Why American Jews are falling out of love with Israel
Both your parents are Holocaust survivors.
How has this influenced your views of
Israel?
My parents were strong supporters of the Soviet
Union because they believed – rightly – that it
was the Red Army that defeated the Nazis. They
looked at the world through the prism of the
Nazi holocaust. When Israel aligned with the US
early in the Cold War, my parents came to loathe
Israel. But it did not figure in my upbringing.
You have been quoted as saying that
the 1982 war in Lebanon ended your
indifference to the Middle East’s troubles.
What was it about that particular event that
forced a reaction?
In the course of Israel’s 1982 attack on Lebanon,
it killed 15-20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians,
overwhelmingly civilians. The war climaxed in
the Sabra-Shatila massacre, but that was only a
small blip on the real screen. Once I got involved,
I began to read a lot on the subject and wrote my
doctoral thesis on Zionism. Unfortunately, the
conflict never found a resolution, so I couldn’t in
good conscience extricate myself from it.

Not all Jews back Tel Aviv policy. Ultra-Orthodox protesters outside the Republican convention earlier this year.
Eric Thayer / Reuters
The main thrust of your book is that the
era of ‘beautiful Israel’ has passed for
American Jews. What are the main drivers
of this alienation?
American Jews are liberal. They have
consistently supported the Democratic Party
since Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Because so much more is now known about
the Israel-Palestine conflict, it has become
impossible for American Jews to reconcile their
liberal beliefs with Israeli conduct.
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You contend that US support for Israel is
on a precipitous decline, but you also relate
how all US politicians, and the media,
vehemently opposed Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas’ statehood bid in 2011.
What proof do you have that American
Jews’ dissatisfaction with Israel is truly on
the wane?
The polls overwhelmingly show that support for
Israel among American Jews is on the decline.
There have also been high-profile ‘defections’
in recent times, including the editor of the New
Yorker (David Remnick), the former editor of
the New Republic (Peter Beinart) and, in late
April, a Nobel laureate in Economics (Paul
Krugman).
Public opinion is not always registered in
the political arena. One can cite a hundred
examples of policies Americans in general
support – such as on healthcare – that are never
mentioned in public debate.
Explain your critique of the influential Israel Lobby. Did authors John Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt overstate its power?
The debate on the Israel lobby tends to oscillate
between two poles: some say it determines US
foreign policy in the Middle East in favour of
Israel and against American national interests,
whereas others say that US élites determine
American foreign policy and Israel subserves
US interests. In my opinion, the Israel lobby
does determine US policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict, because this is a secondary
issue for US élites (an irritant, rather than a
primary concern), whereas when it comes to
fundamental regional concerns (Iraq, Iran), it is
the US that calls the shots.
American Jews may not know every detail of the Israel-Palestine conflict but they know it ain’t a pretty picture
How will the ‘lobby’ of die-hard supporters
be affected by the shift in how liberal
American Jews view Israel?
They will lose some of their political clout,
but still will retain some of it because a lot of
wealthy rightwing Jews will still contribute
to ‘the cause’. It also depends on whether
disaffected American Jews fall silent or publicly
criticize Israeli policy. This in turn will
depend on whether a solution to the conflict
that American Jews can embrace is on the
table or whether the only alternative they are
offered is the whole dissolution or liquidation
of Israel. We need to be able to present to
American Jews a reasonable resolution based on
incontrovertible principles of law.
You praise the reports of human rights
groups in helping to distinguish facts from
‘Zionist fiction’. But, at the same time, you
criticize Human Rights Watch (HRW) for
its report on Lebanon. What mistakes did
it make?
HRW does not make ‘mistakes’. It makes
political calculations. It relies heavily on liberal
Jewish donors, so it occasionally trims its sails
when it comes under heavy attack by the Israel
lobby. Although Israel fired four million cluster
submunitions on south Lebanon when the war
was already over in August 2006, HRW could
not find evidence that Israel had committed war
crimes. It was very shameful, and cowardly.
You make a compelling case for how
academic literature has shown up the holes
in the dominant Israeli narrative. But how
do you see these hard facts filtering down
to the general public, or American Jews of a
less scholarly bent?
American Jews are tapped into the circuits of
liberal culture; they attend the best colleges
and universities in the US. They may not know
every detail of the Israel-Palestine conflict but
they know enough to know it ain’t a pretty
picture.
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If you could choose just one glaring
falsehood regarding Israeli history that you
would like the world to know, what would
it be?
Your readers would gain a lot from reading
Zeev Maoz’s Defending the Holy Land. After an
exhaustive review of the scholarly literature he
concludes that, with the ‘possible exception’ of
the 1948 war, Israel has never fought a war of
self-defence.
You pull no punches in your writing. Books
that relay the Israeli version of events are
described as ‘sheer fraud’, ‘absurdities’,
‘shoddy’ and ‘rancid propaganda’. You also
take both sides – pro- and anti-Israel – to
task: critiquing the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions Movement, as well as old foes
like Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Do you ever tire of conflicts and clashes?
Yes, I do tire. But I don’t intend on being
anyone’s useful idiot. Die Gedanken sind frei
[Thoughts are free] – that’s my credo.
How do you think the revolts that swept the
Arab world in 2011 will affect US-Israeli
relations?
Too soon to tell, although clearly Israel can no
longer depend on the lock-step obedience of its
hitherto two major allies in the Muslim-Arab
world: Turkey and Egypt.
You argue that the distancing of American
Jews from Israel will ultimately benefit
Israelis as much as Palestinians. Explain
how.
Israel has become a crazy state, intoxicated by
its power and self-righteousness, which can
and does act with impunity because of the US
veto. It desperately needs a sobering-up. Paul
Krugman wrote the other day that it’s heading
toward ‘national suicide’. I think he’s right.
What steps do you think need to be taken to
resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict? Do you
support a two-state solution, for example?
Personally, I would prefer no states, in the
Middle East as elsewhere. But such a preference
has no bearing on politics. I support the
maximum that can be achieved now, which
is the solution supported by the whole of the
international community: two states on the
June 1967 border and a ‘just resolution’ of the
refugee question based on the right of return
and compensation.