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The problem for Israel, no matter who or what party is in government, is that
there are risks everywhere one looks, and they show every sign of getting more,
not less, serious.
The “Arab Spring” has morphed into an Islamic winter. National frontiers
that were put in place by British and French diplomats after the fall of the
Ottoman Empire are vanishing. Centuries-old conflicts between tribes and rival
religious communities have reignited. The old Cold War system of nations has
given way to a world without a single geopolitical centre of gravity. Perhaps
most seriously, Iran seems determined to get nuclear weapons, and, in my view,
may succeed in doing so.
Where Israel is concerned, relations with our indisputably most important
ally, the United States, are more strained than at any time in decades.
Diplomatic ties with Europe, our single largest trading partner, have been
growing steadily worse. And the only real certainty is that anyone who tells you
that they know absolutely where things are heading next is lying. Just ask Hosni
Mubarak, who, despite having nearly half-a-million soldiers and security
operatives at his disposal, was utterly blindsided, and very soon toppled and
imprisoned, by an uprising that began with a sudden show of popular anger in
Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
Internally as well, Israel faces dangers. Chief among them is the alarming
erosion of the standards of civil discourse, amid the increasingly shrill, often
hateful, divisions between left and right, secular and religious, rich and poor
and, most seriously of all, Jews and Arabs. While we remain economically
successful, the fruits of our wealth are being ever more unevenly shared, and the
prospects for continued growth constrained by the lack of any visible prospect
of long-term peace.
Bibi Netanyahu, of course, knows all of this. Indeed, he has repeatedly
spoken of the multiple threats Israel faces, not only in somber terms, but at
times almost apocalyptically.
That works, politically. Politicians, not just in Israel but everywhere, know
that it is a lot easier to win elections on fear than on hope.
Yet my own prescription — learned, as this book recounts, from years on the
battlefield, then reinforced by my years in government — is that Israel must
resist being guided by either of those alternatives. Not fear, certainly. But
neither by simple, untempered hope. Though the stakes have become much
higher since my night flight back from Camp David nearly 15 years ago, our
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