The thing that astonishes me is that, for a man who writes vast, copious amounts about Israel, David Bernstein apparently knows two-thirds of damn-all about Israeli politics? “I’ve never really heard about the Pensioners’ Party but it’s been described as ‘socialist'”?!?¡ In what way is this acceptable from someone who holds out a shingle as an Israel pundit? The other two aren’t much better, and they don’t even think about what they’re writing; Israel apparently has a “lousy” education system, but nevertheless manages to supply vast numbers of incredibly clever and technologically sophisticated expats to the world. (the Israeli education system isn’t terrible, btw, not if the last global comparison survey was anything to go by, and no, I am not going to enter into hypothetical discussions about racial biology and IQ).
Just a thought: the electoral choices of a sovereign people are generally their business, not ours. Maybe the new coalition is going to do a bad job domestically. Not our problem, certain egregious misbehavior (which nobody expects) excepted. Is any interest of ours affected?
One subtext is that everything that smart conservatives (sic) know about Israel, they learned from watching Bibi on Larry King during the first Gulf War. Many mysterious developments since then.
As leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, a party largely consisting of immigrants from the former Soviet Union countries, Liberman continues to advocate for stripping Israeli citizenship of some Israeli-Arabs, and applying “loyalty tests” to those remaining.
1. lieberman is a fascist, much worse than netanyahu, and a financial right winger. he appeals to the russian immigrants because of their hatred of anything remotely smelling of communism, and a strong anti arab sentiment some of which is probably cultural but not all.
but he has saturated his potential. the elites don’t like his style. they prefer to be capitalists and hate arabs, but not flaunt it. next elections, he could grab a few non-religious seats from the “national union” but that’s all.
2. israel has the lowest pensions in the “western” world. ironically the “socialist” pensioners’ party is led by very very rich individuals. and anti arab to boot. it remains to be seen what they will do. btw word is, some of this was a protest vote by disgruntled young voters who didn’t want not to vote but had no one to vote for.
3. labour will be interesting, it has avishai braverman, a right wing economist from beer sheva university in a very high place.
4. israel needs less corruption and less military expenditure. it has also recently absorbed as much as 1/5 of its population in immigration, and has a very large ultra orthodox (read: amish like, and not working) section of society (according to election results, about 15%), as well as an undereducated and discriminated against arab section (about 20%, traditionally underrepresented in the elections – about 10 seats out of 120 this time). it does not need less social rights, “smaller government” and more privatization. or maybe it does, but given the social makeup of the country, it will both not solve its economic problems and exacerbate its social problems. in fact, the backlash against netanyahu is due to the fact that it already has.
and to reiterate what has been said above, israel has a vibrant hi tech industry at home, and supplies the USA with hi tech workers. it also supplies the US academia with graduate students, post docs, and professors in mathematics and computer science. and not second rate places either, but harvard, cornell, stanford, UC berkeley. check out the math department in microsoft research as well. but of course this is:
1. reaping the fruits of the past, and
2. a testimony to the vast inequalities that exist in israeli society. (which, i guess, is why israel needs to spend less on public education according to the volokh people)
The thing that astonishes me is that, for a man who writes vast, copious amounts about Israel, David Bernstein apparently knows two-thirds of damn-all about Israeli politics?
Why should that astound you? The kind of discussions that take place daily in Ha’aretz or the Jerusalem Post would never make it into a US daily. (I only slightly exaggerate: the shifting party loyalties made it into a very good NYT op-ed over the weekend, written from Tel Aviv.)
Yes, but it sounds like this Avigdor Lieberman character is going to overnetanyahu poor ‘Bibi’ and become their new darling.
The ability of YB to expand their Russian settler base — a more unintegrated constituency than Israeli Arabs, in many respects — is certainly noteworthy. Whether that’s because of Russian-settler Likud voters retrenching, or YB getting outside support, I’d be interested to know.
Notice also that the VC types cite Israeli professionals working in the U.S. as conclusive that the Israeli economy is lousy. If you see an Israeli engineer in New York or DC, we’re informed, it’s proof positive that left-wing economic policy is a complete failure.
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.
In fairness to David Bernstein, among a broad spectrum of politically reasonable observers of Israeli life the conventional wisdom is that:
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.
Eugene Volokh and his posse are usually pretty good and on the mark (even allowing for their ideological bent(s)) when it comes to issues of the law; I agree that David Bernstein ought to stick to what he knows, and leave off the economic sermonizing. I think daniel at 12:23 made the point:
“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.
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.
Uh, no one knows much about the Pensioners Party, it’s only been around in it’s present form for a month. Israel has low pensions, but a low retirement age.
Saddly it doesn’t surprise me that a party made up of Russian immigrants is rabbidly anti-arab. One thing that I find here in Russia is that the typical Russian, even more than being anti-semitic (as many are, often to a quite shocking degree) is that they are anti-arab and generally anti-darkie at an even higher level. Very sad, but not surprising that this would continue with the Russian Jewish immigrants.
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.
They’re complaining about election results they don’t like. What’s wrong with that? Lots of people objected to the South Dakota legislature’s decision to ban abortion, even though many of us don’t live in South Dakota. Would it be wrong for us to voice objection if the people of South Dakota decided to re-elect the same legislature?
yeh, but none of us (on CT at least) are working under the delusion that the electorate of South Dakota are similar to us, and we wouldn’t have that outraged surprise when they voted that way. The really hilarious thing about the Volokh reaction is the fact that they genuinely didn’t seem to know that Israel is a socialist country.
The columns on Volokh didn’t seem “outraged” to me. They were simply commenting on political developments in another country. Is that unacceptable? If so, why do left-wingers tend to insist that we build our national policies around what is acceptable to Europeans? Do Europeans somehow have the moral authority to comment upon our political climate but Americans do not have the same moral authority to comment upon the political climate elsewhere? If so, why?
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 some. many more (relative to population size) than US born americans. but the US has always relied on its economic strength to attract talent from abroad and compensate for its educational weakness. hungarian and russian mathematicians anyone? indian hi tech geniuses? a dime a dozen. they say iran is growing strong in math too. worth looking there in the future.
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).
What’s particularly astonishing is the sole bit of data marshalled to serve the claim of lousyness is…..the length of the school day.
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.
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.
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.
{ 27 comments }
lemuel pitkin 03.29.06 at 11:55 am
“I don’t know much about this party, but I’ve seen it described as socialist.”
That’s what I love about Volokh — they’re the intelligent, thoughtful conservatives.
Daniel 03.29.06 at 12:23 pm
The thing that astonishes me is that, for a man who writes vast, copious amounts about Israel, David Bernstein apparently knows two-thirds of damn-all about Israeli politics? “I’ve never really heard about the Pensioners’ Party but it’s been described as ‘socialist'”?!?¡ In what way is this acceptable from someone who holds out a shingle as an Israel pundit? The other two aren’t much better, and they don’t even think about what they’re writing; Israel apparently has a “lousy” education system, but nevertheless manages to supply vast numbers of incredibly clever and technologically sophisticated expats to the world. (the Israeli education system isn’t terrible, btw, not if the last global comparison survey was anything to go by, and no, I am not going to enter into hypothetical discussions about racial biology and IQ).
C.J.Colucci 03.29.06 at 12:35 pm
Just a thought: the electoral choices of a sovereign people are generally their business, not ours. Maybe the new coalition is going to do a bad job domestically. Not our problem, certain egregious misbehavior (which nobody expects) excepted. Is any interest of ours affected?
djw 03.29.06 at 12:42 pm
What’s particularly astonishing is the sole bit of data marshalled to serve the claim of lousyness is…..the length of the school day.
P O'Neill 03.29.06 at 12:44 pm
One subtext is that everything that smart conservatives (sic) know about Israel, they learned from watching Bibi on Larry King during the first Gulf War. Many mysterious developments since then.
abb1 03.29.06 at 1:11 pm
Yes, but it sounds like this Avigdor Lieberman character is going to overnetanyahu poor ‘Bibi’ and become their new darling.
abb1 03.29.06 at 1:20 pm
Hey, this and, apparently, he is also a strong proponent of capitalism – who can compare?
Barry 03.29.06 at 1:37 pm
“That’s what I love about Volokh—they’re the intelligent, thoughtful conservatives.”
Posted by lemuel pitkin ·
They’ve struck me as right-wingers with some education and style. Like a nice coat of paint, hiding things.
steve 03.29.06 at 2:51 pm
1. lieberman is a fascist, much worse than netanyahu, and a financial right winger. he appeals to the russian immigrants because of their hatred of anything remotely smelling of communism, and a strong anti arab sentiment some of which is probably cultural but not all.
but he has saturated his potential. the elites don’t like his style. they prefer to be capitalists and hate arabs, but not flaunt it. next elections, he could grab a few non-religious seats from the “national union” but that’s all.
2. israel has the lowest pensions in the “western” world. ironically the “socialist” pensioners’ party is led by very very rich individuals. and anti arab to boot. it remains to be seen what they will do. btw word is, some of this was a protest vote by disgruntled young voters who didn’t want not to vote but had no one to vote for.
3. labour will be interesting, it has avishai braverman, a right wing economist from beer sheva university in a very high place.
4. israel needs less corruption and less military expenditure. it has also recently absorbed as much as 1/5 of its population in immigration, and has a very large ultra orthodox (read: amish like, and not working) section of society (according to election results, about 15%), as well as an undereducated and discriminated against arab section (about 20%, traditionally underrepresented in the elections – about 10 seats out of 120 this time). it does not need less social rights, “smaller government” and more privatization. or maybe it does, but given the social makeup of the country, it will both not solve its economic problems and exacerbate its social problems. in fact, the backlash against netanyahu is due to the fact that it already has.
KCinDC 03.29.06 at 2:53 pm
VC does provide a solution: http://www.volokh.com/?exclude=davidb
steve 03.29.06 at 3:11 pm
PS
and to reiterate what has been said above, israel has a vibrant hi tech industry at home, and supplies the USA with hi tech workers. it also supplies the US academia with graduate students, post docs, and professors in mathematics and computer science. and not second rate places either, but harvard, cornell, stanford, UC berkeley. check out the math department in microsoft research as well. but of course this is:
1. reaping the fruits of the past, and
2. a testimony to the vast inequalities that exist in israeli society. (which, i guess, is why israel needs to spend less on public education according to the volokh people)
nick s 03.29.06 at 4:12 pm
The thing that astonishes me is that, for a man who writes vast, copious amounts about Israel, David Bernstein apparently knows two-thirds of damn-all about Israeli politics?
Why should that astound you? The kind of discussions that take place daily in Ha’aretz or the Jerusalem Post would never make it into a US daily. (I only slightly exaggerate: the shifting party loyalties made it into a very good NYT op-ed over the weekend, written from Tel Aviv.)
Yes, but it sounds like this Avigdor Lieberman character is going to overnetanyahu poor ‘Bibi’ and become their new darling.
The ability of YB to expand their Russian settler base — a more unintegrated constituency than Israeli Arabs, in many respects — is certainly noteworthy. Whether that’s because of Russian-settler Likud voters retrenching, or YB getting outside support, I’d be interested to know.
The Navigator 03.29.06 at 4:20 pm
Notice also that the VC types cite Israeli professionals working in the U.S. as conclusive that the Israeli economy is lousy. If you see an Israeli engineer in New York or DC, we’re informed, it’s proof positive that left-wing economic policy is a complete failure.
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.
Martin 03.29.06 at 4:25 pm
In fairness to David Bernstein, among a broad spectrum of politically reasonable observers of Israeli life the conventional wisdom is that:
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.
Jay C 03.29.06 at 4:47 pm
Eugene Volokh and his posse are usually pretty good and on the mark (even allowing for their ideological bent(s)) when it comes to issues of the law; I agree that David Bernstein ought to stick to what he knows, and leave off the economic sermonizing. I think daniel at 12:23 made the point:
“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.
asg 03.29.06 at 5:20 pm
Looks a lot like “Shorter CT” in early November of 2004.
lemuel pitkin 03.29.06 at 6:20 pm
asg: more like May of 2005
steve: thanks for a very interesting analysis. any sugesstions for where a monolingual English-speaker should head for more?
steve 03.29.06 at 7:08 pm
haaretz english edition:
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.
DB 03.29.06 at 9:55 pm
Uh, no one knows much about the Pensioners Party, it’s only been around in it’s present form for a month. Israel has low pensions, but a low retirement age.
Matt 03.30.06 at 12:23 am
Saddly it doesn’t surprise me that a party made up of Russian immigrants is rabbidly anti-arab. One thing that I find here in Russia is that the typical Russian, even more than being anti-semitic (as many are, often to a quite shocking degree) is that they are anti-arab and generally anti-darkie at an even higher level. Very sad, but not surprising that this would continue with the Russian Jewish immigrants.
Daniel 03.30.06 at 12:56 am
Uh, no one knows much about the Pensioners Party
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.
Tony 03.30.06 at 1:13 am
They’re complaining about election results they don’t like. What’s wrong with that? Lots of people objected to the South Dakota legislature’s decision to ban abortion, even though many of us don’t live in South Dakota. Would it be wrong for us to voice objection if the people of South Dakota decided to re-elect the same legislature?
Daniel 03.30.06 at 4:44 am
yeh, but none of us (on CT at least) are working under the delusion that the electorate of South Dakota are similar to us, and we wouldn’t have that outraged surprise when they voted that way. The really hilarious thing about the Volokh reaction is the fact that they genuinely didn’t seem to know that Israel is a socialist country.
Sailorcurt 03.30.06 at 8:47 am
The columns on Volokh didn’t seem “outraged” to me. They were simply commenting on political developments in another country. Is that unacceptable? If so, why do left-wingers tend to insist that we build our national policies around what is acceptable to Europeans? Do Europeans somehow have the moral authority to comment upon our political climate but Americans do not have the same moral authority to comment upon the political climate elsewhere? If so, why?
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?
steve 03.30.06 at 12:16 pm
not some. many more (relative to population size) than US born americans. but the US has always relied on its economic strength to attract talent from abroad and compensate for its educational weakness. hungarian and russian mathematicians anyone? indian hi tech geniuses? a dime a dozen. they say iran is growing strong in math too. worth looking there in the future.
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).
destiny's stepchild 03.30.06 at 4:37 pm
What’s particularly astonishing is the sole bit of data marshalled to serve the claim of lousyness is…..the length of the school day.
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.
nick s 03.30.06 at 4:49 pm
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.
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.
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