Our Inability to Engage with Israel Critically Will Spell the End of the State

That comparison forces us to confront what annexation would truly mean for both Palestinians and Israelis. For Palestinians, it would deepen an already brutal reality of oppression and inequity, entrenching it as a defining feature of the State of Israel and its army.

For Israel, annexation would finally shatter the promise of the state many of us were taught to believe in. Not only because it betrays the Declaration of Independence’s commitment to equality for all, but because it would expose the impossibility of Israel being both Jewish and democratic in such a scenario.

Once this land is annexed, Israel will encompass the entire territory from the river to the sea. Without equal rights for all people within it, there will no longer be even the pretence of democracy. For decades, defenders of Israeli policy relied on the refrain that it was “the only democracy in the Middle East.” That talking point, fraught as it always was, would be dead and gone.

And when a state abandons democracy in favour of ethnic supremacy, maintaining a relationship with it based on “shared values” becomes indefensible.

This is why we continue to support a two-state solution, despite the Israeli government’s relentless efforts to undermine it. A single state would not only enshrine severe inequality between Jews and Palestinians, it is also an option rejected for decades by both peoples. If we truly mean to stand with those on the ground seeking a better future, we must listen to their vision of what geography and sovereignty make that future possible.

But if de facto annexation hardens into de jure annexation, and Israel formalizes an apartheid reality reminiscent of South Africa, then international support for an anti-apartheid movement calling for “one person, one vote” may well gain momentum. Foreign governments would find it increasingly difficult to oppose such a movement, and harder still to justify alliances with a regime that openly enshrines apartheid.

That kind of pressure could in fact push Israel back from the brink. The prospect of sustained international backing for a single binational, secular state might finally force Israelis, both government and public, to confront the consequences of the path they are on.

For now, the Israeli government is betting that international allies will offer nothing more than empty condemnations, while most Israelis, preoccupied with daily life inside the Green Line and shielded by a complicit media, remain disengaged.

This indifference is mirrored in diaspora Jewish communities. Our polling shows that 40% of Canadian Jews say settlement expansion either makes no difference to Israel's security, or they don't know the answer. Unless you are deeply engaged, you will not hear at your JCC, day school, or synagogue about what is happening in the occupied West Bank. That silence is not only a moral failing, it undermines the very values these institutions claim to uphold. They proclaim support for a Jewish and democratic Israel, but refuse to speak out against policies that destroy both.

It is bitterly ironic that while anti-Zionist activists call for Israel’s demise, it may be Israel itself, and its blind supporters, that deliver that outcome, whether through action or through silence.

Equally ironic is that many pro-Israel institutions loudly condemn international recognition of a Palestinian state as a “unilateral step,” yet remain silent as Israel unilaterally annexes Palestinian land and codifies apartheid.

The fall of both the First and Second Temples is often attributed to sinat chinam, baseless hatred. Today’s sinat chinam may lie not with those of us who critique Israeli policy, but in those who refuse to see reality. Those who hide from the truth, who dismiss or attack those who dare to speak out, are committing the most dangerous form of baseless hatred against the very state they are proclaiming to support. Their refusal to confront injustice may well ensure the collapse of Israel as both Jewish and democratic.

Although annexation has been pulled from the immediate Knesset agenda after the UAE told the Trump administration that this move would harm the Abraham Accords and undermine the president's hopes of expanding them, Israeli government ministers remain committed to it.

And it should infuriate us all that it was not the Jewish people who claim to care most for Israel that drew that red line