Americans are ‘uber soft,’ unforged by war, and childless — says Israeli advocate Bennett

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been a leading advocate for Israel in American media, in the most militarist terms.

On “Meet the Press” last month, Bennett called for the assassination of Palestinian leaders in foreign countries. “These are barbarians, savages.”

On CNN and PBS in recent days, Bennett called for an attack on Iran. “Israel is already at war with Iran… but they are not paying the price… it’s time for action.”

The West has to help Israel to “topple” the “octopus of terror” in Iran, Bennett told PBS:

We’re already facing regional war. The key is to identify the source of the enemy, and the source of the enemy is Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the basis of all of this. It’s like the head of the octopus and I’ve been arguing for years we need to topple this regime for our sake, the sake of the region, the sake of the Iranian people.

As with so many other propagandists for Israel’s wars, American media has granted an anti-Palestinian militarist a platform without scrutinizing his views.

Bennett calls himself a “mainstream liberal.” But his views are fascistic. He praises war and how it transforms society. And he has made vicious statements about killing Arabs.

At a cyber industry conference at Tel Aviv University last month, Bennett said that America became an economic powerhouse after World War II because of that war, but we have now gone soft. And he said the Gaza war was going to forge Israeli society in “patriotism” and “resilience” for the next 50 years leading to economic growth.

Bennett explained America after World War II:

After 3, 4 years in the war, that generation was embedded with amazing values, of hard work, of determination, of group work, of resilience, of patriotism, of idealism. They carried the United States of America for the next 50 years of amazing growth, the best period of any country in the world.

He said the war in Gaza was doing the same for Israel, “generating these amazing young men and women.”

Prior to the war, “I have to tell you we had exhausted our talent.” But war has restored Israeli “toughness,” Bennett said:

Right now our youngest generation is Israel’s greatest generation. Because they have been imbedded with work ethics, with courage, with strength, resilience and idealism. Every one of them has been changed forever and cares more about the state of Israel.

Sounding something like Republican VP candidate JD Vance, Bennett says that one thing that makes Israel great is that people are “having a lot of kids.”

“Israel is the only advanced country on earth that’s growing demographically. I came back from Korea a while ago, they’re at 0.8 children per family. In Israel even if you carve out the ultra orthodox we’re at 2.4, which is positive growth. The only country in the world.

Bennett faults American youth for weakness. He’s seen “something interesting” on his visits to universities– “uber softness. Everyone is getting offended. Micro aggressions. ‘I need a safe space.’ In Israel there aren’t safe spaces, you gotta be tough.”

In a speech to the Israel lobby group Stand With Us in May in Tel Aviv, Bennett said Israeli youth is superior to American youth because “our young people are fighting with rifles for their lives” but young American progressives are “idiots” who are too soft for the world.

“I’ve seen the students… by no stretch of imagination are they ready for the world. The world is tough. That’s a problem for America,” Bennett said.

You develop very cloistered and soft people that can’t deal with the world… At 30 are they still going to be idiots, or will they grow out of it? No one built anything great if they were offended all day.

Bennett has repeatedly faulted the U.S. by asserting that on October 7 last year, Israeli civilians flooded to the south to help others under attack, sometimes sacrificing their lives; but on 9/11 in New York, he witnessed a “river” of people headed north, away from the attack site.

Israel means Jewish Israel for Bennett. He ignores the 20 percent of Israeli society that is not Jewish, let alone the millions of Palestinians under occupation. He told the Israel lobby group in May that Jewish Israel must never apologize for what it does:

One conclusion I’ve reached, We’re never going to be loved. Jews are not going to be loved. So let’s not be apologetic. Let’s be respected and feared.

And U.S. Jews must support everything Israel does–

Stand with us, be with us, and don’t allow lies to be out there. Fight every time there’s a lie…. Don’t apologize, don’t be apologetic. Be proud to be connected and part of a beautiful Jewish nation and a Jewish democratic state, which is a beautiful wonder.

We are going to do the fight against these terrorists, and you guys fight the spiritual war, the war of public opinion and we’re one and together we’ll win.

The “terrorists” are all of Palestinian society; there must never be Palestinian sovereignty. “Barely anyone in Israel today — I’m talking about the people– thinks that it’s a good idea in the foreseeable future to establish a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel [i.e., the West Bank].”

Even “kibbutzniks” and “lefties” defer to the “reality” — that it’s “suicide” for Palestinians to get a state.

Bennett offered this racist history of the land:

The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel…. Very slowly, Arabs came, primarily when Jews returned in the 19th century.

He also bragged of defying Joe Biden on two occasions during his prime ministership.

Biden promised to reopen the American consulate in Jerusalem that served Palestinians.

“I said no,” Bennett said, and the promise “quietly faded away.”

I was also asked by President Biden to commit to him that I wouldn’t surprise America on Iran, if we do something in Iran… I said you’re not gong to always want to know what we’re doing but in the broad stroke of things, I’ll try to keep you in the know. I don’t know what I just said, which was the point. I basically said No.

Israel has defied presidents repeatedly without lasting consequences, he said. Including bombing Iraq 1981 and annexing Jerusalem in 1967.

American media shouldn’t platform such a right-wing racist nationalist. Or if they do they should put Bennett on the spot about his anti-Palestinian and anti-American ideas.