Israel 2023: Closing the Circle

By Naava Mashiah

IsraEL 2023 is a near-future tour of Israel in the year 2023. The main character arrives to Israel for her nieces wedding in Jerusalem, which she has not visited in over a decade. She shares anecdotes and impressions of the country as she travels the land. She encounters characters whom explain to her the various changes which the country underwent, including demographic, more religious population majority, economic changes and upheavals, geopolitical changes of the neighborhood, and different bilateral relations with allies.

We travel with the character as she traverses across the land of Israel as she visits places of her birth and nostalgic locales from the past: Hadera, Caeserea, Karmiel, Haifa, Jaffa, Herzliya, Dead Sea. She also visits new installations, like the MEGA Military Base in the south, and she visits with former Shimon Peres in his offices in Jaffa. The year 2023 coincides with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the state of Israel, and the country is celebrating this major anniversary in its own special type of parade.

IsraEL 2023 is a satirical depiction and humoristic fiction. The book is brief to allow the reader a bite-size taste of the satire and the publisher to implement the project in a timely manner close to the elections. It may resonate with the book Soumission by the French author Michel Houllebecq.

As the days of pivotal March 2015 election neared, leaving Israel at a historic crossroads, the news emerging from Israel left my manuscript closer to a prophecy rather than a satirical comedy. The book will be of interest not only to Israelis living in the country but also to the international Jewish Diaspora and readership in Arab countries curious about domestic developments in their neighboring country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514462423

Naava Mashiah

Naava Mashiah is a former Israeli diplomat, who has been active in economic cooperation in the MENA region for over twenty years. She established her own company, called M.E. Links, which focuses on nurturing business relations in industries between Israel and her neighboring countries. M.E. Links specializes in regional economic cooperation and strives to connect businesses across geopolitical borders in transfer of technology in sectors such as renewable energies, water technologies, agriculture, and medical fields. The countries in focus are Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE. She is active in Track 2 discussions (informal diplomacy) in conferences that take place in European capitals, with influential figures from the MENA region. Ms. Mashiah is proud to be a founding member and executive board member of the Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, Tel Aviv, Israel. She has published articles about Middle Eastern affairs in Status magazine, Common Ground News, Khaleej Times, Daily News Egypt, and M.E. Links has been featured in Globes. Her articles have been translated to Arabic, Indonesian, Urdu, French, and Hebrew. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum and the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), Alpine Chapter. She speaks Hebrew and English fluently and Spanish, Arabic, and French moderately. She was born in Israel in 1968 and was raised in the USA. Naava currently resides in Geneva, Switzerland, and is CEO of a Swiss start-up in the e-Health sector.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Naava Mashiah.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 10/08/2015

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

722878

Contents

Prologue: Note To The Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

for my parents,

Naomi and Shaul

PROLOGUE: NOTE TO THE READER

I sraEL 2023: Closing the Circle was written prior to the Israeli elections of March 2015 announcement by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Originally, it was written as a single article to alert the electoral voters to the potential consequences or scenarios which could develop if they do not participate in elections. It was intended to wake up voters and shake them out of the complacency which was present across the country. Stagnation has festered for the past decade, particularly within the circles of the Israeli secular sector whom had reached a comfortable standard of living. Why change the status quo, since it was serving them so well?

It was easy not to see the plight of others, both domestically and directly outside their borders. It was simpler to focus on their daily living, enjoyment, and existence, their personal Dolce Vita.  Despite the social justice demonstration of the summer of 2011 demanding solutions to the various hardships of the middle class and lower class underlying the social gaps in Israel.

I witnessed the gradual religiousizing of fringes of society which were no longer marginal. There was more incitement of hatred in the streets, racism, anti democratic polemics, and the various exposed nerves of divisiveness in the society. It was not possible to protest if you were on the left with the very justified fear of bullying. These shifts of increased religiosity, dividing the world into US and THE OTHER, was by no means exclusive to Israel. It was taking place worldwide, particularly in Europe, as the mainstream lost its economic stability. Xenophobia increased, and countries had become more insulated and encapsulated. There were movements against immigration in Europe and Switzerland, Anti–Muslim movements such as Pegida, right wing parties gaining strength in Austria and Netherlands. It was as if there had been a sudden revelation, that it was safer to be with those resembling oneself both in values, religion, and socio-economic class.

These compound factors had altered the face of the Israel in which I had been born, grew up, and subsequently returned to in 1992 on my own, after my parents emigrated to the United States in 1976. I had been watching my homeland change demographically and socially, particularly after my recent move to Europe in 2010.

It is always with a sharper, more critical eye that we can best analyze our former societies.

The result of my analysis was a 900 word article. Yet, readers asked for more. They recognized the exaggerated satirical humor alongside the genuine fear of the possibly prophetic lines of the drafted article.

As the days of the pivotal March 2015 election neared, leaving Israel at a historic crossroads, the news bites emerging from Israel revealed my manuscript to be closer to a prophecy than a satirical comedy. As the election result arrived and Netanyahu’s Government was composed, I realized that some of the predictions were transforming to fact.

In geopolitical security analysis or business strategy we are trained to plan not only for the ‘worst’ case scenario, but the UNREALISTIC scenario. We are trained to stretch our minds and pull out incredulous developments and scenarios. This book is exactly ‘the exaggerated worst in my imagination’ scenario of my country. Had I written a rose tainted story, a positive scenario of Israel, this would only have perpetuated the complacency. I wished to jitter and shake people up and alert.

Even if it meant losing friends whom do not agree with the trajectories in the book. I took a chance out of ‘concern for my country’ and wrote a negative plot.

The iconic demographer, Prof. Sergio Della Pergola of Hebrew University, takes a look into the future of Judaism. He provides an optimistic and pessimistic scenario in Sept 2015.

‘In a pessimistic scenario, it all turns around: There is no security in Israel, the violent conflict is still in its midst, there is an erosion in the economy, investments, employment and income - the birthrate drops, and immigration is reduced while emigration increases.’

I wrote this book so that the next volume written about Israel can be an optimistic one. The plot focuses on the internal threats which are rarely highlighted in the international media, the social gaps, racism and divisiveness of the society.

‘Optimistic scenario: Jewish population grows: An optimistic scenario for the Jewish people relies on stability, security and peace, and a thriving economy in the State of Israel and in the countries where the main Jewish communities reside.

IsraEL 2023; Closing the Circle is written from the same space of concern that Ari Shavit wrote his latest book The Promised Land, in which he struggles with Israel’s ’triumphs, threats, and ultimately its survivability’. As my colleague, Gidi Grinstein, wrote Flexigidity about the adaptability of Judaism in the contemporary world. I am in hopes that my friends and colleagues in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora understand the true intent of this book. After all, Israel and the Jewish Diaspora’s fate are tethered to each other whether they like it or not.

For those interested to understand the avenues of survivability of Israel, we must be able to look at the weaknesses and not only successes. We must be able to analyze the challenges and opportunities that face the country. For a country’s present superiority does not always guarantee its greatness in the future.

Naava Mashiah

Geneva, Switzerland

Sept 2015

A pre election (March 17th2015) warning to Israeli voters

CHAPTER ONE

I t was my first visit to Israel since 2013. Ten years had passed. It was now 2023, and the sign at the airport read Welcome to IsraEL. (The second vowel was capitalized to emphasize the word EL which means God in Hebrew). When the aircraft circled Bennet Airport, one could see the armor sheath that surrounded the compound, a circumference of six kilometers around the airport. It resembled a tortoise-like shell comprised of a three meter high wall which supposedly incorporated innovative missile-repelling technology.

In the passport control center, the booths were separated into Jewish and non-Jewish lines. All the Jewish female arrivals were presented with two small candles in a plastic bag