Israel Must Establish Trust at Home to Regain It in Washington

In March 2023, two American senators issued a joint statement about Israel’s courts. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, and Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to pause his judicial overhaul and urged a compromise. This was more than six months before October 7. The ability of an Israeli citizen to take his or her government to court and get a fair hearing mattered to friends of Israel in both parties.

In the wake of the landslide victory won by the Democratic party in the midterm elections, I have a request from the new majority in the House and Senate. When you meet Israel’s next prime minister, or when you think of Israel, understand that Israeli priorities are plentiful, alongside Gaza and the West Bank. Those two are important, but they are not the only action items in a lengthy line of issues that Israel’s incoming government will have to contend with.

Primarily, what Israel needs first, is a real inquiry into the events that led to October 7. Israel owes real answers to the families of thousands of murdered civilians, to the tens of thousands of reservists who left their families and livelihoods for tour after tour of duty.  Washington needs to understand that since October 7, Israel has been in an “emotional and economic holding pattern.”  We need closure on this topic to heal as a society.

Gone are the days of American bipartisanship towards Israel. And that is a sad but bitter pill that Israel has had to swallow. The recent and “unlikely” actors to join the anti-Israel camp, are no others than the President and Vice-President of the United States. So we went from huge billboards placed by the Likud party of Netanyahu beside Donald Trump on a campaign billboard in Tel Aviv, to statements by the two highest elected officials in the United States that their party’s loss came due to voters dislike of Israel.

This is the sad truth in the wake of the midterm elections. The realization that under Netanyahu unease over Israel has spread among Republicans, at the highest levels possible.

In the event Gadi Eisenkot is able to fulfill the mandate given to him by President Hertzog and form a government, his first item of business has to be the formation of the October 7 inquiry, as promised. That responsibility would fall to Chief Justice Amit, whose swearing-in Netanyahu, and his justice minister boycotted. The signal to the United States is clear. Israel is restoring rule of law and is restoring its democratic institutions and processes.

A newly formed government, within its first hundred days, should also vote to repeal the 2025 law that gives politicians greater influence over judicial appointments. They should do it before the selection committee appoints a single judge under the new rules. A Democrat in Washington could point to that vote when a constituent asks what has changed in Jerusalem. Once more, Israel would be singling the restoration of democratic processes.

How the new government treats Arab Israeli citizens will matter just as much. Ra’am and the Joint List accounted for 19 of the 67 lawmakers who recommended Eisenkot. Neither Arab-led party currently looks likely to join the coalition, however their representatives should still help decide how budgets tackle pressing issues facing Israel’s Arab citizens, primary among them the violence in Arab towns. Once again, Israel would be signing that it is truly a democratic society.

I would urge newly elected US officials to visit Israel and see firsthand the change a new government brings with it. I would also urge American officials to hear from mayors whose citizens are trickling back to their hometowns after years of displacement or learn of a city that reopened kindergartens with as few as eight children. I would ask American lawmakers to sit down with a self-employed reservist and ask what another call-up cost their family and their business.

If American officials come to visit me in Haifa, I would take them to Rambam Hospital. Earlier this year, during the war with Iran, the hospital moved 700 patients underground in eleven hours. I would also take them to see the ruins of the apartment building where my nephews once lived, and the consequences of a building taking a direct hit from an Iranian missile. My nephews are alive today due to the unwavering discipline of Israeli citizens  taking shelter during the first sign of attack.

Israelis need to know they can count on Democrats and Republicans to maintain Israel’s military edge in the region, even during a bitter ideological or political dispute with Jerusalem. Israel should be able to welcome and weather the American lawmakers’ scrutiny of whether medicine reaches families in Gaza and whether Israel prosecutes settlers who assault Palestinians in the West Bank. I want Democratic leaders to say in public that Jews and Palestinians alike are entitled to national self-determination and work honestly towards achieving these goals.

Over the next few years, our prime minister should bring Democratic and Republican committee leaders into the same briefings, especially after a congressional vote he dislikes. And when a skeptical Democrat asks me a year from now what changed in Israel, I hope I can hand them real proof of how our government fought hard to restore Isael’s global credibility as a Jewish and democratic state and succeeded.