Ireland recently purchased a €53 million government aircraft without FalconEye, an Israeli-made enhanced-vision system used in poor visibility. Ireland reportedly omitted it under a policy against purchasing Israeli defense products.

Then reality entered the procurement office. New Irish military helicopters reportedly retained Israeli flight systems because practical substitutes were unavailable.

Ireland had discovered an adaptable moral principle: no Israeli technology, unless the government actually needs it.

Until this week, I did not know the city where I live and invest was contemplating its own experiment in economic purity.

That admission is embarrassing. I had spent months writing about Zohran Mamdani’s democratic-socialist politics in New York and watching similar movements elsewhere. Meanwhile, half of Portland’s 12-member City Council had signed a nationally coordinated pledge to investigate the city’s alleged economic and infrastructural “complicity” with Israel. Four belong to the Democratic Socialists of America, whose local organization says its councilors “coordinate like a party” and “frequently vote as a bloc.”

The most unsettling fact in this article may be that I did not know to look.

The pledge contemplates formal or informal investigations into weapons manufacturing and transportation, investments and contracts, port and logistics activity, and diplomatic relationships. One councilor’s official release says the objective is to “leverage municipal power” and prepare for concrete policy.

I am a nonobservant Jew. My Zionism is not an endorsement of every Israeli government. It is my belief that the........

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