Hungry For Positive Leadership

What a pickle we are in!

Events taking place around us bring home to us the reality that the ordered international society we believed we inhabited under the Pax Americanus is over. America, the superpower victor of WWII, faced down Russian aspirations to hegemony. China’s communist power was still struggling to digest its gains. Japan was under American tutelage. The European Union was created to end all wars on that continent. The UN was still reined in and directed by the democracies. America was the world’s peacekeeper and was ready to spend blood a treasure to work its will.

Now, today, we have war on the European continent, undeterred by NATO. Are we seeing Russia in its death throes, flailing about, trying to pretend to great power status. Democracies have rallied, but the leader is in disarray.. Who could have believed we would see America, the most powerful country in the world, exhibit such failures of leadership that we think of it as a weakling. Fair-weather friend Saudi Arabia is hedging its bets by huddling with Russia, China and Iran. Iran is stoking terrorism wherever it can. China is building coalitions through world-wide investment. Turkey is playing on both sides .North Korea  fires its inter-continental missiles to attract attention.

We have China flexing its muscles, buying stakes in companies and influence in dozens of countries around the word. It is aggressively seeking to advance its influence and making territorial claims against its neighbors. (The truth is it is making a mess of its own business and the guys who have made fortunes under their form of capitalism and the rule of the leadership are running away with as much of their fortunes as they can.)

The UK is a spent force instead of an imperial power, and the EU continues to fray at the edges, fearful of a resurgent, mischief-making Russia and buying into Chinese bribery. Iran has arisen as a world trouble-maker being encouraged by the Russians and the Chinese. And America is threatened by historic disunity and dysfunction in its institutions. It has a leadership which appears weak in the face of its challenges. Its functioning as a democracy is being threatened and it seems unlikely to retain world leadership in the foreseeable future.

In this context, my particular focus, conditions in the State of Israel, and its current turmoil, may seem like small potatoes. They command my attention, nevertheless, as the only stabilizing force in an area of the world that has often been volatile. Recent agreements between Israel  and neighboring countries has lowered temperatures. Their efforts are countering troublemaking by both Russia and Iran, while suppressing terrorist activity in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and the Sinai. At the same time, their technological achievements are improving lives in third-world countries in Africa and Asia. Their mastery of the COVID epidemic in their country offers lessons for those battling it everywhere. We know they will manage their affairs with a steady hand despite all the noise.

Israel is 75 years old. In its initial years, it drew its leadership from the pioneers who came mainly from Eastern Europe and were collectivist in outlook. David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister, established the state in 1948. By 1973, sufficient numbers had arrived from those who were expelled from the Arab countries in 1948 and after the 1967 war, that the complexion of the government was entirely changed toward private enterprise. The leader then was Menachem Begin. Both these leaders were protagonists in the original establishment of the state, leaders advancing their mission above all else for the benefit of their citizenry..

In the most recent period, there has continued to be a private enterprise orientation under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, someone from the second generation leadership in Israel’s history. Some might say that, although his leadership advanced the interests of the country, (the longest ever tenure as leader, 15 years,) now, his personal interests appear, to many Israelis, to be more important to him, sometime, than the country’ welfare. Now after four elections without a government, a fifth election led to a narrow coalition which has roused strong opposition as it announced moves led many electors to changed their minds about how they voted . This coalition unites parties with extremist elements that have roused strong public negative reaction. Anger has focused on changes proposed on the rules around the influence of the judiciary. Some fear that coalition members wish to impose policies opposed by the majority that would otherwise be blocked by the judiciary. The final outcome is not yet clear.

Who we choose as our leaders is obviously crucial. The importance of the role played by Roosevelt in rallying Americans to resist world-wide fascism and revitalize the American economy cannot be understated. The role recently played by Donald Trump in undermining American democracy and weakening that country as a factor in world affairs cannot be overestimated. What the future holds for all of us, in this respect, no matter where we live, is a matter of serious concern.

Whether President Biden can effectively correct America’s current weakness, whether he can act boldly enough to counter the treasonous behavior of legislative followers of Trump in Congress, and in State governments, also remain yet to be seen. Whether America  can confront its systemic racism and counter the anti-democratic impulse of white supremacists. is a burning question. The disappearance of free access by women to abortion and greater protection of innocents consequent on public access to military style weapons .that has led to an epidemic of mass shootings. What has happened in America has strengthened the hands of autocracies everywhere. We want so much to see the positive side of America we always believed in.

We’re so hungry for positive leadership after seeing too much of the other kind. Will we be blessed or cursed? Our futures are riding on the outcome.