Chefido 🇮🇱🇺🇸 🎗️

Last spring I was in Tel Aviv doing street interviews in a T-shirt with the Lebanese and Israeli flags on it. A man wearing a kippa passed by, spat at me, and called me "smolanit" (leftist). We stopped filming and I followed him. I told him: a) nobody has ever called me a leftist, and b) what if I were? Is this how Israelis will speak to one another, even after October 7? As it turned out, he was French, not Israeli. Still, his outburst only added to the already painful strife between Israelis. Which brings me to something harder to say. If an outsider can't be part of the solution and is only adding to the problem, it may be wiser to keep quiet. I know how that sounds coming from me. I'm sitting barefoot in my comfortable living room on another continent, my son safe and starting his second year at university, while my friends' children serve in the army. I'm not telling anyone how to vote. That choice belongs to those who live with its consequences. Israelis bear the cost of casual opinions tossed from afar. It affects their psyche, their careers, the country's economy, even regional and global stability. Many in the diaspora care deeply and give generously, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, to support their vision for Israel. That love is real. But love from a distance carries a responsibility to remember who pays the price. No one who truly loves Israel can be moved by contempt for any Israeli, given everything they have lived through and the events that shaped their views. Israel is a democracy. Voters choose what will shape their daily lives and what they believe is best for their country. May the wisest be the majority. Whatever happens, the result will reflect years of unbearable circumstances. Leaders, and not only politicians, should have the wisdom to offer a vision that can unite Israelis whatever the outcome. As someone who deeply cares about Israel and trusts G-d, I believe the outcome will be the natural continuation of this saga. Before October 7, after watching Israelis fight each other on Yom Kippur in 2023, I appealed to them to see the bigger picture. I warned that we were nearing a tipping point the axis of resistance had spent decades building toward. Few read my article back then, and fewer understood. Today a few more know "my agenda," and I wish the fighting would stop. "If Bibi is reelected, we will leave the country." "If he isn't reelected, we will all die." Really? No one man is responsible for what Khomeini and his heirs designed for Israel. Nor is Bibi the Messiah. I understand where this fixation on one person comes from in the Arab world. Among Israelis, it beats me. The Holy Land was promised to Israel, a people, not a person. Like all of us, Abraham was not immortal. The land was his and his descendants', as long as they kept the covenant. We are human and we make mistakes, sometimes so grave they overshadow the big picture, and the consequences, one way or another, match the gravity of the mistake. But the door to teshuva is always open. Will you allow the price to be the country? No matter what happens, be kind to Israel and remember it is your people. Whoever is hurt, it will affect everyone, because you are all in the same boat. #israel