Secular elite question their place in Israel's future

Conflict accelerates a brain drain of liberals uneasy over the rise of religious influence

- Emma Graham-Harrison

THIS SUMMER, the Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover joined a group of prominent Israelis gathered at Nir Oz kibbutz to demand a hostage release and ceasefire deal.

Nir Oz was the worst hit of the communities targeted by Hamas on 7 October, with a quarter of its residents kidnapped or killed.

Twenty-nine are still in Gaza. If the hostages were not brought back, the basic social contract that under-pinned Israeli society would unravel, the 77-year-old professor of medicine warned.

He cited an accelerating "brain drain" of professionals as a worrying sign that some of Israel's elite feel they no longer have a future in the country. And without them, Israel itself might struggle to have a future.

Ciechanover is a long-term critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and joined protests before the war, but concern is not limited to opponents of the Israeli leader.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu's former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to warn that Israel faces an existential threat.

In a paper calling for a new political settlement, they warned that under a business-as-usual scenario "there is a considerable likelihood that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades".