Setting aside the political bluster on all sides, we still do not know to what extent the war against Iran has weakened its regime or curtailed its ballistic or nuclear capabilities. Nor is the outcome of the renewed fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon yet clear. In the meantime, the world’s gaze has drifted away from the misery in Gaza and the urgent need to build a post-Hamas reality.

Entirely absent from the headlines is the urgency of rebuilding Israeli society after the war. Now that all of our hostages are home, Israel’s people must decide what comes next. We find ourselves at a critical juncture where most Israelis have lost faith that our government functions for the good of the people.

This unprecedented societal schism has deeper roots than Hamas’s attack on October 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, together with his coalition partners, has continued to drive wedges into our civil society, starting in January 2023 with his government’s assault on Israel’s independent judiciary. This was a legal coup designed to neutralize the rule of law, primarily to guarantee the government’s hold on power. Netanyahu and his ministers then proceeded to demonize anyone who protested this constitutional putsch.

Then came October 7. Those of us whose communities Hamas assaulted felt abandoned and betrayed by our government. For years, Netanyahu professed to have an iron-clad deterrence policy against Hamas. All the while, his government pushed to develop Jewish settlements in the West Bank, together with other messianic goals. The blows to the national interest continue: Netanyahu’s coalition partners have now tabled a proposal in the Knesset to prohibit non-Orthodox rituals at the Western Wall.

Netanyahu, having been in office for nearly 19 years since June 1996, has steadfastly refused to take accountability for October 7. He prioritized his own political survival over the fate of Israel’s hostages in Gaza, rejecting legitimate opportunities to end the war through negotiation while........

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