“One of our responsibilities as custodians of this land is to rein in religious extremism, its uncontrolled passions and outrages, whether from Hamas and Islamic Jihad or from within our own midst. Giving power to Ben Gvir would betray that sacred trust.

Our ability to remain a decent nation despite relentless pressures that would have driven other societies to madness is one of the glories of the state of Israel. Those who would criminalize Israel and turn it into the sum of its failures erase the context in which Israel struggles to find its balance between moral imperative and relentless threat. The Israeli far right and the anti-Zionist left are united in their contempt for Israel’s heroic struggle for balance. Ben Gvir would abandon that struggle and turn us into a state driven by hatred and vengeance and justified by messianic bombast.”

Read the full essay in Times of Israel.