What if the Israel I believed in is no longer the Israel Israelis want?

I immigrated to Israel in 1978, at the age of 22, full of idealism, optimism, and the conviction that I was joining one of the most extraordinary national experiments in modern history. I believed that Israel could be a Jewish homeland, a vibrant democracy, a society committed to social justice, and eventually a country living in peace with its neighbors. I knew Israel was far from perfect. I knew about the occupation, discrimination, inequality, and its many contradictions. But I believed these were challenges we could overcome, not permanent features of the country we were building.

Almost 50 years later, at the age of 70, I find myself confronting a question far more painful than any political disappointment: What if the Israel I believed in is no longer the Israel that most Israelis want?

In a few days, Israelis will go to the polls. Much of the public debate focuses on whether Benjamin Netanyahu will remain prime minister, whether his coalition partners will retain their power, and whether the opposition can assemble an alternative government.

For years, I have blamed Israel’s political direction on its leaders. I have criticized Netanyahu for his cynicism, his determination to remain in power, his willingness to empower extremists, and his attacks on the institutions that protect Israeli democracy. I have watched Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich move from the political margins to the centers of power. I have watched the ultra-Orthodox parties use their political leverage to preserve privileges and exemptions that deepen resentment and inequality.

But perhaps I have been asking the wrong question.

Perhaps the problem is not simply what these politicians have done to Israel. Perhaps the more difficult question is why so many Israelis continue to support them.

If Netanyahu and his allies emerge from the elections with another governing majority, we will have to stop pretending that Israel’s political direction is an accident, a temporary deviation, or the work of a handful of politicians who have somehow hijacked the state.

We will have to confront the possibility that this is the country a substantial part of Israeli society has consciously chosen to become.

That thought troubles me more than another four years of Netanyahu.

I remember the Israel of the late 1970s. It was much poorer than today’s Israel, far less technologically sophisticated, and far more economically vulnerable. It was also deeply unequal, politically divided, and burdened by the occupation. I have no desire to romanticize it. But there was something about the national spirit that attracted me and thousands of other young Jews from around the world.

We believed we were building something. We believed that Israel’s future could be better than its present. We believed that the Jewish people’s experience of persecution created a special responsibility to defend human dignity, including the dignity of those who were not Jewish.

Perhaps we were naïve. Perhaps we saw the Israel we wanted to see rather than the Israel that actually existed. But those aspirations were real, and they inspired people to devote their lives to this country.

Today, I wonder what ideals would inspire a 22-year-old American Jew to make the same decision I made in 1978.

One of the most disturbing changes I have witnessed is the normalization of ideas that once existed on the political fringes.

There was a time when openly advocating the permanent denial of Palestinian national rights was considered an extremist position. Today, politicians who reject Palestinian statehood and advocate Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank occupy senior positions in government.

There was a time when attacks on the independence of the judiciary would have provoked outrage across much of the political spectrum. Today, weakening the courts has become a central political objective for a substantial part of the governing right.

There was a time when the principle of shared national responsibility, including military service, was treated as fundamental to Israeli citizenship. Today, the political system increasingly accepts that some communities can demand the benefits of citizenship while refusing obligations that others are expected to fulfill.

These changes did not happen overnight. They were the product of decades of political decisions, demographic developments, educational priorities, religious influences, and the failure of alternative political movements to offer a convincing vision.

Netanyahu did not create all these trends. He has exploited and accelerated them. But they will not disappear when he eventually leaves office.

I have spent almost 50 years working with Palestinians, including people who believe in peace with Israel and people who have devoted their lives to fighting against it. I have negotiated with Hamas leaders and worked alongside Palestinians who have risked their reputations, their freedom, and sometimes their lives to promote dialogue and coexistence.

Those experiences have strengthened my belief that Israelis and Palestinians are not condemned to eternal conflict. But they have also taught me something about the power of fear.

Fear can make people accept things they would once have considered morally unacceptable. It can make permanent injustice appear necessary for survival. It can convince an entire society that there are no alternatives.

October 7 inflicted a profound trauma on Israeli society. The murders, the hostage-taking, and the collapse of the state’s promise to protect its citizens shattered assumptions that many Israelis had lived with for decades. The fear is real. The pain is real. The anger is understandable.

But trauma does not absolve us of responsibility for the choices we make afterward.

We cannot build a healthy national future around the conviction that another people must remain permanently without freedom so that we can feel secure. We cannot expect our children to live indefinitely by the sword and call that a national vision.

And we cannot continue to insist that Israel is a democracy while accepting permanent control over millions of Palestinians who have no political rights in the state that exercises ultimate power over their lives.

The measure of success

Israel has become extraordinarily successful in many ways. Its technology, science, medicine, entrepreneurship, and cultural achievements are remarkable. Its military capabilities are formidable. Its economy has demonstrated impressive resilience.

But national success cannot be measured only by economic output, military power, or technological innovation.

Do we still believe that every human being possesses inherent dignity, or have we begun dividing humanity into those whose suffering matters and those whose suffering can be ignored?

At 70, I think increasingly about the country we will leave behind.

My children are adults. Their generation will inherit the consequences of decisions being made today. They will live with the Israel that emerges from these years long after many of today’s political leaders have disappeared from the scene.

I wonder whether they will want their own children to grow up here.

And I wonder what responsibility my generation bears for the country we are handing over to them.

It is easy to blame politicians. It is much harder to acknowledge that societies create the conditions in which certain politicians flourish.

Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich did not emerge from nowhere. They speak to real constituencies, real fears, real beliefs, and real aspirations. Their supporters are not all extremists, and it would be both unfair and foolish to describe them as such. Many are decent people who love their families, care about their communities, and genuinely believe they are protecting Israel’s future.

But decent people can support policies with profoundly destructive consequences.

If Israelis knowingly empower a government committed to deepening the occupation, weakening democratic institutions, and entrenching unequal civic obligations, we cannot attribute the consequences solely to the politicians who implement those policies.

I do not believe that Israel’s future is predetermined. I know too many extraordinary Israelis who continue to fight for a different country. I see courage, generosity, and moral clarity in places that rarely make the headlines. I see young people refusing to accept the divisions and prejudices they inherited. I see Israelis who understand that genuine patriotism sometimes requires confronting the darkest aspects of one’s own society.

They give me hope.

But hope is not a political strategy, and nostalgia is not a substitute for action.

Those of us who believe in a democratic, just, and peaceful Israel must do more than oppose Netanyahu. We must offer an alternative vision of Israeli identity that can speak to people beyond our own political circles.

We must understand why so many Israelis have lost faith in peace, why they distrust democratic institutions, and why religious nationalism has become so compelling to growing segments of the population.

We must listen without surrendering our principles. We must confront fear without exploiting it. And we must demonstrate that security, democracy, Jewish identity, and respect for Palestinian freedom are not mutually exclusive.

I also know that the choice before us is not simply between Netanyahu and his opponents. The deeper struggle over Israel’s character will continue long after this election, regardless of who wins.

At 70, after almost 50 years in this country, I am no longer naïve enough to believe that history inevitably moves toward justice or that societies naturally become more democratic and tolerant with time.

They do not. People must choose those values, defend them, and teach them to the next generation.

But for the first time in my life, I find myself wondering whether the country I dreamed of building is still the country that most Israelis want.

Tuesday’s election will not provide the final answer. But it may tell us how much harder the struggle for that Israel has become.