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Should I permanently leave Israel?

I'm not sure if this is the right community for this question, but it says "no stupid question" so here goes. I'm an Israeli who now lives in the US, but I am considering permanently residing in the US or elsewhere (perhaps somewhere in Europe or Canada) because I've become kinda disillusioned with Israel for a variety of reasons (the war in Gaza being one of them, the erosion of democracy by Likud being another, and etc) but is that cowardly to leave? Should I go back and try to change society or should I just leave for good? Thanks for your time.

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  • Well, I don't have an emotional response to the shit going on there, so take this with that in mind.

    There's a few sides to your decision.

    First, can you actually do anything? You've said no in other comments, so I assume that stays the same. It means that you aren't morally obligated to go back for that reason. If you did have either current influence, or could realistically gain influence, to enact change within a reasonable time frame (say, under a decade), you might have that moral obligation. Might. But you don't, so it's personal choice.

    Second, without an obligation to return, would it benefit you to go back? Do you have deep family ties? Do you have an established career? Do you have property that would need liquidating? If any of that is true, then the equation shifts to going back at least temporarily, and hoping things change, or that you can get out again later.

    Third, are you sure anywhere else will take you? Long term visas or resident status aren't exactly a guarantee, and immigration isn't either. You'd need a plan, and at least a vague idea of what nation you want to settle in.

    When it comes right down to it, the situation over there isn't something most people would want to return to. That situation isn't likely to resolve in the next year or two. So staying out makes sense if you can manage it. Jumping off a sinking ship isn't a bad thing, and doing so earlier makes it less likely you get sucked down with it. It seems you think Israel is going down. If that's the case, and you can't prevent it, the sooner you make the semi permanent move away, the better.

    Now, it is generally true that if everyone that could resist bad actions leaves a place, change becomes impossible. But there's also the reality that not everyone that could resist really can. We're not all cut out to fight governments and society. Not even passively. Hell, the older I get, the less I'm even willing to do because at some point, it's meaningless.

    But I gotta warn you, there's no place on earth without problems. Right now, any major country is fucking with something very nasty. The U.S. is having our own struggle with fascism and oligarchy, and that's also at least partially the case for Europe too. Canada is facing it, though it seems their government isn't actively pursuing crimes against humanity. It isn't just the western world, don't think I'm saying that; that's just where you mentioned wanting to settle. You simply aren't going to land anywhere you mentioned and be in a country free of horrible actions.

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