Interesting opinion piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz. The author Carlo Strenger is Chair of the Clinical Graduate Program of the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University. He serves on the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists, the Seminar of Existential Psychoanalysis in Zurich, and the Scientific Board of the Sigmund Freud Foundation, Vienna in addition to maintaining a part-time practice in existential psychoanalysis.

Strenger's research focuses on the impact of Globalization on Identity and Meaning. He has published five books including The Designed Self and his sixth book, Critique of Global Unreason, will be published by Palgrave. He also works on reframing the concept of midlife transition, on which he has published, among others, 'The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change' in the Harvard Business Review. His work has been reported on, and he has been interviewed by among others, in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time Magazine as well as hundreds of newspapers and websites in more than twenty languages.

Strenger is an outspoken defender of Classical Liberalism, a critic of deteriorating norms in the public domain and an advocate of a sane and just solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He blogs on the Huffington Post, regularly writes in Haaretz, both for the print edition and on his blog, 'Strenger than Fiction', Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Die Welt, and The New York Times.

For more info see his website at http:/freud.tau.ac.il/~strenger/

Ed Corrigan

Strenger than Fiction / Political learnings for make benefit of understanding glorious nation of Israel

Israel after years of dedicated experimentation has developed the Glorious New Method of Government by Chaos.

By Carlo Strenger 

Some diplomats and political commentators have expressed confusion about Israel's policy after Avigdor Lieberman's speech at the UN. These political commentators suffer from over-conventional thinking and therefore cannot realize that Israel is a very special country. It is the birthplace of the Abrahamic religions, and now it is leading the new revolution in world politics.

It is my great honor to explain it in the tradition of my master teacher, and one of the greatest specialists in explaining the complex dynamics of special countries and revolutionary policies: Borat Sagdiyeff.

Israeli Glorious Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu tells world leaders that a final status agreement with the Palestinians is possible in one year. Unknowledgeable commentators think that this is contradicted, when Glorious Foreign Minister Yvet Lieberman announces at the United Nations there will be no final status agreement in the foreseeable future, and also announces a Glorious New Plan that there will be there will be no more Arabs in Israel, which will become a Jewish ethnocracy. 

Commentators do not understand how deep a political revolution Israel is bravely putting into practice. For more than two hundred years the world has lived with a highly unimaginative ideal called democracy. This quaint idea called for one law that to rule all citizens, and allots all citizens equal rights; that there will be a parliament that represents the people and formulates the laws, and then there should be a government that runs the state's affairs according to one coherent policy.

We declare that in the age of cyberspace, this concept no longer makes any sense. It wasn't satisfactory to begin with: after all there are always different viewpoints, and the idea that the majority determines what everybody should be doing always leaves everybody unsatisfied. Political and ethical principles like equality before the law often inhibit truly creative policies, and the flexibility that befits the age of cyberspace. Coherence of policy is also a completely outdated notion only held by backward people who believe in the principle of non-contradiction.

Hence Israel after years of dedicated experimentation has developed the Glorious New Method of Government by Chaos. It is my pleasure to introduce readers to the basics of this method, in the hope other countries will benefit from it as well.

In Israel there are, among others, the following positions:

a) There should be two states west of the Jordan: one the homeland of the Jews and one Palestinian.

b) There should be one state west of the Jordan, and it's up for grabs whether only Jews should have political rights, or whether Palestinians should have equal rights.

c) There should be two states west of the Jordan, and in the Jewish state there should be only Jews, and all Arabs should live in Palestine. Glorious Foreign Minister Yvet (may he soon be uncontested president and leader of Israel) has formulated this idea, and wants everybody in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to his great concept.

d) There shouldn't be a democracy at all, and Orthodox rabbis should determine the laws of the kingdom of Judea

It would be grossly unfair if one of these positions was to prevail, and all other ones would have to give in. So Israel has developed a new method, in which all views are equally represented.

a) Glorious Prime Minister Bibi negotiates with the Palestinians on the principle that there should be two states west of the Jordan River.

b) At the same time, Israel builds settlements as if there should be only one state west of the Jordan River and the government allows disowning Palestinian property.

c) Glorious Foreign Minister Yvet announces at the UN that there will be no final status agreement with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future, and that there will be no more Arabs in Israel, which will be an ethnocracy.

d) In large areas of Israel, children are only taught Jewish subjects, and these areas are de facto run by Rabbinic law. In addition Jews in Israel can only get married by an Orthodox rabbi.

This is a truly wonderful system, in which most groups genuinely feel that they are running the country. I suggest that Israel's Ministry of Public Diplomacy, which is showing enormous creativity lately in explaining Israel, should offer courses for aspiring politicians from around the world on Israel's glorious new method of governing.

Unfortunately there is a dwindling minority in Israel that has so far not made the transition to government by chaos, and continues to adhere to outmoded notions like the rule of law, equal rights for all citizens, the separation of state and religion and even wants government to follow coherent policies. This minority does constitute something of a problem, because it may not be capable of making the transition to government by chaos.

There are currently two options on how to deal with them: they can either be given reeducation, and then take the loyalty oath to government by chaos, moral and intellectual incoherence as proposed by Glorious Foreign Minister Yvet; or Israel will build a small nature reserve in which they will all live, as befits an endangered species.

• Carlo Strenger