When is it too much?

When is it too much?
Gershon Baskin

July 21, 2025

When I first came to Israel for my Bar Mitzvah in 1969—at my request to my parents—I remember sitting on the veranda of my cousin’s apartment in Givatayim, gazing out toward Tel Aviv shortly before Shabbat began, and telling my mother: “I feel at home.”

Israel is my home. “Home”—that one very large word—is still the best description I have for Israel since moving here 47 years ago. I have no other place in the world where I feel at home. And yet, Israel in 2025 is a very different place from the country I knew in 1969 or even in 1978 when I made aliyah.

Now, I find myself conflicted every day by the question: When is the time that I can no longer live in the place I call home?

Israel is rapidly becoming a foreign land to me—where people who share my values are attacked by the police, silenced in the media, and pushed to seriously consider that Israel may no longer be a place we can live. I know the talk-backers from the poison machine of the current regime will write: Good riddance—we don’t want you and your kind here. If I weren’t Jewish, they’d call me an antisemite. Since I am, they’ll label me a self-hating Jew.

Israel is committing horrendous war crimes in Gaza. I physically experience pain as I write these words.

Israel has systematically destroyed a civilization in Gaza, where the death toll of non-Hamas civilians—women, children, the elderly, the sick, boys and girls, men searching for shelter, food, and water—climbs every day. Yes, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and committed horrific crimes against humanity. They bear responsibility for what has become of Gaza. But for almost two years, Israel has been responsible for unspeakable horrors that will stain our name for years to come.

Now people in Gaza are dying of hunger before our eyes. About 80% of Gaza’s buildings have been erased. Entire neighborhoods and towns—bombed, bulldozed, destroyed. And now even private Israeli contractors are profiteering from the destruction of buildings and lives.

There is no safe place in Gaza for more than two million people.

Just last night, I sent money to a family living in a tent in Deir el-Balah. It is no longer safe even there, where they had found some fragile refuge from Israeli bombs. Another young family in Gaza I’ve known for years sends me WhatsApp messages: “We are hungry and thirsty.” It breaks my heart.

I see the human tragedy Israel has created in Gaza every day on social media—the reports censored by Israel’s mainstream press. Even when an extraordinary journalist like Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps tries to speak out on Channel 13 about the death and starvation in Gaza, she is shut down by commentators like Berko and Moria for daring to “defame” Israel.

This is the reality of almost all of Israel’s media: deafening silence and self-censorship.

Israelis don’t want to know. Many seem to have no regrets and are even pleased by the suffering of over two million Gazans. This war of revenge enjoys deep support across Israeli society. It is not just the government.

Yes, a majority of Israelis want a deal to bring the hostages home and end the war. But many also believe there are no innocent people in Gaza.

Hatred against Arabs in Israel has reached new peaks.

An Arab Member of Knesset, Ayman Odeh, is violently attacked—nearly lynched—while the police stand by. He is accused of being a traitor, a fifth column. Yet ironically, Odeh is one of the few MKs who would still agree to sign Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Most, if not all, members of the current ruling coalition would refuse to sign that founding document—because it calls for peace and affirms full equality for all Israeli citizens, including Palestinians.

Some right-wing MKs might even label the Declaration of Independence antisemitic—or anti-Zionist.

Violence against Palestinians is all around us. Arab workers at a Jerusalem cinema are beaten on camera to chants of “Death to Arabs,” and passersby stroll past as if it’s normal. Arab bus drivers are attacked by Jewish passengers and then arrested by Ben Gvir’s police for defending themselves.

Across the West Bank, settlers attack Palestinians with soldiers and police standing by. Palestinians are driven off their land and even killed. No one is arrested, no one convicted. In fact, these violent settlers are protected by the Israeli army and police, who attack and arrest the victims.

Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Israel is committing war crimes in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Israel’s media is complicit. The Israeli public is responsible. We cannot escape that.

These crimes are being done in my name, in our name—in the name of the people of Israel. We cannot be silent.

Calling it out makes me, in the eyes of many Israelis, a traitor. And we know what happens to traitors.

Since the war began, my youngest son (age 31) asks me every Friday night at Shabbat dinner what line would have to be crossed for me to say I can no longer live in Israel.

Eventually, I gave him two red lines. The first was easy: If Ben Gvir becomes Prime Minister, I cannot stay.

The second is more likely: If, after everything since October 7, Netanyahu wins another election, I will say Israel is beyond repair.

And yet, I say this with deep sorrow. I have no other home in the world. No other place where I feel I have a mission or purpose.

I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to shape Israel to reflect the values I thought were Jewish values. I’ve dedicated myself to building bridges between Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. I still do that work. I am more convinced than ever that peace—and a two-state solution—is closer than most believe. But that vision may also be farther away than ever.

If no new leadership emerges, if we cannot transform this trauma into healing, the damage may be irreversible. That is the fear I carry daily.

I think often of anti-apartheid South Africans, who wrestled with whether to remain in an unjust, brutal society—or leave. I am now facing that same question.

There are still amazing Israelis doing courageous, beautiful things. There is still so much that is good. But I fear our country is being overtaken by the ugly, the unjust, the criminal, the hateful, and the fearful.

Our society is violent—how could it not be? Hundreds of thousands of Israelis commit acts of war in Gaza and return with trauma, rage, and guilt. These do not stay on the battlefield. They return home with them. The dehumanization required to carry out the violence in Gaza and the West Bank collides with life back home, where some try to justify actions that can never be justified.

This is Israel in July 2025.

Fifty Israeli hostages remain abandoned in Gaza. Thousands of citizens displaced by war have been left behind by a government more concerned with power and corruption than with the people. Israel grows more messianic and fundamentalist. Israel is becoming the most hated country in the world. And Israelis are feeling increasingly unwelcome abroad.

That is Israel in 2025.

Still, there is no other place I can call home. No other country where I have a mission to complete. But we are rapidly approaching a moment when Israel becomes a place I do not want to call home—a place I cannot call home. A place where I no longer feel welcome. A place I no longer want to be associated with.

That is Israel in 2025.