it represents will no longer be so fiercely contested.

And the word that describes it will no longer be so hard to say.

As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2026 in a deeply challenging moment, if you value J Street’s nuanced voice, we hope you’ll consider supporting our work.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Before I dig in, let me state two things clearly.

First, responsibility for this disastrous war with Iran rests with the President of the United States – and no one else. Donald Trump chose to take the country into war, and he alone decided, unconstitutionally, how it began and how to conduct it.

No foreign leader, no lobby, no ally, no adviser forced his hand. The buck stops where it always has – in the Oval Office.

Second, antisemitism is real, powerful, and deeply embedded in politics and culture across the world, including here in the United States.

It has existed for millennia, and it is once again visible on both the far right and far left, in the form of conspiracy theories about Jewish power, Jewish loyalty, or Jewish control over media, governments, and wars.

Those two truths have to be stated. But they cannot be the end of a conversation about this war, why we are in it, and how we are going to get out of it.

Subscribe now

These are sensitive subjects. They can be – and have to be – discussed in ways that avoid sliding into antisemitism.

Refusing to discuss them at all – or labeling the discussion itself antisemitic – isn’t the answer. It prevents accountability, distorts our understanding of how key decisions have been made, and ultimately makes it harder to understand – and to take responsibility for – the role our own leaders and institutions have played.

This is a narrow space to operate in, but I’m going to try.

For more than three decades, Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning about Iran, predicting it was weeks or months away from a nuclear weapon, and arguing that military confrontation was the only answer.

Other Israeli leaders – even moderate ones – largely echoed his lines, including opening the door to the possible use of force. Public debate in Israel for decades has been shaped by the Prime Minister’s hawkish outlook, while dissenting voices struggled to gain a hearing.

Here in the U.S., when confronted with Netanyahu’s hardline positions, presidents of both parties generally chose diplomacy, containment, or delay – recognizing that while none of those options were perfect, they carried far fewer risks than war.

American Jewish organizations, over the decades, have often echoed Israeli government positions, reinforcing increasingly hardline views inside the American political system.

Over time, support for a tougher stance on Iran became a litmus test in Washington. Members of Congress learned that repeating certain talking points – the demand for zero enrichment, the weakness of diplomacy, and the need to keep the military option on the table – was expected if they wanted to be seen as strong supporters of Israel.

Those expectations did not arise on their own. They were cultivated, reinforced, and rewarded through organized advocacy, just as happens on every major issue in American politics.

Acknowledging that reality is not antisemitic. Every community lobbies. Every cause organizes. The pro-Israel community is no different.

Claiming the United States was “dragged” into this war requires ignoring the President’s full ownership of this decision.

But insisting that the conversation itself cannot take place has consequences of its own. If we say it is illegitimate to ask how some of our own leaders, our own institutions, and our own advocacy contributed to this moment, then we give up the ability to learn from it – and to change course.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If we’re going to get out of this war, we need to understand why we’re in it. As important, if we dismiss every attempt to examine the causes of the war as antisemitic, the conversation will not disappear – it will move to places where nuance disappears and conspiracy theories thrive.

Precisely because Netanyahu and his American allies did play a role in setting the table for Trump’s decision, those looking for a scapegoat for failure will have an easy target.

That leads me to the most important point: why it is so vital that Jewish American voices – and our community’s leaders – speak out far more loudly against this war.

I‘ve written before that there are moments when Jewish Americans who care about Israel will disagree not only with its government, but even with the overwhelming majority of its people.

Precisely at a moment like this – with stakes as high as they are – we need Jewish voices to be heard saying that this war was not inevitable, that it was not in our interest, and that it was not pursued in our name.

If the policies that led to this war are allowed to be seen as expressing the will of the American Jewish community as a whole, the consequences will be felt by Jews everywhere.

It is vitally important to make clear the extent of dissent in the American Jewish community from this far-right Israeli government and the path they have chosen - vital to ensure it’s understood that you can be part of the pro-Israel community, as J Street is, without supporting this war.

Nothing good will come from silencing debate or dissent within the pro-Israel tent or pretending there is unanimity where none exists.

A moment as challenging as this demands an honest reckoning and open discussion – even when it is uncomfortable, and even when it forces us to look at our own role in how we got here.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

All of us at J Street stand in solidarity with Temple Israel in Bloomfield following this week’s attack. Our statement condemning the attack and the antisemitism it represents can be found here.

Earlier this week, my colleague Ilan Goldenberg wrote about how one can both be pro-Israel and still oppose the war with Iran.

His argument rested on a distinction both obvious and often ignored: Americans and Israelis see the world through different lenses. Israelis experience the consequences of Middle East conflict immediately and directly. Americans – including American Jews – have the luxury of distance as we assess implications for the U.S., the region and our own interests.

I agree with Ilan that it is not only legitimate but inevitable that American and Israeli perspectives sometimes diverge.

But I want to take up a harder question – one I’ve heard frequently during these two weeks of war: How can I – or J Street – claim to be pro-Israel while opposing a war that more than 90 percent of Jewish Israelis support?

Doesn’t being pro-Israel mean aligning with the will of the Israeli public?

Subscribe now

For me, the answer lies at least partly in Jewish tradition.

One of the defining features of Jewish history is that loving your people has never meant uncritical agreement. Again and again, the voices most concerned for the community’s future stood outside the consensus – warning, challenging, often rejected in their own time.

The Bible is filled with such figures.

The prophets were not popular commentators affirming what people wanted to hear. Jeremiah warned that leaders were steering the nation toward disaster, as the public demanded defiance and refused to listen.

Amos condemned the complacency of a society that believed its prosperity guaranteed its safety while ignoring injustice.

Isaiah cautioned against relying on power alone, warning that strength without wisdom would lead to ruin.

Though out of sync with majority opinion, they spoke as insiders who loved their people enough to risk being dismissed.

Jewish tradition teaches that standing apart from the majority can itself be an expression of responsibility.

That feels especially relevant now.

The Israeli public overwhelmingly supports this war, and anyone who cares about Israel has to respect that.

But respect does not mean silence.

It does not mean those of us outside Israel lose the right – or the obligation – to speak honestly about what we believe is in Israel’s best interest, in America’s best interest, or in the long-term interest of the Jewish people.

American Jews have long held that supporting Israel does not mean supporting every policy of every Israeli government. Large majorities say you can be pro-Israel while disagreeing with Israeli actions.

That principle cannot apply only when Israelis themselves are divided. It has to apply even when the public is united – because love of Israel is not the same as agreement with it.

There is another reality that is uncomfortable but impossible to ignore. Jews who do not live in Israel also have a stake in the decisions the State of Israel makes, because those decisions affect how Jewish communities around the world are seen and treated.

When Israel goes to war – especially when the United States is involved – fairly or unfairly, the actions of the Israeli government become part of how Jews as a whole are perceived.

When Israel is seen as helping push the U.S. toward military conflict – a perception already voiced in public debate, including by Secretary of State Marco Rubio – that perception can shape attitudes toward Jewish communities far beyond Israel itself.

Recognizing this is not an accusation against Israel, and it is not an argument that fear of antisemitism should determine Israeli policy. Israel must act based on its own security needs.

It is simply an acknowledgement that Jews outside Israel also live with the consequences of decisions made there. That gives us not only a stake, but a responsibility to speak honestly about what we believe will lead to greater security and stability for all of us.

This divergence of views is not new. For many years, Jewish Americans have held more diplomacy-oriented views on Middle East policy than the government of Israel – and often than the majority of Israeli Jews.

Jewish Americans strongly supported the JCPOA even as the Israeli government fought it. Most opposed the Iraq War as Israelis welcomed Saddam’s defeat. Large majorities see Donald Trump as a danger at home even as he remains highly popular among Israeli voters.

American Jews live as a minority in a diverse democracy and tend to emphasize diplomacy, coalition-building, and universal rights. Israelis live in a sovereign state in a dangerous region and often emphasize military strength and immediate security.

Both perspectives are shaped by real experience. Both are legitimate. And reaching different conclusions does not make American Jews any less committed to Israel’s future.

J Street exists because a large segment of Jewish Americans occupies that space – deeply committed to Israel’s security, but more skeptical of military solutions and more inclined toward diplomacy than many Israeli leaders. Giving voice to that perspective is not a rejection of Israel. It is part of the honest conversation that has always existed within the Jewish people.

Moments of near-unanimity are often when dissenting voices are most needed – not because the majority acts in bad faith, but because fear and urgency can narrow what feels possible.

The prophetic tradition does not teach that dissent is always right. But it does teach that disagreement can flow from loyalty rather than betrayal.

To be pro-Israel is not to believe Israelis are infallible. It is to believe the future of the Jewish state matters enough that we must speak our truth about what will strengthen it – and what we fear may endanger it – even when that puts us at odds with the overwhelming majority of Israelis themselves.

That is not a rejection of Israel.

It is, in the deepest Jewish sense, an expression of love and responsibility for it.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Even with Israel and the United States at war with Iran, Jewish media remain fixated on what Jewish Insider calls, “the rapid turn within the Democratic Party against Israel.”

This week’s alarm bells were set off by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s comments about Israel, apartheid and the need to reconsider military aid.

Newsom’s comments came in the wake of a new Gallup poll finding, for the first time in its long-running survey, that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis – 41 to 36 percent.

The data reflect a rupture in U.S.-Israel relations that is largely self-inflicted - driven by the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu and the hard-edged political strategy of AIPAC.

I’ll admit: I’m not a fan of asking Americans which side they “sympathize with more.” The question forces a zero-sum choice that mirrors the worst dynamic of the conflict itself.

In reality, most Americans sympathize with both peoples: Israelis who deserve security and Palestinians who deserve freedom, dignity and self-determination.

But even if the question is flawed, the trend it reveals is unmistakable. Support for Israel in the United States is eroding – particularly among younger Americans.

Subscribe now

For decades, Israeli leaders – and Jewish American leaders – understood that bipartisan support in Washington is a vital Israeli national security asset.

Yet Netanyahu gambled that asset away by openly aligning Israel with one side of America’s political divide.

His governments pursued policies – the devastation of Gaza, relentless settlement expansion and the abandonment of any credible path to Palestinian statehood – that made it increasingly difficult for Americans, especially younger ones, to see Israel as a country pursuing both security and peace.

Now, political leaders – like Newsom and most other Democratic presidential contenders – are reflecting this shift.

Across the Democratic Party, clear-eyed criticism of Israeli government policy is becoming the norm. And it is hard to imagine in 2028 any Democratic primary contender clinging to what, in 2011, I termed a part of the ‘rulebook of American politics’ – unquestioning support for unconditional aid to Israel.

But support isn’t eroding only on the left. Israel is rapidly losing support from both ends of the American political spectrum.

Figures like Tucker Carlson and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right are voicing a nationalist critique that sees Israel not as a strategic ally but as a liability.

If Netanyahu’s choices helped produce this reality, AIPAC’s response has made it worse.

As defending Israeli government policy has become harder, AIPAC has escalated its political engagement, spending unprecedented sums in American elections to defeat candidates who criticize Israeli policy.

It’s a strategy that is already backfiring.

Political intimidation cannot substitute for cultivating honest support. When it becomes impossible to defend Israel’s policies on the merits, no amount of campaign spending can fix the problem.

Worse still, the increasingly aggressive use of money and political muscle by AIPAC and allied groups risks feeding precisely the stereotypes and tropes that Jewish communities have struggled for generations to combat.

The result is a vicious cycle: the harder Israeli policy becomes to defend, the more aggressively AIPAC applies political pressure – and the greater the backlash it generates.

The rupture Netanyahu and AIPAC have caused in the U.S.-Israel relationship is deeply troubling for those of us who care about Israel. But it is not irreversible.

Repair must begin with political change in Israel itself – and we can only hope that Israeli voters will soon choose new leadership and a different direction.

I am convinced that a government committed to really ending the war in Gaza, halting annexation in the West Bank and seriously pursuing a path toward Palestinian statehood can rebuild the support that has been squandered.

Some in the Israeli opposition have been misled into believing that Democratic criticism of Israeli policy is rooted in hostility toward Israel or even in antisemitism.

That’s wrong.

My direct experience is that most in the Democratic Party remain open to a strong bilateral relationship with Israel – but only if Israel demonstrates real seriousness about pursuing peace and Palestinian statehood alongside Israel.

The American Jewish establishment must also reconsider its approach.

For too long, critics of Israeli government policy have been reflexively labeled anti-Israel or antisemitic. That strategy is backfiring. When accusations of antisemitism are stretched to cover ordinary policy disagreement, it weakens the fight against real antisemitism.

And when charges of antisemitism are weaponized to harm universities, target immigrants or undercut the First Amendment, it damages both American democracy and Israel.

The Gallup numbers should be a blaring wake-up call; statements from Newsom, Ruben Gallego and other potential ’28 contenders an alarm.

Yet, a painful long-term rupture in the U.S.-Israel relationship is not inevitable.

Different choices can still repair it.

Israeli and Jewish communal leaders must not hide behind empty rhetoric about Democrats “turning against Israel.” They need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask what Israel’s leaders – and their allies in Washington – did to drive them away.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

It has been a quarter century since the United States embarked on two long and costly wars in the Middle East. More than six decades have passed since we slid, step by step, into the disaster of Vietnam.

We should know better by now the cost of American overreach.

I come from a family that understands war – not abstractly, but personally. My maternal grandfather fought in World War I. My father fought in World War II. Both my wife’s family and mine were deeply involved in Israel’s war of independence and the many wars that have followed.

There is no lack of fight in my family. No hesitation to sacrifice when the cause is just. But precisely because one understands war, one understands its cost.

And in my lifetime as an American citizen, the decision to go to war has too often been taken far too lightly.

There won’t be a Sunday column from Word on the Street next week.

I’ll be at J Street’s National Convention, Building Tomorrow: Regional Peace & Resilient Democracy.

Join us: In Washington DC from February 28 to March 3.

If you can’t make it, look out for interviews and other content from the Convention right here on Word on the Street.

Join Me at the J Street Convention

In 2002, as the United States moved toward invading Iraq, enormous pressure bore down on lawmakers. Democrats in particular felt they had to prove themselves “tough” on national security. Too many who harbored presidential ambitions feared a vote against the war would mark them as “weak.”

The result was a vote that authorized a war many of us warned would be a disaster.

It was.

The Iraq war cost hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilized an entire region, drained trillions of dollars, and damaged America’s credibility for a generation.

Vietnam offers an even older warning: wars often begin with confidence and narrow objectives – and then widen, deepen, and entangle us far beyond what anyone initially envisioned.

Which brings us to Iran.

No serious person defends the Iranian regime. It represses its own people brutally. It supports armed proxies that destabilize the region. Its ballistic missile program and nuclear ambitions are deeply concerning. Its leadership routinely violates international norms.

We are right to maintain strong economic sanctions aimed at constraining the regime’s capabilities. International pressure enables diplomacy. That strategy produced the 2015 nuclear agreement – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – which placed real limits on Iran’s nuclear program and subjected it to intrusive inspections.

There are many dimensions to Iran’s malign behavior. But none of them, at this moment, justify launching an American military attack.

As we wake up this week to headline after headline about the growing accumulation of American forces in the region, we must remember the classic Clausewitz dictum:

“No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”

We have heard no clear definition from the Trump administration of success or of the goals. No plan for achieving them. No estimate of the Iranian response and the chain reaction that could spark.

It’s very possible that an initial strike will yield images of success - remember “Shock and Awe” and “Mission Accomplished”?

Weren’t we told eight months ago that the Iranian nuclear program was “obliterated”? If so, why are we right back here again?

Perhaps most importantly: what is the plan for the day after? If the objective, spoken or unspoken, is regime change, what replaces it?

There has been no visible effort to build meaningful international consensus or legitimacy. No sustained national debate worthy of the stakes involved.

And yet there is a troubling sense of momentum – even enthusiasm – among hawkish voices in Washington and in Israel who have long viewed military confrontation with Iran as inevitable, even desirable.

We have seen this movie before: confidence at the outset, assurances that the operation will be swift and decisive, faith that events will break our way.

History suggests otherwise.

There is no decision more consequential than the decision to go to war. Entire nations can be destabilized. Regional conflicts can widen. Tens of thousands – or more – of lives can be altered or lost. Once begun, war rarely unfolds according to plan.

Our founders understood this. They vested in Congress – not the president – the authority to declare war precisely because they believed the grave decisions required collective judgment and public accountability. The War Powers Act was designed to prevent exactly this kind of drift toward armed conflict without democratic authorization.

We know the price of war.

This past week, I walked through the ruins of Kfar Aza, the kibbutz on the Gaza border devastated on October 7. I looked at the photographs of young people whose lives were cut short – their smiling faces frozen in time.

A short distance away lay the devastation of Gaza – entire neighborhoods flattened, families shattered, a staggering percentage of the population killed or injured.

We ended the week at Yad Vashem, honoring the more than six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The museum has only recently reached the milestone of identifying five million of their names – each one a life, a story, a world extinguished.

War is not abstract. It is not a cable news segment or a political posture. It is graves and hospital wards. It is children who grow up without parents. It is trauma that echoes for generations.

Yes, there are times when war is necessary. My family’s history testifies to that. We have fought when there was no alternative.

But precisely because of that history, I cannot accept that launching another Middle Eastern war – without a clear objective, without a plan for what follows, without domestic authorization or international legitimacy – is something we should sleepwalk into.

This week, members of Congress have the opportunity to assert their constitutional role and insist that any military action against Iran receive the authorization the Constitution requires.

They should do so.

Not as a partisan maneuver. Not as a symbolic protest. But as a matter of moral seriousness and constitutional duty.

If this nation is to go to war, it must do so deliberately, lawfully, and with clarity about the consequences.

Absent that, Congress must act – and stop it.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

If it’s a long holiday weekend in America, it must be time for a rush of delegations to Israel – bringing elected officials, Jewish communal leaders and more.

Most will follow a familiar path:

• Meet government officials to hear about threats to Israel’s security.

• Hear from pundits who explain why there is no appetite among Israelis to talk about peace, issues related to Palestinians, or occupation.

• Hold roundtables about rising antisemitism in Europe, on campuses, and in American politics.

When I hear about these itineraries, the disconnect from the reality I encounter here is staggering.

Even before my own J Street delegation begins, I’ve already had three eye-opening and gut-wrenching dinners.

One with cousins who share great-grandparents who arrived in 1882, part of the First Aliyah.

Another with a former senior security official who works alongside hundreds of retired generals and intelligence leaders who devoted their lives to Israel’s survival.

And finally, last night, with friends and colleagues of three decades – veteran diplomats, builders of civil society, people whose lives have been spent ensuring Israel can be Jewish, democratic, and at peace with its neighbors.

Different tables. The same atmosphere.

Alarm. Grief. Even panic.

At each, we spoke about the West Bank and the grinding reality of ruling over another people without rights or political horizon.

About Gaza and the moral and strategic consequences of destruction that will echo for generations.

About a government steering Israel toward endless conflict and deepening isolation – undermining the liberal democratic foundations that enabled eight decades of growth and prosperity.

Most poignantly, we spoke about their children.

The kids now serving in the IDF – sent to Gaza, sent to the West Bank – ready to protect their families and their country.

And the questions were heartbreaking.

Are they being asked to defend something we no longer recognize? A state acting outside the moral boundaries on which we raised them? When they are done serving, will the Israel they inherit still be a place they want to live?

Each night, the conversation ultimately turned toward the American Jewish community.

Do American Jews really understand where this is heading? Do the established groups visiting this week get to see what’s really happening? Will they hear voices like ours? Will they only meet those in power who agree with them?

And more than anything: how do we get them to do something about what’s going on here?

My friends and family do not criticize their country and government lightly. They are patriots.

And they are looking for partners, not armchair critics.

They struggle to understand the American conversation.

How is it that Jewish leaders are more focused on whether New York’s mayor has condemned a provocative Instagram account than they are on violence unfolding in the West Bank?

Why is AIPAC targeting Congressional candidates who are doing the right thing: critiquing what’s happening here and withholding a blank check from Netanyahu?

How is it that the most acceptable way to support Israel in America is to support Israel’s radical right?

What happened to liberal American Jews?

For those who fear Israel is nearing a point of no return, the disconnect is breathtaking.

The central threat to Israel’s future is not the words critics choose to describe what’s happening here. It is the reality of what is happening, day in and day out.

So to my friends and colleagues from major American Jewish organizations who are visiting now – or coming soon – I have one simple request: Go see.

You don’t have to take my word for it. And you don’t have to travel far.

Drive a short distance east of Tel Aviv. Minutes from Jerusalem.

Walk through parts of Hebron where a once-vibrant Palestinian center has been emptied out.

Visit Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills whose residents have either already been driven out, whose olive trees have been burned or who are hanging on by a thread under near daily attack.

Speak with Israelis who’ve spent three years in the streets standing up for their democracy against a government intent on taking it apart.

Sit with former military commanders to hear their warning that endless domination is not a strategy for security but a recipe for unending war.

You may come away with different conclusions than I have reached. But you will have looked.

And – hopefully – that is when responsibility kicks in.

Because if you see what is being done in your name, there’s no longer any claiming one didn’t know.

Everyone who comes here comes out of love. And love demands honesty.

Look. Listen. Step beyond the traditional itinerary.

Real friendship is not shielding ourselves from hard truths.

Real friendship is the courage to look in the mirror – together – and act while there’s still time.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Not prone to follow my advice, AIPAC went ahead and did it anyway, pouring $2.3 million into a low-visibility February primary through its Super PAC, the United Democracy Project.

The spending saturated the district with ads and mail aimed at defeating an experienced foreign policy leader with a long track record of support for the U.S.–Israel relationship.

Why? Because Tom dared to say American assistance to Israel should not be a blank check and that the weapons we provide must be used in accordance with our laws and values.

To power the effort, they reached back seven years to twist a single vote on Homeland Security funding into a caricature – recasting a lifelong advocate for vulnerable communities and human rights as somehow aligned with this administration’s hardline immigration enforcement.

Whatever one thinks of that vote - or AIPAC’s disingenuous use of it - it’s worth noting that AIPAC itself has not said a word opposing the administration’s immigration agenda or the horrors of its enforcement actions.

But I write today not to lament that Tom Malinowski may not return to Congress, much as I admire and respect him.

I write to lament what AIPAC has done and what it has become.

For decades, AIPAC occupied a central place in American Jewish life. After Israel’s founding – and especially after 1967 and 1973 – support for Israel’s survival united our community in fear, pride and solidarity.

AIPAC gave organized expression to that consensus. Its mission – strengthening the U.S.–Israel relationship to ensure Israel’s security – resonated widely.

But history did not stop in 1973.

In the decades since, Israeli politics have moved sharply rightward. The collapse of peace efforts, the deepening occupation and now the rise of a messianic, ethnonationalist coalition have opened a painful gap between Israel’s government and the values of most American Jews.

Today, many American politicians – including many strong friends of Israel – support Israel’s people and future while opposing the Netanyahu government’s specific policies, from the conduct of the war in Gaza to accelerating annexation and settler violence in the West Bank.

That is not hostility. It reflects where many voters - Jewish and non - find themselves. Many of us criticize because we want Israel to survive and thrive.

Yet AIPAC now treats even good-faith criticism from friends as a threat to be crushed.

Armed with a war chest of $100 million, it is intervening aggressively in Democratic primaries – not necessarily against Israel’s harshest critics, but tipping the scale against mainstream Democrats like Malinowski or Daniel Biss (the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor running in Illinois’ 9^th District) whose views sit well within the Jewish communal consensus.

And it is doing so in ways that undermine the bipartisanship it claims to prize.

Massive sums are raised from donors better known for backing Republicans and then deployed in Democratic contests, driving a wedge in the party at a moment when its unity is vital to defending American democracy.

Spending is routed through blandly named groups whose roles often become clear only after the election. Candidates keep formal distance and deny coordination, while benefiting from networks closely tied to AIPAC.

Their reactions remind me of Captain Renault in Casablanca, who was “shocked, shocked” to find gambling while collecting his winnings.

Why the dance? Because AIPAC’s brand has become toxic for many Democratic voters.

That should be a deafening alarm bell.

In New Jersey, the group may have scored an epic own-goal, replacing someone they used to support with someone far less aligned with its worldview.

The message Democrats hear when long-time friends like Tom Malinowski are targeted is not “stand with Israel” because we share values and interests.

It is: fall in line or risk your career.

Political relationships rooted in intimidation rarely build durable support. More often, they breed resentment – toward the organization wielding power and, unfairly, toward the cause it claims to champion.

The deeper damage is cumulative. Weakening pro-Israel moderates, inflaming intraparty tensions and creating the impression that vast, opaque sums are policing debate all erode the goodwill on which Israel has long depended.

That is bad for the U.S.–Israel relationship. It is bad for the Democratic Party. And it leaves American Jews in an increasingly fraught place within the pro-democracy coalition where most of us feel at home.

AIPAC has a proud history. I knew the family of its founder, Isaiah “Si” Kenen. I will always acknowledge the critical role it played at important moments and the many good people who devoted their lives to its work.

Precisely because that legacy matters, this is a painful moment that should spark serious reflection among its supporters.

An organization founded to strengthen a relationship between democracies should not narrow democratic debate or punish those who raise legitimate concerns about Israel’s direction.

Support coerced through fear is brittle.

If we want enduring support for Israel – across parties and generations – we must root the relationship in the best of our values, face hard truths when those values are violated and remain open to real debate and dissent.

And - in this moment when fascism is rearing its ugly head - it behooves Jewish political leaders and institutions to use our resources to fight the threats to our democracy and not each other.

If you appreciate the work J Street does, I hope you’ll consider making a grassroots contribution to ensure our voice is heard.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

His message was bracing: the postwar liberal international order – anchored by American leadership, the rule of law, and imperfect but real democratic commitments – has fractured, and we are not going back.

Carney’s message applies powerfully to another relationship born in the aftermath of World War II: the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Here too, we are not experiencing a temporary strain, but a rupture – one driven above all by the choices and behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the far-right governments he has led.

Subscribe now

For most of my life, the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel was an unshakeable constant, grounded in shared interests and shared democratic values. It also was built on a basic asymmetry: one country was a global superpower; the other, a small, vulnerable state whose security the United States committed to guarantee.

The dynamic was often straightforward: Israel, facing real security threats, would ask - and the United States would largely provide, unconditionally: military assistance, diplomatic backing, political protection. Of course, the US benefitted too from, among other things, intelligence sharing and joint research.

At its best, the relationship was rooted in the belief that two imperfect democracies – one large and powerful, one small and vulnerable – were bound together by a shared commitment to pluralism, the rule of law, and the idea that security and freedom must reinforce one another.

And for decades, a sense of moral alignment also gave the relationship deep meaning in the eyes of the American public and the Jewish community.

While many Jewish Americans still hope – and fight – for the deeply meaningful relationship on which they were raised, it is, sadly, a framework that no longer survives contact with reality.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has been profoundly damaged by an Israeli government that has abandoned any serious effort to resolve the conflict with the Palestinian people and instead embraces permanent occupation, annexation, and domination.

In Gaza, the Netanyahu response to the nightmare of October 7^th produced catastrophic human suffering without a credible plan for what was to follow. In the West Bank, settlement expansion, land seizures, and tolerated – and too often enabled – settler terror are systematically destroying the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

By pursuing a path of perpetual conflict and permanent control, Israel’s leadership has put the country on a collision course with core American interests.

The government’s assault on democratic norms inside Israel itself has also accelerated the rupture. Efforts to weaken independent courts, undermine media freedom, marginalize minority communities, and attack civil society organizations place today’s Israeli government further and further from the democratic values long assumed to be the backbone of the relationship.

Also changing the reality of the relationship today is that Israel is stronger than it has ever been.

It is no longer a fragile state fighting for survival, but such a first-rate economic and military power that Prime Minister Netanyahu has called to end America’s $4 billion annual subsidy.

At the same time, Israel faces unprecedented opportunities for regional integration, with Arab states increasingly viewing cooperation - whether on security threats like Iran and terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas or on economic growth - as a strategic interest. Those opportunities, however, remain largely squandered.

As with the broader international order, there are those who hope the U.S.–Israel relationship can simply be “repaired” – that we can return to what was.

But Carney’s warning applies here as well: the rupture is deep, and pretending otherwise is a mistake.

The task now is not to revive the old relationship, but to define a new one.

A new U.S.–Israel relationship can no longer be a blank check.

It cannot be a one-way street in which American taxpayers fund military assistance, provide diplomatic immunity, and shield Israel from accountability – regardless of how Israeli power is exercised.

A sustainable relationship must be built on reciprocity and responsibility. U.S. support should be targeted – ensuring Israel can meet legitimate security threats and that Israeli policies do not operate at direct odds with American laws, values, and strategic interests, including the American interest in Palestinian freedom, security, and statehood.

That means being explicit: American support is contingent on the policies an Israeli government pursues and the way it exercises power. There must be lines beyond which the United States will not go in backing the actions even of a close ally.

This reckoning is not limited to governments.

There is also a widening rupture between an increasingly illiberal, ethnonationalist Israeli state and the majority of Jewish Americans who remain liberal, universalist, and committed to democracy, equality, and human rights.

Jewish Americans face a choice. We can cling to an old framework that demands reflexive defense of Israeli government policy, or we can articulate our own vision of a relationship rooted in our values, our moral traditions, and our responsibility to both Israelis and Palestinians – with honesty about the consequence of permanent occupation and endless war.

The bond between Jewish Americans and the people of Israel is historic and enduring. For many of us, it is deeply personal – whether we were born or lived there or just have close family and friends there.

But bonds – between nations and between peoples – are sustained not by denial, but by shared commitments and mutual responsibility.

It’s that kind of relationship - grounded in a commitment to democracy, freedom and the rule of law - that many of us already share with Israelis who are in the streets, in the courts, in the media, and in civil society, fighting the same forces of autocracy, illiberalism and ethnonationalism that we confront here at home.

The rupture is real, the old assumptions are gone, and it’s now on us to define a new U.S.–Israel relationship – one that reflects our values, rather than excusing their abandonment.

Join me, and join J Street, in Washington, DC, from February 28 to March 3 for J Street’s National Convention, Building Tomorrow: Regional Peace & Resilient Democracy.

Join Me at the J Street Convention

J Street is proud to be powered by supporters like you. Your support makes our important work possible.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

The killing of Alex Pretti is but the latest act of senseless violence warning us that the guardrails of democracy are cracking – and that the consequences of dehumanization, extremism, and fear-driven politics are no longer abstract. They are showing up in real places, with real victims.

It has been four years since J Street last gathered as a national community. It feels like a lifetime ago.

In those four years, we’ve lived through the nightmare of October 7, the devastating war that followed, accelerating assaults on democracy here and in Israel, and the unraveling of an international order that once provided a measure of stability.

What’s happening on our streets in America – and what’s happening on the West Bank and in Gaza – are not separate stories. The foundations of democratic societies built on pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law are shaking globally.

Never in my lifetime has the cost of political inaction been clearer – or the need for organized, principled engagement more urgent.

Join me, and join J Street, in Washington, DC, from February 28 to March 3 for J Street’s National Convention, Building Tomorrow: Regional Peace & Resilient Democracy.

Join Me at the J Street Convention

For many of us raised in the post–World War II American Jewish community, it’s disorienting to see how many of the assumptions we grew up with now feel fragile – or upside down.

We watch, and we read, and we ask again and again: What can I do?

Within the Jewish community, too many traditional institutions are failing to meet this moment.

Instead, we see well-funded organizations with more conservative politics raise tens – sometimes hundreds – of millions of dollars and deploy those resources in ways that contradict our values:

• Shutting down debate by targeting speech deemed too critical of Israeli government policy.

• Driving a wedge in the Democratic Party by attacking critics of Israel while backing insurrectionists willing to overturn free elections.

• Using charitable dollars to fuel settlement expansion across the West Bank, further eroding any chance of a viable Palestinian state.

At the same time, we see a growing strain on the left that rejects not just Israeli policy, but the very idea that the Jewish people have a right to a state in our ancestral homeland.

Inside our own families, the arguments feel endless. Older generations recoil at public criticism of Israel. Younger generations struggle with what Israel has become. Many feel stranded between camps.

So the questions persist: Is there any hope left? How do we defeat rising fascism and MAGA politics here at home? Is there a path to saving the democratic, liberal Israel I once believed in? Will I ever feel comfortable there again?

My answer is consistent: the hope you’re looking for will not arrive on its own. It will only come to pass if we do the work to create it.

The antidote to despair is engagement. Not doomscrolling. Not endless arguments online. Not stewing on the couch. Engagement.

Most American Jews live in a broad, principled center. We reject the ethnonationalist tribalism of the right and the blanket opposition to Israel and Zionism that has taken hold in parts of the left.

But a majority that stays silent doesn’t shape the future – or stop it from being shaped by the most dangerous forces among us.

This moment demands that we show up.

That’s why we’re coming together in Washington: to send the clear message to members of Congress and administration officials, ours is not a fringe position. It is the mainstream of the American Jewish community.

At a time when too many Jewish leaders and institutions shrink from confronting assaults on democracy – whether by Trump in the United States or Netanyahu in Israel – we refuse to look away.

• We will speak out about the Trump administration’s frightening assault on our democracy playing out on the streets of our cities.

• We will speak out about extremist Jewish violence terrorizing Palestinian communities on the West Bank and against the moral wrongs of Netanyahu’s government in Gaza.

• We will stand in partnership with Israelis and Palestinians, and with all people of good will, who are ready to confront racism, ethnonationalism, and autocracy.

  ---

Theodore Roosevelt once spoke of the honor belonging not to the critic on the sidelines, but to the person in the arena – the one who shows up, who strives, who risks failure in pursuit of something worthy.

This is one of those moments.

And this is my invitation to you: Come together with hundreds of activists who refuse to surrender to despair – who are ready to push back against the forces pulling us apart and to begin building a future grounded in peace, democracy, diplomacy, justice, and equality.

Join Me At the J Street Convention

Reading and agreeing isn’t enough anymore.

It’s time to get off the couch, step into the arena, and – as Roosevelt put it – “strive valiantly” together.

I hope to see you there.

P.S. Please don’t let cost be a barrier. We want to ensure that if you want to attend, you can. Write to us about special pricing for students, clergy, young professionals and more.

Malinowski, a former Member of Congress and J Street endorsee, has secured endorsements from the Morris County Democratic Committee, Sen. Andy Kim, and Foreign Policy for America, among others. Brendan Gill has the support of Gov. Phil Murphy and the Essex County Democratic Committee, as well as the bulk of labor endorsements.

Both of these frontrunners have submitted aligned J Street questionnaires and earned the “primary approved” designation J Street uses in competitive primaries.)

Over the weekend, AIPAC launched a wave of negative ads attacking former Congressman Tom Malinowski, who is seeking to return to Congress in New Jersey’s open 11th District.

This move continues a now five-year pattern: AIPAC deploying vast financial resources - primarily raised from Republican donors - to intimidate, punish, or defeat Democrats they deem insufficiently pro-Israel. With tens of millions of dollars in the bank, the implicit threat to sitting members of Congress and candidates alike is hard to ignore.

AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has so far committed over $800,000 – with far more almost certainly coming – to attacking Malinowski.

The issue they’re hitting him on publicly? A 2019 bipartisan vote for a border enforcement bill that included - among many provisions - increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The bill - criticized at the time by progressives - won the votes of a majority of members of both parties in both houses.

Given AIPAC’s failure to speak out in opposition to ICE’s shocking deployment and brutal tactics in recent months - or the Trump administration’s broader assault on democratic norms - its use of this issue for a political attack from the left is the height of political hypocrisy.

Will AIPAC now run general election ads against Republicans who support ICE tactics under the Trump administration?

The decision to target Malinowski is particularly troubling. Never at the forefront of challenges to Netanyahu’s policies - his record in Congress was in fact one of strong and consistent support for Israel.

Since leaving Congress he has written eloquently and smartly about these issues:

The Contrarian

Americans must speak out on the catastrophe in Gaza

Over the past year in Gaza, humanitarian groups have been criticized for crying wolf about famine when the territory was experiencing a “mere” food crisis. Their defense was that the time to raise the alarm was before the most acute phase of starvation and death arrived. Now, as even Israeli skeptics…

Read more

9 months ago · 120 likes · 47 comments · Tom Malinowski

So why is AIPAC going after him?

Are they troubled by the prospect of a seasoned Democrat with serious foreign policy experience and a lifelong commitment to human rights returning to Washington? Are they worried that Tom might bring an additional thoughtful voice to DC in support of oversight and accountability for arms sales to Israel or of the country’s human rights record?

Whatever the motivation, we do know this: as in prior cycles, AIPAC is intervening in a Democratic primary using money primarily contributed by Republican billionaires to attack a candidate on an unrelated domestic issue.

This extends their record of attacking pro-Israel Democrats who oppose Netanyahu, while backing Republicans who voted to overturn a free and fair election on January 6, 2021 just because they support Netanyahu unquestioningly.

Dumping massive sums into competitive Democratic primaries to take down thoughtful pro-Israel Democrats who don’t want to give a blank check to Bibi Netanyahu is not the way to build durable bipartisan support for Israel in the United States.

It weakens bipartisan support, alienates the next generation – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – and ties Israel’s fate to the most corrosive elements of American politics.

In fact, this approach risks generating anger – toward Israel, toward Israel’s friends and, more dangerously, toward the Jewish community broadly - something all of us who care about Israel’s future should find alarming.

There are so many other ways AIPAC could spend down its political war chest – for instance, it could support candidates pushing for implementation of the 20-point ceasefire plan in Gaza. It could simply focus on its stated mission: strengthening the U.S.–Israel relationship itself.

It could even - if it really wanted to reflect American Jewish opinion at this critical moment - use its capital to support those defending American democracy from the existential attacks it faces.

Israel, American democracy, and the Jewish community all deserve better than a strategy that leads AIPAC to launch an attack like this an esteemed public servant and friend of Israel like Tom Malinowski.

Subscribe now

P.S. Ilan and I will be discussing this, Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, and developments in Gaza, Greenland, Davos and more at 4 p.m. Eastern TODAY Wednesday January 21 at 4 p.m. Eastern on Word on the Street LIVE. Join us or watch later.

The bottom line: it’s a mixed bag.

There are real steps forward, serious legitimacy gaps, and a grandiose vision for a “Board of Peace” that raises profound concerns – particularly the sweeping, extra-legal power it would vest in Donald Trump.

So What Actually Happened This Week?

Phase Two of the 20-point plan was officially launched.

After months of skepticism about whether the process would ever move beyond Phase One — which reduced fighting, brought some hostages home, and modestly increased aid — the White House and mediators signaled determination to move, in Steve Witkoff’s words, “from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance and reconstruction.”

The Good

A Palestinian technocratic governing committee was named

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) is a 15-member technocratic body tasked with running Gaza’s civil affairs and reconstruction. It will be led by Dr. Ali Sha’ath, a Gaza-born former deputy minister with experience in public administration and economic development. Those I’ve spoken to who know him describe him as a pragmatic and non-ideological – precisely the kind of figure this moment requires.

The same can be said for most of the people on the Committee.

• Why this matters: professional, technocratic governance offers the best chance for functional administration and rebuilding without factional control.

An International Oversight Framework Was Announced

Under the umbrella of UNSC Resolution 2803, an international Executive Board will support implementation of the plan. The board includes U.S. officials, former international envoys, regional mediators, and private-sector figures.

Former UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov will serve as High Representative for Gaza, linking international oversight to the NCAG. Mladenov’s reputation and experience are strong. He has a deep understanding of the players and the issues and the strength to stand up to spoilers.

• Why this matters: Gaza’s reconstruction is being embedded — at least on paper — in a multilateral framework rather than treated as a purely American project.

Security leadership was named

Major General Jasper Jeffers was appointed commander of the International Stabilization Force. Key details about mandate, composition, and rules of engagement remain unclear — but naming leadership is a necessary first step.

The Ugly

So much remains unresolved.

• Will Hamas actually step aside? Spokesman Bassem Naim called the committee “a step in the right direction,” but rhetoric is not the same as actually relinquishing power – and weapons. While this technocratic body is the only plausible alternative to Hamas, the terror group’s actual willingness to cede control remains untested.

• Is the Palestinian Authority being integrated or sidelined? A viable future requires Gaza and the West Bank under one reformed PA. PA Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh welcomed the move but stressed “one system, one law and one legitimate weapon.” Integration is part of the 20-point plan – but is there a real path to achieving it?

• And that challenge raises the most serious problem: the Israeli government is not on board. Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly rebuked the White House, calling the announcements uncoordinated and contrary to Israeli policy. At least one cause of his objection: the prominent roles for Turkey and Qatar which cause him a domestic headache. The reaction of a senior White House official quoted in Axios was the right one: “This is our show, not his show… He will do his politics and we will keep moving forward with our plan. He can’t really go against us.”

Why this matters: Without Israeli cooperation, Hamas demilitarization, or PA integration, implementation will be extraordinarily difficult. And reconstruction cannot begin until Israel allows access to Western Gaza and the NCAG begins to operate there.

The Insane (or at least Deeply Concerning)

As we’ve known since the ceasefire, the White House is intent on ensuring that Donald Trump personally plays a central role in the so-called Board of Peace, an entity authorized by the United Nations to exercise real power over Gaza’s transition.

Reports are circulating about draft charter language accompanying invitations to world leaders that would extend the Board’s authority far beyond Gaza – potentially into other global conflicts. If accurate, this risks transforming what was conceived as a limited transitional mechanism for Gaza into something far more permanent and dangerous.

Even crazier, these same reports say the charter draft proposes that he remain Chair after leaving office with significant ongoing power and that he have authority to name his successor.

Needless to say, if any of these reports are true, even contemplating this level of personal, unaccountable power vested in a single individual is unprecedented — and deeply troubling. I have to imagine that serious leaders from Europe to the Middle East will balk at this conception.

Closing Thoughts

There is real progress here – especially the move toward technocratic Palestinian governance and meaningful international engagement. But the picture remains clouded – with overlapping mandates, outrageous and illegitimate assertions of power and a frosty Israeli reaction.

My good friend Gershon Baskin has a solid optimist’s take on the path forward. In his words:

Too many of us are cynical and criticize what is happening. That is not constructive. This is the time to support this process and to contribute to bringing the Israeli-Palestinian to a peaceful end.

The problems of Gaza and Israel/Palestine more broadly were created over a century. They will not be resolved in one news cycle – and certainly not this week in Davos. But if peace is to become a reality, the journey starts with taking small steps in the right direction - some of which were outlined this week.

Thank you to all those who supported J Street at the end of the year. We’re proud to be powered by grassroots supporters who make our important work possible.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

The book provides both an accessible dive into legal history and the beautifully-told stories of two key mid-20^th century architects of international law. An unexpected wrinkle in the tale is the parallel Jewish history not only of the two lawyers but of Sands himself.

International human rights law rests on this simple principle: states and their leaders don’t always act in the interests of those they rule – and the world needs mechanisms to hold them to account when they don’t.

In the wake of catastrophic 20^th century wars, world leaders constructed a legal framework to protect individual and minority group rights from the kinds of harm unaccountable leaders and regimes had caused for millennia.

The early 21^st century is testing those efforts severely – posing a stark choice about the kind of world and future in which we wish to live.

In the frightening words of Trump adviser Stephen Miller:

“We live in a world...that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power... These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

That world view enables not only America’s removal of Nicholas Maduro, but Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea and Donetsk and even Benjamin Netanyahu and the settler right’s push to entrench Israeli control over Gaza and the West Bank.

Opposing these leaders who ground their actions in a “might makes right” worldview are the institutions and rules in place since World War II to advance democracy, shared security and the rule of law.

The Jewish people should be particularly attuned to the danger if the views of the former win out.

Our history offers one object lesson after another about the risks to minorities when power is unchecked and law is subordinate to the whims of autocrats. Haven’t we learned from pharaohs, caesars, tsars and führers alike?

The last eighty years have proven the counter case – enabling an unprecedented era of Jewish security, prosperity, and flourishing in societies centering democracy, equality before the law, independent courts, free media, and a commitment to the rules-based international order.

That architecture is shaking today as, all across the globe, populist leaders are exploiting fear, grievance, and rapid social change to consolidate power while hollowing out democratic norms.

To be clear: the fear on which these leaders – from Trump to Netanyahu, Xi, Modi and Erdogan – prey is real.

Climate disruption, mass migration, technological change, and an information environment that erodes any shared sense of truth are real – and frightening – and all contribute to historic levels of wealth and income disparity.

Liberal democracies are failing to respond boldly enough to the challenges of the 21^st century.

But the answers strongmen are offering – scapegoating, repression, territorial conquest, and the glorification of force – accelerate the problems they claim to solve.

In Israel, Netanyahu may aspire for Israel to become a kind of “Sparta,” but history offers little reason to admire the model. While Sparta was feared, it proved brittle, morally hollow, and ultimately unsustainable. It left no legacy worth emulating.

In the United States, Jews need to be at the forefront of resisting the Trumpian assault on democratic institutions, minority protections, and the rule of law – not as a partisan reflex, but as a matter of communal survival and moral clarity.

How can we stand by as masked agents of the government whisk residents away without due process or, worse, use lethal force and then misrepresent the evidence – even when caught on video? How can we be silent when the Vice President jovially says, “America has a bit of a Somali problem.”

These echoes of our past must spur us to action at home. Security for every American must be rooted in the protection of democracy, the rights of minorities and guarantees of freedoms for all.

And globally, we must reject the idea that seizing land by force, ruling indefinitely over another people, and discarding international norms makes us safer. For Israel, long-term security will derive from adherence to international law and the legitimacy that confers, from diplomatic normalization and from regional integration.

Jewish tradition also provides unambiguous moral guideposts in this moment of choice.

A few months ago, I wrote about a High Holiday sermon my rabbi delivered on a foundational biblical idea: no king is above the law. In the Torah, the limits on sovereignty are clear – power must be restrained, accountable, and morally bounded.

Watching Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu place themselves above the law, weaponize state institutions against their enemies, and intertwine personal enrichment with public authority should provoke an outcry from Jewish leaders everywhere.

Similarly, to treat others today as we did not want to be treated is to violate a fundamental moral principle of Jewish tradition.

Silence in a moment like this is not neutrality, it is choosing the sword by default.

The future of our community – and, without exaggeration, the future of the democratic world Jews have helped build and depend upon – hinges on whether we speak out, act courageously, and consistently choose law over force, democracy over domination, and moral clarity over tribal comfort.

For Jews, this moment poses an ancient question in modern form: will we live by the sword or by the rule of law?

The question is squarely before us in 2026, and history will judge how we answer it.

Subscribe now

J Street is proud to be powered by supporters like you. Your support makes our important work possible.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

With Ilan focused on policy and strategy, I’ve been thinking about posture and power. My take is maybe a bit more blunt than his – as regular Word on the Street readers and listeners may expect.

As I think about yet another presidential meeting with the long-serving Israeli Prime Minister, I keep hoping we’ve reached the point where a president will put their foot down and use the leverage we have to force a change of course.

So, as I listened to Rahm Emanuel’s recent appearance on Pod Save America where he shared his thoughts about Netanyahu, in his trademark blunt language, I started to wonder what it would look like for a President to channel their ‘inner Rahm’ – not to adopt all his views, but to bring his bluntness and willingness to use leverage – in a meeting with Bibi.

To be clear, what follows is an imagined script for a conversation with Netanyahu, based on arguments Rahm made in the Pod Save interview. I’ve taken liberties to edit his words for length and clarity, but nearly every word is Rahm’s.

Bibi, Israel has never been more strategically secure since Ben-Gurion was dancing the hora in 1948 in Tel Aviv – or more politically vulnerable.

You’ve got the best strategic terrain Israel has had since its founding.

You have peace with Jordan and Egypt.

Syria and Lebanon – call it non-belligerence.

Iran is on their back foot.

You don’t have in the immediate neighborhood a strategic threat.

When you and I were starting out, the Gulf was all about just oil. Today, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, want to use their petrodollars to be part of the global economy.

That is an invitation for Israel.

And you’re pissing it away, Mr. Prime Minister.

You have the Gulf countries ready to accept Israel as part of the region – which has been the dream – to be a nation among the nations – since its founding.

And you’re doing nothing to take advantage of this moment.

Instead, you’ve crossed the line on the settlements. Unacceptable.

From here on in, any settler who’s involved in any violence on the West Bank is on a no-fly list.

Our military aid? I’m willing to continue that, but there are going to be restraints and boundaries.

And you’re not going to hold America’s foreign policy or our strategic interests hostage any more. The United States is going to be working with all your neighbors to build a new Middle East, and you can either be a part of it or you can be on your own.

Now, I’m not giving Palestinians a pass. They’ve missed opportunities from Camp David with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to what Olmert offered years later. But there’s still no choice. Both of you have to give up your extremist positions and learn how to live together.

It’s legitimate for Israel to ask whether the Palestinian Authority can be counted on as a partner – which is precisely why America’s role is to create space for a prime minister to take risky political steps.

Coddling you, coddling a prime minister - saying yes to all your actions - is not in Israel’s self-interest. It has not worked.

You’re making the decision to continually repress Palestinian aspirations for a state, and we’re paying for it, America’s paying for it.

And, Mr. Prime Minister, Israel’s paying for it through your isolation.

I never in my life thought that a prime minister of the state of Israel would lead Jews back into the ghetto. But that’s what’s happening around the world.

You’ve isolated Jews and Israel.

The Israeli Symphony and other musicians can’t perform in some parts of Europe. People, academics, can’t participate in conferences on biomedicine.

And - I’d like to remind you, Mr. Prime Minister, Israel’s now facing for the first time net emigration. Your best young minds in the fields of science and technology are leaving and they’re going to Berlin, which has its own twist of irony.

You want to keep doing this, go ahead. But we’re not going to bankroll it.

I’ve said this to you since 2009 – when a lot of other people were lip-syncing the talking points out of AIPAC – it doesn’t help Israel to say yes to you automatically.

There’s a cost to this, and we can’t keep covering that up. You’re making a choice, which you think is no choice – but it comes with huge consequences, and I’m not covering the bill for you anymore.

If you want to isolate Israel and if you, Mr. Prime Minister, want to give this stupid speech about becoming a super-Sparta, that’s on you. But we’re not going to isolate ourselves. And we’re not going to get isolated with you. That’s not how we’re doing this score.

Rahm, of course, didn’t lay out a full strategic approach to Israel-Palestine in the interview – and there are significant areas where I disagree with him (for starters, I strongly supported the JCPOA and opposed the military strike on Iran last summer).

But there’s a lot to learn from in Rahm’s approach. Speak with confidence and moral clarity. Lay out the facts – make clear what’s right and wrong - what’s best for the United States and Israel.

Ilan and I have been talking with a range of experts in recent weeks about the future of the US-Israel relationship. Ben Rhodes wants to cut off all aid to this government. Dan Shapiro holds to a more traditional approach.

What I look to Rahm for isn’t a full doctrine or a complete peace plan. It’s the tone – the posture for dealing with Bibi. A reminder that American leadership doesn’t have to be timid.

After all, as he reminds us President Clinton once said, “Who is the f’ing superpower here?”

A quick final note: it’s the end of the year - and a critical time for J Street’s fundraising. If you value Word on the Street, I hope you’ll consider supporting our work today. Like many advocacy groups, J Street relies on end-of-year donations for nearly half of our annual grassroots fundraising. Your support makes our important work possible.

Can we count on you to chip in?

Most of us born since World War II were raised to see Israel as part of who we are – and to marvel at the miracle of renewed Jewish sovereignty after centuries of exile and at its rebirth in the shadow of the Holocaust.

Israel’s central place in our identity explains the intensity of the arguments - among ourselves and with others. From Shabbat tables and synagogue meetings to college campuses and social media. We argue out of fear, pride, anger, grief, and love.

When Israel is described as a colonial or oppressive power, many of us recoil – believing that language fails to reflect Jewish history or the reality of Israel’s founding. I know just how many American Jews resist the word “occupation,” having been told that settlements are integral to Israel’s security.

But most American Jews have never actually seen what we spend so much time arguing about.

Very few have been to the West Bank. Fewer still have witnessed land seizures outside the rule of law, the displacement and violence faced by Palestinians, or the parallel legal systems – one for Jews, one for Palestinians – that make this possible.

And almost none truly understand that cementing Israeli control over land seized six decades ago is actually the central project of the most radical government in Israel’s history.

I thought of all this as I watched a documentary that aired last week on Israel’s public television (Channel 11) examining how this government is reshaping the West Bank.

The film is a meticulous investigative report exposing how the Netanyahu government is actively promoting, funding, and expanding the settlement enterprise. Led by ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strook, this effort is not fringe or incidental. It is systematic and intentional.

In disturbing detail, the filmmakers show how Israeli taxpayer money is being used to support illegal outposts – illegal even under Israeli law – while creating irreversible “facts on the ground” that amount to de facto annexation of the West Bank.

This is not about isolated abuses. It is state policy.

The broadcast sparked a much-needed – and all-too-rare – debate inside Israel about democratic norms, misuse of public funds, and the real costs of the settlers’ agenda to Israel’s security, morality, and future.

Now, with English subtitles available thanks to our good friends at UnXeptable, the Israeli-American pro-democracy group, the film can be seen – and understood – by Jews and allies around the world as well. I’ve embedded it in this post and am linking to it here.

Watching it forces us to confront truths we too often avoid.

Several times a year, I lead J Street trips to the West Bank so Americans can see this reality for themselves. We take members of Congress and senators, along with congressional staff, Jewish communal leaders, and policymakers.

On every trip, the reaction is the same: shock, grief, and pain – not simply because what participants see is so wrong but because it contradicts so much of what they have long been told.

While we cannot take millions of Americans or Israeli Jews to the West Bank, this film brings the West Bank to you.

So here’s what I’m asking you to do.

• Watch the film. Take one hour that you might otherwise spend arguing about Israel and use it instead to understand what the government is actually doing.

• Share this post and the video with a few friends or family members, with a simple request of your own: watch this and see for yourselves.

• Take a hard look at the Israel-related organizations you support. Understand where they stand on settlements and settler violence – where their money goes, how they advocate. Do not fund institutions that enable or excuse this behavior.

• Scrutinize the politicians you support. Are they willing to criticize what the Netanyahu government is doing? To sanction violent settler extremists? To say that U.S. support should be used as leverage when Israeli actions violate laws and moral norms?

• Stand up to those who claim that criticizing Israeli government policy is antisemitic or anti-Israel. Blurring this line does grave harm both to Israel and to the fight against real antisemitism.

• Push any Jewish institution you’re engaged in (your synagogue, JCC, federation, Hillel, or others) to expose their communities to what is actually happening in the West Bank.

  ---

Loving Israel today, in a way that respects our families’ histories and our people’s tradition, is not about defending every action of its government. It is about ensuring that Israel remains a country we can – and want to – defend.

An Israel permanently controlling millions of Palestinians without rights is not a future our children will embrace. A country that normalizes dispossession, lawlessness, and ethno-national supremacy will not be secure, moral, or sustainable.

The settlement enterprise you will see in this film is not protecting Israel. It is hollowing it out from within. And the politicians and extremists driving it are not safeguarding the Jewish future – they are gambling it away.

Take the hour. Watch the film. Sit with the discomfort. Share it with the people you argue with and the people you love.

If we refuse to look – if we choose comfort over truth – we cede Israel’s future to those remaking it beyond recognition.

But if we are willing to see clearly and speak honestly, there is still time to change course.

Subscribe now

We’re proud to be powered by supporters like you. Like many advocacy groups, J Street relies on End-of-Year donations for nearly half of our annual grassroots fundraising. Your support makes our important work possible.

Can we count on you to chip in?

My heart personally and J Street’s organizationally go out to the Sydney Jewish community and to all of Jewish Australia which has seen an awful wave of antisemitism. We are shocked as well by last night’s violence at Brown University and we are thinking of that community as well.

Today’s shooting is an unspeakable tragedy, and highlights the urgency of the work we all must be engaged in to defeat and defuse antisemitism and all forms of hate.

The following was written prior to these horrific attacks. The need for leadership at the center of this piece is only further demonstrated by tragedies like these we are witnessing around the world on a daily basis.

It wasn’t my father’s habit to buy me presents. So the copy of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage that he gave me when I was still quite young meant a great deal.

I read it often – soaking in the stories of Senators who stood against prevailing tides, defended their principles, and often paid a steep political price.

I didn’t agree with the values underlying every vote those profiled cast. But the idea of standing on principle in the face of enormous pressure has inspired me since. More than four decades in politics have only reinforced how rare such courage truly is.

We are living through uncharted times, and never has courage’s absence been more glaring.

The failure of the Republican Party in Congress to stand up to Donald Trump – and to defend the prerogatives of the legislative branch in the face of his unprecedented expansion of executive power – may be the clearest example. Over and over, Members who know better have chosen acquiescence over accountability.

My father’s admiration for those who swam against the tide was shaped by his own experiences before and during World War II. Working first in Europe and then in the United States, he tried to sound the alarm about the rising threat of fascism and the need for a Jewish response equal to the danger.

What he believed he saw instead was a refusal – both in Europe and in America – to confront the worst possibilities. Jews in Central Europe who would not leave. Jews in America, with access to power, unwilling to rock the boat hard enough to command attention.

One lesson was drilled into me growing up, perhaps to a fault: when right and wrong are at stake, do not yield to the prevailing tide.

It is precisely because courage is so scarce that moments of it stand out. That is why this week’s vote in the Indiana State Senate resonated with me.

As part of President Trump’s ongoing effort to maximize partisan gerrymandering ahead of the midterms, pressure came down hard on Indiana Republicans to redraw congressional maps for partisan gain. And in today’s politics, the expectation is simple: comply – or pay the price.

And yet, in a genuine rarity, Republican state senators refused. Citing their constitutional responsibilities, their conservative principles, and the wishes of their constituents, they voted down the plan – despite intense pressure from the White House and MAGA world, and despite the very real risk to their own political futures.

Imagine if leaders like Mitch McConnell had shown similar resolve earlier this decade when they had the chance to ensure that Donald Trump could never again hold public office. Imagine if Republican leaders had stood by principles they once espoused: opposition to unchecked executive power, to unpaid-for tax cuts, to tariffs, to exploding federal debt.

Oh, for a few more John McCains. Or Liz Cheneys.

Courageous leadership is never easy, and it almost always exacts a price. But difficult times demand exactly that kind of leadership – not only in Congress, but everywhere power is exercised.

That includes Israel. Many Israeli leaders understand full well that the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens Israel’s future as both a Jewish and democratic state.

The same dynamic plays out within the American Jewish community. Too often, communal leaders avoid standing before their constituents with principled arguments that might generate disagreement or discomfort, opting instead for the easier language of “unity.”

But, as I’ve written before, unity doesn’t equal uniformity, and it certainly cannot mean silence.

• When pain and fear are weaponized in the name of fighting antisemitism, that must be called out.

• When Israel starts a war with a legitimate claim of self-defense but then wages it in a way that violates basic moral norms, that must be named.

• When American leaders traffic in racism, bigotry, and the demonization of entire communities, that must be confronted as strongly as antisemitism against our own people.

These are trying times for those who believe in democracy, liberalism, and the rule of law. Autocracy is advancing at full speed. Billionaires consolidate unprecedented wealth and power. Fear of “the other” is manipulated more efficiently than at any moment in human history.

We need modern-day profiles in courage now more than ever.

History will remember who stood up – who defended democracy, who worked for peace, who protected the vulnerable.

Years from now, I doubt young children will be handed books by their parents celebrating those who chose comfort, silence, or self-preservation instead.

We’re proud to be powered by supporters like you. Like many advocacy groups, J Street relies on End-of-Year donations for nearly half of our annual grassroots fundraising. Your support makes our important work possible.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET

Our parents and grandparents carried the scars of statelessness: murdered relatives, erased communities, nations that shut their doors. To them, Israel’s birth was redemption after catastrophe – a refuge and a miracle they supported with activism, fundraising, even arms and rescue.

But our children and grandchildren know a different Israel.

They have grown up with an Israel that is a 21^st century power – brimming with military might, cutting edge technology, even nuclear capabilities.

Theirs is the Israel of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich. An Israel ruling perpetually over millions of Palestinians – where settlements expand, land is seized, homes are demolished, extremist violence flourishes and a two-tier reality shapes daily life in the West Bank.

The David we were raised on has become Goliath.

And then came the Gaza war.

The atrocities of October 7 were horrific. Yet the response – tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, neighborhoods flattened, millions displaced and hungry – left young Jews confronting a wrenching question: What does Jewish power mean if it inflicts such suffering?

For our generation, Israel’s survival was justification enough. For theirs, Israel’s ethics matter just as much.

And for many of us, the distance our children are creating from Israel feels like a rupture – as if the chain of memory forged by generations who endured relentless persecution might snap – and on our watch.

So I hear, constantly, the anxious question from parents and grandparents: How do we keep this generation connected to Israel? How do we stop them from walking away?

We must also acknowledge the world they inhabit. Their peers – Jewish and not – often see the Palestinian cause as the moral struggle of our time. Israel is framed not as threatened, but as the oppressor.

Young Jews caught in that current often feel they must choose between being loyal to their heritage and family or loyal to their values. When we respond by dismissing their critiques or branding Israel’s critics as antisemites, we do not win any arguments – we simply lose trust.

Some criticism is antisemitic. Much is not. And they know it.

Israel is a homeland, refuge, and center of culture. It is also a state like any other – capable of great things, and also of injustice. The very existence of a Jewish state is not proof of virtue; it is a test of it.

A love that lasts will not come from shielding our children from Israel’s flaws. It will come from engaging them in the work of addressing them.

Let them see Israel’s brilliance – yes. Its innovation, resilience, cultural vitality. Let them see also the harm: checkpoints and displacement, olive groves torched, extremism tolerated, Palestinian life constrained.

Here in the US, we demonstrate our patriotism on the streets - rallying for ‘no kings’ and against rising fascism.

We should embrace it when the next generation joins Israelis and Palestinians fighting for equality and peace and wrestling with the responsibility that comes when Jews, after two thousand years without power, exercise it in their national home.

The country cannot and should not be an object of blind devotion. It is one country among roughly 200 in the real world, run by real people – imperfect people. And, as with all human efforts, it requires constant attention and repair.

• Will Israel treat others as we wish Jews had been treated when we lacked power?

• Will sovereignty be wielded with justice or exerted through domination?

• Will we uphold dignity even when it is inconvenient?

These questions – not sentimental tourism, not Birthright gloss – are what can root young Jews in Israel. Invite them to love Israel, yes, but also to be part of the ongoing work to make it ever better.

So when people ask me: How do I make my kids love Israel? I say:

Show them the whole truth.

Teach the painful history – not only the heroism.

Acknowledge Gaza, occupation, settlement expansion – not as footnotes, but central realities.

And give them responsibility, not propaganda.

Love built on mythology breaks. Love built on honesty and moral obligation endures.

If we want our children to love Israel, we should encourage them to wrestle with it – not demand they worship it.

We’re proud to be powered by supporters like you. Like many advocacy groups, J Street relies on end-of-year donations for nearly half of our annual grassroots fundraising. Your support makes our important work - particularly our work with the next generation through J Street U - possible.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION TO J STREET

MAKE A RECURRING DONATION TO J STREET