The real story, then, is the crisis of a portion of American Jewry—often a more publicly visible and powerful portion–who have forgotten (or never knew) Jewish history. Some of them push the ignorance of the real Israel and Israeli reality in the universities and media; others merely believe what they are being told daily. They would go to a rally about fighting “Islamophobia” but would be horrified by the idea of going to a rally about fighting revolutionary Islamist antisemitism.

Along the lines of their thinking we would have to rewrite the Haggadah along these lines:

For we have not merely projected our paranoiac thinking that just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but we’ve been so overwhelmed with irrational fear that we think in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; even though they are just standing around doing nothing except occasional texting and discussing the big game on television last night. But fortunately the left-wing critics, blessed be They, verbally attack us, help our enemies, and launch boycotts against us which save us from our own stupidity.

Another part of their problem with Israel is that it is, in a sense, too “Jewish” and at odds with their preferred ideology.  They want Israel to be what they want America and Europe to be. Yet instead it is too religious; too traditional; too much of a nation-state; too willing to defend itself; and too willing to recognize its enemies even if they are non-white, non-Western, and non-Christian.

If your definition of proper Jewishness is to be like Berkeley and Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Israel is not going to make the grade. On the contrary, Israel seems too much like the South, Midwest, or non-urban areas where people cling to their guns and religion and don’t eagerly turn over large portions of their territory to armed hostile forces that openly proclaim their goal of exterminating them.