I hope diaspora Jews have learned a thing or two.
Since October 7th, liberal instincts and comforting myths have clouded judgment about Israel and the Jewish People.
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A poll released one week ago by the “progressive” organization J Street reveals a stark reality: 60 percent of American Jews oppose U.S. military action against Iran, and 70 percent reject unconditional financial and military support for Israel.
If you actually read the details of the report, which I did, the findings are not surprising at all. The respondents were overwhelmingly liberal, primarily Reform Jews, and mostly voted for the Democratic (liberal) presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
Jim Gerstein, a Principal at GBAO Strategies, which conducted the poll, summed it up bluntly: “Jewish voters hold overwhelmingly negative views of both Trump and Netanyahu — Jewish opposition to the war and those leading it is unmistakable.”
I suspect J Street wouldn’t commission a poll unless it could produce results that appear objective, yet were engineered from the outset to reflect and reinforce its own ideological agenda. This gives me hope that such an organization does not speak for the majority of American Jews and, by extension, the majority of Western Jews.
Hopefully, J Street is just a loud microphone with a catchy tagline: “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy.” Shortly after the U.S.–Israel–Iran war started on February 28th, the organization announced it was “appalled by President Trump’s reckless decision to launch a war of choice against Iran” — even though the Iranian regime has long been anti-Israel, anti-peace, and anti-democracy. Perhaps J Street’s real motto should be: “proudly hypocritical.”
But we can’t be 100-percent sure that diaspora Jews have learned the lessons from and since October 7th. And there are many, of course, so I will focus on three critical ones here.
The first lesson is the unquestioning loyalty to liberal parties. For decades, a large segment of Western Jewry has tied its political identity to Left-wing parties, believing them to be the natural home for values of tolerance, pluralism, and justice. But this allegiance is increasingly costly. Liberal policies and politicians have failed to safeguard Jewish interests abroad and, in some cases, have accelerated the very threats diaspora Jews fear.
Empathy for liberal ideals, rather than pragmatic evaluation of outcomes, has become a form of collective self-sabotage. Supporting politicians who openly oppose Israel’s security or compromise Jewish safety in the pursuit of ideological purity is not an act of moral courage; it is a passive invitation to marginalization. The lesson here is clear: Values and identity should guide action, but blind loyalty to party over community is a luxury history shows we cannot afford, and certainly not after October 7th.
That said, nuance should be hyper-critical for diaspora Jews in their sociopolitical views. One can support Israel’s right to defend itself, including preemptively and with force, while championing diplomacy in other arenas where all actors are genuinely diplomatic. One can support more Left-leaning candidates domestically, while recognizing that Israel’s security and political reality have shifted rightward since the first and second intifadas, and after the disengagement from Gaza. One can oppose certain Right-wing policies in Australia or America or Europe, and also appreciate parts of the conservative coalition in Netanyahu’s government.
Embracing such complexity does not dilute principle; it ensures that Jewish voters act with both moral clarity and strategic awareness.
The second lesson concerns the nature of U.S. aid to Israel. Many assume that Washington pours unconditional financial and military support into the Jewish state, empowering it to act independently. This is a comforting narrative for both critics and supporters of Israel, because it casts Israel as a geopolitical superhero, backed by an unshakeable U.S. patron.
The reality, however, is far less flattering. Most military aid (roughly $3.8 billion annually) does not enrich Israel, but instead flows directly to U.S. defense contractors. Far from bolstering autonomy, this aid creates dependency, weakens Israel’s domestic defense industry, and grants Washington significant leverage over Israeli strategy. Israel’s intelligence, technological innovation, and military prowess are often deployed as extensions of American power, not solely for Israel’s own interests.
For diaspora Jews, clinging to the myth of “unconditional U.S. support” is more than naïve; it obscures the real levers of power and diminishes the capacity to advocate effectively for Israel’s sovereign needs.
As the price of dependency, the deal signed in 2016 by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has forced Israel to curtail its own defense industries. Under the previous Memorandum of Understanding, a special Offshore Procurement provision allowed Israel to spend roughly 26 percent of U.S. aid on domestic products.
The new agreement, which took effect in 2018, requires all funds to flow back into the U.S. In 2018, Israel’s Defense Ministry estimated this shift would cost $1.3 billion annually and eliminate 22,000 jobs. A 2020 report from the Israeli think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies, projected that anywhere from several thousand to 20,000 of the country’s 80,000 defense industry jobs would be lost. Some Israeli defense firms have already merged with U.S. companies or opened U.S. subsidiaries, shifting talent and know-how out of the Jewish state.
By accepting this aid package, Israel has grown dangerously reliant on U.S. military technology. A retired Israeli general told the website Defense News in 2016 that the IDF had become “so addicted to advanced U.S. platforms and the weaponry they deliver that we’ve stopped thinking creatively in terms of operational concepts.” Israel’s “special arrangement” grants preferential access to F-35s, but the fleet is plagued with technical problems and mismatched with Israel’s strategic needs. In short, Israel cannot simply shop on the open market for alternatives.
A more realistic, transactional relationship would allow Israel to leverage its capabilities while retaining strategic independence, and it would help diaspora Jews align their advocacy with tangible outcomes rather than symbolic posturing.
The third lesson concerns liberal foreign policy failures. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, led by Barack Obama and his administration, represented the liberal approach in full: cautious, principled, and framed as the path to lasting peace. Its logic was clear and compelling: Constrain Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy rather than war, offer sanctions relief to incentivize compliance, and integrate Iran into a framework of international norms.
Yet even at the time, the deal rested on fragile assumptions. Its restrictions were temporary, its focus narrowly nuclear, and it offered legitimacy and resources to a regime whose regional ambitions remained unchecked. By attempting to engineer moderation through agreement rather than deterrence, liberal powers delayed conflict rather than resolved it. Today, critics of President Donald Trump or Netanyahu must reckon with this inconvenient truth: The liberal approach laid much of the groundwork for the wars that have since unfolded.
Diaspora Jews have long been shaped by empathy, principle, and moral imagination. Israelis also value these mentalities, but they also understand that principle without pragmatism and empathy without historical literacy can easily become self-defeating. Recognizing the realities of power, influence, and strategic interest does not diminish Jewish values; it ensures their survival.
The hope, then, is that October 7th has provoked reflection. Diaspora Jews from London and Melbourne to Los Angeles and Buenos Aires should accept that morals and ethics alone will not protect Israel or themselves; that understanding the mechanics of Israeli relations with their countries is as crucial as any sermon or social justice campaign; and that evaluating foreign policy outcomes demands honesty, even when it challenges comforting narratives.
For diaspora Jews, the stakes are not abstract. They are historical, personal, and enduring. And if these lessons take hold, the Jewish People will be better prepared — not just to debate policy or vote in elections — but to secure our place in a world that has never guaranteed us safety or security.
There are a few people who have awakened but unfortunately there is still far too many whom you will just be hoping in vain for...
My question is why American Jews and even many Israelis assume the Diaspora consists of American Jews, and those outside of the US are carbon copies of American Jews in every way possible. The American Jews are incredibly different from the rest of the Diaspora, and it is disgusting to assume that Jews like me outside of the US are carbon copies of a very highly assimilated American Jewish population, with Reform , a social action movement with a tinge of Judaism as the major Jewish sect of non-Haredi in the US. Reform is negligible in the rest of the Diaspora and it has had hugely negative effects on American Jewry, with its decades long demonization of Israel and religious Jews, thus brainwashing their children and youth for decades, and their standing up for every minority including those who want to kill Jews, but refusing to standing up for Jews unless they worship Marx and their religion is Jew hating Progressivism. Due to total assimilation, and intermarriage, how many younger Jews are there left in the US other than the religious Jews, that actually identify fully as Jewish and not those who use the label Jew only to attack the Jewish community in the US?