To anyone inclined to write off our concerns as mere outsider anxiety, let’s set the record straight. We’re not casual observers or distant cousins weighing in from safe American suburbs.
Our lives are rooted here – one of us can trace ancestry in this land back nine generations, the other for five. We’ve called Israel home since 1970, not just living here but building careers, raising families, standing in line at the post office, and arguing politics around dinner tables like everyone else. Our ties reach across the Atlantic, but our hearts and futures are planted firmly in Israeli soil.
That is precisely why we can’t stay silent. The time for quiet, private worry is over. What used to be whispered – shared only among close friends or behind closed doors – now spills out everywhere. You feel it in the cab rides, where drivers vent about government chaos. The supermarket cashier openly wonders if her kids have a future here. The doctor checks the news between patients. Even the barista gives a blank shrug when you ask about plans for next year. People whose families have been here longer than the State itself are quietly tweaking their resumes, checking job boards for positions in Berlin, Toronto, or Sydney.
There was a time when we radiated confidence. Through the 80s, 90s, and into the new millennium, Israel became the Start-Up Nation – a tiny country that invented, exported, and hustled its way to global respect. We walked a little taller. We knew what we’d built, and we believed in it.
Those days feel far away. The mood now? Exhaustion, cynicism, and a creeping sense of betrayal, not just from the outside world but from within. It’s in the way people talk – “The government is tearing us apart,” “This war is eating us alive,” “We can’t even count on the army anymore.” For the first time, some of the most deeply rooted Israelis are staring down the possibility of leaving.
How did Israel lose its pride and confidence?
IT’D BE easy to pin this only on outside threats or rising antisemitism abroad. But that’s not the whole story. The sense of fragmentation comes from within, too. In recent months, pushback has grown – not just from ordinary Israelis, but from within the military itself. Senior officers and veterans have spoken out, challenging the far-right ministers whose rhetoric and policies, they believe, threaten the unity and moral compass of the country. These voices aren’t always loud, but they are persistent. They warn that the government’s direction risks alienating not only the broader public but also the very people who defend this country.
We’re not writing to echo what others have already said. We’re writing because silence, at this point, would feel like surrender. And the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been. The war in Gaza isn’t just another flare-up – it’s an existential test. What happens now will decide whether Israel remains a sovereign, secure state, or slides into a future of siege and steady decline.
LET’S NOT kid ourselves. Gaza didn’t turn into this overnight. In 2005, Israel made a wrenching, unilateral withdrawal, pulling out settlements and hoping Gaza might choose peace. Billions in international aid poured in. But instead of building a future, Hamas dug tunnels, stashed rockets, and taught a generation to glorify violence. Hospitals became command centers, schools became launchpads. The world mostly looked away.
October 7 ended any lingering ambiguity. What happened that day wasn’t “resistance” – it was atrocity, pure and simple: mass executions, sexual violence, the public celebration of murder. No nation on earth would tolerate such a threat on its doorstep. And yet, what the world demands from Israel is “restraint.” Where was that restraint when Israeli children were killed in their beds? Where is the outrage at the use of human shields and the glorification of terror?
Urban warfare is brutal, and civilian casualties are tragic. But let’s be honest: Hamas’s entire strategy depends on hiding behind civilians, turning every neighborhood into a battlefield and every death into a weapon. To those who preach proportionality, we ask: what would you do, facing an enemy that hides among its own people and rejects every offer of peace?
Anything short of dismantling Hamas – militarily and politically – is a betrayal. Not just of Israeli security, but of the principle that nations have a right to defend themselves. Iran and its proxies are watching. The message Israel sends now, whether of resolve or weakness, will echo across the region for years.
And let’s talk about double standards. After 9/11, the United States launched a two-decade global war, spanning continents and costing hundreds of thousands of lives. Russia, when faced with rebels in Chechnya, leveled an entire city. Turkey bombs Kurdish areas across borders without apology. Yet only Israel is expected to fight with one hand tied behind its back, to win a war without inflicting harm, to protect civilians indistinguishable from combatants, and to somehow emerge without “moral failure.”
GAZA IS a humanitarian crisis – but it’s a crisis manufactured by Hamas. For two decades, billions in aid from Qatar, the EU, the UN, and the US were funneled not into hospitals or schools, but into weapons, tunnels, and propaganda. Gaza could have become a beacon on the Mediterranean. Instead, it became an armed camp, built on hate.
And when war returned, the hypocrisy of the region was exposed. Not a single Arab nation has opened its doors to Gaza’s civilians. Egypt keeps its border sealed. Jordan condemns but offers no visas. The Gulf monarchies, flush with resources, offer refuge to no one. The solidarity is all talk.
Some may call this heartless. But wars are not won by sentiment or speeches. They are decided by the ability to make hard choices and see them through. If Israel’s existence means anything, it must mean standing firm when it matters most.
This is our reckoning. “Never again” can’t be just a slogan. It must be a policy – clear, uncompromising, and real.
The world demands much but offers little. If you can’t provide ideas, troops, or asylum, you have no standing to lecture the one country willing to take on terror at its root. So here it is, plain as can be: Stop asking us to die quietly. Help us live securely. And if you can’t do that, at least spare us the lectures.
Michael J. Salamon, PhD, is a psychologist and strategic consultant specializing in trauma and abuse. He is director of ADC Psychological Services in Netanya and Hewlett, NY, and on the consulting staff at Northwell Health, Manhasset, NY.
Louis Libin is an expert in military strategies and innovation and advises on and teaches military innovation, wireless systems, and emergency communications at military colleges and agencies. He is the founder of a consulting group for emergency management, cybersecurity, IP, and communications.