Visiting Israel, June 2024

I’ve visited Israel three times since October 7, but this visit was the most sobering—even somber.

Of course, the sense of shock and dislocation from normality was greatest in my visit last November. The most commonplace experiences—from crowded hotel lobbies to traffic jams—were absent. The country was still quite visibly shaken. 

But the most recent visit, in June, was equally striking in a different way. In too many conversations, what I found was a deep uncertainty about the country’s future. In many cases these feelings were blamed on the country’s political leadership, which is to say on Prime Minister Netanyahu. The accusations were many: corruption, narcissism, incompetence, unwillingness to accept any blame for October 7, and failure to push back against extremists in his coalition. No surprise here, I suppose: if things are thought to be going wrong, the man who has been prime minister for most of the last decade is of course going to be blamed. Ten years in power seems to be about the limit for maintaining popularity in many democracies: John Howard (11), Margaret Thatcher (11) Tony Blair (10)-- and now Emmanuel Macron (7) has been defeated in the parliamentary election in France last weekend. In the U.S. we avoid this by presidential term limits of eight years; in France it’s ten, and the recent election suggests the French now think that’s too long. Netanyahu has served (discontinuously) for 16 years, longer than anyone in Israel’s history.

So I found, even more than in the previous visits, a view that things could not be set right until he was gone. The main accusation now was that he communicated no sense of Israel’s future—of how it would emerge from the current crises—and no sense of how Israelis can together pursue the common good.

Israelis understand that military efforts in Gaza must continue and that war in Lebanon may be inevitable, and terribly damaging, but they will bear it as long as they have faith that the future will be better and that their leadership has a sensible plan. Among those with whom I spoke, that sense that Netanyahu has a plan, a vision, for their collective future and can get them there was rare.

Is that a fair criticism? When applied, for example, to Gaza, it may well not be. After all, any plan for Gaza’s future that Netanyahu and Israel put forward would be dead on arrival. Any proposal must be worked out with the Americans, Emiratis, Egyptians, Saudis, and others in secret, and it’s clear that a lot of diplomacy is underway behind closed doors. If none of it pans out in the next few months (by the end of the summer), the criticism will seem fairer. But with major military actions in Gaza ending in July, diplomacy has a chance. If it works and something comes together, the criticism that Netanyahu had no ideas and no ability to implement them will seem wrong in retrospect. And of course, Israel cannot implement any plan without outside support unless you favor its ruling Gaza alone. To the extent that there is failure, how much of it is his—and how much that of, for example, Biden and Blinken?

More broadly, the criticism of Netanyahu and the uncertainty about the future reflect three things that go beyond Gaza. One is the detritus of last year’s “judicial reform” debate combined with the current debate on haredi (ultra-Orthodox) enlistment in the IDF. Real judicial reform is badly needed in Israel, where the judges have a roving commission that would make any American judge gasp, allowing them to force or to oppose government actions on vague “reasonableness” grounds. But the way in which “reform” was pursued, seeking not a workable compromise but an extreme weakening of the independence of the judiciary, alienated much of Israel’s population. Yes, much of the opposition was hatred of Netanyahu disguised as support for democracy; read the words of former prime minister Ehud Barak to see the worst examples. But that debate convinced many Israelis in the center and left that Netanyahu—who did not restrain the most extreme versions of “judicial reform” coming from his camp—was now in the hands of the far-right parties and could no longer be trusted.

That debate split Israel but Netanyahu had his own Likud Party on his side. In today’s debate on army service by the haredim, it’s fair to say that he does not. The children of most Likud voters are in the IDF and many have been fighting, or wounded, or killed, in Gaza. As Israel contemplates another and larger war, against Hezbollah and Iran, its army must grow. It is a citizen’s army, a reservist army, and those serving in it have been fighting now for eight  months—Israel’s longest war. The strain on them and their families is very great. But the haredim, now perhaps 15 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, do not (with rare exceptions) serve. Tens of thousands in this young population are of military age and they are—increasingly—needed. Israel’s Supreme Court has just ruled that they must serve, but the religious parties for whom they vote are part of Netanyahu’s coalition and vow to resist. Netanyahu, an IDF veteran of the toughest commando unit, is caught in these political and legal pressures.

But non-haredi Israelis are uninterested in his political problems and deeply disgusted that their children are risking their lives every day while this significant part of the population is immune from the dangers that war brings. Moreover, Netanyahu’s apparent inability to challenge the leaders of the two most right-wing parties in his coalition, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, on a range of issues has greatly increased the bitter criticism of his rule.

That debate, those arguments, Netanyahu’s position in a coalition dependent on Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and ultra-Orthodox voters, building on last year’s divisions over “judicial reform,” have all combined to produce deep political divisions and criticism of Israel’s governing coalition and its leader. Many voters now think this government cannot solve the problems Israel faces—has no answers—cannot produce answers because of its own composition—and think Netanyahu has lost his ability to lead them forward.

That is one source of the current unease. Another is Iran. Not since 1948 has Israel faced such a military threat, because the disjointed and incompetent Arab armies of that era have been replaced as an existential threat by a single, far more competent and evil, regime. Iran’s challenge to Israel is now called the “ring of fire” by Israelis, meaning Iran’s effort to surround Israel by proxies that join it in attacking: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and others like Shia militias in Iraq and Iranian-armed groups in the West Bank. Moreover, Iran has since the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, the JCPOA, been enriching uranium and advancing its nuclear weapons program—especially in the last several years.

In a war, Israel would defeat Hezbollah. The degree of Iran’s own involvement is uncertain, especially if the United States plays a role in deterring Iran and if need be giving Israel strong support—from resupply to missile defense. But the costs to Israel of such a war even with very strong U.S. support would be immense.

My own view is that there will not soon be such a war, because Iran built Hezbollah as a deterrent against an Israeli attack on its growing nuclear program and will not “waste” it for any other purpose (at least until it can field nuclear weapons). But a war this year, while it would be very destructive, is not Israel’s long-run concern. As long as Iran is the Islamic Republic and is run by the criminal regime that holds power now, it will continue to mount threats to Israel and try to grind away at its economy, its army, and its sense of safety. So for Israelis, the need for the populace (or anyway the non-Haredi populace) serving in the IDF to be always on guard will never disappear.

The third thing that has added to the somber mood is concern about future U.S. policy. Some of this is concern about the United States, where the explosion of antisemitism has surprised Israelis and made many wonder if the decades of bipartisan support for Israel are over. They read the same studies we do, showing declining support for them among younger Americans, including young Democrats and young evangelicals. They saw university faculties and administrators unwilling to clamp down on antisemitic, or even pro-Hamas, “protests” that brought campus life to a standstill in the most prestigious colleges. Then there is isolationism: Israelis have to be wondering if tomorrow the United States will still be willing to lead the Free World—and where Israel stands if we are not.

Add to these doubts their questions about current U.S. policy. In several conversations I was asked why it is not obvious that the way to help prevent a war with Hezbollah is to make sure Iran and Hezbollah know the United States will back Israel to the hilt if it happens. Yet U.S. policy seems desperately afraid of “escalation with Iran.” The wholly defensive U.S. posture in the Red Sea and Bab el Mandab while a group as small as the Houthis stops the sea lanes of world trade is impressive—in all the wrong ways. As to Iran, people in Israel noticed that it was the Europeans who sought an IAEA board resolution condemning Iranian nuclear activity—while the United States resisted. Put another way, just when many Israelis doubt their own leadership, they are also forced (like many Americans) to doubt ours as well.

Thus the somber mood I found in June. The challenges truly are great and the leadership is not very widely trusted.

And yet. No one can visit Israel without encountering an immensely strong civil society, from the soldiers of the IDF (after October 7, the call-up of reservists produced not a 100% return to duty but 130%) to volunteer groups helping displaced citizens, war wounded, families with a soldier off on duty, and the like. Israelis may not trust elected politicians but they trust each other. That is why even last year, as divisions grew among them, Israelis were still rated (as has happened year after year) one of the happiest nations on earth. They love their country and will sacrifice for it, and they believe their fellow citizens (excepting the haredi issue) will too.

Moreover, one can paint a path forward that is realistic and far more positive. The main part of the war in Gaza is ending and Hamas will never again return to its former power. The end of major combat operations in Gaza may present a moment when an arrangement on the northern border is possible and war avoided at least for the next year or two. It’s clear that the Saudis remain open to a tripartite deal with the United States and Israel that would build on the Abraham Accords. U.S. policy toward Iran might toughen next year, depending on U.S. election results. And who knows how long the Islamic Republic of Iran, hated by most of Iran’s citizens, will survive intact.

As to Israeli politics, few Israelis with whom I spoke expected a quick election (though there were some analysts who thought it could still happen this year, because the war and the haredi draft issue might at some point explode the ruling coalition). With the Knesset recessing in late July for three months and returning just before the U.S. election, even an election called late this year would happen in February or March 2025. And coalition negotiations could last for up to six weeks after that—so that most people expect Prime Minister Netanyahu to be around for quite a while despite all the criticism one hears today.

Jimmy Carter’s famous “malaise speech” of 1979 did him little good politically, perhaps because he analyzed unhappy conditions but did not understand how much his own leadership had contributed to them—or understand how to restore confidence in himself as a leader. Prime Minister Netanyahu has a great opportunity to restore some belief, in his speech to the U.S. Congress. However many members of Congress show up, Israelis will be listening and watching. How Netanyahu describes Israel’s current problems, and far more important the vision he offers for how Israel can meet the challenges Iran and its terrorist proxies present, will be critical. Can he show a way forward that restores broader faith in his leadership? That’s his challenge and even his harshest critics should be hoping he once again rises to the occasion.