A short while ago, after I gave an interview on CNN about the war with Iran, a dear American friend asked me to recommend how liberal American Jews could respond to questions from people struggling to understand what is happening in the Middle East. Why is Israel fighting so forcefully, and for such a prolonged period of time?

“What should we tell our neighbors?” was his question. With Passover approaching, it’s a good moment to offer some answers.

Jewish families in Israel and around the world are preparing for the Seder, when families gather to tell the story of the Jewish people’s Exodus from Egypt. “Let my people go!” Moses demanded of Pharaoh.

In every generation

During the Passover Seder, we recall that in every generation someone has sought to destroy us. This year, many Jewish families will explicitly reference Hamas’s October 7 atrocities and Iran’s declared intent to eradicate Israel as contemporary illustrations of that annual recollection. Our ancestors in Egypt had nothing to tell their neighbors that would grant them protection. They also had no army to defend them. Instead, they marked their doorposts so their homes would be spared during the divine Plague of the Firstborn, and they fled with only what they could carry, embarking on 40 years of wandering in the desert before reaching their homeland.

I could write an essay that continues along this analogy, offering biblical and historical references to justify our struggle for self‑defense: the story of a 3,000‑year‑old people who lived for millennia as a minority among nations, surviving by clinging to the Bible and to a moral code. A people who endured three well‑documented exiles from their historic homeland — under the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman Empires. A people who survived meticulously planned attempts at extermination in Europe, from the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 to the Holocaust during World War II. A people who revived the ancient Hebrew language and rebuilt a homeland to welcome more immigrants who often arrived with nothing but what they could carry — a modern Exodus.

I could also make the genuine case for a people who yearn for peace and pray for peace. Despite decades of protracted conflict with its neighbors, Israel has made peace with its most formidable historical enemies — Egypt and Jordan — maintained one of the region’s quietest borders with Syria for decades, engaged in repeated, though ultimately unsuccessful, negotiations with the Palestinians since the 1990s, and built thriving relationships with its Abraham Accords partners.

Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran

However, arguments about the Jewish people’s rights to the land and our sincere attempts to extend an olive branch often fall on deaf ears. Today, the conversation is almost exclusively about Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

It is worth reminding any audience that it was Israelis who were brutalized, murdered, and abducted on October 7, 2023. Israel had no intention of bombing or invading Gaza. Had that been the plan, Israel would not have been so catastrophically unprepared on that dreadful Shabbat morning.

The same is true with Hezbollah, which joined Hamas shortly after October 7, 2023, and again in coordination with Iran days after the combined US-Israeli operation began on February 28, 2026. In both cases, Israel responded. It did not initiate. The difference between the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah is that Israel was better prepared and more effective, while Hezbollah, like Hamas, relentlessly bombarded our towns and cities.

Iran, too, fired directly at Israel in April and October of 2024, and then chose to resume its weaponization program, accelerating toward a nuclear bomb. Israel responded, committed to preventing Iran — or any other adversary — from acquiring weapons of mass destruction while openly threatening to wipe Israel off the map. It does not get more defensive than that.

My crystal ball is too foggy to predict when or how the current war with Iran will end. I am fully aware of the ambiguity surrounding whether regime change is — or should be — the objective of this campaign. What I do know is that the people of Iran deserve a better future. It is widely estimated that roughly 80 percent of them do not support the Islamic regime, whose brutal suppression of its own population is indefensible.

If regime change does not occur and the current leadership remains in power — albeit weakened — it is in the shared interest of the United States, Israel, the Gulf states, and indeed Europe and Central Asia, to ensure that Iran has no path to a nuclear weapon and that its missile and proxy capabilities are degraded to a level that no longer pose a threat.

So, when your neighbor asks you why Israel is fighting, the context of how it started and with what intentions matters.

Israeli casualties

Clearly, you have also encountered the question of why casualties are so high in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran, while far fewer Israelis have been killed. Unfortunately, many have been brought to believe that if there are so few Israeli casualties in heavily populated areas, it must mean Israel is lying about our enemies’ premeditated targeting of the civilian population.

The answer is rather simple. For years, Israel has invested enormous resources in physical shelters and in the most advanced — and costly — air‑defense systems in the world. Without them, our towns would have been wiped out, with casualties numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Even so, there are towns and communities — mostly in Israel’s periphery — that justifiably demand additional defensive resources and blame the government for negligence.

Our enemies, by contrast, have never protected their own civilians. Hamas actively prevented Gaza’s residents from sheltering in its tunnel network and cynically used them as human shields. Iran deliberately killed dozens of thousands of its own civilians in the streets over just two days, January 8-9, 2026. It is a staggering fact that few seem to care about. What response did you receive when you asked why so‑called human‑rights activists who supported Hamas were so silent when Iranian civilians were massacred in the streets, or later in hospitals? They probably have no good answer to explain why they didn’t march to the streets in support of the Iranian people.

In the interest of honesty and transparency, Israel does not do everything right. At times, Israeli forces have used excessive force and overreached. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to apologize for some of these actions. The government implemented flawed humanitarian aid policies, which were eventually reversed. Israel has caused civilian casualties that it could have prevented, and these incidents have been investigated — even as ultra‑right factions in Israel denounce such inquiries. There has also been a troubling surge in Jewish violence in the West Bank, which most of Israel’s political leadership has publicly criticized and condemned.

Israel makes mistakes, and some policies unquestionably merit criticism. But where is the balance? Why do all of these arguments fall on deaf ears? Why is Israel portrayed as the ultimate villain, and why is the Jewish diaspora worldwide treated as though it has lost the right to dignity and security?

The US and Israel

I daresay that most readers understand the political dimension of the answer. Many of your neighbors are highly critical of Israel because they despise Israel’s current government — and likely also despise their own. It is important to state clearly that political polarization has normalized actions and rhetoric that should never be acceptable.

Personally, I am profoundly grateful the United States of America stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel in her time of need. I am also proud that the United States considers Israel “a model ally.” I wish these realities were not eclipsed by partisan politics. We should all be thinking long term — the US-Israel relationship is essential to our shared future.

I cannot promise that these arguments will satisfy your neighbors. But I hope, at the very least, that I have offered my reader some measure of comfort.

Every year, at the beginning of the Seder, we ask, “What has changed tonight?” In my family, that question also leads to a conversation about “What should change tomorrow?”

I am confident that we all share the hope that lasting security will soon be restored, that stability will return, and that regional prosperity will prevail over radical extremism. We can envision a future in which pragmatic actors come together and cooperate for the well‑being of us all.

Leshana Haba’a BeYerushalim Habnuya, Am Israel Chai.