“The Jewish people have some experience being treated as a minority. When in the majority, we should not mistreat a minority.”

I wish I had said or written that. Our guest at lunch, from the Israel Democracy Institute, did instead.

Some of the Knesset bills he opposes have been enacted; others are still pending.

Many are comparable to laws enacted in the U.S. during the Red Scare after World War II or recently proposed by the far right to limit judicial review.

Among them are a loyalty oath directed at Israeli Arabs and a libel law that requires a newspaper to publish a response from the individual claiming defamation.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declared similar laws to be unconstitutional.

So I was taken aback when a prominent Israeli we met with later today proclaimed, “The threat to civil liberties would be dire in America if it faced the same threat Israel does.”

He cited the loyalty oath required of naturalized citizens.

“But Israel Arabs are citizens from birth,” I told him afterwards. “That’s a significant difference.”

An encouraging note: two of our more conservative speakers today made the same point, “Israel and its friends must make the liberal progressive case for support in America. Our support there is not as strong as it should be.”

Our dinner guest put it best:

“You don’t take the Chosen People and put them in the Holy Land and expect them to be only normal – to just get a passing grade on treatment of minorities.”