{"id":48929,"date":"2026-05-08T01:38:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48929"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:54:08","slug":"downhill-after-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/downhill-after-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Downhill after Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, Temple Sholom Senior Rabbi Dan Moskovitz and commentator and author Yossi Klein Halevi. (photo by Pat Johnson)<\/em><\/p>\n

The special relationship between the United States and Israel is at its greatest peak, according to American-Israeli thinker and commentator Yossi Klein Halevi. The bad news is, he predicts, it\u2019s all downhill from here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In conversation with Temple Sholom\u2019s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Klein Halevi warned that, whoever succeeds US President Donald Trump, it is almost inevitable that the next American leader will be less supportive of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Trump, the deluge,\u201d said Klein Halevi. \u201cThere really is this sense of this moment as bittersweet. We have never been in a closer alignment with the United States than now.\u2026 This is really the culminating moment of the special relationship, that it doesn\u2019t get any better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were Vice-President J.D. Vance, a Republican, to become president, Klein Halevi warned, the US-Israeli relationship would almost certainly deteriorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is just about any Democrat, it\u2019s not going to be good,\u201d he said. \u201cIn some cases, it would be extremely negative. So, there\u2019s a sense that this is sort of the final play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Change is inevitable in Israeli politics, as well, he argued. Klein Halevi emphatically believes Netanyahu will not be reelected. The only question, he said, is whether someone else can cobble together a workable majority.<\/p>\n

Klein Halevi is scholar-in-residence at Temple Sholom and the event April 23 was presented in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and one of Israel\u2019s most influential and widely read public intellectuals, exploring Israeli identity, Jewish peoplehood, faith and the moral complexities of power. His books, including Letters to My Palestinian Neighbour<\/i> and Like Dreamers<\/i>, have shaped critical conversations across the Jewish world, according to Karen Kollins, the institute\u2019s director of Canada, who introduced him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kollins described her organization as a leading Jewish think tank and educational centre working in Israel and across North America to \u201chelp the Jewish people engage thoughtfully and courageously with the most complex moral, religious and political challenges of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klein Halevi co-hosts, with the institute\u2019s president, Donniel Hartman, the think tank\u2019s award-winning weekly podcast For Heaven\u2019s Sake, which focuses on the moral aspects of issues affecting Israel, world Jewry and Zionism.<\/p>\n

The stresses of living in Israel, always intense, have been unprecedentedly exacerbated in recent years, said Klein Halevi in his conversation with Moskovitz.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been Israel\u2019s longest war,\u201d he said, noting that reservists have been called up for very long tours, upending families, businesses and society at large. \u201cI think that we\u2019re going to start seeing the cracks in the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as new olim<\/i> (immigrants) are arriving from France and elsewhere, he said, more and more Israelis are questioning whether they and their children have a future in the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt what point do Israelis start to say, I \u2013 we \u2013 can\u2019t do this anymore?\u201d Klein Halevi asked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Disenchantment is further aggravated by widespread dissatisfaction with the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never had a government in wartime that more than half the country doesn\u2019t trust,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you combine that with the endless pressure, there\u2019s this sense that I think many young Israelis have of, What\u2019s the future here right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, the post-Oct. 7 societal unity, while fraying over time, remains a uniquely enveloping Israeli phenomenon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moskovitz asked if the war with Iran has been successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the question is, What were the realistic expectations going into this war?\u201d Klein Halevi replied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political interests ahead of those of the country, as well as raising expectations of not only eliminating Iran\u2019s nuclear threat but deposing the Islamic regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, he was plugging this idea of total victory,\u201d said Klein Halevi. \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a total victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting back Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions has been successful, but regime change in Iran will come only from internal forces, he said.<\/p>\n

From that perspective, he believes that, in the near to medium term, the Iranian regime is finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you lose the legitimacy of your people or, to put it more strongly, when you massacre tens of thousands of your own citizens, there\u2019s no recovery from that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve decisively lost your legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klein Halevi said that Israel, for decades, has fallen into Iran\u2019s trap, engaging with Iran\u2019s proxies \u2013 Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis \u2013 instead of confronting the source of the conflict, which is Iran.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis war will be resolved not in Lebanon, and not in Gaza,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be resolved in Tehran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to critics of Israel, Klein Halevi said he has high standards for Israeli morality, but all things have context.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Israel] was never an exemplar of democracy in an absolute sense,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it was very much an exemplar of a democracy in conditions of extremity. No democracy anywhere has experienced the kind of sustained opposition \u2013 war, terrorism, siege, diplomatic boycott \u2013 that Israel has known since literally the day of its birth. The fact that we have managed to sustain an imperfect democracy is extraordinary.\u2026 And then when you bring in wave after wave of traumatized refugees who themselves come from countries with no democratic [traditions] \u2013 90% of Israelis do not come from the West; they come from the Middle East or Eastern Europe, and yet we have managed to sustain a credible democracy. That, to me, is really the glory of Israeli democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you strip away the context, which is what the critics of Israel do \u2026 they just leave the fact that, well, Arab Israelis don\u2019t have full rights \u2013 and that\u2019s true. And, for me, that\u2019s a scandal,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also a scandal that I understand, because I can\u2019t think of another more complicated minority\/majority dynamic than having as your main minority people who are culturally and even to some extent politically aligned with the enemy you\u2019re fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moskovitz asked how Israeli media covers antisemitism in the diaspora and whether Israelis are conscious of the extent of the crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is reported the way the Israeli media would cover an Israeli crisis,\u201d said Klein Halevi. \u201cIt\u2019s very much seen as a major Israeli story. That\u2019s good news and bad news. It\u2019s good news that the Israeli public really cares about the diaspora more so than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversely, he said, the traditional Zionist mindset toward the diaspora tends to assume that, if Jews around the world are not making aliyah en masse, the situation they are facing worldwide can\u2019t be that bad.<\/p>\n

Since Oct. 7, Klein Halevi said, there has been an upsurge of spirituality and Jewish observance, as well as a resurgence of creativity in music and art. He also noted a shift within some components of the ultra-Orthodox, with \u201ca whole new ideological stream called Israeli Haredi,\u201d that is, ultra-Orthodox who want to be more integrated into society while maintaining the differences that matter most to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Amy Frankel, Temple Sholom president, welcomed the packed sanctuary and said that the program and others like it would not be possible without the generosity of the late Jack Lutsky, whose wife, Susan Mendelson, and brother, Peter Lutsky, recently established Temple Sholom\u2019s scholar-in-residence endowment fund as a perpetual benefit to the congregation and the broader community.<\/p>\n

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, thanked Klein Halevi. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, Temple Sholom Senior Rabbi Dan Moskovitz and commentator and author Yossi Klein Halevi. (photo by Pat Johnson) The special relationship between the United States and Israel is at its greatest peak, according to American-Israeli thinker and commentator Yossi Klein Halevi. The bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4330,2949,3597,5080,3034,5412,9317],"class_list":["post-48929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-israel","tag-netanyahu","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-yossi-klein-halevi"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}