All societies have various rites of passage whereby the individual is considered to have reached a stage in which he is considered a fully competent, autonomous member of society. This age of reason coincides more or less with both mental and physiological changes in the person concerned. In Judaism, the Bar Mitzvah ceremony marks the young boy's assumption of the rights and duties (at least religiously) of the grown man; in ancient Rome, the same transition was marked by the exchange of the childish cloak for the toga virilis.
Nations, too, have their periods of sudden maturity, albeit without the ceremonial fanfare of the above. The United States, for example, entered into its own after World War One, beginning to assume the role its material and geographic position had almost predestined for it. The nations of Europe, on the other hand, emerged from the Great War in an arthritic, almost imbecilic condition, from which they have not recovered to the present day. Then, there are states such as Israel, which stand between a prolonged adolescence and a creeping senility.
The State of Israel, for all its newly found economic wealth, has yet to enter the stage of autonomy and maturity, which is as necessary for a state's development as for a person's. Its close dependence on the United States, while arguably necessary in the past for political reasons, has now merely resulted in a suppression of Israel's own potentialities in favor of the stronger state. This situation can best be understood in terms of a parent-child relationship, since the weaker nation, like the child in relation to its sire, by the very nature of its deference, shows that it needs its powerful ally in order to survive.
As long as Israel continues to look to the US for military, monetary and political aid, without developing its own resources in these areas, it risks becoming a mere client state, without the freedom to truly develop itself according to its own wants and needs, a "felafel republic". This is born out by the almost total dependence of the Israeli prime minister (whoever he may be at the time) on cultivating good relations with the US government, even to the detriment of his own people (witness the current Ariel Sharon-George Bush debacle or the past Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton fiasco.)
Also, for the past fourteen years, Israel has consistently tempered its military response to Arab depredations in order to avoid American displeasure and censure. From Yitzchak Shamir's government's decision to refrain from retaliating against Iraq during the Gulf War, to the present Sharon government's attempt to surgically excise the Jewish communities of Samaria and Gaza from the State's living flesh, Israel's deference to US interests is obvious.
Controversy over military deals with China and Turkey also resulted in Israel backing down to its friend and canceling these transactions. Whether one agrees or not with the Jewish State's decision to sell arms to these countries, Israel is, theoretically, a sovereign nation, one able to make and to implement independent choices. The reality, however, seems to be different.
Israel has curtailed or reduced production of key components of its arms industry, such as the Merkava tank, in order to prevent direct competition with American arms manufacturers. While the US has no qualms about following its sacro egoismo (sacred egotism), bombing civilians (as in the US-led NATO aerial assault on Belgrade) or invading other lands (Iraq, Afghanistan), Israel is always looking over its shoulder to make sure its policies don't offend.
Israel has also passively allowed the United Nations to interfere in its internal affairs to an unprecedented degree. The litany of UN offenses is too well known to require much elaboration, but the following examples are typical: Security Council resolution 162, of April 11, 1961, and resolution 250, of April 27, 1968, both of which attempted to dissuade Israel from holding its annual military parade in Jerusalem, and resolution 251, of May 2, 1968, which condemned Israel for holding said procession. For Israel to display its military might in any part of the Jewish people's historic capital was apparently considered so provocative as to warrant official condemnation, while similar maneuvers by the Soviet Union, an imperialist power and permanent Security Council member, were accepted without a fuss. The prejudice against the smaller nation was obvious and deliberate. Rather than withdrawing from this biased assemblage or mounting a campaign to counter the prevalent pro-Arab propaganda dominant therein, Israel has simply made weak attempts at explaining its increasingly beleaguered position.
Israel has also meekly allowed trouble-making individuals from such groups as the International Solidarity Movement for Palestine to freely enter the country. This transnational rabble, whose only goal is to help the Arabs at Israel's expense, should be treated as a collective persona non grata and automatically forbidden entrance by the government, regardless of any possible displeasure on the part of the international community.
The Israeli government has also suffered from a too facile imitation of Western political models, while remaining in the hands of conniving politicians. Giving lip service to "democracy", the Sharon administration has blithely blundered ahead with its suicidal plans, completely ignoring the popular will.
This combination has led to the Israeli public being force-fed a steady diet of mindless babble concerning "painful concessions" and "a new Middle East"; slick but soulless commercials for a farrago of nonsense. Meanwhile, the Israeli public remains passive and confused, waiting for guidance, but finding only empty phrases and simplistic catchwords.
It is time that Israel's political leaders purged themselves of the ghetto within their bowels and accept the idea that having a state means freedom for Jews, not simply a different form of submission to Gentiles. Jews are therefore no longer beholden to any particular group or people's good graces for their survival. Only by such a "radical" change in Jerusalem's thinking will Israel be able to realize its vast possibilities.
One is strongly reminded of the essayist Ahad Ha'am's desire to form a new spiritual community in the "Promised Land", one which would allow the Jewish people to develop a new civilization in accordance with its own inclinations and historical experiences. Ideally, this would be the way out; a Jewish state, independent both culturally and politically, finally able to take its rightful place among the world's premier nations. The question now is, is it already too late?
Nations, too, have their periods of sudden maturity, albeit without the ceremonial fanfare of the above. The United States, for example, entered into its own after World War One, beginning to assume the role its material and geographic position had almost predestined for it. The nations of Europe, on the other hand, emerged from the Great War in an arthritic, almost imbecilic condition, from which they have not recovered to the present day. Then, there are states such as Israel, which stand between a prolonged adolescence and a creeping senility.
The State of Israel, for all its newly found economic wealth, has yet to enter the stage of autonomy and maturity, which is as necessary for a state's development as for a person's. Its close dependence on the United States, while arguably necessary in the past for political reasons, has now merely resulted in a suppression of Israel's own potentialities in favor of the stronger state. This situation can best be understood in terms of a parent-child relationship, since the weaker nation, like the child in relation to its sire, by the very nature of its deference, shows that it needs its powerful ally in order to survive.
As long as Israel continues to look to the US for military, monetary and political aid, without developing its own resources in these areas, it risks becoming a mere client state, without the freedom to truly develop itself according to its own wants and needs, a "felafel republic". This is born out by the almost total dependence of the Israeli prime minister (whoever he may be at the time) on cultivating good relations with the US government, even to the detriment of his own people (witness the current Ariel Sharon-George Bush debacle or the past Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton fiasco.)
Also, for the past fourteen years, Israel has consistently tempered its military response to Arab depredations in order to avoid American displeasure and censure. From Yitzchak Shamir's government's decision to refrain from retaliating against Iraq during the Gulf War, to the present Sharon government's attempt to surgically excise the Jewish communities of Samaria and Gaza from the State's living flesh, Israel's deference to US interests is obvious.
Controversy over military deals with China and Turkey also resulted in Israel backing down to its friend and canceling these transactions. Whether one agrees or not with the Jewish State's decision to sell arms to these countries, Israel is, theoretically, a sovereign nation, one able to make and to implement independent choices. The reality, however, seems to be different.
Israel has curtailed or reduced production of key components of its arms industry, such as the Merkava tank, in order to prevent direct competition with American arms manufacturers. While the US has no qualms about following its sacro egoismo (sacred egotism), bombing civilians (as in the US-led NATO aerial assault on Belgrade) or invading other lands (Iraq, Afghanistan), Israel is always looking over its shoulder to make sure its policies don't offend.
Israel has also passively allowed the United Nations to interfere in its internal affairs to an unprecedented degree. The litany of UN offenses is too well known to require much elaboration, but the following examples are typical: Security Council resolution 162, of April 11, 1961, and resolution 250, of April 27, 1968, both of which attempted to dissuade Israel from holding its annual military parade in Jerusalem, and resolution 251, of May 2, 1968, which condemned Israel for holding said procession. For Israel to display its military might in any part of the Jewish people's historic capital was apparently considered so provocative as to warrant official condemnation, while similar maneuvers by the Soviet Union, an imperialist power and permanent Security Council member, were accepted without a fuss. The prejudice against the smaller nation was obvious and deliberate. Rather than withdrawing from this biased assemblage or mounting a campaign to counter the prevalent pro-Arab propaganda dominant therein, Israel has simply made weak attempts at explaining its increasingly beleaguered position.
Israel has also meekly allowed trouble-making individuals from such groups as the International Solidarity Movement for Palestine to freely enter the country. This transnational rabble, whose only goal is to help the Arabs at Israel's expense, should be treated as a collective persona non grata and automatically forbidden entrance by the government, regardless of any possible displeasure on the part of the international community.
The Israeli government has also suffered from a too facile imitation of Western political models, while remaining in the hands of conniving politicians. Giving lip service to "democracy", the Sharon administration has blithely blundered ahead with its suicidal plans, completely ignoring the popular will.
This combination has led to the Israeli public being force-fed a steady diet of mindless babble concerning "painful concessions" and "a new Middle East"; slick but soulless commercials for a farrago of nonsense. Meanwhile, the Israeli public remains passive and confused, waiting for guidance, but finding only empty phrases and simplistic catchwords.
It is time that Israel's political leaders purged themselves of the ghetto within their bowels and accept the idea that having a state means freedom for Jews, not simply a different form of submission to Gentiles. Jews are therefore no longer beholden to any particular group or people's good graces for their survival. Only by such a "radical" change in Jerusalem's thinking will Israel be able to realize its vast possibilities.
One is strongly reminded of the essayist Ahad Ha'am's desire to form a new spiritual community in the "Promised Land", one which would allow the Jewish people to develop a new civilization in accordance with its own inclinations and historical experiences. Ideally, this would be the way out; a Jewish state, independent both culturally and politically, finally able to take its rightful place among the world's premier nations. The question now is, is it already too late?