Doaa AlBaz/AP Photo
Palestinians look for survivors following an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip, October 31, 2023.
In 1967, as Lyndon Johnson was escalating the ruinous Vietnam War and liberals were temporizing for fear of looking pro-communist, the great Jules Feiffer published one of his best cartoons ever. It showed a queasy liberal with a sign that read, “A Little Less Bombing.”
This is precisely the posture of the Biden administration as Israel continues the destruction of civilian Gaza, shifting Israel in much of the world’s eyes from a victim nation to a nation willing to commit atrocities. There is something worthy of Jonathan Swift in Biden’s modest demand that Netanyahu allow in more “humanitarian aid.” (You’ll recall Swift’s famous Modest Proposal to alleviate starvation in an Ireland brutalized by Britain by having the Irish eat their children.)
Why, after all, the need for more aid? The only reason Gaza is short of food, water, fuel, shelter, and other necessities of life is that Biden is allowing Israel to systematically destroy Gaza. Would it not be more efficient, if one cares about Palestinian humans, to reduce the need for humanitarian aid by ceasing the destruction?
There is another ominous analogy with 1967. As liberals ceded the anti-war narrative to radicals, they lost the effort to contain Johnson’s war until it was too late. By 1969, the year of the belated mainstream “Moratorium” marches against the war, Johnson had been forced from office, divided Democrats had allowed Richard Nixon to narrowly win the presidency, and the one great social justice era in America that spanned the New Deal and the Great Society was over.
In the Middle East, globally and at home, the liberal failure has allowed the radicals to take over the narrative. The radical condemnation of Israel is a little too cavalier about waltzing around the October 7 massacre by Hamas. (In wartime, if the first casualty is truth, the second casualty is nuance.) But the basic story of Israel destroying the peace process and pursuing ethnic cleansing and brutalization in the occupied West Bank is all too accurate. With its long-term policy of “Israel right or wrong,” the U.S. has its fingerprints all over not only Israel’s current atrocities in Gaza but Israel’s sabotage of the two-state peace process and carnage in the West Bank.
All of this not only puts Biden’s re-election at dire risk. It is also a gift for the world’s antisemites. American Jews have enjoyed a respite from antisemitism ever since the Holocaust. But while antisemitism may go into periods of slumber, it never goes away. All it takes is the right spark.
For centuries, one of the slanders against Jews has been the charge of dual loyalty. They may look like they are loyal to France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, the U.S., you name it, but their real loyalty is to their tribe.
Nothing lends credence to that ancient charge of dual loyalty more than Israel demanding total support from American Jews. And if wealthy Jews use their money to pressure universities to repress dissent, that reinforces another ugly stereotype. Face it: The global upsurge in antisemitism, which then takes on a life of its own, is primarily the responsibility of Israel.
And 1967 was also the year of the Six-Day War and Israel’s internationally recognized borders, before the illegal occupation of the West Bank. It is these borders that are part of the peace process and the all-but-ruined two-state solution.
Netanyahu’s notion that first Hamas can be destroyed at acceptable cost, and then someone else can be found to govern Gaza, and then some kind of regional settlement can be achieved is lunacy. This has become Biden’s war. Now it has to be Biden’s peace, starting with much tougher constraints on Israel.
