When I received an Israeli passport, it didn’t just represent new citizenship; it meant I became part of a nation that would protect me no matter what.

I grew up hearing heroic stories like Operation Thunderbolt, also known as the Entebbe rescue, which was carried out on July 4, 1976.

Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Air France plane carrying 248 hostages en route from Tel Aviv to Paris and rerouted the plane to Entebbe, Uganda. The terrorists released the non-Israeli passengers and kept the remaining 102 Jewish and Israeli passengers as hostages. They were held with the support of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite special forces unit that specializes in counterterrorism and hostage rescue, led the operation. They flew to Entebbe under the cover of night, bringing with them a black Mercedes, resembling the one Idi Amin used, and two Land Rovers to trick the guards into thinking it was an official convoy. Within minutes, the soldiers stormed the terminal where the hostages were being held, killed all the hijackers and several Ugandan soldiers, and shouted in Hebrew to prevent friendly fire on the hostages.

The one casualty from that mission was Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No matter what one thinks of Bibi, every Israeli knows that his brother, Yoni, was a hero, a man who gave his life to save 102 strangers in a mission that most people wouldn’t believe if it weren’t true.

Air France hostages who were rescued from Entebbe Airport in 1976. The pilot of the plane, Michel Bacos (not pictured), died at the age of 95 on March 25th, 2019 (credit: GPO FLICKR/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Air France hostages who were rescued from Entebbe Airport in 1976. The pilot of the plane, Michel Bacos (not pictured), died at the age of 95 on March 25th, 2019 (credit: GPO FLICKR/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
That’s what it meant for me to get an Israeli passport: to belong to a country that will move heaven and earth to bring you home.

Becoming an Israeli citizen

I officially became an Israeli citizen as an infant when my family fled Russia in 1991 after the Iron Curtain fell. Israel had taken in hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants who were escaping the wreckage of the post-Soviet world. But it wasn’t until I made aliyah and chose Israel that I truly felt what it meant to be part of this story.

As a Jew, especially today, the fear that something might happen to you is not abstract. It’s real. And if it ever does, I would bet every dollar I have that my Israeli passport would save me before my Canadian one ever could.

That mentality, that no matter what, we have each other’s backs, is what keeps Israeli society intact. And in the last couple of years, it has been slowly falling apart.

LAST WEEK, Hamas announced it would release American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander in what they called a “gesture” to US President Donald Trump. Edan had been held for 584 days and was the last living American hostage in captivity. And Hamas, along with their Qatari financiers, used his American citizenship as leverage.

First and foremost, Edan’s release brings us joy and relief. As someone who also dropped everything in a once-comfortable life to move to Israel, I feel deeply connected to Edan. I was overjoyed to see him free and reunited with his family. The United States was just as responsible for him as Israel was, and his release should have always been a US priority.

I only wish that these “deals” and “gestures” had happened for Hersh Goldberg-Polin before Hamas slaughtered him in a Rafah tunnel. But now Hamas will use Edan’s release and his American citizenship as propaganda to fuel its agenda against Israel.

By Hamas’s absurd logic, Edan was supposed to be one of the last hostages to be freed because he was an active IDF soldier at the time of his kidnapping. He was abducted on October 7, 2023, alongside another soldier, Matan Angrest. Matan, who doesn’t hold American citizenship, will not be released.

Israeli journalist Amit Segal recently reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran actually tracks how many Israelis hold foreign passports each year. In the eyes of that regime, the more Israelis who get a second citizenship, the less committed they are to the Zionist project. And inside Israel, more and more people are seeking out foreign passports as a “backup plan.”

This shift is dangerous, especially for IDF soldiers, because it chips away at the very foundation of Zionism: the idea that Israel is the safest place for Jews and that the State of Israel will stop at nothing to protect its people.

According to reports, Israel learned about Edan’s release through its own intelligence, not from the United States. Israeli officials even tried to push for another hostage to be released alongside Edan, so it wouldn’t look like an American passport carried more weight than an Israeli one.

Let’s be clear: Israelis who hold foreign passports are no less Zionist. We are patriots. We love this country. Holding another passport doesn’t mean we want to leave; it means we live with the constant fear that one day, we might have no choice.

But something is shifting. Whether because of how this war has been handled, or how disconnected the leadership feels from the people, there’s a growing sense that maybe, just maybe, we can’t rely on Israel the way we used to. That’s a heartbreaking shift from what we saw in Entebbe.

I am an Israeli with a foreign passport. And despite everything happening right now, I will still bet everything I have on Israel. Not because of the current leadership, but because I believe in the Israeli people.

We have to fight to restore that belief, not just in the idea of Israel, but in the unshakable promise that no matter where a Jew is in the world, Israel will never hesitate, never delay, and never distinguish between one of us or another when it comes to bringing us home.

The writer is a co-founder and CEO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm specializing in geopolitics.