American Jews had better stop congratulating themselves on their political sophistication. They have just received a political wake-up call, and I suspect much of the Jewish establishment is too intellectually comfortable, too politically invested, and too institutionally self-important to understand what has happened. The American elections have exposed a vulnerability that Jewish leadership has spent years pretending did not exist. The old American political consensus supporting Israel is crumbling, the Republican alliance is proving far more conditional than advertised, and candidates openly hostile to American military assistance for Israel are finding a receptive political audience. The shocking losers of these elections were not simply individual candidates. They were American Jews who believed that their political influence was permanent.
Let us begin with Donald Trump. The president who has repeatedly advertised himself as Israel's greatest political friend has announced that the United States will end approximately $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel. His explanation is that Israel is wealthy enough to defend itself. But there is something considerably more revealing beneath that explanation. Trump has complained that Republicans are being politically attacked over American financial support for Israel. Imagine that. The great champion of Israel has discovered that supporting Israel can become a political inconvenience. The message to American Jews should be unmistakable: even a president who has cultivated the image of being Israel's strongest ally is prepared to reconsider the relationship when his own political interests demand it.
And where, exactly, does that leave the American Jewish organizations that spent years embracing Trump as the answer to every Jewish political anxiety? What happened to all those declarations about an unprecedented friendship? What happened to the assumption that Republican political loyalty would provide Israel with an enduring shield? Apparently, that shield comes with conditions, and the conditions are determined in the White House. American Jews have made a serious mistake when they confuse a politician's affection for Israel with a permanent commitment to Israel's security. Trump is a transactional politician. Anyone who has not understood that by now has not been paying attention.
Then there is Michigan. The election of El-Sayed to the United States Senate, on a political platform sharply critical of Israel and American military assistance to the Jewish state, should be ringing alarm bells throughout American Jewish communal life. A candidate who made opposition to American support for Israel a prominent part of his political message has demonstrated that this position can coexist with electoral success. That is a political development American Jews cannot simply wave away. It does not mean that every Michigan voter endorsed his position on Israel. It does mean that opposition to American assistance for Israel is no longer automatically disqualifying in American electoral politics.
The irony is almost too extraordinary to ignore. Trump announces the termination of military assistance, while El-Sayed welcomes the direction of that policy from the opposite side of the political spectrum. They have arrived at overlapping positions through entirely different political routes. One represents a transactional Republican calculation, the other an explicitly anti-Israel political agenda. American Jews are left watching two very different political forces challenge a relationship they once regarded as secure.
But the real indictment is directed at American Jewish leadership. For decades, the major organizations have measured their success by access to presidents, photographs with senators, invitations to White House ceremonies, fundraising totals, and the number of politicians willing to speak at their annual dinners. They have mistaken access for influence and influence for security. They have built an impressive political infrastructure while failing to prepare the community for a changing American political culture. What good is a photograph with a president when that president can announce the termination of military assistance to Israel? What good are millions spent on political campaigns when a candidate opposed to American support for Israel can nevertheless win? What good is all the self-congratulation when the political ground is shifting beneath the very institutions that claim to protect Jewish interests?
The American Jewish establishment has become extraordinarily skilled at fundraising and remarkably unskilled at strategic foresight. It knows how to issue statements, organize conferences, arrange meetings, and mobilize donors. But where is the intellectual leadership? Where is the serious examination of why Israel has become such a divisive issue in American politics? Where is the preparation for a generation of Americans whose relationship with Israel is fundamentally different from that of their parents and grandparents? Where is the discussion about what happens when the United States no longer regards unconditional support for Israel as politically advantageous?
And let us dispense with another comforting illusion. American Jews cannot simply transfer their political allegiance from Democrats to Republicans and imagine that their problems have been solved. Neither party is a Jewish insurance policy. The Democrats have factions increasingly hostile to Israeli policy and, in some cases, to the very legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty. The Republicans have a president who has demonstrated that American assistance to Israel can become an expendable political issue. The Jewish community must stop behaving as though its future can be secured by attaching itself to whichever political party appears friendlier at a particular moment.
There is also a responsibility that belongs to Israel. Israel must finally abandon the dangerous assumption that American support will always be available in precisely the form to which it has become accustomed. A sovereign Jewish state cannot build its long-term defense strategy on the political goodwill of an American president. Israel needs greater military independence, a stronger domestic defense industry, technological self-sufficiency, and the economic capacity to defend itself under changing international circumstances. An alliance is valuable, but dependency is dangerous. The Jewish state was established to ensure that Jewish survival would no longer depend on the generosity or political calculations of other nations.
The American Jewish community must also confront the difference between antisemitism and legitimate political disagreement. Antisemitism is real, dangerous, and increasingly visible. It must be confronted without hesitation. But blaming every political setback on antisemitism is an intellectually lazy substitute for understanding political reality. Jewish organizations must be able to distinguish criticism of an Israeli government from hostility toward Jewish sovereignty, and legitimate disagreement over American foreign policy from discriminatory hostility toward Jews. If they cannot make those distinctions, they will find themselves speaking only to people who already agree with them.
What particularly troubles me is the absence of a serious generational strategy. American Jewish leadership continues to behave as though the political and cultural environment of twenty years ago will somehow return. It will not. Younger Americans are encountering Israel through a very different set of political, educational, and media narratives. Jewish institutions cannot answer that challenge with another fundraising dinner or another press release. They need education, intellectual confidence, historical knowledge, and leaders who are willing to challenge both the outside world and their own communal assumptions.
The elections have exposed something profoundly uncomfortable. American Jews possess extraordinary financial resources, universities, professional networks, philanthropic institutions, and political experience. Yet none of those advantages guarantees political security. Wealth does not automatically create respect. Lobbying does not automatically produce public understanding. Access does not guarantee loyalty. And the friendship of a president does not constitute a national strategy.
The American Jewish establishment needs an intellectual housecleaning. It needs leaders who understand that Jewish security cannot be built on photographs, political flattery, or the assumption that yesterday's alliances will survive tomorrow's political calculations. It needs to stop confusing the management of Jewish institutions with the protection of Jewish interests.
The tragedy is not that American Jews failed to elect their preferred candidates. Jewish voters are diverse, and they have every right to their own political priorities. The tragedy is that the institutions claiming to represent them appear so poorly prepared for the political realities now unfolding.
Trump has demonstrated that support for Israel can become a political bargaining chip. Michigan has demonstrated that opposition to American assistance for Israel can find electoral success. And the American Jewish establishment has demonstrated, once again, how little it understands the danger of relying on political assumptions that are rapidly disappearing.
For generations, Jews asked whether America would remain a dependable friend of Israel. Perhaps it is time to ask a more uncomfortable question: Have American Jewish leaders become so accustomed to the privileges of American political influence that they have forgotten how to prepare the Jewish community for a world in which that influence is no longer sufficient?
That is the real election result. And it is one American Jews cannot afford to ignore.
REPUBLISHED
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