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As Israel celebrates its golden jubilee anniversary, TAU News asked members of the younger generation of TAU faculty to discuss future trends in the nation during the next fifty years. |
During the next fifty years Israel will continue to negotiate its way between the two major conflicting trends in the Middle East: first, the peace process, stability and economic prosperity; second, fundamentalist Islam, instability and poverty.
Demographically, the Middle East stands on the verge of a population explosion. Growing poverty and frustration will allow fundamentalist Islam to gain a stronger grip on the poorer sectors of Arab society. This will threaten the stability of moderate Arab regimes, who will lean more toward the West for aid and support and who will therefore stick to their commitments to the peace process.
A further destabilizing factor will be the demise of the present generation of Arab leaders - King Hussein, Assad, Arafat and Mubarak.
Within the next fifty years we can probably expect a comprehensive peace agreement and maybe even normalization between Israel and some moderate Arab states. This will not prevent a surge of anti-Western and anti-Israel resentment among the lower Arab classes, however. As a result, Israel will continue to face terrorism - with or without the peace accords.
The world is undergoing an accelerated process of globalization, and the pattern of armed conflict within the developed world is declining. Perhaps more than in any other part of the developing world, the Middle East will experience highly explosive tensions partly arising from the conflicting trends of modernization and anti-modernization. Obviously, progress in the peace process will be the single most decisive factor affecting Arab-Israeli relations.
Israeli society, like its Western counterparts, has evolved an ethos of liberal-democratic individualism and consumerism. In this "post-industrial" and "post-Zionist" era there is little tolerance for casualties or for collective sacrifices of any sort. Developed "post-industrial" societies tend to balk at large-scale military confrontations, even though their technological superiority gives them the edge over developing nations. A mutual deterrence has been created between those who are technically "capable of killing" and those who are "prepared to die."
Thus, should Israel be drawn into a conflict, it will opt for high-tech warfare, while against the Palestinians it will prefer the use of economic blockade. The Arab side will lean towards attrition, guerrilla warfare and terrorism. The penetration of unconventional weapons, particularly nuclear, into the region reinforces mutual deterrence, but also encourages preemptive military action and raises the specter of unconventional terror.
On the conventional warfare front, Israel will continue to rely on conscription to the armed forces, though the duration of military service is likely to be shortened. The army will be reduced in size, while investments in hardware for the "electronic battlefield" will increase. Professional units will play a more prominent role, both as elite forces for the technological battlefield and as low-cost labor-intensive units for police-type missions.
Modern societies are becoming increasingly dependent on tools of the information age: computers, communications networks, and the information superhighway. Militaries depend on computers and digital communications as do the financial pipelines, the electric power grid, and the water supply.
In Israel strategic planners are already gearing up for the defense of the nation's virtual assets, and the emerging tactical and strategic information warfare front.
Imagine a lone computer hacker for example, or a state-sponsored one for that matter, hacking into the military computer facility of air traffic control during a national security emergency. Or the consequences of paralyzing the telephone company during an emergency mobilization of Israel's army reserve unit. Both these scenarios could prove nothing less than cataclysmic.
It is fair to say that Israel's information infrastructure capabilities are currently far more advanced than those of other countries in the region. This advantage, however, could easily prove a vulnerability, for the balance is non-linear: the greater our virtual assets the more vulnerable we are and the more we have to lose. Paradoxically, a country with little or no information infrastructure is less susceptible to information warfare and will be less affected by it.
A couple of trends in the Arab world can lead Israel to be hopeful for the development of democracy in the Middle East. First, an increasing number of civil rights movements, unions and non-government organizations are springing up in the Middle East, especially in Jordan, Egypt, North Africa, and to some extent the Gulf states. These groups are demanding to be heard and are demanding more of a say in the way their countries are run.
Second, the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, face a population explosion in the face of diminishing oil revenues. This threatens the old arrangement whereby oil countries provided for all the needs of their citizens in exchange for denying them political participation. As these regimes find it harder and harder to provide for their citizens, they will find it harder to prevent people from demanding participation in political power.
During the next fifty years the strength of Israel's democracy will depend on the nature of the constitutional system the State legislates. The present lack of a constitution, together with the disintegrating status quo on matters of religion and state, are resulting in a vacuum in the nation's political moral structure. Tensions between the religious sector and the State are at an all-time high. Whereas before religious politics traditionally remained on the periphery of Israeli society, today radical religious groups are challenging the very legitimacy of the State's sovereignty, and its right to rule on matters of security and to enact basic laws.
The outcome of this conflict will depend to a large extent on each sector's willingness to recognize the legislative definition of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. It is equally unrealistic to expect an orthodox citizen to surrender his vision of an Halachic state or a liberal citizen to give up his vision of a secular state. Both groups must be persuaded that their dreams are incompatible with the complex and multifaceted nature of Israeli society.
Since the birth of the Jewish nation, Jewish identity has been primarily based on the common fate of the Jewish people, rather than on land or on the concept of statehood. Since the founding of the State of Israel, however, the identity of Israel's secular Jews has shifted from one that is based on religion to one that is defined by Israeli citizenship and everyday existence in the State. The identity of the religious section of the population, on the other hand, has remained tied to an Halachic definition of the Jewish nation as the People of the Covenant.
As a result of this divergence, the bond linking secular and religious Israeli Jews is weak, superficial and negative. Until now the gap between the two groups has been obscured by the nation's security problems and by slogans such as national unity, solidarity, understanding, tolerance, and pluralism. When the security situation improves, however, the gap will widen, and the religious sector's ideological definition of the Jewish state will cause a deeper rift between itself and the secular public, eventually creating two totally separate publics with clashing values and lifestyles.
This process may culminate in a culture war fought over crucial issues such as the separation of religion and state, the definition of who is a Jew, and the identity of a Jewish state. Hopefully, reason will prevail and Israel will become a secular, democratic state "for all its citizens."
By the middle of the 21st century Israel will become a post-immigrant society. The dwindling of persecuted Jewish communities in the Diaspora, the reluctance of Jews from prosperous Western countries to immigrate in mass numbers, and amendments to the Law of Return resulting from economic and ethnic considerations together with ideological changes - all these will lead to a population makeup in fifty years' time of almost entirely native-born Israelis, who are one generation or more removed from the experience of "coming off the boat."
In this reality, ethnic origins will carry less weight as a determinant of Israeli identity than they do today. Israeli-ness will become multi-hyphenated, made up of three major components: nationality; religion; and degree of religious observance (orthodox / religious / traditional / reform / secular). Marriage patterns will additionally make the issue of ethnicity almost irrelevant. More and more, ethnic origin will take the form of nostalgia for family customs, its reflections will be mainly cultural, and it will not be at the core of separatist and militant self-definition, not even in politics.
Meanwhile, the division between the haves and have-nots in Israeli society will become more pronounced, and will cross ethnic, religious and national lines. The terms "left-wing" and "right-wing" will revert to their original socio-economic meaning once the issue of peace versus territories, underpinning the current political terminology of doves and hawks, has been relegated to history.
In an era of large population movements, particularly of immigrants and migrant workers, Israel and other nation states might eventually have to recognize these workers as full-fledged members of society. This will prevent a situation where a large sector of the population constitutes a workforce only, with no representation in governing bodies. Israel will find it difficult to maintain such a situation over time and still claim to have a representational democracy.
Recognition of the multicultural composition of the State, and of the civic rights of various national groups could result in a significant change in Israel's character as a nation state. This will be linked to the need to grant full equality to Israeli Arab citizens, and might lead to Israel as a "state for all its citizens."
The "end of schools" has frequently been predicted by educational experts, who have been proven wrong. There are also those who warn of the "end of the university" in the computer age. I, however, believe that higher education in Israel will continue to expand and diversify.
Changes will include the introduction of colleges offering first degrees for students aged 16-19. These will be incorporated into the universities, which will offer advanced degrees only.
The university of the future will be even more multidisciplinary than today, extending into new fields of study and incorporating subjects such as hotel management and alternative medicine at the academic level. Universities will have satellite campuses, which will profit from being part of a larger institution. Israel will become part of a "pan-European university," enabling students to study at campuses throughout Europe with reciprocal accreditation. We will witness growing competition between different levels of scholastic "leagues" similar to that of the US and other Western countries.
Universities will extend their field of activity beyond education and industry into other social and economic spheres, resulting in a closer relationship between academia and the community.
Israel is on the brink of a social revolution in children's education. The ideal Israeli school of the future will decentralize the school system and shift the locus of control over educational policy from the national to the local, community, and school levels. In the new system, schools will be fully integrated with local communities and play a leading role in them. Several dozen restructured schools based on this model are now being tested throughout Israel.
School principals will become community leaders, guiding on many issues - not just educational. Teachers will become "cultural educators" rather than staying purely content-oriented - aiding pupils to form their political, ethnic, national and religious identities.
Changing Israeli realities will necessitate new comprehensive legislation on education that will transfer legal responsibility from the national to local authorities. This will alleviate the pressures on schools from various ethnic, religious, cultural, and national groups in an increasingly fragmented Israeli society.
Assuming that peace moves continue and nothing cataclysmic occurs, Israel's transition from light industries such as textile manufacturing to sophisticated, high-tech industries, and from military expertise to civilian applications, will ensure its strong standing among developed nations.
Even pessimists will admit that Israel is doing well by investing heavily in human capital and infrastructure. The numerous colleges which have sprung up recently ensure basic higher education for a broad segment of the population.
Changes taking place in the capital markets - the expansion of the stock exchange as a tool for raising capital and the lifting of restrictions on international monetary transactions - will both help increase investments and distribute the risk entailed in the transition to high-tech industries.
Advances in VSLI technology have roughly doubled the speed and density of microprocessors every two years over the past 25 years - leading to an unprecedented growth in the global computer industry. Israel's computer industry has been part of this huge success, far more than many larger industrialized nations.
The good news is that I expect this growth rate to persist over the next ten years. Advances in VLSI technology will enable the design and production of microprocessors 30 times faster and more powerful. Such powerful computers will advance applications that create complex simulations for weather forecasting, wind tunnels, and computer modeling of chemical reactions, to name a few.
The bad news for the industry is that this growth rate cannot be sustained forever. At some point, the industry will shift to a more stable phase, like other industries whose key technologies have reached a level of maturity. This phase will be marked by diminishing differences between competing products, consolidation, lower profits, reduction in R&D expenditures, reduction in manpower, and less competitive salaries. This process might trigger a slow-down in Israel's computer industry.
Israel is investing heavily in scientific and technological R&D and is a world leader in software, information technology, and biotechnology. I am concerned about the social responsibility of the scientist, however. I believe that it is not sufficient to predict when a new technology will emerge, but to evaluate the social implications and benefits of this technology for the future of Israeli society.
Israel is a country with a high rate of air and water pollution and in addition is one of the most densely-populated nations in the Western world. The development of technologies which are environmentally damaging should be carefully evaluated, since any decision will have a serious impact on future generations.
Predicting the stumbling blocks on the way to the development of any technology requires tech-nology foresight at the highest level - such as the Delphi method used by the Japanese in the 70s before they became the technological leaders of the world. Delphi forecasting aims to create the widest possible consensus of expert opinions including those of social scientists. It is now being introduced into Israel for the first time at TAU.
Academia in Israel has yet to give birth to the type of entrepreneurship it is capable of. There is little synergism between industry and academia comparable to, say, that between Stanford University and Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 80s. Hopefully, the relations between the two will be strengthened and the universities will have a greater role to play in society: in bringing technology to the widest possible public, and in raising the standard of scientific and technological education in schools so that Israel maintains its technological edge.
Israel is a small, semi-arid state with limited water resources and a very high rate of population growth. This, coupled with rapid construction and development, places Israel at high risk in terms of loss of biological diversity, poor environmental quality, and resultant human health hazards. Future prospects are grim. In order to maintain an optimistic spirit in Israel's golden jubilee year, I have decided to present an optimal ecological forecast:
Peace in the Middle East will shift the focus from the fight for survival to the struggle for quality of life. Rising standards of living and education will reduce birth rates in the region and promote environmental awareness. Consequently, Israel will halt ongoing environmental destruction such as the ruin of the country's coastline by a wealthy minority at the expense of the general public.
Careful, environmentally aware planning and development will prevent Israel from becoming a massive concrete jungle and save the coastal aquifer. Construction of the Trans-Israel Highway will be halted and Israel will invest in a rail transportation system - helping to reduce traffic, accidents, and air pollution. The realization that biological diversity is a priceless resource for human health, wealth, and well-being, and that its preservation is crucial for maintaining a friendly ecosystem for us and for future generations, will prompt the government and public to cease polluting the country's freshwater system, to stop turning the sea into a sewer, to halt intensive quarrying that destroys whole habitats, and to protect nature reserves and open areas zealously. With its scientific expertise, Israel will become the environmental "light unto the nations of the region."
This scenario is highly optimistic, but is it realistic? Unfortunately, this is not the direction Israel is heading in its 50th year.
Global organizations and the Israeli public are increasingly pressuring Israel to comply with global environmental treaties. In addition, Israel will be forced to comply with European and North American environmental manufacturing standards in order to export to these countries.
Although Israel has had a Ministry of the Environment for the past ten years, the first comprehensive emission standards are only now being legislated and enforced.
Also, despite significant Israeli advances in the field of solar energy and waste water treatment, these innovations have only been implemented in Israel in a limited way. In the future we will probably witness the establishment of a very costly network of pollution monitoring stations throughout the country. We will see the development of less costly alternatives such as the development of remote sensing for monitoring ambient pollution levels and emissions in manufacturing plants, and eventually the use of bio-sensors - genetically engineered pollution-sensitive plants.
Major efforts will be directed toward the minimization of solid-waste production in manufacturing processes. Innovative methods for automatic waste separation which do not depend on residents' participation will be developed to broaden recycling possibilities. This would divert municipal waste back for use in local industries and for sale on global markets. In addition new methods of compacting and isolating and combusting residual solid-wastes will be introduced.
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