RUTHFULLY YOURS

When Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon criticized the United States in a speech he delivered on Monday at Tel Aviv University, he must have known that serious backlash would follow. After all, this was not his first rodeo with the White House and State Department.

Earlier this month, when asked in an interview on Channel 2’s “Meet the Press” whether he considered U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to be an “honest broker,” Ya’alon hesitated. “That’s something we will have to see during the course of the negotiations,” he said.

Two months ago, Ya’alon accused Kerry of “acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor.” When this statement, which had been made in private, was leaked, Ya’alon got into a lot of hot water at home and abroad, and immediately issued a public apology.

His words this week were no more minced.

“We had thought the one who should lead the campaign against Iran is the United States,” Ya’alon was quoted by Haaretz as having said in the closed forum. “But at some stage the United States entered into negotiations with them, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians are better. Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves.”

He is also reported to have called America’s handling of the crisis in Ukraine a “show of weakness.”

On Wednesday, an outraged Kerry phoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protest. Later that day, Ya’alon called U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to clarify his remarks.

“There was no opposition or criticism or intention to offend the United States or our relations,” he said. “The strategic ties between our countries have a supreme importance, as do our personal ties and mutual interests.” Apparently, Hagel accepted the gesture.

For the time being, then, tensions have been soothed. But the brouhaha over his bluntness continues to preoccupy Israelis.

The Left — which opposes Ya’alon politically and ideologically — wants his head on a platter. The Right is angry at him for succumbing to pressure and backing down every time he tells the truth.

The wider consensus position is that even if Ya’alon’s views about the U.S. are correct, he should not be voicing them.

It is this stance with which I take issue. Given the already appalling behavior of the Obama administration toward the only ally in the region on which it can count, there is no reason for members of the Israeli government to play footsie with the truth. Iran is becoming a nuclear power before our very eyes; the Palestinian Authority is engaged in a war process with Israel; and the Jewish state is being increasingly demonized through a concerted boycott, divestment and sanctions effort across the world.

Still, Israel is just that: a Jewish state. And many of its attitudes, like much of its behavior, have roots in Halachah (Jewish law). So ingrained are they in the collective psyche, in fact, that most of us are not even aware of their ever-looming presence.

One such point of Halachah is “marit ayin” — the way things appear to others. More specifically, it is a concept according to which even legal acts can be forbidden if they look from the outside to resemble illegal ones. This is why controversy arose in Israel when “kosher shrimp” — whitefish molded to look like prohibited seafood — began to be sold in supermarkets.

The idea is that it is not sufficient to abide by Jewish law; one also has to keep up the appearance of doing so. It is religious legislation that, in effect, legitimizes a Jewish worry we all joke about regularly with self-deprecation: What will the neighbors think?

Where international relations are concerned, however, “marit ayin” is no laughing matter. If anything, it is to be taken into account and used to exert power. If Iran fears an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, for example, due to “marit ayin,” this is good strategically. When the U.S. extends an olive branch to the Islamic republic, or sits by idly while Russia annexes Crimea, its “marit ayin” of impotence has devastating global implications and consequences.

It is the latter that has spurred the statements of Israel’s defense minister. And it is “marit ayin” that causes even those who agree with him completely to call him to task for crossing a line.

The upshot is likely to be that Ya’alon will watch his mouth in the foreseeable future, making sure that what he emits is not only kosher, but bears the external stamp of acceptability.

Those who may be tempted to believe this will make the slightest bit of difference where Washington’s treatment of Jerusalem is concerned ought to think again.

Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.'”