Prime Minister Netanyahu,

I write this not as one of your haters, but as one of the people who believed in you and still wants to.

I write this as a voter. As an Israeli. As someone who grew up looking at you as the model of what a Jewish leader should be: strong, clear-eyed, unapologetic, and unwilling to gamble with Jewish lives for the approval of foreign capitals. I write this as someone who admired you deeply, and who still wants to believe there is something larger happening behind the closed doors of your office that the public simply cannot yet see.

But outside those doors, among the people who sent their sons to war, who buried friends, who ran to shelters, who watched rockets tear through our skies and who have lived for years with grief lodged in the throat, something painful is taking hold.

We feel hurt. We feel confused. And yes, many of us feel betrayed.

Because what are we supposed to think when the United States pushes a deal with Iran that is bad for Israel in every serious strategic sense, and Israel appears to be pressured into narrowing its own freedom of action? What are we supposed to think when American officials scold Israeli leaders, remind us how much aid we receive, and speak as though Jerusalem should simply fall in line with Washington’s calendar? What are we supposed to think when our soldiers fight their way through Lebanon and Gaza, bleed there, die there, hold ground there, and then the conversation suddenly turns to withdrawal, restraint, softer touch, and diplomatic management?

What are Israeli lives worth in this equation?

Are they just numbers on a negotiating table? Are the lives of our soldiers so expendable that they can be spent to win territory, security depth, and deterrence only to have those gains diluted because Washington wants a deal? Are the families who buried their sons supposed to accept that the land their boys fought........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)