In The Sabra’s Lawless Legacy (Azure Summer 2008) Assaf Sagiv’s discusses the corruption in Israeli society, touching on a similar argument to Jared Diamond in his book on why societies ultimately fail and collapse.
Sagiv writes that in certain respects corruption “constitutes a natural, almost inevitable outcome of the ethos created by the early Yishuv” claiming that the historical ambivalence toward the institution of Law in early Zionism and the creation of the new Jew had many positive aspects in the early days of the State.
Yet 60 years on, this ‘unruly, irresponsible and lawless behavior’ is seriously undermining Israel’s ability to prosper.
Without taking a position on the issue, Sagiv’s argument is similar to that of Diamond’s book Collapse. While describing why societies that successfully lived for centuries ultimately disappeared, Diamond cites their inability to adapt values to changing circumstances.
Yet the most interesting idea is that it was those very values that had helped the community survive at a certain times which ultimately led to their later collapse (for example, the Norse’s religious beliefs kept them together but also led them to trade ivory for church objects rather than food, leading to their starvation).
In Israel’s context, while ignoring certain aspects of law (Zionism was founded on rebellion / breaking boundaries) helped the young state to survive, maintaining those values may ultimately undermine it.
What values from early Zionism remain relevant and which are in need of ‘refinement’?
General
Amit Granek
Yuval Holtzmann
Ronit Gudes
Gidi Grinstein
Gaddy Weissman
Calev Ben Dor
Yossi Horesh
Dana Preisler
Omri Dagan
Eran Shayshon
Liran Bainvol
Merav Pick
Noa Ecker
Netaly Ophir
Yariv Mann
Reut Institute
Omri Zegen
Yael Weisz
Toni Hasson
Talia Gorodess
Gil Murciano
Anat Horowitz
Abed Assli
Daphna Kaufman
Shay Gurion
Elad Leshem
Aliza Petrack
Jessica Brandt
Yael Brendel
Martin Ben Moreh
yotamhacohen
Jeremy Fischer
Eden Gallanter
An Israeli friend sent me a photo of a Gaza Palestinian holding up a poster that read as follows:
YOU take my water
burn my olive trees
destroy my house
take my jobsteal my land
imprison my father
kill my mother
starve us all
humiliate us all
BUT
I am to blame:
I shot a rocket back
The old man holding the poster, the Israeli who sent it to me and myself are all old men from a recent history of the last century that was more brutal than any other in the industrial way in which it made sausages of people. Now we are old and helpless and no matter how much we love or hate Israel, its people and what they stand for, we cannot come to terms with our morality lest we assuage the grievances of this Palestinian fellow helpless geriatric. It is because I despise and denounce everything Israel has done to Palestinians in the name of Zionism that I support Netanyahu. He is free of the doom and gloom East European psychosis from which genetically suffer Israel’s leaders. I know it well for I too am an East European. But today’s Sabras are different. They want Israel integrated into the region rather than as a finger on an EU/NATO colonial hand. Only the young Sabras have the sci/tech know-how to liberate the young Arabs from their untenable one crop (oil) banana republic economies. This Netanyahu realizes and has decided that only by integrating the Palestinians into the Israeli economy can Israel be integrated in the Middle East. So he would lay aside political issues in order to provide the children of Palestinians everything the children of Israelis have. Only then can Israel economically integrate into the Middle East; and only after that can Israel and the Arabs resolve their political differences. Netayahu, when Finance Minister under Sharon, swore he would stop Israel’s status as a 60 years old fetus of a state on an American $ placenta. With the US now totally broke he knows that his solution urgently vital to survival and that it depends on Israel becoming, in the words of its founders: “A LIGHT ONTO THE [ARAB] NATIONS.” That’s why he is putting politics aside to focus on economic integration. That’s Sabra chutzpah instead of that old East European Holocaust fixation doom and gloom mentality of the old Ashkenazims. So it is with a heart finally full of hope that I support Netanyhu for the modernization of the Middle East family of Jews and Arabs. Go to it PM Bibi!
Daniel E. Teodoru