I read Jonathan Freedland article in the Guardian today, about the Israeli election. First I not going to talk about the election result as far as I can see thats the really borning bit. Second Jonathan you should really stop talking about into a kind of Isreali/Palestinians, Switzerland it won't happen you only need to talk to a small section of the Isreali public or the Palestinians. I could see the result coming a mile away years before. I talked to Isrealis born in the fomrer USSR many of them seemed to hate the Arabs. I not surpized at all at the election. To Alex Stein who I used to know at Manchester University sorry but I told before you moved to Isreal. As I get older I see a that Isreal seems to look in on herself more and more. In fact like I never be a Little Englander I would find it hard to be a little Isreali like many Isrealis want many Jewish people to become. Today Isreali Arabs are being seen in Isreal as a kind of 5th column this is no surprise to me at all I saw it for myself at the Weitzman Institute.

If you want me to suggest what Isreal will look in 10 or 20 years I think its certain that the country would have left most of the West Bank behind but I would not be surpized if Isreal only kept the Jordan valley if fact I be surpized if they did not. Whatever the parties say I think Gaza will be in effect part of Iran I see Hamas still being in effect the goverment of Gaza. I have read recently about Egypt becoming like Iran in 1979 With an elderly 80 year old leader. What worries me is that the Isrealis worry to much about Arabs who live in Isreal the fact is there is a growing chance of something much worse then the rockets in Gaza or some local problems in the West Bank (where they know they should not be!) is the very real possibility that one of the neighboring governments could collapse and this could lead to a much bigger Tragedy then the wars of the last 3 years.

The result is that I worry not that the Isrealis and the Palestinians will never each get the two state solution (I hope both they will and it will happen soon) but the real nigthmare that myself and many Western writers worry about but how the the two sides would get there. This is why as a fan of the Western system of goverment the reason why I would never settle in Israel. As a fan Western European system of goverment I could not see how I could live in Isreal in the long term in any rate. At the Weitzman Institute I learned this lesson it was talking to a group of students who were all Isrealis who had been born in the fomer USSR. What they said was the same as the rigth wring parties that now seem likly to take control of Isreal today. They seemed nice people but as I talked to them I soon found out that they were worried about the growing numbers of Isreali Arabs in Isreal. They too suggested that they may need to swear allegiance to the state of Isreal, that they should also be limted to the number of child they should have I first through of the bed police or China's one child policy. When you are someone like myself who believes the only way to defuse the demographic time bomb is to integrate these people into mainstream society in Isreal you soon find out that like Jonathan Freedland's idea that even that idea it will never happen. As a result of talking to these students I heard constant fantasists of how the situation could be sorted out. I think I should point out that the Weitzman is not some two bit college in Isreal. The Weitzman is in fact the equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge here or Harvard University in America,if that's what people think in the main teaching institutions think you have to ask what does the Isreali think in the street think. It seems to me that the West needs to stop seeing Isreal as part of the West and Jewish people themselves need to ask questions. I agree the Isrealis have seen things from only their side in a little bubble, that is the reason I would never live there. Secondly and more importantly both to myself and to the Isrealis I believe if I did live there I could not help the situation or myself. When you see the election result it seems to me that this is the new face of Isreal coming out and it seem to me to show the best reason for not moving there permanently for people like myself.

The net result is a country that I would never want to live in and many other Jewish people would feel the same way about. There is a growing nagging worry that the Jewish state could become something that would worry many of us. As I sat in that student kitchin and heard what they said a jigsaw started to form in my mind, since I had worked in the Weitzman I had not met a single Arab student. I think Isreal's largest problem is the split between Arabs and Isrealis who live in effect they alreally live in two counties. I would not be surpized at all if there is a short civil war in only one or two years time. What worries me more in the major towns and cities where they live side by side the lifes that will be ruined. At the end of the day its not up to me or anyone else Jewish, Arab or Western to bring or not bring peace its up to the Palestinians and Isrealis, I don't think America or Britain or even the rest of the world can bring peace and I do not think its up too us but what I will say is that it does not look good...

Both sides seem to be bend on carrying on figthing each other forever, being Jewish I glad Isreal is around but the country needs to change. Isreal is a young country but its people like myself come from a old people in terms of history what I cannot stand is when they say we not had a country 2000 years so we can mistakes Isreal is over 60 years old in my view it needs to grow up and see the world for what it really is. For me my life is in London the Greatest city in the world, all the women I have dated and slept with live in this city, all my family are here my mother, my father, my uncle, my autes mybe I move to New York or Down Under I just think its a waste of my life doing what so many of my peers have done. I live in a city of 8 million people why would I want to move to a country with just 7 million poeple? To me thats just alien I do not speck the language,I hate it when people put their national flag outside their homes (I must say I did not like it when I saw it in both Canada and America I seem to be allergic to nationalism). I find it hypocritical and a pit in my stomach seems to develop, I don't need to feel part of something greater to to be me. I am my own person a island in my own rigth and I friends with a great many other islands. The people who I have known who have moved to Isreal I never understood why they moved there? One person I had not seen in years said on a BBC program that Isreal was home I find myself thinking like many other Jewish people world wide why do you think that? I thinking after the LPC spending some time in Isreal from what I have heard the country however has not changed much the people have not grown up yet. I am a child of the West The West seems to me to be starting to fall apart in every meaning of the word as it falls apart I see the former Western states becoming like Russia and the coutnries of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. They talk about being purn states and soon they target anyone who is not like them. At the end of the day this is not just Isreal's problem this is the West's problem but I always seen Isreal and to an extent America as the Canaries in the mine when something happens in these countries and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will eventually happen here in Britain and the rest of Europe just not in the same way as it happened in these places. For me London has and will always be home I like it here it maybe borning sometimes but I think myself that I perfer reading about Gordan Brown and the banks as well as the Local problems my home country has.