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Israeli universities are losing academic partners in Georgia and Alabama, not only in Europe, Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegel said on this week's Deep Dive episode, describing American institutions that had been friendly for years as now backing away.
Bar-Asher Siegel, a Talmud scholar and JPPI Senior Fellow, said she had not expected the damage to reach deep-red states.
Israel, she said, is increasingly read there as the country that pulled the US into a war Americans cannot explain to themselves.
The warning comes as Israel heads to elections on October 27 with Gaza's disarmament unresolved, settler violence rising in the West Bank, and no movement on Iran.
Asked whether the country is compounding those crises by deferring every decision until after the vote, she immediately answered yes, to the host Jacob Laznik, without qualification, arguing that campaign incentives reward the most extreme statement available and that the system no longer reacts to extremism at all.
Looking at European counterparts
European counterparts, including German Bar-Asher Siegel, called among Israel's closest partners, now open meetings by reading ministers' own words back to her, she said, adding that Israel's place in EU research frameworks is under active discussion.
On the campaign, she disputed the premise that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone quiet, saying he is letting others do the loud work and playing less to win than to deny his rivals a majority. Israeli polls have not moved during military operations, including the Iran campaign, she noted, a break from the Western pattern.
The full interview covers what an incoming government must do first, whether Israel still has the sovereignty to decide anything for itself, and her argument that October's election is not a contest between right and left.