Has Israel Gone Too Far?

A debate I’ve been having recently with friends and family centers around a question that feels increasingly urgent: Has Israel gone too far?

Of course, the difficult part is defining what “too far” means. We all support Israel’s right—indeed, its necessity—to defend itself. But at what point does legitimate self-defense cross into unjustifiable cruelty?

I want to add my small, unimportant voice to the growing chorus of more prominent ones, including most recently Ehud Olmert. Yes, he’s a long-time political rival of Netanyahu and an opponent of the current government—his words should be weighed accordingly. But hearing a former Israeli Prime Minister publicly suggest that Israel may be committing war crimes is jarring. I never imagined I’d hear those words from someone who once held that office.

For me, the unease began when Israel started blocking food aid from entering Gaza. I’m uncomfortable for two reasons. First, the act of stopping food trucks—especially in a war zone—has always been, in my mind, beyond the pale. It invites a humanitarian disaster. If Israel controls what enters and exits Gaza—and it does—then Israel bears responsibility. The images of Gaza reduced to rubble and of vast tent camps are tragic, but can be argued as the grim byproduct of Hamas’s strategy of embedding within civilian areas. But starving a population is a different matter. And I knew the inevitable images of malnourished children would not only be heartbreaking—they would undermine Israel’s claim to moral legitimacy.

The claim that Hamas steals the food is, to me, a deflection. That’s not the point. Whether trucks are allowed in is the point. If allowing aid means some of it is misappropriated by Hamas, that is a tragic but tolerable cost—far less morally corrosive than the alternative of collective starvation. It doesn't change the military calculus. But it does change the moral one.

Second, I’m unsettled by how many Israel supporters—again, people I know and love—are willing to justify nearly any action in the name of self-defense. Withholding food does nothing meaningful to weaken Hamas. Yet too many have chosen to shelve their morality in favor of political allegiance. I started seeing this trend when trump floated his abhorrent 'proposal' to 'develop' Gaza into a playground for the rich. I called it what it was: ethnic cleansing. I was shocked at how many people didn’t just dismiss it outright. It reminded me of other, darker times in history when seemingly decent people found ways to rationalize monstrous acts in pursuit of political ends.

Back then, Jews were the victims. Now, it feels as though the shoe is on the other foot.

When someone like Olmert—or former IDF general and politician Yair Golan—publicly voices serious accusations against the Israeli government, their motives may be political. That doesn’t mean their concerns are invalid. I’ve never believed Israel’s greatest threat came from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, or even Iran. Israel has the military and intelligence capabilities to defend itself against these threats. I’ve long believed that the tragedy of October 7th was less a surprise and more the result of colossal government failure. I wouldn’t say it was self-inflicted, but Hamas walked through a door that Israel’s negligent leadership left wide open.

The threat I fear most comes from within.

Israel, like the U.S., is in the midst of a prolonged internal crisis. I trace its roots back to November 4, 1995, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a religious extremist. That act of political violence marked the beginning of Israel’s rightward drift and the increasing power of religious parties. Since then, an alliance between the secular right and the religious bloc has grown stronger, more entrenched, and more extreme.

The greatest danger facing Israel today is political Messianism.

Messianism is the ideological belief in a divinely sanctioned destiny, immune to compromise and fueled by absolute moral certainty. Nazism was a form of Messianism—rooted in mythologies of racial purity. So is jihadism, which cloaks political violence in the language of divine justice. I say this with a heavy heart, but I fear a growing number of Jews—both in Israel and in the diaspora—are falling under a similar spell.

Too many no longer speak of co-existence. Instead, they speak of conquest; annexing Judea and Samaria, expelling Palestinians, and turning Gaza into a buffer zone or a ghost town. The current “plan” for Gaza, such as it is, seems aligned with this dangerous thinking.

Not all Jews believe this, of course. Many—like myself—are heartbroken. We believe in Israel, love Israel, and want nothing more than to see it live in peace and dignity among its neighbors. But the soul of our homeland is being torn apart. If we don’t speak up now, we may soon find that there’s nothing left to defend—except the memory of what Israel once aspired to be.