The claim is made that Israel’s absolute priority must be to protect its security, indeed its right to exist. But with the events of the past few years, the country is reaching the stage at which to fulfill these aims, it will need to carry out the most abhorrent initiatives.

To be clear: genocidal action. Otherwise Israelis will never achieve a permanent state of “security”. The way things have developed, unless around them they establish a desert from where existing residents have been removed in one way or the other, Israelis will never feel they can be secure. But even if this extemity is “successfully” achieved, they will also have created the basis of a new Armageddon for future generations of Israelis that could also be aboslute.

Israel’s leaders cannot be absolved of responsibility for what is happeneing, even if in the past year, they did have to respond to totally disgusting terrorist attacks on their citizens. However they have departed completely from the only approach that could have averted disaster, the one proposed by Yitzah Rabin, who was not assassinated by Palestinian terrorists.

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LISTENING...

One hears this complaint among others: They tell you they’re there to listen to what you have to say and that they do listen. But then, when it comes to making oneself heard, they give you the phone number of some customer care office or the name of some official to contact. But I wanted to speak to the person who promised to listen to me, not to some guy who’s going to send me from Pilate to Caiaphas.

Another complaint: With all these ministers and parliamentary secretaries, why is it so difficult to have a face to face and frank discussion with some of them?

Frankly, I cannot say whether these complaints are justified or not. In the past, they used to be heard as well. Still, the point remains that today one hears them as well.

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QUALITY SERVICE

The valid statement is made that our economy needs to be competitive in terms of quality, not least in the services we provide and the goods we produce for sale,

In volume terms, both goods and services are being run successfully. The services sector in particular is booming. Which is why the economy continues to grow in a significant manner.

However is the focus on quality and its improvement being kept? How is this being done?

All things considered, it is easier to guarantee and implement quality standards in the production of material and technological goods than in the provision of services. As of now, we have been specializing perhaps too much in the services sectors, not least tourism, where volume consideerations might be outweighing quality ones. If in industrial production (which in relative terms has been shrinking) we are maintaning the required quality standards, does the same hold for services?