I

Thoughts

A MONTHLY MIX OF IDEAS

A 15-Year Israel Plan

Herzliya, Israel/JTA

A

t its 60th anniversary, Israel
needs a new vision that not
only will guide its priorities and
inform its actions, but also will be relevant
to the lives of all Israelis.
This is why the Israel 15 Vision, a
Reut Institute plan that calls for Israel
to become one of the 15 most developed
nations within 15 years, is so compelling.
It requires improving the quality of life of
all citizens.
Quality of life is a very elusive issue.
Its definition changes by geography. The
quality of life of a religious and spiritual
person is different from that of a secular
businessperson.
Notwithstanding, quality of life is also
visible and tangible. For example, anyone
can tell that the average quality of life in
countries like Canada or Australia is high-
er than in Greece or Spain. Furthermore,
although income per capita is an impor-
tant factor determining quality, other
public goods such as health, education,
employment and social cohesion play a
critical role as well.
Israel's growth in recent years can be
intoxicating. However, we often tend to
forget that the world economy has experi-
enced significant growth as well in recent
years.
Hence, impressive rates of growth not-
withstanding, Israel didn't succeed in leap-
frogging — catching up with the leading
nations of the world.
In contrast, during the first 20 years

of the state, Israel's economy bounced
upwards. Israel doubled its well-being
relative to the United States, starting
with an average income of 30 percent of
the U.S. average and reaching 60 percent
by the early 1970s. Since then, however,
Israel has not been able to bridge the gaps
with the richer countries while countries
such as Ireland, Singapore and
South Korea have made leaps
ahead.

At Issue
The importance of closing the
gaps with the richest nations
stems from the mobility of
people, technology and invest-
ment.
As these highly mobile
resources "choose" which
country to go to, nations
compete for them. Success in this fierce
battle is essential for the future of any
country, but is critical for the survival of
Israel.
Israel suffers from the largest gap
between the level of talent of its popula-
tion and the quality of life offered its
residents.
Israel is ranked 28th in the world in
quality of life, yet the population is among
the most educated and technologically
savvy in the world. Indeed, Israel is a
leading exporter of talent, with one of the
highest levels of brain drain among devel-
oped nations.
Becoming one of the 15 leading nations
— roughly at the level of Holland,

Singapore or New Zealand — requires
leapfrogging our socioeconomic perfor-
mance and growing at an annual pace
of 7 percent to 8 percent for at least 10
years. This is a national challenge that will
require widespread mobilization of the
key sectors of society.
The phenomenon of leapfrogging is dif-
ferent than growth. While the
world has established a recipe
for stability and growth in the
form of a set of accepted prin-
ciples known as the Washington
Consensus, which primarily
calls for fiscal and monetary
discipline and privatization,
there is no such recipe for leap-
frogging. In other words, each
country charts its own path.

Driving Force
However, the common denominator
among the countries that have leaped
ahead has been their agenda. They all
established an ambitious vision, identi-
fied growth engines and exhausted them,
benchmarked their performance to
other countries, improved the capacity of
their government to make decisions and
implement them, enhanced collaboration
among key sectors of society and invested
in human capital.
In addition, nations that leaped ahead
contained their unique challenge and
tapped into their individual potential. For
example, Singapore understood that it was
located at a junction between East and
West and therefore developed the world's

leading airport, seaport and airline, while
Ireland tapped the benefits of its inclusion
into the European Union.
We also know that leapfrog happens as
a consequence of a combination between
top-down leadership by the government
and bottom-up mobilization of the key
sectors of society. Hence, on the one hand,
reforming Israeli governance is key since
it is significantly underperforming com-
pared to our business sector.
At the same time, we have to find ways
to harness mayors and local governments,
businesspeople, philanthropists, nonprof-
its and world Jewry to the Israel 15 Vision
and create the space that allows them to
make contributions as well.
Finally, growth and development have
to turn into a national obsession. We have
had such passions in the past: greening
the desert, redeeming the land or immi-
gration absorption. The challenge for the
Israel 15 Vision is to become a household
phrase and a framework that inspires
action.
The Israel 15 Vision may be ambitious
but it is attainable. Israel already is a world
leader in key areas, such as research and
development, human capital and technol-
ogy.
We have outperformed expectations in
the past. There is no reason we cannot do
it again.

❑

Gidi Grinstein is founder and president of
the Reut Institute. This article is based

on a speech he gave at the 2008 Herzliya
Conference.

Blame from page A25

believed it to be literally true.
But while most of us are prepared to let
pass without argument, if not accept, the
notion that the catastrophic war against
Rome that ended with the destruction of
Jerusalem and the mass slaughter of the
Jews in 70 C.E. (which was very much the
equivalent of the Holocaust in its time)
was the consequence of Jewish "sin," this is
not something that most of us can swallow
about the Shoah.
It is one thing to speak in this manner
about events of 2,000 years ago. It is quite
another to do so about recent history, the
events of which are still vivid to survivors.
The Torah discusses the affairs of bibli-
cal Jewry within a context of a belief in a
God who directly intervenes in our lives,
including the use of collective punishment.
To apply this to Treblinka and Auschwitz
is something that the vast majority of

A26

June 26 • 2008

contemporary Jews — believers and non-
believers alike — simply cannot abide.
Hagee has a long record of philo-Semitic
and pro-Israel activism in an era when
the Jewish people badly needed friends. It
should also be acknowledged that Zionism,
oddly enough, motivated his convoluted
theology about the Shoah. The "sin" of
which he speaks is the unwillingness of
European Jewry to make aliyah before
World War II — though you have to won-
der whether he thinks the same lesson
should apply these days to his buddies at
the ZOA.
None of us can pretend to know whether
natural disasters, wars or acts of genocide
are the will of God. Though Hagee's defend-
ers are right that he, in a way, is on the
same page with some Orthodox thinkers, to
speak of the Holocaust or anti-Semitism as
being the fault of anyone but the Nazis and
other anti-Semites does a disservice to both

history and justice.

Not About Him
But let us not be under any illusion that
the attention paid to Hagee has much to do
with him.
Partisanship in the upcoming presiden-
tial election is rising to an all-time high,
and the Jewish vote will be bitterly fought
over by the two major parties. Hagee is
merely a stalking horse for other interests.
The tactic of trying to tie Hagee to
McCain is a loser. Unlike Obama's 20-year
relationship with Rev. Wright, McCain
barely knows Hagee. He is merely a stand-
in for the smear that the tens of millions of
Christian conservatives who love Israel are
closeted Jew-haters.
This is a nasty piece of religious prejudice
that many Jews are all too willing to believe
because they despise the evangelicals'
domestic politics.

Just as some Republicans would like us
to believe that an Israel-hater like Jimmy
Carter is representative of all Democrats,
there are Democrats who would like to sell
the false notion that a man who has been
mischaracterized as a Jew-hating Bible-
thumper personifies the GOP.
As the debate begins over Obama and
McCain's positions on Israel's security
and their intentions with respect to Iran's
would-be Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Jewish Democrats and Republicans have
plenty to scrap about.
It would be far better to stick to these
life-and-death issues and leave the mis-
guided, though well-meaning, Hagee to
lapse back into the obscurity from which he
arose.

❑

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the
Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. He can be con-
tacted via e-mail at: jtobin@jewishexponent.com .