The 2 faces of Israel

This conversation is coming back a lot lately and i decided to share the thought.

I live in Israel but I have the feeling to live in 2 different countries.

One where economy is healthy and unemployment rate is getting better, companies are acquired or acquiring, where real estate and tourism has never been so good and high tech is rocking more than ever (Google created 2 R&D centers in Israel and Microsoft is hiring 150 engineers over the next year).

On the other side i feel ashamed by the political life of Israel not only because of the Winograd report and the responsibility of our leaders in war that was justified by made for nothing but also by the many scandals that are surrounding our political class (our president, our prime minister and others). And it looks like most israelis want a serious change.

I really like this country, and each time i am asked i have answer the same answer. no regret i came here. the opposite. But i am still wondering how on earth such a country is still outperforming economically with such a disastrous political situation. Is this a miracle?

If you want to have a great different view on Israel i recommand TelAvivDeclick (the picture above is from there). This is a beautiful photoblog created by Emma Mrejen, a french born israeli citizen. The blog design itself is not amazing, but the pictures are really beautiful and catch the reality of the life i know here and that should be known a little more than what you see in the news (texte is in French but you can focus on pictures only)

Let’s hope the two faces will fade out to one. Soon

Tags: israel

Comments

[Emma Mrejen]

Merci Ouriel,

De me consacrer la prime page de ton blog de ce jour.

Cela me flatte beaucoup d 'avoir ete consulte par "the blogger".

J'ai entendu parler de toi par un jeune etudiant d'HEC, avec qui je suis entree en contact par mail, il y a 5 mois quand le mot blog etait pour moi encore du Chinois. Depuis j'ai navigue dans cet univers passionant, et beaucoup lu tes nombreux posts.

Je serais ravie de profitter de ton expertise, entre 2 des tes conferences, voyages, diners d affaires, concert de jazz, afin que desormais le design ne fasse au mieux l'objet d'aucun commentaire.

Je ne l ai pas mal pris, je partage ton avis, et suis en faveur du feed back.

Merci de l avoir exprime

A bientot, je l'espere

Emma,

[Uri L.]

Just a few quick notes to follow this post:

True - the legislation framework here must get a serious shake immediately in order to prevent the flood of corruption that goes to the highest levels. In Israel you can't really expect from people to have a deep sense of integrity (especially in civil service), so sanctions should be more powerful and even intimidating.

I suppose we can see similar examples of other highly advanced and cultural countries with a regime that sometimes take very lame decisions. However the scandal with the President here is definitely a most embarrassing affair.

It's a common thought among the main "political analysts" here that since Rabin's assassination Israel has been undergoing a continuous leadership crisis - not even one gov completed a full cadence, the civils have gradually lost their confidence in the authorities, and generally feel there's a degradation that the original moral values we had in the early days are lost (what was called ממלכתיות).

Some say it's a continuous post traumatic effect in a national scale (it's interesting to examine a possible correlation with Ireland - check Sinead's amazing song "Famine" ), but I guess it's also part of the daily middle east turmoil.
We'll probably won't have soon the serenity and calmness that Scandinavian countries generally enjoy - but we can hope for it.

I guess our comfort is that we still have enough good visionary people that want and willing to work for a change.

So apart from the urgent need to cleanse the putrefaction and restore order, I hope the some of the talked plans for joint Israeli-Arab ventures around cleantech and hightech (g.ho.st) will gain momentum - this could open an exciting horizon in both economic and regional aspects.

[Ori Lahav]

Ouriel
I liked reading this.
Can really feel the empathy for this country.
I mostly liked the Idea of photographer blogs. those can really expose to the world what Israel look like.
here is another photographer blog
http://www.talshavit.com/WordPress/

I know you are an artist of introductions. Maybe encouraging photographers to meet and blog together can bring to the world our true faces.

what do you say?

[ouriel]

Wonderful blog indeed. Excellent idea. If some photographers want to showcase their blog i will be happy to do it here