Question

Nadav Shnerb published a post this week, and this is his claim: the left is not loyal to the Jewish people. Here it is:

Interesting events lately: Bogie Ya’alon declares that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Moshe Radman identifies with him. Nava Rozilio says she appealed to The Hague against Netanyahu. Costa Black signs a petition calling on the countries of the world to impose sanctions on Israel. Amos Schocken sees terrorists as freedom fighters, and so on and so on. Quite a few of the people who were the public face of what was called “the protest” are openly revealing that they hold very extreme views not only on the question of the constitutional structure of the State of Israel, but also on the question of what is and is not permissible in order to protect the lives of Jews living in their land.

In my opinion, as I’ve expressed here several times, this is neither accidental nor a mistake. Many people think there is a sharp dichotomy between the public referred to here as “the left” (roughly speaking, Gantz-Lapid-Golan voters) and something called the “far left.” That distinction is not clear to me at all.

There is a very simple question that people tend to repress: does the Jewish people, as an ethnic and religious collective, have a right to the Land of Israel, a right that justifies the settlement enterprise in the land and the armed struggle against attacks by its previous inhabitants? The Israeli left presents, formally, a position that distinguishes between territories conquered 76 years ago and an area conquered 57 years ago. Even if that argument has some validity, it has no chance whatsoever of persuading either the student or the professor in Harvard Yard, whose demonstrations are based on a basic moral outlook. They believe that the existence of a Jewish ethnic state, within any borders whatsoever, is a form of racism, and that the Zionist project from its very beginning is wicked European colonialism. Anyone who has no cultural anchor outside the fashions currently ruling the Western world will reach exactly those same conclusions.

The Israeli left has no such anchor. It exists in contradiction. As a result, people who travel every day from their homes in Katamon or Park Bavli (Jammasin) to their offices in Sheikh Badr or Sheikh Munis try to convince us that expelling an enemy population and establishing Jewish communities in its place is the ultimate war crime, a human abomination, and a moral monstrosity. This is not a sustainable situation.

Quite a few camels have already turned their heads and recognized the hump. Doctors who invest heroic efforts in treating terrorists (remember that complicated brain surgery that saved Yahya Sinwar’s life) and afterward deny treatment to wounded soldiers as part of a strike that the court declared political can no longer hide behind the broad back of the late Hippocrates. They made a moral choice, and it is not on our side. Professors at the Hebrew University who oppose awarding an honorary doctorate to Isaac Herzog (!) because he signed shells that were fired at Gaza made a moral choice, and it is not on our side. In general, the willingness to draw conclusions from the murder or kidnapping of Jews that align remarkably well with the goals of the murderers and kidnappers has for many years looked highly suspicious. In every argument over a specific issue it is possible to give one reason or another, but the cumulative effect points in a clear direction.

One particularly sharp left-wing figure, I think it was Yossi Sarid, was shaken during the First Gulf War, in 1992, when the Palestinians openly rejoiced over Iraqi missiles falling on Tel Aviv. He wrote to them something like: “I want you to know: if it’s either us or you, then we’re for us.” The events of October 7 really sharpened the insight that the game between us and our neighbors is indeed zero-sum, and yet, with almost every learned discussion in the Supreme Court, the feeling grows stronger that the Israeli elites are very far from being for us.

My explanation for this phenomenon, as I’ve written here more than once, combines detachment from particular Jewish identity (that is, from all those customs and values that distinguished Jews from their neighbors in recent history) with being swept along by the spirit of the times. Among the secular elites, who are by nature more globalist and less particularist, the process is more visible, but I see no reason to think that what is called the “Zionist left” will not be swept along after them. They are still at a higher point on the slide, but the force of gravity is not very different. It’s only a matter of time.

The disregard, or the very weak condemnations, voiced by those who were supposed to be people of the “Zionist left” toward the sort of people I described above says a lot. The fact that those same people—even those who declared themselves anti-Zionists, as voters for parties that deny the existence of the Jewish state—are still sought-after speakers at conferences, still receive prizes and prestige, and do not pay even a trace of the social price that, for example, Orit Strock pays, speaks for itself.

Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more, gathered over the past two years in Kaplan and similar streets, under the leadership of a group whose characteristics were described here. I have no idea how many of them identify with people like Bogie and Schocken and how many recoil from them, but I wonder whether it makes any difference. Is it important to know how many of them would run to report us to The Hague and how many are loyal patriots whom a clever advertiser can toy with and wrap around his little finger? Such questions carry weight when it comes to the moral assessment of individuals, but if we are talking about conducting politics, there is no practical difference at all between the two groups.

Therefore all the talk about unity and about “preventing a rift in the nation” seems foreign and strange to me. As I understand it, even those preaching to us in that direction understand that there is no talking with Schocken or Bogie or Costa, but they think there exists some sort of “center-left,” some collection of old Mapai types, of Tabenkins, Yigal Allons, and Israel Galilis, with whom you can still ride together if only we bend a little here and there. In my view, this hypothetical public is equivalent to those “moderate Palestinians” who just want peace and to live quietly, or those “modern Haredim” who want to enlist and work for a living. I’m not saying there are no such human groups, but they have no intellectual center of gravity and no social power that would allow real influence over the course of events. As a result, their members are always dragged along behind guides of a very particular sort.

A politics whose purpose is to enable the life and security of Jews in the Land of Israel cannot be based on this illusion, at least not in the foreseeable future. I have no idea about deep processes that may perhaps be taking place, nor do I have full or even partial knowledge of all the groups and organizations that have recently been established, but to this day I have not seen any of them willing to openly kick aside the principles of current political correctness, willing to openly declare ethnic loyalty, for example, even if others call him a fascist. As long as that is the situation, it is worth adhering to a consistent policy of respect him, but above all suspect him.

In my humble opinion, based on your actions and your words, it comes out that you too are de facto not loyal to the Jewish people (like quite a large part of the Religious Zionist public). Is he right in general? And am I right about you?