After Yom Kippur, Israel must learn to say: 'We were wrong' - editorial

SEPTEMBER 22, 2026 05:55Yesterday, businesses closed across Israel, and cars largely disappeared from the roads. People who rarely enter a synagogue found themselves seated beside those who go every week. For a day, even this country managed to lower the volume.The attachment to Yom Kippur runs deep. In a recent Israel Democracy Institute survey, 74% of Jewish Israeli adults said they fasted fully or partially; 57% usually attended prayers. Plenty of Israelis who disagree with the rabbinate, or have little patience for organized religion, still make room for this day.Then the fast ends, the phones come out, and we remember what everyone else needs to apologize for.We know the routine. Someone from the other political camp says something outrageous, and we demand a reckoning. Someone we voted for does the same, and suddenly context becomes very important. There is always an explanation, always an older offense committed by the other side.After everything Israel has been through since October 7, we ought to be able to do better.A memorial ceremony at the Nova festival marking two years since the October 7 massacre when Hamas terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, murdering more than 1200 people. October 07, 2025. (credit: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)The country has considerable reason for pride. Reservists have returned to duty again and again, leaving spouses to manage homes and children, and employers to manage without them. Volunteers have spent years helping families whose lives were overturned. Much of that work attracts little attention and continues long after the cameras leave.Those Israelis are entitled to ask hard questions of the people who made decisions on their behalf. Who accepted the assessment that Hamas was deterred? What happened to the warnings? Why were families left waiting for help on October 7?Israel waits for answersThe answers matter to parents deciding whether they can raise children near a border, as well as to soldiers being asked to trust their commanders. They deserve to know what has changed.Political and military leaders should be expected to explain their own decisions. An admission of responsibility ought to include an account of what went wrong under their authority and what they intend to do about it. The public can judge the explanation. It should have the chance to hear one.There is a danger, too, in making “we all failed” so broad that everyone escapes. The responsibility of a prime minister or a senior commander is different from that of a voter who believed them. A bereaved family needs answers from those entrusted with protecting it.For everyone else, there is the less comfortable business of examining our own habits. Have we passed along a claim because it suited us, without checking whether it was true? Have we excused cruelty because we shared the speaker’s politics?There is a practical place to start: the family WhatsApp group. If we shared a false story there, we can correct it there. If we accused someone unfairly, we can tell the same people who heard the accusation that we got it wrong.This newspaper belongs in that discussion. We choose which claims to examine, whose assurances to challenge, and how prominently to acknowledge an error. When we get something wrong, readers deserve a clear correction. We should expect to be questioned with the same persistence we bring to questioning others.Before Yom Kippur, about 150,000 people attended the final slihot prayers at the Western Wall and in the surrounding area. Former hostages were there, along with a Nova massacre survivor and political and religious leaders. The penitential prayers gave people with very different lives words they could say together.The plural and personal confession of sinThe confession is in the plural: We have sinned. Each person saying it still has to consider what he or she has done.That becomes harder once the election campaign gets going again. A candidate who admits an error can expect to see the clip in an opponent’s advertisement. Voters have a part in this: We can listen to an explanation before deciding that changing one’s mind is disqualifying.Israel will keep arguing. The questions facing it are too serious for anything else. We would argue more honestly if we allowed for the possibility that we had missed something, trusted the wrong person, or defended a decision for too long.“We were wrong” should be a sentence we can say after Yom Kippur, too.Follow us on Google