Vanessa Berg is a columnist who writes about Judaism and Israel.
Today, October 27th, Israelis head to the polls to elect their next government. And much of the world will be watching.
Politicians in Washington, diplomats in Europe, commentators across the Middle East, and journalists around the world will be dissecting the results, speculating about coalitions, and debating what the next Israeli government means for their countries.
A tiny Jewish state, barely 78 years old, with a population of just 10 million people, has become so powerful, influential, and consequential that its domestic elections are now treated as international events. The world’s attention is an extraordinary testament to how far Israelis, Zionists, and Jews have come.
Yet rather than celebrate this remarkable achievement, many diaspora Jews seem terrified of it. They worry that the wrong Israeli government will damage Israel’s reputation, undermine Jewish communities abroad, and make life more difficult for Jews around the world. They speak as though the political preferences of Israeli voters are something that diaspora Jews must defend, apologize for, or somehow influence.
But there is a fundamental distinction we seem to have forgotten: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People. It is not the government of the Jewish People. Israeli elections are for Israelis, and that is precisely how it should be.
When Americans elect a president, they are choosing someone who will govern America. When the British elect a prime minister, they are choosing someone who will govern Britain. And when Israelis vote, they are choosing a government that will govern Israel. This should not be a controversial observation.
Israelis vote on economic policies, taxation, housing, healthcare, education, religious affairs, military service, national security, and dozens of other issues that directly affect their daily lives. Most diaspora Jews do not live under these policies. They do not join the IDF,pay Israeli income taxes, depend on Israel’s healthcare system, send their children to Israeli public schools, or live with the daily security consequences of the government’s decisions.
Caring about Israel is not the same as being governed by Israel. We can love Israel, support Israel, defend Israel, and feel deeply connected to Israel without believing that Israelis have an obligation to elect politicians who make life more comfortable in Boston, Melbourne, or Buenos Aires. After all, diaspora Jews don’t have to live with the consequences of Israelis’ decisions. Israelis do. That is the entire point of democracy.
Part of the problem is that Israel occupies a peculiar place in international discourse. No other country’s actions are so routinely transformed into a referendum on an entire people living around the world. When an American president says something outrageous, nobody demands that Americans living in London explain themselves. When a French politician makes a controversial statement, nobody expects French expatriates in New York to apologize.
Yet when an Israeli politician says something objectionable, Jews everywhere are suddenly expected to answer for it. Indeed, so much of the world has developed a habit of treating Israel and Jews as interchangeable whenever it wants someone to blame.
And too many Jews have accepted the premise. We have convinced ourselves that if Israel elects the wrong government, antisemites will have more reasons to hate us. If only Israelis elected more moderate politicians, the world might treat Jews more kindly. But this gets the relationship backward. People who hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of Israel’s government are not reacting reasonably to Israeli politics. They are engaging in antisemitism. Call it what it is.
A Jew in Paris is no more responsible for Benjamin Netanyahu than a Muslim in London is responsible for the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And if an antisemite claims to hate Jews because of Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, or Bezalel Smotrich, we should recognize that for what it is: a convenient justification for a prejudice that does not require one. Change the Israeli politician, and the antisemite will find another excuse.
The solution is not to make Israel more palatable to people who already dislike Jews. It is to stop accepting their premise that Jews everywhere are accountable for Israel’s elected leaders.
This debate has become particularly relevant following recent comments by two prominent American Jews: Ronald Lauder and Bill Ackman. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, recently warned that if Netanyahu is reelected, Israel stands to lose badly. He went further, declaring that if the parties of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich participate in the next government, Israel is doomed.
Doomed? Really?
Israel has survived wars, invasions, terrorism, economic crises, political upheaval, and decades of international hostility. It has become a military powerhouse, an economic success story, a global technology leader, and one of the most remarkable national achievements in modern history. And now we are supposed to believe that the participation of two political parties in an elected coalition will bring the entire country to its knees?
I disagree with plenty of things Israeli politicians say and do. But whether they belong in Israel’s next government is a question for Israeli voters and the politicians those voters elect. Their participation is not proof that Israel’s democracy has failed. If anything, their ability to participate in competitive elections demonstrates that Israel remains a functioning democracy in which competing political movements can seek representation.
Democracy does not guarantee that voters will make choices we approve of. It guarantees that the choice belongs to them.
America, for example, has politicians on both the Far-Left and Far-Right whose views many Americans find deeply objectionable. Some make outrageous statements. Several American politicians have falsely claimed that Israel is “committing genocide" in Gaza, a form of incitement that has led to terrorist attacks which have killed American Jews in recent years.
Yet the presence of these politicians does not suddenly disqualify America as a democracy or make its destruction inevitable. Why should Israel be treated differently?
There is something deeply contradictory about criticizing Israel’s democratic legitimacy while simultaneously telling its citizens which politicians are acceptable for them to elect.
One can argue that a particular government is making dangerous decisions. One can oppose Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, or Smotrich on policy, principle, or temperament. (Op-ed Ed.: One can oppose Eisenkot, Yair Golan or Lapid for their left-leaning views as well.) What one cannot reasonably do is turn the outcome of a democratic election into a test of whether Israel deserves to be regarded as a legitimate country. A democracy does not become illegitimate simply because foreigners dislike the outcome.
Lauder also expressed concern that Israel has lost support among diaspora Jews, suggesting that many remain loyal to Israel but no longer feel Israel is protecting them. But I have a question: Since when is protecting diaspora Jews from the societies in which they live primarily Israel’s responsibility?
If Jews are attacked in France, the French government is responsible for protecting them. If Jewish students are intimidated on Australian campuses, Australian universities and authorities are responsible for protecting them. If Mexican Jews cannot safely walk through Mexico City wearing a Star of David, the responsibility belongs to Mexico.
Israel cannot be expected to protect every Jew in every country from the failures of their own governments.
Israel certainly has a special responsibility to the Jewish People. Its existence provides Jews everywhere with something our ancestors could only dream of: a sovereign homeland, a place of refuge, and a nation capable of defending itself. That is an extraordinary responsibility, and Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to it. But Israel’s first obligation as a government is to its own citizens.
We cannot demand that Israel simultaneously act as a sovereign democracy and a worldwide Jewish security service whose political decisions must accommodate the sensibilities of Jews in New York, London, Paris, and Melbourne. And we certainly cannot blame Israel when foreign governments fail to protect their own Jewish populations. Doing so lets those governments off the hook while placing yet another impossible burden on the Jewish state.
Bill Ackman, another prominent American Jew whose work against antisemitism I greatly admire, recently argued that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have caused Israel reputational damage through their statements and actions. He actually suggested that excluding them from the next government would help Israel regain international credibility and improve its relationships abroad.
I find the underlying assumption troubling. Why has Israel’s international legitimacy become so dependent on whether the world approves of particular Israeli politicians? And why does the standard so often appear to move in only one political direction?
It is curious that the statements of Israeli politicians are treated as an international reputational emergency while Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the atrocities of October 7th, is so often afforded elaborate explanations, excuses, and context by people who condemn Israel. An Israeli politician makes an inflammatory statement, and suddenly the entire Jewish state must repair its reputation. Hamas commits atrocities, and much of the conversation shifts to what Israel must do differently. Something is terribly wrong with that equation.
We cannot accept a world in which Israel is considered legitimate only when it elects politicians acceptable to the international Left. The traditional Israeli Left has already proven itself to be dramatically irrelevant, and the political center of gravity has shifted decisively toward security-minded parties. That shift did not happen in a vacuum. It reflects decades of Israeli experiences, including failed peace initiatives, terrorism, regional wars, and October 7th.
People living comfortably in America or Europe may disagree with the conclusions Israeli voters have drawn from those experiences, but they cannot demand that Israelis vote as though those experiences never happened. Democracy means accepting that people who live under different circumstances may arrive at different political conclusions. The world cannot insist that Israel remain a democracy while reserving the right to determine which democratic outcomes are permissible.
That is not democracy. That is conditional sovereignty.
There is something else worth remembering when we examine the international attention surrounding Israel’s elections: Countries do not obsess over the elections of nations they consider irrelevant. The world follows American elections because America matters. It follows elections in major European countries because their political decisions can influence events beyond their borders. And increasingly, it follows Israeli elections for similar reasons.
Israel has become a consequential military, diplomatic, technological, and economic power. Its decisions influence regional alliances, international security, energy relationships, global markets, and the strategic calculations of countries far larger than itself.
For nearly 2,000 years, Jews lived without national sovereignty, subject to the political decisions of other peoples. Kings, emperors, presidents, and prime ministers determined our rights, our freedoms, and sometimes whether we would be permitted to live at all. We had no Jewish government to make those decisions for ourselves.
Today, the situation is fundamentally different. Israelis elect their own leaders, debate their own future, and determine the direction of their own country. And those decisions are important enough that much of the world watches with intense interest. That is not a burden for Jews to apologize for. It is a historic achievement to celebrate.
Of course, Israel should care about its international relationships. Diplomacy matters. Alliances matter. International legitimacy matters. And Israeli voters should absolutely consider how different leaders might affect those interests.
But those considerations are for Israelis to weigh. Not Ronald Lauder. Not Bill Ackman. Not the European Union. Not American politicians. And certainly not people who believe the Jewish state must continuously prove that it deserves to exist.
When Israelis vote, the entire world is welcome to watch. It is welcome to analyze, criticize, celebrate, or complain about the results. But the world does not get a vote, and diaspora Jews should resist the temptation to treat Israel’s democratic choices as something that must be explained away to earn whoever’s approval.
The greatest achievement of Zionism was not that Jews finally gained a country the world would approve of. It was that Jews finally gained a country that did not need the world’s permission to govern itself.
And whatever happens today, we should remember that Israel’s democracy belongs to Israelis. The fact that the entire world is watching is a measure of how far the Jewish People have come. The fact that the world doesn’t get a vote is the very reason we came this far.
This article is reposted from Future of Jewish, described as "the ultimate newsletter by and for people passionate about Judaism and Israel".