U.S. shouldn't tolerate Israel's downhill slide

Israel is in crisis. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians is escalating. The new government of Benjamin Netanyahu — the most conservative and religious in the country's history — threatens to weaken the judiciary, annex the West Bank, curtail same-sex rights and expel Palestinians.

No wonder 100,000 Israelis marched last Saturday, the latest in a succession of mass demonstrations. They are protesting Netanyahu's unholy alliance of Jewish fundamentalists and political extremists.

The former chief of staff of the Israeli army, Moshe Ya'alon, alarmed by what he calls the attempt to insulate Netanyahu from corruption charges, laments: “Who would have believed that less than 80 years after the Holocaust that befell our people, a criminal, messianic, Fascist and corrupt government would be established in Israel, whose goal is to rescue an accused criminal.”

Most disturbing are reports of politicians who are anti-gay and anti-Arab bringing their prejudices to power. One is Avi Maoz, a member of the Knesset and deputy minister in Netanyahu's office. He has been described as “proudly homophobic” and rejects Israel as a secular state. So, if you are the United States, Israel's greatest benefactor and protector, what do you do? If you are dismayed that Israel has expanded settlements and abandoned a two-state solution, what do you do? If you are appalled that Israel will not meaningfully join the western alliance against Russia in Ukraine, what do you say?

At the moment, not very much. Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, met Netanyahu in Jerusalem this week and uttered the same banalities and platitudes he used in a speech in December to J Street, the country's leading progressive Jewish organization. He is unable to say a discouraging word in public about an Israel that columnist Thomas Friedman fears is becoming “an illiberal bastion of zealotry.”

Some had hoped that Blinken would harden U.S. policy on Israel. Instead, he declared U.S. military aid to Israel — US$3.3 billion a year (and another $500 million for missile defence) — “sacrosanct.” Listening to the speech, Peter Beinart, the astute commentator, concluded that “when it comes to Israel, the Biden administration has no red lines, none at all.”

The administration that arrived vowing to make human rights a priority isn't ready — yet — to challenge Netanyahu and his government. In meeting with Netanyahu, there were the usual paeans to friendship and alliance.

Maybe Blinken is tougher in private. Maybe he believes in quiet diplomacy with Israel, the kind Canada tried with the U.S. in Vietnam in the 1960s, which failed. It will fail here, too, especially if Netanyahu thinks he must satisfy the loudest demands of his hard-right coalition, such as emasculating the courts.

Surely that should be the tipping point for Biden and Blinken. But not necessarily. And if it isn't, if the U.S. stays quiet while Netanyahu plays the racist, authoritarian card, Biden risks losing support among Congressional Democrats, as well as young American Jews already skeptical of Israel. Using his prodigious influence to restrain Netanyahu, as only a president can, will be his big challenge. In Canada, there is silence over Israel from the Jewish establishment. When Ronen Hoffman, ambassador of Israel to Canada, says he will leave this summer because he cannot work with the new government, Shimon Fogel, the tepid president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, praises his service but artfully diminishes Hoffman's admirable act of principle, suggesting it's a difference of political philosophy, similar to U.S. ambassadors who resign when presidents change.

CIJA claims to represent Canadian Jews. It condemns antisemitism at every turn, but a racist, anti-democratic government? You might ask: does the Jewish establishment ever get angry over Israel? CIJA shows little moral outrage over the most moral of questions: Israel's refusal to condemn Russia over Ukraine, where Jews died in the Holocaust.

In Canada, anger is left to progressive Jewish organizations, like JSpace Canada. Or the New Israel Fund of Canada, which champions an open, liberal Israel.

In Washington, Biden and Blinken will watch events unfold in Israel and then decide, belatedly and coldly, just how much more they can tolerate of this descent of democracy.