Dor Moria publishes the first study in the “Visions of Israel’s Future — 2030” project
The “Visions of Israel’s Future — 2030” project comprises two sequential studies. The first — an expert survey of twelve Israeli specialists in politics, security, and economics — was conducted in late March and early April 2026. The second — a survey of the Israeli public — is currently underway in partnership with the Geocartography Sociological Center. This publication presents the findings of the first stage.
October 2026 is not just another election. The Knesset elected this fall will shape the country’s direction through 2030. That is the horizon of our research: what will Israel look like when this Knesset’s term ends?
This is not a rhetorical question. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has entered a period in which familiar answers no longer hold. The war exposed the depth of internal contradictions that had previously been managed — or simply ignored. The judicial reform had already divided Israeli society before the country had time to absorb the consequences of that rupture. And emigration — once dismissed as yerida and avoided in polite conversation — has become a documented social trend: according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, an average of 76,000 citizens left the country annually in 2024–2025, roughly twice the level recorded five years earlier. Over the same period, aliyah declined threefold.
All of this is happening on the eve of elections whose outcome will go a long way toward determining which of Israel’s possible futures actually materializes.
What We Did
In late March and early April 2026, the Dor Moria Analytical Center conducted a survey of experts — the first stage of the “Visions of Israel’s Future — 2030” project. Twelve experts participated: political scientists, a historian, an economist, security analysts, a sociologist, a lawyer, a journalist, a human rights advocate, and a civic activist. Their views ranged from the left to the religious right. Each participant was asked the same set of questions covering domestic politics, geopolitics, and the economy.
Our objective was not to produce representative statistics. It was to understand which visions of the future actually shape thinking within Israel’s expert community — where those visions converge, and where they diverge irreconcilably.
What We Found
The study’s main finding is neither a forecast nor a set of policy recommendations. It is a diagnosis.
Israeli experts describe different countries, even when they are looking at the same one. A secular political scientist and a religious security analyst may discuss the same institutions, threats, and challenges — but in incompatible analytical languages. One speaks of the “erosion of the social contract”; the other speaks of a “loss of direction.” Both positions are coherent within their own worldview. But these worldviews do not share a common standard of truth.
There are areas of genuine consensus that cut across political orientations. Dependence on the United States is viewed as an unavoidable reality. A multi-vector foreign policy is seen as unrealistic. Brain drain is recognized as a serious problem. These areas of agreement matter: they mark the ground that Israel still shares.
But there is also a structural cleavage that goes deeper than political disagreement. The social groups most closely associated with the secular-liberal vision of the future — precisely those that form the core of Israel’s highly educated professional class — are also the groups most likely to leave. This means that the divide between competing visions of Israel’s future is not only shaping how Israelis vote; it is also determining who will still be in the country by 2030.
If current trends continue, the institutions that today function as counterweights to radical change — the High Court, the IDF, universities, and the high-tech sector — will gradually change in composition. This transformation may come not primarily through political struggle, but through demographic replacement.
Why This Matters Now
The October 2026 elections are not simply a choice between parties and coalitions. They are a choice between two visions of the future whose adherents increasingly speak different languages — and increasingly inhabit different political worlds.
The expert survey is the first stage of our research. The second stage — a survey of the Israeli public, conducted in partnership with the Geocartography Sociological Center — will show how widely these expert visions are shared across Israeli society, and in which social groups they are rooted. Together, the two stages are designed to answer a question that is not being asked directly enough: does Israel today still have a social contract capable of holding the country together as a single political project through 2030?
The full report on the expert survey is available below.
