Israel’s new president has assured US Jews: ‘you’re not second rate Jews,’ but you are clueless about Israel

The likely end of the Netanyahu era has eclipsed another change in the guard this week, the passing of the more ceremonial position of Israel’s presidency from Reuven Rivlin to Isaac Herzog.

Herzog is beloved by U.S. liberal Zionists because, as one of them said yesterday, he is a moderate Laborite who might cool Israeli tensions at a time of chaos. “‘Bougie’ Herzog, Isaac Herzog, is a scion of one of the great aristocratic Israeli families,” Daniel Sokatch said. His grandfather was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, his father was an Israeli president.

Myself I was surprised by Herzog’s appearance at J Street this year, in which he admonished American Jews for allowing anti-Zionism to gain a footing in our community. The speech was both conservative and condescending. J Street has not posted the video, so I’ve watched a lot of Herzog’s other speeches as head of the Jewish Agency to get a feel for him. And he is conservative and condescending. Yes, Isaac Herzog is surely a moderate in the Israeli framework (with a reputation for the political appeal of a cold fish) but among his ideas are these:

–American Jews have not a “clue” about Israeli Jews’ experience and are uninformed when they criticize Israel for its response to Palestinians. Israel wants peace but has no “partner” for peace, and Palestinians shower Israel with rockets.

–American Jews have a responsibility as members of the global “Jewish nation” to support Israel.

–Anti-Zionism is just as dangerous to Jews as rightwing antisemitism that killed 12 people at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway. The 2019 attacks on Jews in Jersey City and Monsey, N.Y., were both fostered by the left, Herzog says — though the claim is patently false.

–There won’t be a two-state solution any time soon but any talk of one state with equal rights is anathema, and American Jews need to fight that talk.

Herzog’s ideas are all but indistinguishable from a rightwing Zionist’s. This goes to show why Israel’s parliament is today overwhelmingly rightwing; Herzog reflects mainstream Jewish Israel. His positions also reflect U.S. liberal Zionist politics– in their deference to Israeli Jewish opinion, their support for merely managing conflict, so as to maintain the “Jewish state,” without demanding any change in Palestinian political status beyond calls for Palestinian “dignity” and for the preservation of the possibility of a two-state solution.

But let’s hear from Herzog.

Here he is telling J Street in 2017 that Israel has “two major strategic threats.” One is outside, the “vile enemy of Iran.” The other is “inside” — the idea mentioned by secretary of state John Kerry three months before, that Israel and Palestine could be one state. Herzog called on American Jews to fight that.

The other threat from the inside is the option which has been raised recently in the White House of the possibility of a one state solution, the idea that there will be an Arab and Jewish state rather than preserving the vision of Zionism, which is the homeland of the Jewish people. This is the real risk we are facing. We should object vehemently to any option of a one-state solution. We should object to a Jewish Arab state. We should preserve the option of the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel, side by side with a Palestinian state, and it can be done despite all odds. For this we need you. For this I call upon you. For this I tell you, don’t give up, All moderate forces in Israel and in the United States, especially in the Jewish community should work proactively to pursue the option of a two state solution, thus preserving the well being and security of the state of Israel forever.

Herzog has often been condescending to American Jews. Speaking to the American Jewish Committee a year ago, he said that American Jews think they are “second-rate” to Israeli Jews, but he assures them they are not.

People tell me in America you know, We are second rate Jews. No, you’re not. You’re absolutely not, you’re part and parcel of the Jewish people. And as such you can make aliyah for example at any given moment. It’s true that marriage and divorce are under the rabbinate of Israel and the rabbinate negates you. That doesn’t mean that the nation of Israel, the people of Israel or even the political system of Israel feels the same way… I think it’s an educational process to get to know each other.

But American Jews have “no clue” what Israelis go through, when they judge Israelis for not seeking a Palestinian state.

You could have the biggest support in Israel for a two state solution, but most Israelis’ reasoning would be different from how American Jews look at it… It has to start and end with security. Security is the prime objective of Israelis…[My supporters] asked me in meetings, thousands of people– do you really believe the Palestinians? Do you really want to have a border in Kfar Saba, which is five minutes from Tel Aviv? These are all legitimate questions, once you are bombarded by 10,000 missiles form Gaza, after pulling out your brothers and sisters from settlements and telling them there will be a new Hong Kong of the Middle East [in Gaza]. None of you have experienced it, American Jews have no clue about it. Only now, perhaps and I hope that it doesn’t happen, that they see some violence here and there…

It’s not right wing or left wing. Israelis do adhere to the narrative that they have to be very cautious about reaching an agreement after being frustrated by many agreements that have failed.

There’s a “rift” between American and Israeli Jews because American teenagers go to college, while my son is in a combat unit, Herzog says. But it’s essential that the communities don’t split and “understand they’re under the same nation.”

Herzog has expressed exasperation with American Jews over their lack of knowledge of Israel and the threat that poses to the “strategic goal of maintaining our nation.”

[I’ve been] crisscrossing communities in North America, telling them guys, you don’t know enough, you don’t know much about Israel. I’m aware of the unaffiliated, and the people who have frustrations, and the political divide [between US and Israeli Jews] that looms all over it. We know it but I tell everybody, We must think way beyond the political divide because we have a huge strategic goal of maintaining our nation.

Speaking at UCLA in February 2020, Herzog said that Israel gives American Jews meaning in life.

“The relationship [between Israel and American Jews] developed with… ahavat yisrael– love of israel, that is… perhaps the source of the strength of the state of Israel and of the American Jewish community.”

He endorsed a similar Israel-centric statement by Moshe Sharett, Israel’s second prime minister, in 1952 to American Jews:

Actually we the mini- little state of Israel are giving you something you have never had before. Whilst your Italian friends, German friends, Irish friends could always look back at their nation state and be proud and speak about it, now we are giving this to you.

Herzog expressed alarm about a possible a split between the American and Israeli Jewish communities– “If we miss this opportunity we may lead our nation to one of its biggest tragedies.” That’s because we need to be “one strong united nation of Jews around the world.”

But when the scholar Dov Waxman raised American Jews’ concerns about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians– settlement building, control of the West Bank– and said that’s why young Jews are “more critical of Israel” — Herzog dismissed the question out of hand. American Jews are ignorant. Palestinians bear the blame.

Clearly that’s a very thorny issue which is derived from two sources, one is I think a lack of knowledge of the intricacies of the conflict, like a very short sighted memory. If you ask a young Jew here, Do you remember that Israel pulled ot of Gaza in 2005. Do you know what we went through? Are you aware of the process, are you aware how what we went to our brothers and sisters and uprooted them from their homes after decades promising them we will bring the hong Kong of the Middle East to Gaza?

There’s a kind of very short circuited memory in this dialogue. People dont remember who offered what when and who said yes and who said no.

He said there was a “superficial” discourse in the U.S. and then blamed Palestinians again.

It is a superficial discusssion and of course impacts the way young Jews are looking at the conflict. Because naturally when you look at the facts themsevles, one has to ask many questions to the Palestinians. How come you always say no, and how come for years and years and years you are entrenched in the misunderstanding of the changes around you. The Arab world has gone way far beyond to accommodate Israel…

Echoing the view of Netanyahu, Herzog said Israel does not have “a serious partner” for peace. And Palestinians have missed one opportunity after another, including the one Donald Trump/Jared Kushner gave them by signing deals with Arab nations.

You need to have a leadership that is willing to rise to the occasion and take risks…. Blaming won’t lead anywhere…. Clearly, history doesn’t really show that they [Palestinians] are learning the fact that time is in their fvor, because it is not.

And in another echo of Netanyahu, Herzog said that Israel has a very moral army, and investigates all accusations of human rights violations.

The blame game is the easiest way to escape reality. One has to look at all the facts, and the facts are extremely complex. We definitely make mistakes, and we have very sad moments of making mistakes.. I can tell you I know from my children in the army how much of a debate there is and a discussion on the purity of the army and of the military and how to make sure how to offend. But there are tragedies. We have human beings who violate human rights as well, unfortunately and they are indicted and they are put to trial and they are investigated..

This is a patent falsehood. Israel’s leading human rights groups have said the country has no mechanism to investigate Israeli army atrocities against Palestinians.

In that UCLA appearance, Herzog said that the leftwing critique of Israel is just as dangerous as rightwing antisemitism. After mentioning the attacks on Poway and Pittsburgh synagogues that killed 12 Jews, he said:

There is a very growing extreme leftwing anti Israel bashing and hating which is as dangerous [as the rightwing] because we have seen the Monsey event growing from that side of the camp, maybe also the event in Jersey City. Both of them are as dangerous.

Herzog refers to one event two months before his speech when a man went into a rabbi’s house in Monsey, N.Y., in December 2019, and stabbed several people, as he screamed, “I’ll get you.” The suspect was reported in the New York Times to have suffered from mental illness, including a schizophrenia diagnosis.

The Jersey City attack was an antisemitic attack also in December 2019 that left six dead, including the two assailants, who were linked with the Black Israelite movement. Per the New York Times, “The Black Hebrew Israelites, which has no connection with mainstream Judaism, has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy group that tracks such movements.”

In his speech to the AJC a year ago, Herzog dismissed any similarity of America’s deep race problem to Israel’s.

There is a whole onslaught against Israel with terrible things– I’ve seen even in the last few days people comparing what’s going on in the streets in America to the Israeli challenges and confrontations with the Palestinans. It’s totally different circumstances and totally different story. But it’s become like a political blame game.

Speaking to a Vancouver Jewish outlet two days ago, Herzog linked the BDS campaign targeting Israel for human rights abuses with antisemitism.

There is a lot of diatribe, a lot of false information about Israel running around the world, a lot of BDS… You can criticize the Israeli government as you criticize the government of Canada. That has nothing to do with the inherent right of the Jewish people for their own self-determination. And this is the new phenomenon which is intertwined with basic antisemitism. I have family in Toronto an they were faced with a wave of swastikas. I never believed in Canada you see a wave of swastikas.