This is complicated.
Israel's biggest foreign supporter has been American Jews and American Jewish organizations. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States.
The number of Jews worldwide stands at approximately 15.3 million compared to 15.2 million in the 2021, according to newly released statistics from The Jewish Agency for Israel. Among the global Jewish population, the number of Jews in Israel is 7 million. Approximately 6 million Jews live in the United States. Clearly the American Jewish population is a significant part of the total.
The Right of Return has been the most important part of creating the Sate of Israel. Israel is the one place I can go when the crimes against Jews appears to resemble Hitler's attacks on Jews prior to WWII. Now extreme Jews in Israel want to change that law. Candidates for Religious Zionist parties have long argued for closing a "grandfather clause" that allows the descendants of Jews to immigrate to Israel provided they have one Jewish grandparent. As part of Netanyahu's prospective coalition, the traditional religious and Religious Zionist leaders alike have started to lobby to cancel this clause. This, too, would be a major change in Israel.
More than 300 U.S. rabbis have put their signatures to a letter warning that Israel's new government under incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could do "irreparable harm" with extremist policies.
The letter cautions against policy proposals from extreme Jewish nationalist members set to join Netanyahu's Cabinet and government, calling them "anathema to the tenets of democracy."
The rabbis argue the policies could erode women's rights, expel Arab Israelis and override Israeli Supreme Court rulings, among other actions they say could run counter to the country's values.
If implemented, the policies "will cause irreparable harm to the Israel-Jewish Diaspora relationship, as they are an affront to the vast majority of American Jews and our values," the letter reads.
The Washington Post reports Religious Zionist leaders already pursuing plans to restrict the rights of minorities, alter the system of governmental checks and balances, hollow out the Israeli judiciary, exert influence over the army and security forces, and allow harsher treatment of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. AIPAC and other American Jewish organizations will have a difficult time receiving support of American Jews and other supporters of Israel.
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