ZOA makes Bibi look dovish - opinion

In case you hadn’t noticed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is getting soft and becoming too dovish. Hard to believe? I agree, but that seems to be what the thinking of the leader of one of the most extreme right-wing Jewish organizations.

Although Netanyahu “personally thanked” President Joe Biden for helping craft UN Security Council Resolution 2720 to Israel’s liking, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, insists he should have vetoed it. 

“Shame on the Biden administration,” cried Klein in a press release “for abstaining” instead of vetoing ”this disgraceful resolution” which “will enable Hamas to continue its genocidal terror wars and atrocities against the Jewish people.” 

Klein also accused Netanyahu of having “shamefully” “caved in” to “Biden’s unconscionable pro-Hamas pressure.”

The prime minister and most Israelis, especially the some 110 freed hostages and their families, presumably disagree with Klein, but he apparently thinks he knows better. The prime minister thanked Biden in a personal phone call as well as in his cabinet meeting. Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, praised his American counterpart “for standing on Israel’s side throughout the negotiations.” 

The resolution demanded the immediate release of all hostages, protected Israel’s right to monitor and inspect aid entering Gaza, and did not call for a ceasefire. That was enough to avoid a veto, but the United States abstained because there was no condemnation of Hamas’s October 7 slaughter.

Another anti-Israel villain in Klein’s eyes is apparently President Isaac Herzog, who said Israel is “ready” for another humanitarian pause to enable the freeing of more hostages. Even Netanyahu is open to “tactical little pauses,” but not Klein. In his view, there should be no pauses until all hostages are freed or Hamas is destroyed. In his view, Biden’s call for a bombing pause is “sickening” and “shameful and dangerous.”

A radical view of American politics

KLEIN IS an unabashed admirer of Donald Trump – although he did “deplore” his dinner for Adolph Hitler’s fan club, Kanye West and Nick Fuentes – and brushes off the disgraced former president’s history of antisemitism and accusations of Jewish dual loyalty. The ZOA chief endorsed Trump’s warning – which many considered antisemitic – to American Jews to “get their act together” or face repercussions, calling it “a proper warning” to stop “supporting people who are not good to us.” He has called Trump “the greatest friend Israel has ever had”

If Trump is his hero, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are just the opposite for Klein. The nation’s first black president, whose American birth Klein once questioned, is “an Israel-hater.” 

Writing in Israel Hayom, the newspaper owned by ZOA’s major benefactor (and one of Netanyahu’s as well), the Adelson family, he accused Biden of “extraordinary hostility toward Israel” through “policies that threaten Israel’s existence and Jewish and American lives.”

Netanyahu has praised Biden’s “unreserved support” for Israel, saying that US president is “a true friend” who is “standing with Israel.” But that’s not good enough for Klein.

Among this president’s sins are “undermining Israeli democracy” by criticizing Netanyahu’s judicial coup; opposing settlement construction; not inviting the prime minister to the White House; failure to “condemn” “this monster, this terrorist, this killer” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas; and “exaggerating and misrepresenting” the views of the most extreme right-wing member of the current government, Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Kahanist Religious Zionist Party.

He holds Biden partially responsible for the October 7 attack because his administration’s “pressure” forced the Israeli government to allow Gazans to work – and spy – in Israel. 

To hear Klein’s rantings, you’d think the man whom many have called “the greatest friend Israel has had in the Oval Office,” is quite the opposite. “Biden has appointed the most antisemitic, anti-Israel people to important posts we’ve ever seen,” Klein said. That apparently includes Jews like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, and his predecessor, Tom Nides. 

Other Jews in top posts in this administration who he accuses of “extraordinary hostility toward Israel” include the secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security, the attorney general, the current and former White House chief of staff, and many other senior officials. 

A two-state solution, which Biden supports, would be a “reward” for Palestinian “terror” and be “carved out of Israel’s lawful land,” according to Klein, who seems to equate all Palestinians with terrorism. 

Biden's approval rating in Israel exceeds Netanyahu's

NOT ALL Israelis share Klein’s animosity toward Biden. His approval rating among Israelis exceeds Netanyahu’s, who is blamed for the failures that led to October 7.

Ari Shavit, writing in Yedioth Ahronot, said Biden “personally prevented an Israeli disaster” by immediately coming to Israel’s defense, morally, politically, diplomatically, and militarily. He flew to Israel “in a time of war to show unprecedented solidarity,” sent two carrier battle groups to warn Iran and Hezbollah to stay out of the conflict, and “provided Israel with a political iron dome.” 

If Biden failed at anything, it was getting Netanyahu to say that Israel seeks peace, something the president needed to help maintain the pro-Israel coalition in the United States and the international community. But Bibi failed to do that, Shavit said.

Biden is facing increasing push-back from his own party and allies for being too supportive of Netanyahu, who seems oblivious to the concerns of his American friends and Jewish supporters about Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and indifference to the high civilian casualty toll. Some politicos say Biden’s staunch support of Israel could harm his reelection chances.

“While the American airlift was saving the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli prime minister treated the United States as if it were his handmaiden,” Shavit added.

Klein, who represents a small, angry minority, has more decibels than disciples. His rage toward Arabs is matched by his antipathy toward those who don’t share his extremist views.

Most observers consider ZOA on the farthest extreme of the Jewish political spectrum, but to Klein “We are rational centrists” and “almost every (other) Jewish organization is left-wing, frightened appeasers.” 

His former executive vice president, John Rose, sued him charging racist, sexist, and bullying behavior, according to The Daily Beast. Mik Moore wrote in 972mag.com that Klein’s “denunciations of anyone he deems insufficiently pro-Israel are routinely steeped in Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.”

He routinely equates criticism of Israel as “Jew-hatred,” and many observers feel he hates Arabs more than he loves Israel. The Jewish Community Council of Boston leadership in 2021 accused him of “vicious attacks” on social media against “minorities, people of color, Palestinians, and fellow Jews,” JTA reported. Typically, Klein declared that none of the criticism was “appropriate or valid.”

As the war in Gaza grinds on and the death and destruction worsen, calls for restraint will grow. Look for Klein to be at the forefront of those stridently denouncing such voices as Jew-haters, antisemites, terrorists, and dangerous threats to Israel. Not even Netanyahu will be spared if he leaves a single Hamas soldier alive.

The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.