The "Two-State solution," the only real solution there is, is receding into the background. The apartheid regime which is already established in the occupied Palestinian territories is spreading into Israel proper. In a few years we shall have full-fledged apartheid in all the historical country, with a Jewish minority lording it over an Arab Palestinian majority.
In the unlikely event that Israel is compelled to grant the Palestinians civil rights, the Jewish State in all of the historical country would rapidly become an Arab State in all of the historical country.
The United States, Israel's only remaining ally, is declining slowly and surely. The emerging power, China, has no memories of the Holocaust.
Social inequality is rampant in Israel, more than in any developed country. That is as far as one can get from the ideals of early Israel.
The democratic foundations of the "Only Democracy in the Middle East" are shaking. The Supreme Court is under enduring siege by a gang of semi-fascists nestling in our government, the Knesset is becoming a sorry caricature of a parliament, the free TV and printed media are slowly but surely becoming undergoing Gleichschaltung (sorry, no Hebrew or English word available).
Can this situation become worse? In my long life I have learned that no situation is so bad that it cannot get worse. And no leader is so detestable that his successor cannot be even more so.
That said, there may be powerful forces at work, unseen and unheard, that will change things for the better. It's like a dam on a river. Behind it, the water rises, slowly, silently, unnoticed. One day the dam bursts, quite suddenly, and the water submerges the landscape.
This will not happen without us playing our part. What we do -- or do not do -- is a part of the changing pattern. Hoping and believing is not enough. Doing and acting is of the essence.
So here we are, the incorrigible optimists.
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