Thomas Friedman Says, "The Israel We Knew Is Gone."

Writing in The New York Times (Nov. 5, 2022), Thomas Friedman headlined his column, “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.”

Discussing the results of the Nov. 1 Israeli election, Friedman notes that, “…a fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: ‘Do I support this Israel or not support it?’…It will stress those U.S. diplomats who reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s values…and it will send friends of Israel in Congress fleeing from any reporter asking if America should be sending billions of dollars in aid to such a religious -extremist-inspired government.”

Friedman cites the thinking of Moshe Habertal, a Hebrew University Jewish philosopher, who said that Israeli hawkishness toward Palestinians “is now morphing into something new—-a kind of general ultra-nationalism” that not only rejects any notion of a Palestinian state but also views every Israeli Arab, who make up about 21 per cent of Israel’s population, as a potential terrorist.

In Habertal’s view, not only is the election about the future of Israel but “about the future of Judaism in Israel. The Torah stands for the equality of all people and the notion that we are all created in God’s image. Israelis of all people need to respect minority rights because we, as Jews, know what it is to be a minority—-with and without rights. This is a deep Jewish ethos, and it is now being challenged from within Israel itself.” **