National Economic Conference
I’m not willing to give up hope
Israel is at a defining moment. The opportunity is spectacular; the danger is horrifying. Don’t give up hope, the publisher of Calcalist urged at the start of the National Economic Conference.
When we set the date for this conference, we hoped the nightmare would already be behind us and that all the hostages would be home. So we hoped. The brief euphoria after the blow to Iran has faded, and Trump’s promises of a quick deal hang in the air, unfulfilled. And we are left breathless.
I don’t know, I doubt anyone knows, whether we have delayed Iran’s nuclear program by months or years. Who can we even trust in this age of gaslighting, where there is no distinction between facts and fabrications, between truth and lies, between real journalism and random tweets? I don’t know, I doubt anyone knows, whether the Iranians will abandon their dream of destroying Israel or whether the clock for the next round is already ticking. All we can do is embrace life between the sirens.
And yet, let’s try to agree on something: Israel has reached a defining moment in its national life. The opportunity is spectacular; the danger, horrifying. “This is our life lately,” songwriter Yaakov Gilad wrote for singer Yehuda Poliker, “It could be better, a disaster could come. Good evening, despair, and good night, hope.”
Let’s talk about hope. Let’s talk about opportunity. The opportunity was born of the IDF’s recovery, which, together with the Mossad, dealt severe blows to Hezbollah and a surprising blow to Iran. If the war in Gaza ends soon as well, we can cautiously hope for a year of solid economic growth. Agreements with Lebanon and Syria that secure peace in the north, progress toward normalization with Saudi Arabia, and a period of calm could quickly bring back the international investors who have been sitting on the fence. They have already begun to return to high-tech, which has shown remarkable resilience over the past two years. And perhaps the tourists will soon return too.
Even in this optimistic scenario, the difficult task of restoring Israel’s battered and humiliated standing, after twenty terrible months of destruction and death in Gaza, broadcast on screens around the world, cannot be ignored. But if we are able to participate in international efforts to help the people of Gaza rebuild their lives, and begin a journey of reconciliation with our neighbors—those who wish to live alongside us, not in our place—we can hope that someday the international media will let us be and move on to other disaster zones.
Is this future a midsummer night’s dream? A Tel Aviv liberal’s hallucination?
Let’s talk about the danger. The despair. Israel could miss this historic opportunity. Because while you fought, while you mourned murdered civilians and fallen soldiers, while you dreamed of returning the hostages, while you feared ballistic missiles, while you tried to rebuild your destroyed home and revive the shuttered business, there are those who continue to drain the public purse and smugly declare, “We will die rather than be drafted.” And there are those who exploit your exhaustion to push a malicious, unbridled campaign of anti-democratic legislation, corrupt appointments of loyalists to the king rather than the kingdom, efforts to weaken the legal and judicial systems, to intimidate the free press, and to incite against anyone who dares to resist this campaign.
And above all these, above the servants and the messianics, the thugs, the corrupt, and the blind herd, stands the conductor of our nightmare orchestra: the man who is fed up with democracy and wants to impose a tyrannical, authoritarian one-man rule here, without checks and balances, and if he can’t have it, then to hell with the country.
We have removed the existential threat of the axis of evil, at least for now. But the threat to democracy is no less existential. Without democracy, there is no economy, no security. There is no state.
Indeed, the opportunity before us is spectacular, but the danger is horrifying. Good evening, despair; good night, hope. In this moment, between despair and hope, it is hard to know which will prevail. But I, in my small corner, as best I can, am not willing to give up hope, and I ask that you do not give up either.
Yoel Esteron is Calcalist's publisher and co-founder of Shomrim.
