Jewish Press of Pinellas County

Reader: Wake up to administration’s hostility toward Israel

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor:

“Lapid calls Netanyahu to concede election,” ( Nov. 4-17 Jewish Press) was a misleading title. That’s because more than half the story was devoted to the rumor that the Biden administration “might not engage with Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the Religious Zionist leaders who will likely be given a cabinet position.” Whatever one feels about Ben-Gvir’s past or present far-right politics, American Jews must not let U.S. politicians use him to delegitimize Israel or a Netanyahu government.

Israel is not America, and should not be judged as if it were. We saw no clutching of pearls from the Biden administration when Lapid and Bennet welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood linked Ra’am Party into its governing coalition. That was not a positive sign of Israeli pluralism. It was a sign of ongoing Israeli delusion, driven by a left that ignores the never-abandoned Arab drive to eliminate Israel. This is not to say there aren’t Israeli Arabs who love their country, but the Arab political parties are not there to see that Israel remains a Jewish democracy. They want Israel gone. That being the case, why isn’t the Biden administration concerned about members of Ra’am or the Arab Balad Party, which is controlled by Qatar? They want to ostracize Ben-Gvir, but not terror-supporting extremists?

American Jews must understand just how antagonistic American foreign policy is toward Israel, today, when it contemplates freezing out Israeli politicians it doesn’t like but says nothing about antidemocratic, anti-Israel politicians who work for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

Liz Wagner
South Pasadena

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