In the early hours of October 7th, my phone pulsed with messages I’ll never forget. Just days beforehand I had been sitting in New York City with friends and colleagues, Israelis and Americans, and even a former United Nations Secretary General, discussing a project that would inspire hope around the world. But after the massacres of Israelis in their homes… on the fields of a festival… hope felt suddenly, painfully,  out of reach. The world, it seemed, had turned darker. Israel would need to fight for its future. Again. And with that fight would come necessary and unbearable sacrifices.

Optimism was, unquestionably, hard to come by.

Now, over 600 days following that unforgettable moment, and after almost two years of war, including operations that have extended far beyond Israel into a full-blown confrontation with Iran, Israelis stand in a different place.  Despite the sense of pessimism and doubt that enveloped it in the days after October 7, Israel has endured. Iran’s proxy armies of extremism that have encircled the Jewish state for decades have been either defeated or largely defanged. In daring operations that are now part of the extraordinary history of Israel’s self-defense, Iran was forcefully confronted and put on notice: Israel will take decisive action to ensure its existence. And it has a mighty ally, the United States, that has proven it will stand by Israel’s side. The Iranian axis of terror may not be vanquished, but it has unquestionably been set back.

So now what? What’s next? 

“It’s too soon for optimism,” a friend recently told me. I understand this sentiment and I also empathize with those who are seeing the world through glasses smudged with the pain of the present, unable to recognize anything but pessimism. The wounds are too fresh, and too deep. There are still hostages in Gaza.  The cost of the conflict feels suffocating, both financially and psychologically. And in many ways, the military and diplomatic storm has not passed. While Israel’s national existence endures, its safety still doesn’t feel assured.

That, however, is not the way I see it.

What I see is a future for Israel that is brighter than it has ever been in my lifetime. The sacrifices made on and since October 7 are not for nothing. They are the prerequisite for a future of possibility that has been almost unimaginable by so many of us, me included. Ranging from regional economic opportunity to a Palestinian state, and from the reimagination of the Israeli civic compact to an explosion of regional cultural creativity and exploration, there is good reason to believe that the golden age of the modern state of Israel is right in front of us.

How can........

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