America, beware: The battle over Israel’s identity could be coming for the US - opinion

For decades, Hollywood has fascinated us with a terrifying question: What happens when we can no longer distinguish truth from lies?

Then Hollywood asked an even more personal question: What happens when they don’t steal reality, but steal you?

These stories frighten us because identity depends upon something we rarely consider: truth.

To prove I am me, we must agree on what counts as evidence: my passport, photograph, voice, history, family, and friends. But what happens when photographs can be fabricated, voices cloned, history rewritten, and institutions no longer agree about basic facts?

The question eventually changes from “How do I prove to you who I am?” to something considerably more frightening: “How do I know who I am?”

I know my own face, yet I cannot actually see it without a mirror, photograph, camera, or another human being looking back at me.

We all need mirrors.

Nations do, too.

I write this from an unusual vantage point: I am a proud fourth-generation American and a first-generation Israeli. I do not see these two countries from opposite sides of an ocean. Both are part of my identity. And from that perspective, I believe America needs to look very carefully at what is happening to Israel.

Because Israel is increasingly becoming America’s mirror. More alike than we acknowledge.

America and Israel are certainly not identical. But they have far more in common than today’s political discourse often acknowledges.

Both are relatively young, modern states carrying much older civilizational inheritances. America celebrated its 250th anniversary; Israel approaches its 80th.

America created a revolutionary political experiment in a world dominated by monarchy, empire, and aristocracy. Israel reestablished Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland in a region overwhelmingly dominated by Arab and Muslim societies, many historically governed by monarchies, dynasties, and authoritarian regimes.

Both fought the British to achieve independence.

America developed as a predominantly Christian society deeply influenced by biblical and Judeo-Christian traditions. Israel became the predominantly Jewish national expression of the civilization from which much of that inheritance originated.

Both have also confronted difficult questions involving indigenous peoples, minorities, borders, immigration, war, and national identity.

America’s record is certainly nothing to brag about in many of these areas. Israel’s isn’t perfect, either.

But nations, like people, are not legitimate because they are perfect. They are legitimate because they exist within history.

And history is complicated.

One of the most successful elements of the propaganda campaign against Israel has been role reversal.

For generations, Israel understood itself through the image of David: a tiny country surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims, repeatedly attacked by enemies openly seeking its destruction.

That historical reality did not disappear. But the picture presented to much of the world has been inverted.

Israel is now Goliath. The Palestinians are David.

Israeli military strength becomes proof of Israeli aggression, while the historical circumstances that required Israel to develop that strength gradually disappear from the picture.

October 7 becomes separated from October 8.

This is not simply disagreement over Israeli policy. It is a narrative role reversal: David has been recast as Goliath.

This technique has found fertile ground in what has been called the red-green alliance: the convergence of elements of the radical Western Left with Islamist movements around shared adversaries, particularly Israel, Zionism, and aspects of Western political identity.

Their ultimate objectives may differ greatly. Their immediate narratives can nevertheless reinforce one another.

And America should pay attention, because the intellectual machinery capable of reversing Israel’s historical identity can be turned against America’s identity as well: from “did wrong” to “is wrong”

There is an enormous difference between saying, “Israel did something wrong” and “Israel is something wrong.”

The first permits criticism, accountability, and reform. The second questions legitimacy itself.

But increasingly Israel’s actions are not the only thing on trial. Its identity is.

Its historical connection to the land is questioned. Zionism is transformed from a complicated national liberation movement into a synonym for colonialism. Israel moves from being a country that may have committed wrongs to a country whose very existence constitutes a wrong.

America should recognize where this road leads, because the same progression can move from “America did terrible things” to “America is a terrible thing.”

If countries lose legitimacy because their creation involved war, displacement, or injustice, America has a problem.

If historical figures must satisfy the moral standards of 2026, America has an even bigger problem.

If national identity itself becomes evidence of oppression, America must confront a huge problem.

The framework does not stop at Israel.

This matters because both democracies are entering consequential elections within roughly the next two months.

Israelis will decide what kind of country they want after the trauma of Oct. 7 and the war that followed.

Americans will vote in midterm elections amid their own profound arguments over national identity, immigration, race, religion, political institutions, and America’s role in the world.

The issues are different.

But beneath them lies a remarkably similar question: Who are we?

Technology and modern communications have made that question increasingly vulnerable to outside manipulation.

Iran understands this. Russia and China have mastered it. Turkey is also a player. Qatar has invested enormous resources in media, education, political relationships, and influence far beyond its borders.

You no longer necessarily have to defeat a country militarily if you can persuade enough of its citizens to lose confidence in the story holding their society together.

Americans should also exercise humility when judging how another democracy reacts after mass trauma.

After Pearl Harbor, America responded as a nation under attack.

After September 11, it projected military power thousands of miles from its shores because Americans believed preventing another attack required extraordinary action, with decisions whose consequences Americans still debate.

Oct. 7 does not give Israel a moral blank check. But historical amnesia should not become a moral credential.

Americans can criticize Israel’s response without pretending they cannot understand the instinct behind it.

This brings us back to those movies.

First, imagine losing the ability to distinguish truth from fabrication. Then imagine losing the ability to prove your identity to others. Finally, imagine becoming so uncertain of every external reference point that you begin questioning your own identity.

That is no longer merely science fiction. It is the emerging battlefield of civilizational identity.

Healthy nations should question themselves. They should acknowledge crimes, correct myths, confront failures, and demand accountability.

But there is a profound difference between examining your identity and being persuaded that you have no legitimate identity at all.

America’s imperfections do not erase America. Israel’s imperfections do not erase Israel.

As American attitudes toward Israel change, Americans should absolutely continue asking difficult questions about Israel.

But as a fourth-generation American and a first-generation Israeli, I would ask my fellow Americans to consider one more: Are you changing your mind about Israel based on facts or manipulations? Or, more importantly, are you accepting a way of thinking that will eventually change how you see America itself?

Israel is encountering the challenges from the Red Green Alliance first.

America, beware.

The country you are watching lose its identity and legitimacy may be your reflection in tomorrow’s mirror of the future.