[Salon] ‘U.S. Conservatives Are Starting to Understand That Israelis Are Lying to Them’ - Israel News

Mar 10, 2023 11:00 pm IST

It happened at the end of February in a Jaffa hotel that overlooks the Mediterranean, but it was America. The organizers of the event – the Hertog Forum national security conference – which was held at the luxurious Setai Hotel, weren’t elected officials, but they head two organizations that are wielding substantial influence in the regime coup being pursued in Israel: the Kohelet Policy Forum and the Tikvah Fund. Yosef Burg, the late, longtime leader of the now-defunct National Religious Party, once dubbed the religious Zionist movement the “connecting hyphen” between Judaism and the Zionist movement. In the Jaffa hotel, the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Israeli think tank, and the Tikvah Fund, a neoconservative American organization, were the hyphen that connected big capital and government.

With no bells or whistles, below the radar, some of the most powerful people in the Republican Party and on Wall Street arrived in Israel to take part in the Hertog Forum. Among them: former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who’s getting ready to launch a presidential campaign; Senate Minority Leader and architect of the American right wing’s strategy for appointing judges, Mitch McConnell; and with him Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Alongside Israeli defense and political figures such as Meir Ben-Shabbat, Yoram Halevy, Natan Sharansky and Dore Gold, most of the group at the conference came from the business world. Virtually all are highly influential personages in the United States and Israel: the investor Shlomo Kalish; Raanan Agus, hedge-fund director at Goldman Sachs; and Amir Goldman, head of investments for a fund run by billionaires Jeffrey Yass and Arthur Dantchik, who were revealed as donors to Kohelet by Haaretz. Goldman, by the way, also served as director of the American Friends of Kohelet Policy Forum group of donors.

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Fewer than a hundred people were invited to the three-day conference of speeches, discussions and, primarily, networking. Although there were plenty of sessions in which the participants discussed current events, the main thrust behind the confab seemed to be creation and tightening of connections among the crème de la crème. The official subject of the gathering was security, but the governing coalition’s plan to weaken the Israeli judiciary was a popular subject of discussion in the cocktail receptions and generous meals between the sessions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conversed with Prof. Walter Russell Mead, from the conservative Hudson Institute, and author of “The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People” (2022); and in another session, Sen. McConnell spoke with the chairman of the Tikvah Fund, Elliot Abrams, a Republican who served in the Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump administrations.

“It’s a pleasure to be among so many good friends,” Sen. Cotton said in his address. Cotton gained fame in 2020 when he published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for troops to be dispatched to American cities in order to halt the George Floyd protests. The paper’s editorial page editor resigned amid the furor generated by the article’s publication. But in Jaffa, before “good friends,” the senator spoke about the shared destiny of conservatives in Israel and the United States. Both countries, he said, are under attack by “globalists” because they are “a living repudiation of the progressive fantasy of global government by selfless ‘expert’ bureaucrats, lawyers, diplomats, journalists, professors and NGOs.”

The Hertog Forum was indeed meant to be an assembly of like-minded people; about half of those who attended were also speakers. However, interviews with four of those who attended it, Israelis and Americans, reveal that the most powerful individuals of the economic and political right in both countries are not united in their support of the legislative blitz in Israel. Even though a majority of those present probably support some sort of judicial reform, the behavior of the coalition in Israel has provoked widespread unease among them. One participant told Haaretz that “the general feeling was of a meeting of friends, because we’re all on the same side, and we all think the same way. But that would not be accurate.”

Between whiskeyand cigars

The differences surfaced on the last day of the gathering, after lunch, when a few dozen invitees attended a discussion between MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) and the chairman of the Kohelet forum, Prof. Moshe Koppel, entitled, “The Judicial Reform in Israel and National Security,” and subtitled: “Will the constitutional reforms of the new government of Israel affect its status and the country’s foreign alliances?”

Following explanatory remarks by Rothman and Koppel, both of whom have a long history of ties with the Tikvah Fund – Koppel is also a member of the organization’s board – the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions. According to two individuals who were present, one person didn’t ask a question but told Rothman bluntly: “You are selling the people a bill of goods.” The sources added that “Rothman was stunned – and then the dam burst.”

At this stage David Friedman, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and founder of the Center for Peace Through Strength, which co-sponsored the conference, expressed objections to the plan to overhaul the judiciary; others also voiced criticism of the plan. For his part, Friedman commented later to Haaretz: “My reservation regarding the judicial reforms, as I shared with MK Rothman (in a closed session) was with regard to the override clause. I do not support that provision. With regard to the economy, I never expressed a view on the effect of the judicial reforms on the economy. Rather, I inquired generally on the effects of what appears to be a slowdown in the technology sector. I did not connect that to the reforms.”

According to participants who spoke to Haaretz, even Eric Cohen, executive director of the Tikvah Fund, posed some probing questions in connection with the demonstrations in Israel. The sources said that when Rothman was asked what he thought about the unprecedented countrywide protests, he didn’t reply. Cohen repeated the question, and again Rothman said nothing.

“It was an internal dialogue of the conservative group,” one attendee told Haaretz. “But these are classic conservatives from the United States, for whom individual freedoms are the most important thing. And then you explain to them that in Israel there is no actual separation between the legislative branch and the executive branch – and now there are those who want to strike at the judicial branch. The American conservatives are starting to understand what’s happening here. They grasp that the Israelis are lying to them.”

According to this source, the most tangible disparity between the Israeli and American right-wing camps at the event was not related to Rothman’s judicial initiatives, but rather to the “chametz law,” banning bread from hospitals during the Passover holiday, which this week passed its first vote (out of three) in the Knesset.

‘When American conservatives hear that security guards will poke around people’s handbags to look for bread crumbs, they’re aghast,’ one source said. ‘No conservative or libertarian can understand that. It’s a total invasion of privacy.’

“When American conservatives hear that security guards will be able to poke around in people’s handbags to look for bread crumbs – they are aghast,” the source said. “No conservative and no libertarian can understand that. It’s a total invasion of privacy that irks every American, and especially conservatives.” He added, pointedly, “And then they suggest that the Supreme Court be prevented from protecting this freedom.”

Indeed, the conservative movement in the United States today sees the work of that country’s top court to be of the highest value, not least because its representatives constitute a majority of six of the nine justices today.

At a gathering including some of Israel’s biggest investors, it was clear that the country’s economy would also be a pressing issue. The protests in the streets may not bother local right-wing politicians at the conference, or elsewhere, but the American right-wingers – and particularly managers of capital from the United States – expressed concrete concern about their investments.

This issue was the focus of a discussion moderated by Eli Groner, a former director general of the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu. The session was titled “The Economic Sources of Israel’s Strength,” and subtitled, “How changes in the global economy both challenge Israel and offer grand opportunities.” The panelists were Canadian-born Dov Zigler, a top executive at Element Capital, New York; and Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s treasury secretary and the founder and managing partner of Liberty Strategic Capital, whose Israeli branch is being overseen by former envoy Friedman.

The investors wanted to hear more about the government’s judicial coup, which is generating much uncertainty. Groner, like many participants, expressed support for the “spirit of the reform” but not in its current format. He was, however, critical of the Supreme Court, the right of standing it grants and the view that “everything is justiciable,” and spoke about his experience in the Prime Minister’s Office. His remarks seemed to be particularly significant because he is currently managing director (in Israel) of Koch Disruptive Technologies, part of the empire of the conservative American multi-billionaire Charles Koch.

Participants at the Israel Conservativism Conference in 2022.

There is likely to be an economic setback in Israel in the short term, Groner explained, because of the shock resulting from the coalition’s drastic moves: “It is impossible to deny what is happening here. What it means is that the reform is going to be more painful than it should have been.”

One participant related that the subject continued to be discussed afterward. “Between the whiskey and the cigars, you could hear David Friedman and Eli Groner expressing deep concern about both the ‘override clause’ and the state of the markets.”

According to someone else who was present, “What occupied the businesspeople more than anything is the blow to strategic cooperation between Israel and the United States. If Israel continues along this path, it will resemble Saudi Arabia and Turkey, in other words, allies of the United States that no longer share common values with it. The treatment it will receive will be commensurate. That’s where this ‘reform’ is heading.”

Many conservative American businesspeople and academics, especially those with ties to colleagues in Israel, apparently prefer to remain silent about the plan to weaken the judicial system. They apparently are, however, voicing their concerns among friends and in private discussions, such as those at the Hertog Forum. But even before this article was written, some of these disagreements became public. The most prominent critic in the conservative community of Israel’s so-called reform is the attorney Alan Dershowitz, who objected to it publicly and told the Haaretz podcast that the plan will adversely affect Israel’s standing in the United States and around the world.

Peter Berkowitz, an esteemed legal scholar from the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, who was at the Jaffa event but declined to be interviewed, actually dared last month to publish a critique of the new judicial initiatives, which he termed a “constitutional counterrevolution” to former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak’s “revolution.” Berkowitz denies that the moves are conservative in nature, as Rothman portrays them: “Conservatives make a compelling case that balance must be restored to the separation of powers in Israel,” he noted, urging the Netanyahu government to slow down the process and act with “deliberation in the pursuit of necessary constitutional reform.”

But Dershowitz and Berkowitz, two leading experts in the American right on constitutional law, are ostensibly only the tip of the iceberg. Other American conservatives who spoke with Haaretz have expressed great fears for Israel if the legislation being spearheaded by Rothman and Justice Minister Yariv Levin continues to hurtle forward, unchecked.

Sea or synagogue

One person at the Jaffa event who did lend support to the regime coup in Jerusalem was Elliott Abrams, who presided over the Hertog Forum confab. Of all those on hand, he has the most experience with such upheavals: As an assistant secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, Abrams was involved in arming and funding rebels in Nicaragua. He lied about this twice to Congress, was convicted of perjury and was granted a pardon by President George H. W. Bush. As the National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and North African Affairs in the George W. Bush administration, Abrams was one of the dominant voices urging the president to invade Iraq and to work to bring about regime change in Baghdad. According to several reports, in 2002 he deviated from his Middle East mandate and tried to promote a coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Indeed, the Observer newspaper reported that he “gave a nod to” the attempt to topple President Chavez.

'Between the whiskey and the cigars, you could hear David Friedman and Eli Groner expressing deep concern about both the ‘override clause’ and the state of the markets,' one source said.

After a short stint in the Trump administration, Abrams was appointed chairman of the Tikvah Fund. In a recent article in the conservative journal Commentary, he termed critics of the judicial reform in Israel “hysterical” and claimed they were speaking from ignorance. While he lambasted Americans who dared to intervene in Israel’s affairs without living there or having to grapple with the country’s delicate security situation, Abrams himself seems to have no problem doing the very same thing.

Among the many projects the Tikvah Fund is involved with in Israel are seminars, a podcast, lectures, journals such as Hashiloach in Hebrew, and Mosaic in English, and two publishing houses. The organization’s flagship project is the Israel Law and Liberty Forum, established in 2019 and inspired by and managed in cooperation with the U.S.-based, right-wing Federalist Society, of which Abrams is a member. For his part, MK Rothman told Haaretz last month that he was involved in founding the local forum, which aims to bring together and encourage like-minded law students.

Although the Law and Liberty Forum itself refuses to talk to Haaretz about its goals, participants in the Jaffa conference received a glossy pamphlet describing its achievements. Below a photo of former Justice Minister Prof. Daniel Friedmann, who lectures on behalf of the forum, the text states that the organization has founded branches in the law schools of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University and Reichman University, and has “120 active students.” The chairwoman of the Law and Liberty Forum, Aylana Meisel, also attended the Hertog Forum.

Information about the Tikvah Fund (which was distributed at the conference) state that the Law and Liberty Forum “is creating a community of students, lawyers, policy makers and judges who believe in the basic principles of a free society. We wanted to create a network – even a movement – of people interested in these ideas, and a pipeline of talent into key positions in Israeli government and for key appointments to the Israeli courts.”

In his Commentary article, Abrams observed that American conservatives need to understand, as he does, what truly stands at the heart of the current conflict in Israel. “This is the struggle, if you will, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, between those who go to the beach on Shabbat and those who go to synagogue,” he wrote with total self-confidence.