As a child in the 1950s, I remember contributing nickels at my local synagogue to plant trees in Israel. On early Saturday mornings while my parents slept in, my brother and I watched “The Big Picture,” a television series about World War II that included documentary footage of emaciated Holocaust survivors liberated by U.S. troops. My family went to see the movie “Exodus,” starring Paul Newman as a handsome and noble leader of Israel’s War of Independence.
In 1967, we cheered as Israel defeated its Arab enemies in six days in almost biblical fashion, destroying their airplanes on the ground and seizing chunks of territory. Just before the war, a second cousin had gotten a degree in agriculture from a Midwestern university and made Aliyah, moving from her home on Long Island to a left-wing kibbutz between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She joined other distant relatives who had emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s from the U.S. and Eastern Europe.
After another war in 1973, the U.S.-brokered peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979 raised hopes that such conflicts were a thing of the past. But Israel took advantage of the peace with its then-biggest Arab foe to invade Lebanon and stood by while Lebanese Phalangists massacred Palestinians who had fled Israel’s war of independence.
With some trepidation, I went to Israel for the first time in 1986 as a young journalist. As I walked up to the Wailing Wall and touched it, I began to cry as I thought of my deceased grandmother and her relatives in Poland, most of whom had died in concentration camps. I went to see my kibbutznik cousin and was impressed by her spartan lifestyle. Then I visited the occupied West Bank, where Jewish settlements were already dotting multiple hilltops and encroaching on Palestinian villages and towns.
Soon after, young Palestinians began a spontaneous uprising against the then-two decade-old occupation, the first Intifada. The exiled Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been kicked out of Beirut by the Israeli invasion and wound up headquartered in Tunisia, grudgingly accepted Israel’s right to exist and began a process of indirect and later direct peace talks that, in the early 1990s, seemed destined to also create a sovereign Palestinian state.
Three decades, multiple negotiations, several assassinations, and a second Intifada later, there is expanding Israeli control over the occupied lands and a growing sense of hopelessness among Palestinians about ever achieving freedom. Jewish settlement has expanded to such an extent that some prominent Middle East analysts no longer believe that a two-state solution is possible.
Meanwhile, Jewish Israeli citizens are increasingly divided about the governance of Israel proper and the rights of secular versus Orthodox Jews. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in recent months and forced Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to temporarily delay so-called “reforms” that would make Israel’s Supreme Court subservient to its parliamentary majority and further threaten minority rights. But Netanyahu has not pulled the legislation, only paused it.
The Joe Biden administration intervened gingerly against the judicial measures, but repeats bland talking points on Palestinian rights while doing precious little to advance them. Israel continues to collect nearly $4 billion a year in U.S. military aid despite its increasing repression of Palestinians and a rise in settler violence condoned by ministers in the country’s most right-wing government. Israel bombs Syria seemingly at will, kills Iranian scientists in Iran, and threatens to attack Iranian nuclear sites to stymie that country’s nuclear advances. Meanwhile, Israel does not acknowledge that it possesses a considerable arsenal of nuclear warheads.
Israel’s transformation from plucky little David into bulky Goliath also reflects failed Palestinian governance. If many Israelis have grown weary of Netanyahu, now in an unprecedented third term as prime minister, an even greater percentage of Palestinians despairs that they will ever have a chance to vote out Mahmoud Abbas, the octogenarian leader of the Palestinian Authority who took over after the death of Yasser Arafat. Abbas was ostensibly elected to a four-year term in 2005 but has not faced voters since, using the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the militant Hamas movement in 2007 as an excuse. Support for a two-state solution among Palestinians is at an all-time low of 27% according to veteran pollster Khalil Shikaki, with almost the same percentage having no hope for any viable political change. This sort of despair encourages violence and leaves young Palestinians open to manipulation by foreign actors, like Iran, that are ideologically committed to regime change in Israel.
Something needs to change, and soon. While the Baby Boom generation in the West remembers Israel’s early struggles, younger cohorts see a very different reality. Polls show that more young Americans support the Palestinians than the Israelis, and respected international rights groups like Amnesty International use the “A” word — apartheid — to describe the discrimination Palestinians face. The Abraham Accords, which normalized Israel’s diplomatic relations with four Arab states, have also hit an apparent dead end as Saudi Arabia, the most influential Arab state, has opted for reconciliation with Iran.
Meanwhile, Israel has become an increasingly partisan issue in the U.S., with right-wing Republicans, including many evangelical Christians, supporting Israel no matter what it does and Democrats increasingly questioning Israeli actions.
Netanyahu bears significant responsibility for this shift, having come to office for a second time in 2009 and repeatedly clashing with the Obama administration over issues including negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear advances. It was Netanyahu who welcomed Obama’s challenger, Mitt Romney, to Jerusalem in 2012, Netanyahu who inveighed against Obama’s Iran deal before a joint session of the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress in 2015, and Netanyahu who embraced Donald Trump with unprecedented fervor as he gave away U.S. leverage on key issues like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Now Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is on his way to Israel, presumably seeking Netanyahu’s blessing. And Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been invited to address the Knesset to commemorate Israeli independence.
Given its long relationship with Israel and the Palestinians, United States remains the most important mediator in any potential peace talks. But it needs to flex its leverage and go beyond platitudes and quiet admonitions. Otherwise, violence will escalate, and the U.S. “pivot” to Asia will become even less tenable. Already, rival powers are asserting their qualifications to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum. Indeed, on April 18, China’s foreign minister Qin Gang offered to do just that in phone calls to his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, fresh off the conclusion of a reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The offer reflects more hubris than realism. But staying on the diplomatic sidelines isn’t an option either in a rapidly changing Middle East.
This analyst has no magic answers to an issue that has bedeviled experienced negotiators for years. But at a minimum, the U.S. should speak out against the growing levels of force and collective punishment Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians, the arrests and demonization of Palestinian human rights organizations, and Israeli violation of Muslim holy sites, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Biden administration should also condemn Netanyahu’s plan to allow creation of a Jewish “national guard” to augment Israel forces and reduce U.S. aid if Israel does not change its repressive path. The U.S. should also press Abbas to finally allow new elections. Finally, the White House should make clear that there is no military solution to the Iranian nuclear program.
In the end, American Jews — indeed, all Americans — who support justice for racial and ethnic minorities in this country shouldn’t shy away from advocating the same principles abroad, especially for a nation so historically tied to the U.S. as Israel. We are just as much the inheritors of our history. We should not ignore its lesson that might does not make right.
Barbara Slavin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. She tweets @barbaraslavin1. Pictured: The declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
Israel’s 75th Anniversary Evokes a Jumble of Memories and Conflicting Emotions
By Barbara Slavin
Middle East & North Africa
As a child in the 1950s, I remember contributing nickels at my local synagogue to plant trees in Israel. On early Saturday mornings while my parents slept in, my brother and I watched “The Big Picture,” a television series about World War II that included documentary footage of emaciated Holocaust survivors liberated by U.S. troops. My family went to see the movie “Exodus,” starring Paul Newman as a handsome and noble leader of Israel’s War of Independence.
In 1967, we cheered as Israel defeated its Arab enemies in six days in almost biblical fashion, destroying their airplanes on the ground and seizing chunks of territory. Just before the war, a second cousin had gotten a degree in agriculture from a Midwestern university and made Aliyah, moving from her home on Long Island to a left-wing kibbutz between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She joined other distant relatives who had emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s from the U.S. and Eastern Europe.
After another war in 1973, the U.S.-brokered peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979 raised hopes that such conflicts were a thing of the past. But Israel took advantage of the peace with its then-biggest Arab foe to invade Lebanon and stood by while Lebanese Phalangists massacred Palestinians who had fled Israel’s war of independence.
With some trepidation, I went to Israel for the first time in 1986 as a young journalist. As I walked up to the Wailing Wall and touched it, I began to cry as I thought of my deceased grandmother and her relatives in Poland, most of whom had died in concentration camps. I went to see my kibbutznik cousin and was impressed by her spartan lifestyle. Then I visited the occupied West Bank, where Jewish settlements were already dotting multiple hilltops and encroaching on Palestinian villages and towns.
Soon after, young Palestinians began a spontaneous uprising against the then-two decade-old occupation, the first Intifada. The exiled Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been kicked out of Beirut by the Israeli invasion and wound up headquartered in Tunisia, grudgingly accepted Israel’s right to exist and began a process of indirect and later direct peace talks that, in the early 1990s, seemed destined to also create a sovereign Palestinian state.
Three decades, multiple negotiations, several assassinations, and a second Intifada later, there is expanding Israeli control over the occupied lands and a growing sense of hopelessness among Palestinians about ever achieving freedom. Jewish settlement has expanded to such an extent that some prominent Middle East analysts no longer believe that a two-state solution is possible.
Meanwhile, Jewish Israeli citizens are increasingly divided about the governance of Israel proper and the rights of secular versus Orthodox Jews. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in recent months and forced Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to temporarily delay so-called “reforms” that would make Israel’s Supreme Court subservient to its parliamentary majority and further threaten minority rights. But Netanyahu has not pulled the legislation, only paused it.
The Joe Biden administration intervened gingerly against the judicial measures, but repeats bland talking points on Palestinian rights while doing precious little to advance them. Israel continues to collect nearly $4 billion a year in U.S. military aid despite its increasing repression of Palestinians and a rise in settler violence condoned by ministers in the country’s most right-wing government. Israel bombs Syria seemingly at will, kills Iranian scientists in Iran, and threatens to attack Iranian nuclear sites to stymie that country’s nuclear advances. Meanwhile, Israel does not acknowledge that it possesses a considerable arsenal of nuclear warheads.
Israel’s transformation from plucky little David into bulky Goliath also reflects failed Palestinian governance. If many Israelis have grown weary of Netanyahu, now in an unprecedented third term as prime minister, an even greater percentage of Palestinians despairs that they will ever have a chance to vote out Mahmoud Abbas, the octogenarian leader of the Palestinian Authority who took over after the death of Yasser Arafat. Abbas was ostensibly elected to a four-year term in 2005 but has not faced voters since, using the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the militant Hamas movement in 2007 as an excuse. Support for a two-state solution among Palestinians is at an all-time low of 27% according to veteran pollster Khalil Shikaki, with almost the same percentage having no hope for any viable political change. This sort of despair encourages violence and leaves young Palestinians open to manipulation by foreign actors, like Iran, that are ideologically committed to regime change in Israel.
Something needs to change, and soon. While the Baby Boom generation in the West remembers Israel’s early struggles, younger cohorts see a very different reality. Polls show that more young Americans support the Palestinians than the Israelis, and respected international rights groups like Amnesty International use the “A” word — apartheid — to describe the discrimination Palestinians face. The Abraham Accords, which normalized Israel’s diplomatic relations with four Arab states, have also hit an apparent dead end as Saudi Arabia, the most influential Arab state, has opted for reconciliation with Iran.
Meanwhile, Israel has become an increasingly partisan issue in the U.S., with right-wing Republicans, including many evangelical Christians, supporting Israel no matter what it does and Democrats increasingly questioning Israeli actions.
Netanyahu bears significant responsibility for this shift, having come to office for a second time in 2009 and repeatedly clashing with the Obama administration over issues including negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear advances. It was Netanyahu who welcomed Obama’s challenger, Mitt Romney, to Jerusalem in 2012, Netanyahu who inveighed against Obama’s Iran deal before a joint session of the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress in 2015, and Netanyahu who embraced Donald Trump with unprecedented fervor as he gave away U.S. leverage on key issues like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Now Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is on his way to Israel, presumably seeking Netanyahu’s blessing. And Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been invited to address the Knesset to commemorate Israeli independence.
Given its long relationship with Israel and the Palestinians, United States remains the most important mediator in any potential peace talks. But it needs to flex its leverage and go beyond platitudes and quiet admonitions. Otherwise, violence will escalate, and the U.S. “pivot” to Asia will become even less tenable. Already, rival powers are asserting their qualifications to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum. Indeed, on April 18, China’s foreign minister Qin Gang offered to do just that in phone calls to his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, fresh off the conclusion of a reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The offer reflects more hubris than realism. But staying on the diplomatic sidelines isn’t an option either in a rapidly changing Middle East.
This analyst has no magic answers to an issue that has bedeviled experienced negotiators for years. But at a minimum, the U.S. should speak out against the growing levels of force and collective punishment Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians, the arrests and demonization of Palestinian human rights organizations, and Israeli violation of Muslim holy sites, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Biden administration should also condemn Netanyahu’s plan to allow creation of a Jewish “national guard” to augment Israel forces and reduce U.S. aid if Israel does not change its repressive path. The U.S. should also press Abbas to finally allow new elections. Finally, the White House should make clear that there is no military solution to the Iranian nuclear program.
In the end, American Jews — indeed, all Americans — who support justice for racial and ethnic minorities in this country shouldn’t shy away from advocating the same principles abroad, especially for a nation so historically tied to the U.S. as Israel. We are just as much the inheritors of our history. We should not ignore its lesson that might does not make right.
Barbara Slavin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. She tweets @barbaraslavin1. Pictured: The declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
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