Israel Alone: A Letter to Binyamin Netanyahu
Dear Bibi:
We first met ages ago in Washington when you were the No. 2 at the Israeli embassy. We used to hang with our friend Charles Krauthammer, a towering figure in American journalism. I remember you as brainy, funny and amiable – as a cool guy.
A total of 19 years as Israel’s PM has taken a toll – a familiar dynamic that affects all who have ruled for such a long time. Nice guys don’t win, especially when they have to rely on razor-thin majorities at home while facing, as does Israel, a treacherous regional arena where peace is just a pause between two wars.
Savor the irony. On the one hand, Israel has peace with Cairo and Amman, plus diplomatic-military ties with Morocco. Add the tacit understanding with Riadh and various Gulf regimes, which see Iran as a greater threat to the Middle East than the Yahud. Who could have predicted this wondrous outcome back in 1948 when five Arab armies pounced on the nascent Jewish state to erase it? Now, Israel is as little superpower armed with nuclear weapons and one of the world’s most sophisticated air and anti-missile forces.
On the other hand, new enemies are threatening Israel. These are the three H: Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi, handmaidens of Tehran’s imperial ambitions. All of them are sworn to the annihilation of Israel. Beyond the Middle East, it is the “return of the repressed,” to cite Sigmund Freud. Antisemitism redivivus is turning the Biblical “Light Unto the Nations” (Isaiah 42:6) into the evil Uber-Jew, the target of age-old hatred ranging from the Pharaoh via Medieval Christendom to Hitlerism.
“From the River to the Sea,” mouthed around the world, means “statocide,” indeed genocide. Where are Israel’s eight million Jews to go – grow gills to survive in the Med? So, no Israeli PM should be envied, though you preside over a nation whose per-capita exceeds that of Germany, Britain or France, not to speak of a high-tech economy that is the envy of the world. That said, let’s set aside “Israel-as-Universal-Jew” blamed for all the world’s ills to look at the nation itself. It is not a heartening sight.
The old days were always better, right? In one critical respect, they were. The Declaration of Independence in 1948 stated: Israel “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”
This lofty program has suffered nasty hits since Israel’s victorious war of survival in 1948/49: multiple wars against Arab states five rejected two-state solutions, murderous Intifadas, endless combat against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. As a result, the beleaguered nation has lurched to the right – and no more radically than under the current coalition. It makes Menahem Begin’s reign look like wisdom incarnate. This “Fascist,” made peace with Egypt, which justly earned him a Nobel Peace Prize.
Tempi passati, the Italians say. Today, your government is in thrall to the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The latter, also known as “Minister of Chaos,” wants to expand Israel borders “little by little” to eventually encompass all Palestinian territories, plus the lands of its Arab neighbors and Saudi-Arabia.[1] Ten million Israelis vs. 450 million in the Arab League? Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Security Minister, has called for killing “30 to 40 Gazans in strikes every night,” and not just those who “pose an immediate threat.”[2]
This is a far cry from the language of Israeli ministers in all past governments – even rightish ones like Begin’s. Naturally, such verbiage delivers wondrous ammunition to Israel’s foes, even to once friendly governments in Europe. Not to speak of public and published opinion in the United States. which has turned against Israel. “Ein breira,” runs a classic Hebrew line. Or: “necessity rules.” Or: “The goyim hate us, no matter what we do.”
How Israel fails at hasbara – public diplomacy – when Hamas, Iran et al. dominate the social and printed media is another story. My question, dear Bibi, is what the murderous slogans of your coalition partners and their settler thugs do to Israel itself. How far has the discourse of the ultra-right moved away from the noble principles of the ”Declaration of Independence?” Or the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of Western civilization.
Yes, nation-states must obey necessity, which does not demand virtue first and last. Hence the valid claim of realpolitik both abroad and at home. I also know that you want to be re-elected this fall. The larger issue, though, is this: What do the Smotrichs and their armed settlers do to Israel’s soul, if I may use such an august term?
Let’s look at the core of Jewish ethics. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not Christian, but Leviticus 19:18. According to Micah 6:8, “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” In Shabbat 31a, Hillel the Elder teaches: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow — that is the whole Torah.” He also has this to say in Pirkei Avot 1:14: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” But “if I am only for myself, what am I?”
In his Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides argues correctly that you cannot pursue spiritual perfection in a society lacking justice and physical security. Of course you need both: righteousness and safety. Goodness does demand security inside and out, an existential imperative. That is Israel’s most painful dilemma.
Yet if the nation were to fall to the Ultra-Right, it would earn perialism pure and simple, which is not even good realpolitik. History is full of examples warning states: “Don’t overreach; this is how even the mightiest have failed by mobilizing superior coalitions against them.”
So let’s reread the sages. Goodness at home demands safety abroad, but security also requires legitimacy and allies – and not just flimsy friends like Donald Trump. The Trumpinator changes signals by the hour while cozying up to the “Axis of Authoritarians,” Russia, China and North Korea – hardly friends of Israel.
The realist agenda: Defang Hamas and Hezbollah and deter Iran, but beware of squeezing Syria. Do not allow terror on the West Bank. If you don’t want to downgrade righteousness, consider how costly it is to rule two million Palestinians. Do not let your home-made imperialists drag the nation into oppression and aggrandizement. These damage not only Israel’s soul, but also the tender sprouts of peace with Arab states. Think Begin, not Ben-Gvir. Begin pursued cold-eyed realpolitik without undoing the nation’s ancient values.
Put it in self-serving terms. Your domestic henchmen make you look weak – the worst that could befall any leader. The price may be your ejection from the PM’s Office this fall by a temperate coalition. Since you want to stay in power, “Israel First” must not mimic Trump’s “America First.” Israel lacks the awesome might of a real superpower. And yet even MAGA Land is stumbling as it alienates America’s old friends from Asia via Canada to Europe.
Trump is careening into a world that spells “America Alone.” Israel deserves better than “Alone Among the Nations.” So go with Hillel, the moralist-as-realist: “If I am only for myself, what am I?“
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The author is Visiting Distinguished Fellow at Stanford who has taught international politics there as well as at Harvard and Johns Hopkins.
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[1] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/smotrich-calls-israels-borders-extend-damascus
[2] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-905737
