Haaretz Today • The American Jewish establishment is defending an Israel that no longer exists
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The endless rationalizations by American Jewish organizations for why an Israeli lawmaker's latest indefensible remarks should not change anyone's understanding of the country increasingly look like a refusal to confront what Israel has become

Ben-Gvir on Saturday called for targeted assassinations of “30 to 40” Palestinians in Gaza every night, stating in an interview that “There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

The AJC rightfully condemned Ben-Gvir before issuing a declaration that perfectly encapsulates the U.S. Jewish establishment’s cognitive dissonance concerning Israel: “Ben-Gvir’s statements do not reflect the policy of the State of Israel.”

This is an extraordinary claim to make about Israel’s sitting national security minister.

Ben-Gvir isn’t a random backbencher, fringe activist or chronically online troll. He is the minister who oversees Israel’s police and prison systems. He sits in the cabinet and holds major influence over both Israeli policy and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Saying his views somehow do not reflect those of the Israeli government shows a willful ignorance of Israeli policy itself and the nature of Israeli society as it exists today.

The AJC’s farcical distinction captures an instinct and a pattern that is not unique to the American Jewish establishment’s usual timid and milquetoast responses to the harm Israel wreaks. Whenever senior Israeli officials do something indefensible, the establishment’s first move is not to ask what it says about Israel in 2026, but to explain why it is supposedly the exception to the rule.

Ben-Gvir, time and again, has not counted in their eyes. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other extremist coalition partners have not registered. Nor have the policy suggestions or rhetoric from cabinet ministers that once would have placed them beyond the pale. American Jewish organizations are holding on to the fiction that the Israel worthy of their full-throated defense somehow exists in a metaphysically separate realm from those actually governing the country.

This delusion allows institutions that have spent decades presenting themselves as the authoritative mediators between Israel, American Jews and U.S. policymakers to avoid confronting what Israel has become. For the establishment, there is always another qualification to add or another distinction to draw, a way to rationalize why the latest indefensible moment should not alter anyone’s understanding of the country.