FUTURE OF JEWISH
The Left forgot what liberal means.
Vanessa Berg
March 12, 2026

…Israeli society is democratic and liberal (in the classical sense). Palestinian society, by contrast, is inherently illiberal, which has nothing to do with so-called “oppression” or “occupation,” and everything to do with longstanding Arab and Muslim values that go back centuries before the modern State of Israel’s creation in 1948. In other words, many Western liberals now instinctively side with societies that embody fewer liberal values over those that embody far more. This would be intellectually interesting if it were merely a shift in geopolitical preference. But the deeper issue is that the shift reflects something more profound: the erosion of liberal principles themselves. One reason for this change is that politics has become less about principles and more about opposition. Take, for example, the reaction to Israel’s recent war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. READ MORE