In the April 19 issue of The New York Times, NYU’s Tony Judt suggested that “fear” keeps American policy-makers and pundits from debating American policy toward Israel. He doesn’t mean “debating” exactly — he means “disagreeing with.” It galls Judt, just as it galls the authors of the now infamous Harvard paper on the “Israel Lobby,” that more Americans do not agree with, say, Judt’s view that the Jewish state should be replaced by a binational state of Jews and Palestinians. Judt seems to eliminate the possibility that many Americans have been quite willing to “debate” U.S.-Israel policy, but in the end come down in support of America’s robust friendship with Israel.

The authors of the Harvard paper may conclude that neither “strategic interests [nor] compelling moral imperatives” can account for the level of U.S. support for Israel, but poll after poll indicates that a firm majority of Americans believe they certainly do.

Jewish leaders and pro-Israel academics acted with shock and anger to the Harvard paper and responses like Judt’s, but their reaction should be leavened with the acknowledgement that, for now and the foreseeable future, Israel’s harshest critics remain in the intellectual wilderness. As Israel prepares to celebrate yet another birthday, it continues to exert a strong pull on the imaginations, and hearts, of the majority of Americans. “Fear” has nothing to do with it. Rather, Americans recognize that despite almost six decades of provocations and constant challenges to its very legitimacy, Israel remains an open, civil, Western society, wracking up achievements that belie its tiny size and geographic disadvantages. It is not a perfect country, but even at its most provocative it has behaved toward the Palestinians with a restraint that we are convinced no other country would have been able to match.

Amazing transformative events have occurred since last Yom Ha’atzmaut and more are to follow. Americans understand that Israel is caught between its own ideals and the compromises necessary to assure its security. This is, in fact, the same struggle facing Americans. Americans relate to Israelis out of admiration — not fear.

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