Published: 8 November 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Among the gutting outcomes of Netanyahu’s coalition with the far Right will be a widening gulf between the Diaspora and Israel.
For some time, the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jews has resembled that between a loved but abrasive husband and his more socially adept wife.
Israel does what he likes while Mrs Israel scurries behind, patching up his gaffes and excusing his most egregious behaviour with reference to his childhood traumas or exceptional irrelevant talents. He doesn’t listen to her advice, scoffs when she points out the damage he is doing to their friendships, and becomes increasingly uncompromising and offensive.
It can’t go on indefinitely. At some point Diaspora will notice she is getting little out of the relationship and decide she would be better off alone. Sure, she loves him, and they have great shared memories. But she is starting to wonder if he is still the man he was when they lay together as young marrieds planning their future. Sometimes he seems to have forgotten some of their deepest shared values.
It's a while since she has been alone, and she is not sure she knows how to survive without him anymore. But she did it for a long time before he was on the scene. She is nothing if not adaptable. Maybe he is just not worth it anymore.
Some form of this scenario went through the minds of many Diaspora Jews in the past week, as we watched Israel vote in a government that many of us find intolerable. Our hearts sank as we scrolled through newsfeeds that delivered our worst-case scenario. Israelis have not only returned a prime minister already on trial for corruption but have voted in a coalition that includes ultranationalist religious parties led by hate-mongering demagogues.
Diaspora leaders who have long criticised others for 'washing the community’s dirty laundry in public' discovered there was a point at which they could no longer pretend Israel worst excretions smelt of roses.
Israel has always had its extremists and compromise with religious parties has been the stuff of many Israeli governments. But this time is different. Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Religious Zionism bloc, which increased its representation from eight to 14 Knesset seats, expresses ideologies that are beyond the pale for most Jews – fascist, racist, homophobic hate.
