JNS
Don’t apologize for Ben-Gvir or anything else about Israel
Jonathan Tobin
November 11, 2022

…As the leader of the Conservative movement of Judaism in Israel put it in Haaretz, having Smotrich and Ben-Gvir around the cabinet table won’t just impact life in Israel. It will also hurt Jews elsewhere. Citing a much-discussed New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, Yizhar Hess claimed that a right-wing government will mean that Jewish students, already under siege by anti-Zionists, will no longer be able to credibly speak up on behalf of the Jewish state. That’s because the presence of these so-called “fascists” in Netanyahu’s cabinet will, in this telling, mean that the “good Israel,” that nice Jews feel comfortable about defending, is now either gone or about to be legislated out of existence. In its place will be a different country, run by extremists and horrible people who oppose peace and want to oppress minorities. Even if the people in this new bad Israel will be Jews, they will be the sort of Jews no self-respecting American Jew will want to be associated with. READ MORE