No One Tells Istanbul to Go Back to Constantinople

So why is Israel the only country forced to justify its existence every election cycle?

I took a bit of a break from writing this summer, but as the New York City election heats up with openly antisemitic candidate running and Democratic leaders lining up to legitimize him, it’s impossible to stay quiet. At the same time, America’s papers of record push fake stories and staged photographs, while hostages remain in captivity. I am haunted by the endless rhetoric about Bibi from people who still don’t understand the real war we are fighting. Sadly, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds, and as Jews we need to work much harder to reshape and reprogram the conversation.

In every democracy, leaders come and go. Policies shift, coalitions collapse, and elections reshape the political landscape. Citizens are free to disagree, often fiercely, with their governments. Yet nowhere else in the world does disagreement with a democratically elected leader translate into questioning the very legitimacy of the state itself. Except, of course, when it comes to Israel.

No one suggests that France should cease to exist because they disagree with Emmanuel Macron’s policies. No one claims that Spain should return to pre-1492 borders because they dislike Prime Minister Sánchez. If that were the rule, there would be no Spain at all. Americans debate their leaders passionately, often bitterly, but even at moments of national crisis, no serious movement argues that the United States has no right to exist.

And yet, when it comes to Israel, the conversation is distorted. Critics seize upon who happens to hold the office of Prime Minister as an excuse to question whether the Jewish state itself is “legitimate.” In doing so, they exploit Israel’s domestic political debates to mask what is, in reality, a rejection of Jewish self-determination.
This is a dangerous double standard. Israel’s government, like any other, is elected by its citizens. Its leaders are accountable at the ballot box. To suggest that Israel’s right to exist depends on whether one approves of its current leadership is not only absurd — it is an attack on the very principle of democracy itself.

Consider the contrast. Turkey under Erdoğan jails journalists and represses minorities, yet no one questions Turkey’s right to exist, even though modern Turkey itself was created out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire less than a century ago, with borders drawn by war and treaty. Should we demand that Istanbul be renamed back to Constantinople to satisfy history purists? Of course not — because the world accepts that nations evolve.

France, too, is not some eternal, fixed entity: its boundaries shifted countless times through wars with England, Spain, and Germany. No one says that because one dislikes Macron, France should be rolled back to its medieval borders. And Germany itself wasn’t even Germany until 1871, when Bismarck unified dozens of kingdoms, duchies, and free cities into a single empire. Italy, too, only became a nation in the late 19th century, when Garibaldi and others unified a collection of kingdoms and regional states into modern Italy. Yet no one argues these nations lack legitimacy because of their relatively recent or manufactured origins.

Meanwhile, many states in the Middle East were built on even flimsier foundations. Much of the region’s map was drawn with a ruler in European drawing rooms. Jordan was carved out of the British Mandate in 1921 as a reward to a Hashemite prince. Iraq and Syria are products of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, arbitrarily divided between European powers. Pakistan was created in 1947 by partition. These states remain “legitimate,” regardless of their origins or the crimes of their leaders. Yet Israel, with millennia of Jewish history, culture, and law tied to its land, is the one state perpetually forced to justify its existence.

The truth is plain: the delegitimization of Israel is not about policies or politicians. It is about denying Jews the right to sovereignty in their own homeland. That is why critics rush to “contextualize” or excuse those who openly align with terror groups. The excuses change — occupation, borders, judicial reform — but the target remains constant: the Jewish state itself.

Israel, like every democracy, is imperfect. Its people argue, protest, and demand change. That vitality is a strength, not a weakness. But its legitimacy is rooted in history, in international recognition, and above all in the unassailable right of the Jewish people to self-determination. That legitimacy does not hinge on who sits in the Prime Minister’s chair.

The time has come to call out this double standard for what it is: hypocrisy. To disagree with Israel’s leadership is fair. To debate its policies is healthy. But to question the existence of the Jewish state because one dislikes its prime minister is not principled criticism — it is a mask for antisemitism, and it must be named as such.