Exporting Division: Netanyahu’s War on American Jewish Pluralism |
When Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to Washington and a prominent leader of the settlement movement, labeled the liberal lobby J Street a “cancer within the American Jewish community,” it was no mere slip of the tongue. It was the export of a political blueprint refined over decades by Benjamin Netanyahu: divide society into loyalists and domestic enemies, frame criticism as treason, and rule over the wreckage. In Israel, this strategy enabled him to survive scandals and win elections by systematically dismantling civic trust. Now, he is turning that same weapon across the ocean toward American Jewry, with the same intent and at the exact same cost.
Netanyahu did not just fracture Israeli society; he also helped push Washington toward a destructive military confrontation with Iran. The result was regional escalation, the empowerment of hardliners in Tehran, and a growing backlash within the United States. Today, the very same playbook is being deployed against American Jews: demand absolute conformity, brand any dissent as betrayal, and thereby deepen the alienation within the American Jewish community, fracturing it from within.
J Street is not a radical organization. It is liberal, pro-Israel, and supportive of a two-state solution. It represents a broad mainstream of American Jewry, one that seeks to support Israel without automatically rubber-stamping every policy of the Netanyahu government. Yet even these moderate stances are now cast as treason by figures aligned with Netanyahu and the settlement movement.
This toxic rhetoric is already translating into action. A striking example is the planned appointment of Caroline Glick, one of the most prominent figures of the populist right and a fierce Netanyahu loyalist, as Israel’s Consul General in New York.
The New York consulate is no routine diplomatic post; it is the most sensitive bridge between the State of Israel and the largest, most influential Jewish community in the........