It might seem that all Israelis who value their lives should welcome the policy of distinction – a distinction that is fundamentally artificial – that characterizes the sanctions the Biden administration has begun imposing on "extremist" individuals and entities in Israel.
Singling out and isolating for sanctions far-right activists – and now an entire IDF battalion – over violence against Palestinians, actually reflects America's deep, abiding trust in Israel's institutions as a whole.
On the face of it, the argument that, through these measures, the United States is declaring that it no longer believes in the ability of Israeli law enforcement to prosecute and punish the perpetrators, or in the ability of the political system to denounce and eliminate the violence, is correct.
But at the same time, at a deeper political level, this distinction is designed to differentiate between mainstream Israel and its fringes, between nonpartisanship and extremism, and between the system as a whole and its supposedly isolated flaws. Between the settlement expansion policy, which the United States has never been able to stop, and specific violent settlers.
The Biden administration has drawn up a long list of similar measures that it will continue introducing until Israel gets the message. In doing so, it hopes to make it clear, on the one hand, that its patience is running out, and on the other, that it has not given up hope that Israelis can be saved from themselves by distinguishing the administration's desired political norm and deviations from it.
The extent of this policy of distinction's success is based entirely on the American understanding that the majority of the Israeli mainstream still strives, despite everything, as the demonstrations against the government coup showed, to preserve both the genuine and the spurious character of a "Jewish and democratic" state.
And in fact, a large proportion of Israeli Jews still aspire to uphold this image. Some of them are even convinced that the U.S. distinction reflects the actuality of a properly run state that is threatened by a few extremists who can be dealt with.
These are the same Israelis who fail to understand today why "the whole world is against us," when our war is so justified. They classify the international criticism of what is happening in Gaza as support for Hamas or as antisemitism.
Occasionally, they admit that there have been some hitches. For example, they're against the starvation of innocent people. Some of them even surmise, in public or in private, that perhaps Israel is in fact killing too many women and children. Most of them strongly oppose the establishment of settlements in northern Gaza.
But what this type of Israeli majority shares is an unwillingness to accept the argument that everything that happens in Gaza is part of a deliberate Israeli policy.As reflected in the American sanctions policy, for them, as far as intentions, Israel is the "good guy" – and any contradictory conclusion is a localized glitch that can and should be addressed.
Therefore, the American policy of distinction, which should ostensibly be welcomed, also means intensifying this denial. If the United States believes that the problem is only on the fringes, it is easier for these Israelis to imagine that if only these extreme behaviors disappeared from our lives, Israel will "return" to being a magnificent liberal democracy.
That is, without violent right-wing activists the occupation can be accommodated, and without the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the IDF will go back to being the most moral army in the world.
It's good that America is mobilizing to save Israel from itself and its extremists. This is a reasonable and necessary measure in the current circumstances. But we must not turn a blind eye to the overall political framework that enables this extremism in the first place.