The US Presidential campaign noise and rancor mask the most poignant message to emerge, i.e., for the first time in my memory we have a viable candidate who unfailingly criticizes Israel at the national level, and employs staff that virulently oppose Israel’s military, its administration and government domestic civil policies.
And, among Sanders most ardent supporters are young American Jews. What’s happening?
Certainly, Sanders espouses positions important to millenials especially free higher education and healthcare like they have in Canada, Europe, and most advanced nations. Then there is his demand for a more "evenhanded approach" in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Social scientists and pollsters are talking about the great divide emerging between Israel and young diaspora Jews. My article a year-and-one-half years ago for Arutz Sheva addressed the issues.
Old Jews and legacy communal organizations unconditionally support the government of Israel, ergo, its policies on Judea and Samaria and religious issues that affect civil society (these are in two spheres: a.symbols of the Jewish State in the public sphere - such as official Jewish holidays, kosher food in the IDF and Knesset - and b. establishment of halakhic law in matters that affect Jewish continuity i.e. marriage and divorce). American Jewish youth, I wrote, will vote for Democrats.
American Jews are raised and educated to believe in equality, to be human rights activists, and demand equal opportunity is the law of the land. They cannot help but revile Jews whom they have been led to believe are treating other people oppressively. Bernie Sanders, whether he wins the nomination or not, has established a new base point giving voice to the politically correct liberal uneasiness if not opposition to Israel as a Jewish homeland. Israel not “my country right or wrong” like for so many of their parents’ generation who remember the Holocaust and the real story of the beleaguered Jewish state.
I notice a trend among my international university students who largely come from families aware of their Jewishness, active in their Jewish communities, some even from day schools and yeshivot. They support the existence of Israel, but living in their comfortable environments in the USA, give short shrift to the fact that the Palestinians squander chances to create a state of their own, were never a real “people’ with national aspirations, etc. Students argue in class it is too much to expect an "oppressed people", suffering economic and social deprivation, few opportunities for self-sufficiency, and subject to no freedom of travel, speech, assembly, etc., to feel other than victimized. They ignore the terror against Jewish civilians, incitement in the Arab schools and the fact that billions have been poured into a corrupt Palestinian Authority that does not spend them on the welfare of its own voters and does not hold elections anyway. Instead of learning Jewish history, they swallow the story that Holocaust survivors, as the anti-Zionist argument goes, built a nation state, but they broke away from their murderers in Europe to build a state on another continent.
Sanders is their voice. He fearless in expressing positions that rile centrist and right-wing Jews. They know Hamas started the last war making life intolerable for Israelis living under constant missile barrages, but they suspect at the very least Israel’s response was over-the-top, disproportionate, as Sanders proclaims. No one has ever launched rockets against them.
It gnaws at young Jews that the Israelis killed "so many civilians" during Operation Protective Edge, although by any standards the number was small, Israel did more than any other country to prevent it and the only reason was Hamas placement of rocket launchers in civilian areas against international law.. They and Sanders recognize military rule of the 'West Bank' is necessary for Israel’s security, but swallow the line that Israel military rule makes life harsh and depressing for Palestinians, ignoring terror and Abbas once again and even though Israel is out of Area A, only partially present in B, and the fact that only 4% of the Palestinian Arabs live in Jewish-populated Area C.
Netanyahu’s debacle in Washington over the deal with Iran was not a glorious victory in their America-firster minds, as his journalist defenders proclaimed, but an attack on their President and his policies.
The passel of young, liberal Jews find Prime Minister Netanyahu as nugatory and irrelevant to their concerns as right-wing leading candidates for US President. The Sanders acolytes argue he is the only candidate sagacious and plucky enough to say what they believe. For example, Netanyahu does not speak for them as Jews or Israel supporters. His airy promises are no longer worthy of America’s support, in their opinion.
Netanyahu’s debacle in Washington over the deal with Iran was not a glorious victory in their America-firster minds, as his journalist defenders proclaimed, but an attack on their President and his policies, an opinion held by Israel's left. Netanyahu’s "meddling" not only alienated Democrats who are long-time Israel supporters, but he flipped the switch on young Jews. For them, Obama is their guy getting healthcare coverage for 40 million uninsured people (including many of them on limited incomes), an advocate of justice for minorities and youth under the police boot for too long, and the like. They see Netanyahu having collaborated with right-wing American politicians to humiliate Obama—and to them, Netanyahu lost the battle. They want him to step aside, while a large majority of Israelis voted him back in office after that trip.
My colleagues cannot understand why Jewish university students refuse to confront BDS and Israel-apartheid advocates. Some attribute it to lethargy, inchoate, their focus on studying and graduating, or fear of being physically harmed and verbally abused by anti-Israel thugs. Let me suggest other reasons.
Israel is just not relevant. Israel is not their homeland. There is so little overt anti-Semitism in America young Jews need no protection from Israel. In fact, Israel reflects much that is wrong with America, as far as they are concerned, and if Netanyahu and his colleagues find a big welcome embracing the right-wing in America, young Jews have little reason to defend Israel on campus.
Sanders is the politican they’ve been waiting for to express what they feel. Whether or not Sanders is elected President the fact is his campaign does not feel the need to cloak its language about Israel in admiration for the little Jewish state. Israel is not the victim but the victimizer, in his view and in theirs.
In a recent debate Sanders claims: “Israel has a right not only to defend themselves, but to live in peace and security without fear of terrorist attack. That is not a debate….but in the long run if we are ever going to bring peace to that region which has seen so much hatred and so much war, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity.” It’s not just what Sanders says in his one-dimensional way, but that he says it on the national stage. And he speaks for more and more young American Jews.
Candidate Sanders might use Shel Silverstein’s “Invitation”
If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hop-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you are a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in…(this is Where the Sidewalk Ends)