Why 80 Maryland rabbis are wrong about Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Israel support | GUEST COMMENTARY

Last month 80 Maryland rabbis sent a letter to Maryland’s Sen. Chris Van Hollen criticizing him for his stances regarding the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. My rabbi signed that letter. Yours probably did too. And I’m sure with the best of intentions.

But they were wrong to do so.

I and other Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace activists have met with Senator Van Hollen many times. Chris supports Israel and cares about the Jewish people. At the same time, he understands as well as most of us do (certainly as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer) what a threat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government represent to Israel’s future peace, security and democracy — especially in the current crisis.

For over a decade, Netanyahu pursued a policy of weakening Palestinian moderates and strengthening Hamas in order to divide and conquer and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. He and his governments have expanded West Bank settlements in order to make a future Palestinian state physically and politically impossible. This misguided strategy blew up in Israel’s face with the brutal and barbaric Hamas attack on Oct. 7. And now he is pursuing this war — a necessary and completely justified war — in ways that threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:

• Gadi Eisenkot— a former Israeli Defense Force chief of staff and current member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and war cabinet — told the Israeli TV program “Uvda” in January that Netanyahu’s war aims are impossible to achieve and that they endanger the lives of the remaining hostages.
• The non-partisan Commanders for Israel’s Security movement said recently that the stingy supply of humanitarian aid and resulting humanitarian disaster represent a strategic security threat to Israel.
• Even Netanyahu’s own defense minister is reportedly supporting the security services’ recommendation to stop refusing President Joe Biden’s proposal to have the Arab world and a revitalized Palestinian Authority (PA) administer and rebuild Gaza, a critical step toward Palestinian statehood.

Given the stakes and the threat to Israel that Netanyahu and his extreme government represent — to Israel’s security and not just to its democracy — we in the American Jewish community should be supporting, not condemning, political leaders like Chris Van Hollen, whose support for Israel motivates them to do what it takes to send the message to Netanyahu and to Israeli voters that extremist policies are terrible for Israel and should not enjoy American support.

That’s what worked in the early 1990s with a similar clash between President George H.W. Bush and right-wing Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Bush’s willingness in 1991-’92 to play hardball with a Likud hard-liner — even in the face of criticism from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — worked. It sent the message to Israeli voters that Shamir’s West Bank settlement expansion plans did not enjoy U.S. support and, in fact, threatened Israeli security by undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship. The result: In 1992 Israeli voters abandoned Shamir and elected Yitzhak Rabin, leading to the Oslo peace process, the peace treaty with Jordan, and an economic boom as the world opened up to Israel. (It didn’t lead to a two-state solution, at least not yet, but ultimately it will be looked back on as a critical step in the right direction.)

I know that many of my fellow pro-Israel activists fear that we cannot abide any politician who calls for conditioning aid to Israel. And, indeed, Senator Van Hollen and other pro-Israel Democratic senators signed a letter asking President Biden to withhold additional deliveries of offensive weapons until Israel comes into compliance with the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act by allowing sufficient supplies of aid to reach Gaza’s population.

But what the senators’ letter called for is simply to enforce some of the (many) conditions that already apply under law to U.S. military aid to Israel or any other country.

The rabbis’ letter stated that Van Hollen is “falsely suggest[ing] Israel is deliberately withholding aid” to Gaza civilians. Yet Commander for Israel’s Security, consisting of hundreds of retired and reserve Israeli generals and other security chiefs, said the same thing in their recent letter to Netanyahu, calling on him to end his “policy of humanitarian stinginess”.

In the American Jewish community, our love and support for Israel are unlimited and unconditional. Billions of American taxpayer dollars, however, cannot be a blank check and must serve our shared values and interests.

The rabbis’ letter criticizing Senator Van Hollen brings to mind the types of arguments and tactics employed with greater frequency in recent years by AIPAC and its affiliated political action committee, with former AIPAC leaders bemoaning the organization’s betrayal of its original bipartisan commitment. Last year, leaders of the movement to defend judicial independence in Israel accused AIPAC of “siding with the enemies of democracy.” A recent Israeli documentary showed how AIPAC has drifted away from the mainstream views of American Jews and aligned instead with fundamentalist evangelical Christians, with their dangerous, apocalyptic vision of expanded West Bank settlement leading to a biblical “War of Armageddon” to bring about their “Second Coming of Christ.” This is a terrible shame, because we need an effective AIPAC, not one that blows with the political winds and can’t be relied on in Israel’s true time of need — like now.

The rabbis should have known better. Nearly all Reform and Conservative rabbis (and some Orthodox rabbis, as well) say that they support a two-state solution and are not fans of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Then how long will they let him and his extremist partners play us for freiers (the Israeli term for suckers) by demanding that we deliver unconditional American support that Netanyahu can then point to at election time to claim that Israel should continue down the reckless path of settlement and annexation to block diplomacy toward a secure two-state future?

Matthew Weinstein (weinsteinm@aol.com) is a graduate of Beth Tfiloh Day School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute with degrees from Amherst College and Georgetown University. His bar mitzvah was held at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, and he has been a member of Beth Am Synagogue for many years. He has visited Israel 11 times for a total of four years and is looking forward to his 12th visit this Passover.