Which Israel are You Talking About?

When I hear politicians declare “I support Israel” or “I stand with Israel,” I want to ask: Which Israel are you talking about?

Unless it is clear which Israel is being talked about, there is room for misunderstanding or conversation that degenerates into argument, using the kind of language found on bathroom walls or, in an updated context, in online comment sections.

Israel today is far more diverse ethnically, racially, culturally, religiously, politically, and economically than those who pay only casual attention or tune in during a crisis may realize.

So, which Israel are you talking about?

Do you mean Israel as personified by its government or Israel as personified by its 9.9 million citizens?

Do you mean Israel as “the Jewish state” or the Israel whose citizens are 73.6 percent Jewish, but also 18 percent Muslim and less than two percent each of Christian and Druze?

Do you mean Israel as a nation of Jewish privilege or Israel as a democracy? The push-and-pull of these competing ideologies has existed throughout Israel’s 76 years. Some see them as incompatible, while others believe that they can be balanced.

Do you mean Israel within the 1949-1967 armistice lines or the post-June 1967, Six-Day War Israel, which controls territory — and circumscribes the lives of the non-citizen Arab population living within — that much of the world refers to as the “occupied” West Bank, but which many Jews call by the Biblical names Judea and Samaria?

Do you mean the Israel of Tel Aviv beaches and nightlife, of Jerusalem’s holy sites, of the southern desert and northern mountains, or the Israel of West Bank “settlements,” checkpoints and the separation wall, and clashes between Palestinians and religious nationalist Jews?

Do you mean the Israel world-renowned for its medical and high-tech sectors or the Israel in which nearly 21 percent of the citizens (including 9.1 percent of children) live in poverty?

Do you mean the Israel that many Jewish Americans express fervent opinions about (even though more than half have never visited) or the Israel that some shrink from discussing to avoid arguments with family and friends?

Do you mean the Israel that encourages all Jews to make Aliyah or the Israel in which non-Orthodox Jews are discriminated against in matters of marriage, divorce, and conversion?

Do you mean the Israel that suggests Jewish Americans either make Aliyah or refrain from offering advice, or the Israel that annually receives $3.8 billion in primarily military aid from the U.S. and counts on Jewish Americans to lobby their elected representatives on its behalf?

Do you mean the Israel that calls itself (and is) America’s greatest ally in a difficult region or the Israel that sometimes behaves as if it takes American support for granted?

Do you mean the Israel that was attacked last Oct. 7 by several thousand Hamas-led terrorists, who slaughtered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251? Or the Israel that continues to wage war against Iranian-backed Hamas, with a five-digit death toll and destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure?

Do you mean the Israel that has suffered 8,000 rockets fired by Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon since last Oct. 7, rockets that have displaced 100,000 people, killed 12 Druze children on a Majdal Shams playground, and set fires in several cities, including majority-Arab and heavily Christian Nazareth? Or the Israel that targets Hezbollah personnel and military sites in Lebanon, while preparing for a possible second “hot” war front?

Do you mean the Israel in which hundreds of thousands of citizens weekly rally and march in opposition to government leaders who have yet to take responsibility for and who have resisted formation of a national commission of inquiry into the intelligence, military, and political failures before Oct. 7?

Do you mean the Israel whose prime minister who revels in invitations to address the U.S. Congress or the Israel whose prime minister formed a Knesset majority by bringing into his coalition extreme right-wing and xenophobic ministers, who champion Israeli expansion in the West Bank and threaten to bring down the government if he agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza?

Do you mean the Israel whose prime minister has made it clear — and is not without a measure of public support for his position — that maintaining a military presence in Gaza is a higher priority than a ceasefire deal that could bring home the remaining 101 hostages (including the bodies of the at least one-third believed to be dead)?

Little about Israel is either/or, or black-and-white.

So, when you hear politicians say “I support Israel” or “I stand with Israel,” you might want to ask which Israel they are talking about.