By Janis Siegel , JTNews Correspondent
At the age of 35, Gil Hoffman is one of the top journalists in Israel. But the chief political correspondent and analyst for the Jerusalem Post is not your average seasoned Mideast political commentator. Raised in Chicago by Israeli parents, he is also as American as the Chicago Bears and Manny’s Coffee Shop and Deli.
Hoffman, a Post correspondent since 1999, also travels abroad and in the U.S. for weeks at a time in his dual role as a lecturer, speaking at places that vary from Orthodox synagogues and Jewish Federations to university settings, including the University of California at Irvine. Students who consider themselves pro-Israel have long complained about intimidation at that campus, and in 2010, 10 students were arrested after disrupting a talk by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
Joking he was “made in America with all Israeli parts,” Hoffman told JTNews during a late-April visit to Seattle, just prior to a talk at Congregation Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath where he served as scholar-in-residence, that he “grew up in a house where Israel was our religion.”
BCMH and AIPAC Seattle sponsored his visit.
As a reserve soldier in the Spokesman’s Unit of the Israeli Defense Forces, Hoffman is at ease answering questions on the most pressing topics today on world affairs and the Middle East.
He offered his candid observations on President Obama’s changing popularity in Israel, including the outcome of Egyptian elections, behind-the-scenes negotiations with Iran, prognostications on the political mood in Israel going forward, and U.S. Jews and Israeli Jews.
“Israel is the one issue that unites Democrats and Republicans today,” Hoffman said. “Israelis don’t differentiate between a Democrat and a Republican president. They just want a pro-Israel president.”
And it is that relationship, between Israelis and Obama, that according to Hoffman, has flipped, flopped and finally neutralized.
Seven public opinion polls were conducted by the Jerusalem Post in Israel between 2009 and 2012 with 600 Jewish Israelis over the age of 18, asking them the same question each time — is the Obama administration more pro-Israel, more pro-Palestinian, or neutral?
In May 2009, 31 percent of respondents said Obama was more pro-Israel, 14 percent said he was more pro-Palestinian.
“During the campaign, he did more to reach out to Israel than any other president — during the campaign,” Hoffman said, pulling out a Jerusalem Post cover page from that time calling Obama a “mavrik,” meaning shiny, brilliant, and cool, he explained.
“Israel started to see the magic that Americans were starting to see,” he said.
However, following Obama’s infamous June 4, 2009 “Cairo speech” and less-than-friendly meetings in Washington between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 50 percent believed him to be more pro-Palestinian, while the pro-Israel respondents dropped from 31 percent to 6 percent.
“Obama supporters saw this and got worried about mainstream Israel,” Hoffman said.
Further alienating a political cross-section of Israelis in July 2010, by equivocating on two issues that unite them — Jerusalem and refugees, he said, Israelis felt insulted.
The poll taken at that time, in July 2010, found that only 10 percent of Israelis felt the Obama administration was more pro-Israel, and a full 46 percent considered it to be more pro-Palestinian.
In the latest 2012 poll, Israelis were evenly split over the intentions of the American president, with 24 percent believing he is more pro-Israel and the same believing he was more pro-Palestinian. In the same poll, 36 percent said Obama was more neutral.
On the subject of a nuclear Iran, Hoffman corroborated what most Israeli officials tell the U.S press: That Israel will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons but will not rush into the military option.
Hoffman said Israel is currently taking part in the behind-the-scenes meetings that are ongoing following talks between the U.S. and Iran last month in Istanbul, because if it were necessary to use force, Israel would need the ability, necessity, and legitimacy, to strike, as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the New York Times in January of this year.
“We’re working on it,” said Hoffman, referring to his country’s leaders. “They’re negotiating a deal as we speak…. [Israel must] exhaust every possibility completely. We’ve got 50,000 rockets aimed at us from Lebanon.”
When asked about Egypt, his thoughts on the outcome of its elections and the fate of the peace agreement with Israel, Hoffman expressed confidence that a moderate leader would prevail, despite the recent election of Islamists to 70 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament.
“It looks like Amir Moussa will win,” said Hoffman. “He doesn’t like Israel but he understands the world. He will likely keep the peace agreement for the love of money. Foreign investment in Egypt is down 92 percent. It’ll be colder. It’ll be an Alaskan-style peace, but peace nonetheless.”
Commenting on the peace process, which is at a virtual standstill, he said the Palestinians are waiting for U.S elections and for Obama to be re-elected, while the Israelis are waiting for a Palestinian election and a Palestinian leader who will come back to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, he said, internally, Israel seems to be turning its attention, in part, away from national security and instead focusing on economic problems within its borders and looking for some economic relief for the middle class.
“The new trend in Israel is not war and peace,” Hoffman said. “We are pretending it anyway. It’s very healthy. Obsessing about war and peace has kept us from solving our internal problems. Israel is going above it.”