Topping Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s agenda for his getting acquainted trip to Washington this week is the Iran nuclear deal. Close behind should be reversing the deep rift between Israel and American Jewry and Democrats driven in large part by a dozen years of Benjamin Netanyahu’s polarizing right-wing leadership.Although Bennett himself may be as conservative as Netanyahu, he is half of a right-left coalition committed to healing those wounds. Bennett is expected to tell President Joe Biden privately that Israel sees “no value” in America rejoining the nuclear pact, as the president has said he’d like to do.
When Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president, Netanyahu led the bitter Republican opposition to the President’s landmark nuclear deal. The former PM’s failure to deal with the dispute quietly did great damage to the US-Israel alliance as well as relations between the two leaders.
AIPAC fully backed Netanyahu and led the opposition to the agreement.
The organization, which is no longer the only pro-Israel lobby in Washington, has suffered a series of setbacks recently. It lost Netanyahu and Donald Trump; it faces competition from the Left and Right, and the pandemic has forced it to cancel its annual Policy Conference for a second year running.
The conference is the ultimate power show, with thousands of activists – from big donors to student lobbyists – coming to Washington, basking in full media coverage, visiting the offices of their representatives and senators in a show of strength and enthusiasm. Behind the scenes deals are cut for support and fundraising. Zoom calls cannot replace in-person lobbying.
Christians United for Israel (CUFI), AIPAC’s evangelical counterpart, plans to go ahead with its in-person Washington Summit in July.
AIPAC has been accused of moving to the Right in response to internal and external forces. The big money that called the group’s policy shots was predominantly Likud-Republican. In Israel it had a natural partner in Likud, not only because leaders like Netanyahu assiduously courted the group but also because the Left often treated it with disdain, resenting “civilians” meddling in foreign policy.
AIPAC today faces new rivals from opposite directions.
Interestingly, none of that competition comes from Arab-American groups or traditional pro-Arab organizations. Those have repeatedly failed to have any impact, largely due to internal divisions along assorted national (ancestry) and religious (Muslim vs Christian vs secular) lines.
Most Jewish organizations are supporting players in pro-Israel lobbying, notwithstanding the image they project to contributors, sometimes backing AIPAC and sometimes resenting its dominance. Only one seems to have any serious impact: J Street, the leftist pro-peace lobby that has been consistent in its promotion of peace with the Palestinians, opposition to settlement expansion and its advocacy for Palestinian human rights. It is solidly aligned with the Democrats, particularly the progressive wing.
The more AIPAC was seen to be lining up with Republicans, the more J Street’s voice is being heard in the Democratic White House and among congressional Democrats.
As small as J Street is, CUFI is a behemoth, boasting 10 million evangelical Christian members.
Netanyahu has told CUFI “Israel has no better friend in America than you,” and he reportedly confided in colleagues that he believes evangelical support is critical because in another generation or two, American Jews will be largely assimilated out.
Ron Dermer, the former ambassador to Washington known as “Bibi’s brain,” expanded on that in a recent speech. He called evangelicals “the backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.” Israel should focus more on “passionate and unequivocal” American evangelicals than Jews, who are “disproportionately among our critics,” he said. Besides, they outnumber Jews eight-to-one and are 28% of the electorate, according to Edison Research polling, and they vote 80% Republican. Jews vote about 75% Democratic.
Evangelicals and Jews, for the most part, tend to be polar opposites on nearly every issue, social, domestic and international. Even on Israel, where they differ on issues like settlements, annexation, Palestinian statehood and civil liberties.
Moreover, critics argue that CUFI’s enthusiastic support is heavily based on Biblical prophecies that predict a grisly end for most Jews and a final, catastrophic war for the Jewish state.
Robert Jeffress, the evangelical pastor invited by Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to lead prayers at the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, has said Jews cannot be saved and they, along with Mormons and Muslims, are bound for hell.
A study by the Pew Research Center found “despite overwhelming support for Israel among evangelicals, US Jews believe they have more in common with Muslims than with evangelicals.”
Pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of CUFI, has been praised as a great friend of Israel, but he has also been called an antisemite for comments suggesting the Holocaust was God’s instrument for moving the Jews to Israel, and his advocacy of war with Iran to hasten the end of days which will lead to the conversion of a remnant of the Jews and the Second Coming.
“Hagee is an openly Islamophobic and antisemitic hate-monger – spreading classic antisemitic libels – who dreams of an apocalyptic war in which Israel will be ‘drowned in a sea of blood,’” Jewish studies Prof. Joshua Shanes at the College of Charleston wrote in Haaretz.
AIPAC and CUFI both face a generational threat, recent studies show.
A “sizable minority” of American Jewish voters, mostly younger, believe Israel is “committing genocide and apartheid,” according to a poll for the Jewish Electorate Institute, JTA reported.
There has been “a sharp drop in support” for Israel among evangelical Christians under 30, according to a poll commissioned by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. It also showed 45% of these young evangelicals voted for Joe Biden last year, compared to 26% for Donald Trump.
Similar findings came out of a study by University of Maryland Prof. Shibley Telhami. “There has been a clear drop in the support of Israel among younger evangelicals, and an increase in support for Palestinians,” Telhami told Foreign Policy.
In his meetings in Washington this week, Bennett must show that he understands Israel needs the support of both Right and Left, both evangelicals and Jews – and those in between – and that he does not intend to fall into the trap of cozying up with those who declare their love the loudest and not brush off the mishpucha for narrow partisan reasons.
Meanwhile, J Street is likely to continue its slow, steady growth as it comes closer to reflecting the American Jewish majority’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.