Weekly Commentary: Israel Must Assume PR Won't Reverse The Shift Against Us Of The Younger Generations

Weekly Commentary: Israel Must Assume PR Won’t Reverse The Shift Against Us
Of The Younger Generations
Dr. Aaron Lerner 8 November, 2023

The aftermath of the October 7th massacre has served as a fortuitous wake-up
call for many Israelis.

The challenge now is to move forward, painfully aware that we cannot assume
that PR can overcome the dramatic shift against the Jewish State by younger
generations in the West – including the USA.

Our very future depends on how we exploit the “window of opportunity” before
the older, less radical generations leave the scene.

To be clear: that doesn’t mean that we should abandon or belittle PR
efforts, only that we cannot assume that these efforts will succeed.

Today the United States may talk the talk in a disturbing way about the Holy
Two-State Solution come-what-may, indefinitely postponing addressing the
threat of Iran and its vassals in Lebanon, or the need to somehow protect
civilians who choose to act as human shields, but the dynamic remains that
America, and for that matter other major Western influential players, allow
us to choose life over marching to their drum when we are determined to do
so.

Years from now this won’t necessarily be the situation.

The challenge we face goes far beyond this generational shift in the West.

It is impossible to predict the future for China, Russia, and other major
players both because of demographics and the critical role that strong
individual leaders have in these countries.

Some practical ramifications:

We must prevent any arrangement on the ground which hinges on “iron-clad”
third party guarantees, be it a Palestinian state or something for the Gaza
Strip, since those third parties may despise us in the future.

We must devote the resources to be the uncontested regional superpower so
that real-politic takes precedence over other considerations for our
potential allies.

Our military strength must rely on domestically produced weapons.

This epiphany came at a tremendous cost.

We owe it to future generations to act on it.

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Arab-Israeli relations

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