We need to get involved! Time For English Speakers in Israel to Step Up

First Published in the Jerusalem Post on July 6th 2011

OK, let’s get the disclaimer out the way. I am an adviser to Isaac “Bougie” Herzog in his campaign for leadership of the Labour Party.  I want Bougie to win the leadership in order that he can reform and rebuild the Labour party and establish a viable alternative to the current administration. 

There, now you know where I stand. But before you discount me as a naïve dreamer, totally out of touch with reality, allow me to explain why I am involved.

I moved back to Israel from the UK three years ago with my three children. I did so because of my love of this country and my conviction that this is by far the best place to bring up my children.  In general, I am happy with my decision, and feel that we do indeed have a better life here than in the UK.  

However, over the past three years, I have become increasingly concerned and frustrated. I am concerned about the erosion of democratic values in our country.  I am frustrated by the ongoing assaults on our freedom of expression.  I am angered by the acute concentration of wealth in the country, by the huge par between rich and poor and with the shameful levels of poverty in the nation, where one in four children now lives beneath the poverty line. 

I am incensed at what I see as the sacrifice of national interests for the sake of personal interests and political survival. I am dumbfounded by the seemingly complete lack of vision or leadership in the current administration.  In short the country is headed in the wrong direction, which puts my children’s future at risk and brings into question the wisdom of my decision to bring them here.  So, what to do?

I have always been politically aware with an interest in current affairs.  I suppose that’s why I make documentary films. However I have always avoided politics and political activism like the plague, employing the familiar and perhaps logical arguments, politics is corrupt, politics is no place for an idealist, politicians would eat me alive, what can one man do?  It’s a waste of time.

Then I stopped myself and took along hard look.  The simple fact is that politics in this country is corrupt.  How corrupt as compared to mature western democracies, to be honest, I don't know.  Let’s just say that the quality of human capital involved in politics in this country could do with improvement.  But, and it’s a big but, if all I do is complain while leaving politics to the “jackals” who currently reside in the Knesset, then well, as they say, a people tends to get the government it deserves.  One thing clear to me however is that we as a people need to deserve much, much better.

So I said to myself,” stop complaining.  Do something!”  And, now I am. Agree or disagree with me, whatever your political stance, I am sure you can agree that the strength of a democracy is measured not by the strength of those in power, rather by the strength of its opposition, one thing that forme is all too conspicuous by its absence over recent years.

We in the English speaking community (Americans too), understand what democracy is and how it is supposed to work.  We come from mature and stable democracies.  We come from civil societies where the basic freedoms are a matter of course.  We moved to this country out of ideology and believe (most of us) in the Jewish democratic values set out in the declaration of independence. 

We are involved in every element of Israeli society, from high tech to education, finance to the arts.  We run charities, volunteer with immigrants, disenfranchised youth, battered women, drug addicts and a host of deserving causes.  As a group we have no particular special interest, we just want to see the country flourish, to succeed across the board, to ensure that the country we chose to bring our children to, provides them with a promising future.

But what we don’t do is get involved with politics.  In the past there have been several efforts to get the English speaking community involved in politics, however with little success.  I see the English speaking community as perhaps the greatest untapped resource for politics in this country, with a great deal to contribute.  The cynicism and apathy with which we approach politics must be overcome.

There are many of us who have the skills and ability as well as the language skills to make a difference.  As long as we leave the world of politics to the corrupt, the self interested and the mediocre, we will continue to get far less than we deserve, but deserve no better unless we are willing to get involved. If we want things to change we have to change them.  Perhaps for starters we need to change our attitude.

Regardless of you personal view on my personal mission to return Labour to a prominent position in politics in this country, or perhaps precisely because you strongly disagree, I urge you to get involved.  Join a political party, become an activist, start a pressure group.

If you want to be a Member of Knesset, maybe even a Minister or a local councillor or just be involved in some manner, on a local or national level, it doesn’t matter.   As they say, it’s taking part that counts, and in this particular matter it counts for a great deal. 

To my mind this is the best way in which the English speaking community can truly make a difference, influence events and help this country earn the kind of political system and government, which at the moment we can only hope to deserve.