Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis

A majority of House Democrats supported a proposal to immediately halt the $3.3 billion in annual funding for military procurement guaranteed to Israel. What are the implications of this troubling development ahead of the November midterm elections?

The stance on Israel has emerged as a key test at the ballot box during the Democratic primaries. How does this manifest, how does it impact Washington-Jerusalem relations, and does Israel have any recourse?

The Jewish community of the United States is a valuable national security asset of the State of Israel. Over the years, including during the Gaza war, American Jews have helped to secure essential diplomatic and military support for Israel in the United States and have raised much-needed funds for Israeli civil society and nonprofit organizations. The capacity of American Jews to provide such support in the future, however, is called into question by a range of developments, including a weakening of American Jewish communal institutions, growing divisions over Israeli policies, and rising antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in the broader American society. This policy memorandum describes the changes afoot in the American Jewish community and recommends policies that Israel should adopt to help strengthen American Jewry, rebuild its broad support for Israel, and solidify the partnership between the Jewish state and the world’s largest diaspora community.

How has the collapse of Israel’s standing in American public opinion manifested—and is it still possible, and if so how, to halt this dangerous deterioration?

The Israeli-American war is speeding up U.S. trends of falling support for Israel and pushback against the traditional alliance. What can be done to prevent the further politicization of these strong bilateral ties?

Israeli public discourse following October 7 has focused on the false “conceptions” that blinded us to the possibility that reality could develop as it did. The surprise caused to Israel by Hamas’ attack deeply undermined Israelis’ confidence in security professionals and, one would hope, those professionals’ confidence in themselves. More broadly, this should lead members of the security community to ask fundamental questions about their understanding of the world around us. Two of these questions are: “Where did I go wrong?” and “In which cases have I changed my mind?” Recently, but before Operation Rising Lion, we held a discussion on a social media network that addressed the question “What were you mistaken about in the past two years?” The discussion’s participants, many of whom have relevant military or civilian research backgrounds, provided meaningful answers that could help us clarify the changes that have occurred in the way we perceive reality. This article touches on the key points of that discussion