Israel loses the Jews

While the jury is still out, the best tally I’ve seen lately says that of 28 Jewish members of Congress 11 back the deal, 7 oppose it and 10 are undecided (or at least unannounced). This is roughly consistent with the more credible polls of Jewish popular opinion.

But it is dramatically different from the Israeli government position as well as Israeli popular opinion. Something like 70% of Israelis oppose the deal. So does the major opposition, which backs Netanyahu’s hard-line governing coalition on this issue.

Disagreements between the US and Israel have occurred many times. But I don’t remember any time at which American Jews parted ways with Israel on a major issue so dramatically. Israel is losing the American Jews.

This is a good development. I’m not with those urging unity among Jews in the US on this issue, or between Jews in Israel and in the US. I see no reason why people who are almost 6000 miles closer to Iran than I am and listening daily to its belligerence  against their country would necessarily agree with me. Nor do I see any reason why I should agree with those in the US or Israel who not only oppose the agreement but also think the Jews have a right to all the land west of the Jordan River.

Yes, we should be civil to each other. Certainly the President was that in his meeting with Jewish community organizations Friday. Civil and terrifically disciplined in the logical and uncompromising way he argued for the agreement:

He wisely did not follow Shadi Hamid’s advice to open up the containment option or to talk about support for the agreement from pro-democracy advocates in Iran. The former would have suggested he is prepared to live with an Iranian nuclear weapon and likely caused a serious negative reaction in Congress. In any event, the containment option is a truly lousy one, since it relies on a degree of mutual confidence in an opponent being a rational actor and intercommunication that simply does not exist between Iran and Israel. The later would have painted Iranian pro-democracy advocates with an American brush, which is a really bad idea. Far better would be Shadi’s third notion: stronger pushback against the Iranian-supported regime and Hizbollah in Syria, which would garner strong support in Congress, including among opponents of the nuclear deal, as well as in Israel.

The President has, however, no chance of converting hardline opponents. Neither Republicans nor Israelis will waver. They are determined to go down fighting on this one, as they have on so many other things lately.

There is some hope however that he may have convinced a Congressman or Senator. It isn’t going to be good for any Democrat running next year to suffer a defeat and then have to rely on the President’s veto to prevent the deal from falling through. It would be far better to filibuster in the Senate, thus avoiding a vote there altogether. The Republicans are already preparing for that eventuality.

But either way, it looks as if the Republicans will lose in trying to block the President from doing what he can to lift sanctions. They and Netanyahu will then strike up a chorus in favor of vigorous enforcement of the deal’s provisions. If they do, we should all join in. Failure of Iran to live up to the agreement would be even worse than failure of the President’s efforts to prevent it from being blocked in Congress.