If you listen to its most vociferous backers, Israel is doing a lot of winning. It’s winning in Gaza (read: the Strip’s total destruction). It’s winning in Lebanon (read: decapitated Hezbollah). It’s winning in Syria (read: seizing land in the chaos over the end of the Assads).

Amid the parade of self-congratulations for all the “winning” going on out there, it was easy to miss the head of one the most prominent U.S. pro-Israel groups, the Anti-Defamation League, admitting to Israel’s parliament that it has been failing on one important front: the fight against global antisemitism.

“Nobody likes to admit when they’ve fallen short,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, told the Knesset on Tuesday, according to eJewishPhilanthropy. “I don’t like to lose. I personally hate to lose. However, sometimes we need to acknowledge the reality.”

The reality was stark: Antisemitism, Greenblatt said, is on the rise, especially online. The admission was a stunning one, since the ADL was founded to fight antisemitism. That is the banner under which all of its vociferous advocacy for Israel occurs. So for the group to fail in this way raises big questions — questions that need big answers.

Luckily, Greenblatt had ideas: Israel’s backers need to think like Israeli spies who secretly installed bombs in electronics all over Lebanon, killing dozens and wounding thousands.

“We need the kind of genius that manufactured Apollo Gold........

© The Intercept