A new study from Tel Aviv University’s Institute of National Security Studies warns that American Jews’ ties with Israel have weakened in recent years, and Israeli leaders do not seem to care enough about how these shifting attitudes might affect Israel’s national security. 

If Israel ignores the growing distance with the American Jewish community, the country could face long-term consequences, authors Ted Sasson and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis argue. 

“An American Jewish community that is less supportive of Israel would leave Israel more isolated globally, less capable of extending soft power, and less confident in its role as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Sasson, a Middlebury College professor and INSS scholar, and Ben Sasson-Gordis, director of the Israel-United States Research Field at INSS, write. 

The report is one of countless documents and op-eds published by Jewish communal leaders and Israeli officials after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that call on Israel’s leaders to improve the country’s public diplomacy efforts. 

Yet while many reports authored by pro-Israel analysts argue that Israel merely needs to change its messaging, the authors of the INSS report insist that Israeli leaders need to act differently, too, in order to reckon with the ways that Israel’s actions in Gaza have alienated even some American Jewish allies. 

“Israel must undertake a comprehensive effort to rehabilitate its reputation in the United States,” the report states. “This effort should begin by reconsidering some of the more radical policies of the current government that have alienated many U.S. voters and American Jews.” 

What the report offers is not a hasbara, or messaging, strategy. The document’s authors assert that it is a “national security strategy,” and that Israel’s leaders ignore their challenges with the American Jewish community at their own peril. 

“Israel’s alliance with the American Jewish community is a national security asset and is core to its purpose as a democratic nation-state of the Jewish people,” the report states. 

Among the policies Israel should reconsider, according to Sasson and Ben Sasson-Gordis: prioritizing efforts to “expand the Abraham Accords and open a renewed dialogue with the Palestinians,” and avoiding actions “that seriously harm [Israel’s] democratic character.” Both of those goals are tall orders for a government that has pursued controversial judicial reform efforts in the past and insisted a two-state solution with the Palestinians is not feasible. The country should try to “avoid causing unnecessary harm,” the authors add. 

The report points out that even many highly engaged American Jews grew frustrated with Israel’s handling of the war. 

“Israel’s policies during the October 7 war — as well as how Israel communicated about those policies — alienated large segments of the American public and raised deep concerns among many American Jews,” the report notes. “Israel’s decisions on how to proceed with the war and how to communicate about it were viewed by many of the Jewish leaders with whom we spoke as a driver of mounting anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism in the United States.” 

The report’s authors call on the Israeli government to draft an antisemitism national strategy, which “should focus mostly outward, on ways of holding other nations and non-governmental organizations accountable for combating antisemitism,” but that should also look inward, and “assess the ways Israel’s policies may have contributed to the capacity of antisemitic actors on both the right and the left to win new audiences and expand their influence.” 

The report refers to the rise of an anti-Zionist segment of the American Jewish community, though it does not suggest that Israeli leaders should engage with them. Instead, it argues that Israel’s leaders should engage with the full spectrum of Israel advocacy organizations from J Street on the left to the Zionist Organization of America on the right, citing the fact that larger, centrist groups like AIPAC “are losing influence in the corridors of power” in the U.S. (Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter on Monday called J Street a “cancer within the Jewish community” at a conference in Washington.) 

Israel’s missteps in dealing with the American Jewish community come at a moment when the standing of the U.S. Jewish community has “diminished,” the report argues. Rising antisemitism and a rapidly growing anti-Israel political constituency should also concern Israeli leaders, the INSS authors state. American Jews should be a bulwark, but instead, their own ties with Israel are fraying, particularly on the left. 

“The American Jewish community is deeply challenged not only by its own institutional weakening and division but also by an external environment that has grown exceedingly hostile,” the report states. “Further erosion of U.S. Jewish support for Israel could help pave the way for the Democratic Party to turn fully against the alliance.” 

Policy proposals for remedying this growing rift include reinvesting in American travel programs to Israel that have been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war; making Israel a center of higher education that is more appealing to American Jews; better educating Israeli Jews about the diaspora; seeking the input of American Jews within the Israeli government; and devoting more funding to addressing the problem. 

“Israel relies on a strong and flourishing American Jewish community, one that continues to support Israel’s core national interests,” write Sasson and Ben Sasson-Gordis. “It is in Israel’s best interest to take the actions that are within its power to reverse these damaging trends.”