The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, if it holds, may moderate the implications of the war we’ve been crying over, but I think it’s important to revisit the stakes anyway.
Israel was created when the European world was on a collective guilt trip after World War II, the Holocaust and its failure make space for Jewish refugees. Although Muslim states in the UN General Assembly didn’t accept Israel, it was supported by the US and Europe. And its foreign policy was designed to enlarge the circle of its friends.
Iran was a friend. I served the US Peace Corps in Iran. Hassan, the husband and father of the Muslim, Persian, family I lived with, had studied in Israel and admired much of what it accomplished. Listening together to BBC reports of the Six-Day War, Hassan was torn between his Muslim faith and admiration for Israel.
Jews lived in Iran since the biblical Babylonian exile. There’s a tomb for the Biblical Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan, in north-western Iran. I attended High Holy Day services in Shiraz where I lived and had many Jewish as well as Muslim friends.
But Israel has wasted the patrimony of its birth.[1]
Putting so-called “settlers” in land long held by peaceful Palestinians sharpened the enmity up close. American Jews struggle over the tension with The Torah which tells us:
When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him
The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt[2]
Practically, Israel would have benefitted from Machievelli’s classic advice that:
any cruelty has to be executed at once, so that the less it is tasted, the less it offends; while benefits must be dispensed little by little, so that they will be savored all the more.[3]
Israeli attacks have repeatedly felled civilians in Gaza for well more than a year, upsetting both Muslims and non-Muslims across the globe. Attacks on hospitals, schools, medical staff, and people of many faiths have added to the widespread pain. And while excluding aid from abroad, Israel has brought in little or none of in its own supplies or medical care for survivors and refugees. Attacks on UN and aid conveys from other countries only added to Israel’s detractors and enemies.
Those who expect that Israel can continue to depend on American aid assume that American politics won’t change – but American support for Israel is already falling away. The normally supportive American left is vocal in its anger.[4] American clerics of different faiths have protested.[5]
Antisemitism is rising particularly among those who don’t distinguish between the citizens and leaders of Israel. The late President Jimmy Carter who negotiated the Camp-David Accords has been laid to rest.
Beyond that, a small population, inside a tiny country, is surrounded by hostile peoples and countries, some of whom had once made peace or were willing to, but who no longer find that possible.
The leaders of Israel want to depend on themselves and avoid any need for foreign support. But that is a fantasy. And that fantasy is likely to result in the death of Israel.
I grew up a friend and admirer of Israel. I’ve visited and traveled there. I now have to steel myself against the consequences of the foolishness of Israel’s leaders.
[1] https://www.juancole.com/2025/01/impunity-starting-accountable.html
[2] Leviticus 19:33-34 (Jewish Publication Society, The Torah, 1967).
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/877599-therefore-any-cruelty-has-to-be-executed-at-once-so. For a fuller discussion, see The Prince, chapter 8.
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/politics/palestine-israel-democrats
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
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