Globes business news editor Hagai Golan told those present that the fact that a Market Watch pole released this week shows that 86 percent of the country believes that wealthy businessmen control the government “leaves no room for doubt – we live in a corrupt country.”
Golan said that though the wealthy elite in Israel are important for the country’s national strength, “they should not be above the national enforcement bodies – this is the root of much of the problem.”
“What happened to us? What has gone wrong?” asked journalist Ari Shavit. His answer was one that previous speakers such as State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss had alluded to. “What went wrong is Israel’s leadership echelon. The Israeli public is an extraordinary one, but the Israeli elites have lost their way through the decades. Our political elite has become unfit. It does not need a cosmetic change, but an implant– during the war and since the war. Even the academic elite does not contribute. The legal elite tried to maintain balances and didn’t always succeed. The media elite failed, showing the public a false picture in the 90s, improved slightly since then, but still is not fulfilling its duties.”
Shavit, who penned a cynical faux-memo on the eve of elections from the “eighteen families” who run most of Israel’s commerce and media, spent much of the time lambasting Israel’s richest families. “The business elite, which is so impressive in its work with the economy, have failed to grasp the political situation Israel find itself in.”
The seasoned journalist, who soured on the Disengagement and became an outspoken critic of the Kadima phenomenon, was not all doom and gloom. “I am an optimistic man. I don’t just love this people, I believe in it. I don’t just love this crazy country, I believe in it.”
Former Knesset Member and founder of the Shinui Party Amnon Rubinstein, speaking on the same panel on Israeli patriotism as Shavit, said that the fact that Israelis don’t leave during wartime, despite the relatively low cost of emigration and ease of obtaining a visa, was an example of Israeli patriotism.
Shavit presented a vision of a more passionate patriotism, directing his hope away from the coastal plain and toward Israel’s periphery. “The development towns, the agricultural communities and the settlements are where the loyalty lies,” he said. “It is amazing that the very people the state neglects most are those who remain faithful to the state. There is a certain type of Jewish identity that cannot be defined that is alive there.”