Discussing Israel at the Thanksgiving table and how to make it work - opinion

This Thanksgiving, as American Jews gather together, too many parents are dreading clashes with their kids over Israel.

We shouldn’t exaggerate. Most American Jews, old and young, are still reeling from October 7, while many Jewish students have bravely, eloquently, championed Israel on campus, on social media, among friends. Still, during a two-week US book tour, I sensed the impending anxiety about conflicts amid the stuffing and sweet potato pie.

Here, then, are some pointers that might help unapologetically pro-Israel parents – or peers – defend Israel firmly, fairly, and proportionally, while preserving familial peace. A wise friend notes that too many American Jews fear their young – actually, most Americans fear their young.

Stand up but don't diminish others

Take heart: You can stand for your principles without diminishing others. Some can disagree with you. If they choose to get insulted by your commitment to Israel, Zionism, or the Jewish people – or, frankly, old fashioned, thoughtful, American patriotism – that’s on them, not you. Similarly, if they choose to turn your articulation of values into a confrontation, that’s their choice, not yours.

For starters, craft your Thanksgiving toast. Hosts have every right to express their ideas – and welcome others to chime in.

Whatever else you’re grateful for, think historically, too. Toast your family’s Mayflower Moment – or Yitziat Mitzrayim, Getting-out-of-Egypt tale. Despite many worries about America today, note how much better you all are than your grandparents or great-grandparents were in the miserable, Jew-hating, undemocratic lands most American Jewish immigrants fled. And note how much better off most Americans are today than they were 50, 100, and 250 years ago.

With two-thirds of American Jews lamenting the election results, with too many teachers in Blue America where most American Jews live exaggerating America’s shortcomings while negating any progress, give thanks for America’s successes, too.

THIS THANKSGIVING falls on November 28, one day before the 77th anniversary of the UN’s recognition of the Jews’ right to establish a state in their ancestral homeland. In a world questioning Israel’s right to exist, defy the Big Lie that Israel is a “settler colonialist” enterprise. 

Let’s reframe the resolution adopted on November 29, 1947, as the International Recognition of Jewish Indigeneity resolution, not just the Partition Plan. That day, the world acknowledged what we have known for 4,000 years: that Jews are intertwined with the Land of Israel. We are that land’s original aboriginal people. The UN recognized our rights as an indigenous people to establish a state on that land.

Emphasize that Jews want peace

Emphasize that the Jewish people accepted the Partition Plan – despite it being a painful compromise. David Ben-Gurion explained that half a loaf is better than none. It’s not propagandizing – just historically accurate – to criticize the Palestinian leadership for rejecting that compromise, which epitomizes the ongoing Palestinian war against the Jews.

That rejectionism sours Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s many UN speeches ignoring Jews’ legitimate ties to the land. That rejectionism – and exterminationist Jew-hatred – clouds Hamas’s Charter, along with many rants by Hezbollah’s leaders and Iran’s mullahs.

The Palestinian leadership’s fanatic slaughter-the-Jew cries illustrate why the historian Efraim Karsh called his book about 1947-1948 Palestine Betrayed. Who betrayed the Palestinians? Karsh asks. His authoritative answer: the Palestinian extremists, leaders like Hitler’s buddy Haj Amin al-Husseini – who bullied or murdered moderates. 

This set the template for a leadership that keeps betraying any Palestinians seeking a pragmatic solution to live side by side with Jews, rather than demanding full control with no Jews still living from – what’s that favorite line? – the river to the sea.

Mention friends in Israel

Finally, especially if you have friends or relatives in Israel, the toast should mention them, the people they lost, and the hostages. As always, the more personal the better. But even if you lack direct ties, tell one story, honor one life cut short, one hero who saved many, one kidnapped victim languishing in Hamas’s tunnels.

Palestinian terrorists killed over 1,200 Jews and non-Jews on October 7. This war has killed over 800 soldiers. And Hezbollah’s insane bombardment murdered 80 of those soldiers, along with 46 civilians. Just this week, Jew-haters killed Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan in Dubai. His murder epitomizes the evil all Jews face, everywhere.

The Palestinian side’s repeated, unjustified attacks inspire sidebars explaining “just war” theory. Fighting a war for existence, Israel is justified to defend itself in a way proportionate to this existential threat. Consider how much more ferociously America defended itself in the Civil War, after Pearl Harbor, after 9/11.

Yes, it’s a downer – but that’s our current situation. Moreover, these assaults threaten Israel, Jews worldwide and the West. Many fallen soldiers articulated their willingness to die for their country, for this noble cause. They left inspiring toast-worthy quotes that get us thinking about how we draw meaning from their suffering – and from our lives.

Beware the heckler’s veto, spoiled-brat-style. Just because your Zionism might “offend” one relative, what about others who care deeply, and want to hear your thoughts while bonding in support of the Jewish state. Bash Israel Firsters want to make Israel radioactive and any discussion about it fraught; hold your ground.

By this time, the turkey may already be sliced into sandwich meat for that endless leftover eat-a-thon. Whether your toast tackles all these issues, or you work some into dinner-time conversations, three themes should emerge – to reassure your pro-Israel guests.

FIRST – ISRAEL’S legitimacy as a country, and Zionism’s legitimacy as a movement of Jewish national liberation, stretch back millennia. Our ties to the land, and Zionism – the modern nationalist expression of those ties – are baked deeply into Judaism, and our Jewish identities. We face a systematic attempt to negate the Jewish ties to the land, and to undo the essential interconnection between Judaism, Zionism, and Israel.

It’s outrageous, biased, and dangerous. Homicide means killing a person. Suicide means killing yourself. Historicide means killing someone’s history. That leads, adds Birthright Israel’s educational whiz, Dr. Zohar Raviv, to Jewicide.

Second, consider the murderous glee of Hamas and its Gazan followers on October 7. Note how the Academic Intifada erupted immediately – during the butchering, long before Israel counter-attacked. Then, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, and others joined in – with genocidal calls to eradicate Israel and homicidal shrieks that “the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.” All of these assailants attack what Israel is – or that Israel is, not what Israel does.

We can debate how Israel fought back, why the war continues, how you defend yourself in treacherous urban warfare conditions when the enemy hides behind civilians and hostages – those are tactical conundrums. Too many people, inflamed by an anti-Israel media and social media firestorm, jump from “does” to “is” only when judging Israel – leaping from valid criticism to unfair, inaccurate, and menacing historicide.

Debate rooted in facts

FINALLY, WE need robust, thoughtful debate, but rooted in facts. And it remains relevant that most Palestinian leaders, along with most of the Palestinian street, keep rejecting compromise after compromise while bashing Israelis, Jews, Zionists, Americans, and Westerners. The sadism of October 7 wasn’t a blip – it was the culmination of decades of hate-prep, reinforced by religious teachings demonizing “the Jew.”

The depth of the hatred helps explain why Israel must win this war as thoroughly as possible. True, the Palestinian nationalist movement’s most poisonous ideas can’t be defeated. And most Israelis genuinely regret the innocents caught in the crossfire. But Israel’s victory must be resounding enough to deter other October 7ths – or Hezbollah rockets or Iranian intercontinental ballistic attacks.

That’s why Israel’s soldiers remain motivated to continue fighting. In Gaza, soldiers will keep fighting until Hamas and the other Palestinian kidnappers free our hostages and the corpses of those they murdered. Other reasonable Gazan war aims include degrading the vast stores of weaponry, holding a one-kilometer strip of land as a demilitarized zone (DMZ) along the border of the ravaged kibbutzim, keeping control of the Philadelphi Corridor to stop Egyptian smuggling, and – until the international community devises a better plan for controlling Hamas’s remnants – holding the Netzarim corridor so the IDF can operate freely and safely against terrorists.

Of course, we also need creative leadership thinking about the day after. In Lebanon, reasonable war aims include crushing Hezbollah enough, pushing its fighters away from Israel’s border, creating a DMZ on their side of the border so 60,000 evacuees can return, and that the international community backs the Lebanese army to contain the Hezbollah cancer

If dinner-time arguments break out about proportionality, and Israel’s tactics, and Israel’s mistakes, remember that Jews never feared arguments, and these issues are tough. Also, Israel’s ratio of civilians killed to combatants is far lower than America’s and the West’s fighting in similar conditions – but most Americans were silent when their own soldiers unintentionally killed innocent Iraqis and Afghans, who were also cynically used by terrorists as human shields. 

Selective empathy that excuses yourself and judges others is particularly craven. Finally, ask kindly, not aggressively, “what would you do under the circumstances?” or “what can you realistically propose that Israelis do differently?”

Remote-control morality is too simplistic. Of course, so is remote-control parenting. So let’s make a deal: Feel free to ignore my advice from afar – and we Israelis, while happy to learn from others, will feel free to ignore glib judgments that oversimplify the complex challenges our enemies have imposed on us.

Ultimately, hopefully, these Thanksgiving discussions will remind us that family unity does not require political uniformity, that we democratic citizens are among the lucky few in the world free enough to disagree passionately about politics, and that we can be thoughtful, critical, but fair patriots and Zionists. And remember: patriots love their country – and homeland – sometimes because of the politicians, but always despite its politics.

Happy Thanksgiving – and International Recognition of Jewish Indigeneity Day!

The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian and the author of The Essential Guide to October 7th and Its Aftermath: Facts, Figures, History. His latest book, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream, was just published.