Israeli Reservists & Bereaved Families - Israel After October 7

One of the strangest ways to understand the new Israel is to look at Yair Golan. The leader of the country’s most left-wing Zionist party is a former IDF deputy chief of staff. He is not your average socialist, and he is not the obvious left-wing caricature some people abroad may imagine. That says something about Israel after October 7. The country’s political language still sounds familiar from the outside: left, right, security, diplomacy, religion, state, Netanyahu, anti-Netanyahu. But inside Israel, the argument has shifted. It is now about service. Burden. Trust. Competence. Responsibility. Who carried the country when it broke, and who gets to lead it after. Next week, I’ll be in the DC area for a few conversations about this changing Israel. I want to speak about the country behind the headlines: the reservists, bereaved families, officials, diplomats, defense figures, Jewish leaders, business people, and ordinary Israelis who are describing a reality that does not always fit the old categories. Washington spends a lot of time discussing Israel. I think it needs to spend more time understanding the Israel that actually exists now.