The World As It Might Be

Welcome, 2026.  I want to believe that you will improve upon the results of your  two predecessors, but as an American now living in Israel, I don’t have high hopes.

President Trump’s decision in 2025 to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites enjoyed wide support in my new home. I saluted him for ushering in the Gaza ceasefire, and while his 20-point peace plan seemed fantastical, I tipped my hat to him for trying.

That said, from my home in Tel Aviv I see America headed down the authoritarian path of Russia and Hungary. Before October 7, 2023, ironically, I attended many demonstrations in Israel to protest the government’s attempt to strip the Supreme Court of its independence. I never imagined America’s democratic institutions would soon come under similar attack from the party in power.

Trump’s feckless foreign policy has emboldened China and Russia and discouraged Western Europe. Ukraine has become his pawn. I shudder at the thought of Israel becoming another Trump stooge.

While, many Israelis may not mind Trump blowing ships out of the Caribbean to stop drug smugglers, while pardoning Honduras’s former president convicted in the US for drug smuggling, I do. Sidestepping Congress to fight Venezuelan “terrorists” strikes me as gangster crap. Sending the National Guard into mostly Democrat-led cities to fight crime and seize illegal immigrants, some of whom are US citizens, conjures visions of Arthur Koestler’s dystopian novel Darkness at Noon.

No matter how much he may protest, Trump, at 79, reminds me more and more of sleepy Joe Biden. His rants appear to be more frequent and irrational. And there is no turning back the clock. Trump’s decline may allow more level-headed people in his sphere – the few that still exist – to throttle the MAGA juggernaut.

Watching the president’s base crack in its diehard support as prices continue to rise, I think about the high inflation that helped return Trump to the White House. When his dogged ally Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green split with him over the Jeffrey Epstein files, and right-wing influencers Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro feuded at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest over the MAGA movement’s future, that reminded me of the fragile coalition now running the Knesset in Jerusalem.

Which leads me from America’s frying pan to Israel’s fire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served with distinction in the Israel Defense Force and has been one of his country’s greatest leaders, in particular when representing Israel on the world stage. But those days are past. Hamas in Gaza is largely quiet, for now. Syria does not pose a major threat. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been subdued. So has Iran. Israel seems poised to turn a page, perhaps, toward a wider peace.

Netanyahu’s self-interest, like Trump’s, has eclipsed the glow of his achievements. Whether or not he is guilty of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, his machinations to avoid standing trial, coupled with his moves to diminish the powers of the Supreme Court, have damaged public trust in Israel’s democratic system of government.

The pact he has made with the zealots on his party’s right flank has wrought further damage. His coalition’s vote to approve a government-appointed commission to probe the October 7 security failures, rather than a non-partisan body, is only the latest affront. His prolonging the war to suit his political needs, his allowing the ultra-Orthodox to avoid military service, and his largely turning a blind eye to the violent attacks by extremist West Bank settlers on Palestinians, has dragged Israel to the edge of a black hole.

Like many Israelis, I see a ray of sunshine: national elections. Next October we have a chance to show our 76-year-old prime minister that we want a brighter future.

These days Israel’s international standing is shaky, at best. The civilians suffering in Gaza have prompted charges of genocide and fueled a rise in antisemitism across the globe. The plight of West Bank Palestinians has sown divisions in the country and torn a hole in my own family. As eloquent as Netanyahu may be in two languages, we need someone more democratic at home and more credible abroad.

What next year promises by way of Gaza’s reconstruction remains hazy, as does the future of a Palestinian state. Will we see the demilitarization of Hamas? What of Mahmoud Abbas, the 90-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority who has been in power since 2005? His critics have called him corrupt and ineffectual. Netanyahu opposes a two-state solution, pointing to his unreliability. With Abbas at the PA’s helm, a change in the status quo appears unlikely.

In discussions of the Palestinian question, a leader whose name often comes up is Marwan Barghouti. Born in a West Bank village, now 65, he has been held in Israeli prisons longer than Abbas has been president. An advocate of a two-state solution, he was convicted in 2002 of planning attacks that killed five people in Israel. His advocacy for the Palestinian cause has persisted behind bars. While Israelis dismiss him as an irredeemable terrorist, Palestinians see him as their Nelson Mandela.

The parallel may be instructive. Mandela led the African National Congress’s armed wing, which carried out bombings that killed civilians. Convicted of sabotage and treason, he kept up his advocacy for equality in South Africa while incarcerated. After 27 years in prison, he emerged as an ardent advocate of reconciliation and negotiated the end of apartheid, later earning a Nobel Peace Prize. Might Barghouti follow in Mandela’s footsteps?

Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Shara, formerly an Al-Qaeda jihadist, may provide hope. Since toppling the regime of Bashar al-Assad, he appears to have taken  pragmatic steps toward building a less pernicious Syria.

Could the new year herald an Israel-Syria peace deal? Might Marwan Barghouti emerge from prison to negotiate a two-state solution? If so, could a peace pact with Saudi Arabia come next?

Convince me it’s not a waste of time to dream.