The future belongs to the young and that should worry you in Israel

Say congratulations to the four million American students who finished their studies this summer at thousands of universities and colleges across the country. Soon they will set out on a new path in prestigious law firms, on Wall Street, in Hollywood and on Broadway, and also at Google, Microsoft, and other major tech companies in the world. Talented young men and women in their 20s who will lead the economy, science, culture, and also politics in the United States and the entire world. The future generation of America, and it is worth thinking right now about what this future looks like for the State of Israel.

Since October 7 and against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza, the pro-Palestinian movement has settled in American campuses, and also in the hearts of many students who have realized themselves as fierce and bold activists. The initial reaction to this loud field activity is disdain and disgust for the 'beautiful souls' (naive idealists) who are naive at best, ignorant at worst. They are manipulated by progressive opinion leaders, with Qatari funding, and they have no idea about the conflict in the Middle East and its history. This condescending approach is justified. Or not. But it does not solve the existential crisis facing us, when most of the public in the USA is averse to Israel, and the protection provided by some of its representatives in the administration and Congress is cracking. Today, most Americans support cutting off military aid from their taxpayer money.

The American allergy to Israel and the distancing from it as if it were a leper on the international arena is not limited to 'Free Palestine' chants on campuses. Recent polls indicate a dramatic destruction of the value of the 'Israel' brand in the USA. The situation is particularly severe among local youth, with 75 percent of them, in the 18-29 age range, holding a negative opinion toward the ally on the other side of the world, which for years enjoyed the status of a client state of the American nation. In Jerusalem, there are of course those who think exactly the opposite, as if the eyes of the whole world are fixed on them as a 'light unto the nations.' Perhaps it was so in the past, at least among Diaspora Jews who showered love, support, and a lot of money on their beloved nation-state — the Jewish and democratic one. But the connection is weakening. The various and diverse Jewish communities in the USA still have a strong connection to Israel, but it is fading. The veteran 'Lovers of Zion' remember with longing the good old Holy Land, with the 'beautiful and tall' pioneers who made the desert bloom and realized the liberal ideas of the Zionist movement, out of openness to the peoples of the world. Their Israel is a peace-loving nation that fights for its existence, but always strives for integration in the region. According to this image, which is so outdated, the reason that a peace agreement is unattainable is the fault of the Palestinians and the Arab nations. October 7 was definitive proof of this.

So how is it that the date of the terrible massacre became the memorial day for the mass killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians — men, women, and children? The horrors of the war in Gaza and the pogroms carried out by the 'hilltop youth' in the West Bank have led to a change in the perception of the younger generation. The veterans may cling to nostalgia, but their sons and daughters are disavowing Israel. They have 'sobered up.' Those same students, Jews and non-Jews, who went out to the streets and chanted 'Not in our name,' set up tent camps on the Columbia University campus, and voted for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York, were born about two decades ago. The Israel they know is the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu: the right-wing, nationalist, brutal one, which ignores the Palestinians and preserves the occupation in a status quo policy. They were eight years old the last time representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority met for political negotiations in 2014. Some of them were not yet born during the withdrawal from Gaza, and were not even in the plans during the Oslo process in the 90s. Her American peers are the generation that 'did not know Joseph,' or Rabin, but they know Netanyahu. A murderous war criminal, a Vladimir Putin lookalike in their eyes. The immediate reaction of many of us is that these young people are antisemites and in the case of the Jews among them — self-hating Jews. Some of them are certainly such, perhaps even most of them. But among them are also brilliant scholars, knowledgeable people, and wise ones. As mentioned, they have sobered up.

Their perception of reality is complex and certainly more updated than that of their parents, perhaps even more than that of a part of the Israeli public that is so sure of itself, denies the existence of the Palestinians, and ignores the destruction of the value of their country in international public opinion. This is a fundamental crisis and not a failure of the public diplomacy system. The discerning American youth see through the propaganda and shake off any forced sympathy, while listening to what the current Israeli government is openly presenting to them. If we once explained that the sweaty and combative Middle East is not Switzerland, now the leadership proudly declares that it is not interested in being Switzerland — the calm, liberal, prosperous one. Not only did we fail to solve the conflict with the Palestinians, in the last decade it has been made clear that there is no desire to strive for a peace agreement. In the name of the political status quo, it was determined that the Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset. From the perspective of Netanyahu's Israel, the occupation is not the problem but the way the world distorts it as a problem. But it is not that the world has forgotten about us, it is we who have forgotten about the world. But in truth, we cannot exist without it. International public opinion is hostile to Israel, but the existential threat to the state stems not from the hatred of the stranger but from self-love. Excessive satisfaction, arrogance, national pride, and stubborn belief in the righteousness of the path. A narcissistic embolism of the government of Netanyahu, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich that shapes its policy as a path bypassing reality to the coming of the Messiah. Voluntary blindness in the present is preferable to identifying processes occurring here and now, which herald the future. When today's students become the leaders of tomorrow, they will turn their backs on Israel, which turned its back on the beautiful and good Israel in which their parents believed. Once upon a time.