Benjamin Netanyahu has turned a corner in his relations with American Jews. No, not to even pretend to rebuild ties with the liberal majority, but to spit in their faces.
Israel's prime minister is pushing the appointment of eye-poppingly far-right pundit and advisor Caroline Glick to the post of consul general in New York, home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, according to a
report by Liza Rozovsky in Haaretz.
If you're not already familiar with Glick, count yourself lucky. Her views on Israel and the Palestinians could be charitably termed "hardline": The Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel, Palestinians are an invented people, and Israel should declare sovereignty over the whole West Bank. She laid out her "one-state plan for peace in the Middle East" in an eponymous 2016 book in English. The book's Hebrew title dispensed with the niceties and was entitled "Annexation Now."
Just this year, she took on the task of Transfer Czar, attempting to
advance the "migration" of Palestinians from Gaza (she failed to persuade Somaliland and the Democratic Republic of Congo to take in Gazans.)
Born and raised an American Jew, Glick is repulsed by most American Jews. Her views on non-Orthodox Judaism (to which more than half of U.S. Jews are affiliated) are drenched in bitterness, assailing them for their progressivism and their failure to march in lockstep with Netanyahu's Israel. She
accuses Reform Jews of hatred towards the Torah and backing the belief that the Land of Israel "belongs to Palestinian Nazis who want us all dead." She argues that Israel should cut off funding from non-Orthodox denominations because of the "anti-Zionist" views of some of their congregants.
Needless to say, she adores Donald Trump and reviles Barack Obama and Joe Biden (over 70 percent of U.S. Jews voted for the latter.)
But it is her almost-hallucinogenic defenses of Netanyahu that proved her loyalty and bought her the ticket to tell U.S. Jews what she really thinks of them in their own home. Much of what she writes is based on an impressively comprehensive deep state conspiracy theory: That the prime minister is the victim of a multipronged plot, which she sometimes calls a "rebellion," aimed at undemocratically deposing him.
Everyone from the IDF to civil society to almost all media outlets are participants in this self-styled "coup attempt," according to Glick. And everything – from Netanyahu's criminal trial to protests against his judicial coup, "defeatist" and "demonizing" media coverage to the calls for a state committee of inquiry into October 7 – are tools in their arsenal. In
her mind, Netanyahu is both the ultimate victim but also the warrior king who will "bury the entire deep state" while "leading us to the absolute victory he pledged."
How untethered from reality is she? Take these two examples. Glick claims Netanyahu is hugely
popular in Israel, but the nasty biased polling companies are hiding it. And despite Netanyahu having been in power for most of the last two decades, she insists that he can't actually rule,
writing that "Israel's ruling class is becoming desperate to oust Netanyahu from power. They fear…they will lose their grip on unchecked power."
How exactly would Glick, a former writer for Breitbart, expand her Bibi–shilling annexationist crusade to New York, if she ends up in the consul general position? Challenge Mayor Mamdani's office to establish an annual Salute to Samaria's Settlers parade? Call for a ban on anyone talking about the Bund? Picket the Park Slope Food Co-op? Create a Make Expulsion Great Again caucus?
Glick's appointment would be unusually abject if it was in any way unprecedented for Netanyahu. But this is the prime minister who appointed a racist convicted criminal to be national security minister, a man committed to subverting the independence of the judiciary as justice minister, a diaspora minister who sucks up to Europe's antisemitic far right and an ambassador to the U.S. who calls J Street supporters a "cancer."
Years ago, Netanyahu decided to subvert U.S. political bipartisanship on Israel, tried to humiliate Democratic presidents while accepting humiliation from Trump, and constantly declared that evangelicals were better allies than U.S. Jews (except for the ultra-wealthy U.S. Jewish right-wingers who subsidize him).
But even for Netanyahu, appointing Glick – at a time when the Gaza and Iran wars are still reverberating, when the U.S. liberal majority is more alienated from Israel than ever and Israel's international status and leverage so diminished – is still a shocking act of sadistic pyromania.
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