1.
So while Europe is being taken over before our very eyes and Israel's and the Jewish people's enemies are seizing key positions there, we are about to be told of a similar takeover in the world's largest Jewish city, New York. The leading candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is an extreme Muslim, anti-Israel figure who holds semi-communist socialist ideas. The Democrats are concentrating efforts for his victory in the hope it will help their return to power.
Either way, in the years ahead we will see in New York scenes similar to those we saw in London, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm and Turin. Our brothers and sisters in New York, what are you waiting for? Come home. Make Aliyah.
The average liberal in New York is offended by mixing ethnic, religious and cultural considerations into political choice, but Europe demonstrates that those considerations are central. Western liberalism no longer protects society from those who exploit freedom and human rights to undermine it. Political correctness, originally intended to make minorities feel comfortable in society, has over time become a mechanism for suppressing free thought and policing discourse. You cannot talk about Mamdani's extreme Muslimness without being suspected of racism and Islamophobia. That is how the alarm sensors of Western civilization were neutered.
2.
Significant voices against Israel and the Jews can be heard on the Republican right as well. The separatist current seeks to sever the US from Israel and views the partnership in our fight as something that endangers the US. Tucker Carlson, who preaches against Israel and has slid into the terrain of religious antisemitism ("the Jews are the chosen people? the chosen people are those who believe in Jesus"), is a key figure for leaders at the top of the Republican Party.
Steve Bannon, strategic adviser and CEO of Donald Trump's first presidential campaign, said this week that a three-state solution is needed. The third state would be a "Christian state in Jerusalem, we need a Christian state in the Holy Land."
He also addressed evangelicals, the Christian Zionists, whose support for us has seemed solid and steady, and yet tectonic shifts are being felt among their young, who are exposed to anti-Israel propaganda rooted in antisemitic ideas.
3.
What is Israel doing to promote a better outcome? Not much beyond routine diplomacy based on personal ties and shared interests. The prevailing attitude in Israeli discourse is that nothing can be done against the waves of antisemitism, that we are few against many, so our influence on global public opinion is a drop in the ocean. Generally, the dominant view is that we must win wars and fortify the economy and security, and that will be the best public diplomacy.
4.
I believe this is a dangerous approach that abandons our near future for nothing. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have seized important faculty positions at prestigious universities through financial support, and have intervened in curricula and in how the Middle East in general and Israel in particular are taught. That is how they influenced anti-Israel discourse.
The dreadful results were visible on campuses during the war. Mamdani is also a product of that activity. On the opposing political front, the younger generation in the evangelical movement is exposed to anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda full of blatant lies. Israel is not operating in those arenas. Why?
5.
I am no longer aiming to influence our enemies; at the very least we must keep our friends. Israel supporters are being targeted mainly by venomous propaganda and are rarely exposed to pro-Israel ideas. Israel is a cyber power and knows how to influence social networks, but that is simply not happening. Evangelical churches operate alone without significant Israeli cooperation. Why? There are many programs to influence global public opinion. During some days of the war, Israel spent a billion shekels a day on this struggle.
The battle for global consciousness is a constant war, whose achievements are intertwined with our ability to wage war with international backing. We must allocate at least a billion shekels a year to that fight. Otherwise, we will wake up one day to an American president named Zohran Mamdani.
