One of the many accusations we Zionists encounter is that we do not "see" the Palestinians. That is, we "erase" or otherwise ignore the existence of the Palestinians and their suffering. Zionists and Israelis, the accusers claim, go about their lives blissfully ignorant of the Palestinians all around them in a subconscious act of racist erasure.

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Sometimes this accusation is simply made in bad faith. Many use it as nothing more than a weapon of emotional blackmail, seeking to foster shame and a sense of personal and collective original sin among Zionists and Israelis.

In all cases, however, it is simply untrue, because it is impossible for Zionists and Israelis not to "see" the Palestinians.

Israelis, of course, are constantly reminded of the Palestinians due to the Palestinians' insistence on committing terrorist atrocities against them.

But Zionists outside of Israel are hardly left unmolested. They are inundated with the claims of the Palestinian national movement, mainly through a compliant and sympathetic media. They couldn't escape it if they wanted to.

This is not to mention the increasing number of antisemitic attacks and other forms of harassment committed by Arabs and Muslims in the name of the Palestinian cause.

In fact, I believe I can make the Palestinian case as well as anyone: Zionism is a form of racist settler-colonialism that sought to ethnically cleanse the indigenous Palestinian people; Israel's 1948 War of Independence was a conspiracy to expel the Palestinians and steal their land; the occupation of Judea and Samaria is a system of constant violence and abuse; Israel continues its illegal land grab through the settlement movement; the IDF commits war crimes against the Palestinians as a matter of conscious policy; Israel in its entirety is an apartheid state; and so and so forth, into infinity.

It must be said that most thoughtful Zionists and Israelis have wrestled with these claims, as Jews tend to wrestle with almost everything.

Moreover, I am not entirely without empathy for the Palestinians. It does not give me joy that many of them live as refugees. I do not take pleasure in the fact that they have to wait at checkpoints. I know that when an army exercises control over non-citizens, there are bound to be abuses. I am not happy about the deaths of non-combatants in military operations. My reflex is to be sympathetic to any people seeking national independence – I wouldn't be a Zionist if it were otherwise.

There is also the fact that Palestinian claims cut to the bone of any Jew. We have a long history of suffering, oppression, exile and dispossession. When others claim to have suffered such things as well – such as the Uyghurs today – we are naturally sympathetic. We want to stand up for the weak and downtrodden because we have often been the weak and downtrodden. It is easy to make us feel guilty when we are accused of being the oppressors and the persecutors.

I have even gone so far as to engage in a small thought experiment: What, I asked myself, if everything the Palestinians say about us is true?

This experiment helped me reach certain conclusions: First, even if we were as bad as the Palestinians claim – which we are not – we would still be a people like all other peoples. We would still have a right to self-determination of some kind in some part of our indigenous homeland. Our behavior at any given moment is irrelevant to that right, which is absolute.

Second, even if the accusations were true, Israel has tried multiple times to address them and reach some kind of reconciliation with those who believe we have wronged them. Each time, reconciliation has been rejected in the most violent manner possible. Many Israelis have paid with their lives for these attempts. To simply pretend that these attempts never happened or have no moral import defames those martyrs to peace.

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As a result of this thought experiment, I find myself less plagued by the idea that I may not "see" the Palestinians, because I believe Israel has done everything it could to "see." The extra mile was gone, and it did not work. It did not work because the Palestinians did not want it to work.

That was their choice. One must accept it, but they must accept that, as a result of that choice, their movement can make no moral demands on any of us. If there is to be a reconciliation, it will have to come from a different choice: The Palestinians must choose to see us.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The word dai, best known from the dayenu of the Passover service, has a simple and assertive meaning in modern Hebrew: Enough, stop it, let it go. Israel has reached the point of both dai and dayenu.

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With the passage of the first stage of the government's judicial reforms, the signs have become unmistakable.

All the major newspapers printed a black page on their covers, paid for by the reforms' opponents. The streets filled with angry crowds of pro- and anti-reform demonstrators. A general strike is threatened. Israel's international credit rating will be lowered. High-tech companies are beginning the process of relocation. The economy threatens to crater. Reservists are refusing to serve and the IDF warns that its readiness could soon be in danger.

A friend in Australia tells me that the number of members of her Facebook group for emigrating Israelis has skyrocketed. People are seriously discussing leaving the country for the first time in their lives. A group called "The Separation Movement," which calls for dividing Israel into a secular, democratic "New Israel" and a theocratic "Judea," has gone viral on social media and is getting a serious hearing in the public discourse.

Israel's enemies are gloating and no doubt looking for ways to exploit the situation.

One can support or oppose the law just passed and indeed the rest of the proposed reforms. We have reached the point, however, that this has become irrelevant. Whether either side likes it or not, we must face the reality that Israeli society is being torn to pieces.

Indeed, this crisis is pitting Israelis against themselves in a manner more violent and intense than ever before. It has sharpened existing divisions between religious and secular, right and left, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi to a razor's edge. Half the country does not merely oppose but hates the other half, and the feeling is mutual.

It appears, at the moment, as if many in the anti-reform camp wish that religious and right-wing Israelis would simply disappear. Needless to say, this is not going to happen. At the same time, many pro-reform activists appear to hope all secular and left-wing Israelis will simply leave the country and the Biden administration unceremoniously told where to get off, as if what Israel most needs is fewer Jews and fewer supporters. The demented ambitions of both sides are not simply reprehensible, they are suicidal.

This is unsustainable.

One thing then, is clear: Dai, enough, stop it, let it go. Put simply, the government must give up on further reforms and it must do so now. The government has gotten its pound of flesh and the opposition has shaken the country almost to its foundations. To push this any further would be reckless to the point of derangement.

Certainly, neither side is exempt from this responsibility. The Supreme Court may well override the just-passed reform, which would only confirm the pro-reform camp's belief that Israel is a "judicial tyranny" and escalate the crisis further.

Unfortunately, however, the primary responsibility falls upon those who support the reforms and the Netanyahu government itself.

This is not a responsibility they wish to shoulder. The government was democratically elected, they say. We cannot allow the left to use the mob to get what it wants. All of this is just a bitter reaction to having lost an election. Domestic issues are none of America's business. The views of American Jews are irrelevant. Reform will strengthen, not weaken, Israeli democracy.

All of this may be true. And it doesn't matter. We are faced with a matzav, a situation. That situation exists. It is dire. It must end. The only way to end it is for the government to forgo further reform.

I have no doubt that the government will find this a bitter pill to swallow. Its members are loath to hand what they see as a victory to an opposition many of them despise. Why, they probably think, should we be the ones to give up? After all, we won the election.

They did indeed win an election, but ironically, this places the onus on them. They are the government, they are the ones in power, they are the ones entrusted with the future of the country. As such, they bear a responsibility that the opposition does not. This may be unfair, indeed it is unfair, but it is a fact.

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Nor need this be the end. Supporters of reform can regroup, make their case again and attempt to do what they conspicuously failed to do this time: Forge a broad consensus in their favor. If they cannot, they should understand what this means.

The pro-reform camp has gotten a piece of what it wanted. A piece is not everything, but it is something. Its members should say dayenu: This is enough for us.

If they persist in what must regrettably be called a kamikaze mission, the situation will quickly become hopeless. But Israel was built on hope. The Jewish people cannot survive without hope. If despair carries the day, something in Israel's soul will die.

No one can want this except our fanatics, and most of us are not fanatics. It is time for most of us to be heard: Dai, enough, stop it, let it go.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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In a decidedly unsurprising verdict, the man who murdered 11 Jews in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh has been found guilty. Now, Robert Bowers faces a second judgment: The court must determine whether he will receive the death penalty.

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Three congregations were using the Tree of Life facility at the time of the massacre – New Light, Dor Hadash and Tree of Life itself. According to The New York Times, "There has not been agreement among the three congregations or within them about whether Mr. Bowers should be sentenced to death."

This is also unsurprising. The American Jewish community is overwhelmingly liberal and progressive. As a result, it has long been deeply uncomfortable with the death penalty. No doubt many of them wish to see Bowers pay the ultimate price, but there are likely many others – perhaps a majority – who believe this would only compound his atrocity. It is probable that they believe Bowers' execution would violate the principles of Judaism itself, or at least their understanding of them.

It is not true, of course, that Judaism has traditionally rejected the death penalty. The Torah prescribes it for all manner of transgressions, and while the Sages and their successors circumscribed its practice, they never rejected it wholesale. It was carefully regulated but remained part of the law and thus considered to be moral and applicable in certain cases, however rare they might be.

For many modern Jews, however, this is not enough. In America, and particularly among liberal and progressive Jews, the traditional Jewish view of the death penalty has been caught up in the maelstrom of the larger debate in society over capital punishment and its possible abolition.

Often, abolitionists' concerns are practical ones. They hold that capital punishment is ineffective as a deterrent, overused, racially biased in its application and impossible to carry out in anything resembling a humane fashion.

Much like the debate over abortion, however, the details conceal the essential issue, which is a moral one. That is, the abolitionists believe that capital punishment is simply wrong. Killing, they hold, is universally considered to be an evil, and this holds true whether it is done by an individual or in the name of the state. For the state to kill, moreover, is not only hypocrisy but a travesty, because it seeks to punish a crime by committing a crime.

Ultimately, the abolitionists ask a basic moral question: Does the state have the right to kill? Their unequivocal answer is "no."

I sympathize with this position to some degree. At the very least, it is morally consistent. For me, however, it is not enough.

I will have to preface my explanation with the often unfortunate phrase "as a Jew." I must do so because I think that, for a Jew, the morality of capital punishment can only be ascertained by asking a very different question.

As a Jew, I believe that question is not, "Does the state have the right to kill?" It is: Should Eichmann have been hanged?

I do not intend to delve into the details of the trial of Adolf Eichmann or the specifics of his colossal crimes. I merely note that Eichmann and his execution present a Jew with a dilemma that, I believe, admits of only one answer.

We must ask ourselves: If we take the abolitionists at their word, that they really believe it is not simply wrong for the state to kill but actually evil, then do we believe – really believe – that the execution of the architect of the Holocaust was actually evil?

This is not a question to be taken lightly. To kill a man, for any reason, is a horrible thing. Indeed, I have read that the guard who cut Eichmann's body down was traumatized for life by the sight of the corpse's distorted features. Even the devil's execution raises the most profound questions of morality and justice.

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Nonetheless, I know what my instinctive reaction to the question is. Like the abolitionists, I must obey it and the moral imperative it constitutes. It is a simple, quiet but unequivocal no. No force on earth or heaven could ever convince me that it was evil for Adolf Eichmann to die at the end of a rope or that a state – especially a Jewish state – had no right to execute him.

If I accept this, then I must accept everything that comes with it: The death penalty may be overapplied, discriminatory and ineffective as a deterrent, but it is not inherently wrong. Perhaps it should be used more sparingly and applied only in the most extreme cases, but it is not an unmitigated evil.

The abolitionists have every right to go on believing that capital punishment is an abomination. I respect their principles, but I do not accept them. If I know anything, I know this: Eichmann should have been hanged. If a Pittsburgh court makes the same determination in regards to Robert Bowers, then in good conscience, I will have no choice but to say: So be it, let him hang too.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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When the White House released its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism last week, a great many of us expected the worst: A vacuous, politically correct piece of progressive pablum that does everything possible to avoid pointing to the more uncomfortable sources of antisemitism in American society.

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Having waded through the 60 pages of the document in question, I found it impossible not to conclude that our concerns were at least partially justified. It does include a great deal of pablum, and it is studiously vague on certain subjects of considerable import such as antisemitism in the BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) and Muslim communities. It avoids many of the hardest questions, and shows unseemly obeisance towards certain progressive shibboleths.

It would be unfair, however, to dismiss the entire document as a dodge at best and counterproductive at worst. It includes several very positive elements, and if properly enacted will probably do at least some good.

First, while the language is frustratingly vague, the Strategy at least attempts to address some of the forms of antisemitism that progressives are loath to acknowledge.

While the document makes explicit reference only to "white supremacy" and other far-right sources of antisemitism, it does note, "Some traditionally observant Jews, especially traditional Orthodox Jews, are victimized while walking down the street." It does not mention that the victimizers are generally people of color, but nonetheless, between the lines, the problem is not ignored.

The Strategy also states, "In recent months, celebrities, athletes, and politicians have used their influential platforms to deny the Holocaust, elevate bigots, and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories."

Some of these culprits have been white supremacists, but they have also included people of color such as Kanye West. While we must remember that members of the BIPOC community like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have been outspoken in condemning antisemitism, the problem cannot be dismissed, and the Strategy at least obliquely addresses it.

Much more importantly, however, the Strategy states explicitly, "Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel. When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. And that is unacceptable."

It adds, "On college campuses, Jewish students, educators, and administrators have been derided, ostracized, and sometimes discriminated against because of their actual or perceived views on Israel. All students, educators, and administrators should feel safe and free from violence, harassment and intimidation on their campuses. Far too many do not have this sense of security because of their actual or perceived views on Israel."

This is an extremely welcome and forthright condemnation, all the more so because it targets academe and the highly educated upper-class left, both of which are bulwarks of the Democratic Party. For this White House to call out progressive antisemitism in the form of racist anti-Zionism required not inconsiderable courage, and the Biden administration deserves to be commended for it.

The connection between Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred is also acknowledged to be a global problem, with the Strategy stating, "The US Government, led by the Department of State, will continue to combat antisemitism abroad and in international fora – including efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel" and "intensify efforts to reduce foreign support and the transnational links that help fuel antisemitism in the United States."

Perhaps most remarkably, the Strategy acknowledges, at long last, one of the most overlooked and deliberately silenced tragedies of the 20th century – namely, the persecution and ethnic cleansing of Mizrachi Jews.

"In addition to learning about the horrors of the Holocaust, students should learn about global histories of antisemitism," the Strategy states. "This should include histories of antisemitism experienced by Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews – who trace their ancestry to Spain, the Middle East, and North Africa – and their stories of exclusion, persecution, and expulsion."

To see, at long last, the US issue an explicit acknowledgment of the long-concealed trauma of half the Jewish world must be regarded as a major step forward.

The document also addresses online and social media antisemitism and the enforcement of Jewish rights under the US Civil Rights Act. It does so, moreover, in language that promises action rather than mere rhetoric.

Of course, the Strategy is also deeply flawed on several levels. It includes the usual babbling on behalf of "tikkun olam" and interfaith efforts, as well as a near-constant risible and extremely irritating equation of antisemitism with Islamophobia at a time when antisemitism is fast metastasizing in the Muslim-American community.

Certainly, those of us who at least attempt to see what is under our noses would have wished for a better Strategy, one that acknowledges that antisemitism in America is now coming from three equally dangerous sources: The far-right, the Muslim community and the BICOP community. The Strategy only explicitly calls out the first of these sources, which is counterproductive and indeed somewhat disheartening.

Unfortunately, and conveniently, this feeds into the American Jewish community's and the non-antisemitic left's delusions. They think the problem is all about neo-Nazis and white supremacists. It is about that, and they are right to be worried about it. But it is also about what is being preached in the mosque down the street. It is about what their Muslim friends and neighbors think and say when they are not around. It is about what Louis Farrakhan is spewing out and who is listening to him. It is about Ilhan Omar holding a position of not inconsiderable political power and AOC and Co. running interference for her. It is about Bernie Sanders's embrace of collaborationism. It is about all this, and if it is not admitted to, it cannot be kept at bay.

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Nonetheless, I felt that the Strategy was, in the end, a positive document. It at least obliquely acknowledges that the problem is larger than the far-right. It calls out several staunchly Democratic communities and acknowledges that antisemitism and genocidal Israel-hatred are one and the same. It pledges to enforce Jewish civil rights. It at long last acknowledges the Mizrachi experience.

All of this should be welcomed and, for those of us deeply concerned about the rise of American antisemitism, somewhat comforting. It comes from the heights of power and thus underlines the fact that the US, alone among the nations of the world, is still a largely philosemitic country and takes pride in that fact. At the very least, the Strategy shows that there remain powerful philosemitic forces in American politics and society.

For this, at least, it is worth being cautiously grateful.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order … we must first set our hearts right." – Confucius

Many breathed a sigh of relief last week when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to freeze judicial reform legislation and enter into talks with the opposition. Nothing has actually been solved, of course, and the controversy over the reform issue that has roiled Israel for months, reaching a peak just before Netanyahu's announcement, could easily reignite if the talks fall through.

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Nonetheless, if both sides negotiate in good faith – which is likely, though not a given – then some kind of compromise can almost certainly be reached. Both sides are well-motivated, as the security establishment has made it clear that it cannot guarantee the defense of the country if a broad consensus on the nature of the reforms is not reached. In a country like Israel, this is as close to a papal bull as one is likely to get. The divide between the two sides may be wide, but except for their radical fringes, they are not willing to place the country in mortal danger.

While there may be a reason for optimism in regard to the negotiations, things are less clear, and less encouraging, in regard to the deeper reasons behind the enormous domestic upheaval Israel has recently experienced.

Put simply, there are now more or less two kinds of Israelis: One is secular, outward-looking, liberal, lower-middle to middle-class, and increasingly discontented with the task of shouldering much of the socioeconomic burden. The other is religious, introverted, strongly nationalist, and sharply divided on issues such as economic self-sufficiency and military service – with some shouldering the burden and others not.

The line between these two kinds of Israelis could not have been more sharply delineated in recent months. It was the latter who pushed the judicial reforms in order to protect and promote their conservative values and social privileges, and to curb what they view as a corrupt and biased establishment. It was the former who took to the streets, convinced that their most essential freedoms and Israeli democracy itself were endangered by freeloaders and fascists who have been oppressing them for years if not decades.

One cannot unreservedly endorse one or the other of these two camps. Both have their points to make. But the divide between them unquestionably endangers Israeli society. Even if the judicial reform issue is resolved in some kind of reasonable manner, the rivalry between the two is likely to erupt again over some other if yet unknown controversy. The root causes of the problem must be dealt with.

These causes cannot be addressed exhaustively here, but there is one that is perhaps the most dangerous of all. It is not a policy issue but rather a mentality: Both sides of the divide, particularly at the extremes, see the other not as rivals to be debated or even, God forbid, convinced, but as mortal enemies who must be utterly defeated.

The Right believes the Left must be crushed in order to prevent it from destroying Israel through its pacifism and decadence. The Left believes the Right must be isolated and disempowered in order to save Israel from becoming a Jewish Iran.

The problem with this is not only that it is a recipe for perpetual division and mutual hatred, the sinat hinam (unbiased hatred) that destroyed the Temple. It is that both of these ambitions are impossible to realize. Whether the opposing camps, drawn up for battle, like it or not, neither of these two Israels is going anywhere.

The religious Right can place its faith in its birthrate, but secular, leftist, and moderate Israel will continue to exist as, at the very least, a large and powerful minority. The Left may hope to use its control of certain institutions to stymie right-wing ambitions, but it cannot hope to completely suppress the values and beliefs of a major and sometimes majority bloc of activists and voters.

It is the responsibility of both sides, then, to submit to reality. They must give up the sordid idea that they can "defeat" their rivals. Israel will not become a post-Zionist clone of the E.U. member nations. At the same time, it will not become a Torah state or anything resembling one. One side or the other will not stand for it, and the results will only damage and weaken Israel, perhaps beyond repair.

Whether they want liberty, equality and fraternity above all or a state firmly anchored in Jewish identity, history, and religion, Israelis are going to have to compromise. Not only for the good of the country but also for the good of themselves. It is morally reprehensible to see one's brethren as mortal enemies and attempt to "defeat" them for good and all. It poisons not only the public discourse but also one's own character. It is time for both kinds of Israelis to take a long look in the mirror. If we want to save Israel, we must begin by saving ourselves.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Israel is embroiled in what may be the most intense domestic controversy in the state's short history. The clash over the government's proposed reforms to the judicial system and especially the Supreme Court has sent hundreds of thousands of demonstrators into the streets, escalated public rhetoric to the point of incitement, and prompted mutual charges of undermining Israeli democracy.

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To give the pro-reform camp some credit, there are aspects of the Supreme Court's powers that can be legitimately seen as excessive, such as the right to strike down any law on the basis of a vague concept of "reasonableness."

It is also problematic that the court essentially chooses its membership through the Judicial Selection Committee on which current justices have a de facto veto, thus exempting the unelected judicial branch of government from the oversight of the elected legislative branch.

Thus, to demand that the court forgo its amorphous standard of "reasonableness" and base its decisions on more solid constitutional grounds is not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is the idea that judicial appointments should be subject to some kind of legislative oversight, akin to the Senate confirmation of federal judges required in the United States.

What is deeply problematic, however, is the proposal that a simple majority of the Knesset should be able to strike down court decisions. This does not curtail the powers of the court, it castrates them. It means, in effect, that the court cannot enforce its decisions and the Knesset exercises more or less absolute power over the judiciary.

In practical terms, of course, a Knesset majority may not be able to override court decisions at will. MKs are famously difficult to discipline and there are many on the Right who regard the judiciary with great respect. They will not take a potential override lightly.

Nonetheless, we should not downplay the possibility that this specific reform, unlike the others, could constitute a threat to Israeli democracy. As a friend of mine recently asked me, "What's to prevent the Knesset from voting to keep the government in power for 10 years?" Under the current system, the Supreme Court would quickly rule such a move unconstitutional. With a 61-vote majority capable of overriding the court, this would not be the case.

The repercussions of this could be enormous. The Roman Senate, for example, which lacked any check on its legislative powers, happily voted Julius Caesar dictator for life, which more than anything else put the nail in the coffin of the republic. Unchecked power granted to any branch of government is dangerous by definition, and a power grab by the legislature is no less hazardous than a power grab by the judiciary.

The path to a compromise on the proposed reforms, then, would seem to be clear: The anti-reform camp should accept limitations on the court's power to unilaterally strike down any law it pleases, as well as expanded legislative involvement in the selection of justices. In return, the pro-reform camp should drop its demand for a Knesset override. This would constitute both genuine reform and genuine protection of Israeli democracy.

Unfortunately, such a compromise seems very unlikely, mainly because both sides believe its opponents are acting in bad faith. The anti-reform camp is convinced that judicial reform is nothing but an attempt by the Right to install itself in a quasi-dictatorship, backed up by pro-settlement and Haredi factions that loathe the court for its alleged left-wing bias and tendency to obstruct their ambitions.

At the same time, the pro-reform camp sees its opponents as nothing but bitter and resentful losers who cannot accept their electoral defeat and are trying to topple the government by extra-parliamentary means, which is in itself a threat to Israeli democracy. At the extreme, the Right claims that the entire anti-reform movement is simply an attempt by the Left to preserve its unjust domination over aspects of the Israeli establishment through which it can impose its will regardless of election outcomes.

Both sides are wrong. The Right is attempting to address genuine problems with Israel's judicial system, but it is also guilty of serious overreach. The Left is acting in good faith, genuinely concerned about the possible gutting of Israeli democracy, but its rhetoric has spun out of control and it must accept that some of the proposed reforms are justifiable.

President Isaac Herzog has called on both sides to negotiate a compromise. This is unquestionably the correct path to take but neither side has much incentive to take it. The government has the votes to ram through whatever reforms it wants, and the Left is determined to use the street as what it believes is the last redoubt of Israeli democracy. Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but it will not be pretty.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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A recent op-ed by Richard Cravatts on pro-Palestinian "activism" at Princeton University led me to consider one of the primary tactics used by such activists. It is a kind of discursive terrorism, based on a tactic widely employed by abusers the world over: emotional blackmail.

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On its most debased level, emotional blackmail is the threat of brutal emotional reprisal: If the victim does not obey the perpetrator, the perpetrator will retaliate with rage or self-harm that the victim is unwilling to contemplate.

In its more sophisticated form, however, emotional blackmail is a means of psychological domination in which the perpetrator arrogates to himself the right to determine the moral quality of the victim. He then threatens the victim with a terrible judgment should the victim fail to submit to the perpetrator's demands.

Cravatts describes this tactic as employed by Princeton's pro-Palestinian activists. These activists make the claim that by engaging in any relationship with Israel at all, students become complicit in the Jewish state's alleged atrocities. Attacks on students who take part in US-Israel collaborative programs, for example, include rhetoric such as "Don't make occupation your occupation" and "Your career is not worth supporting apartheid."

To make one's own decisions regarding one's education, the blackmailers claim, is to become an occupier and an apartheidist. This is crude stuff but it often works on insecure young people desperate for the moral approval of their peers.

Indeed, this may be the most despicable aspect of emotional blackmail: It deliberately plays upon the victim's specific weaknesses. It is not surprising that the blackmailers employ the tactic on college campuses. Students just emerging from adolescence and the protection of their parents tend to be insecure, uncertain of their self-worth and purpose in life. They are easy marks for ideological grooming and manipulation, not to mention abuse. Pro-Palestinian and other radical activists are well aware of this and quickly pounce on such people without any ethical compunction whatsoever.

On campus, moreover, students already tend to hold progressive values that have rendered them nearly helpless before such predators. Most have attended private schools where, if they are white, straight and/or "cisgender," they have been taught that they are complicit in all manner of horrific crimes—that they have no moral worth whatsoever. Their only means of redemption is to take up the cause of their victims and stand with the designated "oppressed" at all costs. They are groomed to view themselves as morally compromised from birth and thus, ridden by guilt, become easy prey to the emotional blackmail of unscrupulous abusers.

In its more moderate form, this results in submission to the activist creed. But at its worst, it can have horrific consequences.

Norman Morrison was a member of the Quaker religious sect, in which personal morality is one of the highest values and judged by standards so stringent as to be essentially impossible for any mortal to fulfill. In 1965, driven by guilt over his inaction against the incipient Vietnam War, Morrison set himself on fire outside the Pentagon in an act of suicidal protest. Shortly before, he had written a letter declaring, "I must go to help the children of the priest's village."

Most horrifying of all, however, was that Morrison had brought his young daughter with him, and only at the last moment allowed her to escape into the arms of spectators. What he might have done had they not been there to take the child is terrible to contemplate.

In the anti-Israel context, there is the more recent case of Rachel Corrie. A college senior, Corrie became a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a terror-connected NGO that exploits foreign activists in service of the Palestinian cause. It is likely that she had already been indoctrinated in anti-Israel ideology, but the ISM almost certainly compounded it by orders of magnitude via a cult-like environment of hate.

Corrie lived for some time in Gaza, where she became infatuated with the people and decided that Israel was committing genocide against them, in which, as an American, she was complicit. In 2003, she knelt in front of an Israeli bulldozer, ostensibly in protest of a house demolition. The driver could not see her, and she was crushed to death.

She has, of course, become a martyr, and her letters and emails have been transformed into books and plays. Yet what they reveal is a deeply insecure and troubled young woman, possessed by existential guilt and desperate to redeem herself. Corrie's death, in other words, was less a tragic accident than a kind of seppuku—a ritual suicide that she hoped, perhaps unconsciously, would be a moral expiation. She did not come to this conclusion on her own. She was the victim of unscrupulous people who wanted, or at least knew they were likely to acquire, a martyr.

One should not look away from what this means: Emotional blackmail kills. It is a kind of murder. Murder at third hand, perhaps, but murder nonetheless.

It is also part of a very ancient tradition. What the blackmailers are after, in the end, is the most primal of all forms of absolution: the human sacrifice. It is sometimes an emotional sacrifice, but far too often it is also physical.

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From their origins in prehistory, such sacrifices were, almost invariably, expiatory acts. They were attempts to redeem a person or a community from their sins, to appease the gods and turn them away from stern judgment. And above all, such sacrifices made the victim a sacred object.

There are many among us, often young and vulnerable, who wish to become sacred objects and are told that if they sacrifice themselves, whether in life or in death, they will become so. It is tragic that many choose to believe this, but that does nothing to redeem those who lead them to the altar.

Judaism has always seen human sacrifice as an abomination, which indeed it is. We should not forget this admonition. No one, however righteous they consider themselves to be, has the right to demand such things from anyone. Like the priests of Moloch, those who use emotional blackmail of vulnerable individuals to achieve such an end stand accused.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The victory of the right-religious bloc in last week's Israeli election has aroused considerable consternation in the Diaspora, and there are some fairly good reasons for this.

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First among them is the rise of the far-right Religious Zionist Party and particularly Itamar Ben-Gvir, the former disciple of Meir Kahane who leads the party's Otzma Yehudit faction. Most Diaspora Jews, especially in America, are of liberal sensibilities, and Ben-Gvir's ethnic and religious chauvinism are at best off-putting and at worst anathema to them.

But from what I have seen over the past week, Diaspora Jews are worried about Ben-Gvir not only because they find him repugnant, but also because of the potential reaction to his rise by the non-Jewish world. These Jews, whose dedication to the cause of Zionism and the Jewish state is not in question and should not be questioned, have spent decades defending Israel as a liberal, democratic country that shares Western values. The rise of an Israeli politician who seems to reject those values makes this struggle, which is dear to their hearts, difficult if not impossible.

How, they ask, can they explain Ben-Gvir?

Ben-Gvir may or may not prove to be a monster. In my view, he certainly has the makings of one. Nonetheless, it is unclear how much influence he will have in the next government and whether returning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be able to contain his excesses. Still, his rise unquestionably presents a challenge for Israel's Diaspora defenders, and they are right to be concerned.

There are prosaic answers to the questions Diaspora Jews will now be asked. First among them is that most of the people who voted for Ben-Gvir – and probably for Netanyahu as well – did so out of fear. Their vote was a kind of delayed reaction to the May 2021 anti-Semitic Israeli-Arab riots, which reinforced and magnified the fear that the Arabs in our midst will rise up and murder us in our beds. The Israeli public discourse has failed to address this fear, and however ugly his rhetoric, Ben-Gvir at least did so. Many Israelis thought, "Well, at least he's willing to talk about it."

That, combined with the recent rise in terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, is likely the reason for Ben-Gvir's meteoric rise. This is, at least, something like an explanation.

The problem with this explanation, however, is that a great many non-Jews simply do not care about Israeli fears. To them, Israel is either at fault for or outright deserves whatever violence the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs commit. Such violence, in their view, is something like a phenomenon of theoretical physics, an equal and opposite reaction, an "understandable result of…" with no moral weight whatsoever. This is, of course, pure nihilism and a vaguely racist erasure of Arab agency, but many non-Jews passionately believe it and will not listen to any other explanation.

Diaspora Jews, then, must look for another answer. It is, I think, to be found in a question: "Why are you asking me this?" That is, Diaspora Jews should request their own explanation.

What I mean was perhaps best elucidated by the great American black writer and activist James Baldwin, who once said, "One of the great things that the white world does not know, but I think I do know, is that black people are just like everybody else. One has used the myth of Negro and the myth of color to pretend and to assume that you were dealing with, essentially, something exotic, bizarre and practically, according to human laws, unknown. Alas, it is not true. We're also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human too."

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Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Ben-Gvir is indeed the monster many believe him to be. If so, then Baldwin's observation applies just as strongly to the Jews and the State of Israel as it does to black people. We are permitted to say, if for no other reason than that it is true, that we are just like everybody else. We too have our monsters, our racists, our theocrats, our thugs, our fiends. We are human too. We are not a people of plaster saints, and no one has the right to demand otherwise.

It is perfectly possible, then, for Diaspora Jews to "explain" Ben-Gvir. They should simply say that Ben-Gvir needs no explanation. The history of the non-Jewish world is replete with monsters. There is no reason to think that our history should be any different, because on the most fundamental level, there is no difference between Jews and non-Jews. We are human and so are you. Nothing human is alien to either of us, and the human is often profoundly ugly.

What is astonishing is that, even in the 21st century, long after the non-Jewish world should have learned this lesson, anyone should expect otherwise. They do so, as Baldwin said, because they consider us unknown to human laws. But this is absurd. The task for Diaspora Jews seeking to explain a political trend that they themselves often find deplorable is to simply point out this absurdity and be done with it.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Israel is heading into the final stretch of its 2022 election campaign, though the Nov. 1 vote is almost certain to result in further political deadlock and yet another election. Despite their claims to the contrary, Israelis take their elections very seriously, and the public discourse has once again become a slugging match. The opposing blocs – "anti-Netanyahu" and "pro-Netanyahu" – are hurling invective at each other with a vigor one wishes we could reserve for our enemies.

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I will make my own prejudices clear from the outset: There is a good chance I will be voting for Prime Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid Party. There are several reasons for this, but the primary one is that I believe Lapid and his main ally, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, have acquitted themselves fairly well in the months since Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stepped down, trigging the current round of voting. While their policies are obviously controversial – they could not be otherwise in a country such as Israel – I believe they justify their return to power.

For example, earlier this year, Lapid and Gantz fought a brief but extremely effective war against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Unlike previous rounds under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this operation had clear goals and accomplished almost all of them. In particular, it completely wiped out the PIJ leadership in Gaza and managed to keep Hamas penned in its corner, unwilling to join in the fighting. This is in and of itself a tremendous accomplishment.

Moreover, Bennett, Gantz and Lapid have thus far successfully walked the tightrope of the Russia-Ukraine War. Israel has been put in an impossible position by this war. It is both naturally drawn towards the Western camp and dependent on good relations with Russia in order to successfully continue its low-intensity conflict with Iran. While it has been a rocky and difficult road, the government has managed to protect Israel's security interests without permanently alienating Russia or the West. It is possible that this will not last – anything is possible these days – but the men responsible deserve due credit.

The most controversial initiative undertaken by Lapid's government is probably the recent maritime agreement with Lebanon. Lapid has been charged with caving in to Hezbollah demands and giving away precious Israeli assets to appease the terror group. This is a valid interpretation, and people are right to be concerned about it. Still, if we accept it for the sake of argument, all it means is that Lapid took a gamble: He made a potentially dangerous concession in order to avoid a war that Israel neither wants nor needs right now. It is quite possible that his decision was a bad one, but it was not made in bad faith. Also much on the public's mind is the ongoing violence in Judea and Samaria, and continuing issues with Israeli Arab lawlessness and the resulting carnage in the Galilee and the Negev. The current government has not made significant progress on the latter, it is true. But it is worth noting that during the fighting with PIJ, there were none of the anti-Semitic riots that occurred during the May 2021 conflict under Netanyahu. The Israeli Arab community has not overcome its pathologies overnight, but clearly something worked this time that did not work under the previous government.

Regarding the terrorism in Judea and Samaria, this is a serious cause for concern and, of course, a mortal one for the Jews of the area who must live in the midst of it. It is not clear, however, precisely what the government could do that it is not doing already. The IDF is operating on the ground 24 hours a day and has scored notable successes in recent days, including dealing grievous blows to the leadership of the new Lions' Den terrorist group. It is doubtful that a Netanyahu government would or indeed could do anything much different than Lapid's.

There is also, for me, the question of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's allies. The Haredi parties are as they ever were, in that their priority remains obtaining funds for their communities, which one may or may not support, depending on one's personal beliefs. But almost everyone who is not Haredi – including many traditional Israelis – agrees that the relationship between religion and state in Israel is badly in need of reform. This will be impossible if the Haredi parties become a dominant force in a new government.

The Religious Zionist Party is, of course, a more immediately controversial force in the pro-Bibi camp. While I do not believe that the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir could singlehandedly destroy Israeli democracy – and I appreciate that many right-wing Israelis feel that here, finally, is someone who "tells it like it is" – that does not mean his inclusion in the government would be a good thing. For me, this was illustrated by a video I once saw of Ben-Gvir screaming insults at Yitzhak Rabin's granddaughter until she finally walked away in disgust. It was a despicable and telling incident. While it is true that Ben-Gvir claims to have moderated his views, he has done so just as national office is within his grasp, a change which, I believe, is too coincidental to be trusted. Such a man may conquer, but he will never convince.

Despite all of the above, however, I will cast my vote with a certain lamentation, because the solution to Israel's endless political impasse is so clear and so impossible. In fact, there is no need for this election at all. There is a stable, Zionist coalition that could be formed right now by Netanyahu, Gantz and Lapid if they would put their more extreme allies aside and join forces. But they will not do so. Israel, now divided more or less right down the middle, is too defined by its petty resentments and hatreds to trade animosity for consensus.

Israel is, generally speaking, a center-right country of liberal democratic sensibilities. It wants to preserve itself as a Jewish state and treat its ethnic and religious minorities decently. It wants to remain a mostly secular nation with a strong but not dominating role for religion. It wants to protect the security of its citizens while maintaining its moral values. This is also, more or less, what Netanyahu, Gantz and Lapid want. The only reason they cannot come together in service of this vision is that they hate each other. And thus, I will cast my vote in sorrow, but also with a measure of hope that in the end, perhaps many elections from now, this vision will prevail.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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People have often pondered the strange phenomenon of Israel's survival. For over 70 years, a few million Jews have held off an enemy that is larger by orders of magnitude and wields immense military and economic power. This is, without question, improbable.

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Some, of course, attribute Israel's resilience to divine intervention, but others have more mundane explanations. Usually, it is the one proffered by Golda Meir: "We have nowhere else to go."

Meir was not alone in her assessment. Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap was reportedly once asked by members of the PLO how they could expel the Jews as he had expelled the French and then the Americans. Giap answered, "The French could go back to France. The Americans could go back to America. The Jews have nowhere to go. You will not expel them."

This phenomenon was perhaps best described by the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu in his masterwork "The Art of War." Sun Tzu presented the idea of what he called "desperate ground," which he defined as "ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay."

"Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear," he explained. "If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard."

Sun Tzu even went so far as to recommend placing soldiers on desperate ground if all other options have been exhausted. "Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive," he wrote. "Plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety."

If Sun Tzu, Meir and Giap are correct, then the secret of Israel's survival is no secret at all. Israel exists and has always existed on desperate ground. As a result, it fights hard and has thus far come off in safety.

Moreover, Israel is by no means the only one to have survived because it found itself on desperate ground. The Russians in World War II, the Kurds in the fight against Islamic State, Bashar Assad in the ongoing Syrian civil war and numerous others have survived because they had no place of refuge and could only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay.

However, this presents Israel with a difficult and painfully ironic paradox, because, in many ways, the Jews have always been on desperate ground. The Jewish people are the last survivors of an ancient world whose great peoples and powers have almost all passed into history. By rights, the Jews should have followed them, and there were numerous points when they could have.

The Jews' ultimate answer to their desperate position was Zionism, which sought to provide the Jewish people with the tools to fight back not only by way of relentless endurance, but also physical force if necessary. This, it was hoped, would ensure Jewish survival in a world that, due to the technological horrors of the modern age, was perhaps more dangerous than any that had existed before.

The paradox, however, is that Zionism also wanted more than this: It sought to move the Jews off of desperate ground. Indeed, Herzl himself believed that the political normalization of the Jewish people provided by statehood would bring an end to antisemitism and, with it, the Jews' seemingly perpetual suffering.

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Thus far, unfortunately, this has not happened. Zionism and the state it built have survived and even thrived on desperate ground, but Zionism has yet to achieve its ultimate goal. The means by which the Jews survive remain the same: to fight hard, because there is no help for it.

What this means is that the great work of Zionism has still not been completed. There are indications, such as the Abraham Accords, that the completion may come sooner rather than later, but for the moment, Israel and in many ways the Jewish people remain on desperate ground.

It may be that this is the historical fate of the Jewish people. But this can never be known for certain, and perhaps it is our task, in this generation, to see our desperate position not as an immutable destiny but a call to action. It is for us to make at least the attempt to complete the task of Zionism, and create something the Jews have never known, which is the ability to survive through something more than desperation. It may not be for us to finish the work, but nor are we free to desist from it.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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