Progress and Pain in the Promised Land

As Israel reaches its 75th anniversary on May 14, a spate of books is appearing to celebrate—or at least commemorate—the occasion. Daniel Gordis, a professor and prolific author born and raised in the United States, made aliyah to Israel in 1998 and has been teaching and writing there ever since. His new book Impossible Takes Longer asks how Israel is doing: “Has Israel fulfilled its founders’ dreams?”

Gordis responds fairly well, examining the difficulties Israel has overcome and those it now faces in a well-written and thoughtful manner. One way to gauge happiness is to ask,” How do Israelis feel?” According to the” World Happiness Report ,” which rates each nation, Israel ranks fourth out of 146 nations, trailing a dozen northern Europeans but ahead of Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Israel currently has the highest birth ratio of any OECD nation, which is another indicator of its citizens’ faith in their world and its future.

However, Zionism’s’s main objective was life rather than happiness. According to Israel’s’s Declaration of Independence,” the Jewish people have a natural right to control their own destiny, just like all other nations, in their respective sovereign states.” We start with an extraordinary fact— extraordinary in part because it now seems entirely natural — that the Jewish people can defend itself, as Gordis puts it. This is a total flip-flop of the historical fact that Jews had to deal with for 2,000 year. Power has accomplished what it was intended to do, according to Gordis,” Judais are no longer victim on face.”

The number of Jewish accomplishments goes far beyond life, and Gordis walks us through it. Hebrew’s’s restoration is a mystery in and of itself. Israelis now have GDP per capita levels comparable to those of Europe thanks to the numerous articles and books that have resulted from turning a destitute foreign aid victim into the” start-up land.” It’s’s impressive enough that democracy has survived a string of bloody wars, but as Gordis points out, the Israeli case is special because Golda Meir was the only Israelite to have done so.

Given that almost all of Israel’s’s bulk immigrations came from nations where there was no political tradition, its unbroken democracy is particularly noteworthy. The nearly 1.5 million refugees who were now able to immigrate to Israel after the Soviet Union fell, not to mention the thousands of Israel’s’s some refugees, all came without any political have. The 700,000 Jews who fled or were forced out of North Africa and other cities in the Levant. However, they have enthusiastically and increasingly embraced Israel’s’s political institutions.

Gordis is sensitive to societal change in Israel over the past 75 years. One of these is the shifting focus of fervent Zionism from the enlightenment, initially communist Left to more catholic groups in society:” For quite some time now, it has been obvious that the national-religious sector in Israel today’s’s correct wellspring of Zionist passion and ideology.” These Orthodox Jews, who are perfectly a part of and are becoming more and more at the center of the world, are not the ultra-Orthodox” Haredim.” Gordis points out that although the national-religious community only makes up about 12 % of Israeli society, religious men now make up 50 % of the officers in some combat units, which is four times their social representation. The phrase” No longer are Judaism and Zionism arctic opposite, as they were to Israel’s’s owners” by Gordis perfectly captures this situation.

The book’s’s findings are therefore encouraging:” Zionism has beaten the odds in almost every way inconceivable.” In truth, Israel is now the largest Jewish neighborhood in the world and has not only survived and prospered. Additionally, Israel will be home to the majority of the world’s’s Jews by the year 2048 due to its high birth rate.

Gordis, however, is no Pollyanna and spends plenty pages delving into the serious issues Israel still has to deal with, both internally and externally. Internally, there is no professional legal problem with the absence of a written organization. Israel’s’s legal system has significant gaps regarding where legal authority lies, as evidenced by the terrible disagreements and massive demonstrations taking place today regarding the function of its supreme court. Religion and state matters are becoming more contentious and controversial as a result of the rapid development of Israel’s’s ultra-Orthodox areas. And Israel still hasn’t figured out how to adequately integrate the 20 % of its Muslim community. According to Gordis,” by 2048, 25 % of Israeli Jews will be Haredim, and 21 % of Israel’s’s Jews, who are Arabs ,” nearly half of the nation will, in theory, be against Zionism. In the upcoming decades, did Israeli Arabs support the democratic system and use it to further their interests, or will they work to undermine it by delegitimizing it? Will the expanding Haredi place seek seclusion from the” corrupting” effects of the rest of Israel or connect more with society and the economy?

Outwardly, the Palestinian issue is still unresolved, despite the fact that Israel has made great strides in achieving serenity with its Egyptian neighbors. Gordis shows no signs of enthusiasm in this situation because of the stark differences, which led him to believe that” peace between Israelis and Palestinians is] unlikely for as far as the nose can see.” Gordis is correct: Today, neither Israelis nor Palestinians seem to support the magical” two-state solution ,” which is fading away more and more. The” love tent” in Israel was largely destroyed by Israeli terrorism. In the most recent election, the Labor Party, which ruled Israel from 1948 to 1977, won four votes in the 120-member Knesset, while Labor’s’s left-wing Meretz Party received nothing. Gordis discusses some of the ideas for improvement in Israeli-Palestinian connections, but he is unable to convince himself that it is possible.

Gordis’ decision to immigrate to Israel years ago was undoubtedly motivated by his Israeli beliefs. According to him,” Israel’s’s members took on an impossible task ,” and” to a great extent, they succeeded.” After 2, 000 decades of statelessness and exposure, they altered the philosophical state of the Jewish people. They did not establish a position that is” like all other nations ,” as stated in their Declaration of Independence, but rather because of the ongoing hostility that resulted in wars in 1948, 1956, and 1973, as well as ongoing criminal attacks.

May Israel have ever been a” normal” say, though, even without the ferocious hostility? Israel was always likely to be” like all other nations” given the distinctive evolution of the Jewish people, the different State of Israel, and the waves of immigration that helped shape the newly formed nation.

After the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, Theodor Herzl penned the following in his journal:” At Basell, I founded the Israeli State.” I would make met with universal laughing if I said this out loud today. Maybe everyone will be aware of it in five year, and most definitely in fifty. That was precisely 51 years before Israel’s’s democracy was proclaimed and 50 years prior to the U.N. approving the creation of a Hebrew State in its split quality. The 20th century’s’s most popular national independence movement was Zionism. Israel continues to command the world’s’s attention despite being older at 75 years than more than half the member states of the UN. Israeli sovereignty was described by Herzl as” If you will, it is no story.” Israel’s’s very presence, and undoubtedly its successes and accomplishments, frequently seem like a dream after 75 years of trial and war. We can hope to see Daniel Gordis rewrite this book for Israel’s’s 100th anniversary at the age of 63 and assess whether Israel has returned to the standard creation that has eluded it for the past 75 years.

Possible Takes Longer: Has Israel Satisfied the Memories of Its Founders 75 Years After It Was Created?
Daniel Gordis
Hey, 384 pages,$ 32.99

Top fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations is Elliott Abrams.