The Day After
Part 1 - After Bibi. Without downplaying our present predicament, let’s allow ourselves to look beyond it, to a future that is close at hand.
It’s become axiomatic that one of the great tragedies of the current Gaza War is that all attempts at a ceasefire have been thwarted by the lack of a plan for “the day after” the war ends. Both Hamas and the Israeli government have had reason to want to prolong the war, and a lengthy New York Times expose documented Prime Minister Netanyahu’s culpability in that, with the prime objective being to delay his corruption trial’s conclusion as well as his comeuppance from the Israeli electorate.
This tug-o-war over a ceasefire has been disheartening, even as we know the war will ultimately end, as all wars do. Countless innocent people have died unnecessarily, Israeli and Palestinian, including hostages who would be alive today. Numerous opportunities for resolution have been wasted.
But I’m here to talk about another “day after” - not the day after the war, but the day after Netanyahu is shown the door. While it might feel at times that such a day will never come, I believe with a perfect faith that it will1, both for Netanyahu and for Trump, and that American and Israeli societies are each strong enough to emerge from this dark tunnel with our democracies intact.
It’s not too early to begin planning for that day and the reconstruction that must follow, and we need to. It’s a healthy exercise, because it forces us to look beyond the shattered lives and destroyed dreams that lie before us. There’s a lot of work to do, both now and on the day after. So let’s start doing it.
I’ll deal with the day after Trump at a later date. Let’s start with Netanyahu, who, if Israeli polls are correct, will be looking for a new line of work after the next election, which will take place no later than October, 2026, but likely earlier, and perhaps as soon as next January. After the coalition received a surprisingly small and short-lived bump from the Iran War (nothing like the bump typically received after so resounding a triumph - see President Bush shooting up to 88 percent approval after the Gulf War in 1991), polls have returned to a baseline that will give Netanyahu’s opposition a clear Knesset majority of at least 61 out of 120 seats. That number has held amazingly steady for the past 655 days, despite all the turmoil since Oct. 7. Israelis from the right to the left have had it with Netanyahu’s lies and selfishness. See a chart of recent polls below:
Israeli polling expert Dahlia Scheindlin wrote in Ha’aretz that current polls could be misleading and unreliable but three consistent results that stand out are “clear and striking.”
First, with only the smallest variations, the parties of the original coalition (Likud, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, Shas and UTJ) are stuck. Likud has seen a moderate rise in some polls following the war with Iran, but almost entirely at the expense of other parties in the coalition.
That means that the total number of seats for the original coalition parties, in serious polls published in the Israeli media, falls into the range of 48–53 seats, which has been stable for months and is still far below a governing majority. The war with Iran gave the total number for these coalition parties no boost at all, and in Channel 12's polling, there's even a very gentle downward trend in recent months, settling at around 49 seats.
Second, and relatedly: Even the two pro-Netanyahu polling companies, Direct Polls, and the agency run by a former Netanyahu crony that polls for the far-right Channel 14, show the coalition is stuck. Those polls find that the coalition parties have a slim majority of about 63–65 seats (out of 120), but usually lower than the original 64, and they, too, show no upward trend.
Third: Even in the coalition-friendly, right-wing polls above, the Jewish supremacist parties (Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit) have been stagnant throughout the entire Gaza war. Direct Polls and Channel 14 offer their most favorable numbers, but even in those surveys, they're stuck with a combined 10 to 13 seats – below the 14 they currently hold.
Neither leader, Bezalel Smotrich nor Itamar Ben-Gvir, can claim to "represent Israel"; about 90 percent of the electorate reject them in every poll since the government was established. So for the far right, that's a strong motive to avoid elections.
You can see Scheindlin’s full analysis below.2
The Idealized Jerusalem
A quick step back: For those feeling disorientated by this exercise, I must emphasize that it’s OK to dream of a better tomorrow. Hope is not a Jewish taboo, like shellfish. In Jewish history, dreams - not just nightmares - have a funny way of becoming reality. “If you will it,” Theodore Herzl famously said, “it is no dream.” Similarly, it was Nelson Mandela who said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” So yes, our hopes have been dashed so many times and our spirits beaten to a pulp, but dream we must3.
In ancient times, the rabbis spoke of the “Jerusalem on High” - an idealized version of the Holy City, to contrast with the corrupt, violent, malicious scenes being played out in the earthly Jerusalem, the “Jerusalem Below.” We live in between Yerushalayim shel Ma’alah and Yerushalaylim shel Mata, as they are called, in constant tension between the dream and the reality.
The idealized, heavenly Jerusalem is based on a midrash dating from the third century. Rabbi Yochanan looked at Psalm 122:3, “Jerusalem built up, a city knit together” and asserted that in the future the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem will be reunited as one. Our goal is to bring that day to pass – for heaven and earth to meet.
Back in 1969, just after the Six Day War, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of Jerusalem:
“She is the city where waiting for God was born, where the anticipation of everlasting peace came into being. Jerusalem is waiting for the prologue of redemption, for new beginning…The evenings often feel like Kol Nidre nights. Unheard music, transfiguring thoughts. Prayers are vibrant. The Sabbath finds it hard to go away…”
The prophet Zechariah (8:3-5) summed up how many of us feel about Jerusalem’s potential to bring the peoples of the world together:
“God says: I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell in Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the God of Hosts will be called the holy mountain. Thus says the God of Hosts: Yet again old men and women will be in the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in hand because of old age. And the streets of the city will be filled with young boys and girls playing in the streets”.
But more recently, we’ve seen fulfilled the vision of Psalm 79:
“God, the other nations have come into Your domain; they have defiled Your holy temple; they have made Jerusalem into ruins. They have given the dead bodies of Your servants as food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your faithful to the beasts of the earth. Their blood was shed like water around Jerusalem, with none to bury them.”
2,000 years ago, Jerusalem was destroyed because of malicious use of language, the Talmud tells us. So which shall it be now: the Jerusalem of Dreams or the Jerusalem of Bloodied Earth?4
The interplay of reality and ideal is a key to understanding Judaism, especially at this time of year, the weeks of mourning preceding the Ninth of Av, the day marking the destruction of the first and second temples.
And the concept of an elevated “New Jerusalem,” a “City on a Hill,”5 has also been a lodestone for other groups with lofty aspirations:
Okay. So now let’s take us allow ourselves the privilege of dreaming that things will get better.
Envisioning the Post-Bibi Era
As we take a look at the key aims and expectations for The Day After, I contend that everything on this list is not beyond possibility, if not downright probable. The foreboding, doomscrollable messages shared by pundits like Ezra Klein recently6, asserting that, for example, progressive Judaism is no longer compatible with Zionism, may ring true for many American Jews today, especially though not exclusively Gen Z. And we do have a huge mess to clean up. But what seems far-fetched now could become instantly realistic given the (likely) upending of the electoral status quo in Israel.
As Americans have learned so often in the past decade, it just takes one election to change everything. I am a great believer in the “Great Man” theory of history - not that Bibi or Trump are in any measurable way “great,” but their impact has been grotesquely outsized, like one of those Big Gulps Mayor Bloomberg tried to ban. When they are gone, there will be an immediate regression toward a (not-nearly-as-mean) mean, toward a version of what used to be. There will be a new - more normal - normal. The old safeguards will return (along with NPR, the Israeli Supreme Court, and science), and now, with lessons learned, those old standbys will be strengthened.
When this government is replaced, dominoes will immediately fall.
So here’s my post-Bibi game plan, keeping in mind that Netanyahu has been leading Israel or spearheading the opposition for this entire century. His departure in and of itself will mark a dramatic shift:
There will be a political realignment in Israel and it will be more centrist, though still leaning right. There is basically no “left” left in Israel. Pollyanna was in critical care after the bus bombings of the Second Intifada. After October 7, she’s dead and buried. Any peace plan involving territorial compromise that leaves Israel with a nine-mile passage from the border to the sea will be a non-starter.
Coexistence with Palestinians is still possible, however, maybe even a confederation of two states (lots of interesting ideas out there - check out Dahlia Scheindlin’s), but only as part of a new regional arrangement that presents Israel with iron-clad security assurances and the Palestinians with enormous economic and political carrots, courtesy of the Saudis, Europeans and Americans.
Post-Bibi also means post-Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the racist, Kahanist ministers who will once again be relegated to outsider status, beyond the right fringe. That means changes in overall law enforcement (Ben Gvir is Minister of Security) and West Bank policy (Smotrich is Finance Minister) should be dramatic and immediate. Mainstream Israelis are sick and ashamed of the viral racism that was unleashed by the extremists and how the country was dragged through a war that was prolonged unnecessarily - and all the added casualties and condemnation that came with it - for the sake of the fringe messianic fantasies of these two ministers.
And if the Gaza war hasn’t ended by then, it will soon end after the election. Trump has already left his casinos-in-Gaza idea on the cutting room floor, though the Israeli far right tried to run with it, fueled by the LSD-trip of an empty Gaza fantasy. But people are ready for more realistic, creative ideas regarding Gaza reconstruction, West Bank resolution and Palestinian governance.
Some of the ethno-nationalist far-right parties are in danger of falling out of Knesset contention (in the chart above, Religious Zionism (RZ), Smotrich’s party, has gone down from 7 to 4 seats - barely making it into the Knesset). This will mean decreased power for those who aim to ethnically cleanse the West Bank and Gaza. Without Smotrich and Ben Gvir in the ruling coalition, daily life will improve immediately for Palestinians in the territories. The long-term prognosis is dependent on regional agreements.
The coalition alignment will be center-right, but with a heavy focus on unity and restoring integrity in government and an independent judiciary. The ultra Orthodox (Haredim) will need to accommodate the need for some military conscription, which the vast majority of Israelis insist upon for them, or be left out altogether.
The parties of the left have already merged (which they should have done last time - would have saved us all this tzuris and denied Bibi the prime ministership), guaranteeing them solid representation in the new Knesset.
Moderate Israeli Arabs will vote in greater numbers and take a more active role in this new government. The prior Bennett-Lapid government took baby steps in this direction, which will be valuable as national unity is prioritized. With Hamas and Iran defanged and regional agreements pending, moderate Arabs in Israel proper will be freed of terrorist influences. Let’s not kid ourselves though. Terrorism is not going away completely, and some well-funded terror groups will be egging for a comeback.
A byproduct of this shift will be the diminishing of the clout of the ultra-Orthodox parties. No longer kingmakers, they will be more amenable to compromise on military conscription. And because their power will be reduced, there will be greater potential for increased pluralism among Jewish religious streams and more rights for women and minorities. The compromise Sharansky plan for a shared, egalitarian worship space at the Western Wall, scrapped by Netanyahu, might now be revived.
The new government will establish a state commission of inquiry about Oct. 7 and its aftermath and at long last there will be accountability and the beginnings of closure. Israel’s next war will be a war on corruption - and all of Bibi’s crimes will be exposed. I don’t think he’ll go to prison, though. Maybe Miami7.
Press freedoms will be reaffirmed and strengthened. The US legacy media should be taking notes on how Israeli journalists - and their financial backers - have, for the most part, stood up to the pressure of this government, and those who haven’t have been exposed. Bibi’s corruption trial is all about that. And it’s not just news media. It is inconceivable that an Israeli equivalent of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, like Eretz Nehederet, would be cancelled - and that show airs in prime time.
Diaspora Jews will begin to rebuild their ties to an Israel that will slowly be earning back their trust. At the same time, there will be a realignment of diaspora leadership, with a greater focus on generational change. Israeli leaders will also focus on outreach to the diaspora and on luring Jews back into the fold, with less emphasis on romancing evangelical Christians.
Jewish leaders will come to realize that not only has Israel ceased to be a bipartisan cause, it has been abandoned by Republicans and Democrats alike. You can see Tucker Carlson AND Bernie Sanders smooching on the Coldplay anti Zionism Kiss Cam. Time for a major overhaul at those pro-Israel organizations that have lost a generation of young Jews. Anyone who lives in denial of this should be fired. Meanwhile, everyone at AIPAC will breathe a huge sign of relief that Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Bibi will no longer be the poster children for the pro-Israel set, dragging Jews into Washington’s partisan warfare.
Antisemitism will be addressed in this new partnership of responsible governance, led by Israeli and American Jewish leaders, with heavy representation from academia. There will be an immediate decrease in incidents on campus and elsewhere, with no war to fuel Jew-hatred and with ongoing negotiations for long term solutions in the Middle East. Dialogue will be the order of the day.
Certain terms, like “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” will go the way of blackface and no longer be acceptable in polite company. The Hamas lobby will be exposed and drained of its resources, as those who really want to help build a future for the Palestinians, including many Jews, will work with international agencies, along with Israel, America and many nations, to organize a Marshall Plan for the region - minus the casinos on the beach.
In a unified voice, American Jews will call upon the Trump administration to butt out and stop using Jews as human shields for their efforts to destroy American universities and obliterate (Trump’s favorite word) scientific research. The Heritage Foundation’s notorious Project Esther will be officially and uniformly discredited by American Jewry8.
At the same time there will be a reckoning on the left, which will begin to understand how they were used by the terror group Hamas and its international enablers. As Israel begins to own up to its responsibility for this catastrophe that befell Gaza, and as Hamas slides into irrelevancy, cooler heads will prevail, and dialogue will begin. It will take time for many progressive Jews to again trust the left, but leaders like A.O.C. could make a big difference if they understand the moment and understand that the end of the Bibi era can bring about enormous changes.
New York City will become a focal point for this, no matter who becomes mayor. If coexistence minus antisemitism can make it there, it can make it anywhere.
Jewish observance will begin to incorporate new prayers and rituals helping people to come to grips with a post October 7 reality - including the difficult theological questions that must be raised. Apocalyptic visions held by many on the right, in Israel and in the US, will be discredited. The messiah is not coming. And just as after the Holocaust, new voices will begin to come forward that will resonate among grieving Jews and others, in search of an eclipsed, elusive God and a more compassionate humanity.
Despite the theological complications, progressive Jews will seek solace in their synagogues, and the old movements will shift to accommodate a reinvigorated and reimagined Zionism, along with a newly assertive independence. More Israeli-trained rabbis will come here and assist in fostering a renewed partnership between Israel and diaspora Jewry.
Disgusted with the lies and anti-democratic trends of illiberalism in America and Israel, and the constant attacks degrading the judiciary and the press, Israelis and American Jews will reaffirm commitments to truth, freedom and governmental checks and balances. America will look to put safeguards in place after the 2026 midterms, and Israel might just start thinking of, at long last, creating a Constitution.
Tourism will jump, in both directions, and megadonors will look less to promoting talking points and more to promoting talking. Just talking.
As you can see, Bibi’s departure will cause an earthquake in Israel and the Jewish world, and the diplomatic response within the international community will also be profound. Europe, Arab nations and Turkey will rejoice. And I don’t see Iran breathing any sigh of relief. But the window will be brief.
While the odds-on favorite to succeed Netanyahu - Naftali Bennett - could be considered further to the right than Bibi, his honorable, consensus-building, unifying behavior during his brief prior tenure bodes very well. He partnered with Yair Lapid and - no small thing - actually made good on his pledge to hand over power. I don’t have any love for Bennett, but he’s a good communicator in English and will be able to work with the Americans. It will be hard for Trump to discredit him as a leftist. And Trump will probably be glad to see Bibi go too.
In his first go-round, Bennett tried to support Ukraine tacitly without antagonizing Putin, but that’s when the Russians were a regional power entrenched in Syria and Iran. Things have changed, which hopefully will allow the next Israeli government to give more support to Ukraine, just when it needs it most. Bibi’s departure will be good news for the world’s greatest Jewish leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.
And Bennett was harshly critical of the antidemocratic Judicial Coup planned by Netanyahu. Bibi’s departure will mark the end the greatest threat to Israel’s democratic values. 9
All of this could happen if just one single domino is kicked over in the next Israeli elections between now and October, 2026: the domino named Netanyahu.
Things could change in an instant, but the lack of a bump after the recent Iran War triumph indicates that Israelis’ feelings about Netanyahu are now baked in. Soon his cronies will begin jumping ship, as Trump’s will, as is inevitable when the incumbent is seen as a lame duck.
It was Bibi himself who has often talked about what “quacks like a duck.” We are just a few months away from his being able to describe the full lame duck experience first- hand.
Bugs Bunny, who has become a star of the Bibi corruption trial,10 will now have to make way for Daffy to testify.
The end is near. And to this horrific far-right, racist anti-Jewish, Kahanist government we will all, God willing, soon be able say…
Notes:
As anyone who watched The Poseidon Adventure will attest, there’s got to be morning after.
During the Holocaust, dreams of a better future sustained victims behind the barbed wire.
I cry but no one hears me
I live in fear alone
I’m scared I don’t know if
I’ll live to see tomorrow and if
I do I’ll thank God for it.
When I wake up from this horrible dream
I will live in freedom.
Maybe I’ll be in heaven but anywhere
is heaven to me now
I see dark shadows moving across
at night
if this is life than
its not worth living.
Rachel Kruger
We read in the midrash (note the interplay of the Jerusalem on High and the Jerusalem Below).
There are ten measures of beauty in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
There are ten measures of suffering in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
There are ten measures of might in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
There are ten measures of wisdom in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
There are ten measures of hypocrisy in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
There are ten measures of Torah in the world; Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.
What was this idea of a New Jerusalem about?
The idea of the New Jerusalem arises from ... very powerful and moving descriptions in the Book of Revelation that in the last days, literally a New Jerusalem, a new heaven and a new earth, shall be created. The old earth shall pass away and shall be no more. These are tremendously powerful images. And New England Puritans--at least some of their leaders--were convinced that this moment had come; that God was preparing the way for the creation of this New Jerusalem in New England.
“For decades, American Judaism, built on the liberalism of the diaspora, has been interwoven with Zionism. What happens when the ideals of the one become incompatible with the reality of the other?”
Where his son Yair was essentially exiled.
When Bennett and Lapid formed their fragile coalition in 2021, Lapid, the Foreign Minister and alternate Prime Minister, planned to give a speech from the Knesset rostrum. But when he saw Naftali Bennett shouted down repeatedly by hecklers determined to grind the wheels of democracy to a halt, he decided not to give the speech then, but on stream release it to the public in print.Here’s some of what he planned to say to those hecklers
in the hall:
“We are not enemies. Even the most strident opinions, even the most heated arguments, will not turn us into enemies. We will not let extremists destroy our ability to speak to one another and to work together for the good of the country.”
In subsequent speeches, Lapid pledged to repair ties with Jews in the Diaspora, many of who had felt alienated from Israel over recent years. “The support of Christian evangelicals and other groups is important and heartwarming,” he said. “But the Jewish people are more than allies; they are family. Jews from all streams – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox – are our family. And family is always the most important relationship and the one that needs to be worked on more than any other.”
It had been so long since we have heard such sentiments.
And so, for those of you who have felt such alienation, from Israel, from the established Jewish community, from Judaism, i can say with some confidence that it will soon be OK to jump back into the water.
Oh, there will be things that Jews will still disagree about. That’s what makes us Jews. And the wounds opened by the fighting in Gaza, which engulfed us all and, exposed dangerous fault lines and caused a dramatic increase in anti- Semitic attacks – there’s a lot of damage that will need to be undone. But as this new government takes root, we’ll begin to notice some good things. We’ll begin to see a moral compass re-emerge.
From Times of Israel
I can´t resist. `Love it! Especially the end 😍! Seriously though, I think it was on Lawrence
O´Donnell´s show where it was stated last night that "Optimism is the true moral courage!"
Hope based upon possibilities. May the good come to pass. Thank you for this lengthy, at times humorous (as always) and encouraging posting.
I spent six months in 1998 in Israel and traveled extensively throughout the country. I could go on for many paragraphs about what I think about the current problems. When I was there, I met many Israelis and Palestinians of many religious beliefs. One thing all of them agreed upon was that if Bibi gained power, there would be war between Palestine and Israel. Another observation. Why hasn't the IDF attacked the West Bank? Isn't Hamas there also? Answer: Bethlehem is in the West Bank! Imagine if the IDF dropped a bomb on the Church of the Nativity. The whole Christian world would condemn this and then support an end to the war and be against Israel! What do you think about this?