Even less foreseeable were two phenomena experienced by the people of Israel every day, every hour, their exceptional nature almost unnoticed. One is the use of the Hebrew language. The fact that this almost dead language would experience a cultural rebirth and become a lingua franca for all the inhabitants of Israel, must be regarded as nothing less than a miracle itself. Similarly miraculous is the vibrancy of Israeli democracy–messy, multi-lingual, still with much work to do to improve the rights of its Arab minority and others–and yet the fact that Israel has never known a single day of non-democratic rule is a rare one in our world and in Israel’s own neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the Israeli-Arab conflict was more foreseeable than either of the miracles embodied in the founding and sustaining of Israel. To claim that Zionism was the return of a people without a land to a land without a people was to make assertions without factual basis. Hundreds of thousands of Jews returning to a populated land were not likely to be greeted by the locals with open arms and “gifted” the land that had been worked for generations. The conflict that developed over this land is natural.
But so, too, could be the resolution to the conflict, following a battle that has gone on for three generations. This must be the third miracle. Palestinians did not accept the Partition Plan of ‘47 because they wanted the entire land. Israelis began settling the territories they occupied in ‘67 because they believed they could rule most of them. It took Israeli military force and Palestinian resistance to convince both sides that neither people would allow the other to rule all the land, that each required a homeland. The solution, accepted by both majorities, suggested a division of the land into two states. This solution, however, has yet to be implemented.

The absence of any solution on the ground–or tangible progress toward reaching it–may transform the conflict from one of geography to one of ethnicity. If the trend of frustration and despair that exists on both sides escalates and triumphs, Israel will face a much more difficult struggle than it has to date. Even if Israel progresses in improving the lives and rights of its Arab minority, as it must to strengthen its own democracy, but fails simultaneously to make progress toward resolving the broader Palestinian conflict, it may face an ethnic conflict at least in part of its own making. In such conflict, there may be no difference between a Palestinian from Nablus and one residing in Jaffa. If both are under the same rule, with no political border separating them, sharing similar frustrations and a mixed array of rights, regulations, and restrictions binding them, they could well join together to fight the same battle. Both would raise the flag of "one person – one vote," with the Nablus resident wishing vote like his brother in Jaffa, and the latter wanting this to increase his relative power in the joint state.

This would lead to the failure of the Zionist movement.

There is an alternative route. It does not involve leaving Israel, despite recent polls that reveal that three out of every four Israelis believe a war will break out within five years and that 52 percent do not rule out moving to another country. It may in fact be the only route available to save Israel as we know it. Most of us are unwilling to give up on the miracles we have experienced in the Promised Land. The majority of Israelis are also realistic. Seventy percent according to the most recent polls, support a two-state solution.

So this vast majority, the most realistic among us, know the direction we must take. We even understand, in our heart of hearts, the rough contours of what a two-state solution looks like. We need to fortify and empower our leaders to deliver this third miracle, understanding that the sacrifices necessary to do so are small only in comparison to what we will sacrifice if we fail to act. After 60 years, these realistic people must act in the spirit of Ben Gurion’s statements. Israel must not merely believe in the third miracle—it has the right, obligation and ability to realize it.

A government that is being dismantled cannot be expected to bring peace, but apparently the historical processes that are taking place in the region and in the world are stronger even than it. The isolation of Hamas, which still wants to destroy Israel, the worldwide enlistment against the Iranian nuclear program, the peace talks with the moderate wing of the Palestinian people—which wants to establish an independent state alongside Israel and to live with it in cooperation in the same conflict-ridden parcel of land—the peace signals from Syria, which have met with a positive response on the Israeli side, and also a new U.S. administration, which may provide momentum for peace with Syria that the current administration refuses to provide—all these arouse the hope that the State of Israel is stronger than its ills. Access the full article>>

The clash between the cherished heritage of the majority and the hopes of the minority is more than friction. Even more today than in the huge half-century festivities a decade ago, the left and the right increasingly see Israeli Arabs as one of the central challenges for Israel’s future—one intractably bound to the search for an overall settlement between Jews and Arabs. …

A Palestinian state is widely seen as a potential solution to tensions with the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, but any deep conflict with Israel’s own Arab citizens could prove much more complex. Access the full article>>

Peace is the single most important measure that will provide Israel with the ultimate security it seeks, for peace will particularly undermine Iran’s regional ambitions and neutralize its threat to Israel’s security. By working with the [Arab] Initiative, Israel can establish and pursue a secure border, retain its Jewish national identity, normalize relations with the Arab world and find a mutually acceptable solution to the future of Jerusalem. …

The occasion of Israel’s 60th anniversary should become the symbol of a historic national turning point, the moment when Israel can begin to bring the occupation to an end and enable the nation to re-channel its energy towards peace and prosperity. Access the full article>>

“Dreams are a good thing, either if dreamt by one person or by an entire people. The element of dream is especially important to a state such as Israel, with its establishment being the realization of a dream and with its current desperate need for a dream or a vision.
But its existence is not condition[ed] on the dream. Israel is not a startup: It is an established and rooted state. A state filled with failures, inner diseases and outside problems, but still a living and breathing state. Seven million people live here, eat here, drink, love, work for a living, fight for their lives.”

Demographics
Population
2008: 7.3 million
1948: 806,000
Percent Jewish
2008: 75.5 (~20 percent Russian)
1948: 82.1
Percent Arab
2008: 20.1
1948: 17.8
Percent Other (that is, immigrants and their children not registered as Jewish by the Interior Ministry)
2008: 4.4
1948: not calculated
Percent Born in Israel
2008: 69
1948: 35
Population Growth Rate: 1.8 percent
Life Expectancy (Men): 78.5 years
Life Expectancy (Women): 82.2 years
Immigrants by Year of Immigration
1948-1951: 688,000
1952-1959: 272,000
1960-1969: 374,000
1970-1979: 346,000
1980-1989: 154,000
1990-1999: 956,400
2000-2006: 222,000

Economic Indicators
$198.7 billion GDP (2006)
$28,179 GDP per capita (2006)
5.3% GDP growth (2007)
6.8% unemployment rate (2007)
0.4% inflation rate (2007 est.)
82.7% public debt in terms of GDP (2007 est.)
Value of investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the world at 4.3%.

Trade
Exports:
$48.6 billion (2007 est.)
38.4% United States, 6.5% Belgium, 5.9% Hong Kong
1950: 31.6% United Kingdom, 24.8% United States, 8% Denmark
Imports:
$52.8 billion (2007 est.)
12.4% United States, 8.2% Belgium, 6.7% Germany (2006)
1950: 35.3% United States, 8.5% United Kingdom, 5.3% Italy

Education
Compulsory education up to tenth grade
41.8% have 13 or more years of education; 9% (1948)
97.1% literacy rate; age 15 and over can read and write (2004 est.)
Third highest number of university graduates per capita in the world. (1999)

Other 1948 Comparisons
Percent of population living in Tel Aviv and surrounding area
2008: 53
1948: 71
Percent of population with no schooling
2008: 3
1948: 16
Number of colleges and universities
2008: 62
1948: 2
Number who received degrees from Israeli colleges and universities
2008: 53,000
1948: 208
Home ownership
2008: 71%
End of the 1950s: 54%
Percent of average household expenditures on food
2008: 16
1950s: 40

But Olmert, whose departure could disrupt U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Palestinians, continued with his duties after telling the nation in a late-night televised address on Thursday that he would resign only if the attorney general could produce sufficient evidence to indict.

The march, traditionally marking the expulsion of Palestinian refugees from their land during the War of Independence, led protestors from Nazareth towards the deserted ruins of the village of Suffurriye—today’s Zippori.

During celebrations marking Israel 60th anniversary at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, Livni said the state’s leadership need to "look in the eyes of Israelis and tell them that this is the right thing to do."

The state of Israel generally grants citizenship to spouses of Israelis in a gradual process. In the spirit of this process, a similar process was instituted for the naturalization of spouses of permanent residents … A 2002 temporary order excluded Palestinian spouses from these processes and barred them from becoming Israeli citizens. In May 2006, the High Court rejected numerous petitions asking to overturn the citizenship law. However, most of the justices wrote that the law constitutes a violation of basic rights, mainly the right to a family life.