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Who Can Israel Count on the Day the War Ends?

(Jerusalem Post) Dan Elbaum - Many American Jews will now never forget the names Kibbutz Be'eri or Kfar Aza. They have become deeply emblazoned in the collective Jewish memory on the long list of locales where Jews were murdered for being Jews. As the war continues, our communal focus should rightly remain focused on supporting the people of Israel, fighting antisemitism, and calling for the freedom of our fellow Jews who remain in captivity. Yet we should also be mindful of the colossal, indeed existential, question that will need answering after the war ends: Who can we count on? Not, by and large, American universities, whose officials took insufficient steps to protect Jewish students. Not leaders of the women's, civil, and human rights organizations - causes so many of us have proudly supported for decades. We should be under no illusions that these organizations' leaders care about Jewish lives. They do not consider us part of the diversity, equity, and inclusion for which they advocate, and the sooner we recognize that fact, the less disappointed we will be. We cannot count on those in the newsrooms of major American media outlets. Since Oct. 7, they have used their platforms to smear Israel, from the headlines that scream lies about Israel, to the pictures that portray a false moral equivalence between Israelis and the terrorists who threaten them, to the articles and editorials that accuse Israel of crimes it did not commit. But the news is not all bleak. We know that we can count on the vast majority of our Jewish community. We can count on the support that we have seen from the White House and the overwhelming majority of Congress. Most importantly, we have learned that, despite the relentless media criticism and one-sided coverage, we can count on the majority of Americans standing with us. According to Nov. 20 polls from Harvard CAPS-Harris, 80% of Americans continue to support Israel in its war against Hamas. The writer is head of North America at the Jewish Agency for Israel and the president and CEO of Jewish Agency International Development.
2023-11-29 00:00:00
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