editorials
Political Fluidity in Israel
I srael’s recent deadly skirmishes with Islamic Jihad
— known as Operation Shield and Arrow — have
been driven by very real security concerns. At
the same time, the defense effort supported by
Iron Dome and the offensive pursuit of precision
targeting of terror leaders and facilities have
provided a meaningful political boost for Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Because of the rocket attacks on Israel, many of
the mass street protests against the government
and its planned judicial overhaul that have energized
the opposition were canceled, thereby providing a
reprieve for the prime minister. That was followed
by even more good news for Netanyahu when
new polling reflected voter trust in Netanyahu to
protect the country’s security, even as his personal
popularity has fallen.

Things looked very different just a couple of
weeks ago.

Early May polls indicated that if an election had
been held then, the right-wing governing coalition
would have lost its majority in the Knesset. The
polls predicted that Netanyahu’s Likud party would
fall from 34 to 24 seats and be replaced by former
Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s center-right National
Unity party as the country’s largest party, with
29 seats. Those polls projected that the current
opposition parties would win a combined 63 seats, a
majority, with Gantz as the likely choice to head the
government. The revival of Israel’s center-left, and
the growing popularity of the opposition, reflect the
impressive success of the orchestrated opposition
to Israel’s most extreme right-wing government
in its history, and alarm over the government’s
promised policies. That success was helped by the
impatient aggressiveness of right-wing leaders and
their overreach in rushing to enact legislation to
accomplish their goals all at once, rather than doing
so more patiently. Had they moved incrementally —
even if gradually toward their goals — the level of
opposition and concern would likely not have been
as intense.

At least as of now, Israel’s right-wing leaders have
failed to deliver on their promises. The vaunted
judicial “reforms” have not gone past a first vote in
the Knesset. Extremist National Security Minister
Itamar Ben-Gvir has been visible and vocal but has
largely been sidelined by Netanyahu in government
decisions. And the haredi Orthodox parties have
seen no progress in their coalition demands to
exempt their schools from teaching math, science
and English or their effort to exempt haredi men from
military service.

All of this will almost certainly come to a head in
the next couple of weeks as all eyes focus on the
Knesset’s budget vote at the end of this month. By
law, a failure to pass the budget would bring down
the Netanyahu government and force new elections.

That will not happen. With knowledge of the early
May polling results no one in the current majority
wants to risk new elections. Yet Ben-Gvir and haredi
leaders have threatened to use the budget vote to
gain leverage against Netanyahu. They will fail.

Netanyahu has decades of experience in the
blood sport of Israeli politics. He knows the game
better than anyone else and is a master of political
manipulation and orchestration. He will do what
it takes to remain in power. And he will drag his
coalition partners with him. ■
T here is nothing quite like Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s
Memorial Day. It is observed on the day before
Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, and is
marked by a profound level of reverence and respect
shown by the entire nation for the fallen soldiers of
the wars of Israel. The day is deeply emotional, and
its seriousness and solemnity are felt throughout the
country, at every age level.

While Yom Hazikaron is best known in the Diaspora
for its countrywide moments of silence while air raid
sirens are sounded and for the annual memorial
ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, similar
memorial ceremonies and services are held in every
city and cemetery throughout the country as Israelis
mourn and remember fallen family members, friends
and legendary national heroes.

The Israeli government expanded Yom Hazikaron’s
scope in 1980 to include victims of the pre-state
underground movements, the Mossad and the Prison
Guard Service. And in 1998, it added civilian terror
victims killed in Israel.

Last week, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs
and Combating Antisemitism announced that it was
forming a committee to study a recommendation to
expand the Yom Hazikaron observance to include
Diaspora Jews who were felled by antisemitic terror.

12 MAY 18, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Yom Hazikaron, 2015
The recommendation was made by the U.S.-based
Ruderman Family Foundation and the World Zionist
Organization as a means for the State of Israel to
mark, observe and act in solidarity with Jews around
the world.

Until now, terror attacks against Jews in the
Diaspora memorialized on an ad hoc basis. There is
no single date upon which our community remembers
the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in
Pittsburgh, the murder of four people at the Hyper
Cacher (Kosher) market in Paris in 2015 and the
1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in
Buenos Aires. Nor is there any coordination beyond
whatever local observance is planned to remember
those victims and numerous others.

The proposed policy is a good one for two reasons:
First, it will provide a uniform date for world Jewry
and others to remember victims of antisemitism and
serve as a springboard for expanded programming
and engagement on the issue of antisemitism in our
communities. Second, it will provide an opportunity
to bring Jews of Israel and the Diaspora together in
marking the memories of those who were targeted
and fell simply because they were Jewish.

We share a common history and heritage with
our Israeli family. And just as we join with them
in celebration, it is appropriate that we also join
together to remember victims and to mourn.

We will wait to see what the Israeli government
decides and whether the idea will gain traction in the
Diaspora. From our perspective, however, anything
that brings our Israeli and Diaspora communities
closer together is a good thing. ■
Photo by Israeli Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit / CC BY-SA 3.0
We Are One in Mourning



opinions & letters
The Jerusalem Embassy,
Five Years Later
Nikki Haley
T he United States finally opened our embassy
in Jerusalem, 23 years after we first promised
to do so.

This was an important moment for Israel. But it was
just as important for America. It showed that we keep
our word, stand with our allies and put our own inter-
ests and principles ahead of the world’s demands.

The day was a long time coming. In 1995,
Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed
the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which pledged to move
the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

This should not have been a controversial move.

Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. America had located its
embassy in the capital city of every other country,
just not Israel.

embassy. After Donald Trump finally implemented
the act, I proudly vetoed a U.N. resolution criticizing
the U.S. for doing so. I was the lone veto out of the
15-member Security Council. It was the first U.S. veto
at the U.N. in nearly seven years.

In my speech following the veto, I explained,
“Jerusalem has been the political, cultural and spiri-
tual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands
of years” and that America was acknowledging the
obvious. Just as importantly, I stood up to the critics,
defended American sovereignty and took the names
of those who attacked us. As I warned, “The United
States will remember this day in which it was singled
out for attack in the General Assembly for the very
act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. …
This vote will be remembered.”
For too long, America acted like an international
The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is a proud symbol
of American strength and the strength of the
U.S.-Israel relationship.

But Republicans and Democrats alike ignored the
act. Even though it was passed by an overwhelming
margin, three straight presidents declined to imple-
ment it. They were warned that the sky would fall if
we moved our embassy. So, the leaders of the free
world gave into fear and cowardice.

Even in 2017, it was not a foregone conclusion that
America would fulfill its decades-old promise. Many
of my colleagues in the Trump administration were
strongly opposed to the idea. They warned that
our allies would turn against us, Americans would
be killed and war in the Middle East would quickly
ignite. Some of us knew better. Twenty-two years of the
status quo hadn’t curbed Palestinian terrorism or
brought the two sides closer to a peace agreement.

Our unwillingness to act only made America look
weak. A country that can’t fulfill a simple decades-
old promise to an ally is a country no one respects.

Everyone walks all over it.

Moving our embassy was ultimately about stand-
ing up for ourselves. No one — not the U.N., not
our friends and certainly not our enemies — has
the right to tell the United States where to put our
doormat. We worried more about upsetting enemies
than defending friends. We looked the other way
when evil regimes committed unspeakable crimes.

We convinced ourselves that playing nice would
make the worst countries in the world play nice too.

They did not. All we did was embarrass ourselves.

Five years later, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is a
proud symbol of American strength and the strength
of the U.S.-Israel relationship. It is also a reminder of
how America can and must ignore the bullies and do
what’s right — not least because it puts the bullies in
their place.

How things have changed. Under President Joe
Biden, America has gone into retreat. From the
surrender in Afghanistan to the failure to deter
Russia from invading Ukraine to putting partisan
politics ahead of allies like Israel, Biden is listening
to the same foolish ideas — often from the same
foolish people — that I heard over and over before
we moved the embassy to Jerusalem. They say that
weakness is really strength, that inaction is really
leadership. It wasn’t then. It isn’t now. More than ever before,
the United States needs to send the message that
our friends can trust us, our enemies should fear us
and we’ll do what’s right no matter who stands in the
way. That is the lesson of moving the U.S. embassy
to Jerusalem. It’s a lesson we need to remember, and
then remind the world of it. ■
Nikki Haley is the former U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations and a Republican presidential
candidate. letters
Heritage Months Serve a Purpose
Jonathan Tobin is wrong (“Jews Don’t Need a Heritage
Month, and Neither Does Anyone Else,” May 11) about
why various groups need heritage months, which
provide opportunities to teach important aspects
about those who’ve landed on our shores.

For centuries, it was through our country’s white
Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders and their descen-
dants that the story of America was told. With much
information to impart, teachers inevitably concen-
trate on teaching the larger stories. However, it’s
important that other immigrants tell their stories of
how they arrived and the welcome they received.

Instead of ignoring other cultures let us learn about
them, celebrate their history and appreciate their
contributions to our society. If it takes a heritage
month to do so, so be it.

Tobin shouldn’t employ hot-button catchalls of
anti-wokeism like tribalism, diversity, equity, inclu-
sion, intersectionality and critical race theory, which
seek to divide us instead of allowing us to learn from
one another.

I don’t need Jewish Heritage Month or Jewish
Heritage Night at sports stadiums, but if other Jews
are kvelling in that attention, gay gezinteh hait.

We would live in a better country if all Americans
learned the backgrounds and challenges facing all
other immigrant groups as well as those experienced
by the diverse Native American tribes who were here
to welcome the first European immigrants. ■
Paul L. Newman, Merion Station
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