Several US Jewish leaders, during a meeting with Israeli officials earlier this month, warned that racist and extremist moves by the new Israeli government could seriously hamper support for Israel among Jews in the US, six sources who either attended the meeting at the Israeli embassy in Washington or were briefed on it told Axios’ Barak Ravid on Tuesday.
The Dec. 7 meeting was attended by representatives of several mainstream US Jewish organizations that are the backbone of the pro-Israel community in the US They are all regular interlocutors of the Israeli embassy.
The representatives of the Jewish organizations were invited for a meeting with Shuli Davidovich, the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry bureau for the diaspora, who asked to hear their thoughts about the political situation in Israel, according to the sources.
Sources who attended the meeting told Axios the atmosphere was very difficult and almost all of the attendees raised concerns about the policies of the incoming Israeli government.
One set of concerns was related to religious pluralism and possible changes to the Israeli "Law of Return" and the Jewish conversion law that could negatively influence the US Jewish community.
Jewish leaders also raised concerns over Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners, Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Avi Maoz, sources who attended the meeting said.
Participants of the meeting told Axios several of the Jewish representatives said that policies that are racist, antagonistic towards both reform and conservative Jews and harm LGBTQ+ rights could damage donations to Israel from the US Jewish community.
Some of the meeting's participants also warned of a scenario of demonstrations of US Jews in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington to demonstrate against the new government or parts of it, according to four sources who attended the meeting or were briefed on it.
"During the meeting, people even said they could send hundreds of people in planes to Israel in order to demonstrate in Jerusalem," one source told Axios.
The overall message of the meeting was that the new Israeli government’s expected policies could make the work of the US Jewish organizations to garner support for Israel much harder, according to several of the participants of the meeting.
The Israeli officials who attended the meeting were taken aback by what they heard and tried to reassure the representatives of the Jewish organizations, urging them to take a wait-and-see approach and stressing they will communicate their views to the incoming Israeli government, two sources who attended the meeting said.
Two Foreign Ministry officials told Axios that shortly after the meeting, Davidovich briefed Israeli ambassador to the US Mike Herzog and all the Israeli consul generals in the US who were attending a conference at the embassy. Davidovich told them she was highly alarmed by her meeting with the Jewish organizations.
When Davidovich went back to Israel, she briefed senior Foreign Ministry officials about the meeting and said she was very concerned, a senior foreign ministry official told Ravid.
The Foreign Ministry declined to comment.