It Can Also Get Worse

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni is a woman so consumed by political ambition that the interests of the country she seeks to lead barely enter into her calculations. President Obama’s May 19 remarks outlining his vision of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process were clearly not an act of friendship. The president sought to back Prime Minister Netanyahu into a corner by dropping his bombshell as the latter was about to leave for America for talks with the president and to address a joint session of Congress.

As we argued last week Obama’s speech cast a shadow of illegitimacy over Israel’s presence on any land captured in a defensive war in 1967 made short shrift of the Israel’s need to ensure that the West Bank not become a terrorist haven and adopted the Palestinian demand to negotiate borders of a Palestinian state without recognizing a Jewish state and renouncing the right of return at the same time.

Yet before Netanyahu could catch his breath or figure out how to address this curveball thrown at him Livni rushed to blame him for bringing American-Israeli diplomatic relations to an impasse. Just as Obama could not bring himself to criticize the Palestinians for the freeze in the “peace process” — no mention of Palestinian Authority incitement and encouragement of a cult of martyrdom no mention of the Palestinians refusal to sit down to negotiate over the last two years — so Livni could not bring herself to utter a word of criticism of Obama.

Her expressed view of the role of the Israeli prime minister is that his or her task is to propitiate angry American presidents with whatever sacrifices they demand. So much for a free and sovereign people in their own land. Israel is an American satrapy. Zionism’s forefathers must be rolling in their grave.

The most charitable view of Livni’s haste to cast blame on Netanyahu is that she has fully internalized the view of her predecessor as leader of Kadima former prime minister Ehud Olmert who famously said that without hope for a two-state solution “the State of Israel is finished.”

The expression of such sentiments is an effective guarantee that the hoped-for resolution can never come about. Only if the Palestinians come to the recognition that Israel is not going to disappear or throw in the towel is there hope that they will ever embark on serious negotiations. To the extent that they believe time is on their side — a frequently repeated trope in Palestinian propaganda — why engage in negotiations. Let the Israelis despair and go back to Germany and Poland and Morocco as Helen Thomas suggested.

In his speech President Obama did everything possible to encourage precisely such feelings of despair. He spoke of the Israel’s increasing isolation in the international community as something inexorable without acknowledging that there is a good deal the United States can do to prevent that isolation or pointing out the hypocrisy and manipulation of the language of human rights that underlies it. For good measure the president talked about the demographic threat to Israel — a majority of Arabs between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River — if Israel cannot find a way to separate itself from a Palestinian state. (Actually the demographic trends are now in the opposite direction.)

The statement oft-heard from President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton of late — “the status quo is unsustainable” — is the counsel of despair. International isolation is a serious problem as are the tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel. But it is not within Israel’s power to create a “peace” — or at least not without recklessly endangering its future existence.

If one is losing in tennis it makes sense to change strategy since there are only two possible outcomes: winning or losing. But in the real world a bad situation can not only get better. It can get worse. Sometimes the only course is to play the hand that you have been dealt calmly and patiently and above all without panicking.

The Oslo process the withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the Gaza withdrawal are all examples of what happens when Israel’s leaders decide “the status quo is unsustainable.” Yossi Beilin one of the principal architects of Oslo once said “I could not bear to live in a world in which peace is not possible.” But his unwillingness to live without fantasy resulted in nearly 1 500 Israelis losing their lives to terrorism in the first decade after Oslo.

Whether Tzipi Livni’s rush to condemn Netanyahu was the result of her ambitions or her fantasies or some combination of both it was both shameful and dangerous.

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Some Diamonds are Forever

In 1946 DeBeers the dominant power in the diamond market introduced the advertising slogan “A diamond is forever.” It is generally considered one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history. From 1946 until 1949 the percentage of American brides with diamond rings jumped from 30 percent to 80 percent.

I suspect that there are those who think that I’m on a one-man campaign to reverse DeBeers’ success. Not so. I’m hopeful that all future Rosenblum family kallos will receive beautiful diamond rings as have their predecessors. And just to prove my good intentions I offer the following story provided by my inside source in the retail diamond trade who runs a jewelry store from her home.

Recently a young baal teshuvah arrived at her home with his mother whom he had just picked up at the airport in a cab. The latter had no idea where she was or why she had been brought there. She had flown into Israel for the wedding of her son with whom relations had been tense since he became frum.

The young man presented his mother with diamond and pearl earrings to express his gratitude to her for having raised him. When the mother heard that she started crying as did the sales lady and everyone else in the store. Why was this gift so powerful? Because it was given spontaneously out of genuine feeling and not in response to any societal expectation. And because the chassan bought it himself there could be no doubt about the sincerity with which it was offered.

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A “Chilling” Phenomenon

Within the last week I heard almost identical remarks from the head of a program for older boys who had fallen between the cracks in the yeshivah system and from a mashgiach in one of the leading yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael. We are now witnessing a phenomenon previously unseen in Jewish history: Older teens with absolutely no goals or aspirations in life.

In times past there were always those who dropped out of yeshivos or shed mitzvah observance. But that did not mean losing all ambition. If ideology wasn’t what beckoned then it was commerce or law or medicine. Today there is a subset of young men some within the yeshivos and some who have dropped out with no thoughts of the future and no desire beyond “chilling.” And they may be content to do so while still affecting the outer garb of religious life and maintaining a certain level of mitzvah observance.

I do not know the cause of this phenomenon. Nor do I imagine for a minute that doing nothing provides these young men with any satisfaction. Only overcoming obstacles whether internal or external provides real satisfaction.

But one thing appears clear. This phenomenon can only be found in advanced affluent societies. A century ago in a European shtetl those who were not learning in yeshivah were working or apprenticed by the age of bar mitzvah. There was no such thing as doing nothing; anyone tempted to try would have starved to death unless he came from a very wealthy family.

This new phenomenon affects the entire Western world. Americans for instance are notoriously hard-working compared to Europeans. On average they work 35 percent more hours a year. But since 2007 according to Harvard economist Edward Glaeser the number of those unemployed (i.e. not working but looking for a job) in America has grown by 7 million and those not working by 13 million. That means a very large number of those not working are not even bothering to look for a job. And the number of adults who have never been married has grown by 5 million. In short there are a lot of people — more men than women — for whom the future holds few prospects.

We cannot solve all the problems of Western society. But we must identify the causes within our own society of youth without ambition and for whom the question “What will become you?” is seemingly meaningless. Only then can we begin thinking about how to remedy the waste of Hashem’s most precious resources.