The second possible explanation is that Israel has not actually become more illiberal (indeed quite the opposite), but left-wing politics has become so hostile to Israel that it’s virtually impossible to be a left-winger in good standing and be pro-Israel. Indeed, while the far left has long been hostile to Israel, it’s only recently that it’s become a major litmus test. Left-wing Jewish intellectuals (and here we’re talking about, say, The Nation and further left in American terms), if they want to maintain their standing in their political circles, are now expected to ritually denounce Israel, to show that any possible ethno-religious ties to the country area subsumed by their greater commitment to solidarity with the politically correct positions taken by fellow leftists. And so they do.

I’ve argued that the empirical evidence favors the latter explanation; as discussed in my first two posts, far fewer Israeli MKs oppose territorial compromise with the Palestinians now than in the late 1980s, and Israeli Jews have become more tolerant of Arab citizens of Israel over the last several decades.

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