I’ve been threatening to write about what needs to be done. But the nagging thought that maybe I actually haven’t got a clue what needs to be done has kind of kept me from writing anything at all. So, mainly to commit myself, I’ll just outline the key points.

1. First, we need to plan means for survival. To do this we need to distinguish fundamental issues from secondary ones. The fundamental security threat facing Israel is a coordinated attack of long-range missiles from several directions, with conventional or non-conventional warheads. The question of the optimal deployment of military forces and civilian settlements must be considered primarily in light of how such deployment impacts on Israel’s ability to defend itself (via deterrence, pre-emption or retaliation) against that threat.

2. Israel’s ability to do what needs to be done depends on the quality of its leadership. At the moment, we are in a transitional phase in which those who are committed to Israel’s future are being led by decadent career politicians who are not. There are a number of historical and political reasons for this, but in any event this will not change until legitimate alternative leadership emerges. Thus, the second thing that needs to be done is for decent people to shift mental gears from sniping and fantasizing to strategizing and leading.

3. Developing the necessary prerequisites for leadership won’t be enough as long as the power to actually get things done is in the stranglehold of a self-perpetuating oligarchy. Thus, the third thing that needs to be done is to leverage the power of the frustrated majority of decent people to collapse the mechanisms through which the decadent oligarchy accumulates and retains power.

Hopefully, bli neder, in my next three posts, I’ll elaborate on these three points, respectively.