Enemy missiles? (Yawn) U.N. vote on Palestine (Yawn) What about the high price of cottage cheese?

JERUSALEM–Israel aspires to be a normal country, but can’t make it.

 

Two issues dominant in recent news are the price of cottage cheese, and a prolonged labor dispute between physicians working in the public sector (the vast majority of the country’s medicine) and several governmental agencies about salary, working conditions, and an increase in the supply of physicians, hospital beds, and other items.

 

Cottage cheese and the physicians’ disputes resemble numerous other tensions in normal countries. There is never enough money for what people want, and prices of this or that often spike high enough to provoke a protest and a chorus of politicians concerned to be on the wave, ahead of it, or at the least not silent when the voters are excited.

 

The State Comptroller appeared before a Knesset committee and got into the squabble over cottage cheese. He would begin examining the factors responsible for the price hike, and said that it was intolerable that the poor should suffer.

 

Most state auditors limit themselves to the financial accounts of government agencies, or whether government officials are following the rules. Israel’s State Comptroller is unusual in that the law authorizes it to inquire into just about everything, and to evaluate actions according to the standard of “moral integrity.” That sounds more like the Prophet Amos calling for justice rather than an introductory textbook in accounting. (See Amos 5:23-24) The State Comptroller’s involvement in cottage cheese is one of the lesser indications that while Israel is normal arguing about prices, the figures doing the arguing are not those active elsewhere.

 

Some time ago Israel was a standout in the incidence of physicians and hospital beds in relation to population. That is no longer the case. The supply of physicians that came with the mass migration from the Soviet Union is aging out of the profession, and the increase in population has been greater than the increase in hospital facilities. Changes in the economy and mores have produced a situation where the best and the brightest of young Israelis are more likely to study computer science and business administration than medicine. Physicians complain that good graduates are more inclined to specialize in fields that pay well in the private sector and have good hours, like plastic surgery, and avoid drudge fields like internal medicine. However, enough good students apply to fill available places in the country’s medical schools, and additional aspiring physicians go abroad to study in Hungary, Romania, and Italy. The country performs well on international measures of health like longevity and infant mortality. On longevity, it ranks better than France, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Austria, Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, Finbland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark and the U.S. On infant mortality it ranks better than the U.K., Canada and the U.S. Politicians have a while to decide how much they want to spend on medicine until those measures are likely to dip.
 

The most prominent indicators of Israel lack of normalcy appear in its region, its security, and international politics.

 

Not far from the northern border the Syrian regime is slaughtering citizen protesters, and claiming that the country is peaceful except for the work of outside agitators. Commentators are asking why the great powers are intervening in Libya and not Syria. One contentious answer is oil. Another is that the intervention in Libya is not going well, and western governments do not want another mess on their plate.

 

Israelis wonder if Arab Spring will work in their favor or bring disaster. We agree that it will impact. We have to wait for the how.

 

Currently the country is experiencing a week of civil defense exercises, reflecting decisions to upgrade security concerns with the home front made after the 2006 war in Lebanon. That produced extensive missile attacks, civilian casualties and destruction across the northern region. Since then there has been a substantial increase in the capacity of Hizbollah to launch missiles that will reach more extensively into Israel, and there remain threats from Hamas in the south and Iran not too far over the horizon.

 

Israel’s lack of normalcy follows from Jewish history. And for the same historical reasons, Jews elsewhere are not quite normal.

 

One should not exaggerate. Both Israel and Jews elsewhere are closer to normality than in the not so distant past. The World Bank counts Israel among the world’s wealthiest countries. The country has overcome past resistance to find its place among OECD members. Reports are that there is considerable international commercial interest in its anti-missile system that proved itself against attacks from Gaza, and a tank mounted defense that works against anti-tank rockets.

 

Jews living in western countries can assimilate as much as they prefer. They reach positions at the summit of economics and politics that were rare a generation ago. 

 

Nonetheless, one sees in the politics of Jewish communities an ambivalence between fulsome support for Israel, and an identification with policies pursued by their governments that are less than supportive.  Again, one must be careful. Motives are impossible to define, often for oneself and more certainly for others.

 

With all the appropriate reservations, I am tempted to see an example of wannabe Americanism in the writings of Thomas Friedman. He exemplifies American Jews who recognize the problems of Israel, yet take a lead in the chorus supporting a aggressive policy of forcing Israel to do what some Americans–but few Israelis–think is in Israel’s best interest.

 

Friedman practiced his music under administrations less friendly to his ideas, and the Obama-Clinton duo seemed made for him.

 

But not quite. Now Friedman is admitting

 

Friedman’s solution?  Pressure the Jewish state by giving the Palestinians what they want. Going back to a United Nations resolution of 1947 and creating the Palestinian state.

 

To be sure, Friedman he is saying that Palestinians would have to negotiate with the Israelis over the details, but his proposal would remove considerable leverage from Israeli negotiators. It would also challenge the recent poll indicating that 72 percent of the Israeli population opposes withdrawing any Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while Palestinians have defined those withdrawals as non-negotiable.  

The last of these impossibilities renders Israel like all other countries. The others touch on one or another feature of its lack of normalcy.

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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.  He may be contacted at ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com