Israeli envoy in NY likens calls to condition US aid to parents who throw out an LGBT child

Dani Dayan, Israel’s outgoing consul general in New York, likens those in the American Jewish community calling to cut or condition US aid to Israel to a parent who throws an LGBT child out of their home.

“Sometimes I think there are American Jews who behave like the bigoted father who throws out of his home the son who comes out of the closet,” Dayan says in an exit interview with The Forward and the New York Jewish News conducted over Zoom.

Dayan makes the comments days after a prominent Democratic senator proposed legislation to ban US defense assistance to Israel from being used to annex parts of the West Bank, or going to annexed areas.

Backed by several prominent Jewish groups, including J Street, the amendment to a funding bill introduced by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen would not allow aid used to “deploy or support the deployment of United States defense articles, services or training to territories in the West Bank unilaterally annexed by Israel after July 1, 2020, or to facilitate the unilateral annexation of such territories.”

“If you’re family you have a right and sometimes a duty to speak out… but there are red lines,” Dayan, a former settler leader, argues while also including advocacy for boycotts of Israel among his “red lines.”