I rarely, if ever, agree with the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg about the Middle East. He is the staunchest advocate of Israel's case in the media today.

How big is Goldberg? So big that when Fidel Castro decided to improve relations with Israel, he invited Goldberg to Cuba and said nice things about the Jewish state. Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately responded and a shift in policy occurred.

For years now, Goldberg, more than any "pro-Israel" organization, has been the most effective advocate of the status quo, with the exception of the now embattled and teetering lobby.

And this week Goldberg had an epiphany: if Israel continues on its current course, it is finished. Writing from Israel, he says that, although in the past, he always believed that Israel would choose democracy over permanent occupation, he is no longer sure.

I will admit here that my assumption has usually been that Israelis, when they finally realize the choice before them (many have already, of course, but many more haven't, it seems), will choose democracy, and somehow extract themselves from the management of the lives of West Bank Palestinians. But I've had a couple of conversations this week with people, in Jerusalem and out of Jerusalem, that suggest to me that democracy is something less than a religious value for wide swaths of Israeli Jewish society. I'm speaking here of four groups, each ascendant to varying degrees:The haredim, the ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose community continues to grow at a rapid clip; the working-class religious Sephardim -- Jews from Arab countries, mainly -- whose interests are represented in the Knesset by the obscurantist rabbis of the Shas Party; the settler movement, which still seems to get whatever it needs in order to grow; and the million or so recent immigrants from Russia, who support, in distressing numbers, the Putin-like Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister and leader of the "Israel is Our Home" party.

Let's just say, as a hypothetical, that one day in the near future, Prime Minister Lieberman's government (don't laugh, it's not funny) proposes a bill that echoes the recent call by some rabbis to discourage Jews from selling their homes to Arabs. Or let's say that Lieberman's government annexes swaths of the West Bank in order to take in Jewish settlements, but announces summarily that the Arabs in the annexed territory are in fact citizens of Jordan, and can vote there if they want to, but they won't be voting in Israel. What happens then? Do the courts come to the rescue? I hope so. Do the Israeli people come to the rescue? I'm not entirely sure. There are many Israelis who value democracy, but they might not possess the strength to fight. Does American Jewry come to the rescue? Well, most of American Jewry would be so disgusted by Israel's abandonment of democratic principles that I think the majority would simply write off Israel as a tragic, failed experiment.

Am I being apocalyptic? Yes. Am I exaggerating the depth of the problem? I certainly hope so. Israel is still a remarkably vibrant democracy, with a free press and an independent judiciary. But on the other hand, the Israel that I see today is not the Israel I was introduced to more than twenty years ago. The rise to power of the four groups I mentioned above has changed, in some very serious ways (which I will write about later) the nature and character of the Jewish state.

Nothing Goldberg writes is new. But it's new coming from him. And that is the significance.

More and more, the only people who defend the Israeli government are Jewish organizations (which simply parrot the Israeli government line), Israel's claque of propagandists in the media (Krauthammer, Kristol, Dershowitz etc) and members of Congress who get their talking points from AIPAC which they dutifully read out of fear of offending the lobby.

And then there are a few hundred thousand American Jews (and, intermittently, evangelicals) who pipe in at times like the Gaza war when they believe Israel is being unfairly singled out. But, invariably, these are the same people with the same line: Israel is a tiny country surrounded by enemies who seek to destroy it, a democratic beacon of light in an ocean of darkness.

But they know that the line doesn't work anymore. And that is because of the occupation, which has now been in place since 1967 and which Israel is clearly determined to perpetuate.

That is why Netanyahu's apologists usually don't even try to defend the occupation but prefer arguing about Israel right to exist. They choose that line of defense because they cannot defend the occupation and despite the fact that all of Israel's significant critics accept Israel's right to security. In fact, , like Goldberg. they believe that it is the occupation itself that is the looming threat to Israel's existence.

And then they say that nice liberal people live in Israel. Gays serve in the IDF. Israel has a lively free media. And Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are freer than Arabs in many parts of the Muslim world. But no one disputes any of that.

With the exception of a few crazies (and none with any power in the United States), pretty much everyone, across the spectrum, accepts Israel's right to security and its right to be as Jewish a state as it wants to be.

But few accept the occupation. In fact, Goldberg's dramatic column indicates that when it comes to the occupation, public sentiment in America (including in much of the Jewish community) is moving to the same place as in the rest of the world. Israel, yes, Palestine, yes. Terrorism and occupation, no.

In 2011, there will be only one way to be pro-Israel. That is to join those who are fighting the occupation. Supporting the status quo, defending the occupation, opposing direct US intervention to establish borders and end the occupation, is, in effect, about as anti-Israel a position as it is possible to take.

This is not a fight only for Israel's "soul" or for the Palestinians' right to live as free human beings. It is a fight to preserve Israel itself -- not against the Palestinians but against the occupation.

The Jews dreamed of restoring a Jewish state in Palestine, ancient Eretz Yisrael, for 1900 years. Goldberg reminds us that both the dream and the reality will be destroyed if the fanatics prevail. The stakes could not be higher.