And there is much to admire and treasure in this. No decent human being who has a grasp of history, let alone the enormity of the Shoah, can fail to have a deep sympathy for the Jewish people, Israel, and respect for its enormous achievements. But the fanaticism and emotionalism that many Jewish Americans have with respect to Israel is so intense that, for some, it overwhelms rationality, and makes a cool strategic analysis of America's national interest close to impossible. Their total identification with Israel is often emotionally as strong, if not stronger, as their identification with America.

And this tragically means that an honest disagreement with Israel's policies is sometimes taken as a breach of friendship, a profound personal betrayal, rather than a moral and political judgment about the actions of a foreign country. It means that the head of the Mossad can be more rational in his assessment of US national interest than Joe Biden. You reach a brick wall in this. And we might as well admit it.

It has pained me enormously to have obviously hurt my countless Jewish friends and colleagues because I cannot support, morally or strategically, the actions of Israel these past two years, and especially its virulent disdain for the new American president who represented, it seems to me, the best chance for Israel in decades. I realize that the difference is that while I admire and support Israel, I do not identify with it. For me, it is a foreign country and an ally. To them it is something far more profound and indelible. So when I attack Israel's policies, it feels as if I am attacking them. I really am not. But I cannot erase how they feel; and I understand why they feel it.

Tribalism, of course, is universal. It is by no means the exclusive property of Jewish Americans. Irish-Americans retain a similar knee-jerk alliance with entities that plenty of people in Ireland find repugnant - just as Israelis are far more candid in their debates than Americans are. Trust me, in my own family, I know the nature of this kind of identification and the righteousness of it in many instances. Many Muslim Americans are as knee-jerk - often more so - about the Middle East as Jewish Americans. But this crisis is, as Peter Beinart has noted, a crisis among American Jews as much as anything, and the inability of some, especially in the older generation, to move even a millimeter away from orthodoxies and rigidities that are becoming almost comically anachronistic, is becoming a form of tragedy.

I think, by the way, that this is the reason some jump so quickly onto the anti-Semitism charge, even when they know that many critics of Israel's policies are not bigots. They simply cannot absorb the idea that people they like and even love believe that Israel is doing wrong, horrible, categorical wrong, and that this is undeniable. And so they cannot explain the criticism, except as a form of self-hatred or animus.

This isn't universal among American Jews, of course, and is mercifully declining in the younger generation. But it is far more common than we might want to admit. It has already deeply hurt American interests and Israeli security. And since it appears it will not really relent for a while yet, who knows what further damage it can do, unless we open up a more honest conversation about it?

(Photo: a pro-Israel demonstration in New York City, by Mario Tama/Getty.)

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