The White House put out an intriguingly short official statement on the Netanyahu-Obama meeting. Only one notable adjective–strong–to describe the U.S. commitment to Israel:
"The President and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed a number of issues in the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship. The President reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues. The President and Prime Minister also discussed Iran and how to move forward on Middle East peace."
I watched most of Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to the Jewish Federations General Assembly today and it left me cold. Netanyahu is unappealing. He doesn’t smile, he has that gloomy-gus expression, he is strong in a scary way. The speech had blood-and-soil overtones. It boiled down to: We’re smarter than other people, we have a lot of Nobel Prizes, we are leading the world in desalination and we are going to replace oil with another energy source, and we ARE the Jewish people! This justifies the 19th-century tests on citizenship:
Any Jew, of any denomination, will always have the right to come home to the Jewish state. Religious pluralism and tolerance will always guide my policy.
What does a Jewish state mean for the Palestinians? They must abandon the fantasy of flooding Israel with refugees…
Netanyahu also warned American Jews against what they’re doing, getting comfortable here. This is a theme of his administration. Michael Oren does identity politics, too. And Sharansky says that assimilation is "eating" the Jews alive. Netanyahu:
Today, you support Birthright, Masa [which came out against intermarriage] and Nefesh B’Nefesh [which encourages Americans to move to the Occupied West Bank]. These are programs that promote Aliyah and strengthen Jewish identity, thereby ensuring that our numbers are not further diminished and dwindled by the forces of assimilation.
Strengthening Jewish identity can no longer be a task exclusively for the Diaspora.
It is increasingly the responsibility of the Jewish State. Over a decade ago, I was proud to be the first Prime Minister to allocate state funds to bolster Jewish identity outside of Israel.
And I assure you that in my second term, I intend to do even more.
I.e., you’re doing a lousy job of holding the Jewish people together in postracial America. Increasingly, Netanyahu’s idea of what it means to be a Jew, militant, ethnocentric, is bumping up against young Americans’ ideas about identity. Apparently too late to make much difference for the Palestinians.
