New Israel, part II

Some time ago, I wrote an article with the title “New Israel.” My idea was borne from the fact that the status quo in Middle East politics was failure, has always been failure and will always be failure. The Israeli government has, in my opinion, a policy of Arab and Palestinian exclusion rather than inclusion. That’s why failure is normal.

Even worse, our foreign policy is awful, has been awful for over fifty years and will remain so. It’s more of the kicking the can down the road that Washington politicians like to do. Some people call our politicians in Washington “gutless wonders.” Do you?

Why gutless? Because both our government and the Israeli government live in fear. They have become incapable of solutions based thinking, but repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Last night I happened to watch a documentary that made me sit up and pay close attention. The 2012 movie, “The Gatekeepers” is the story of the Shin Bet, the internal security division of the Israeli government similar to the Mossad. What was riveting about this movie was that the narrators were the heads of this agency over years 1980-2011, talking about their successes and failures.

The six Shin Bet heads were Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter, Yuval Diskin, Carmi Gillon, Yaakov Peri and Avraham Shalom.

If you want to understand why Israel is in trouble, and how New Israel can actually help, and isn’t just rhetorical noise like our and their politicians make, then watch it. You will not be disappointed.