Reassessing Israel’s appeal from France

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Antisemitic incidents in France nearly quadrupled last year, with 74 percent of the increase occurring after October 7. Does this make me, a Jew living in France, want to move to Israel any time soon? Absolutely not.

The paradox in this statement is of course that Zionism as a project emerged from the persistence of antisemitism through the rise of Haskalah in 19th-century Europe, and that the creation of Israel materialized after the Holocaust as the historical response to the perennial threat of antisemitism hovering over Jews across the planet. In times like these then, what would be more sensible for a Jew in a country where the tally of antisemitic incidents has gone through the roof than making Aliyah?

Since October 7, this is no longer a self-evident proposition for many, perhaps for most diaspora Jews. The shattering of Israel’s image as the ultimate refuge for world Jewry following the colossal failure of the entire security and political apparatus to protect its citizens from the Hamas rampage around the border with Gaza on that day is not often – if ever – addressed in the vibrant Israeli media space. Yet the potential long-term effect of this failure on whether diaspora Jews can still view Israel as their only safe haven should not be underestimated. Even more significantly, every day that has passed since the partial release of hostages last November has reinforced the perception that freeing those still held by Hamas in Gaza is not an absolute priority for Israel’s current government. What other conclusion can be drawn, for example, from the decision to take out Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran at the end of July in the middle of negotiations which, though made more unlikely to succeed at every turn on the Israeli side by new demands – or denials that such demands had not been expressed earlier – on the part of Netanyahu, may have offered a chance to finally bring home the remaining hostages? What can account for the timing of the decision if not the fact that the fate of the hostages is a lesser concern for this government than the urgency of retribution and, undoubtedly for Netanyahu, the hope to restore some of his battered image in the eyes of the Israeli public, even at the cost of the now looming Iranian attack on Israel? More broadly, the terrifying sense that Israel is morphing into a state that does not put the safety of its citizens above all else is growing across the U.S. and Europe among Jews who love and support Israel as a concept but see its current government as a curse on the promise of Zionism.

For those Jews, the relationship with Israel is becoming a painful, ever more complex issue, and this did not start with the events of October 7 and their aftermath. The reckless attempts to undermine the rule of law, defang the High Court as the only significant counterpower in the political system, foster divisiveness within Israeli society and abet settler violence and crimes – to mention but a few items on this government’s agenda that predate October 7 and have been pursued in quieter but unperturbed fashion since – are generating a growing feeling of alienation among those diaspora Jews who want Israel to remain a vibrant democracy that keeps evolving toward equal protection of all its citizens and a sense of unity and common overall purpose. Since October 7, the anguish has reached new peaks with Israel’s conduct of the war: devoid of exit strategy, heedless of the horrendous cost to civilians in Gaza, failing to eliminate Hamas’s remnants of control in the Strip, unsuccessful in its bid to bring military pressure to bear toward the release of hostages. The abandonment of the northern border, with little more than a tit-for-tat approach to Hezbollah warfare, and the perception that the entire government, utterly disconnected from the new reality Israelis are facing, is busy catering to its own political interests at a time like this have only compounded the sense of alienation. Netanyahu’s readiness to jeopardize the support of the U.S., Israel’s sole ally on the planet today, adds to the bewilderment of all those who want to see Israel thrive in the future.

Of course, many Israelis share these concerns. Virtually every poll since October 7 has shown the collapse of public trust in the institutions – the latest, published by N12 News last week, putting at respectively 77 and 81 percent the share of Israelis who have no confidence in the government and the Knesset. Yet ten months after October 7, the Netanyahu government is still at the helm. Who could have predicted this in the weeks following the Hamas invasion, when the seething anger of Israelis at their government could be felt everywhere in the country? The sad – and perhaps most disheartening – fact for diaspora Jews who love and support Israel is that Israelis have not mobilized en masse to show this government what accountability should truly mean, nor have enough of them joined the demonstrations and other forms of protest deployed by the families of hostages to demand that the return of the captives be made an absolute priority. Lurking behind these facts – and many others – is the daunting prospect of part of the society losing its moral compass.

Explanations abound as to why this government not only bears responsibility for October 7 but has also chosen to respond to it the way it does, and why most Israelis, though no longer confident in their leaders’ ability to pull them out of this morass, remain vastly apathetic. My focus here, however, is not why this is happening but what it is doing to Diaspora Jews like me – deeply attached to Israel and desperately wanting to see it thrive, but equally devoted to democracy and government guided by the pursuit of the common good. For these Jews, defending Israel’s conduct of the war – and by extension, Israel itself – among (now almost unanimously) hostile interlocutors, whether at work or in social gatherings, is proving virtually untenable. To outside observers with no particular stake in the issue, this government of goons – the most un-Jewish government Israel has ever had in my view – is too easy to conflate with Israel as a whole, and, too often, with Israel as a legitimate national aspiration and endeavor.

If the current government and the acquiescence – at best – of most Israelis to its remaining in place are a harbinger of the Israel of tomorrow, there will be no place in that Israel for a Jew like me – secular, a supporter of coexistence, the rule of law and the fundamental tenets of liberal democracy. A future Israel that looks like today’s Israel, only more so, may not protect me as a citizen, and within just a few years may look upon me as an enemy.

Perhaps there is still time for a reasonable government that cares about the national interest rather than its own narrow political fortunes to emerge (how this would happen in the near future is another question). Until that happens, I will stay put in France where antisemitism, though statistically exploding, is not, for now, what is causing me to lose sleep.