Israel Smiles Through the Apocalypse

On the home front, Israelis of all persuasions agree that the political frontrunners—Barak, Livni, and Netanyahu—are flawed in one way or another. The previous two prime ministers, Ariel Sharon (in a three-year coma) and Olmert, were undermined by their personal financial shenanigans. And yet there is a widespread belief among Jerusalem’s opinion-makers that the election will produce a coalition operating within acceptable boundaries of integrity, personality, and policy. Until the impact of the global financial crisis last fall, the Israeli economy was doing very well and still finished the year with a growth rate of about 4 percent. Investment in infrastructure such as railways and roads has held up, and so has construction of settlements, which means that this vexing issue that has stalled peace negotiations time and again, remains. There is less confidence than ever in the overall peace process—Camp David, Oslo, the “road map,” and Annapolis have all foundered. What seems to be happening is an evolving reality: the broader Arab world is coming to terms with Israel’s existence. Iran, especially as a potential nuclear power, is a looming threat. There are Palestinian groups that would subject themselves to Israel’s pounding rather than focus on their own development. There will be no breakthroughs any time soon.

Meanwhile, Israel’s sense of itself as a people gets stronger. There have now been three or four generations since the Holocaust and the founding of Israel. The emigrants from Russia and elsewhere are gradually absorbed. The young (just in or out of their mandatory army service), with iPods and other paraphernalia of international youth culture, display a blend of religious and cultural characteristics that is distinctively Israeli. After three-score years, Israel is not a country at peace, and its survival cannot be taken for granted. But it is a nation with a deep and increasingly powerful identity, a commitment to democracy, and a fierce strain of patriotism that may well be its greatest long-term asset. And that, appropriately in my view, was the subject of Natan Sharansky’s most recent book, Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. One thing is certain about Israel, you cannot spend time here and leave unmoved.

Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation, where he writes the weekly Platform column. Osnos is the Founder and Editor-at-Large of PublicAffairs Books. He is Vice-Chair of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House Inc. and was a correspondent and editor at The Washington Post. Visit TCF.org for a full archive of Platform columns.