Israel is a land of storytellers. Authors such as Amos Oz and David Grossman are acclaimed worldwide, and the political thriller Fauda has the nation well and truly addicted. But the best storyteller in our country is Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister’s talent allows him to construct a narrative so realistic, one could actually believe in it. Above all, it is his great skill in manipulating characters that makes him transcend mere politics. In fact, I would hazard a guess that Netanyahu is the best storyteller in the world.

The word “storyteller” might sound disrespectful. In the streets where I grew up, in the heart of Tel Aviv, it was usually used as an insult. Jewish mamas want their sons to be doctors, not storytellers. But storytelling is a very serious business. In the case of Netanyahu, you could say it’s deadly serious.

To understand how serious, look at historian Yuval Noah Harari’s theory of the “cognitive revolution”. According to Harari, Homo sapiens came to dominate the world because we are the only animal that can cooperate in large numbers. Thanks to our ability to imagine things collectively, we can subscribe to a common story about a state, or a god – and lead others to pursue a holy grail that might exist only in the mind. All large-scale human cooperation systems derive from human beings’ unique capacity for fiction. We are governed by concepts that exist only in the shared imagination – “nation”, “money”. If we stop validating them – for instance, should enough people stop believing in the common story entitled “the EU” – they will cease to exist.

You need a story in order to glue millions of people together. The case of Israel’s foundation provides a good example. Jews travelled the world to return to the promised land. They came from Ethiopia, Morocco, Siberia, China and Europe, risking their lives to get to this small piece of territory in the Middle East, because they all believed in a common story – the Zionist story.

On Tuesday, I will walk with my little boy and girl to the polling station, to vote in the Israeli elections. This vote is my opportunity to influence – or at least to believe that I can influence – the plot of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy.

This year’s elections will be held 10 days before Passover, the Jewish celebration of the exodus of Jews from Egypt. I’m reminded of that thanks to my taxi driver – that old seismograph of public opinion. As we drive the streets of Tel Aviv he says: “How can you tell me you’re going to vote for the left? Don’t you realise that the Arabs are like Pharaoh?” Pharaoh, of course, issued a royal decree to kill all Jewish male babies. By the time we reach the next traffic light, I get to hear that the Palestinians are not only a manifestation of Pharaoh, but also the successors of Hitler.

The taxi driver – like a well-prepared pupil in a literature class – presents the plot summary of Netanyahu’s bestselling story. Here’s a brief outline (warning, spoilers ahead): the people of Israel are the ultimate good. After being victims for 2,000 years, we finally managed to overcome evil. The evil is the Palestinians, a reincarnation of former evils that continue to haunt the Hebrew people. And there’s no point negotiating with evil entities. In Netanyahu’s own words: “We want a genuine peace and because of this, we will not conduct negotiations with a terrorist organisation in diplomatic disguise.” And the end of the plot? There is no end. The clash goes on for ever.

We constantly hear Netanyahu declaring that one cannot negotiate with Hamas. But while maintaining this narrative, Netanyahu’s government actually does negotiate with Hamas, through secret channels, short-term ceasefires, or exchanges of fallen IDF soldiers in return for Palestinian prisoners. If we can negotiate short-term solutions, why can’t we at least try to negotiate long-term agreements? I have no sympathy for Hamas. I wish I could have a more liberal and humanistic enemy. But we don’t get to choose our enemies. We do get to choose our politicians.

In an op-ed published during the Gaza war of 2014, Grossman asked Netanyahu’s government: “How could you have wasted the years since the last conflict without even making the slightest gesture toward dialogue … Why, for these past few years, has Israel avoided judicious negotiations with the moderate and more conversable sectors of the Palestinian people?” Today, after five more years of mutual losses, Grossman’s words echo even more strongly.

The Israeli left tries to present an alternative to Netanyahu’s story. It’s a complicated one that refuses to portray any side as “the ultimate good”. What’s so tragic about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that, as Oz described it, it’s a “clash between right and right”. Through acknowledging the suffering of both sides, we might come to an agreement. But this story fails to compete with the compelling narrative constructed by Netanyahu.

Palestinian protesters from Gaza clash with Israeli soldiers last month. Photograph: JINI/Xinhua/Barcroft Images

The best mythologies are the ones that manage to explain a complicated world in a clear, compelling way. All questions have answers, and all answers are black and white. What a comfort this is, instead of having to deal with the ambiguity and nuance of real life.

One of the reasons Netanyahu’s story is so powerful is because it used to be true. For centuries, Jews were the punchbag of the nations. In Kishinev, Baghdad, Auschwitz, Jews were slaughtered because they were Jews. That’s an objective fact. But Netanyahu takes this fact and, like all storytellers, uses it as the basis of his own vivid creation. The fact that Jews were indeed the ultimate victims in the second world war doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the situation facing Israel today. Like children who are victims of abuse who grow up to be abusive parents themselves, the Israelis are not immune to carrying out acts of aggression.

Nevertheless, we are unable to think of ourselves as predators, only as defending ourselves against outside attacks. But the Palestinians aren’t Hitler. The Arabs are not Pharaoh. Yes, some commit horrific acts of terror, but others – such as the Muslim psychiatrist I worked with today at the mental health hospital – dedicate their lives to helping both Jews and Arab citizens of this country. What chance do we have to outgrow this paranoid narrative when our own prime minister does everything he can to preserve it?

In 2015, Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress that Hitler had only wanted to expel the Jews, but it was Jerusalem’s Muslim leader, the grand mufti, who convinced him to exterminate them. This claim was rejected by most accepted Holocaust scholars. Jerusalem’s grand mufti was indeed an antisemite – but this doesn’t mean that he inspired the Holocaust.

Netanyahu’s storytelling is dangerous not only because it rewrites the past, but mainly because of what it tries to imply about the future. And it is raising a new generation of haunted Israeli kids: children who believe that today’s Pharaoh, today’s Hitler, is the Palestinian behind the wall.

• Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is an author and psychologist. Her new novel is Liar