How will the ADL and more progressive Jews respond to Trump’s unholy alliance of white nationalism, Zionism and Islamophobia? The history is worrying. In 1982, ADL’s director said, The need was to fund Israel’s military. “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”

Ari Shavit’s mea culpa for sexual assault sounds uncannily like the argument of his book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. At least that’s the way the New York Times frames it. In “Israeli Columnist Resigns after Harassment Claims,” Peter Baker protects Shavit’s Liberal Zionism from the taint of his current moral lapse, just as his Promised Land redeemed the miraculous narrative of Israel’s founding from its origins in the Nakba. In both cases, heartfelt acknowledgment of wrongdoing redirects attention away from both the victim of violence and the culpability of the perpetrator to highlight his admirably ethical qualities as confessor.