Monday, November 07, 2022
From Ian:
No, Israeli Democracy Is Not in Danger
No, Israeli Democracy Is Not in Danger
Surveying rhetoric concerning last week’s Israeli elections, and the upcoming American elections, Elliott Abrams writes:Jonathan Tobin: Democrats’ doomsday political appeals are bad for the Jews
There is a striking parallel between the comments being heard from the left in the United States about the meaning of a possible Republican victory on November 8, and from the left in the United States—as much as or more than in Israel—about the meaning of the victory of the right in the Israeli election on November 1. The meaning, we are told, is the end of democracy. That’s what President Biden and Hillary Clinton said on November 2 about our elections, [while] President Obama said, “democracy is on the ballot.” It is what we heard from commentators such as Thomas Friedman about the Israeli results and our own election.
What actually happened? There was a very high turnout of voters—over 70 percent, substantially higher than is typical in the United States (and this was the fifth election in under four years)—and it split almost down the middle.
Those inclined to apocalyptic rhetoric in response to the results cite the presence of two members of the far right, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, in Benjamin Netanyahu’s likely coalition. On this, Abrams comments:
For one thing, Netanyahu is a known quantity as prime minister because he was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister ever. His party is by far the largest in his coalition and as his long record shows he is as canny a politician as Israel has produced. Moreover, he has in the main been pretty prudent as a leader, avoiding war and conflict whenever possible and watching carefully where the voters are. It is not at all to be assumed that the government will be under the thumb of Ben-Gvir and/or Bezalel Smotrich, who are new and untested as government officials. Moreover, though they joined to run in this election, they actually come from separate parties and may soon find themselves rivals. If it is useful to Netanyahu to have this happen, he has the wiles to encourage it.
Both parties spend a lot of effort seeking out and publicizing extremists among their opponents who have either said something anti-Semitic or support someone else who has done so. And each side has found plenty of such targets for their ire. But to jump from that game of political gotcha to a belief that the Jews must be loyal soldiers in an imaginary war for democracy is a trap.Pennsylvania Jewish voters may vote Republican to defeat Israel critic Summer Lee
Such is the conceit behind a conference on extremism, being held by the Anti-Defamation League just after the election, whose headliners, like ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, are believers in the war-on-democracy myth. It would have behooved them to invite at least one conservative who might refute that claim, but it appears they didn’t.
Mixing up real Jewish security concerns with partisan propaganda is a colossal mistake. What the ADL seems not to understand is that by enlisting the premier Jewish defense agency to back up the claim that democracy is at risk, they are helping to drag the country down a conspiratorial rabbit hole with incalculable consequences.
Responsible Jewish leaders should be doing the opposite. Even mainstream liberal groups have to understand that bolstering the narrative about the country’s being on the brink of an apocalyptic battle for freedom against domestic foes is bad for America and the Jews. It is exactly the sort of mindset in which those who dwell in the fever swamps of the far-left and far-right, and who actually do mean the Jews harm, thrive.
It remains to be seen whether leaders on both sides of the aisle can be found to pull us back from an abyss of delegitimization that poses a genuine threat to democracy. More than the security of the Jewish community will be at stake if we don’t find a way out of an ideological civil war fueled by intemperate political rhetoric.
In Tuesday’s midterm elections, some Jewish voters are hoping for an upset in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, where insiders say Republican Mike Doyle is closing the gap with Democrat Summer Lee in the final days of the race.
It could all come down to support for Israel.
Some Jewish voters in the district, which encompasses most Pittsburgh neighborhoods—including Squirrel Hill, considered the heart of the Jewish community and the scene of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in October 2018—have been deeply concerned by what they perceive as Lee’s political radicalism, including on the issue of Israel.
Some, in fact, were so alarmed that they organized a grassroots effort encouraging registered Republicans and independents to switch their party affiliation to Democrat in order to vote against Lee in the Democratic primary.
Several of Lee’s tweets have been of particular concern, including one that criticized U.S. support for Israel during the May 2021 war between Israel and Hamas.
Lee has also tweeted about a “plan” to “dismantle the Democratic Party.”
Many Jewish voters fear that Lee is sympathetic to the group of left-wing congresspeople known as “The Squad,” which is notorious for its hostility to Israel and includes several anti-Semites. The Squad recently organized a fundraiser for Lee.
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