When we incorporate alumni into our leadership councils and caucuses and invite them into our local interreligious dialogues or communities of conscience, they speak out loudly against antisemitism and in favor of Israel’s right to defend itself.
The Arab country with the oldest and largest Jewish community – as well as the largest Jewish diaspora – has opted for political and economic ties with the Jewish state, itself home to some 1 million Jews of Moroccan descent.
The issues that pose the greatest challenge to strong American Jewish-Israeli ties are not the oft-cited left/right matters such as settlements or access to the Kotel.
President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have expressed their support for the Abraham Accords, their predecessors’ Middle East peace-building achievement, and have committed to continue the U.S. effort to expand the circle of Arab-Israeli peace. To do so, it will be important not only to advance normalization as a strategic objective, but to bolster interreligious bonds in the specific and deeply significant name of Abraham.
Israel can only pursue true peace with a Palestinian partner willing and able to make the painful compromises that will be necessary to bring about a lasting solution. Such a partner has proven elusive, as successive Palestinian leaders have dragged their feet, secure in the knowledge that the Arab world wouldn't dare make peace with Israel without them. Tuesday's White House ceremony should serve as a wake-up call to Palestinians who have long been led to believe that Arab leaders will sacrifice their own national interests on the altar of Palestinian rejectionism. That is clearly no longer the case.