Can Israel afford to say “no” to the president who has been its best friend since the founding of the modern Jewish state?
According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, that’s a question that may have to be answered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if U.S. President Donald Trump’s optimism about his negotiations with the Iranian regime is vindicated by events.
Joining him on this week’s episode of “Think Twice” is Michael Oren, a longtime historian and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States. He believes that the alliance between the two nations is not “in trouble yet,” but “may be heading to trouble.”
Oren says the two things that the two pillars of the relationship are “no daylight” and “no surprises.” It’s not quite clear yet if the appearance of daylight on Iran policy and the negotiations with Hamas will turn into reality. But he says that there have been a lot of surprises for Jerusalem from the Trump administration.
A nuclear deal with Iran of any kind would most likely be bad for the United States, but it would be disastrous for Israel. While Jerusalem has the sovereign right to reject any American policy, doing so now, when it is so isolated and essentially with “no friends” abroad, creates a perilous dilemma for Netanyahu.
The former ambassador believes these developments, as well as events during the Biden administration, make it all the more essential for Israel to become less dependent on the United States. Oren is a longtime opponent of continued U.S. aid to Israel, which, he asserts, sends “the wrong message to our neighbors.”
Oren grew up and taught in the United States. He said that the surge of antisemitism post-Oct. 7, 2023, is both shocking and a sign that the old paradigm of combating this scourge by the Jewish establishment is finished. The Jews have been returned to their situation in the past, in which antisemitism was open and mainstream. The battle on college campuses, he pointed out, is “fundamentally about America” and not antisemitism. The universities are, he said, “creating a culture that is inimical to the American idea.”
In response, Oren believes, Jews must “fight them in the Churchillian sense. You can fight them in the classroom. can fight them in the courtroom. You can fight them in the media. You can fight them.”
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