What Israel's Elections Tell Us About Israel's Critics

For years, mainstream American Democrats have tried to walk a delicate line: "I support Israel, but I oppose Netanyahu and his right-wing government."

They probably thought this was smart politics. They could reassure pro-Israel voters while distancing themselves from Israeli policies unpopular with their base.

They didn't realize that they walked into a trap.

On the eve of Israel's elections, anti-Zionists are pointing out that Netanyahu's leading opponents aren't all that different from him on major security issues and Palestinian statehood. Replacing Bibi won't fundamentally change Israeli policy.

Guess what? They are largely right!

But the conclusion they draw is the problem. If even Israel's centrists and liberals agree with Netanyahu on important questions, then, they claim, the problem must be Israelis themselves. They are all supposedly racist, militaristic, and don't give a damn about Palestinian rights.

This has become a constant meme across the anti-Zionists. See, for example, this "analysis" by Turkish media. 

It is possible to take the same facts and reach a radically different conclusion. 

Israelis disagree about practically everything. Religion, democracy, settlements, the judiciary, the economy, and Netanyahu himself divide Israeli society bitterly. Israeli elections are exercises in three-dimensional chess, with voters weighing not only which party best represents their values but which coalition might emerge.

Yet on fundamental security questions, there is considerable agreement. No one wants their homes invaded by Hamas. No one wants to have sleepless nights going back and forth to bomb shelters. No one wants to be stabbed or bombed on their local streets.

That doesn't prove Israelis are all bigots. It means that people who actually live with the consequences of these decisions understand something outsiders don't.

Judaism has a principle called dan l'chaf zechut: judging others favorably, giving them the benefit of the doubt before attributing bad motives. Applied to Israeli politics, it would mean considering that Israelis who must send their children to war, live with terrorism, and bear the consequences of failed peace agreements might have legitimate reasons for their positions.

They can care about Palestinian rights while also caring about their own lives and security. Disagreeing with how someone balances competing moral values doesn't mean that person rejects the values you prioritize.

October 7 made this painfully clear.

Some of the communities devastated by Hamas were among Israel's most committed advocates of coexistence. Their residents had helped Palestinians, supported dialogue, and believed peace was possible. The massacre shattered assumptions across Israeli society, particularly among people who had placed their faith in reconciliation.

Israel's peace camp was largely mugged by reality. Many Israelis reconsidered whether the risks of a Palestinian state were acceptable. Support for a two-state solution, already declining, fell further. Ironically, the idea now seems to have more enthusiastic supporters in Western capitals than in Israel itself.

It is easy to advocate political arrangements when someone else must live with the consequences.

A society that argues so passionately about everything deserves to have its concerns taken seriously when a broad consensus emerges. Calling them racist is something else altogether. 

Israel's critics, even some well meaning ones, assume that they understand Israel's circumstances better than Israelis do. They interpret agreement across political divisions not as evidence of shared experience but as proof of collective moral failure.

This is not merely condescending. It is insulting.

And it is disturbingly close to an ancient antisemitic habit: treating Jews not as individuals making difficult choices under difficult circumstances, but as a collective whose actions reveal some underlying moral defect.

Not every critic of Israeli policy does this. But moving from "Netanyahu is the problem" to "the Israeli electorate is the problem" is a dangerous step toward collective demonization. And Israel-haters have adopted this strategy to take the air out of the tires of the simplistic "Israel has a right to exist, Bibi bad" frame.

When people who disagree about almost everything agree about something important, intellectual humility suggests asking what they know that you don't. Intellectual arrogance assumes they must all share the same moral defect.

Israel's elections will tell us who Israelis want to govern them. But the reactions to those elections are already telling us a great deal about Israel's critics. And it is a pattern that Jews recognize from across the centuries.

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