Boaz Lieberman: Israel Must Preserve Its Sense of Common Purpose After the War

Boaz Lieberman recounts meeting a reserve soldier last week, one of thousands who have already served hundreds of days since the war began. The soldier, who is trying to keep a small business alive while his family waits at home, did not complain. Instead, Lieberman says, he spoke about the country, his friends and responsibility.

From that encounter, Lieberman argues that Israeli society has shown extraordinary sacrifice and unity during the war, with business owners, students, parents of young children, tech workers, drivers, teachers and doctors all leaving everything to serve. But he warns that whenever the front is a little farther away, the country quickly slips back into the language of camps, score-settling, and “us” versus “them.”

He says he misses the word “we,” not as a political slogan but as a basic state of mind. Israel, he writes, is a historic miracle made up of different communities, traditions and worldviews, and its strength has never come from uniformity but from shared fate. He says the old idea of a “melting pot” has faded, and that this is understandable because no one wants identities erased, but society has also lost the sense that differences can coexist with belonging to one home.

Lieberman says the debate over military conscription is so intense because it raises a deeper question than law or security: whether Israelis still see themselves as partners in one story. A Jewish and democratic state, he argues, depends not only on rights but also on obligations, and most Israelis are looking for fairness, not sameness. He cites conversations this year with army bases, bereaved families, reservists and parents of soldiers, all of whom wanted to know their burden was shared. He concludes that the war has shown the enemy does not distinguish between religious and secular, left and right, Tel Aviv and Yitzhar, and says the challenge of 2026 is to preserve that wartime unity after the guns fall silent.