The Intifada Presidency
As a Jewish college student forty years ago, I was subjected to a popular antisemitic taunt from kids I thought were my friends. It went like this: If the United States fought a war against Israel, which side would you take? This age-old dual loyalty accusation was uncontroversial and baked into mainstream American thought. It simply came up in regular conversations between beers and pretzels.
The question made me uncomfortable, though at the time, I was about as far removed from Judaism as you could be without converting to Christianity. I had zero Jewish identity. I was an American first and Jew… not second… maybe 10th. My only experience of Judaism in college involved being seated across from the daughter of my parents’ best friends at the annual seder. Hint hint. Ask her out, dummy! It never happened.
Still, I recall not wanting to answer the question. I knew, in some deep, hidden chamber of my neshama that would eventually burst forth and lead me to a life of Torah observance and Zionism, that my loyalties were, in fact, conflicted.
There’s no one more idiotic, destructive, and unstoppable than a college kid who thinks he’s saving the world.
My impulse was to ask whose side they would take if the United States had a Muslim president who ordered the US Army to massacre all blue-eyed Episcopalians. I kept my mouth shut, anyway, and waffled on the answer. I would mumble something about how such a war would never happen, so why ask about it? Today, I’m not so sure about that.
Today’s American youth is ablaze with anti-Israel hatred, deluding themselves that they’re fighting the good fight for human rights by supporting the racist murderers of Hamas and Hezbollah. I’m not too sanguine about anyone successfully deprogramming them. Channeling the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and declared, “There’s no one dumber than a 20-year-old with a gun,” there’s no one more idiotic, destructive, and unstoppable than a college kid who thinks he’s saving the world.
The ongoing deluge of Qatari money also funds K-12 educational programs to ensure that all American children learn that Jews are guilty of genocide and land theft
More than half of today’s college students are pro-Palestinian, while the ongoing deluge of Qatari money also funds K-12 educational programs to ensure that all American children learn that Jews are guilty of genocide and land theft—and that any measures taken to eradicate this scourge on humanity should be warmly embraced.
So it will be, unless I’m badly mistaken, that in the next 20 to 30 years, this “river to the sea” generation will assume leadership positions at the highest levels of American government. There’s even a strong possibility that one of today’s keffiyeh-clad Jew haters will become president of the United States. Let’s not allow wishful thinking to take our eyes off this horrifying potentiality.
In the next 20 to 30 years, this “river to the sea” generation will assume leadership positions at the highest levels of American government.
Then what? Then, I suspect we may see this war between Israel and the United States come to life. First, it will be an arms embargo that starves Israel of American weapons. Then, as public support grows for “liberating Palestine,” an Israel-hating American president will feel compelled to lead an effort to rid the world of the hated Zionist state. Perhaps, as George HW Bush did in 1990, he or she will form a “coalition of the willing” and invite other countries to join the US in this grand, honorable mission—with the American military assisting Hamas and Hezbollah in the invasion of Israel.
Cruise missiles from the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet might “decapitate” Israel by blowing up the Knesset. Planes from US carriers could pummel Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, now stripped of antiaircraft missiles. US Marines could wade ashore in Herzliya and secure Israeli highways for truckloads of jihadists bent on murdering every Jew in the land.
The American public will applaud these actions, having been educated since age six to despise Israel. The old dual loyalty question will be ever-present, as always, but the answer at that time may be, “I’m leaving,” even if there is nowhere to go.
The American public will applaud these actions, having been educated since age six to despise Israel.
This may seem like a paranoid fantasy, but if you don’t think something like this could happen, you aren’t paying close enough attention to current trends. It’s easy to become complacent because we are in a moment of strong American government support for Israel, but this support will likely elicit a powerful backlash. At a minimum, I suspect we will witness all Israelis being deported from the United States by a vengeful opposition party when it returns to power.
I will share one reason to be at least a little hopeful about this alarming prognosis. It involves the masks that so many anti-Israel agitators insist on wearing. Why are these kids wearing masks when they parade around with Hamas flags and terrorize their Jewish classmates? It’s partly for the purpose of intimidation, but I suspect it’s also because they know what they are doing is wrong. Or, at least, they fear they will face social, legal, and career consequences if they reveal themselves.
That’s a good thing. It’s when the masks start to come off and these despicable people fear nothing that we should genuinely begin to worry. This is already happening, unfortunately, as we witness healthcare professionals proudly state that they love Hamas and applaud the 10/7 atrocities, and police officers and flight attendants wear Palestine flag pins.
If the masks stay on, that suggests that today’s inferno of anti-Israel agitation may cool off. If the masks disappear, we may be in far worse trouble than we imagine. Watch the masks.
In the meantime, can we do anything to prevent the rise of an American intifada president? Or if such a person is elected, can we prevent his or her worst instincts about Israel from becoming policy? I don’t have any magic answers, but I think identifying the issue is a productive first step. If we can imagine it, we can devise ways to mitigate the risks. Now is the time to be thinking about what it will take to succeed in this mission.
