In the Daily Beast, Matt Yglesias argues that by vilifying dovish, left-leaning Jews, the conservative Jewish establishment risks alienating broad swathes of diaspora Jewry:
But if the risk to AIPAC is that J Street will come to share the “pro-Israel” brand, the risk to Israel is that it won’t. By all indications, the younger generation of American Jews is more left-wing than our elders, not less so. Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Kadima Party, recognizes as much and sent J Street a nice letter notwithstanding her disagreements with the group over some policy specifics. The incumbent Likud Party doesn’t see things that way. But if the Israeli government wants to dogmatically insist that progressive politics are incompatible with support for Israel, it can probably force that choice. But if it does, it’ll find itself steadily losing the loyalty of much of the diaspora. That, though the present government of Israel seems incapable of realizing it, would be winning the battle and losing the war.
Read the entire article here.