From Ahad Ha'am to Benjamin Netanyahu: The Ethical Vision of Ahad Ha'am and the Political Failure of Israel's Longest-Serving Prime Minister

Israel today is undoubtedly a powerful state. It possesses immense military strength, advanced technology, and a resilience forged through decades of conflict. However, Israel suffers from a deep dysfunction — politically, ethically, and strategically. Israel, and we, the people of Israel, are trapped in a vicious cycle of fear, domination, and recurring wars, a cycle that produces neither security, legitimacy, nor hope.

This situation was not a surprise. More than a century ago, Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginzberg), one of the most prominent Jewish Zionist thinkers, warned that if Jewish sovereignty were separated from Jewish ethics, it would undermine itself. Ahad Ha'am was not opposed to power, but he insisted that power be constrained by moral responsibility. Today, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Israel has ignored this warning — and it is paying the price, a price that will continue to rise over time.

The gap between Ahad Ha'am's vision and the political reality that has taken shape over many years under Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, is enormous. Ahad Ha'am presented a philosophy based on moral self-restraint, human dignity, and responsibility towards the other. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has overseen a political strategy based on a permanent state of emergency, the normalization of occupation, and the reduction of politics to security management, leading today to the illegal annexation of Palestinian territories.

This contradiction is not theoretical; it lies at the heart of the ongoing Israeli crisis.

Ahad Ha'am: Sovereignty as a Moral Test

Ahad Ha'am rejected the idea that Zionism was merely a reaction to antisemitism or a project for a state for its own sake. For him, Zionism was an ethical experiment. Jewish sovereignty was not the end of the road, but the beginning of a test. He wrote: “The state is not the beginning of salvation, but its test.”

In his famous 1899 essay, “The Truth from the Land of Israel,” Ahad Ha'am shattered the myth of the “empty land.” Like Jabotinsky later, he insisted that the Arab population in Palestine was real, deeply rooted, and would resist injustice. “The land is not empty; it is inhabited,” he warned, adding that mistreating the local population would ultimately destroy the moral legitimacy of the Jewish national project. This warning has proven painfully true.

For Ahad Ha'am, Jewish nationalism could only remain alive if it remained connected to universal human values. Power that abandons ethics does not strengthen Zionism; rather, it empties it of its content from within.

Netanyahu's Zionism: Power Without Direction

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents the exact opposite approach. His political vision has been almost entirely shaped by the language of threat, deterrence, and personal political survival. Over many years in power, Netanyahu has transformed Israeli politics into a permanent state of emergency, where ethical questions are treated as irrelevant luxuries, and long-term political solutions are indefinitely postponed.

Netanyahu was clear in his rejection of Palestinian sovereignty. In 2015, on the eve of elections, he explicitly declared: “There will be no Palestinian state under my watch.” Despite his subsequent attempts to rephrase this statement for an international audience, his policies since 2009 have consistently reflected this position. The refusal to pursue a viable political solution was central to his leadership — and central to its failure. This path did not produce security but led directly to October 7, 2023.

Instead of viewing sovereignty as a moral responsibility, Netanyahu treats power as an end in itself. His speeches are saturated with historical trauma and existential fear. At the United Nations in 2012, holding up a cartoon of a bomb, he said: “History's lesson is clear: appeasement only brings more violence.” The message is constant: self-restraint is weakness, compromise is dangerous, and ethical thinking is naivety. With this approach, he corrupted an entire society.

Normalization of Occupation

Under Netanyahu's leadership, the occupation of the West Bank and Israeli control over Gaza are no longer temporary realities. They have become normalized, bureaucratized, and largely detached from ethical debate. Settlement expansion has accelerated, especially in the last two years, Palestinian political prospects have faded, and the two-state solution has eroded to the point of being unviable.

This is precisely what Ahad Ha'am feared. He warned that domination over another people would corrupt the occupier as much as it would provoke resistance from the occupied. Israel today is more militarized, more polarized, and more resistant to ethical criticism than ever before. The occupation is no longer discussed as a moral dilemma but managed as a technical and security problem. However, October 7 must teach us that this conflict cannot be “managed” — it was never manageable — but must be resolved.

Netanyahu refused to address the conflict constructively, repeatedly portraying it as inevitable. “We have no partners for peace,” he said in various forms, using Palestinian hostility to justify permanent control. This logic transforms political conflict into a permanent state and, according to his logic, exempts Israel from the responsibility of building a different future.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice reached a conclusion that many Israelis had long avoided acknowledging: that the Israeli occupation has become permanent in nature, and therefore illegal under international law. The court ruled that Israel must end the occupation, dismantle settlements, and pay reparations, and that other states must not recognize or assist the illegal situation. Ahad Ha'am would have read this ruling as a result of moral collapse, not international bias or antisemitism, as in Netanyahu's usual emotional responses.

Gaza: The Failure of Power Alone

The bankruptcy of Netanyahu's approach is nowhere more evident than in Gaza. Years of blockade, repeated wars, and collective punishment have produced neither deterrence nor security, but despair, extremism, and endless cycles of violence.

Netanyahu publicly defended this policy. In 2018, he said: “Whoever wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state must support strengthening Hamas.” This was not a slip of the tongue, but revealed a deliberate strategy: maintaining Palestinian division and permanent conflict to avoid any political solution.

Ahad Ha'am warned that power might temporarily suppress symptoms, but it would not erase grievances rooted in injustice. Power without a moral horizon does not resolve conflict — it tries to manage it indefinitely, at a heavy human cost on both sides, as we have witnessed over the past eighteen months.

The Erosion of Jewish Ethical Language

Perhaps the most dangerous legacy left by Netanyahu is the erosion of Jewish ethical language in Israeli politics. Calls for ethics, self-restraint, and universal human values are now portrayed as naive, foreign, or even treasonous. Zionism has been reduced to mere survival. And “Zionist responses” have come to mean acts of violence against Palestinians and land grabs.

Ahad Ha'am vehemently rejected this reduction. He saw that the strength of Judaism lay precisely in its ethical demand. He wrote: “Judaism is not confined to rituals, but is an ethical vision of the world.” Abandoning this vision in the name of power was, in his view, a betrayal of the revival of the Jewish nation.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, allied himself with messianic and extremist nationalist forces that openly reject universalism. Thus, Israel now speaks the language of power, while gradually losing its moral credibility — among its citizens, among world Jewry, and among its allies. And this is Netanyahu's crime against the Jewish people.

A Choice, Not Fate

Israel's situation is often presented as inevitable: a hostile region, an unrelenting enemy, and no choice but force. Ahad Ha'am rejected this determinism. He believed that nations choose their character, and that moral failure is not fate but a decision.

Netanyahu's leadership represents a choice: short-term political survival instead of long-term vision; conflict management instead of resolution; fear instead of responsibility. Israel today is militarily stronger than ever — but more isolated, divided, and morally exhausted than ever in its history.

The Unending Test

Ahad Ha'am did not oppose Jewish sovereignty, but he demanded that it be worthy of its name. He understood that power would come — and that when it came, it would test the Jewish people's ability to govern justly.

And this test is failing today.

The difference between Ahad Ha'am and Netanyahu is not between idealism and realism, but between ethical realism and political opportunism. One understood that justice is an asset of security and strategy; the other treats it as a burden.

Israel does not need another strong leader. Rather, it needs leadership that restores Zionism's moral backbone — leadership that understands that domination is not security, that occupation is not destiny, and that Jewish power without Jewish ethics is ultimately self-destructive power.

Ahad Ha'am presented this vision more than a century ago. Benjamin Netanyahu's long years in power have painfully demonstrated what happens when it is ignored.

Dr. Gershon Baskin, Middle East Director for the International Communities Organization, and Co-Chair of the Two-State Alliance.