And that’s why it was so amusing, since when one’s political belief system leads one to pluck out Bibi-ism as the One True Path of Economic Righteousness in Israeli politics, and the Israeli voters suggest otherwise, blaming the voters—‘large segments of the public want that old time Socialist religion, and that, apparently, is what they are going to get’—makes one look rather like an entrant in an Aintree steeplechase.

In other news, turkeys voted against both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

It was only today that I realized how especially stupid this is—they may have a short school day in Israel—but they have a long school week, because they have school 6 days a week.

Clearly, David Bernstein knows next to nothing about Israelis schools or politics, but he doesn’t to need to know—his ideology provides all the answers irrespective of any facts.

moreover, the deterioration of the israeli educational system, as evinced by the results of international test scores, is fairly recent, a nineties thing mostly. so it is perfectly consistent with my claim of reaping the fruit of the past.

and no, that was not my only point, the point was mostly a strong hi tech industry “at home”. which is outside of the US, so i had to supplement it with something IN the US in case you think it doesn’t count.

and these days, being talented enough to surmount the ever rising immigration obstacles to the US is indeed a big deal.

but to expand on the previous theme, knowing undergrad students in math and physics in both countries, there is no comparison (but my israeli experience is from the early ‘90s so things may have changed). The US has strength in numbers, and as i said before, economic strengh, which are imho the sources of human capital that keep american science and technology going.

about the earlier retirement age:

yes. it also has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. and that only means more people living in penury for a longer time. btw about 2/3 of the people there HAVE NO PENSION. but as i said ths is probably NOT the cause of the rise of the pensioners’ party, which is more similar to tsomet and shinui (RIP both).

Volokh’s contributors were simply commenting on the political atmosphere based upon their own political belief system…sort of like the way you are commenting on their post based upon your own political belief system.

Does the fact that you disagree with the comments of the contributors to Volokh make you somehow more “thoughtful and intelligent” than they are? Why is it necessary for left-wingers to not only legitimately disagree with someone, but to feel intellectually and morally superior to those whith whom they disagree as well? Is this simply a defense mechanism?

Just curious.

Next subject: Your entire defense of Israel’s educational system consists of the fact that some Isrealis are educated enough to come to the US to work? How about the International educational test scores…commonly used by both sides to “prove” that the US educational system is “failing”. Doesn’t the fact that Isreal is one of the few industrialized nations that we routinely outscore on these tests indicate that Isreal’s educational system is in even worse shape than our own?

Mississipi has some of the worst schools in the nation based upon standardized test scores…yet they still manage to send some of their students to college and on to successful and lucrative careers: Does that mean that Mississippi’s school system is NOT that bad? Is the fact that some Mississipi students are successful prima facia evidence that their school system is NOT failing?

Not true; the Guardian and BBC correspondents had certainly made the effort to inform themselves (which after all is a matter of finding the manifesto and reading it) before they shot their mouths off.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/,

possibly jerusalem post for a more ‘right wing’ (ie anti arab; haaretz is pretty right wing in the economic sense) bias.

wikipedia has extensive hebrew coverage of israeli politics, maybe there’s something in english too?

and i find the bbc covers israel rather well, even if it’s sometimes perceived as hostile.

and btw no israeli expat i know left the country for purely (or even mainly) economic reasons. or for purely political reasons. better quality of life, better institutions, a calmer, gentler population, and what is known in hebrew as “ha matzav” – the “situation” (i suppose this tranlates as “the troubles” into irish english?) are all in the mix.

steve: thanks for a very interesting analysis. any sugesstions for where a monolingual English-speaker should head for more?

“Israel apparently has a “lousy” education system, but nevertheless manages to supply vast numbers of incredibly clever and technologically sophisticated expats to the world.

I think Mr. Bernstein made the common error of assuming that “expats”, especially those in professional/technological fields, only work outside their home countries due to economic desperation at home: that model may work for, say, Honduras, or Bangladesh; but it’s doubtful whether that IS the typical dynamic impelling Israeli businesspeople/professionals/techies to work abroad. But then, that would spoil his nice rant about “socialism”, so never mind.

1. The Israeli government (and politically-connected quasi-governmental institutions)plays too large a role in the economy (meaning ordinary business and not necessarily things like education). This is often attributed to institutions that developed in response to pre-independence and early post-independence conditions (as well as the Socialist ideology of most of the country’s founders) and have become entrenched in an economically and politically self-reenforcing manner.

2. Compared with other economically advanced countries with large government sectors, Israeli govenment (and quasi-governmental) institutions suffer from a higher than usual level of bureaucratic inefficiency and favoritism to well-connected persons and businesses.

So, then, they can’t think of any non-economic reasons why one wouldn’t want to live in Israel? No, say, constant threat of violence and terrorism? No not wanting to live someplace where you’re not surrounded by hostile neighboring countries and in close proximity to seething legions of impoverished people in territories that your government is occupying?

If those things aren’t pertinent issues – aren’t cogent reasons to move out of Israel – then I guess there really isn’t much of an Arab-Israeli conflict after all, and David Bernstein can cease yammering about how much of a threat the Palestinians pose to the Israelis.

Not to mention, if the Israeli economy is in bad shape, apparently it’s solely for internal reasons of bad left-wing government (like Likud, of course), and has nothing to do with the actions or policies of Israel’s Arab neighbors.