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Can Israeli Liberals win back the Democratic center — and save the U.S.-Israel alliance?
About a dozen Israelis gathered in my living room this week for a conversation that would have seemed unnecessary a decade ago. Some identified with the political left, others with the right. But everyone agreed that the bipartisan foundation of the U.S.-Israel alliance is being destroyed, that this is a disaster for Israel, and that restoring confidence among Democrats has become a critical priority, as important as preventing a nuclear Iran.
Leading the discussion was Rotem Oreg-Kalisky, the 32-year-old founder of LIBRAEL, an Israeli nonprofit built around that very challenge. The organization argues that support for Israel and liberal values are fundamentally compatible, and that rebuilding the relationship requires something more ambitious than better public relations. It sees its mission as educating members of Congress on the liberal Zionist perspective, training pro-Israel advocates to communicate more effectively in progressive spaces, and helping Israeli institutions — from the Foreign Ministry and the IDF to technology companies and NGOs — engage international audiences in language that resonates with liberal Americans.
The animating idea is that two things are true yet underappreciated: one, that most Israelis actually do believe in liberal values; and two, that most Americans actually are Zionists by the classic definition that means simply that the Jewish people have the right to a democratic nation-state in their ancestral homeland.
“There’s a growing big lie in America that says that if you are a liberal — if you believe in peace, justice, and human rights — you can’t be a Zionist, in the basic sense of believing Israel has the right to exist as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people,” he told me. That belief, he argues, has become increasingly accepted among younger progressives, even though he believes liberal Zionism remains entirely compatible with progressive values.
This — while in my view completely true — obviously runs counter to the prevailing winds in the United States
In particular, there is a major challenge with the “genocide” claim — which, like me, he rejects — that has become widely accepted even outside the far-left. He argues that it can be engaged, at least with liberals, and even with some progressives, provided Israel is willing to acknowledge its own failures and present a different political vision.
“At least some of them are persuadable,” he says of progressive Democrats. His strategy is to sidestep the legal label of genocide and argue that Israel regains credibility by acknowledging wrongdoing where it exists, refusing to defend indefensible actions, and changing policy. “I don’t think the IDF is a force for evil. But it makes mistakes and it sometimes makes stupid decisions.”
Either way, LIBRAEL has already begun turning that strategy into measurable activity.
Oreg-Kalisky, a former research advisor to U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, says his group has developed relationships with 39 congressional offices from 19 states, sends a biweekly newsletter to 75 lawmakers and congressional staff with a 37% average open rate, has presented its liberal Zionist narrative to hundreds of liberal Americans, and has trained more than 1,800 pro-Israel advocates.
With a staff of 15, all volunteers, its ambitions are considerably larger still, including regular congressional engagement, expanded advocacy missions to Washington, and a dramatic increase in outreach — especially on social media — over the coming four years.
Oreg-Kalisky spends much of the money he succeeds in raising simply getting himself to Washington and New York, knocking on doors that are often closed even to official Israeli channels. Over the past three years he has repeatedly flown to the United States, meeting with Democratic lawmakers, congressional staff, policy advisers, and political operatives, but also with grassroots: college students, Jewish communities, non-Jewish liberal organizations and even a queer synagogue.
The value of those trips, he argues, often lies not in headline meetings but in quieter conversations. He described reaching Democratic offices that Israeli diplomats sometimes struggle to access. In one example, he said he was able to meet with the military adviser to Sen. Raphael Warnock — a conversation that officials from the Israeli embassy had found difficult to secure. His pitch was not that Israel deserved automatic support, but that liberal Israelis still existed, still shared many of the same values as American liberals, and still wanted to preserve the bipartisan alliance that had anchored Israeli security for decades.
The timing could hardly be worse. Recent polling found that roughly 60% of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, with much of the deterioration concentrated among Democrats and younger voters. Even Republicans have become increasingly less supportive of Israel, while many Democrats have grown steadily more critical of Israeli governments and their policies. The result has been the erosion of one of Israel’s greatest strategic assets: broad bipartisan support in the United States.
Oreg-Kalisky does not believe this can be solved simply by improving messaging. He also claims Americans and Israelis increasingly process the same events through different moral vocabularies. Israelis naturally describe Oct. 7 as terrorism, while many younger Americans, he argues, do not have an emotional response to the word “terror” because they were not alive on 9/11 — but they will respond if the Nova massacre is described as the largest mass shooting in history. Israelis instinctively speak about terrorism when Jews are targeted; Americans, especially liberals, often first think in terms of hate crimes. The underlying facts remain identical, but the political language has diverged.
Nor does he believe the answer is asking Americans to lower their standards for Israel. Asked about today’s Israeli government, Oreg offered blunt criticism, especially of the tolerance of Jewish terrorism in the West Bank “at least by some segments of the government. Nationalistic violence is something I’m not proud of, to put it mildly, and something that needs to change. You won’t hear me defending an indefensible policy.”
That willingness to criticize Israel from within is central to LIBRAEL’s approach. Oreg-Kalisky, an IDF veteran with over 200 days of reserve duty since Oct. 7, argues that rebuilding Democratic confidence requires not simply changing how Israel explains itself but, in some cases, changing Israeli policy itself. Replacing Benjamin Netanyahu alone, he believes, would not be enough. Future governments would also need to phase out the military aid, demonstrate changes in the West Bank, preserve democratic institutions, confront extremist violence, and persuade allies that Israel still seeks a political horizon beyond permanent conflict.
At the same time, he rejects what he sees as another dangerous illusion taking hold in parts of Israel: that the United States can somehow be replaced. “If someone tells you Israel can replace the U.S. with India, the UAE, Azerbaijan, or anyone else — that’s bullshit. There are no alternatives to America. Israel needs to retain the support of the United States. I’m doing this because I want to save the alliance.”
That is the central wager behind Oreg-Kalisky’s work. Rather than writing off Democrats as lost, or asking them to “Support Israel and shut up” — as he says many government backers expect, — he believes Israeli liberals must re-enter the conversation themselves, speaking honestly about Israel’s flaws while defending its legitimacy as a democratic and Jewish state with serious security needs.
Whether that proves possible remains uncertain. Oreg is betting that enough common ground still exists to recover. But there are no illusions about the political side. What if Netanyahu wins the upcoming October election?
“Then we will certainly need to reassess.”
The post Can Israeli Liberals win back the Democratic center — and save the U.S.-Israel alliance? appeared first on The Forward.
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Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028
(JTA) — Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American writer who has worked with anti-Zionists, is the first Democrat to challenge Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman in the 2028 primary.
Fetterman, who has faced sharp criticism from within the Democratic Party for his staunch support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, has yet to announce whether he plans to run in 2028. A defeat or retirement would remove one of the Democratic caucus’s most pro-Israel voices.
Moor, 42, enters the playing field with radically different positions on Israel, and on foreign policy in general, from those Fetterman has promoted. Claiming that the United States “funds wars based on corruption and lies and has turned its back on its own people,” Moor pledged on his campaign website to ensure “this never happens again.”
Moor, born in Gaza, moved as a child to Philadelphia, where he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard. He switched from finance to journalism, reporting in Beirut and Egypt for The Guardian and other outlets, and co-editing the book “After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine.” He also spent many years in Jordan, where he launched a peer-to-peer lending organization, before moving back to Philadelphia in 2021.
“A few years ago my birthplace was turned to rubble in a genocide funded by our tax dollars,” Moor stated, saying that this has occurred “with the support of politicians on both sides of the aisle who can’t find money for transit or removing asbestos from our schools.”
Moor, who has served on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, has never held public office. He says he is determined to address corruption, affordability, foreign policy and constitutional authority, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported his candidacy.
Moor told the Inquirer that he was “not really running against Fetterman” but instead “running for the rule of law.” He acknowledged that he would face an “uphill battle” against Fetterman, who took office in January 2023.
Fetterman has irked some fellow Democrats by siding with Republicans on numerous issues, especially on Israel. He has also drawn praise from the pro-Israel community and Israel’s leadership. With Democrats securing a Senate majority of at least 54 seats, including two independents who caucus with the party, Democratic leadership will be less dependent on Fetterman’s vote when the new Congress convenes in January.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028 appeared first on The Forward.
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Northwestern launches civil rights investigation into club that banned pro-Israel group from its food festival
Northwestern University’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating a club that said it canceled its annual “Cultural Food Fest” after students objected to its initial inclusion of a pro-Israel student group.
Spoon University Northwestern, a student-run food magazine, wrote in an email to students that it was calling off its Nov. 6 food festival because of concerns about the participation of Wildcats for Israel, a club housed within Hillel that describes itself as focused on Israeli culture and society.
“There’s been a lot of disappointment expressed in and around Hillel today,” Michael Simon, executive director of Northwestern Hillel, told the Forward on Friday. “What should be an opportunity for connecting across differences and having really positive engagement got turned into a sort of political catfight.”
Students involved with Wildcats for Israel were initially “really excited” to participate in the fest, Simon said.
But amid student backlash, Spoon reversed course and disinvited Wildcats for Israel, Simon said. In a statement posted to Instagram, Spoon cited “the ongoing genocide in Gaza” to explain the group’s removal.
Yet even that exclusion was not enough for some student organizations. Northwestern’s Asian Pacific American Coalition; Alianza, the Latinx student alliance; and the Middle Eastern North African Student Association, issued a joint statement saying that they were withdrawing from the fest because of the original inclusion of Wildcats for Israel.
“A ‘culture’ born from the active land theft and genocide of Palestinians should not be recognized,” the student groups wrote on Instagram.
Spoon then cancelled the event altogether.
Now, Spoon’s status as an officially registered student organization has been frozen while the investigation into allegations of discrimination is being conducted, a Northwestern spokesperson wrote in an email to the Forward.
The investigation comes as Northwestern faces additional obligations to address and report allegations of antisemitism as part of its $75 million settlement with the Trump administration in November 2025. As part of the agreement, the university pledged that its Office of Civil Rights would publish annual reports with data about complaints of antisemitism, including investigative and disciplinary actions taken.
Spoon did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
In its email to students, Spoon said Wildcats for Israel was removed because of its status as “a political action group, not a cultural organization.”
Simon pushed back on that characterization of the club. “They’re not engaged in political advocacy or political work, certainly not in their current iteration,” Simon said. “They’re really focused on doing cultural and educational programming, connecting with Israel and with the Israeli people.”
The idea that Wildcats for Israel is considered political, while other student organizations opposing Israel are not, “appears to be a real double standard,” Simon said.
Still, Simon said the cancellation did not prevent Wildcats for Israel from having its own cultural food event — inviting students to the Hillel building on Friday to talk about what had happened over slushies in two flavors popular in Israel, limonana and iced cafe.
“They’re really turning to a place of being in community and supporting one another,” Simon said.
The post Northwestern launches civil rights investigation into club that banned pro-Israel group from its food festival appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s love affair with Trump may be over – with no other suitor in sight
Israelis were among the few groups outside America who genuinely liked Donald Trump, and they had persuaded themselves that the feeling was mutual. Now, as the American president pledges to terminate military assistance and blames Israel’s unpopularity for the Republicans’ electoral humiliation, they are confronting the possibility that their greatest supposed friend may become one of their gravest strategic liabilities.
In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries, 69% of Israelis expressed confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. Israelis saw a champion where much of the democratic world saw a menace.
Israelis, who tend to be more direct and plainspoken than other Western societies, were less inclined to be scandalized by Trump’s personal shortcomings. But mainly it was policy that made him so popular: Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and cultivated a conspicuously warm relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his increasing toxicity around the world. Trump opposed Hamas and ultimately joined Israel in attacking the Iranian regime.
Still, warning signs were there – in the displays of U.S. dominance over decisions in the 2025 and 2026 Iran confrontations and in the Election Day announcement last week that Trump plans to terminate roughly $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel this year.
The announcement threatened a cornerstone of Israeli security planning established under Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated a 10-year, $38 billion assistance agreement extending through 2028.
The precise legal and financial consequences remain uncertain, not least because Congress controls appropriations. But the political significance is unmistakable: The president whom Israelis regarded as their most dependable protector was proposing to dismantle an arrangement that even administrations regarded as unfriendly to Netanyahu had sustained.
Moreover, the aid is far more than a gift. Its greatest value is not financial but geopolitical: the unmistakable message to Israel’s enemies that Washington stands behind it.
As the dismal election results became clear, Vice President JD Vance highlighted a supposed demand among disaffected Republican voters to “change our relationship to Israel,” placing the alliance itself among the issues requiring political reassessment.
In Sunday’s 60 Minutes interview, Trump went further, identifying what he called a “great dislike” for Israel as one factor in the Republican electoral defeat.
Trump certainly has a point. A 2026 Pew survey found that 60% of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, up from 42% in 2022, including 57% of Republicans under 50. Gallup found that, for the first time in its 25-year tracking, Americans were no longer more sympathetic to Israelis than Palestinians: 36% favored Israelis, compared with 41% for Palestinians. The longstanding bipartisan consensus is unraveling. Among younger Americans, the situation is even worse.
Whether the reason is a global propaganda campaign against Zionism, social media manipulation, Netanyahu and his noxious far-right allies, or Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank are almost beside the point – the collapse in Western and U.S. opinion is undeniable.
Trump also asserted that “those countries that we’ve protected” from Iran – meaning Israel – “wouldn’t exist” without the U.S. and “are going to pay us back any and all costs that we’ve had for the war,” which was another major surprise and mystery that caught Israelis off-guard.
Whether this implies a demand that Israel reimburse the United States, and for precisely what, remains unclear. What is clear is that Trump has begun discussing a relationship Israelis considered existential in the language of electoral liabilities and financial transactions.
Writing in Maariv on Monday, veteran Washington correspondent Shlomo Shamir reported that senior Washington commentators described Netanyahu as having become effectively persona non grata in Trump’s inner circle – and that Trump’s seeming affinity for Netanyahu was “more a media relationship than a genuine friendship.”
The change in atmosphere in Israel has been extraordinary.
On Monday, Israeli television seemed preoccupied with little beyond the coalition negotiations following Israel’s election and the growing fear that the country might lose its most important international relationship.
Appearing on Channel 13, I argued that another Netanyahu government would have faced economic sanctions from Europe and even serious discussion of an American weapons embargo. This provoked very little disagreement.
“Netanyahu put all his chips on Trump, and it’s falling apart,” observed anchor Daniel Zilberstein. “It wasn’t only him, but the entire system,” replied Omri Rolls, an expert in monitoring and countering anti-Israel propaganda. “We put all our attention on the United States. Europe, we’ve completely given up on. All over the world, important elements are simply not on Israel’s agenda.”
The alarm was loud and clear this week across the Israeli political and diplomatic establishment.
Tovah Herzl, a former Israeli diplomat who served in Washington as liaison to Congress, captured the predicament in the title of her article in Maariv: “Netanyahu Bet on Trump — and Israel Could Lose Far More Than Money.”
“Israelis are unaware of the depth of the hole into which the country has fallen,” wrote Yedidia Stern, a leading expert on Israel-U.S. relations, in Ynet. “The hourglass has been turned over: we have two years to regain the legitimacy that has been lost” before a Democrat potentially wins the White House.
Ashley Perry, a former senior Israeli government adviser, wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel must urgently start arguing its case – “consistently demonstrating what Americans gain” in intelligence cooperation, joint defense development, investment, trade and Israeli contributions to scientific and technological progress.
Beyond all that, there is a general understanding that Israel will need some real policy changes – for example, cracking down on Jewish extremists in the West Bank. And it will need to court the U.S. Democrats and the Europeans once more – as it did decades ago.
There is a grim lesson at play, and it has more to do with morality than ethics.
Israelis are people badly traumatized by the conflicts that implacable enemies have forced on them. Over the decades, however, they took some pride nonetheless in what they believed was a moral high ground. It’s safe to say this has eroded, at least somewhat.
In a reflection of that erosion, one of Trump’s greatest attractions to Israelis – sadly enough – was his indifference to Palestinian human rights, an issue that had long complicated Israel’s relations with more conventional Western leaders. Trump was clearly untroubled by the West Bank occupation, the expansion of settlements or the absence of a credible political horizon for millions of Palestinians. In February 2025, he even proposed removing Gaza’s Palestinian population in its entirety and placing the territory under American control, a scheme whose breathtaking implications seemed scarcely to concern him.
Many Israelis overlooked the dark aspects of such absurdities, seeing only evidence of exceptional friendship. They overlooked the possibility that a president so utterly uninterested in Palestinian rights might also prove indifferent to Israeli interests whenever they ceased to coincide with his own.
They celebrated his willingness to discard diplomatic conventions – or even basic human decency – when it worked in their favor. They are discovering now that sometimes cliches are true: What goes around comes around.
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