Dr. Alon Ben Meir is a professor and Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute. Dr. Ben-Meir is an expert on Middle East politics and affairs, specializing in international negotiations and conflict resolution. In the past seventeen years, Ben-Meir has been directly involved in various negotiations between Israel and its neighboring countries and Turkey. Dr. Ben-Meir’s open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu challenges the suicidal path Israel is being lead down by its leaders. Dr. Ben-Meir asked Netanyahu: “What is your vision of Israel’s future? Do you know where the country will be in a decade or even less? I challenge you to provide a clear answer. If you truly take to heart Israel’s security and well being, then you must save it from the very self-destructive path that you have paved with fear, anxiety, and bloodshed.” This suicidal path was recognized and written about in 1990 by Andrew Hurley in his well documented book, using mostly Jewish sources, Holocaust II?: Saving Israel From Suicide. We Hold These Truths republished Hurley’s book under the title, One Nation Under Israel. (it is still available from WHTT – click here) Excerpts from Dr. Ben-Meir’s open letter are below. Full letter reproduced at bottom. [Ed.- TEC]
A Plea For Reason: An Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu
Huffington Post, Alon Ben Meir, Feb 24, 2016
(Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
You still boast about Israel’s economic prowess, when in fact the economy as a whole is in a state of stagnation and labor productivity is the lowest among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and a handful of billionaires control the financial heart of the state while tens of thousands of families are scrambling to survive.
More than 1.7 million Israelis are living in poverty–775,000 of whom are children–while hundreds of millions of dollars are siphoned off to spend on illegal settlements and hundreds of millions more are spent to protect the settlers, leaving Arab villages and towns with mostly Middle Eastern Jews to rot.
The gulf between the rich and poor is widening. The top 10 percent of the population earns 15 times that of the bottom 10 percent, making Israel one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. Tourism is diving, forei gn investments are plunging, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is gaining momentum.
The corruption and criminality among top officials is staggering; more than 10 ministers and at least 12 members of the Knesset have been convicted of crimes over the past 20 years alone. Former President Moshe Katsav and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were sentenced to seven years and 19 months in prison, respectively. Scores more were indicted, but escaped punishment through various legal loopholes often accorded to top officials.
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