Israel’s Challenges – 2016: Recommendations for National Priorities

Arnon Soffer

2016

What are Israel’s elected leaders really dealing with today? Economic leadership, the media, and a steady flow of gossip? Sarah Netanyahu, Bar Rafaeli, and the salary benefits of the nation’s elected officials? To them, the how and why of the closure of a restaurant owned by a renowned restaurateur and television personality is certainly no less important. At the same time, they are debating Amos Schocken’s odd and hysterical “Peace Conference,” whether or not to spay Tel Aviv’s cat population, and letting the IDF be victorious, so that, “God willing,” everything will turn out exactly as we wanted, just as it has for the last 3,200 years. But most important is to deal with Oren Hazan, a bizarre and revolting phenomenon that defines, more than anything, who our elected officials really are: the leaders who are supposed to provide solutions for what I present in the coming pages.

In spite of these grave issues, and while the house is still in flames, nobody mentions that Israel is not a Western country, because it lies in the Middle East. This is not a hypothetical statement. A host of decisions that need to be made derive from it, including political initiatives and questions of right and wrong. Yet the nation’s leaders (the Bibis, the Bujis, the Lapids, the Bennetts, and the Yvets) think we are still a Western country. Look at what they are dealing with.