Amid shifting American views on Israel, the liberal Zionist position represents not only the middle ground held by most Americans and US Jews, but is also the best approach to sustain the bilateral relationship against erosion, J Street senior vice president and chief policy officer Ilan Goldenberg said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
In a wide-ranging conversation, the former adviser to vice president Kamala Harris explained why both major political estates are shifting their sentiments toward the Jewish state, and what policies are needed to stabilize the terrain.
The Jerusalem-born foreign policy and national security expert migrated to J Street after working on Jewish outreach for Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, and being impressed that most voters were not being served by a political discourse that appeared polarized between two extremes.
Goldenberg detailed how he had heard the quiet voices of the American majority were being drowned out by loud fringes that shouted on one side, as early as October 8, 2023, that Israel had engaged in a genocide, and another that supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unconditionally.
The voices being drowned out, according to Goldenberg, said “we want to support Israel, we want Israel to thrive as a Jewish democratic state, and we want Palestinians to have freedom and security and a state of their own. We are horrified by October 7 and the attacks by Hamas. We are not happy and horrified by the way the Israeli government has gone about things in Gaza.”
“I decided what I wanted to do was find a place where I could build a platform that could speak to that overwhelming majority of American Jews,” said Goldenberg.
Democrats still want relationship with Israel, J Street says
While polling showed increasing Democratic Party frustration with Israel, Goldenberg said that surveys didn’t indicate a desire to completely abandon the relationship. The increasing prominence of radical figures did not reflect where Democrats actually stood. Jewish Democratic Party voters, and the party more broadly, wanted to be able to support Israel but also be able to comfortably air disagreements when they arose.
As evidence of the prevalence of the middle ground among Democrat voters, Goldenberg pointed to the electoral success of Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss. Biss won his March Democratic primary race for an Illinois congressional seat, defeating candidates Kat Abughazaleh and Laura Fine.
To the Left of Biss was Abughazaleh, whom Goldenberg described as having a clear anti-Zionist position, and to his Right was Fine, who had been supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In Biss, Goldenberg saw the golden mean, expressing a liberal Zionist perspective.
“There are races like that all over the country, when we can find those candidates to work with who capture that middle ground – that’s when we’re most effective, because I think what we’re really empowering, the vision of policy towards Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we would like to see in the United States,” said Goldenberg.
“We’re also sending a clearest message about what it is J Street is for, and what it is J Street is not for. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to work with folks who are further to our Left. [We’re going to] try to educate them sometimes, bring some of them over to our positions, and we’ll also work with folks who are further to our Right, similarly trying to educate them and bring them further to our position.”
While increasing levels of antisemitism and issues with social media have contributed to the shift in American perceptions, according to Goldenberg the chief catalysts for the changes have been the strategic decisions of Netanyahu. The longtime Israeli leader’s policies and rhetoric had first alienated the American Left, and now the Right.
The first of these decisions was how the prime minister approached an Iranian nuclear deal over a decade ago. It was not the opposition to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and its development, which “Israel had every right to oppose,” but per Goldenberg the manner in which Netanyahu interjected into American domestic politics.
“It was inserting himself into American domestic politics in that way, in a very partisan way, creating this break inside the Democratic Party that started the conversation to what before was just seen as full bipartisan support,” said Goldenberg.
Netanyahu’s coalition with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir further served to engineer the process of partisanship on the American relationship with Israel, Goldenberg explained, as settler violence and imagery of Ben-Gvir with a noose emblazoned cake were unpalatable for Americans.
While the US public and American Jewry were fully supportive of Israel early in the Israel-Hamas War, which Goldenberg said he also saw from within the White House, Netanyahu squandered early opportunities to end the war and prevent erosion from a steady stream of wartime images. There was a deal on the table that, with more flexibility from the Netanyahu government, could have been taken to see the earlier return of the October 7 massacre hostages and prevent much of the suffering of Gazan civilians, but Goldenberg said that the Israeli government added new conditions when Hamas finally conceded.
“If you look at American perceptions, it comes down to how the war was fought and how long it took, and the consequences – images that have been shown all over the world that Israelis don’t see in the same way,” said Goldenberg.
J Street has long grappled with AIPAC, but now it is being flanked from the Left by organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, as dissatisfaction with the situation in Gaza has festered.
“J Street was the Left of the Democratic Party, but now what you see, especially in the aftermath of the war in Gaza, is we’re not really the far Left of the Democratic Party anymore,” said Goldenberg. “There’s a whole piece of folks who are to our Left who are making the case, ‘just let’s walk away from this relationship altogether. There’s nothing that’s beneficial in the US-Israel relationship. Let’s go towards sanctions, let’s go towards cutting off all aid.’”
The fourth decision taken by Netanyahu that led to a change in American perspectives was the prime minister’s campaign for involvement of the US when the war expanded to Iran. US President Donald Trump ultimately made the decision, but factions within Trump’s base blamed the Israeli leader for drawing the country into conflict.
“Trump promised that he was going to end Middle Eastern wars; he promised he wasn’t going to do precisely this kind of thing; and the backlash from that is only beginning, but it’s going to do in the Republican Party what the Iran deal debate 10 years ago did in the Democratic Party,” said Goldenberg.
Polling on the Republican Party showed an increasingly negative view of Israel by younger voters, who had only ever known Netanyahu’s governments. Congress was slow to mirror the electorate, and Goldenberg warned that the right-wing backlash against Israel would only get worse if changes are not made. Incidents such as a nun being attacked in Jerusalem were going viral in the US, and, according to Goldenberg, the only way to stem the tide is to change the political landscape that allows extremists impunity.
Impending elections in Israel could be the key to repairing the US-Israel relationship. Goldenberg doesn’t believe that a government led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett would be oriented with the direction of the Democratic Party, but a new government could be “more constructive.”
Steps such as clamping down on West Bank violence, releasing revenue to the Palestinian Authority, and seeking a more productive process in Gaza could build momentum for positive sentiment.
“People aren’t going to expect everything to turn on a dime in a second, but start to see hope and progress, stop digging negative, and then it can be reciprocated in the United States, if we see things like that with movements to a more reasonable politics and response,” said Goldenberg.
Progress with Gaza is one of the policies that J Street seeks to lobby for, seeing a resolution of the conflict as a fulcrum for broader peace.
Goldenberg said that they no longer speak about a two-state solution, but about a 23-state solution, with Israel at peace with its neighbors, including a new Palestinian state. This is why J Street supports Trump’s 20-point plan, which, when brought to its conclusion, ends with a Palestinian state and Middle East peace.
“You got a lot of work to do on all sides to get there, but it has to start with a new Israeli government that’s at least willing to start going there; and if you start to see that, then you will see not the far Left of the Democratic Party, but other significant parts of the Democratic Party go towards that. That’s also a vision a lot of Republicans get behind, because I think there’s a real danger you’re going to start losing more Republicans if you don’t,” said Goldenberg.
Goldenberg is not satisfied with the progress of the 20-point plan thus far, and while much of the blame lies at the feet of Hamas, Netanyahu is another factor in the equation.
The J Street officer criticized Netanyahu for failing to build an alternative Palestinian reality.
While the PA is deeply unpopular in Israel, and has issues with corruption and incompetence, Goldenberg sees it as the only current alternative to Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip. Consequently, the PA needs to be empowered, not only through the sluice gate of funds being lifted, but also by allowing it to play a broader role in Gaza.
There are many things that cannot not be achieved without Hamas disarmament, but he does not think complete disarmament is a likely outcome, and in the meantime no progress is occurring while the maximalist condition is upheld.
“We have to keep applying pressure on Hamas to agree to essentially a phased disarmament plan that involves more reconstruction happening, and more progress on the ground, in exchange for a step-by-press process, where Hamas disarms,” said Goldenberg. “This is gonna be a process. It’s gonna take years, but let’s make progress.”
Hamas could be pressured to disarm if PA security forces enter the Strip and rebuilding begins. Reconstruction was part of the strategy against ISIS, Goldenberg explained, replacing the radical group with another governance option. Hamas might think that it could become like Hezbollah within a PA statelet, but Goldenberg advocates for countering this by creating a stronger PA apparatus.
“What we did again with countering ISIS is to militarily push them out of areas; then you got to immediately bring in an alternative, and Israel just never did that. And now it’s a lot harder, but still, you have to go to where Palestinians are living, and so you’re going to have to do it; you’re going to have to allow Palestinian security forces into parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas,” said Goldenberg. “They’re gonna have to let Israel pull back, and these Palestinian security forces and international forces start to take over parts of Gaza, and let Palestinians come in there.”
The Iran team chief at the Defense Department and a longtime advocate of the Iran nuclear deal, Goldenberg, felt vindicated by how the war with Iran has unfolded. Following the opening of hostilities, he argued that it appeared that the US might come out of the negotiations with a deal that was only slightly better or even worse than the JCPOA, at a great cost. Iran now had greater nuclear capacity than when the US abandoned the deal, and while critics had expressed concern about the agreement’s expiry, the increase in capacity could have been curtailed by negotiated additions.
“In the case of JCPOA, Iran couldn’t have had any highly enriched uranium until 2031. They’ve got 11 tons of it in 2026 under this scenario, and are much closer to a bomb,” said Goldenberg.
The war has given Iran another tool, according to Goldenberg, in which its threats on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz affected global oil prices.
The war is “causing major damage for Americans at home. It’s causing major damage for the United States with allies across the world. Iran has taken on a lot of damage, too. It still has this nuclear program; it still has its missiles and drones; it still has its proxies that have also been dramatically rolled back as a result of Israeli action, particularly in Lebanon. But at some point you have to consolidate that and take a deal,” said Goldenberg.
If Trump had achieved a deal a year ago, it could have consolidated Israeli military gains over the last two years, according to the J Street vice president.
“I really think this whole war has been a disaster for American interests, and it’s not great for Israel, and it’s really going to do damage to the perception of Israel in the United States,” said Goldenberg.
Another issue that has been a focal point for debate about Israel in the US is the allocation of foreign aid to the Jewish state.
J Street agrees with Netanyahu about the phasing out of financial aid. Many factions in American politics don’t believe that a powerful country needs a financial subsidy anymore, and Goldenberg believes that it is a political liability because it puts a magnifying glass on the relationship with Israel, and many do not understand the funds.
“I don’t think that that aid is worth all the headaches it’s generating at this point for both countries,” said Goldenberg.
He isn’t concerned about the loss of leverage for the US against Israel, as the economic relationship, cooperation in international forums, and other positive pressures could push Israel.
Goldenberg believes the implementation of these policies – a more pragmatic Israeli government, phased progress in Gaza, strengthened Palestinian alternatives to Hamas, and a recalibrated US-Israel relationship less burdened by unconditional aid – can arrest the erosion and rebuild broad bipartisan support.
The faith placed in, and the empowerment of, the silent majority of Americans and American Jews may determine the future of ties with the Jewish state as much as the coming Israeli elections, if J Street is correct.
“This is a role we’re trying to play, both in pushing the Israeli government, but also trying to sustain a relationship between the United States and the Israeli people,” he said.
“J Street has remained where we were all along, the liberal Zionist position, which has really become the middle of the [Democratic] Party now.”
