As I was leaving synagogue after Shabbat morning prayer services in Hoshaya, my friend Ido moved toward me with a teasing smile on his face.  Ido is a right-winger, but is open to hearing other people's opinions.  From the look on his face I knew that he was looking for a debate.

"Sagi, look at this amazing country we live in," he said, waving his hand toward the Galilee hills that surround our community.  "Excellent weather - we even get rain in spring! - the economy is stable, the security situation is stable, unemployment is low... what else do we need in order to be satisfied?"

I thought for a moment and then replied, "You're right.  But the Titanic also seemed fine just before it hit an iceberg and sank."

Ido cranked it up a notch.  "You know, Sagi, leftists always see things backwards. During the Oslo peace process in the 90s, when buses were being blown up on the streets day and night and innocent civilians were being killed in terror attacks, the leftists claimed that we were just suffering the birth pangs of the peace process but the future would be much brighter.  Now, when security and the economy are both in good shape, but there is no peace agreement, they say the future will be catastrophic.  Why can't leftists see reality as it is?"

For the rest of that Shabbat I thought about what Ido had said.  Then I came to the conclusion that the problem is not actually whether we see reality for what it is.  Our main problem is the loss of hope.

The current situation in Israel (as of mid-August 2011) certainly looks pretty good when measured against the criteria by which people usually evaluate quality of life: standard of living, employment, security, and so on. But we are gradually losing the fundamental belief that tomorrow will be better than today.

The hope for a better tomorrow is the essence of our national anthem, HaTikva - The Hope.  "We have not lost our hope... to be a free people in our own land.  " We have become a free people in our own land, and that in itself is a miracle, but along the way we have lost "the hope of two thousand years." What is that Hope? I believe it has two main components:

First, the hope for a more just society: As I write these words, the Israeli public is staging one of the most significant and widespread struggles in Israel's history.  This began as a protest against the high price of cottage cheese in particular, and of food in general.  At the same time, public pressure is growing on Israeli legislators to limit the centralization of Israel's economy and to reduce the dominance wielded by a limited number of families in many business activities.  The financial newspaper Globes, on the front page of its July 5 edition, said, "The social revolt will end violently... in a democratic country, you cannot have 50% of the population earning just above minimum wage...  the ones benefitting from this economic growth are those with capital and a very small number of senior level people."  The protests have grown in recent weeks and broadened to other areas.  Now we are witnessing protests that are nominally about housing prices and the working conditions of medical interns and residents, but whose scope and significance are far wider-ranging and whose aftermath cannot be predicted.

I believe that the degree of centralization and the economic power of the few in Israel are not particularly bad compared with other Western countries, but there is one significant difference: Israel was not created the same way as other countries - by dividing territories between superpowers or by overthrowing monarchies.  Israel was established as the fulfillment of the dream of generations, a dream for which many have paid and are continuing to pay with their blood and their lives.  As citizens of a country that was established with a vision and a dream, Israelis (and many non-Israelis who are watching us with amazement) expect the world's only Jewish state to be more just, more fair, more ethical, more humane.

To a great extent, the kibbutz was the perfect example of an attempt to create a more just society. The Kibbutz Movement, which is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary, tried to create a utopian society, to change the world, and to overcome humanity's basic instincts.  Although the kibbutz has changed drastically over the last 100 years, and equality between members is now far from being the norm, it has nevertheless played a central role in building the country.  Such a communal, supportive way of life, albeit in another form, could perhaps one day return to playing a central role in Israeli society.

My wife moved to Israel from the United States 22 years ago, and joined me on my kibbutz.  One evening we went to Haifa.  On the way back we went past Haifa Port and suddenly my wife noticed a prostitute on the street.  "What?!  There are prostitutes in Israel?!!" she said, shocked.  Homeless people, prostitutes, patients without proper medical care and all the other problems of society are found everywhere in the world.  But from the Jewish state, the state of the "chosen people," we all expect more.

Second, the loss of the hope for peace. The vision of a life of peace is the ultimate dream of every Israeli mother and father. The belief that although today we must fight, tomorrow our children will no longer have to do so, has been the cornerstone of Israel's growth - the hope that we will not always have to "sleep with our swords."  No people in the world has composed so many songs of the longing for peace. Throughout all of Israel's wars, we always saw a light in the darkness, a light that said this war was only a painful milestone along the bloody path towards peace.  But in the last decade the Israeli public has lost this hope.  Maybe because we already tried it and were unsuccessful (the Oslo process); maybe because of the sense that we do not have a partner for peace (after all, we left Gaza and in return received rockets and mortars); and maybe because we are simply physically and mentally exhausted from the quest for peace.

These two hopes - the hope for a just and ethical society, and the hope for peace - are necessary for the continuity of Israel.  Fulfilling the first hope depends mainly on us, the Israeli public. Fulfilling the second requires partners, but it also depends on reaching internal consensus on what peace should look like. Returning hope to the people of Israel is the need of the hour.


Sagi Melamed lives with his family in the community of Hoshaya in the Galilee.  He serves as Vice President of External Affairs at the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, and is the Chief Instructor in the Hoshaya Karate Club.  Sagi received his Masters degree from Harvard University in Middle Eastern Studies with a specialty in Conflict Resolution. He can be contacted at: melamed.sagi@gmail.com.