The defining issue for conservative American Jews in the Middle East will be increasingly the difference between the way they perceive the Arab-Israeli conflict and the way Israelis do. Long accustomed to deferring to Israeli opinion (they put their lives on the line, after all), this will become more difficult to do as the realization spreads that the Israeli body politic in its vast majority - perhaps 85 percent of it - has become dispirited by the prospect of further confrontation with the Arabs and is ready to make very great accommodations to extricate itself from conflict. Conservative American Jews will argue with this approach.
Domestically, I see the great issue facing American Jews being the threat posed by the fundamentalist Muslim organizations that are growing in numbers and strength by leaps and bounds. Though still a speck on the horizon, this is a freight train that will be upon American Jews before the decade is out, posing a threat such as the American Jewish community has rarely or never before experienced.
Daniel Pipes is the Director of the Middle East Forum and editor of Middle East Quarterly.
