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of Israel, I don't think he opposes Israel's right to exist. But this is, you know, if there were anyone in the presidential field who you thought would be a steadfast supporter of Israel on the Democratic side, it would have been Rahm Emanuel. But Rahm maybe driven in part by his beliefs, but I don't think he has that many beliefs. I think basically he is a politician through and through, is just, you know, does the math, and somehow in his mind of how he becomes the nominee, which I think is very unlikely, but still, he has a. In his mind, he has a path, right. Somehow include some amount of progressive support that would be necessary and emboldened by what he did, which is just walking away from Israel entirely. And if you look at congressional primaries, like, for example, it's New York 9 or something like that, it's kind of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Dan Goldman's the congressman. Brad Lander is the primary challenger. Both are Jewish. Lander is sort of. I don't know that he opposes Israel's right to exist, but he's very, very anti Israel, very hostile to Israel. Goldman is much more supportive of Israel. And I think most people think Lander's gonna win. And I think that's one of the reasons why. And I think if you look at lots of congressional primaries this year on both sides, renouncing support for Israel has become a political imperative for many people. And look, it's not just about military aid. So Israel, you know, I've talked to people, we're fine. We actually don't need your military aid at this point. We have plenty of money. We have the ability to build our own stuff. I'm sure they'd rather have it than not. But, like, I'm not sure that the question of Israel's existence is dependent specifically on American military aid, but I think it's the. To me, the bigger problem is if America walks away from Israel and Israel is no longer seen as a key ally of the US Then that changes perceptions globally, and it makes Israel far easier target. And as anti Semitism rises and politicians across the world want to take advantage of it, that lack of US Support is going to embolden that and encourage that and set Israel off on a really difficult, dangerous path. But, you know, often on this podcast, we blame politicians for things. We blame the underlying political incentives for their choices, which is still the case. But what really worries me is that mainstream American Jews like Aram Emanuel, who. Who have been the bedrock of support for Israel since 1948, they've lost faith, too. So there was a poll by J Street, who I very rarely agree with, but nonetheless, I talked to our friend Jeff Pollack and just said, do you feel this poll is methodologically sound? He's like, yes. So the headline was that 60% of Jews surveyed opposed the US war against Iran. That's what got the press attention. But then when I looked into it, this is the number that really scared me. 30% of Jews said the US should continue providing military support for Israel and 70% said they should. Not. Not 70% of Americans or progressives or Democrats. 70% of American Jews said this. So. And then anecdotally, like, I don't know about you, but I've kind of found the same thing. Right. I don't know many non orthodox Jews in America who are not really unhappy with how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza. It doesn't mean that they don't think Hamas is to blame. Every non, crazy, crazy left winger who, maybe Mondami's wife, thinks that somehow Hamas is virtuous, but the vast majority of people, especially Jews, don't think that. But most people, including me, did think that there came a point where Israel had exacted its revenge, proved its point, and, and the civilian damage that was a byproduct of it was so severe that it ceased being justifiable. And I think that was the case for a while. I think because of that, that really changed perceptions by American Jews about Israel, combined with the fact that, think again, American Jews, and I understand that it's different than Israeli Jews, when I talk to my friends in Israel, many of whom don't support Netanyahu, do see value in him in protecting them. Right. I think before October 7, most of them would have said get rid of him. In fact, most of them will still even oppose getting rid of him this October. But his judicial reforms, for example, were. And he's very Trumpian across the board. But he was trying to buy off the far right religious parties who he needs to have his majority so he can stay as prime minister by exempting the Haredi, which is sort of the ultra orthodox, from the draft. And the reason, to me that was so problematic is, and this gets back to a big theme of this podcast, what makes Israel, in my view, such a successful country is that because everyone has to serve in the military, there's a shared sense of purpose, there's a shared sense of values. And because everyone's sacrifices, everyone's in it together, that actually makes Israel a far happier country. So in the world happiness report, I think Israel was eighth overall globally and second for people under the age of 25, compared to 23rd and 62nd, respectively for the U.S. and so that had already been troubling. But then when you add on kind of the excess of the war, that combination. And yes. Did the global mainstream media and social media unfairly portray Israel in many ways around the war? Absolutely. But you can't deny the fact that a lot of innocent people also died, including a lot of kids. And I think even more sort of scary to me is that when I ask American Jews like, do you see the existence of Israel as existential to your own survival? The answer is no. And I find that shocking and crazy because anti Semitism is very much on the rise in the US and to me, and this is just the way that I was raised, but that Israel was an insurance policy. Jews have been around for 5,700 years, 5,750 or something at this point. And we've never stayed in a single country permanently. And the reason why is there's always anti Semitism and persecution. And that has driven us away. And that ultimately culminated in the Holocaust. And Israel was created a few years later by the UN as a response to the Holocaust, where the Jews would always have a safe place to live. And to me at least, look, do I hope that Jews can be safe in the US forever? Of course I do. And do I think that I'll at least be able to spend my life here safely as a Jew? Yes, most likely. But I don't believe that we will sort of indefinitely be welcome in the US and maybe that will come sooner than later. And so Israel is always this place you could go. Right. And if America no longer supports Israel, I think Israel's ability to exist is much more tenuous. And I don't think America will support Israel if American Jews aren't banging the table for Israel. Right. But with that said, this is not a piece or a thought process about condemning American Jews for insufficient loyalty. What I'd like to do is figure out what the problem is and how to solve it. So if I were the UJA or American Jewish Congress or any of those big organizations, my main focus would be not what are others doing, but what are other ethnicities, other people saying? Non Jews. It would be focused on Jews and it would be what do we need to do to win back Jewish support in America for Israel. And ideally, and this is a very hard thing to do in any community where you have different groups who all end up competing with each other. But they would around this at Least kind of combine their expertise and resources and run a really thoughtful campaign that starts with listening, right? It's not by talking, it's not by persuading. It's first figuring out why are people upset. And it has to be deeper than just, I don't like Bibi or the war, whatever it is. And I think you need focus groups and meetings of mainstream American Jews all over the US across all partisan lines, the Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and every wing within, and ask questions like, how much do you support Israel? How much attention do you pay to Israel? If you don't support Israel, why not? If your support has decreased over time, how come? How much of your opposition is specific to Bibi and how much goes deeper? What Israeli policies towards the Palestinians would change your views, if any? How did you view Israel before October 7th? And were your concerns already percolating? Or is this all about Gaza? How have your views about Israel changed over time? Independent of October 7th, how do your views about Israel impact your activities and choices around being Jewish in America? How much has Israel shifted the political right into more religious fervor, been an issue for you? And then most importantly, what can be done to change your views? Once you can answer these questions and only afterwards, then you start developing clear programs and response. And what you, you can't do, which I think it's going to be the instinct for a lot is you show them the October 7th video and say, see, you were wrong, I told you so. Like, that's not going to work. That's just going to alienate them even further. You need to thoughtfully address their concerns first. And a lot of the critics, again, just be, just to be clear, is unfair, is uninformed, is one sided. No country facing the threats that it faces would be held to these same standards the US had 9 11, which is sort of like, I guess statistically in terms of the amount of people casualties similar October 7th. And we decimated Afghanistan and Iraq. So. And while the Iraq war was incredibly stupid because they had nothing to do with 9 11, it's not like that many people in the US for a long time were like, oh, this is bad. It was like, well, they fucked with us. This is what you get. So Israel is held to a totally different standard because of anti Semitism, no question about it. But it's also just the reality that we live in. And so you have to work with that reality. And so, you know, there's a bunch of different ideas and I'll go through some that I've identified in the column. I Don't know if they're the right ideas. Some of these are being worked on now. Some have tried and failed. Some people that I showed this to in Israel before I published the column said, none of this will work. And the only thing you can do is just fight anti Semitism and fight anyone who disparages Jews in Israel. And you know, what do they mean