I’ve always appreciated the present-tense quality of Yom Ha’atzmaut. Coming right after Yom HaZikaron, a day of remembering past losses, it is like a full day of “dayenu“ prayer, a collective recognition of where we are and how far we have come. In Israel, Israelis gather in public parks and in backyards, under their vines and fig trees. I am skeptical of making big meaningful proclamations on Yom Ha’atzmaut; this year I sat with friends on the deck eating corn schnitzel and singing folk songs.

But then the day ends, and the work begins again, as it always does. This year I can’t shake the sense that Israel — and those of us who support it from afar — are stuck in a hopeless present tied too tightly to the traumas of the recent past. To pause in the present one day a year is a blessing; to live permanently while stuck in the present feels like a curse.

The war in Gaza is unending, and now resumes with a massive call-up. The prime minister continues to define victory as Hamas’ utter defeat, which Hamas will never concede and which may be a “supreme goal” that can never be decisively reached. At earlier phases in the history of Zionism, we celebrated partial victories – most famously in the acceptance of the Partition Plan — and moved forward toward other attainable goals. Why then do Israel’s current leaders insist on the kind of absolute outcomes that make it impossible to get out of the present morass?

Meanwhile, only the extremists are speaking about the future. In Israel,........

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