The Economist has a great package on Israel at 60. It talks plainly about the spiritual crisis the society is in.
[T]alks on a Palestinian state look doomed to failure…a separation
from the Palestinians may no longer be possible, forcing Israel to
choose between enshrining a form of apartheid and relinquishing its
Jewish character. Arab-Israelis are increasingly angry about being
treated as second-class citizens.Many Jews from the diaspora already view Israel as spiritually
impoverished and uninviting…. For the first time since 1948, real
existential threats to Israel, at least in its Zionist form, are on the
horizon.
Bernard Avishai responds in Haaretz that Netanyahu is crazy to believe that Israelis’ entrepreneurial boom can survive its treatment of the Palestinians:
Israelis, in other words, can’t have an economy like Singapore’s and an ethnic war like Serbia’s…. By the way, if "genius" is the only thing that
matters, then India has more geniuses than the whole Israeli
population. And in case of endless war, what is carried "in people’s
heads" can be carried to other places. Already, over 30,000 Israelis
live in the Bay area of California. [emphasis mine]
Thus spake the English and Israeli press. Hush. Don’t let the Americans find out!
