The Miss of the Century
Hostage families see Israeli government policy as a resounding failure. It's time for the American Jewish establishment to back them - and the Israeli public - up.
With Donald Trump home from the Middle East, the Israeli government appears poised to launch a renewed ground offensive in Gaza. Already, the pace and intensity of air strikes is picking up, as are casualties.
The likely result in the days and weeks ahead? More death – of Israeli soldiers, Palestinian civilians and, horrifically, the remaining hostages.
More destruction – which is hard to contemplate, given reports that 80-90 percent of Gaza has been damaged or leveled.
More global anger and hostility toward Israel, and – frankly – toward Jews generally.
Additionally devastating is knowing that there is a path out of this nightmare – a path rejected by Israel’s radical government. In the words of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on the eve of the new offensive:
"The State of Israel is hours away from the 'miss of the century.’
"Instead of returning all the hostages and joining a regional effort to end the war, Israel will find itself ostracized and sinking in the Gazan mud. Missing out on this historic opportunity will be remembered as a resounding failure for ages to come."
Poll after poll shows that, by margins of two-to-one, Israelis want to end the war and bring the hostages home, not resume the fighting.
More than that, Israelis are supportive of a comprehensive, regional peace and security mega-deal with their neighbors that would rewrite history for the state of Israel.
A new survey out this week reaffirms the Israeli public’s readiness for such a deal. 68.9 percent of Israelis would back a Trump-led regional initiative including the return of all Israeli hostages, an end to the war in Gaza, normalization with Saudi Arabia, a pathway toward separation from the Palestinians, and the formation of a US-led regional security coalition.
Support for such a regional initiative – regular readers know I call it the 23-state solution – crosses party lines. Arab and Jewish Israelis. Left, center and right.
Yet, rather than pursuing historic regional integration, the Netanyahu government is turning Israel into a pariah state. This week, we saw an American president spend four days in the Middle East inking economic and security deals with Arab countries without visiting Israel, once America’s closest ally in the region.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have isolated Israel on the sidelines while the rest of the region forges ahead with plans for a 21st century of integration, growth and shared security.
The depth of the tragedy of this moment is hard to fathom for all involved – particularly for the civilians of Gaza whose living hell is about to get even worse, if that is even possible. As I wrote last week, the ongoing denial of food, medicine and basic necessities amounts to a moral stain on the state of Israel. Talk of the US being involved in displacement of Palestinians pulls Americans directly into this moral abyss.
Which brings me to the need for American Jewish leadership.
Here’s a short resolution that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations could issue if it actually wanted to give public voice to where American Jewish (and Israeli) opinion is at:
(1) For 19 months, the American Jewish community has rallied behind the hostages and supported their families. Ensuring the safe return of all those being held has been our highest priority. That’s why we join today with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in calling on the Israeli government to agree to end the fighting, bring the hostages home and end the blockade of Gaza;
(2) Nothing has excited the American Jewish community more in recent years than the prospect of Israel normalizing relations with its Arab neighbors. That’s why we join with nearly 70 percent of Israelis in calling on the government to work with Arab leaders to reach a comprehensive, regional normalization agreement that brings the Arab-Israeli conflict to an end, deepens security ties regionally and with the United States, and enables Israeli-Arab cooperation to establish a secure and successful Palestinian state.
Such a statement would speak for the overwhelming majority of Jewish America. New polling out here in the States affirms that and aligns with polling of Israelis.
The Netanyahu government seems determined to take a wrong turn at this historic crossroads for Israel. Jewish Americans who care about Israel and the organizations that represent us have an historic moral and strategic obligation to speak out and help Israel to avoid the miss of the century.
Your leadership is inspiring and critical.
Israel's actions can only exacerbate antisemitism: They give the antisemites a convenient excuse for their prejudice.
But our government is facilitating Israel's atrocities against Palestinians by supplying it with the weapons to commit them and by expressing support for Israel's actions in the United Nations. If we ordinary American Jews, even the Establishment, merely call on the Israeli government to change its behavior, its leaders clearly won't listen. We also need to pressure our government to take meaningful action to stop the carnage.