Gessen: How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country

Good read on the dilemmas some Israelis are facing:

…Dekel was trying to shift some of the responsibility for his own actions — his own resistance, which he felt was insufficient — onto unnamed others, and in doing so he was telling an important truth about resistance in general. Seeing other people act makes it less frightening to join in protest. Even more important is an unspoken principle my conversations with these Israelis reminded me of: To be a good citizen of a bad state, one has to do scary things. It may be writing an op-ed calling for your own country’s isolation, as Sfard did, knowing that it would cost him friendships and get him branded a traitor. It may be using your body to shield someone more vulnerable, as Greenberg does. It may be withdrawing your economic cooperation. It is weighing leaving against staying, moral obligation against fear, flying under the radar against taking a risk — and opting for the risk.

Source: How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country