For Israel, the Task is to Work Even Harder to Keep Old Friends and Reach Out to New Ones

Arthur Herman’s essay, “Everybody Loves Israel,” comes as a breath of fresh air amid the pummelings being administered by the United Nations and the BDS movement and the dirge-like laments of friends about the Jewish state’s growing isolation as it courts a fate worse even than apartheid South Africa’s.

True, Herman’s title may be overstated, as he himself concedes, and the same can be said about some of the candidates he brings forward in support of his optimistic thesis, including Russia and China. Thus, for example, Yaakov Amidror has pointed to the approving votes cast by those two countries for UNESCO’s recent denial of a Jewish link to the city of Jerusalem: a sharp reminder of the limits of state-to-state relationships not based on moral affinities. Robert Satloff, in his own response to Herman at Mosaic, strikes a similar note of caution.

Yet, essentially, Herman is on the right track. And for me personally, as one who has been “on the scene” in Israel, serving six years (2009-2015) as deputy national-security adviser for foreign affairs, his positive assessment serves to vindicate a strategy pursued by politicians and policy makers deliberately and systematically (insofar as the latter term can ever be applied to Israeli life) for the better part of a decade, with remarkable results.