Israel: Flourishing or Suicidal?

Israel: Flourishing or Suicidal?

There's a fellow in Israel who sits more or less at the center of the so-called human-rights corner of Israeli society, the far-left folks who can find almost nothing good to say about Israel while talking endlessly about all the things it does wrong. As I've often estimated, there aren't more than 2-3,000 of these people, from close to 6 million Jews. Anyway, the fellow has an e-mail list, and he offers daily updates about the good and the bad. While I've never investigated, it's reasonable most of the activists in this radical corner of Israeli society are on his list. Today he announced that he'd just added readers 1000, 1001 and 1002.

Apparently my estimate isn't that far off.

Yet that tiny corner of our society has an enormous impact. How so? Well, look at a post by Andrew Sullivan yesterday, talking about his respect for Jeffrey Goldberg who has been uncomfortably critical of him (Andrew) recently.

I understand what Jeffrey endures on a regular basis and admire his courage in tackling difficult subjects nonetheless. Because he loves Israel; and Israel is committing a slow suicide. It is tough to watch. (my italics).

Israel is actually thriving. Economically, of course, but also demographically, culturally, and its politics is informed by a deep consensus of purpose the Americans (or Europeans) can only dream of. The list of things to kvetch about is longer than any imaginable arm, of course, but this shouldn't hide the fact that compared to any given moment over the past 2,000 years, what we've got right now is about as good as it gets.

Suicide? I think not. But if you're on that e-mail list or listen regularly to the people who are on it, it's not hard to see why you might think otherwise.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations