Four in the morning. A buzz from my phone, a notification that a siren is about to sound in the north. Minutes later, the air itself shifts, filling with that eerie wail rising and falling, a sound we’ve been conditioned to recognize and, tragically, have grown numb to. My cat bolts in terror to the safe room he’s invented for himself. And me? Depleted after yet another night of this same ritual, I can no longer bring myself to run to the stairwell, my only refuge, since I don’t have a safe room. Even in that, I’ve lost trust.
Trust. That word carries immense weight in what I’m trying to convey here, this personal testimony of an ordinary citizen living under war. Trust in the system. Trust in life itself. A complete hollowing out of everything we once knew. This is the reality we’ve been living for years.
I know the world has turned its back on Israel. I know there is enormous criticism of us as a nation. But pause for a moment and consider the ordinary citizen living under this war.
We, the ordinary citizens, decide nothing. This war was thrust upon us from every conceivable direction: Iranian, American, Israeli. In none of these scenarios did we have a voice. We did not determine that this was right. I have no issue with your criticism of the state, but pause for a moment and consider the ordinary citizen, the one upon whom this reality was simply imposed, who has no say in what happened, what is happening, or what will happen.
Life under war is a life of contraction. The ordinary citizen in Israel cannot even go for a run along the shore because the beaches are closed, for fear a missile might strike there. Have you ever imagined that your life in Sweden, England, Spain, or New York could become so constricted that you couldn’t even jog down the street? Let me offer a memory that might help you picture it: the pandemic, when billions were confined to their homes, stripped of their freedom of movement. Perhaps that can help you grasp what the ordinary Israeli citizen endures. Only add to that a few elements the pandemic didn’t include: sirens and warnings of sirens, then thunderous explosions, widespread destruction, and the blood of people, elderly residents running toward shelter, stumbling, getting injured, and sometimes, God forbid, losing their lives.
All of this defines the bleak reality ordinary citizens must navigate in Israel. And in the same breath, I remind you once more: we, the citizens, decide nothing.
The day of an ordinary citizen in Israel, one who makes no decisions, has been stripped of everything familiar. They cannot send their children to school. They cannot go to work because there is no childcare. They cannot fly abroad because the country’s airspace has been sealed, no flights departing, none arriving. The ordinary citizen’s day has been drained of the ability to plan ahead, because they have no idea when this will end. And perhaps more terrifying still: even when it does end, they have no idea when it will begin again. We have been living through cycles of war for decades, with mounting intensity since October 7th. Consider how terrifying it is for an ordinary citizen to realize that everything we’re experiencing now, in March 2026, may be just another round, and after things calm, it might all erupt again within months.
If you live in another country, one that doesn’t endure what Israeli citizens endure, it is understandably difficult for you to comprehend. I relate entirely. In 2022, when war broke out between Ukraine and Russia, I could only feel sympathy for the Ukrainian people. I couldn’t truly feel what they were going through. At the same time, I didn’t begin hurling ugly criticism at the Russians or the Ukrainians. I understood that reality was not in their hands. Someone was deciding for them.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we, the citizens of Israel, are not that strong. The truth is, every day we are crammed into a matchbox and told to wait until things are resolved. And most of the time? We must do so under sirens and relentless explosions that conjure a surreal and terrifying reality, because just like the lottery, the next shell might simply land on us.
I turn to you, the global reader, and ask: What would you do if your government decided to go to war? Again and again, because we Israelis live under constant high risk and existential threat. What would you do if you faced such a reality? How would you manage life when work grinds to a halt, children are stuck at home with no schools, and you cannot leave or enter the country where you live?
Can you grasp how this affects the ordinary citizen, economically, socially, in every dimension? Do you understand that I am writing this at four in the morning because I’ve woken for the fourth time tonight from sirens and shelling? Is your only impulse right now to attack me, to write criticism of me at every turn? Or perhaps, perhaps, it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider that I, as an ordinary citizen and resident, was swept into this situation without any ability to change or influence it, and perhaps the fire should not be aimed at me?
Let me return to that word: trust.
You deserve a broader picture, one that widens the aperture and helps you truly understand the people in Israel. At least half the nation disagrees with the current leadership (if you can even call it leadership). You witness this every Saturday, for more than three years running, in sustained protests across Israel’s streets, against the leadership and its decisions. These people, these citizens, are declaring that the choices of the country’s leader and the government beneath him are not acceptable to them.
So when it comes to criticism, perhaps it’s worth pausing to learn what is actually happening in this country, and who these citizens are that you’re so angry at, without truly understanding what they’re enduring, the spectrum of their views, or the direction they believe in and are striving toward.
The state is not its citizens. Not in this case. And therefore, your judgment should be distributed differently across this playing field of disagreements.
