Tag Archives: politics

Let’s Stop the Bed-Wetting!

12 Monday Feb 2024

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Sure, I wish Joe Biden was a bit younger, but his 81 years and his forgetfulness, as described by Dr. Ranganath in his op-ed “Biden Seems Forgetful, but That Doesn’t Mean He Is ‘Forgetting’” (NYT – February 12 – reprinted below), is NOT an indication of his inability to do the job of President. Biden’s life experience, understanding of America and the world, his constructive policies addressing the economy, inflation, climate, infrastructure, workers, and America’s standing in the world all recommend his re-election. Biden’s remarkable record of achievement in the first two years of his presidency, before the House was taken over by right-wing extremists who don’t believe in governing, compromise, or doing well for the American people, is second to none since President Lyndon Johnson.

I understand the “forgetting” as opposed to “Forgetting” that Dr. Ranganath discusses. At the age of 74, I have the same problems as does most everyone as we get older. I forget names, films I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and words seem stuck on the tip of my tongue far more often than they once were. Biden is clearly susceptible to this kind of “forgetting” too, but not the latter “Forgetting.” He is still sharp on matters of policy, politics, and world affairs. He assembled an excellent group of advisors as opposed to the clown show that surrounded Trump. And though Biden has made his share of mistakes, he has been a competent executive and, according to people who work closely with him, he has all his marbles and is able to focus and be strategic about what he and his administration say and do. He also is willing to work across the aisle for the sake of the common good and has proven that he can do so effectively in the spirit of compromise.

I know I’m not alone when I confess, however, to being worried in this political season by lots of things – but one of them is NOT Biden’s competency or moral character. I do worry about unrelenting popular perceptions concerning his physical stamina (yes, he’s old and he has a back problem which makes him look physically vulnerable when he walks and therefore more elderly. Those who know him say, however, that he is healthy, strong, and tough as nails even as his empathy is real and ever-present). I worry about the Arab-American community’s decision to not vote for him in 2024 because of his support for Israel against the vicious Hamas. I worry about the young progressive hard left’s lack of political pragmatism and that both groups will stay home or vote for a third party’s vanity exercise and throw the election in key states to Trump. I worry about the MAGA right’s autocratic sycophancy, the Republican Congress’ incompetency, cowardice, and hypocrisy, and the bigots of every stripe that have been given the green light by Trump and the right-wing media bubble to infect the political bloodstream of millions of Americans.

Despite all my worries as a traditional Democrat, I was heartened in listening to Ezra Klein’s important conversation with Simon Rosenberg from a month ago on Klein’s podcast. Rosenberg is a longtime Democratic political strategist who argues “that the Democratic Party is in a better position now than it has been for generations.” Do listen here – https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-simon-rosenberg.html

I also recommend reading Dr. Charan Ranganath’s article on aging, “forgetting” and “Forgetting” that follows. He is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis.  

Special Counsel Robert K. Hur’s report, in which he declined to prosecute President Biden for his handling of classified documents, also included a much-debated assessment of Mr. Biden’s cognitive abilities.

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

As an expert on memory, I can assure you that everyone forgets. In fact, most of the details of our lives — the people we meet, the things we do and the places we go — will inevitably be reduced to memories that capture only a small fraction of those experiences.

It is normal to be more forgetful as you get older. Broadly speaking, memory functions begin to decline in our 30s and continue to fade into old age. However, age in and of itself doesn’t indicate the presence of memory deficits that would affect an individual’s ability to perform in a demanding leadership role. And an apparent memory lapse may or may not be consequential depending on the reasons it occurred.There is forgetting and there is Forgetting. If you’re over the age of 40, you’ve most likely experienced the frustration of trying to grasp hold of that slippery word hovering on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this might be described as ‘forgetting,’ but most memory scientists would call this “retrieval failure,” meaning that the memory is there, but we just can’t pull it up when we need it. On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is seemingly lost or gone altogether. Inattentively conflating the names of the leaders of two countries would fall in the first category, whereas being unable to remember that you had ever met the president of Egypt would fall into the latter.

Over the course of typical aging, we see changes in the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, a brain area that plays a starring role in many of our day-to-day memory successes and failures. These changes mean that, as we get older, we tend to be more distractible and often struggle to pull up the word or name we’re looking for. Remembering events takes longer and it requires more effort, and we can’t catch errors as quickly as we used to. This translates to a lot more forgetting, and a little more Forgetting.

Many of the special counsel’s observations about Mr. Biden’s memory seem to fall in the category of forgetting, meaning that they are more indicative of a problem with finding the right information from memory than actual Forgetting. Calling up the date that an event occurred, like the last year of Mr. Biden’s vice presidency or the year of his son’s death, is a complex measure of memory. Remembering that an event took place is different than being able to put a date on when it happened, the latter of which is more challenging with increased age. The president very likely has many memories of both periods of his life, even though he could not immediately pull up the date in the stressful (and more immediately pressing) context of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Other “memory” issues highlighted in the media are not so much cases of forgetting as they are of difficulties in the articulation of facts and knowledge. For instance, in July 2023, Mr. Biden mistakenly stated in a speech that “we have over 100 people dead,” when he should have said, “over one million.” He has struggled with a stutter since childhood, and research suggests that managing a stutter demands prefrontal resources that would normally enable people to find the right word or at least quickly correct errors after the fact.

Americans are understandably concerned about the advanced age of the two top contenders in the coming presidential election (Mr. Biden is 81 and Donald Trump is 77), although some of these concerns are rooted in cultural stereotypes and fears around aging. The fact is that there is a huge degree of variability in cognitive aging. Age is, on average, associated with decreased memory, but studies that follow up the same person over several years have shown that, although some older adults show precipitous declines over time, other “super-agers” remain as sharp as ever.Mr. Biden is the same age as Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney and Martin Scorsese. He’s also a bit younger than Jane Fonda (86) and a lot younger than Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (93). All these individuals are considered to be at the top of their professions, and yet I would not be surprised if they are more forgetful and absent-minded than when they were younger. In other words, an individual’s age does not say anything definitive about their cognitive status or where it will head in the near future.

I can’t speak to the cognitive status of any of the presidential candidates, but I can say that, rather than focusing on candidates’ ages per se, we should consider whether they have the capabilities to do the job. Public perception of a person’s cognitive state is often determined by superficial factors, such as physical presence, confidence, and verbal fluency, but these aren’t necessarily relevant to one’s capacity to make consequential decisions about the fate of this country. Memory is surely relevant, but other characteristics, such as knowledge of the relevant facts and emotion regulation — both of which are relatively preserved and might even improve with age — are likely to be of equal or greater importance.

Ultimately, we are due for a national conversation about what we should expect in terms of the cognitive and emotional health of our leaders.

And that should be informed by science, not politics.“

Speaking to the Next Generation of Liberal and Progressive American Jews about Israel

19 Friday Jan 2024

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Introductory Note: On Thursday evening, January 18, I spoke to a group of long-term older congregants of Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles about how to speak with the younger generations of liberal and progressive Jews in their families who feel unmoored by the rise in antisemitism in America and the Hamas atrocities on October 7, and who feel alienated from Israel on account of its prosecution of the war against Hamas that has resulted in the death of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The following were my remarks.

Most of us here tonight appear to be over the age of 60, and so it’s important to begin by acknowledging that we likely think of ourselves in relationship to antisemitism and Israel differently than do our Millennial and Generation Z children and grandchildren.

As a boomer (I was born in 1949), I was raised with an idealized and romanticized vision of Israel as a small struggling new state being born like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Shoah. And I marvel at the major accomplishments of the Jewish state in absorbing hundreds of thousands of refugees, in its growth in agriculture, the sciences and technology, in the development of the Hebraic spirit, and in its military successes in wars thrust upon it from its earliest years. I so respect, as well, the moral principles first articulated by the biblical prophets and enshrined in the state’s aspirational Declaration of Independence.

My millennial sons’ impressions of Israel have been influenced not only by growing up in our liberal Zionist home, but by the traumas of the past 30 years including the Rabin assassination, the failed Oslo peace process, the 2nd Intifada, the occupation and expanding settlement enterprise, 5 Israel-Hamas wars, and the corrupt leadership of PM Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing government. Though my sons identify proudly as liberal American Jews and liberal Zionists, they are far more cynical about today’s Israeli leadership and its prosecution of this war than I am despite their appreciation of the positives in Israel’s life, culture and history. They express increasingly their sense of hopelessness about Israel’s political and moral direction as it is being led by PM Netanyahu and his government, and they are deeply disturbed by the massive loss of life in Gaza despite their outrage at the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

The dramatic rise in antisemitism in the past few years in America and since October 7 especially has shaken them as well, as has the unprecedented hate and misinformation they and the younger generations of liberal American Jews are encountering on college and university campuses, in the work place and online. Many of their friends and peers, Jews and non-Jews, actively question Israel’s moral character in the prosecution of this war and on account of the policies of the current illiberal Israeli government. Many people they know openly characterize Israel as an oppressor nation, a colonial concoction of western imperialism, and an apartheid and racist state. Some have gone so far as to question Israel’s moral right to exist anywhere between the river and the sea.

I have always favored a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, since October 7 there have emerged many in America’s progressive young left-wing who say openly and shamelessly that they would like to see a return to 1948 and no Jewish state of Israel, an attitude I regard as blatant antisemitism because they deny the Jewish people the right to a nation state of our own in our historic Homeland.

Though this attitude is that of a very small minority in America (according to polls), many of our own liberal and progressive Jewish young people are increasingly critical of and alienated from Israel and are questioning the meaning of Israel and liberal Zionism in their lives. In response, it is important for us to remind them why Zionism emerged in the late 19th century and grew so dramatically in the 20th century.

Zionism was an answer to the “problem of the Jews” (i.e. antisemitism) and the “problem of Judaism” in that it represented the return of the Jewish people to history, the restoration of our people’s pride, dignity and independence in our historic Homeland, a rejuvenation of the Hebraic spirit and culture in the land of the prophets, and a test of our people’s religious and ethical values in the context of attaining sovereignty and power for the first time in two millennia. Ultimately, Zionism was meant to fulfill the prophetic vision for the Jewish people to become a light to the nations; in so many ways the State of Israel has already done so.

Arguing on behalf of Israel, however, in the current environment of war is difficult, to say the least. Add to that difficulty what preceded the war – the coming to power of the most extremist, racist, super-nationalist, Jewish supremacist, and ultra-Orthodox government in Israeli history and the nearly year-long protest movement that brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets every Saturday night to protest the government’s radical judicial reform legislation that would have diminished Israel’s democracy. Then came Hamas’ October 7 attack and hostage-taking, Israel’s overwhelming military response to destroy Hamas’ military capacity and ability to rule over Gaza, Israel’s efforts to free the hostages, the consequential destruction of Gaza and the killing and injury of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians. All of it is a toxic cocktail that has caused so many of our children and grandchildren to feel unmoored, demoralized, disaffected from Israel, questioning what Israel has become and what their relationship is to the Jewish state.

To pour salt into our people’s open wound, Israel has been charged with the crime of Genocide by the ICJ in The Hague, which strikes Israelis and so many Jews around the world as an utter outrage given Hamas’ actual genocidal intent against Israel and the Jewish people. The charge against the State of Israel is equivalent to blaming the victim of the very crimes of the Hamas aggressor.

October 7 and the Hamas-Israel war are among the most difficult moral, ethical and emotional challenges for Jews who care deeply about Israel and the health, safety and well-being of our Israeli brothers and sisters, and who are also concerned about the suffering of Palestinian civilians who have been placed cynically in harm’s way by Hamas’ situating itself inside and near private homes, apartment buildings, community centers, mosques, schools, and hospitals and under a massive sophisticated maze of tunnels totaling between 350 and 450 miles (NYT – January 18).

The largest question for us in the older generations of American liberal Jews is how we should respond to the next generations about this war and Israel in this unprecedented era of Jewish history?

First, I think that all of us have to be able to live with the tension between our American liberal Jewish values that emphasize justice, peace, diplomacy, pluralism, and compromise, along with the necessity of Israel fighting Hamas militarily as a radical extremist Islamic movement that does not value justice as we westerners understand justice, does not believe in compromise or peace with Israel on any land between the river and the sea, and is intent on murdering Jews and destroying the State of Israel.

Second, I want to be able to trust that the IDF is behaving according to international laws of war, the “principle of distinction” (i.e. choosing only military targets), the “principle of proportionality” (i.e. using only the amount of force necessary to neutralize the threat while assessing expected civilian harm), the “principle of precaution” (i.e. taking into account all matters necessary to mitigate civilian suffering), and the “principle of humanitarian obligation” (i.e. being certain that food, water, medicine, and fuel reach the Palestinian civilian population).

That said – we have to acknowledge that Israel likely has made mistakes when it dropped thousands of 2000-pound “dumb” bombs on populated areas seeking to destroy the underground Hamas tunnel system. We cannot turn a blind eye to the death and injury these bombs have caused. According to top American military experts who have experience fighting in dense urban settings such as Gaza, the Biden administration has recommended strongly to Israel that the massive bombings have to give way now to targeting specific Hamas command sites using smaller precision missiles and special op forces.

We American Jews have to accept as well the truth that we do not really know what the IDF and the Israeli intelligence services know. Israeli intelligence insists that it is prosecuting the war by the book – but many of us suspect that at times Israel has crossed a red line in a brutal and inhumane way and not adequately taken into account the damage it is doing to Palestinian civilian life while targeting Hamas.

Dr. Tal Becker, an intelligence expert, ethicist and advisor to the IDF, argued a few weeks ago that Israel cannot in real time share its intelligence during the prosecution of the war, and that it is a mistake for us to rush to judgment about what Israel has done. There will come a day of reckoning, he said, not just concerning the failure of the government, intelligence services and the IDF to protect Israelis in the south on October 7, but also how the IDF conducted and prosecuted this war in light of the international rules of war.

We American liberal Jews have to hope that as the strongest military power in the Middle East, IDF commanders are checking constantly to assure that Israel’s use of power is as an instrument in achieving absolutely necessary and defined ends and not as an ideology in and of itself. We have to hope that Israel is fighting this just war justly in an impossible urban environment.

The humanitarian disaster caused by this war has placed the burden of responsibility on Israel, though Israel says that “it has facilitated the delivery of over 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid, that Israel has excess capacity to inspect and process trucks, and that there’s no backlog and no limitation on Israeli’s end. But UN aid agencies counter Israel’s claims that Israel is hampering the delivery of lifesaving assistance to Gazans.” (Washington Post, January 18). Who is right – Israel or UN aid agencies?

Third, we have to keep in mind that there is no pathway to peace between Israel and the Palestinians except in a two states for two peoples resolution of their conflict (though presently a two-state solution is not being discussed in Israel), and that Hamas must be defeated and have no role at all in what comes after the war. Half-measures won’t be adequate. Many believe that calling for a ceasefire prematurely, even if doing so will result in the release of all the hostages and the killing and injury of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians will stop, will leave Hamas in Gaza to repeat October 7 over and over again, as Hamas leadership has promised publicly to do.

Most Israeli experts now believe, however, that Hamas cannot be fully defeated nor uprooted from its 350 to 450 miles of tunnels under Gaza and that continuing the war will sacrifice the lives of the remaining hostages and risk even more Israeli soldiers’ lives and the lives of thousands more innocent Palestinian civilians. If a hostage-prisoner exchange with an extended ceasefire can save the lives of the 136 hostages still being held as well as saving the lives of Israeli soldiers and innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, then a ceasefire would be worth doing. This prisoner-hostage exchange would likely include 8,000 Palestinians now imprisoned in Israeli jails, 559 of whom are serving life sentences for murdering Israelis. It would also include the 130 Hamas terrorists captured inside Israel on October 7 and hundreds more captured in Gaza during the war and brought to Israel. There are also countless Palestinians who have been arrested in the West Bank every week who are guilty of lessor crimes, and hundreds of young Palestinians who have been jailed for minor offenses such as throwing rocks. Releasing the worst of these prisoners presents a huge risk to Israel that they will return to Hamas and again attack Israelis.

It is now my position that Israel ought to negotiate for the remaining Israeli hostages and bring them home as soon as possible because with every passing day there is more risk to their lives, to the lives of Israeli soldiers and innocent Palestinians in a war that cannot, as understood by many Israeli military leaders, eliminate Hamas entirely.

October 7 has challenged the Zionist ethos that Israelis could rely upon the IDF and their government to protect them against terrorism and attack. But October 7 also has shown the importance of the Zionist cause, that the Jewish people has the right and the need for a national home.

One more question to consider with our American young liberal and progressive Jews – Can the Jewish people survive over the long-term without a Jewish state? It is my conviction that except for intensive orthodox communities and perhaps small pockets of secular-liberal Jews, within a few generations – should Israel cease to exist – the majority of the world’s Jews will assimilate and disappear. Consequently, October 7 has to be understood as an existential attack on the Jewish people, Judaism, the Jewish historical experience and memory, Jewish values and religion, and everything we believe and stand for as Jews.

Since 1948, we Jews thought that the enemies of the Jewish people could no longer undermine our confidence as a people. We thought that a Jewish state would be the solution to Jew-hatred, that pogroms and antisemitism were part of a distant past in Jewish history.

October 7 reminds us that barbarians still are at the gate, and they will break into our dwellings, rip babies form their parents’ arms, and commit the most brutal crimes against humanity that we have not fathomed or talked about publicly since the Holocaust. The mass hoopla by too many Gazans who shamed our hostages and abused Jewish corpses was a barbarous assault on our dignity as a people and on common decency.

Based upon forensic evidence discovered in southern Israel after that infamous day in October, we now know that Hamas intended to stay in Israel a month or longer and slaughter far more Israelis that it did. In many respects, despite Israel’s military successes so far in Gaza, Hamas already has won aspects of this war. There are still 136 hostages being held (though informed Israeli sources suggest that between 10 and 20 hostages have been murdered); 180,000 Israelis have been displaced as refugees in their own country; Israel is isolated in the international community except for the US, the UK, Germany and perhaps a few other nations; and Israel has been brought before the ICJ of the Hague to stand trial for the crime of Genocide.

Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in New York asked these important questions on his podcast In These Times:

“Why has Hamas become popular with so many young Americans? Hamas doesn’t permit free speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion, political pluralism or opposition parties, or anything that defines a liberal society. In Hamas’ world abortion is illegal and LGBTQ is illegal. Corruption is rampant with Hamas leaders living in luxury.

What explains the support that western liberals give to fundamentalist, misogynistic antisemites such as Hamas and Hezbollah? Why do those who see racism everywhere in daily life fail to recognize the systemic antisemitism of Hamas? Why do those who are so acutely sensitive to the assignment of moral accountability to both individuals and institutions fail to assign moral agency to the Palestinians? Why do progressives treat Palestinians as passive victims bearing no political or moral responsibility for their actions? What business do progressives have supporting those who oppress gays, women, minorities, and Christians? What business do free speech advocates have ignoring the suppression of free speech? Why do progressives give aid and comfort to the enemies of progress? By what measure of decency do they abandon liberal Muslims who challenge extremists in their own midst? Why do those who so believe in diversity condemn Israel, one of the most diverse countries in the world?

This is not liberalism; it’s a betrayal of liberalism. It isn’t progressivism; it’s a back-sliding of progress. How could a vast number of people in the west confuse an Isis-like philosophy for a liberation movement and ignore, explain, deny, and justify blood-thirsty brutalities?”

In conclusion, I want to offer a few things to consider, in addition to what I have said thus far, when talking with our liberal and progressive American Jewish young people who may feel morally and emotionally alienated from Israel.

First, that we Jews are one family and that we have to listen to each other’s concerns and perspectives. We older liberal Jews especially have to listen to our younger liberal and progressive Jewish family members and their friends without necessarily having to respond to every statement they make that may rankle us.

Second, that we American Jews live here and Israelis live there. Virtually every Israeli Jew and some Arab-Israelis too has lost someone or knows someone who has been a victim of Hamas. October 7 is a shared national catastrophe the likes of which has not occurred since the 1973 War or the 1948 War of Independence. We American liberal and progressive Jews have to be able to empathize with Israelis’ grief and fear as well as their joys.

Third, for sanity’s sake, we need to be selective about what legitimate sources of information, news and commentary we read and watch, and steer clear of most social media that tends to distort and shock. My recommendations are as follows:

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing Podcast and the online Times of Israel news site

The Haaretz Podcast and Haaretz’s English language daily online newspaper

The For Heaven’s Sake weekly podcast with Rabbi Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi

The Promised Podcast weekly out of Tel Aviv

The Forward on-line magazine

The Israel Policy Forum with Michael Kaplow

The J Street Daily Roundup of News, Commentary and Opinion

The In These Times Podcast hosted by Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

My book Why Israel (and its future) Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation (reissued, November 2023) with an Introduction written after October 7 and an Afterword by my millennial sons Daniel and David Rosove.

Finally, I recommend highly that you listen to Dr. Tal Becker’s 32-minute opening statement before the International Court of Judgment at The Hague in defense of the State of Israel to the charge of Genocide. You can find it on You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQaDIcdgLRc

This blog also appears at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-next-generation-of-liberal-and-progressive-american-jews-and-israel/

J STREET TO BIDEN: ACT NOW TO SAVE LIVES, HOSTAGES, CHANCE FOR LONG-TERM PEACE

22 Friday Dec 2023

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Introductory Notes:

As a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet, I fully support J Street’s policy statement below concerning the Israel-Hamas war. It requires a close read to appreciate the complexity of the disastrous war started by Hamas’s brutal attack against Israeli civilians and its massive hostage taking on October 7 that has resulted in a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. J Street’s position is nuanced and represents a positive path forward and hopefully, will be accepted as a whole by the Biden Administration, Congress, the Israeli government, what remains of the Palestinian Authority and other Arab nations.

In brief, J Street expresses our full support for Israel and its right to defend itself against the terrorist organization Hamas, to remove Hamas from power over Gaza using only “intelligence-led precision strikes with precision munitions, and special operations forces” and not massive bombing, to promote a pause (not a ceasefire) to negotiate the release of all hostages and allow the infusion of massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, to urge the United States and the Biden Administration to propose a massive Marshall-like plan after the war for the restoration of Gaza, to work with a post-Netanyahu government and a restructured Palestinian Authority with the support of Arab nations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in two-states for two peoples with security guarantees for both Israel and the Palestinians, and to institute strict oversight and scrutiny of American arms in compliance with international law.

I urge you to read the following carefully and share it with everyone you know, especially young American Jews and non-Jews.

December 21, 2023

“Two and a half months after the horrific October 7 attack by Hamas, J Street’s support for the people and state of Israel remains unwavering. We continue to affirm Israel’s right and obligation to defend its territory, provide security for its citizens and bring to justice those who perpetrated this barbaric attack.

However, as six Members of Congress with significant national security experience wrote this week to President Biden, the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza that the Netanyahu government’s military operation have caused are unacceptable and out of line with American interests and values.

These Members – each of whom learned bitter lessons about war and counterterrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan – urged the President to “use all our leverage to achieve an immediate and significant shift [in Israel’s] military strategy and tactics in Gaza.”

In recent days, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warned Israel that when you drive the civilian population into the arms of the enemy, you can “replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.” And former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley weighed in similarly on the nature of the war, noting that “military doctrine has evolved … and the preferred doctrine today in highly dense urban areas is to do intelligence-led precision strikes with precision munitions, and special operations forces.”

J Street too opposes the Netanyahu government’s disastrous approach to the war.

We call on President Biden to heed the advice of this wide array of national security experts and veterans of counterterrorism operations and to convey to the Netanyahu government, both publicly and privately, that the time has come to end the all-out military campaign and massive aerial bombardment of Gaza and immediately shift to a far more targeted and limited operation.

In light of the Netanyahu government’s repeated refusal to heed the administration’s call and advice, J Street urges the Administration to take further, firmer steps to bring about this change including:

  1. Proposing a renewed pause in the fighting that enables the safe return of the remaining hostages and a dramatic surge in humanitarian assistance.

The terms of a renewed break in hostilities would include Hamas’ release of additional hostages in exchange for an extended break in the fighting and a further release of prisoners. We would also support the Administration proposing a longer-term end to the fighting were Hamas required in addition to releasing all the hostages to relinquish its remaining arsenal and accept passage for its leadership to a third country.

A renewed pause should bring a dramatic, urgent infusion of humanitarian aid, inclusive of food, water and medical supplies for families in Gaza. The civilian population of Gaza – the majority of whom are children and 85 percent or more of whom are displaced from their homes – are living in unbearable conditions. We commend the Administration’s efforts to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing to facilitate movement of more aid into Gaza. This must be paired with the entry of humanitarian aid organizations to establish more field hospitals, shelters and distribution mechanisms.

  1. Shifting America’s posture at the United Nations.

The United States should stop vetoing Security Council resolutions related to the conflict that seek to find ways to advance the release of hostages, the provision of humanitarian assistance and a pathway to diplomatic resolution of the conflict. Rather, the US should draft and lead resolutions that accord with our policy and values, possibly outlining terms for further pauses in the fighting, holding Israel and other actors accountable when their actions violate international law or contradict US interests and renewing the global commitment to a two-state solution, while articulating parameters to guide negotiations.

  1. Outlining a plan for post-war Gaza reconstruction and a pathway to a viable Palestinian state.

The Administration should provide a detailed public plan for the day after the present crisis that begins with reconstruction and redevelopment of the devastation in Gaza and leads to the creation of a viable, independent state of Palestine alongside a secure Israel. The plan should provide for a revitalized and reformed Palestinian Authority that unites the West Bank and Gaza and creates the conditions in which Israel can normalize relations with all regional neighbors and the broader Arab and Muslim world.

The President should make clear that any American investment or involvement in post-war reconstruction – for instance in a multinational Marshall Plan-style effort – will be accompanied by an American commitment to recognition of Palestinian statehood – despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s opposition. Already in recent days, the UAE has made clear that financial and other commitments from the Arab world to post-war development in Palestine will only come when there is an Israeli commitment to a two-state solution.

  1. Instituting strict oversight and scrutiny of arms and material purchased with US assistance to ensure they are used in compliance with domestic and international law.

Senator Chris Van Hollen’s proposed amendment to the President’s supplemental assistance request provides a commonsense and universal approach to oversight of weapons purchased with American assistance. The President should ask Congress to include such transparency measures in the supplemental package they are considering and should indicate that the Administration will use all the tools already at its disposal under existing law to ensure that the Israeli government – along with all other countries receiving US assistance – acts within the bounds of domestic and international law.

The death toll in this conflict is too great and the suffering unbearable – leading many passionate and committed individuals and organizations to call on Israel to unilaterally cease fire. J Street does not join in calling for a ceasefire because we do not see a viable path to a stable, peaceful future for either Israelis or Palestinians with Hamas in control of Gaza and still committed in its charter to Israel’s destruction and publicly pledging to repeat the October 7 attack if given the chance.

Having said this, we also see no viable path to sustainable, long-term resolution of this conflict if the Netanyahu government continues to add to the already unacceptable civilian toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to disregard American recommendations on the conduct of the war.

We urge the Biden administration to take immediate action to ensure that the Israeli government significantly shifts course before this conflict costs more lives and wreaks more pain and devastation. 

The way the current campaign is being pursued only jeopardizes Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas and secure the release of the hostages – while laying the groundwork for even deeper, long-term security challenges.