Many American Jews want a close US-Israel alliance. The Iran war shows how it can be a trap. |
As a high schooler in San Francisco decades ago, Aaron Keyak went downtown one day to check out a protest against the Iraq War.
The slogans criticizing the war, and US President George W. Bush, were there. But he also saw something that surprised him: antisemitic and anti-Israel signs that — to his teenage eyes — seemed out of place.
Some 20 years later, Keyak was serving as the US State Department’s deputy antisemitism envoy under then-President Joe Biden — and, following October 7, 2023, recalled having to make his way through anti-Israel protesters to get to the office.
Now, during the US-Israeli war with Iran, Keyak is seeing what anyone else with an internet connection can see: voices, across the political spectrum, blaming Israel for dragging the US into another Middle Eastern war.
Recalling his experience at the Iraq War protest, Keyak said, “At that time, it puzzled me.” A moment later, he added, “Today, I wouldn’t find that surprising, unfortunately.”
For the past two weeks, this is the uneasy reality American Jews have been confronting: Most of them want a close US-Israel relationship, and are witnessing a case study in that alliance apparently growing closer than ever, at least militarily.
But at the same time, that strong bond has proven to be a trap. The close cooperation between Israel and the US has generated fierce backlash against Israel in the United States among the war’s many critics.
That backlash, in turn, seems to be turbocharging an already powerful wave of antisemitism.
Last week, the Anti-Defamation League warned of “an alarming pattern of escalating, inflammatory rhetoric” that “fuels dangerous antisemitic narratives.” This week, two Israeli-Americans were assaulted while waiting in line for a restaurant in California.
On Thursday, someone in Michigan took a gun and rammed their car into a Reform synagogue housing a preschool.
In a rare bout of consistency, US President Donald Trump has endeavored to make clear that the US decided when to start the war, and will decide when to end it.
But it is also true that Israel pushed for this war and, unlike the Iraq War, is fighting it alongside American soldiers. And it is true that the war isn’t particularly popular in the US (though numbers have gone up in recent days).
For some American Jewish opponents of the war, that’s one reason of many why they believe the war is a colossal mistake.
When Debra Shushan, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish........