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."