Israel: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I'm back from my long overdue trip to Israel.  It was easily the most fascinating two weeks of my life, made possible, I now know, because Israel is the most fascinating country - at least the most fascinating per unit area - in the world.

I saw, I am proud to say, basically the entire country and now there are faces and places to so many of the things that were previously just concepts in my mind.  I saw it all, from Acre to Eilat, from Tel Aviv to Mea Shaarin, from the Dead Sea to the Golan Heights, from Jews to Arabs to Bedouin to Circassians, from secular to fundamentalist - from 2000 BC to the 21st century.

I am still processing everything I took in, and I think I will be for weeks.  Here, though, is what I can conclude so far about this wonderful, enigmatic, magical, controversial land, that has haunted my imagination for so long:

The Good:

The first thing to say in praise of Israel is the most obvious, so obvious, in fact, that we sometimes forget it:  Israel is the Jewish state!  After 2000 years the Jewish people have a nation-state, and it is a strong, prosperous, vital, gorgeous one at that!

It is the one nation in the world where Jewish people are a majority, and where Jewish culture and the Hebrew language have their full expression.  When the original Zionists came up with the idea of a reborn Jewish modern nation state not so much more than 100 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine their project would be as successful as Israel has actually become.

In spite of incredible obstacles that it has had to face, from genocidal neighbors to a tiny crowded space, Israel prospers as the home of 6 million Jewish people and 2 million others, whose origins are from all over the world, who come in all shades, and all opinions.

The Jewish state is home to some of the finest educational and scientific institutions in the world, a top-rate military, a robust parliamentary democracy, a vibrant culture with contributions from the four corners of the Earth, and one of the best economies around. 

In Israel, one can see Jewish people performing every role in society.  Yes, they are the professors and the artists, the doctors and the politicians, but they are also the soldiers, the policemen, the taxi drivers, the models, the chefs, the waiters, and everything else.  Jewish people, so long without a homeland, now have a state of their own just like other peoples.  This alone is an amazing accomplishment.

As the Jewish state, Israel is fascinatingly diverse.  In its tiny area you can find every color of person, and every possible opinion.  There are secular leftists, secular nationalists, religious nationalists, religious non-nationalists, Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, Druze, Circassians, Armenians, foreign priests, and thousands of workers from Africa and Asia, all in the same space.

  

  

This is why I just have to roll my eyes when I see bashers refer to Israel and "Apartheid", or frame the Arab-Israeli conflict as something involving white people on one side and brown people on the other side.  In reality, Israel is the opposite of Apartheid.  All of these different groups - many of which don't get along - nonetheless inhabit the exact same space, shop in the same stores, drive on the same packed roads, and sit at the same beaches, one on top of another in one of the smallest, most densely populated countries in the world.  And both Jews and Arabs come in a variety of colors.  This is one of those things where those who criticize Israel really need to perform a reality check - go there themselves or listen to people who have.  

Moving on, Israel is a wonderfully cultured society.  The museums and universities are top notch.  Israel has the best universities in the world outside of North America, Europe, and Japan, and it shows.  Easily half the population is fluent in English, and another quarter could get by.  It is perhaps the most English-proficient non-Anglophone country in the world.  This country has its intellectual and educational act together.

 

It is also remarkable that Israel has achieved what it has being in the neighborhood that it is.  It felt to surreal to be, for instance, when I was in the Golan Heights, about 10 miles from a literal civil war across the border in Syria, and yet there I was driving on a normal nice road surrounded by tour buses.  Or in Eilat, where you can be drinking a beer surrounded by half naked people, and literally right across the bay you can see Saudi Arabia. 

And I have to mention that the hummus is really good.  They do a version that for some reason is not available anywhere else I've been, called hummus masabacha.  It is served warm, and is not blended smooth but rather has whole chick peas in tahini, with the a lemon and garlic sauce on the side, along with a raw onion.  

The Bad:

This is the point where most people of my political bent would move on from all of those accomplishments to say "yeah but, the occupation..."   

But I'm not going to do that.  I'm not going to do that because, for one thing, I did not venture very far into the West Bank  - although I did travel through East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but, more importantly, because the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is so complicated and nuanced that I cannot simply just say "occupation bad."  The Israeli occupation of the West Bank, as well as the Golan and East Jerusalem, have to be understood in the context of the entire conflict, such as absolutely genocidal intent of Israel's neighbors against it from the very start, and the way that, before 1967, every single Jew living in these areas that Israel now controls was kicked out or killed (now that's Apartheid).  Since this is primarily a report of my observations on the ground there, I'll leave it at that.  

The famous separation barrier in the distance.  Every other country gets to put a fence along its border without complaints.

Instead, I'm going to report on the thing that I think has the potential to truly destroy Israeli society and everything that has been accomplished:  The rise of the Haredim.

The Haredim are the extremely religious Jews, often called "ultra-orthodox".  As with everything else in Israel, there is much nuance in the situation, and there are many groups of Haredim all with different attitudes and positions.  So, anything I could say does not apply to all of them.  

But, that having been said, in general, a large number of the Haredim are religious extremists, and don't contribute to society by having careers, serving in the army, paying taxes, or otherwise engaging with the state or the economy. Many of them live in their own towns and neighborhoods, and have their own religious school systems.  

The Haredim tend to wear black coats and often black hats, in the manner of stereotypical religious Jews, and should not be confused with the religious nationalists, who also have extremist elements but are a different segment of Israeli society.

I walked through the most notorious, extremist Haredi neighborhood, Jerusalem's Mea Shaarim, and it was the stuff of nightmares.  It resembled the most disgusting third world hovel, with trash piled everywhere, the streets unpaved, a cacophony children screaming, and the putrid smell of rot and too many people filling the air.  It was truly, truly disgraceful.

There was a sign that boasted of "saving Jewish children from foreign education."  These people are certainly ignoring a very crucial part of Jewish culture and heritage if they think that anyone needs to be "saved" from education.

At the extreme end of their spectrum, some Haredim, such as the Satmar and Nuturei Karta Hasidic Jews, are actually opposed to the state of Israel itself.  They view Zionism as incompatible with their religion, which  presumably mandates that Jews should always be in danger.  

Perhaps the most offensive sign that has ever existed.  Do they really think that adding the Arabic text at the bottom is helping their credibility?

These are the most extreme examples, but there is certainly a disconnect between Haredim and the mainstream of Israeli and Jewish society.  The mainstream participates in one of the most advanced economies in the world, serves in the army, and generally exists within larger Western Civilization.  The Haredim, by and large, do not.  

When the state of Israel was founded, in a bargain struck between the secular leadership and the religious sector, there were around 400 individuals who were granted exemptions from military service and stipends in order to undertake religious study.  Big mistake, because 400 quickly turned into tens of thousands.

Currently, the Haredim are about 7% of the Israeli population.  However, in common with religious fundamentalists of many stripes, they have absolutely huge families, and they start them young.  It is not rare for a Haredi family to have 14 children, while secular Jewish Israelis often have two or three.

The long-term demographic forecast, therefore, is not good.  Reasonable predictions, for instance, say that by the year 2050 Israeli society will be roughly divided into thirds: One third Arab, one third Haredi, and one third secular and religious nationalist Jews.  That means that only one third of society will be participating in the economic and political mainstream - getting educations, having professions, serving in the army, shouldering the tax burden, and so on.  

That is a recipe for societal decay and collapse.  Everything I talked about above, how Israel is the Jewish state, a nation-state of the Jewish people but like any other, and how it has a successful economy, wonderful institutions, and a great culture, will be in jeopardy.  There is even the possibility of theocracy, with so much potential political power wielded by a large, fundamentalist segment.  

It seems to me to be an almost intractable problem.  What can be done about such unreasonable birth rates?    Clearly, the Haredim - and Arabs - need to be more integrated into the mainstream of Israeli society, and there needs to be a reform of the state benefits system so that these groups have to work in the real economy.  That is just at a minimum, and even that may be hard to accomplish given political forces.  

I tried to ask people about this issue, and they tended to shrug it off, usually after expressing some disdain for those Haredim who don't have jobs and live off state benefits.  But there didn't seem to be many answers.  For one thing, it is easy to ignore at the present, because a secular Israeli can live his or her life where the skirts are short and the food is good, and there are so many more immediate threats such as Iran.  A postdoc at Hebrew University told me that everyone knows it is a huge problem, but they try not to think about it.  

I certainly don't have any answers, and I hope someone is working on it, but it seems to be that in 40 years Israeli society will likely be radically different than it is today, and probably not for the better.

The Ugly:

Israel is not only incredible history, nature, and beautiful sunbathing people.   And it is not only looming demographic doom.

There is also a more mundane, ugly side that I saw, made possible since my goal was to see everything and all sides.  To me, the ugly basically consists of 1) poor urban planning, 2) trash, and 3) shameless commerce.

Let's start with the poor urban planning.  Outside of the center of major cities, Israel has adopted a haphazard development model, where towns and suburbs spring up out of the blue with little regard for quality of life or aesthetics.

The basic town or suburb consists of a cluster of high rise residential buildings, separated by large fields from the next town or cluster.  There seems to be little provision for commercial areas in these developments, which end up being concentrated at road intersections, and little provision for public transportation, which leads to a high density of cars.  It is like a high density version of American suburbia.

Typical residential cluster.  In any given location you may see several of these in different directions.

No stores, or places to walk

 The architecture in these blocks is not very appealing.  For instance, developers seem enamored of a style of high rises connected by high bridges of apartments, which are very bizarre looking.

And they are building them everywhere.  One consequence of the rapidly expanding population is the need for ever more housing.  Unfortunately, the development style does not seem to be changing.

 Moving on, Israel has a big problem with litter.  It is everywhere.

And not just trash, but dog crap too.  It seems like everyone owns a dog there.  And if there are two things in this world that should not be combined, it is dog ownership and small apartment living.  Nonetheless, Israelis love their dogs, and don't seem to want to clean up after them.

Lastly, I'd like to complain about the excess of stores selling crap to tourists.  It is really too much.

Equal opportunity tourist fleecing, regardless of ideology

Changing your money?  Why not get a tattoo while you're at it?

Need a Houston Astros logo kippah?

When I think of Jerusalem's ancient streets,. I think of Garfield the cat.

Some shirts in here depict Obama as a caricature of a Jew, others as a caricature of a Muslim.

So there it is, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It is clear and obvious that Israel is not what its detractors usually say it is.  It is something else entirely, something endlessly fascinating, exotic, and yet familiar.  It has profound challenges, none greater, in my opinion, than the demographic one posed by the ultra-religious.  Time will tell if the Jewish state will overcome this obstacle like it has so many others.