Should Jews be allowed to criticize Israel?

It’s worth asking whether criticism on its own is as meaningful as many people believe it to be.

photo: Stanislav Vdovin/Unsplash

Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.

---

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

---

Criticizing Israel — or having an opinion about Israel, whatever diction you prefer — has become a kind of ritual for large segments of the non-Israeli Jewish diaspora.

That doesn’t make it useful, and it certainly doesn’t make all opinions equal.

Of course, there are circumstances where Jewish opinions about Israel fall into what I would call “fair game.”

When someone has lived in Israel for a meaningful stretch of time, built real relationships with several Israelis (not just a few), or invested serious effort in understanding the lived experiences of all Israelis (not just a convenient subset), their perspective is anchored in something tangible. Opinions grounded in reality carry some amount of weight.

The problem is that too many opinions about Israel are not grounded in reality at all. They’re grounded in something else entirely.

One of the most common distortions is projection. Diaspora Jews take the sociopolitical frameworks they’ve internalized in their countries of residence and map them onto Israel as if the two are interchangeable. A liberal American Jew who believes deeply in Cause X assumes Israelis should align with Cause X. A conservative Australian Jew assumes Israel should adopt Policy Y because it works in Australia.

But that logic collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Israel is not America. It is not Australia. It is not Europe. It operates under different constraints, different threats, different demographics, different history. Policies that function in one environment can fail spectacularly in another.

More importantly, Israelis themselves may not share those imported assumptions. These viewpoints are not derived from Israeli reality; they are exports from somewhere else. And political imports, like any imports, don’t always fit the local terrain.

Another recurring pattern is the performance of opinion without the burden of solutions. “Israelis should just make peace with the Palestinians!” they declare. “Israel should have fought the war against Hamas in Gaza differently!” they contend. “The Israeli government is too Right-wing!” they claim.

But when you press them on the “how” or on alternatives, the answers quickly unravel — either into vague platitudes or recycled proposals that have already been attempted and failed. That is not smart analysis; it is nonsense dressed up as moral clarity.

Let’s take a common example: the notion that Israelis should elect a prime minister not named Benjamin Netanyahu. So, who exactly should they elect?

One of the core reasons Netanyahu has remained at the helm of Israel for so long (by repeatedly winning elections) is relatively simple: There has not been a compelling alternative.

The Israeli Left does not resonate with a majority of Israelis, in large part because many of its policies are viewed by those voters as fundamentally flawed and even disastrous. This is not a Netanyahu problem; it is a problem of the Israeli Left failing to draft a program that persuades the electorate.

The Israeli Center has also had multiple opportunities in recent years — and has come up short. Many Israelis look at the figures leading centrist parties and do not see strong leadership; they see mediocrity. Yair Lapid is often perceived as inept and incompetent. Benny Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff, is seen as limited beyond his military background. Gadi Eisenkot, also a former IDF chief of staff, comes across as capable but incredibly inexperienced politically. Naftali Bennett, who served as prime minister in 2021 and 2022, damaged his credibility in the eyes of many by walking back key promises.

Again, this is not a Netanyahu problem; it is a “no viable alternative” problem. Many Israelis, up until now, have simply accepted the reality as it stands: Netanyahu is viewed as the most experienced, most skilled, and most politically capable figure currently available. That is why he has won more elections than anyone else. This may change in the future, but for now, it remains the reality — one that many diaspora Jews either do not understand or choose not to accept.

Then there’s the slide into condescension. Sometimes it’s explicit, sometimes it’s subtle, but the message is the same: Israelis should live differently, vote differently, think differently — because someone abroad says so. That posture isn’t insightful; it’s elitist.

Israelis are not abstract subjects in someone else’s moral experiment. They are people with agency. They live. They vote. They carry the consequences of their decisions in ways outsiders do not. Rejecting Israel because Israelis don’t mirror your worldview (because their circumstances have led them to different conclusions) isn’t principled. It’s condescending.

I get asked constantly, by both Jews and non-Jews around the world: “What do you think about Netanyahu?” “Don’t you think he has been in power too long?” “Should he step down?”

Here’s the uncomfortable answer: What I think doesn’t matter nearly as much as people want it to. I am a dual American-Israeli citizen. I have voted in the last five Israeli elections. And even then, my opinion is one vote among millions.

Israeli democracy doesn’t revolve around external commentary; it revolves around Israelis making decisions for themselves.

They vote, just like people in other democracies, according to what they believe is best for their country, and whatever outcome emerges is legitimate by definition. That’s how a democracy functions. Pride in a country cannot be contingent on whether one’s preferred candidate wins. If it is, that isn’t pride. It’s partisanship.

My pride in Israel is not tied to any one leader, party, or election cycle — and having lived in Israel for 11 years, I can say that is also true of a healthy majority of Israelis.

Israel is not a political project that rises and falls with a government. It is something much older and much deeper: the restoration of a homeland, the revival of an ancient language, the evolution of a vibrant, complex society. It is a functioning, dynamic economy. It is culture, innovation, and resilience all at once.

Hence, my pride is rooted in things that are far more profound.

I am proud of the IDF — an army made up of, in part, my family members and friends and colleagues — who shoulder the responsibility of defending our reality with a near-impossible balance between self-defense and ethics.

I am proud that Israel invests its resources into institutions like the Mossad to protect Jewish sites, communities, people, and interests around the world.

I am proud when Israeli culture travels, whether it’s food being embraced in countries across the world, or artists like Noga Erez performing on international stages like Coachella, even when I disagree with her outspoken politics.

I am proud of the tremendous diversity within Israeli society.

I am proud of the Arab Israelis who clearly understand that, even if life isn’t always “perfect” or “ideal” for them, for the most part they have it much better in the Jewish state than they would in any Arab country.

I am proud when I see Deni Avdija become the first Israeli to play in the NBA All-Star Game and reach the NBA playoffs — all in the same season.

I am proud when I see an Uber driver in Amsterdam using Waze (the Israeli navigation app acquired by Google), or a farmer in India buying from Netafim (a top global player in drip irrigation), or a tech company in Texas working with Check Point (an Israeli cybersecurity company).

That, ultimately, is the most important opinion a Jew can have about Israel: pride.

Being critical of Israel is often framed as sophisticated, as “cool,” as courageous, as evidence of intelligence or moral seriousness. It isn’t, inherently, any of those things. Often, it’s just easy, convenient, and superficial.

Pride, on the other hand, requires a broader lens. It demands that you hold complexity without defaulting to dismissal.

And pride does not mean agreement with everything Israel does. No one — not even within Israel’s 10 million citizens — is proud of every policy, every decision, every moment. That’s true of every country. No one is fully aligned with everything France does, or Argentina, or Thailand.

But here’s the distinction that many people prefer not to confront: Only one country is subjected to relentless, disproportionate scrutiny, no less from people who do not share in the consequences of its decisions. Only one country is expected to justify its existence, its policies, and its imperfections at a level no other nation faces.

Only the Jewish state is held to that standard.

So, when you really think about it, there is very little to be gained from criticizing Israel from afar. It doesn’t change reality. It doesn’t influence decisions. More often than not, it reflects the perspective of the speaker more than the reality of the country itself.

And if that’s the case, it’s worth asking whether criticism on its own is as meaningful as many people believe it to be.

---