At first glance, the latest Israeli Society Barometer offers an encouraging picture. Nearly three-quarters of Israelis (73%) believe that Israel can be a cohesive society despite the divisions within it. This is the highest figure recorded since the Center for Jewish Impact began conducting the barometer in 2024, and a notable increase from 67% in February.
After years of political turmoil, the trauma of following the October 7 massacre and a prolonged multi-front war, Israelis have not given up on the possibility of a shared future.
However, beneath this optimism lies a warning that must not be ignored. Israelis may believe in cohesion as a national ideal, yet they are far less confident that the country’s different communities can actually live together.
Only 64% believe that secular and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews can coexist in Israel. More troublingly, just 42% currently believe in Jewish-Arab coexistence. The differences between communities are stark. While 74% of Arab respondents and 48% of secular Jews believe Jewish-Arab coexistence is possible, only 7% of religious and haredi respondents share that view.
These figures do not mean that Israel is destined to fragment. On the contrary, the broad belief in the possibility of national cohesion provides a foundation on which to build.
Nonetheless, they demonstrate the distance between supporting unity in principle and trusting one another in practice.
Ahead of Israel’s fateful elections in October, it is clear that national cohesion cannot remain a slogan reserved for campaigns or moments of emergency. It must be translated into sustained engagement between communities that too often encounter one another through political arguments, social media or stereotypes.
Israel needs spaces in which Jewish and Arab citizens – across all religious backgrounds – can meet around shared responsibilities and common interests. Education, national or civic service, employment, local government and civil society can all become arenas for cooperation rather than competition. This does not require communities to abandon their identities or disagreements.
A cohesive society is not one in which everyone thinks alike. It is one in which differences do not prevent people from recognizing a common destiny.
The barometer also reveals that Israel’s internal crisis of confidence is being compounded by a serious failure abroad.
Although 64% of Israelis consider the strategic relationship with the US to be strong, only 23% believe Israel effectively communicates its policies and positions internationally fully, and 70% regard Israeli public diplomacy as ineffective.
This is not merely a matter of Israel receiving unfavorable media coverage. It is now affecting the daily lives and personal decisions of Israelis. More than half, 52%, report some level of concern about identifying as Israeli while traveling abroad. Since October 7, 2023, 41% have changed their behavior overseas, including altering destinations, canceling trips, or avoiding certain activities.
When Israelis feel compelled to hide their nationality, the problem is no longer abstract. It represents a profound deterioration in the environment surrounding Israel and the Jewish people.
The response cannot consist solely of better slogans, faster reactions, or additional social media content.
Israel needs a strategy for international communication
Israel needs what the public itself is demanding: a long-term national strategy for international communication. One-third of respondents identified such a strategy as the most important measure needed to improve Israel’s global standing, while another 25% pointed to changes in government policy and decision-making.
We need to strengthen our ties with our allies who know us, even if they do not necessarily voice strong opinions or wield significant influence. Just as there were volunteers in the 1960s and 1970s whose positive impact is evident today, we now have individuals, whether foreign workers, Christian volunteers, or people in the hi-tech industry working with Israelis, who will return to their home countries and serve as our ambassadors.
Nevertheless, public diplomacy cannot compensate for poor policy, but even necessary and defensible policies will lose international support if they are not explained within a coherent strategic framework.
Israel must invest in research, professional communication, credible international partnerships and engagement with audiences beyond its existing supporters. It must explain not only what it does, but who Israelis are, what Israel stands for and why its security and future matter to the democratic world.
This effort must be closely connected to Israel’s relationship with global Jewry. Seventy percent of Israelis believe the state should invest resources in Diaspora Jewish communities. Their priorities include encouraging aliyah, protecting Jewish communities and supporting civil society organizations.
That finding reflects an important truth. Israel and the Diaspora are not separate constituencies connected only by sentiment. They are part of a single, interdependent people. Antisemitism abroad affects Israel, just as Israel’s policies and international standing affect Jewish communities worldwide.
Strengthening Jewish security, identity and resilience must therefore be treated as a strategic national interest, including smaller communities, particularly those in countries with modern Islamic societies.
None of this can be separated from the economic and security concerns facing Israeli families. The public’s leading priority for the next government is reducing the cost of living and strengthening the economy, selected by 38% of respondents. National security follows at 25%, while 13% prioritize unity and bridging social divisions and 11% the IDF enlistment crisis.
These issues are interconnected. Economic hardship deepens social resentment. Unequal obligations weaken solidarity. Internal division damages national resilience, while diplomatic isolation threatens both security and prosperity.
The barometer does not describe a society that has lost hope. It describes a society that still believes in itself but is increasingly impatient for leadership equal to its challenges.
Israelis have demonstrated extraordinary courage and mutual responsibility during the most difficult period in recent memory. The task now is to transform the solidarity shown in moments of crisis into a permanent national strategy.
This must be front and center for any incoming government after the elections.
The choice is not between unity and disagreement, nor between Israel’s domestic resilience and its global standing; we must strengthen both.
Israel must build trust among its citizens, renew its partnership with world Jewry and explain its purpose to the world with confidence, professionalism and moral clarity.
The Israeli public still believes that a cohesive society is possible. That belief is a precious national asset, but it is not guaranteed to endure.
We must act before optimism becomes exhaustion and distance becomes division. Israel’s future will be secured not simply by defeating its enemies, but by ensuring that its citizens, its global Jewish family and its friends around the world understand what holds us together and why that bond is worth defending.
The writer is the chairman of the Center for Jewish Impact and a former CEO of the World Jewish Congress and World ORT.