Zionist Leader Sees No Normalcy or Peace for Israel in Next Decade

An American Zionist leader and social analyst has offered a picture of Israeli society in the next ten years in which persons with military training and outlook will hold dominant positions and the majority of the population, born in Israel, “will no longer be reflective of the advocacy of the Jewish State and the aspirations to attain it.”

For them, according to Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, president of the Labor Zionist Alliance. “Israel will be their country of birth and its realities will shape their views as citizens of that state and as Jews.” Dr. Shapiro made his comments yesterday at a luncheon meeting of the National Jewish Communal Workers Division of the LZA. His topic was “Contemporary Social Issues Facing Israel” In the decade ahead. “This will be the first Jewish society in history with military training and outlook for a majority of its members. That is bound to affect the pace, the methods and the objectives of those who conduct Israel’s affairs,” Dr. Shapiro said.

He observed that “Unfortunately, the constant pressures of war and the international community and the economic strains will have eliminated any projection of a state of normalcy and peace. Few in Israel in the next decade will have been raised to a vision of a Jewish State living at peace with its neighbors and evolving a Jewish society in relation to the local environment and culture.”

Dr. Shapiro predicted that “The suspicion of the Arab neighbors will not easily allow an adaptation to the culture of the Middle East milieu and there will be a self-imposed foreign quality to the Jew in the Middle East. The Israelis will see themselves as Westerners, related to the larger or affluent Jewish communities and thereby motivate the Arabs to charge the Israelis with being an intruding element, though the Arabs are responsible for Israeli alienation.” Dr. Shapiro said.