Imagine an Israel of unity and coexistence

Picture a family gathered around a Shabbat table. The candles are lit. There is bread to share. Then an argument begins. Soon, nobody is listening, and the blessing that brought everyone to the table is lost beneath the noise. 

When I think about Israel, that is the picture that comes to mind: a family with so much to give, its members struggling to hear one another when its future depends on doing precisely that. 

I was born in Jerusalem and raised on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu. Today, from South Africa, I carry Israel with me. I also carry a conviction rooted deeper than politics. Psalm 133 speaks of brothers dwelling together in unity, and of the Lord commanding His blessing there. I believe our Father in heaven calls us towards that place. We cannot demand His blessing while refusing to make room for one another. 

That is why I’d like to see Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot sit at the same table and choose a shared purpose. We should support Bibi leading a government of national unity, with Eisenkot as a genuine partner entrusted with meaningful responsibility. Both would have to surrender something of their pride. Both would have to listen. 

Imagine what that decision could tell a weary nation: we have argued, we have wounded one another, but our children’s future matters more than our rivalry. 

That unity must carry resolve. Netanyahu and Eisenkot need to work together, alongside Israel’s allies, to finish the job of confronting the Islamic Republic’s machinery of terror and help bring its rule to an end. The goal must be a free Iran whose people can choose their own government, with a serious plan to protect civilians and prevent another tyranny taking its place. 

The Iranian people deserve our solidarity. Picture an Iranian mother imagining her daughter’s future: able to speak, worship, dress, and live without fear of the state. Her longing for freedom belongs in our story too. A victory that leaves her forgotten would fall short of the peace I seek. 

Our stand is against the regime and the violent jihadist ideology that sanctifies repression and terror. Muslims who reject that ideology belong beside us in defending freedom. The freedoms I cherish – speech, expression, religion, and coexistence – draw deeply from the Judeo-Christian inheritance that helped shape Western democracy. We honour that inheritance when we defend those freedoms for everyone. 

I believe firmness against tyranny and compassion for people belong together. Loving our neighbour cannot require us to leave that neighbour at the mercy of those who would silence or kill them. 

The story need not end with a regime’s fall. Picture Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. As the home of Islam’s two holiest cities and a leading power in the Muslim world, its embrace of coexistence could carry extraordinary weight. Difficult negotiations would remain, including over Palestinian statehood. Yet a Saudi decision to make peace with Israel could change the conversation in mosques, classrooms, and governments far beyond its borders. 

That choice could also confront Qatar with a reckoning. Investigative reporting has alleged that Qatari money helped finance Hamas’s military apparatus. Qatar denies this and says its aid was coordinated with Israel; that history demands accountability from everyone involved. But Doha’s hosting of Hamas leaders is established. So is its financing of Al Jazeera, whose record includes broadcasts of antisemitic incitement documented by the Anti-Defamation League. Providing terrorists with hospitality, or hatred with a publicly funded platform, deserves unequivocal condemnation. Propaganda that glorifies terror helps hatred survive long after the shooting stops. 

A Saudi embrace of Israel could make that conduct harder to excuse. Qatar would face a clearer choice: join a region building peace, or risk deeper isolation by continuing to accommodate those who undermine it. Saudi influence cannot dictate Doha’s decisions, but it could raise the political price of financing extremism and spreading hatred. 

Now bring the story closer to home, to a classroom in Hebron or Shechem. Imagine a child opening a book that teaches Jewish history honestly and treats a Jewish neighbour as a person with whom a future can be shared. Imagine that child’s teacher speaking of dignity without teaching the erasure of another people. 

Scholar Dr Mordechai Kedar’s Emirates proposal offers one disputed route towards a different local order: self-governing city-states rooted in local families and clans in the Judea and Samaria and Gaza, making agreements with Israel. These would have local Arab leaders, not rulers imported from the United Arab Emirates. The proposal is contested, and local consent, rights, and security would matter enormously. Within such a future, local leaders working with Israel could make education for coexistence a practical responsibility. Arab citizens of Israel, meanwhile, would retain their citizenship and equal civic rights; their towns are not the Palestinian emirates but one state Kedar proposes. 

Across the world, Muslims form the majority in 53 countries and territories; the Jewish people have just one tiny state. Picture that small country making room for neighbours of different faiths who accept its existence as a Jewish State and share in its future. Muslim Arabs belong in that peaceful picture, with their dignity, religious freedom, and equal citizenship protected. But nobody should be allowed to poison that shared life by inciting hatred or organising violence. Those who do must face firm consequences under the law, whatever their religion. The existence of so many Muslim-majority societies makes the refusal to accept even one Jewish State all the more troubling. Disputes over land of 53 countries versus a tiny Jewish State is nothing but radical ideology, and no border agreement can satisfy an ideology that rejects Jewish sovereignty anywhere here. Peace requires that rejection to end. 

A child learning to accept a Jewish neighbour could grow into an adult who refuses that hatred. And a Jewish child learning respect for an Arab neighbour could help make coexistence mutual. That is how a political opening might become a different daily life. 

And then we must build. Security should make possible homes where children sleep peacefully, businesses that trade across borders, and neighbours who discover that shared prosperity serves them better than inherited hatred. I believe we are all connected through Him. Compassion turns that belief into something another person can feel. 

I return to that Shabbat table. The candles are still burning. There is still a place for everyone willing to live in peace. But someone must lower their voice, pull out a chair, and make the first move. 

If we believe our Father commands a blessing where there is unity, what are we personally willing to surrender so that unity can begin? 

• Daniel Yakcobi is the executive director of South African Friends of Israel, an entrepreneur, and a community leader. Born in Jerusalem and raised on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, he works to strengthen relations between South Africa and Israel and build bridges across faith communities.