What people tend to forget about Benjamin Netanyahu and his alliance with Ben-Gvir and the radical settlers is that while they are allied, their ideologies are different.

In fact, there is a sentiment among the extreme right in the hard-core settlements that Netanyahu is actually a leftist in disguise, that he is too moderate and that a true right wing is needed, while Netanyahu's supporters think that the people of the Kahanist settlements are delusional and puritanical and are in an alliance with them purely because of political interest. Ben Gvir himself enjoys trying to embarrass Netanyahu and drag him into different actions.

Itamar Ben Gvir and the settlers, in their approach, are much closer to underground, religious, Ultra-Nationalists anarchists who want chaos, while Netanyahu is an "American" conservative intellectual who in an alternative universe easily would have been a conservative American right-wing thinker or Republican Party candidate for president.

Netanyahu is an accurate representative of the capitalist and nationalist neoconservatism. Netanyahu is an atheist, a passionate capitalist who believes in the supremacy of the free market and that the free market is a must to build diplomatic power, believes nationalism is important for internal power and for Israel's Jewish identity.

Netanyahu's father, who did not support Menachem Begin's camp within the revisionist movement, instilled in Netanyahu the hostility to the leftist intellectual elite and the belief that the left is weakening the state and inviting pressure and concessions on Israel, that the left has disconnected from the Jewish identity, the desire to replace the leftist elites. Netanyahu is close in his worldview to Newt Gingrich (although in a more eloquent and smooth speech) or Ben Shapiro (but an atheist).

Netanyahu believes in Western values, but in their Conservative form, and that is why his donors (Sheldon Adelson and Ronald Lauder, GOP megadonors, though he had a falling out with both) and his advisors are basically Jewish Republicans (Ron Dermer, Dore Gold, the new ambassador Yechiel Leiter) and he is much closer to intellectuals from the Zionist-American right or evangelicals than to Likud ministers or settlers. Western values ​​are completely alien to the settlers (perhaps except for the more mainstream settlers). They are much more Middle Eastern in their approach.

Netanyahu supports the settlements in Judea-Samaria, but unlike the settlers, they are not his main priority and goal. The settlers adore the land of Israel, that's all they care about, there is no place for other things. Only Eretz Yisrael. Netanyahu focuses much more on capitalism, military power, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The settlers see the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria as the main rival and central obstacle to overcome in any way possible. The rest of the world - Arab countries, the US and the international community - are viewed as nothing more than a distant nuisance that can be ignored. Netanyahu, while is very hostile to the Palestinians and their National Movement - From his perspective, they are a marginal part of a larger Arab collective.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an isolated event but rather part of a much larger struggle between Arab nationalism, radical Islam - against the Judeo-Christian civilization.

The goal of Ben Gvir and his supporters is the redemption of the Land of Israel, to build another settlement and another settlement and another settlement and to annex the whole of the Land of Israel no matter what. Netanyahu's goal is to make the security control in Judea and Samaria permanent and to apply sovereignty over the settlements and historical sites not out of a divine order but out of legal rights and in the end reach a bypass normalization with the Arab world and bomb Iran. To a certain extent, Netanyahu is the spiritual father of the Jewish-American intellectual right who integrates well into the Republican Party.

Netanyahu wants to establish a new, patriotic elite under his leadership that will replace the Left's Elite. Most of his corruption trial is because he attempted to transform the media into a Right-Wing Media that is more in line with the Conservative ideology. 

The Trump administration is using both Israel and US Jews as a political wedge. Today's examples are about how he's using US Jews.

Y'know how Trump/Hegseth's Department of Defense canceled "identity" (heritage) months?

"Going forward, DoD Components and Military Departments will not use official resources, to include man-hours, to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months, including National African American/Black History Month, Women's History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and National American Indian Heritage Month. Ask yourself why Jewish American Heritage Month was not similarly canceled."

The US armed services do observe Jewish American Heritage Month. Here's the article from the US Army on that topic from May of 2024.

At the same time the Trump/Hegseth's DOD is delegitimizing all these heritage months, they're leaving Jewish America Heritage month alone. So...why was Jewish American Heritage Month left out of this list?

How do you think this will impact the way Jewish US military service members are viewed by their colleagues whose heritage has been erased as a part of the US military?

Trump is trying to kill all DEI programs, attack LGBTQ+ folks, and end meaningful education about the history of race in the US at the same time he's trying to aggressively punish antisemitism in post-secondary education institutions.

What effect do you think this will have on the perception of what Jews believe about other marginalized groups? What conclusions might members of these groups draw about the political alignment of Jews, regardless of the fact that at least 70% of Jewish voters voted against Trump?

US Jews are being used as a political wedge.

If we're going to mitigate the inevitable backlash against US Jews, we need to start grasping the danger of what Trump is doing by using US Jews as a political wedge. We need to start denouncing it loudly, not just among ourselves, but with US gentiles who will listen. We need to loudly oppose every undemocratic/unconstitutional thing Trump does, especially when he's abusing his power to attack those who attack us.

Abuse of power, even leveraged against those we don't like, endangers us.

Who was better for American Jews, Biden or Obama? How do you look at each of their administration today? From what I've read, in my opinion, Obama, even if not on purpose, laid the foundations for the anti-Semitic outbreak we've seen in the last year and Biden didn't do enough to stop it and tried to appease the protesters. Obama turned a blind eye to terrorism and anti-Semitism from the left (and sometimes people close to him like Ben Rhodes legitimized it), strengthened organizations like J Street (Peter Beinert and his ilk), etc. Biden himself loves Jews avidly and is a true Zionist, but unfortunately he did not have enough political power to fight it, and if he did, then it was with fake symmetries

Looking for ideas on how I can demonstrate / represent the Jewish culture without being offensive. I am just astounded and taken aback with how my neighbors actively put a Nazi in the White House. We’re not 75 years from one of the world’s worst mass genocides and we just inaugurated a person who supports that political belief, and his oligarch leaders are openly flaunting it on worldwide television. I feel like people need a reminder of what happened with the first Nazi regime and the atrocities they committed. I am so ashamed of the community I live in.

It's funny to me that around 70% of American Jews (maybe even more) voted for Kamala Harris during the presidential election, but people will see this headline and find a way to blame it on us. It is scary though (it might hurt more than help), and since I don't understand the full situation and what countries the US was sending foreign aid to before, I don't know how to respond to this appropriately. Does anyone have any advice or insights?