How Israeli Power has Endangered American Jews

As Israel and America enter ages of extreme nationalism, the definitions of antisemitism and Jewish safety are being rewritten.

We have two simultaneous and seemingly conflicting realities. On the one hand, antisemitism as a topic has attracted an enormous amount of attention. As a topic, it dwarfs interest in Islamophobia, for example. Stories about antisemitism, especially when they focus on the left, are often dominant in the news. There is also broad consensus that antisemitism is a serious and growing problem.

And yet, antisemitic beliefs and tropes are widespread. For example, 39% of Americans believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the US (the dual loyalty trope). A quarter think Jews have have too much influence on Wall Street. One fifth believe Jews have too much power.

But the problem is more serious than even those polls suggest. Most modern American conspiracy theories are largely centered around antisemitism, and those are widespread, especially among Republicans. The Great Replacement conspiracy theory, the idea that a shady group of powerful people are purposefully importing black and brown people into America, is believed by half of all Americans and 70% of Republicans. 40% of Americans and 60% of Republicans believe that “there is a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together,” a conspiracy theory with deep roots in antisemitism.

How is this possible? How can something discussed so widely, and so widely agreed to be a problem, also be so widespread? How can Jews be the most favorably looked at religious group, for example, and still be one of the main targets of religious-based hate crimes?

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on fighting antisemitism. There are Super Bowl ads spent on calling it out. This all makes no sense.

While it would be fair to focus on antisemitism education, I think we are dealing with something much deeper. 

We can’t even agree on what antisemitism is.

The Constructs of Safety

For Jews, there are currently two mainstream beliefs in how to remain safe and, thus, what antisemitism is. 

One is a construct built around safety in the diaspora. For most of modern Jewish history, this has been how we’ve understood how to combat antisemitism. From the Holocaust to pogroms, our definitions of antisemitism have largely been based in understanding conspiracy theories, tropes, and indoctrination. Most of our definitions of what antisemitism is, then, is based in the experience of Jews in the diaspora. 

But the other construct is one based on the other construct of safety: Israel.

Israel was built on the notion that Jews can only be truly safe and secure through building their own nation. Safety for Israeli Jews, then, depends on majoritarian power.  It is for this reason that even in the context of a democratic system currently in place in Israel, Jewish power must remain the core of its existence. No majoritarian Jewish power, no Jewish state.

Thus, security for Israeli Jews is largely predicated on building power for Israel itself.  And while, in theory, Israel exists to ensure the safety of Jews around the world, that safety largely rests on it as a safe haven for escape, and thus is still centered on Israeli power.

This means that if anything comes into conflict with the potential of Israeli power, it will likely be a target. Nowhere is this more true than in America, the country whose alliance most benefits Israel, be it militarily, economically, diplomatically, or culturally, America is one of the keys to Israel’s global power.

Thus, any perceived threat to Israel’s power is translated to a threat to Israel’s existence. In such an equation, any alliance or support on the part of Israel is by definition transactional and must benefit its power.

The equation is quite different for diasporic Jews. In fact, it is the opposite.

Jews are by definition safer in democracies built on pluralism. The more egalitarian such a society, the more Jews are likely to be safe. In fact, while Israel has been able to provide a safe haven for many Jews, Jews have historically been just as likely to escape to such countries as safe havens. In fact, Jews have escaped to America in big waves since their persecution in 19th century, and their immigration here has been rooted all the way back to the 17th century. And as America has become more egalitarian, it has become safer for Jews.

This is logical on its face: a favored minority status in a non-democratic country is simply not as sustainable as a country that by definition embraces egalitarianism. The more egalitarian a country in culture and policies, the safer all communities are within its borders.

This is a big reason people like my parents and other Israelis feel safe to move out of Israel: about 300,000 or so Jews in America were born in Israel or were born to Israeli parents. The simple fact that America alone has almost as many Jews as Israel and that one of America’s most diverse and liberal cities is home to the most Jews says a lot.

So while Jewish safety in Israel is predicated on singular and majoritarian power, Jewish safety in the diaspora is largely predicated on shared power.  As other minority groups become less accepted in the diaspora, Jewish safety also tends to be reduced. It, of course, isn’t always as simple as that, but it also is. Pluralism and egalitarianism increase safety for Jews because they increase safety for all.  Any other approach is a short term bandaid in an unequal society.

This is one of the core reasons that Jewish safety in the diaspora has been sacrificed for decades.  Until recently, Israeli safety was considered existential: Jews in America especially felt that they were safe while Israel always seemed to be on the verge of destruction. So organizations, funders, and leaders spent inordinate energy fighting for the safety of Israeli Jews. This was largely based on a false assumption that Jews would always be safer in America, a bizarre inversion of the entire theory of Zionism.

While this is not necessarily in contradiction to fighting for an egalitarian society in America (as evidenced by the massive growth of liberal Jewish institutions), as Israel became more right wing and nationalistic, the Israeli government became more and more willing to use partisanship to its advantage. This reached a crescendo when Trump came on the stage: after years in which Netanyahu had to deal with Obama daring to challenge him, he went all in on embracing Trump, to the point of sickening sycophancy. And in the Trump world, you’re either wholly with him or against him. That meant that Netanyahu was in the position of choosing what he saw as his country’s safety (and his own power, of course) over the safety of Jews in America.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, Jews are largely aware of the need to live in a pluralistic society, and have consistently said they feel less safe in America with Trump in charge and have since felt much safer with Biden in charge. This is just as true after October 7th as before.

Netanyahu and his new far right cronies no longer have to make the calculus of past Israeli governments. While Biden gives Netanyahu near-carte blanche on the war in Gaza, Netanyahu knows that Trump would give him even more support. There would be no concern over the loss of innocent life. No problem with a widening war. No problem with loss of support among the Muslim community. 

And it’s not just that: Netanyahu knows that he doesn’t even need the support of American Jews. A group that, by and large, does not support him.  

Which has led to him leaning on the very leader, movement, and populations that endanger Jews in America. 

The Christian Dynamic

At the recent March for Israel, an event billed as “the largest pro-Israel gathering in US history” and which its organizers largely claimed was a reflection of the attitude of American Jews at large, no rabbis or spiritual leaders were allowed to speak. Except for one: Pastor John Hagee.

John Hagee is the Founder of the Christian Zionist organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Outside of their support for Israel, both Hagee and the Christian Zionist movement as a whole are known for their antisemitism. Hagee has said that Hitler was a “half-breed Jew” that was sent to persecute Jews in order for them to have no choice but to move to “the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have — Israel.” This is only one of many such antisemitic statements, from his belief that the Rothschilds controlled the economy to the belief that Jewish financiers would bring the anti-Christ. 

These ideas are far from a sordid past: CUFI sells a book that spreads many of these ideas to this day, and has gone through multiple updates and revisions while keeping these messages.

The core message of Christian Zionism itself is antisemitic as well, believing that it’s incumbent on Jews to move to Israel in order to hasten the End Times and that antisemitism is necessary in order to accomplish that goal.

Hagee was once controversial even among Republicans: John McCain renounced Hagee’s endorsement during his presidential run in 2008.

And yet here we are, 16 years later and Hagee is now a featured speaker at one of the largest marches for Israel in American history. A march organized by the largest Jewish organizations in America, including the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Conference of Presidents includes organizations tasked with fighting antisemitism, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

This is not just about one event and one speaker.

It indicates and illustrates how support for Israel in America has become inversely related to Jewish safety in America.

As Netanyahu has embraced Christian nationalism, Trumpism and American right wing-ism, he has heightened the underlying dynamics facing the dual realities of Jews in America and Israeli nationalism. The choice was always one at the cost of the other, but this dynamic has meant that choosing one almost by definition means sacrificing the other.

It is for this reason that the biggest Jewish organizations, all of which depend enormously on the funding of pro-Israel donors, have not just embraced Hagee and Christian nationalism but American pro-Israel antisemitism as a whole. And after October 7th, this dynamic has gone into overdrive.

Nowhere is this more obvious than the embrace of Elon Musk by pro-Israel leaders.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and the sole owner of America’s third-largest social media platform, is America’s most dangerous antisemite. Since buying Twitter, he has reinstated neo-Nazis and white nationalists, removed almost all moderation, spread the Great Replacement conspiracy on an almost daily basis, targeted the ADL with conspiracy theories, openly claimed that Jewish communities push “hatred against Jews,” consorts regularly with antisemites and neo-Nazis, follows accounts that praise Hitler, and on and on.

All of this has led to a white nationalist renaissance on the platform that has made the site a haven for the worst hate groups in America and beyond. And these hate groups have found the most success since October 7th, posing as progressive anti-Zionists and building their audiences exponentially. These accounts are driving the news around Israel on Twitter, with some gaining billions of views, far more than any mainstream news source.

One would think that this confluence of anti-Israel and antisemitic views would unite Jewish groups and leaders in the danger they represent. Yet the result has been the opposite.

Netanyahu has, unsurprisingly, openly embraced Elon Musk. Ben Shapiro brought Elon Musk to Auschwitz on a tour meant to deflect accusations of antisemitism (days later, Musk. And even after Musk openly targeted the ADL, its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, has not only openly forgiven all of Musk’s behavior, he has reinstated the ADL’s advertising on Twitter. This as major advertisers have found the brand too toxic and pulled their ads from the site.

One could argue they did this in the hopes that Musk would change his behavior. Except that hasn’t happened. None of this has changed Elon Musk’s behavior. In fact, it has gotten much worse. He has become more and more overt in his antisemitism. And he has embraced more and more antisemitic figures and accounts.

His trip to Auschwitz was followed by almost-constant antisemitism. Responding to a figure who once wrote that Jews controlled Hollywood and who owns a signed copy of Mein Kampf, Elon Musk agreed with him that the “Deep State” (often code for Jews) is trying to destroy America by importing immigrants and making kids LGBTQ, a more intricate version of Great Replacement conspiracy theory. He also followed an account that has openly praised Hitler, and promoted a white genocide conspiracy theory shared by VDARE, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi adjacent hate group. And the Auschwitz visit itself was later called out by the partner of the Holocaust survivor who was brought along, who called it an “elaborate photo op.”

So, to sum up: Musk is an incredibly dangerous and powerful antisemite with ties to Neo-Nazis. And every day that passes, his antisemitism gets worse. No amount of intercession by prominent organizations and leaders has made a difference. And his visit to Auschwitz was openly called out by its own participants. And many of Twitter’s worst far right actors have posed as pro-Palestinian groups in order to spread antisemitism.

And yet nothing has changed on the part of Jewish and Israeli leaders. Musk is still praised, supported, and uplifted.

In fact, days after Musk spread his worst and most overt antisemitism yet (including a jab at the ADL), Jonathan Greenblatt praised Elon Musk for banning the terms “decolonialization” and “from the river to the sea,” both terms that the ADL and other organizations have pushed hard to claim are genocidal in nature and thus antisemitic.

Whether they are or not genocidal is very much dependent on who is saying them, and worthy of debate. But even if they are, they are aimed at a specific entity: Israel.  And even if we accept the premise that they are inherently antisemitic, the fact that Musk is willing to ban them while allowing neo-Nazis to praise Hitler is a marker of just how much the prioritization of Israeli power has been prioritized over the safety of Jewish Americans by both the mainstream right in America and organizations like the ADL.

More importantly, even the anti-Israel sentiments expressed on Twitter are worth the price to these leaders because ultimately it will be American Jews, not Israel, that will suffer from the consequences. Like the antisemitism of Christian Zionists, their nationalism is far more about oppressing Jews in America than in any anti-Israel attitudes. Their anti-Israel sentiment is, in fact, simply a way to gain power in America.

The calculus has been made: American Jews will take the hit for Israel.

Whether it be Hagee or Musk, the lesson is clear.

1. As Israel has become more nationalist, it depends on the nationalism of other countries to entrench its power.

2. This has led to the pluralism Jews in America rely on to be an impediment to Israel’s power.

3. As Israel’s government allies with America’s nationalists, it has chosen to prioritize the support of Christian Zionists, evangelical Christians, and the right at large over Jewish safety in America.

4. This has led the organizations tasked with protecting Jews have made the calculation that Israel is more important than the safety of American Jews.

But there is one last dynamic that has exacerbated all these dynamics, and which now threatens to endanger American Jews more than ever.

The War

To put it about as mildly as one can, the war in Gaza is the opposite of pluralism. It has been sold to its proponents in Israel and beyond as the only way to secure safety of Israelis after the horrors of October 7th (it isn’t, but that’s for another time).

The trauma of October 7th, though, has opened this logic up to many people who once might have been horrified by the thought. The logic is, to over-simplify, that the safety of Gazans is in direct contradiction with the safety of Israelis. Whether due to a hatred of all Gazans or a belief that Hamas can’t be defeated (and Israel can’t be protected) without enormous cost of life, the end result is the same: no amount of suffering by Gazans (and hostages) matters in comparison to Israeli life.

This logic, no matter how much Joe Biden believes in it, is in direct contradiction with the values of any truly pluralistic and egalitarian vision of the future. And, taken to its most extreme, it is genocidal (in the words of the far right in power in Israel themselves, both before and after the war).

And as defending Israel’s actions has relied more and more on associating any criticism of the war with antisemitism, the word itself has been redefined. Not only is it a weapon to hurt critics, it is also a weapon used to justify war crimes as the only way to defend Jews.

This is how Jonathan Greenblatt can defend Elon Musk and simultaneously call Jewish critics of the war hate groups.  It is how Netanyahu can embrace far right antisemites while spreading George Soros conspiracy theories. And it is how Jewish leaders can openly call for critics of the war to not even be considered Jewish anymore.

What we are seeing is a growing trend that has now been cemented: it’s not that antisemitism has been redefined, exactly. It’s that the very definition of being Jewish has been redefined.

To be Jewish is to be subservient to the state of Israel first and foremost. 

This is why, from even many American leaders’ points of view,  it is okay to sacrifice the safety of American Jews. American Jews should be okay with sacrificing their safety because the state of Israel’s power matters more. And any who aren’t okay with this sacrifice or, more importantly, prioritize pluralism as a value even when it at times means advocating for less power of Israel both as a state and as an influencer of American politics, is to be cut off from Jewry as a whole.

The Stakes

Ultimately, then, this is not just about Jewish safety. It is about a larger discussion: what kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of world is sustainable for Jewish safety both in America and beyond?  How much should Jews in Israel sacrifice for Jews in America and vice versa? Is the contradiction true, or based in a larger framework that can be resolved? And ultimately, what does it mean to be Jewish and who, then, deserves the safety that accusations of antisemitism afford?

The stakes are high, both for Jews and the world. The definition of antisemitism is not just about protecting Jews: it is about a worldview that many hold and which is used to destroy societies. For all the taboos around it, it is still a massive force in world politics. And thus, its definition matters not just for Jews but for all people who depend on the flourishing of pluralistic democracies.

What does the future hold, then?  It’s hard to say. We are in a moment of extreme instability, and the winds are still shifting. Much of where we go, it seems, is how much we are willing to let these dynamics continue.