Israel has an identity problem. Is it a Jewish state that provides legal and material preferences for citizens of Jewish ancestry? Or is it a secular nation-state, but one that happens to be rooted in Jewish culture and the Hebrew language? For more than six decades Israeli politicians have maintained a useful ambiguity about this deeply existential question. But no longer.

In elections in March, Israel’s voters will be forced to confront stark choices about the country’s national identity. In the absence of a formal, written constitution, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has embraced a game-changing “nation-state” bill that would award “national rights” only to Jewish citizens.

The outcome of this crossroads election is by no means certain.

Initially, polls suggested that Mr. Netanyahu might well cement his hold on power and accelerate Israel’s rightward drift. But the recent forging of a new political coalition between Isaac Herzog, leader of the left-center Labor Party, and Tzipi Livni, leader of the Hatnua, a small center-right party — who was sacked from the cabinet earlier this month, as Mr. Netanyahu called for new elections — suggests that there may be a viable electoral alternative.

Mr. Herzog and Ms. Livni oppose the Jewish nation-state bill. They are old-fashioned Zionists, wedded to the notion that all of Israel’s citizens, Jewish or otherwise, are entitled to equal democratic rights. And unlike Mr. Netanyahu, they both understand that Israel’s continued control over the post-1967 occupied territories threatens its democratic character.