Takeaways From A Tumultuous Week

A campaign poster during Israel’s recent election featured pictures of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the line that a vote for Likud would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for victory. A tumultuous political week in Israel and the United States has left both Trump and Netanyahu as losers. The results may well undermine the special relationship between Israel and the United States. But they also offer hope for restoring bipartisan support for Israel, rebuilding the bridge of solidarity between Israel and American Jews, and healing the wounds in Israeli society.

 

Disaster In Michigan

Going into Election Day, polls predicted a close Senate race between the anti-Israel Democrat, Abdul El-Sayed, and the Republican, former Congressman Mike Rogers. On Sunday, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Rogers. It was hoped that the endorsement from a prominent Democrat might put Rogers over the top.

El-Sayed responded to Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers, effectively saying he didn’t care and that he was focused on how to beat Trump and improve the day-to-day lives of people in Michigan.

The reaction from other Democrats at the national level was fast and furious. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader and self-appointed “Shomer Yisrael,” branded Haley’s “betrayal” as “despicable.” The responses from other Democratic leaders were similar. What Democratic leaders found unacceptable was not the antisemitic tropes used by El-Sayed, but the courage of one of the few Democrats courageous enough to call out the antisemitism in her own party. What Schumer got for giving his hechsher to El-Sayed was El-Sayed’s commitment to support ousting Schumer from his leadership position.

On Election Day, El-Sayed won with 52% of the vote, showing that an anti-Israel Democrat could win a statewide election, not just in a heavily Democratic state, but in a swing state like Michigan, which Donald Trump carried twice. Israel was not the main issue in the Michigan Senate race. People supported El-Sayed because he spoke about the high cost of living, the need for universal healthcare, and the need to spend money on helping the people of Michigan rather than supporting a foreign country. This argument resonates with people who are not antisemitic or even anti-Israel, but who want their tax money spent in Michigan, not in Israel or any other foreign country.

El-Sayed’s victory was bad enough. What is absolutely shocking is that El-Sayed received 60% of the Jewish vote. Let that sink in. An avowedly anti-Israel candidate, who campaigned with Hasan Piker in the primary and who initially justified a terrorist attack on a synagogue, received more support from Jews than he did from Michigan voters as a whole.

The vast majority of American Jews are not Torah-observant. To the extent that they identify Jewishly, they define Judaism as a commitment to economic and social justice. They hate Trump and the Republicans more than they love Israel. By making support of Israel synonymous with Trump, Netanyahu has managed to estrange large numbers, approaching a majority, of American Jews from Israel. This is borne out by polls showing that a substantial number of Jews actually blame Netanyahu for antisemitism in America.

Democrats looking at the results of the Michigan Senate race see that their hold on the Jewish vote is secure and that being anti-Israel does not cost them Jewish support. Republicans see that the vast majority of American Jews will always vote Democratic and that Republicans have little to gain by supporting Israel.

 

Trump Ends Aid To Israel

On Election Day, President Trump announced that $4 billion in annual aid to Israel will end at the end of this year. President Trump said that it was part of an agreement reached with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu months ago. Instead, Israel will purchase weapons from the United States.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have said that Israel is strong enough to pay for weapons. But the reality is that both realize that actually funding aid to Israel will not pass in Congress. They are attempting to put the best spin on it by portraying it as a mutual agreement.

There are advantages to ending aid to Israel. A major talking point of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and El-Sayed has been that Americans do not have healthcare because the money is going to Israel. To be sure, there is no actual substance to this argument. The U.S. government spends $2.18 trillion a year on healthcare, 7.2% of the gross domestic product. The $4 billion in aid to Israel has no impact on what the government spends on healthcare. The fact that many Americans cannot afford to pay for healthcare is the result of policies of both Democratic and Republican administrations. Nevertheless, Mamdani’s and El-Sayed’s argument resonates with voters. Taking the issue of aid to Israel off the table will remove one of the major talking points of anti-Israel politicians on the left and the right.

Past administrations have used aid as leverage to pressure Israel. Ending aid will remove one source of leverage, although many others remain.

 

The Blue Wave

Democrats swept to victory on Election Day, easily taking control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Many longtime friends, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, went down to defeat.

The wipeout was even more decisive in the Senate, where Democrats won seats in reliably Republican states like Texas, Kansas, and Mississippi.

Not all that long ago, we would have eagerly anticipated the possibility that two guys from Brooklyn, with histories of support for Israel and the Jewish community, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, would become Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate. Schumer has long since abdicated his role as the self-appointed “Shomer Yisrael.” Jeffries has spoken of the need to “reassess” the American relationship with Israel. A Democratic Congress could vote to ban even the sale of weapons to Israel and to cut off funding for joint weapons development projects.

Congress is now in the hands of a Democratic Party that Netanyahu has spent years alienating. In 2015, Netanyahu, at the invitation of the Republican leadership, addressed Congress on the urgency of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. His speech was a breach of diplomatic protocol. Seeing that Netanyahu would not support any nuclear deal with Iran, Obama felt free to ignore Netanyahu’s objections. Obama was able to portray support for the nuclear deal as a litmus test of support for the Democratic Party. Even Democratic representatives and senators, with the notable exception of Grace Meng, who were usually dependable supporters of Israel, stood by Obama. American Jews, whose loyalty to Obama and the Democrats was greater than their support for Israel, largely supported the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu’s 2015 speech may have won him political points in Israel but actually helped pave the way for the Iran deal.

In more recent years, Netanyahu has gone out of his way to anoint Trump as the savior of Israel. With every word of sycophantic praise of Trump, Netanyahu turned what had been bipartisan support for Israel into a wedge issue between Democrats and Republicans.

Vice President JD Vance has blamed Republican losses on the war in Iran and support for Israel. The war in Iran has led to higher energy prices. Americans are paying more for gasoline and heating oil. Americans with no antipathy toward Israel or love for Iran are asking why we are risking the lives of our servicemen and servicewomen in a war halfway around the world that is making it increasingly harder for the average American to make ends meet.

Bipartisan support for Israel in the past has enabled Israel to turn to Congress when relations with the White House hit a rough patch. By alienating the party that now controls Congress, Netanyahu has placed all of Israel’s eggs in the basket of a lame-duck president who is notorious for changing his mind.

In past presidential elections, we were able to choose between candidates who competed for our support. In the next election, we may well face a choice between Vance and a candidate from the anti-Israel progressive left.

It would come at a time when public opinion polls show that a majority of Americans are more supportive of the Palestinians than Israel.

While the future of relations between Israel and the United States seems bleak, we should not despair. While the Democratic victory is being portrayed as a historic landslide, it is actually consistent with past midterm elections. In 1994, Bill Clinton’s Democrats lost 54 House seats. In 2010, Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63 seats. Both Clinton and Obama came back to win reelection two years later, while the Republicans retained control of the House. In the recent election, the Republicans lost about 30 seats. Certainly, a cause for disappointment but not despair.

While the anti-Israel progressive left is on the rise in the Democratic Party, the pro-Israel wing is alive and well. Josh Gottheimer, Jared Moskowitz, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tom Suozzi, Elaine Luria, and others are ready and able to fight for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.

 

Eisenkot Gets The Nod

On Sunday, President Isaac Herzog gave Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar Party and the opposition bloc, who had the support of a majority of Knesset members, the first shot at forming a coalition. Eisenkot will essentially have six weeks to try to put it together. He essentially has three paths to gaining a majority, although each would require the Change Bloc to break campaign promises.

The Haredim: This seems to be the preferred path. The Change Bloc has 48 Knesset seats. Adding the seven seats of United Torah Judaism and the six seats of Shas would create a majority of 61. United Torah Judaism, which represents Ashkenazi Haredim, has openly stated that it is willing to break with Netanyahu if it can reach an agreement on the Haredi draft and other issues. Shas, which represents Sephardic Haredim, is sticking with Netanyahu for now. But Rav Yitzchak Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, has expressed a willingness to work with Eisenkot in the past. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party and the most vociferous opponent of draft exemptions for yeshivah students, has publicly expressed a willingness to compromise. Hopefully, a compromise requiring universal public service, with serious talmidei chachamim fulfilling their obligation by learning full-time while others serve in Haredi-friendly units of the IDF that combine military service and learning, or work on chesed projects in their own communities, can be reached. This would not only enable the formation of a government; it would go a long way toward healing the deep wounds within Israeli society. Whether Lieberman and the Haredim can reach an agreement that would pass muster with their respective constituencies is the big question.

The Arab Parties: Ra’am, which recognizes Israel as a Jewish democratic state and has eight seats, has expressed interest in being part of the government. The Joint List has stated that it will not join the government but will vote with the Change Bloc to topple Netanyahu. This would give Eisenkot’s coalition 67 votes, a solid Knesset majority. Having Arab parties in the government is probably the single best thing Israel can do to improve its image around the world. There would be absolutely no credibility to the claims that Israel is an apartheid state. How is this for a contrast? The Palestinian Authority, with Mahmoud Abbas in the twenty-first year of his four-year term as president, just canceled its elections. Hamas rules Gaza by force. In Israel, Arabs can vote in democratic elections and serve in the government as equal citizens in a Jewish democratic state. None of this will impress the “from the river to the sea” crowd. But it can go a long way toward winning the hearts and minds of Jews and well-meaning non-Jews in America and around the world. But such a government would depend on the support of those whose loyalty to Israel is begrudging at best and suspect at worst. Netanyahu and others are bound to shout “stolen election” and create bitter divisions in Israeli society.

National Unity Government: Such a government would bring Likud and the Change Bloc together with rotating prime ministers. A government with Shimon Peres of Labor and Yitzchak Shamir of Likud serving as rotating prime ministers worked well in the 1980s. Netanyahu will likely demand to serve as prime minister first, and Eisenkot has vowed not to serve under Netanyahu. The Change Bloc seems to see toppling Netanyahu as the greatest urgency, and a unity government would probably come only as a last resort.

Restoring bipartisan support for Israel in America, rebuilding the partnership between Israel and American Jews, and healing the bitter divisions in Israeli society should all be top priorities for the next Israeli government. Netanyahu played a key role in creating these problems in the first place. He is not qualified to solve them. Israel’s best hope is for Eisenkot to form as wide a government as possible, one that would not depend on any one party or bloc to remain in power.