The USA, Great Britain and Israel all face crises in leadership and shortfalls in the "fitness for purpose" of the proposed candidates for their forthcoming elections. This is not because of a vacuum of qualified people who can do the job. Those who fit the template of the proper candidate are at odds with, or cannot identify, the national direction and aims of the respective nation's people, and as a consequence choose not to participate. Rather than a leadership crisis, it is a crisis borne of misunderstanding the people before whom such a leader should stand. It is as if Winston Churchill in 1940 saw the workload and the travails before him and told the British people, "Sorry. My painting and my masonry builder's hobbies are more important."


It is a crisis of misunderstanding the people.



To me, all the present candidates for leadership seem to be losers. Their self-interested preening is nauseating. Service is the last item on their agenda.


What can be done is the right thing, which is to consult the Torah for guidance. In it, we find a shepherd minding his own business, enjoying the eternal pleasures of the meadows and vistas of Biblical Israel while guarding his flock, when who should approach over the horizon but the prophet Samuel. From that moment, Saul knew his life's pleasures were gone forever. He tried to talk the Jewish people out of the notion of kings altogether, but as we know, they would have none of it. Saul was drafted. It seems to have been much the same deal for David as well, with Solomon evidently being the first king of Israel who got any unambivalent pleasure out of the arrangement.


Israel, the USA and Great Britain today need to draft the right person based on, "Can they do the work?" and not, "Do they have a photogenic smile or sweet party line?"


The steps forward are small and would seem to me, simple:


  1. In an age in which a clear statement of national purpose is held in contempt, a national agenda must be crafted and a formal timeline and budget assigned. Those who would choose to serve need not wait to move forward on most of their line items until an election, either, as most of what is out of whack are not the sort of problems politicians can solve or will solve. Energy issues are an engineering problem fully within the purview of the private sector to solve, but for the issuance of construction and operating permits, and inspection and safety issues. Export and trade development do not need politicians going on junkets and distributing largess to attract deal-makers; it takes but a small core of private sector traders to make foreign transactions blossom.

  2. Some group of responsible experts on leadership needs to craft a profile of who the people of Israel or of the other two nations want, based on proven expertise and character of the candidate. Then, do a "prophet Samuel" on them: recruit that person. From the looks of history, those who seem least to want the job have proven to be the best candidates.

    The present candidates' self-interested preening is nauseating.



  3. Bundling of issues so that they are congruent with a party line is a direct extension of a cultural addiction to the concept of the excellence of ideological purity. Democracy was and is meant to serve as an antidote to this self-imposed millstone around the neck of people trying to get the work done. Hazing of prospects using ideological sieves chase away the very best of candidates. You cannot maintain a "can do" attitude in the face of a party caucus who will reject or accept you on the basis of what your favourite colour is.

  4. Limiting the recruitment of a candidate to the usual suspects is not the best way to go. Maybe I have my interpretation of Jewish history wrong, but to me, Bar Kochkba was not exactly one's ideal example of an observant Jew, to put it mildly; he left that to Rabbi Akiva. Pinhas Rutenberg told both Jews and Arabs to go to Gehenna and humiliated himself before the British Colonial Office to ensure that his people had electric power, because no Jew would finance the undertaking.

  5. Lastly, and this should be firstly, the people of Israel, the USA and Great Britain need to be consulted on what they need and want. No more bully pulpits, coudcuckooland, imported, dictatorial "this is what you should do, because it works in my country" dogma. No more wishing upon stars, then asking everyone else to join in. To solve problems, they must be identified, quantified and their solutions mapped, time-lined, staffed and budgeted.


    Everyone has been listening to Bill Gates too long, and emulating his example. He sells computer software made in isolation, and then tells people, "This is what I have to sell you. You must buy this, and pay this much for it. I do not ask what you want, you take what I give you." That is not leadership; that is lawful extortion, and is not how serving the people works. The due diligence has to be done first - the due diligence of trying to solve a problem or two out of office, with the current players, on a positive, proactive basis - just to see if the prospective candidate can fill the shoes.

    "Can they do the work?" and not, "Do they have a sweet party line?"

No one wants to hear about politics. Everyone wants to know what the candidate is going to do, specifically and in detail.
The only difference now between Haiti and Israel is that Israel lacks a foreign occupying military and Israel has a budget. Haiti has wall-to-wall scholars, religious luminaries, saints, magnificent engineers (try keeping an electrical and water and sewer system going on no budget for 50 years - that's the life for engineers in Haiti) and highly challenged, yet competent, doctors. This is true not only of Israel, but of the USA and Great Britain, too. But like Haiti, there is no national direction nor unified view nor vision for the future.
Fiddle around long enough without a vision, and the wolves of the forest will descend on the shepherdless flocks - this time, to win their dinner.