{"id":96106,"date":"2026-05-03T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/96106\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T20:10:08","slug":"the-blogs-as-an-american-jew-i-wont-ask-israel-to-put-diaspora-comfort-ahead-of-survival-seth-eisenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/96106\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blogs: As an American Jew, I won\u2019t ask Israel to put Diaspora comfort ahead of survival | Seth Eisenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael A. Cohen\u2019s Atlantic essay, \u201cHow Netanyahu Hurt America\u2019s Jews<\/a>,\u201d makes a serious charge: that Benjamin Netanyahu has damaged American Jewry by aligning Israel too closely with Republicans, evangelicals, and President Trump, while showing too little concern for how Israel\u2019s wars reverberate in American Jewish life. Cohen argues that Netanyahu\u2019s focus is \u201con himself and his near-term political needs,\u201d and that the plight of American Jews \u201cis simply not his concern.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

I read that not as an Israeli, but as an American Jew.\n<\/p>\n

The fear is real<\/p>\n

I know what it means to feel the ground shift beneath Jewish life in this country. I know what it means to watch people who speak fluently about every form of vulnerability suddenly become evasive, hostile, or morally confused when the vulnerable people are Jews. I know what it means to see synagogues guarded, Jewish students harassed, Jewish restaurants targeted, Jewish grief mocked, and Jewish identity treated as a political liability.\n<\/p>\n

The fear many American Jews feel is real. The antisemitism unleashed since October 7 is real. The rupture inside progressive spaces, universities, nonprofits, and cultural institutions where many Jews once felt at home is real.\n<\/p>\n

But I do not believe Benjamin Netanyahu, or any Israeli prime minister, is primarily responsible for solving that rupture.\n<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s first duty is survival<\/p>\n

The first obligation of Israel\u2019s prime minister is not to protect my comfort as an American Jew. It is to protect the lives of Israel\u2019s citizens and the survival of the Jewish state.\n<\/p>\n

That may sound harsh. To me, it is simply honest.\n<\/p>\n

Israel is not a Diaspora identity project. It is not a symbolic extension of American Jewish belonging. It is a sovereign nation whose people live with consequences most of us in America do not have to face in our daily lives: rockets, tunnels, hostage-taking, regional terror armies, nuclear threats, and enemies who have repeatedly declared their desire to destroy the Jewish state.\n<\/p>\n

When an Israeli prime minister confronts Hamas after October 7, Hezbollah on the northern border, Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions, ballistic missiles, and the possibility of a multi-front war, the question before him cannot be, \u201cHow will this affect my standing in American Jewish liberal circles?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The question has to be: \u201cWhat must be done so Israeli families can live?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Criticism is legitimate. Confusion is dangerous.<\/p>\n

That does not mean Netanyahu is beyond criticism. He is not. It does not mean every decision he has made has been wise, humane, democratic, or strategically sound. It does not mean American Jews should silence ourselves about Israel\u2019s government, its coalition, its settlement policies, or the conduct and aftermath of war.\n<\/p>\n

But it does mean we should be honest about the hierarchy of responsibility.\n<\/p>\n

A prime minister who places Diaspora optics above Israeli security would be betraying the office he holds.\n<\/p>\n

American Jews matter \u2014 but Israeli security cannot be outsourced<\/p>\n

As an American Jew, I want Israel to maintain bipartisan support in the United States. I want Israeli leaders to speak to Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Jews and Christians, religious and secular communities. I want American Jews to matter to Jerusalem not merely as funders, lobbyists, or political messengers, but as part of the Jewish people.\n<\/p>\n

But valuing American Jews is not the same as subcontracting Israeli security decisions to American Jewish anxiety.\n<\/p>\n

Israel must take support where it can find it<\/p>\n

Cohen sees Netanyahu\u2019s willingness to work with Republicans, evangelicals, and Trump as evidence of reckless partisanship. I understand why that alarms many American Jews. Most American Jews remain deeply connected to liberal politics and Democratic institutions. Many of us have invested generations of moral energy in civil rights, pluralism, democracy, and social justice. We should not have to choose between our Jewish safety and our civic belonging.\n<\/p>\n

But I also understand why an Israeli leader facing potentially existential threats would seek support wherever he could find it.\n<\/p>\n

That may be uncomfortable. It may create long-term diplomatic risks. It may deepen the partisan divide over Israel. Those are serious concerns. But if one party, one president, one movement, or one bloc of voters is more willing at a particular moment to help Israel confront Iran, arm itself, defend itself, or deter its enemies, an Israeli prime minister cannot ignore that because it complicates American Jewish life.\n<\/p>\n

The tragedy is not that Israel accepts support from imperfect allies.\n<\/p>\n

The tragedy is that support for Jewish survival has become conditional in so many places where Jews once expected moral clarity.\n<\/p>\n

Antisemitism is not Israel\u2019s fault<\/p>\n

If progressive activists respond to Hamas\u2019s massacre by harassing Jewish students, vandalizing synagogues, targeting Jewish businesses, excusing terror, or treating every Jew as an agent of the Israeli state, that is not Netanyahu\u2019s doing. That is antisemitism. It may speak in the language of anti-Zionism, anti-colonialism, or human rights, but its emotional logic is ancient: Jews must answer collectively for whatever the world decides Jews have done.\n<\/p>\n

Cohen acknowledges that Netanyahu is \u201cnot solely or even mostly to blame\u201d for this calamitous turn. But that concession sits uneasily beside the essay\u2019s broader claim. If antisemites target American Jews because of Israel\u2019s military actions, the moral burden belongs first to those targeting Jews.\n<\/p>\n

Not to Israeli families living within missile range.\n<\/p>\n

Not to a country trying to prevent another massacre.\n<\/p>\n

Not to a prime minister whose first responsibility is to ensure that October 7 never happens again.\n<\/p>\n

A dangerous bargain<\/p>\n

There is a dangerous emotional bargain being offered to American Jews: If only Israel were more restrained, more diplomatic, more bipartisan, more deferential to American liberal sensibilities, perhaps we would be safer here.\n<\/p>\n

I do not trust that bargain.\n<\/p>\n

Jews have been blamed for capitalism and communism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, power and weakness, separateness and assimilation. Today Israel is the pretext. Tomorrow it will be something else. The problem is not that Israel gives antisemites \u201cammunition.\u201d The problem is that antisemites manufacture ammunition from Jewish existence itself.\n<\/p>\n

World opinion matters, but Jewish survival matters more<\/p>\n

That does not mean Israel should ignore world opinion. A small country cannot afford diplomatic isolation. It does not mean Israeli leaders should dismiss the pain of Diaspora Jews. It does not mean Netanyahu\u2019s critics are wrong to worry about the erosion of bipartisan support or the damage done when Israel is perceived as an appendage of one American political party.\n<\/p>\n

Those concerns are real.\n<\/p>\n

But my safety as an American Jew cannot depend on Israel making itself more acceptable to people who have already decided Jewish sovereignty is illegitimate.\n<\/p>\n

The deeper wound is abandonment<\/p>\n

The deeper wound many American Jews feel right now is not really Netanyahu. It is abandonment.\n<\/p>\n

We are watching institutions we helped build turn cold, evasive, or hostile when Jewish vulnerability enters the room. We are watching friends who know how to name every form of trauma suddenly become experts in context when the victims are Israeli. We are watching \u201cbelonging\u201d become conditional on whether we are willing to distance ourselves from Israel loudly enough.\n<\/p>\n

That betrayal hurts.\n<\/p>\n

But displacing that pain onto Israel\u2019s prime minister does not heal it.\n<\/p>\n

A more honest sentence might be: I am afraid that Israel\u2019s enemies, and too many of Israel\u2019s critics, now see American Jews as acceptable targets.\n<\/p>\n

That fear deserves compassion. It also deserves clarity.\n<\/p>\n

The answer is moral courage here, not greater risk there<\/p>\n

The answer cannot be for Israel to gamble with existential threats so American Jews can feel less exposed in hostile spaces. The answer must be for those spaces to recover their moral bearings.\n<\/p>\n

As an American Jew, I want to be able to be critical of Israeli leaders without feeding the fantasy that Israel is the source of antisemitism. I want to care about Palestinian suffering without pretending Hamas did not force this war onto Israeli families. I want to defend democratic values in Israel without forgetting that no democracy can survive if it cannot defend its people from slaughter.\n<\/p>\n

And I want American Jewish leaders to speak with more emotional honesty about the bind we are in.\n<\/p>\n

We can say: I feel afraid when Israel becomes isolated.\n<\/p>\n

We can say: I feel angry when Jews in America are blamed for decisions made in Jerusalem.\n<\/p>\n

We can say: I want Israeli leaders to remember the Diaspora.\n<\/p>\n

And we can also say: I will not ask Israel to put my comfort ahead of its survival.\n<\/p>\n

The line we must hold<\/p>\n

That is the line Cohen\u2019s essay does not hold firmly enough.\n<\/p>\n

Netanyahu may owe American Jews respect. He may owe us dialogue. He may owe us gratitude for generations of advocacy, philanthropy, and love for Israel.\n<\/p>\n

But he owes Israeli citizens protection first.\n<\/p>\n

The central promise of Israel is that Jewish survival will never again depend entirely on the goodwill of others. That promise can be complicated for those of us living safely, though not always securely, in the Diaspora. It can strain our politics, test our alliances, and expose the fragility of relationships we thought were solid.\n<\/p>\n

But it is also why Israel exists.\n<\/p>\n

Survival is the first duty<\/p>\n

As an American Jew, I do not need Israel\u2019s prime minister to make my social life easier, my politics cleaner, or my place in progressive America more comfortable.\n<\/p>\n

I need him to remember that the Jewish state was created because comfort was never enough.\n<\/p>\n

And when Israel faces potentially existential threats, survival is not a partisan talking point.\n<\/p>\n

It is the first duty.\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael A. Cohen\u2019s Atlantic essay, \u201cHow Netanyahu Hurt America\u2019s Jews,\u201d makes a serious charge: that Benjamin Netanyahu has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9581,41,37,2508,4499,499,6393],"class_list":{"0":"post-96106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-american-jewry","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israel-diaspora-ties","12":"tag-jewish-identity","13":"tag-judaism","14":"tag-zionism"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116512464890843325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}