Where Does It Take Us? The Social Scenario

This post is a summary of the series of posts in which I described in details the process that the Jewish society in Israel go through and that  brought to the aggressive - national - religious agenda taking over and to the destruction of the left wing in the Israeli politics. This process of radicalization would, I argue, stop by a disaster only. There is no chance that the Israeli society itself would recover and stop it. It will end only when Israel will cease to exist as the "Jewish State".

The previous post described a scenario of economic collapse. The one before described a scenario of military breakdown and this post describes the scenario of social disintegration.

The adherence of the Israeli Jewry to its "Jewish" identity - in preference to construction of "Israeli" identity led, as I explained earlier, to return to the Diaspora culture of being a hated minority battling by all means for its existence. All laws and rules were broken and boundaries have been overruled. Basic concepts that are essential to building a healthy state and a healthy society were ignored: obedience to the law, compliance to the common Western society conventions, accountability and solidarity. Finally, the shame is lost and we even create our own reality – detached from the real one.

Living in a society without laws and rules resemble the life in a crime organization. The strong and aggressive take over and the rest have to accept their authority and try not to stand out and upset them. In such a society the wrong people come to power – shameless, immoral and aggressive people surrounded by flatterers and swindlers.

This picture best explains the Jewish society in Israel on all its weaknesses and strangeness.

Many talented and creative people on the one hand, but conformists and extremely opaque with regard to the community, state and government affairs, on the other hand. Sophisticated in science and technology, but buying devoutly every cliché that the commentators selling them in the press and TV. Brave in the army, but submissive invertebrates in civil life. Just a small example is the tendency of non - rational electing repeatedly, in every election, the "center" parties – Dash, The Center, Tsomet, Shinuy, Kadima, Yesh-Atid. Although already known, that these parties will not survive more than one or two elections, this choice exempts the voters from the need to identify themselves and express an opinion, which they might later have to explain.

Most of the public, I want to believe, are still decent and well-meaning. They are not content with the conduct of the people in power and their uninhibited and blatant behavior. There is a conflict between the tendency for fairness and honesty and the need to justify the state's aggressive conduct. This conflict, with no way to be solved, remains closed in the heart of every decent citizen. If you say it loud, you'll be condemned as non-patriot and leftist "who has forgotten what it means to be Jewish".  Everyone finds his own ways to deal with this conflict. A small section that has been dubbed as Radical Left, protests openly and is emitted outside the fence - off the tribe's circle. Most people try to ignore reality and live in virtual reality, provided by the major media channels. If this is cruelty towards the Palestinians or discrimination of the Israeli Arabs, security reasons are automatically brought up. If denunciation is expressed by intellectuals all over the world, they're called "Anti-Semitic".  If millions of Shekels are transferred to the Yeshiva's, it is Jewish heritage preservation, and so on.

All these attempts of honest citizens to quiet their conscience still leave a bad taste in the mouth. They leave bitterness, confusion and helplessness.

Bitterness and resentment in the relations between people - is perhaps the most obvious identifying mark of the Jewish society life in Israel. Most of the public, who did not live their life in a Western country (and I'm not talking about a short, superficial visit) do not know that this is not the default – it is not how people live in other parts of the world. The basic relationship between people is of solidarity and desire to help.

Firmly established bitterness is a mark of crumbled society. A society that lost the solidarity and the will to live together. This bitterness is a fertile ground for incitement and sowing separation. Israeli politicians exploit it to the full.

No other society, I think, in the Western world can be more easily incited than the Israeli Jews society. A society that racism, in all its forms, so deeply ingrained into its culture. Even in France, ridden by high unemployment rates and immigration issues, Le Pen's party managed to collect about 10%. In Israel most votes in the Knesset elections are voted out of incitement. People who vote not for a better alternative, but to fuck other sections of the population. Let's start with Shas, that its ideology is incitement against the secular section. Other religious parties basically join, even if they are less harsh. Similarly Israel Beiteinu party, its only ideology is incitement against Arabs. Also the Likud party, Begin brought it to power by inciting the Sephardim against the Ashkenazim and even now it is based on a large community of Sephardim, voting unanimously to the party, which acts more than others against the weak population and in favor of the rich. All that counts is to stick a finger to the Ashkenazim face. The Ashkenazim, on their part, are careful to vote to someone "of their own".

Israeli elections, which are supposedly free, cannot, therefore, be considered democratic elections. They are not conducted on the agenda of the state administration and policy, but on who fucks who. Israelis see Israel as a democratic state and present it to the world as such, but nothing about Israel makes it worthy of that title. This is just another step in the imaginary reality, we have built here. There is no democratic mindset on the public agenda and certainly not on the government agenda, most of which boast a declared racist ideology. Over the years, all the mechanisms, which make a country democratic were suppressed and overridden. The State of Israel is not a democracy long ago. Researcher Professor Yiftachel tried to characterize when a country ceases to be democratic He called Israel "Ethnocracy."

One of the most obvious signs for lack of any democratic conception, is that the government and the leaders completely disregard the public's desires. The social protests was supported last year by more than eighty percent of the public, but were ignored by the government. In the past an attempt was made to ease the burden on the common citizens before the elections. Now they do not bother to do even that. Recently, the Prime Minister raised taxes, even though the election approaching and he even scolded the citizens: "There are no free lunches". The Prime Minister, who is supposed to serve the citizens, complains about them bringing up with their claims and he now punishes them for it.

It is easy to understand the explosive potential inherent in such a society, a depressed and full of resentment, riding on the waves of hatred. When the hatred and separating between the sections will surpass the unifying elements, a civil war will break out here soon, in one way or another and the country will split apart.

Where Does It Take Us? The Economic Scenario

After raising in my previous post the possibility of a military breakdown, I'll describe now another possibility of economic collapse.

In my review below, I don't include the hi-tech sector. Although often glorified and mentioned as the crown of the Israeli economy, it is too small to influence the debate. 100-150 thousand employees can not have an impact on the market forces.

Israel's economy, following the processes that were reviewed before of inability to govern and giving up power to aggressive elements, is composed of powerful groups that managed to take control over some section and they dedicate their activities ever since to stay in control and prevent any changes. Again, all means are acceptable.

Recently the tycoons were put in the focus of the social protests. They are people that managed to gather companies that were privatized and with ties to the right people in the administration they prevented competition. The Tycoons, however, are a small part of the game. There is the banking system, which detached itself from economic considerations and just milking the citizens and the small companies by freely manipulating the commissions. Similarly, the insurance companies and pension funds are milking the citizen with commissions and management fees. They forget that their purpose is to achieve good return on their clients' investment. The security and military system was described in the previous post - it is today an economic power in its own right, cares primarily to enrich its coffers. The Railway and the Electric Companies are known as "holding the plug", but they are not much different from other institutions that are controlled by strong unions - ports, education, and virtually all government systems.

Bank of Israel report has recently revealed the enormous salaries and pension benefits that the permanent employees receive from the banks (it is true, by the way, also to the employees of the Bank of Israel itself). I have no problem with strong unions that achieve good wages for the workers. The problem is that these unions set free their workers from the need to efficiently carry out their duties. The common perception shared by all the groups in control - tycoons, capital holders, government systems and strong unions, is: we control now a stream of cash flowing into our pockets, so let's avoid any change. Thus, the economy system cannot be innovated and made efficient and the gap between the wealth of the few who managed to take over a share of the economy systems and the level of services they provide to the citizens is growing.

Much has been said about the vast gap between the wealthy Israel and the middle class and the poor. This gap only grows deeper. About a year ago a protest movement of young people was set off. They understood that in the existing rules of the game, they are doomed to a life of slavery. Committees were set up and proposals were thrown into the air, but no significant change happened. Once, the commotion has settled down, experts began to reveal how limited the options for changes are in the Israeli economic system:

• Entering competition to the capital market and the banks may harm the stability of the financial system. In the economic crisis of 2008, banks in Israel were hardly touched when many other world banks collapsed. Even though the reason for this is that the banks in Israel do not need to take any risks since they can milk freely their customers, but still stable capital market is more important to the Governor of the Bank and to the Treasury. Actually, it is very important to the customers too. If a bank collapse, they lose their savings.

• Shaking the tycoons pyramids, may lead to narrowing the labor market. Better to benefit the major companies with tax exempts than causing an increase in unemployment. It was recently posted that huge companies like Teva, Amdocs and Intel, paying almost no taxes.

• A solution to the problem of the big unions is not in sight and the government long ago gave up. For decades they were trying to reform the electricity company and yet there seems to be no way to reduce the power of the unions. In the railways, ports and banks they have not even started to plan a reform.

The treasury remains, then, with two options of how to finance the increasing welfare of the citizens: raise taxes and increase the deficit. Since the global economy will not allow us to increase the deficit for long time, you can increase it temporarily (as does now the government before the elections) and reduce it by raising taxes later.

It turns out, then, that the citizens that bear the burden of taxes, will finance all the improvements in welfare - in fact we did nothing.

It was shown, therefore, in a little simplistic way, how the conflict is unresolved between the desire to improve the "social justice" and the inability of the government to change the distorted structure of the economy.

It is difficult to predict, how many years would the middle classes agree (the poor generally occupied only by their fight to survive) to carry on their backs, that is already bent down to earth under the burden, the rich and the power groups.

The power of the groups in control - tycoons, banks, insurance companies, security system and the unions is too strong for the weak government to change anything. On top of that join the religious leaders. Since they have managed to impose their nationalist-religious agenda, they are not interested in changing the status quo. Even most of the media resist fundamental change. The main source of income for them comes from advertising those companies owned by the power groups.

When the middle class people decide one day that they can no longer live a life of slavery and deliver all their income to the power groups and when they see that a neat and disciplined protest does not bring any relief, a civil disobedience will break here and possibly a violent protest. The changes that they will bring, can easily destroy the economy of Israel and make it insolvent. This situation will lead to an explosion of the bubble called the "Jewish State."

Where Does It Take Us? The Security Scenario

To complete my theory of the inability of the Jews to maintain their own state over time, I shall try to predict the end of the Jewish state.

As said in previous posts, the damage was done by the tendency that is burnt deeply into the Jewish communal culture to ignore and break rules and limits of any kind and go to the end and beyond it in defending the survival of Judaism and the victory over its enemies.

Life without law and without limits, do not allow for reasonable government systems to function. It defies the ability of management the state and brings chaos to the country's society and severely undermines the connection between the citizens and their state.

Take for example the military and security establishment. Obviously, if this system had weakened considerably, the Arab states that surround us would not hesitate to attack and occupy the country. Yet this military system has long forgotten this simple fact. It is disconnected from the rest of the governing systems. It detached itself from any external supervision. It is not subject to any monitoring of its budget and manages its own life. Accordance with the common trends in the Israeli society, the security personnel take care, first of all, of padding themselves with generous budgets and try to improve their own benefits and put it beyond the importance of any other purpose. The top security system commanders have become very political and the progress in the ranking hierarchy is not related to the professional capabilities, but to the elbowing and manipulation capabilities. Some of these generals have recently joint the political system. Once they step out of the security system, they are exposed as medium level or lower type of politicians. Ehud Barak, Mofaz, Matan Vilnai, Dichter, Dan Halutz, Diskin, Ya'alon and Gabi Ashkenazi. Yossi Sarid recently called them in his column: "dummies". In fact, they are probably not stupid people, but they seem to be people without any backbone or compass. They are desperately trying to be popular by doing excessive and ridiculous use of the common clichés, without giving any hint for existence of opinion of their own. They are very strong, however, in throwing slime at anyone who opposes them.

In this sad reality of the military leadership, it is clear that people from the middle class and above, refrain from sending their children to combat units. Why would anyone want to risk his son, given the poor decision-making system exposed in the Second Lebanon War, for example? Nobody is too enthusiastic about chasing stone-throwers in the territories, either. Instead, the boys are sent to the computing and technical units, which keep growing in size. The boys acquire a good profession there and when they are released, they gladly join the top earners in the hi-tech market. Besides the computer units, there are many more home front units, like the speaker unit and other propaganda and media bodies. The combat units are filled by the peripheral populations: first - the settlers community, then the Russian immigrants, the kibbutz's and moshav's and the developed towns. Dr. Yagil Levy studied the subject and published the book "From The People's Army to The Peripheral Army". It did not get wide headlines in the media that makes sure to publish stable recruitment percentages in the big cities. For some reason they do not talk about the percentages of recruitment to the combat units.

This trend of the military detachment from the elite populations will surely bring a significant decline in motivation of the armed forces. The loyalty of the major supplier of quality personnel to the combat units - the settlers community and national-religious community, is loyal to "Judaism" and not to the state. Also, they do not come from a culture of courage and daring.

In addition to the above, the security and military systems are immune from criticism. The military experts and commentators, some coming from these systems, are not loyal to their profession as journalists, but rather to the object of their writing. The public also will not, mostly, want to hear a bad word about the security system. This prevents exposure of flaws and inefficiencies in the system.

In the coming years we will see a growing deterioration of the army's and its commanders capabilities. Perhaps at some point Israel will switch from compulsory army into a professional army, but such a move would only formalize the process that already happens in reality.

Hence, a scenario of the army, losing its deterrence against the Arab armies is not so far away.

In the following posts, two other catastrophe scenarios will be discussed: Economic collapse and disintegration of the society.

Jews Cannot Maintain a State of Their Own

My conclusion, as formulated in the previous post is that the Jews are not able to maintain a state of their own over a long period of time. The attempt to create a Jewish state is destined to fail.

I will summarize the reasons in a schematic way:

 

The long, difficult history of the Jews in exile uprooted, in fact, the ability of the Jews to manage their own state and continue to be a Jewish community. Jewish communities went through such a deep process of adjustment to life in the Diaspora, as a minority under a foreign rule, that they lost their ability to live differently.

The Jewish community has been optimized to life, as a minority that must fight for its existence and its rights. It cannot live in any other way.

The Jewish community carries deep in its heritage the resistance to rules and law and as such it is corrosive to its own government and to the independent existence of the Jewish state. It is a very bitter irony of history.

Solution could have been found by transferring  regime in Israel to the Palestinians, with the Jewish community going back to life as a minority under foreign rule. Such a solution, of course, would not be acceptable by the Jews. Even the Palestinians, if they see the reality as it is, would not agree to such an arrangement.

The Immediate Culprit: The Anti-Anti-Semitism

The previous posts described how the lives of the Jewish communities, who were persecuted and humiliated and that have constantly fought against the attempts to destroy them, led them to see in the dedication to survive and to prove that the persecutors have failed to destroy them, the most important goal of their lives.

Proving that the Jews have survived in spite of everything, became the main essence of the Jewish existence. This sacred cause allowed them to do everything. There was no law, no moral and no limit to stand on the way.

This concept, naturally, trickled into the perception of Israel as the Jewish state.

It was not the case from the beginning. There was an attempt to draw a line over the Jewish life in the Diaspora and start from fresh.  Nevertheless, slowly and inevitably took over the concept of being the ultimate answer to the Jews persecutors. This is not a country unto itself, with laws and orderly government, but a means to glorify the name of Judaism and the overwhelming evidence of its victory.

There are many examples to this concept: the leaders of the country, the ruling party, the major media and most people do not consider the establishment of the state and ensuring its stability, as a goal in itself. Much more important is the "Judaism" and ensuring its existence. All governmental procedures, a proper administration, all attempts to build a fair and decent society - all were sacrificed on the altar of "Judaism". Again, as I explained before the term "Judaism" means the way in which the majority perceives the meaning of: What it means to be Jewish.

I call this obsession to show the Judaism enemies that we have survived: Anti-Anti-Semitism. It is equivalent to the obsession of the Anti-Semites to eliminate the Jews and it developed in parallel, hand-in-hand. Anti-Semitic obsession is seems less and less, in the Western world. The Jewish Anti-Anti-Semitism obsession, however, remained, at this stage, here and is threatening to destroy the development of the State of Israel and bring to its disintegration.

Who is to Blame for the Failure?

The previous post described the Jewish society in Israel, as not being able to put limits to itself and live by laws and rules of conduct. I do not find any need to explain that such a society is completely unmanageable and cannot prevail for the long term. Each group of power pulls to its own direction, not ready to give up any of the rights it has acquired even at the price of eroding the future of the state – that means: cutting the branch on which they're sitting. The state leaders have long ago gave up any real attempts to run the country and solve its problems.  All they can do is come up with spins that occupy the media and spread incitement.

The missing part in Sephi Rachlevsky's book "No Limit" is an explanation to the phenomenon. All he had to do is connect this book to his previous book "The Messiah's Donkey", in which he describes the conduct of Orthodox Judaism and methods to acquire power.

The point I want to make is, that the culprit is the "Judaism".  First, I should explain what I mean by Judaism. I refer to the concept of Judaism in the eyes of the simple Jew. This is the ninety-something percent of the Jews, who are not proficient in Rambam laws and the books of the Chazon Ish, Spinoza, Gershom Scholem, Buber and all other Jewish scholars. Apart from the religious stream, they even hardly know the Bible and the Talmud.

The perception of Judaism, i.e. what it means to be a Jew, for the common man and woman was formed over thousands of years of persecution. Common to all Jewish communities around the world was the fact that they were persecuted minority. They were, throughout most of history, a bizarre cult threatening and intimidating those around them, always prone to trouble that may fall upon their heads - anti-Semitism, persecutions, humiliation, accusations and repeating attempts to eliminate them.

Under such hard living conditions, they developed distinguished survival capabilities. The survival of the Jews is no less than an historical miracle. In order to survive, Jews had to act as a unified community. The Rabbi was the leader and deviation from the community line was intolerable. In addition, they developed a sense of superiority to the population around them - "The Gentiles". The sense of superiority led naturally to a deep contempt for the Gentiles and their laws. It was permissible and justifiable to circumvent the law and any fraud or manipulation of the Gentiles was justified by the difficult situation and the bitter living conditions of the Jews.

Another phenomenon that emerged out of the hard and miserable life of the Jews was disengagement from reality and creating virtual reality – better, imaginary life with dreams about the salvation which is behind the corner. The creation of virtual reality is also kind of stepping out of limits - the limits of reality. Prof. Yigal Eilam's book "The End of Judaism" describes in a knowledgeable way the Judaism attempts to reinvent itself, each time by moving away from the harsh reality and day to day threats. These attempts of messianic movements and false prophets always ended in a bitter disappointment.

Denial of the reality and contempt to the law go hand in hand. Both are dedicated to glorification and preservation of Judaism as the highest goal and all the rest doesn't really matter.

It is easy to see, therefore, how over the years accepted the Jewish communities as their most holly heritage the task of conservation and survival of Judaism at all costs. We Jews absorb with our mothers' milk the need to preserve Judaism, beautify it and declare its eternity. This is the first and only commandment that unites Jews everywhere and of every kind - religious and secular.

In Israel, where religious Jews are a minority, but secular section is unable to separate itself from the religious side of Judaism, most of the seculars respect the Rabbis, no matter how dummy and blunt they are. They agree to support the Yeshiva studies and run to fulfill every whim of the religious leaders. These are all part of the heavy commitment that knows no boundaries to Judaism.

Israel's existence is perceived, then, by most Jews as proof of the survival of Judaism.

   

Our existence here is a finger in the face of those who tried to destroy Judaism!

No Limits - Everything is Wide Open

The two previous posts briefly described the difficult situation into which, both, the government systems in Israel and the society itself have deteriorated. In fact, there is a close relationship between the government and the society and the disintegration processes are intertwined.

The destructive processes going on below the surface disappeared from the eyes of the editors of The Times, that extolled "King Bibi" and the from White House officials that awarded the Medal of Freedom to president Shimon Peres. These two people contributed their part in whitewashing the truth and presenting Israel as a villa in the jungle of the Middle East. Little more disturbing is the stubborn believe of wide parts of the Jewish public in Israel in this image, which has nothing to do with reality.

I don't mean to argue in this blog with those who think that the situation is tolerable, or is not as bad. The blog's intention is to offer an in-depth explanation to the question: What triggered the erosion process and what failed the State of Israel from becoming a well managed and viable country.

 

As I mentioned in last post the Israeli society is conducted as if it was under threat of organized crime groups. Very powerful forces control the everyday life and in order to keep away from trouble, one should better align with the consensus, accept the ideas dictated by commentators on Channel 2, submissively pay the exorbitant management fees that are imposed by the banks and other monopolies and especially hate and excommunicate anyone who dares to question the method.

In the Haaretz newspaper, which I read, the writers try occasionally to offer an explanation for what caused the government and the society to lose their course, but most explanations seem rather superficial. No serious discussion has started on the subject.

Searching in the literature, I found in the book of Sephi Rachlevsky "No Limit" (Zmora-Bitan) the most comprehensive and thorough explanation for the deep malaise of the society.

The phenomenon of lack of respect to the law, lack of willingness to accept any limits and to live according to clear rules - is the best explanation to the problems and malfunctioning of the Jewish society in general and the Jewish society in Israel in particular.

 

This phenomenon was discussed previously as Prof. Ehud Sprinzak identified and described the central problem of Israel in his book "Each One to Himself",  illegalism it is called in the book. The roots of this phenomenon, however, were not deeply researched. 

Legal expert Moshe Negbi's book "Sodom Have We Become" also describes the problem, but refers primarily to law enforcement systems, which are not themselves taking the law seriously.

Sephi Rachlevsky goes few steps further, by describing the atmosphere in Israel, that not only the people refuse to accept limits and rules of conduct, but also admire leaders who broke the law and made fun of it, like: Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon.

"Sasson Report" prepared by the jurist Talia Sasson on the phenomenon of the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories indicates that the administration personnel, including the Ministry of Justice officials, are acting openly against the law and bypassing the formal rules, under the auspices of the Ministers responsible and the prime minister himself. A small example is the attitude of Netanyahu to the court ruling to return the land of Givat Ulpana to its rightful owners. Netanyahu ordered to saw the houses and transfer them to a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Netanyahu and the ruling party punish the state (they are in charge of) for forcing them to respect the law.

Burglary and confiscation of land in the occupied territories are prominent examples, but the phenomenon is much more broad and comprehensive. Many illegal building extensions, or that were approved by mayors for bribery and never destroyed. Massive resisting of Shas voters to the accusations of Aryeh Deri and other Shas activists captured offenses. Resisting of Moshe Katsav close circle of people to his arrest, even though several women complained, raped or harassed by him. The Airport security checks that openly discriminate people according to their ethnicity and almost no one thinks that there's something wrong in it.

It must be admitted that there is something liberating in life without rules. Tourists coming, here for a short time, enjoy this free atmosphere. Moreover, the well-known Jewish creativity, which leads to great achievements in research, has strong sources in the unwillingness to accept the limits of knowledge.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon of "no limits" is the best and most comprehensive explanation to the decay of the Jewish Israeli society and its government system. No state and no civilized society can exist without respect for the law.

Without wide agreement upon rules and regulations, you cannot manage, prepare or execute long-term plans and in short, it is impossible to have a civilized state, and certainly not a democratic one.

On the social level, the phenomenon is no less devastating, the societybecomes aggressive, racist, intolerant and divided. This is a fertile ground for aggressive and forcefull people that take over the public resources and the rest of the population become conformist, confused and scared - just as is already happening in the Jewish society in Israel.