A POST BY DR. HAROLD GOLDMEIER
Lost in the chaos of uprisings in Arab countries is the peace and quiet pervading Israeli cities. Israel is a pearl buried in the sands of a region with swirling seas of rioters, revolutionaries, and huddled masses in fear from looters and armies that bomb and strafe them. The quiet in Israel proves once again she is the only true Western democracy offering stability and reliability. This is a major story journalists are ignoring.
The Israeli economy is bustling along at 7.8% growth. It has the third most expensive real estate market in the world. Restaurants are packed and have waiting lines. Stores are filled with shoppers. Beaches and resorts are crowded with paddle ball and volleyball players, sun baked, slathered in oil, parasailing tourists. Tour buses race the highways and clog city streets. Visitors from Africa in gala dress are everywhere. Christians from around the world are trekking through holy sites listening in awe to tour guides who stir their souls. Asians from every Far Eastern country snap pictures at the Wailing Wall, while others tee off at the golf course in Caesarea. Israel has more than 600,000 Israeli Arabs who are citizens of the country living their lives in relative satisfaction to their brothers in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Even the Palestinians are busy in their spanking new shopping malls, travelling abroad, and getting an education universities built throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
Despite economic, social and political imperfections, Israel has always been a democracy. The Israeli justice system puts Jewish crooks on trial and in jail, even if they are former Prime Ministers, Presidents of the State, or cabinet Ministers. Arabs watch in amazement, and respect, and in no small measure this has influenced Arab calls for the ouster of their despots. Arabs have their own elected representatives in the Knesset, and in ministries that run the government. The military is viewed as a national service, and there are Arabs and Druze in every branch. Girls can serve in social service agencies instead of the military if they are so inclined. Israel is a real democracy, and that is why the Arabs prefer living in Israel than under despots in their own countries.
Despite this situation, Israel is the only country in the U.N. without access to the Security Council and most major commissions. Yet, Libya and all other Arab states with known records of torture, indiscriminate killings by government officials, and the worst discrimination against women, minorities, and other religions, are afforded good words, kind treatment, and acclaim by the U.N., Rev. Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Helen Thomas, and other sycophants that Israel is denied.
The boycotters of Israel are flabbergasted that in a month’s time rock-solid Arab rulers have fallen like dominos and Israel seems rock solid, concerned but not frightened. President Obama and the American intelligence services are being roundly criticized for not predicting uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, Tunisia, and Libya. Journalists are flummoxed in interviews stumbling for words to sound like they earn their money when asked how did this happen, and didn’t you know what about the rumblings in the streets? They become incoherent when asked to predict what these Arab governments will look like in two years as much as a truck driver in Cleveland. How can American news seekers trust any of them any longer? It is embarrassing to read their reports and listen to their broadcasts for how little they seem to have been aware this revolution could take place, and how little they know now about what to expect. They are all like bad weathermen.
A frequent conclusion drawn by the media is that if new democracies should emerge in Arab countries, they will be an existential threat to Israel’s existence. The new governments will not honor old treaties, if democracy prevails in the hell’s kitchens of the Arab world. How ludicrous does this sound? Arab nations who fought bloody wars on the desert sands with Israel, and terrorist leaders who blew airplanes out of the skies, and Sultans who hired and paid to kill Jewish and Arab civilians with mortars, and rockets, and suicide bombs, will become a threat to Israel? What are these journalists thinking or smoking in the street cafes? More than 40 mortars, Grad, and Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel since January. Soon they will hit Tel Aviv. Their reporting has been sorrowful.
Israel has always been a distraction for Arab dictators. They characteristically use a boogeyman to scare their own people, while keeping tight control over their internal affairs. The real story of the street revolutions is that the young people demonstrating and now doing hand to hand combat in some cities no longer buys the glittering generalities about Israel stifling their aspirations. Does anyone believe these twenty-something revolutionaries want to be conscripted into a war with Israel? Listen to what they tell you they want: jobs, food, education, health care, a say in their government, everything Israeli Arab have and more. Israel needs to do more for her citizens like all countries need to level their playing fields, but the new Arab world would do well to work with Israel if they really want to give their people a better life.
Israel is shelter gleaming in the sunshine of freedom and democracy in a region of the world that has no respect for innocent faces. Let’s pray her neighbors with new governments will befriend Israel. It is to their benefit too.
Dr. Harold Goldmeier Chicago, Ill. 773-764-4357 hgoldmeier@aol.com Dr. Goldmeier was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University earning a Doctorate in Education, and taught as an Assistant Professor at Tufts Medical School. He taught public elementary school, worked in government for three Governors, the U. S. Surgeon General, and in education for nearly two decades. He recently sold his business after nearly three decades. He has been married more than forty years with children living in America and Israel, and a son who recently served with the Israel Defense Forces. He has published more than two-dozen articles in professional journals and popular magazines and newspapers. Dr. Goldmeier currently a writer, consultant to government agencies, and to small businesses on economic growth and marketing. His most recent articles appeared in The Jewish Press on terrorism, and in Haaretz of Israel.
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