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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
There are plenty of things Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done that I don’t always agree with.
There are policies I could question, decisions I could second-guess, coalition partners I might not choose, statements I might not make, and moments when I might wish Israel had taken another path.
There are also a lot of things Netanyahu does and says that I do agree with.
But I have made a conscious decision not to spend my time publicly criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu — not in my writing, not in my conversations with friends and colleagues, basically nowhere.
I do it because I have become increasingly convinced that the obsessive public denunciation of Netanyahu — particularly by Jews outside Israel — often accomplishes far less than its participants imagine. And sometimes it accomplishes something much worse: It pours more gasoline on a fire that was already burning.
One of the strangest developments of the last several years has been the attempt to explain the world’s hostility toward Israel through Benjamin Netanyahu. If only Netanyahu were gone, we are told, Israel might regain the world’s affection. If only Israelis elected a more agreeable prime minister, relations with the Palestinians might transform. If only the Israeli government behaved differently, perhaps the protesters screaming that Israel should not exist would go home.
I don’t believe it. Hatred of Zionism existed before Netanyahu. Wars against Israel existed before him. Terrorism against Jews and Israelis existed before him. The attempt to portray “Zionism as racism” existed before him. The rejection of a sovereign Jewish state existed before him.
Netanyahu did not cause the world’s Israel problem. He became its favorite excuse for it.
If Benjamin Netanyahu retired tomorrow, the people who believe Israel is an illegitimate “colonial” project would not suddenly become Zionists. The people chanting for Israel’s elimination would not suddenly embrace Jewish sovereignty. The Iranian regime would not abandon its ambitions. Hamas and Hezbollah would not become the Rotary Club.
The argument would simply move to the next Israeli leader, the next military operation, the next settlement, the next border, the next historical grievance. For many of Israel’s loudest enemies, Netanyahu was never actually the fundamental problem. Israel was.
There is another reason I refuse to participate in the ritual demonization of Netanyahu. He is a politician — a consequential politician, a remarkably durable politician, but still a politician.
He campaigns. He makes promises. He compromises. He builds coalitions. He fights with opponents. He makes mistakes. He says things people dislike. His opponents say things about him that his supporters dislike. Sometimes he wins. Sometimes he loses.
Welcome to democracy.
Democracies regularly produce politicians who half the country appears to believe will save civilization and the other half believes will destroy it. Yet somehow Israel is treated differently.
When an American leader becomes unpopular, serious people generally understand that the United States is larger than its president. When a British government becomes unpopular, nobody seriously argues that Britain therefore has no right to exist. When an Italian coalition collapses, nobody concludes that Italian sovereignty was a mistake.
But Netanyahu is routinely transformed into an indictment of Israel itself. A decision by Netanyahu becomes a judgment on Zionism. A statement by an Israeli minister becomes a judgment on Jewish nationalism. A failure of an Israeli government becomes evidence that perhaps Jews should never have had a state in the first place.
That is an extraordinary standard — and I refuse to help normalize it.
You can believe Netanyahu has wrong policies without believing Netanyahu is uniquely evil. You can dislike an Israeli government without treating the existence of Israel as a moral emergency.
Israel is a democracy. It should be allowed the same privilege democracies everywhere else enjoy: the privilege of having elected politicians of all kinds.
There is another reason I am reluctant to lecture Israelis about their government: I don’t live there. Israeli citizens live with the consequences of Israeli elections in a way I do not.
They send their sons and daughters into the military. They run to bomb shelters. They live within missile range. They experience terrorism personally rather than academically. They live with the consequences of ceasefires, hostage negotiations, territorial withdrawals, military campaigns, and intelligence failures. They pay Israeli taxes. They raise Israeli children. They wake up the next morning after the decisions are made.
Of course I can have opinions about all of those things, but I should have some humility about them.
There is something strange about sitting thousands of miles away from Israel and confidently informing Israelis which risks they should take with their children, which territories they should withdraw from, which terrorist organizations they should trust, which military operations they should stop, and which politicians they should elect.
If Israelis want Netanyahu gone, they are entirely capable of removing him. Israelis are not shy about politics. Anyone who has spent five minutes around Israelis knows this. They argue constantly, protest, organize, form new political parties like clockwork, replace politicians, and then argue about the replacements.
Israeli democracy does not need to be rescued by me from California. I respect Israelis enough to let them govern themselves. That means accepting something that many people who claim to love democracy seem to forget: Democracy sometimes produces outcomes you dislike. Respecting democracy cannot mean respecting voters only when they choose my preferred candidate.
Sometimes people vote differently from me. Sometimes they prioritize issues differently. Sometimes they know things about their own society that I don’t. Sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes I am. That is democracy.
There is another phenomenon that has begun to bother me deeply: the Jewish disclaimer. “I support Israel, but Netanyahu...” “I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, but Netanyahu...” “I am a Zionist, but Netanyahu...” “I support the Jewish state, but Netanyahu...”
It has become almost ritualistic.
Before some Jews feel permitted to defend Israel, they apparently must first reassure the room that they most obviously dislike Benjamin Netanyahu. Only then may they proceed.
Why? Why must Jewish support for the Jewish state constantly arrive with an apology attached? Why must Jews prove their moral credibility by condemning an Israeli politician before discussing terrorism against Israelis? Why is support for Jewish sovereignty treated as suspicious unless accompanied by the appropriate political disclaimer?
I am tired of the Jewish “but.” No one should have to pass a Netanyahu purity test before saying that Jews deserve sovereignty, security, safety, dignity, respect, and a future in our indigenous homeland.
I also began noticing something else: Condemning Netanyahu rarely satisfies the people demanding the condemnation. Suppose I say: “Fine, I oppose Netanyahu.” What happens next? The anti-Zionist doesn’t say: “Excellent, then we agree that Israel is a legitimate state and our only disagreement is over its current prime minister.”
The conversation simply moves. Netanyahu becomes Gaza. Gaza becomes the settlements. The settlements become 1967. 1967 becomes 1948. 1948 becomes Zionism. Zionism becomes Jewish sovereignty. Jewish sovereignty becomes Jewish dignity. Jewish dignity becomes Jewish safety. Jewish safety becomes Jewish lives.
I became suspicious of the Netanyahu test when I realized that passing it never seemed to end the test. Netanyahu is often not the destination of the argument; he is the entrance. He provides a socially acceptable way to begin an indictment that frequently ends somewhere far beyond him.
It would be foolish to pretend that criticism of Netanyahu exists in a vacuum. We should pay attention to the environment into which we are speaking.
This is particularly important in the world we now inhabit. Imagine a Jew says, “I think Netanyahu’s government has handled this badly.” That statement may be completely reasonable, but watch what happens to it. It becomes: “Even Jews admit Israel has gone too far.” Then: “Even Zionists admit Israel is committing atrocities.” Then: “Even supporters of Israel admit the Zionist project is rotten.” Then: “Israel itself is the problem.” And eventually: “Jews are the contagion.”
Words have contexts and consequences. The public square is not a graduate seminar. Political statements do not remain perfectly preserved inside the intellectual boundaries in which they were originally made. They are clipped, repackaged, quoted selectively, weaponized, and turned into slogans.
That is especially true when the subject is Israel. There is nothing courageous about pretending that this dynamic does not exist.
Someone will inevitably respond: “So what? Are we never supposed to criticize Israel?”
The question is not whether criticism is permitted. The question is what kind of criticism we are participating in. There is a meaningful difference between saying “I think this policy is mistaken” and saying “Netanyahu is a genocidal fascist running a criminal state.”
There is a difference between disputing a military decision and adopting the vocabulary of people who believe Israel itself is criminal. There is a difference between criticizing a government and joining an ideological prosecution of an entire country. And there is a difference between trying to improve Israel and trying to delegitimize it.
There is another reason Netanyahu attracts so much fury: Blaming one man is comforting. It allows us to believe Israel’s problems are problems of personality rather than history, geography and ideology.
Replace Netanyahu and perhaps there will be peace. Replace Netanyahu and Hamas will become pragmatic. Replace Netanyahu and Hezbollah will disappear. Replace Netanyahu and Iran will cease threatening Israel. Replace Netanyahu and Palestinian society will suddenly become moderate. Replace Netanyahu and the international community will finally embrace the Jewish state.
Perhaps another Israeli prime minister would make different decisions. Certainly. Some might be better. Some might be worse.
But every Israeli prime minister would still wake up facing Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Palestinian rejectionism, international double standards, internal divisions, hostage dilemmas, military constraints, Judea and Samaria, Washington, Europe, and a neighborhood in which miscalculation can kill people.
Israel’s dilemmas are real.
Sometimes Netanyahu is blamed because blaming Netanyahu is easier than admitting the uncomfortable truth: Israel frequently does not get to choose between good options and bad options. It routinely has to choose between bad options and worse ones.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that Netanyahu’s fiercest opponents often accuse his supporters of confusing him with Israel, but Israel’s enemies constantly do exactly that. Netanyahu takes an action; therefore Israel is evil. An Israeli minister says something outrageous; therefore Zionism is evil; a coalition passes a controversial law; therefore the Jewish state was a historical mistake.
No, Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is millions of people. It is nearly eight decades of modern sovereignty built on thousands of years of Jewish civilization and Jewish longing. Reducing all of that to Benjamin Netanyahu is ridiculous.
People often say that real friendship requires criticism. They are right. Love does not require blindness. Patriotism does not require silence. Supporting Israel does not require pretending Israel never makes mistakes. But there is another principle we intuitively understand in every other part of life: Context matters.
There are times when you criticize your family, and there are times when your family is standing in the street surrounded by people who hate them, and you understand that this may not be the ideal moment to hand their enemies a megaphone. That isn’t cowardice. It isn’t censorship. It is judgment.
I do not believe every private disagreement must become a public denunciation. I do not believe every Israeli controversy requires another American Jewish op-ed explaining how embarrassed we are. And I certainly do not believe Jews have a moral obligation to perform their disagreements with Israel for audiences that increasingly struggle to distinguish criticism of Israel from hostility toward its existence.
Benjamin Netanyahu will not be Israel’s prime minister forever. One day he will leave office. There will be another prime minister, another coalition, another election, another controversy, another Israeli politician whom half of Jews love and the other half cannot stand.
And here is my prediction: The people who hate Israel will still hate Israel. The protesters who believe the Jewish state should disappear will not suddenly become Zionists. The “activists” who believe Jewish sovereignty is colonialism will not apologize and go home. The regimes that seek Israel’s destruction will not discover moderation.
Netanyahu was never really the problem. The existence of a powerful, sovereign, and unapologetically Jewish state was.
The issue today is that from the desert fighting for its existence, Israel has emerged as a megapower…the world has a problem in accepting a Jewish state with such a crowning achievement!
as I remind people, including in the recording of my upcoming podcast series "Israel Our Story", it was a left wing prime minister that could not achieve peace with Yasser Arafat. It makes no difference, left or right, you cannot make peace with anyone unless they want to meet you half way.