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March 22, 2022
Connecting the Bible to Today Part 5: Modern Israel
Modern Israel is a truly fascinating place. Its ethnic diversity and geographic contrasts alone make Israel an amazing place to visit. But the vibrancy of Israeli society is a modern marvel and is found in its religious diversity and in its political system of parliamentarian coalition governments. There are two unifying factors in Israel and one is service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that has helped in making Israel the Start-Up Nation. But its leadership in volunteerism is not about technology as much as the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam – to repair the world.
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Connecting the Bible to Today Part 5: Modern Israel (Out of Zion Episode #94)
Transcript
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You know, Israel is one of the most fascinating countries to visit.
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I hope one day you'll be able to go with me, but in the meantime, I just want to share
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a few things with you about modern Israel, modern Israeli society, so stick with me.
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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of
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Israel.
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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through
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the most exciting book on the planet.
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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes, which will deepen your faith and bring the
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Bible to life.
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And now, here's our host, Susan Michael.
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Well welcome to our Israel Answers Teaching series to part five of our Connecting the
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Bible to Today, where we have been connecting the dots between the Bible times and today
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in terms of Judaism and Christianity, anti-Semitism, how the state of Israel was formed.
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And today I want to bring that series to an end and talk about modern Israel.
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I want you to understand better some of the facets of modern Israel, because it is just
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so fascinating.
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You know, first of all, Israel is a very ethnically diverse place, and that's the first thing
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you learn when you go there.
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You realize Jews come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, and I say that with love in my
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heart for them.
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But you realize that they're not one ethnicity or one race, that there's black, there's
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Asian, there's Middle Eastern, there is Western, European looking, Russian, all these different
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types of people that make up the mosaic of Israel.
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And that's because of the various waves of what we call aliyah or immigration to the
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land.
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When Israel was first born, about 80% of it was of European or Russian descent.
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So that was the fair, complexed, Western Ashkenazi.
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And then when Israel was formed, all the Jews living throughout the Middle East, most of
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them had to flee their homes and make their way to Israel really as refugees.
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There were hundreds of thousands of them.
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And so they come and they have that darker Middle Eastern complexion and culture.
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They ate Eastern foods, they lived according to Eastern family traditions and society,
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and all of a sudden, they're over 50% of Israel.
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There was a great clash of cultures taking place there.
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And then in the late 80s, when the Iron Curtain fell in, over a million Russians have immigrated
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to Israel just in the 90s, the early 2000s, they came, they had grown up under communism.
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They didn't know the first thing about Judaism.
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They had no religious understanding.
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They didn't know the Hebrew culture.
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They didn't know the Middle Eastern culture.
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They were very, very different.
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They brought with them eating pork and drinking vodka, honestly.
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It was very, very different, another clash of cultures.
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And then there in the immigration absorption centers, and who do they mean?
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Israel had just airlifted 14,000 Ethiopian Jews out of a very simple agrarian society
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in Ethiopia.
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And they find their way into the absorption centers with the Russians, another major clash
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of cultures.
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And that's what makes Israel so fascinating.
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And while you have this great ethnic diversity, just the geography of the state of Israel
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is very diverse.
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You go from Mount Hermon up north where you have snow-capped mountains and ski resorts
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down to just, I don't know, what, a couple of hours away?
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You're at the lowest point on earth down at the Dead Sea where they never see snow or
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cold weather.
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They hardly see rain.
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And it's the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea.
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And then you want to go to Jerusalem, you climb up the Judean cliff sides of this barren
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Judean wilderness.
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In America, for us, a wilderness means like a forest with all kinds of green and vines
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and trees.
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You can't make your way through the wilderness.
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No, no, no.
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That is not what wilderness means in Israel.
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The Judean wilderness is a desert, but it's a mountainous desert.
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And it goes all the way from the Dead Sea Valley up, straw cliffs up into the hillside,
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leading up to Jerusalem, to the south that goes down into the Negev Desert.
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Fascinating place.
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I love it.
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And then on the other side of Jerusalem, you have the rolling hills.
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You can actually see the Mediterranean Sea from the other side of Jerusalem.
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And you just can't get this type of geographic contrast all squeezed into this one little
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nation about the size of New Jersey.
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Then let's talk about the religious diversity.
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Well, a few weeks ago I talked about Judaism and the great diversity within Judaism.
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And so I'm not going to repeat that, but you'll see that in Israel, everything from
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the ultra-Orthodox who dress in black coats and white shirts and black hats and the curls
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and very, very strict adherence to the law, but also to the teachings of their rabbis
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that they follow.
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And you can tell which rabbi or which school of thought that they follow based on how they
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dress.
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And then you have the more everyday Orthodox that wears a kippah, maybe a white shirt and
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business pants, but lives a little bit more integrated into society.
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And then you have the more everyday traditional Israeli that maybe wears a kippah when they
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go to synagogue, but not everyday life.
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And then you just keep moving into more and more of a everyday modern Western adherence,
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very little observance of the law and all of this diversity in Israel here in this one
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state.
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And sometimes they disagree with each other and politically they're kind of fighting
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it out right now.
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Should the ultra-Orthodox serve in the army or not?
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Should the ultra-Orthodox have their own schools and their own system or not?
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And they fight it out amongst themselves.
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But there's also other religions in the land of Israel.
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So we have almost 20% of Israelis are not even Jewish.
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Most of them are Muslim.
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So there's many mosques throughout Israel.
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There is a whole Muslim society within Israel.
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And then there's a much smaller minority that are Christians.
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And when I say Christians, I mean of Arab descent or of Aramaic descent, of Middle Eastern
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descent.
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They've been living in Israel all along.
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They have Israeli citizenship.
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And then there is the, let me segue into talking about the Arab minority in Israel.
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There is this 20%.
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But they are full Israeli citizens.
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They have Israeli passports.
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They have voting rights.
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They have their own political parties.
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Right now in the Israeli government, there is a coalition government.
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And that coalition has one Arab party in the coalition.
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Within the government of Israel, there is an Arab party today.
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There are Arab Supreme Court justices.
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There are Arabs in the police forces.
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There are Arabs in the border patrol forces.
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There are Arabs in the Israeli Foreign Service.
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They serve as ambassador.
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There are Arab minorities that are former Miss Israel was an Arab Israeli.
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It goes on and on and on.
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So they have opportunities.
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Yes, they suffer as any minority in any country in the world has some level of inequality.
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It's just part and parcel with being a minority.
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But in Israel, this minority has even an additional obstacle, an additional difficulty.
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And that is that they are of the ethnicity and the language and maybe of the religion
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of the surrounding countries that Israel has been at war with and still at a state of war
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with some of them.
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And so this minority has a special security risk associated with it.
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Israel has to keep a close eye on them.
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Is there any radicalization taking place within the mosque that Israel sees as a security
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threat?
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And you see an Arab on the street.
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It's not always obvious.
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Are they Christian?
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Are they Muslim?
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I mean, even sometimes it's hard to tell the Jews from them because of the similar ethnicity.
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So I want to make another point here about the Arab minority.
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There is a difference.
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And this is a real confusing point for a lot of people.
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There is a difference in being an Israeli Arab, which is this minority that have citizenship
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in Israel and in being a Palestinian.
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A Palestinian doesn't live inside Israel proper.
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They live inside what are called the Palestinian territories.
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Now, I know some of you listening believe that all of that should be Israel.
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I'm not debating that.
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I'm just saying that there is a section of the country that over the last 20 years Israel
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made an agreement and turned part of its governing over to the Palestinian authority.
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So today, 98% of the Palestinian Arabs live in cities and territories that are under a
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Palestinian government.
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It's largely in the territory you've heard of called the West Bank.
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And then we have the Gaza Strip, which I'll talk about in a minute.
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Right now, I just want to talk about the Arabs that are in the West Bank area and they're
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called Palestinians.
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And that's because they are not Israeli citizens.
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Now, there is a minority of Israeli Arabs that are Israeli citizens that call themselves
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Palestinian in solidarity with the Palestinian movement.
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And so I know it gets really confusing.
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But when you're talking about Israel's treatment of the Arabs or the situation of the Arabs,
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you must understand that there are these two main categories, Israeli citizenship Arabs
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and Palestinian Arabs under Palestinian government.
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And yeah, there's a little bit of an overlapping and there are some gray areas in between the
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two.
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But once you understand these two different, then you can begin to understand some of the
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issues we're going to be talking about in the coming weeks.
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Now let me talk about the Israeli government because for Americans, we have a hard time
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understanding the Israeli government because we have a different system.
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Their system is the parliamentarian system.
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And so in Israel, you don't vote for a prime minister.
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You vote for a party.
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And so you vote for a party and then they add up the votes.
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And there may be 15, 20 different parties running in an election.
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And some of those parties will get so few votes that they don't even earn them any seats
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in the government.
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So they're not even in the parliament.
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But if you get enough votes, then based on how many votes your party gets, you get a
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number of seats in the parliament.
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So Israel has never, ever had a party that got enough votes to be the majority in the
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parliament, which they call the Knesset.
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In Hebrew it's called the Knesset.
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There's 120 seats in the Knesset.
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So you need 61 seats to be a majority.
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There has never been a party to have that many seats.
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So how do they form a government?
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It's through coalitions.
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And so the main party, the party with the most seats, which in the last few elections
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has been Likud party, they then have to make agreements with some of the other large parties
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until they get 61 seats in their coalition.
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And so there's a lot of negotiating that takes place.
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One party will say, OK, I'll be a part of your government, but I want to make sure that
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we are in control of this ministry and that ministry, education or whatever.
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And they bargain with each other and they barter.
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And they come, finally they arrange, OK, we've got a coalition.
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These are the parties.
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It's enough seats.
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And this is the coalition government.
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So today there are, I think, 13 parties in the Knesset.
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And the ruling coalition may be wrong, but I think it's close to eight parties.
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So when you have that many parties in a coalition, it means that there is a lot of instability.
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All it takes is one party and they may only have three or four seats.
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But if they pull out, the whole government collapses.
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And so that's the Israeli political system.
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You know, the system is full of negotiating a lot of playing politics and you really have
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to be a strong politician to become a leading political leader in Israel.
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You got to know how to navigate this system.
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You got to know how to negotiate, how to put together coalitions, how to fight it out,
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how to threaten people, how to get your way when you need it, how to give in when you
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need to.
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There's a real art to it.
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And the Israeli political system is absolutely fascinating to watch.
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Now I've given you a picture of a country with a lot of diversity.
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What brings it together?
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What unifies it?
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How do they hold it all together?
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Well, there's a couple of things.
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One is serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.
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The IDF is the Israeli Defense Forces is what it stands for.
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And it's compulsory service.
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So men have to serve three years and I think women serve two years.
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And then after they get out of their army service for the next 20, 25 years, they're
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in reserve duty.
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And that means that every year for a whole month, they leave their work, they leave their
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job and they go and they serve in the military.
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Now how does this affect Israeli society?
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In about three different ways.
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One is it's a real equalizer in society.
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So you may have, I'll just make up an example, but you may have a medical doctor that has
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to go serve in the reserves.
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And in the reserves, he's actually answering to someone who is an engineer in real life
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or they may own a car mechanic place.
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So it cuts down on a lot of the class that happens in societies.
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And the Israeli people have formed more of a cohesive unit.
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It's not based so much on your profession or your job.
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There's not as many classes.
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And the IDF serves as a lot of a unifier of society.
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It is also like a rite of passage.
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And so there are two groups of people in Israel that do not have to serve in the military
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and in a way that leaves them out a little bit in society.
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And one is the ultra religious.
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They are opposed to serving in the military.
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They don't want to serve in the military.
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They want to instead study Torah.
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And there's a small faction of ultra orthodox that don't believe in supporting the state
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of Israel because it wasn't formed by the Messiah.
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And so they battle, then they don't have the same entree into Israeli society.
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The other group that does not have to serve in the military are Israeli Arabs.
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They're not required to.
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But what we see happening now is more and more Israeli Arabs are volunteering to serve
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in the IDF.
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Why?
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Because number one, a lot of them just appreciate the freedoms and the opportunities they have
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in Israel and they want to protect them.
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But secondly, a lot of them know that it's through your military service that you meet
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people who then after military service might help open doors for you to get a job, to advance
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in your career, these types of things.
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And also your training in the military.
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So it really helps you to become better integrated into Israeli society.
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So more than are volunteering.
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There's one other way that the IDF has influenced Israeli society.
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And that is that it has produced a young people that realize the only way that they're going
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to keep their country safe.
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And let me tell you, let me just say one thing quickly.
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If you're in a war in Israel and you're serving in the IDF, your family is probably about an
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hour away from the battlefront.
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So these young soldiers, they know they are fighting for the lives of their families.
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It's a different feeling for us as Americans.
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Our wars are on the other side of the world.
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They feel it as a direct threat to their families and their communities.
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So these young people have learned the only way that they can keep their families and
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their communities and their nation safe is by staying one foot ahead, one step ahead of
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the enemy.
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And that means in technology and in weaponry and in technique.
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And so they are always looking for ways to develop technology and to develop new weapons
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with new capability to stay one step ahead.
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So then that young person leaves their military service and goes into the private world and
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they take that same drive with them.
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And that is why Israel has become known as the startup nation because they have so many
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young people there developing new technology as a business.
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And then once they get it up and running, they usually sell it to a big company.
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So these big companies like Microsoft and Intel and Naimum, they have R&D research and
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development centers in Israel and they are using this very drive in the young people
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that is birthed in them in the military.
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One last thing I am going to tell you quickly about Israel.
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So Israel is not only leading the world in innovation and science and medical technology
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and all these wonderful things that they are inventing and discovering.
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But Israel is also leading the world in volunteerism.
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And this is not because of the army so much, although the army does play a part in this.
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The army teaches them how to deploy, how to take a makeshift tent and set up a mobile
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hospital and these things, they learn all this in the military.
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So then they get out as a young person and they want to help the world.
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And so they are the first, if there is an earthquake in Haiti or in Thailand or Malaysia
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or wherever in the world, there is a tidal wave, whatever, they are the first on the
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scene with this advanced technology of these hospitals that they can just put up in a
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matter of hours and be fully ready not to treat injuries but to do surgeries even.
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Why is that?
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Well, the military.
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But secondly, why is it?
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It is because of the Jewish DNA that for centuries the Jewish people have prayed for
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tikkun olam in Hebrew and I will translate it, it is translated as repairing the world.
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They have a drive within them to make the world a better place.
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They are driven to help people that are hurting.
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They want to repair the world and so they are leading the world in volunteerism and
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little bitty Israel has taken humanitarian aid to over 140 countries in the world.
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That is amazing.
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Now my very last point to you before I close is about the Israeli people.
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They have been referred to and they call themselves actually Sabra, amongst themselves.
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A Sabra is someone who actually was born in Israel.
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They are real Israeli because they were born there.
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The others are olene, they are immigrants that come in but their children are going
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to be Sabra because their children will be born in Israel.
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What is a Sabra?
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Well, Sabra is a cactus fruit.
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It is very, very prickly on the outside.
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It has thorns.
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It will hurt you if you try to touch it.
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But on the inside, it is very soft.
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It is very kind and that is the people of Israel.
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They are known for being kind of brusque but on the inside they are very warm.
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They are very caring.
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They are very friendly.
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And so I hope you can go with me one day to see all of this for yourself.
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I want you to know we have a tour going later this year.
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I invite you to go with me down below in our show notes.
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We are going to give you a link to a tour interest sign up.
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Sign up today.
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Get on that list because just as soon as we have dates and pricing, we are going to
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send it out to everyone.
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So get on the list and if you can't go this year, maybe you can go next year.
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We will keep you informed when we have a tour for you to go.
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Go with me, experience the miracle of this most fascinating place on earth called Israel.
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So with that, I am going to end.
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I can't wait to see you back here next week and in the meantime, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube or wherever
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you like to listen and learn.
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00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:18,360
Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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You know, Israel is one of the most fascinating countries to visit.
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I hope one day you'll be able to go with me, but in the meantime, I just want to share
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a few things with you about modern Israel, modern Israeli society, so stick with me.
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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of
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Israel.
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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through
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the most exciting book on the planet.
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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes, which will deepen your faith and bring the
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Bible to life.
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And now, here's our host, Susan Michael.
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Well welcome to our Israel Answers Teaching series to part five of our Connecting the
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Bible to Today, where we have been connecting the dots between the Bible times and today
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in terms of Judaism and Christianity, anti-Semitism, how the state of Israel was formed.
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And today I want to bring that series to an end and talk about modern Israel.
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I want you to understand better some of the facets of modern Israel, because it is just
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so fascinating.
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You know, first of all, Israel is a very ethnically diverse place, and that's the first thing
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you learn when you go there.
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You realize Jews come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, and I say that with love in my
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heart for them.
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But you realize that they're not one ethnicity or one race, that there's black, there's
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Asian, there's Middle Eastern, there is Western, European looking, Russian, all these different
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types of people that make up the mosaic of Israel.
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And that's because of the various waves of what we call aliyah or immigration to the
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land.
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When Israel was first born, about 80% of it was of European or Russian descent.
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So that was the fair, complexed, Western Ashkenazi.
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And then when Israel was formed, all the Jews living throughout the Middle East, most of
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them had to flee their homes and make their way to Israel really as refugees.
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There were hundreds of thousands of them.
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And so they come and they have that darker Middle Eastern complexion and culture.
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They ate Eastern foods, they lived according to Eastern family traditions and society,
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and all of a sudden, they're over 50% of Israel.
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There was a great clash of cultures taking place there.
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And then in the late 80s, when the Iron Curtain fell in, over a million Russians have immigrated
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to Israel just in the 90s, the early 2000s, they came, they had grown up under communism.
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They didn't know the first thing about Judaism.
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They had no religious understanding.
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They didn't know the Hebrew culture.
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They didn't know the Middle Eastern culture.
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They were very, very different.
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They brought with them eating pork and drinking vodka, honestly.
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It was very, very different, another clash of cultures.
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And then there in the immigration absorption centers, and who do they mean?
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Israel had just airlifted 14,000 Ethiopian Jews out of a very simple agrarian society
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in Ethiopia.
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And they find their way into the absorption centers with the Russians, another major clash
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of cultures.
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And that's what makes Israel so fascinating.
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And while you have this great ethnic diversity, just the geography of the state of Israel
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is very diverse.
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You go from Mount Hermon up north where you have snow-capped mountains and ski resorts
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down to just, I don't know, what, a couple of hours away?
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You're at the lowest point on earth down at the Dead Sea where they never see snow or
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cold weather.
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They hardly see rain.
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And it's the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea.
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And then you want to go to Jerusalem, you climb up the Judean cliff sides of this barren
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Judean wilderness.
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In America, for us, a wilderness means like a forest with all kinds of green and vines
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and trees.
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You can't make your way through the wilderness.
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No, no, no.
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That is not what wilderness means in Israel.
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The Judean wilderness is a desert, but it's a mountainous desert.
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And it goes all the way from the Dead Sea Valley up, straw cliffs up into the hillside,
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leading up to Jerusalem, to the south that goes down into the Negev Desert.
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Fascinating place.
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I love it.
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And then on the other side of Jerusalem, you have the rolling hills.
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You can actually see the Mediterranean Sea from the other side of Jerusalem.
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And you just can't get this type of geographic contrast all squeezed into this one little
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nation about the size of New Jersey.
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Then let's talk about the religious diversity.
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Well, a few weeks ago I talked about Judaism and the great diversity within Judaism.
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And so I'm not going to repeat that, but you'll see that in Israel, everything from
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the ultra-Orthodox who dress in black coats and white shirts and black hats and the curls
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and very, very strict adherence to the law, but also to the teachings of their rabbis
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that they follow.
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And you can tell which rabbi or which school of thought that they follow based on how they
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dress.
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And then you have the more everyday Orthodox that wears a kippah, maybe a white shirt and
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business pants, but lives a little bit more integrated into society.
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And then you have the more everyday traditional Israeli that maybe wears a kippah when they
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go to synagogue, but not everyday life.
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And then you just keep moving into more and more of a everyday modern Western adherence,
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very little observance of the law and all of this diversity in Israel here in this one
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state.
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And sometimes they disagree with each other and politically they're kind of fighting
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it out right now.
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Should the ultra-Orthodox serve in the army or not?
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Should the ultra-Orthodox have their own schools and their own system or not?
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And they fight it out amongst themselves.
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But there's also other religions in the land of Israel.
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So we have almost 20% of Israelis are not even Jewish.
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Most of them are Muslim.
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So there's many mosques throughout Israel.
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There is a whole Muslim society within Israel.
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And then there's a much smaller minority that are Christians.
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And when I say Christians, I mean of Arab descent or of Aramaic descent, of Middle Eastern
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descent.
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They've been living in Israel all along.
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They have Israeli citizenship.
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And then there is the, let me segue into talking about the Arab minority in Israel.
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There is this 20%.
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But they are full Israeli citizens.
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They have Israeli passports.
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They have voting rights.
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They have their own political parties.
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Right now in the Israeli government, there is a coalition government.
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And that coalition has one Arab party in the coalition.
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Within the government of Israel, there is an Arab party today.
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There are Arab Supreme Court justices.
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There are Arabs in the police forces.
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There are Arabs in the border patrol forces.
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There are Arabs in the Israeli Foreign Service.
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They serve as ambassador.
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There are Arab minorities that are former Miss Israel was an Arab Israeli.
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It goes on and on and on.
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So they have opportunities.
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Yes, they suffer as any minority in any country in the world has some level of inequality.
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It's just part and parcel with being a minority.
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But in Israel, this minority has even an additional obstacle, an additional difficulty.
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And that is that they are of the ethnicity and the language and maybe of the religion
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of the surrounding countries that Israel has been at war with and still at a state of war
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with some of them.
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And so this minority has a special security risk associated with it.
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Israel has to keep a close eye on them.
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Is there any radicalization taking place within the mosque that Israel sees as a security
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threat?
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And you see an Arab on the street.
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It's not always obvious.
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Are they Christian?
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Are they Muslim?
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I mean, even sometimes it's hard to tell the Jews from them because of the similar ethnicity.
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So I want to make another point here about the Arab minority.
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There is a difference.
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And this is a real confusing point for a lot of people.
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There is a difference in being an Israeli Arab, which is this minority that have citizenship
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in Israel and in being a Palestinian.
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A Palestinian doesn't live inside Israel proper.
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They live inside what are called the Palestinian territories.
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Now, I know some of you listening believe that all of that should be Israel.
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I'm not debating that.
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I'm just saying that there is a section of the country that over the last 20 years Israel
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made an agreement and turned part of its governing over to the Palestinian authority.
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So today, 98% of the Palestinian Arabs live in cities and territories that are under a
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Palestinian government.
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It's largely in the territory you've heard of called the West Bank.
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And then we have the Gaza Strip, which I'll talk about in a minute.
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Right now, I just want to talk about the Arabs that are in the West Bank area and they're
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called Palestinians.
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And that's because they are not Israeli citizens.
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Now, there is a minority of Israeli Arabs that are Israeli citizens that call themselves
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Palestinian in solidarity with the Palestinian movement.
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And so I know it gets really confusing.
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But when you're talking about Israel's treatment of the Arabs or the situation of the Arabs,
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you must understand that there are these two main categories, Israeli citizenship Arabs
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and Palestinian Arabs under Palestinian government.
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And yeah, there's a little bit of an overlapping and there are some gray areas in between the
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two.
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But once you understand these two different, then you can begin to understand some of the
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issues we're going to be talking about in the coming weeks.
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Now let me talk about the Israeli government because for Americans, we have a hard time
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understanding the Israeli government because we have a different system.
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Their system is the parliamentarian system.
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And so in Israel, you don't vote for a prime minister.
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You vote for a party.
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And so you vote for a party and then they add up the votes.
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And there may be 15, 20 different parties running in an election.
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And some of those parties will get so few votes that they don't even earn them any seats
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in the government.
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So they're not even in the parliament.
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But if you get enough votes, then based on how many votes your party gets, you get a
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number of seats in the parliament.
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So Israel has never, ever had a party that got enough votes to be the majority in the
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parliament, which they call the Knesset.
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In Hebrew it's called the Knesset.
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There's 120 seats in the Knesset.
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So you need 61 seats to be a majority.
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There has never been a party to have that many seats.
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So how do they form a government?
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It's through coalitions.
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And so the main party, the party with the most seats, which in the last few elections
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has been Likud party, they then have to make agreements with some of the other large parties
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until they get 61 seats in their coalition.
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And so there's a lot of negotiating that takes place.
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One party will say, OK, I'll be a part of your government, but I want to make sure that
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we are in control of this ministry and that ministry, education or whatever.
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And they bargain with each other and they barter.
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And they come, finally they arrange, OK, we've got a coalition.
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These are the parties.
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It's enough seats.
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And this is the coalition government.
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So today there are, I think, 13 parties in the Knesset.
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And the ruling coalition may be wrong, but I think it's close to eight parties.
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So when you have that many parties in a coalition, it means that there is a lot of instability.
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All it takes is one party and they may only have three or four seats.
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But if they pull out, the whole government collapses.
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And so that's the Israeli political system.
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You know, the system is full of negotiating a lot of playing politics and you really have
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to be a strong politician to become a leading political leader in Israel.
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You got to know how to navigate this system.
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You got to know how to negotiate, how to put together coalitions, how to fight it out,
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how to threaten people, how to get your way when you need it, how to give in when you
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need to.
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There's a real art to it.
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And the Israeli political system is absolutely fascinating to watch.
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Now I've given you a picture of a country with a lot of diversity.
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What brings it together?
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What unifies it?
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How do they hold it all together?
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Well, there's a couple of things.
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One is serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.
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The IDF is the Israeli Defense Forces is what it stands for.
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And it's compulsory service.
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So men have to serve three years and I think women serve two years.
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And then after they get out of their army service for the next 20, 25 years, they're
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in reserve duty.
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And that means that every year for a whole month, they leave their work, they leave their
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job and they go and they serve in the military.
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Now how does this affect Israeli society?
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In about three different ways.
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One is it's a real equalizer in society.
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So you may have, I'll just make up an example, but you may have a medical doctor that has
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to go serve in the reserves.
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And in the reserves, he's actually answering to someone who is an engineer in real life
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or they may own a car mechanic place.
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So it cuts down on a lot of the class that happens in societies.
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And the Israeli people have formed more of a cohesive unit.
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It's not based so much on your profession or your job.
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There's not as many classes.
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And the IDF serves as a lot of a unifier of society.
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It is also like a rite of passage.
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And so there are two groups of people in Israel that do not have to serve in the military
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and in a way that leaves them out a little bit in society.
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And one is the ultra religious.
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They are opposed to serving in the military.
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They don't want to serve in the military.
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They want to instead study Torah.
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And there's a small faction of ultra orthodox that don't believe in supporting the state
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of Israel because it wasn't formed by the Messiah.
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And so they battle, then they don't have the same entree into Israeli society.
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The other group that does not have to serve in the military are Israeli Arabs.
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They're not required to.
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But what we see happening now is more and more Israeli Arabs are volunteering to serve
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in the IDF.
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Why?
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Because number one, a lot of them just appreciate the freedoms and the opportunities they have
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in Israel and they want to protect them.
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But secondly, a lot of them know that it's through your military service that you meet
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people who then after military service might help open doors for you to get a job, to advance
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in your career, these types of things.
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And also your training in the military.
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So it really helps you to become better integrated into Israeli society.
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So more than are volunteering.
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There's one other way that the IDF has influenced Israeli society.
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And that is that it has produced a young people that realize the only way that they're going
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to keep their country safe.
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And let me tell you, let me just say one thing quickly.
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If you're in a war in Israel and you're serving in the IDF, your family is probably about an
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hour away from the battlefront.
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So these young soldiers, they know they are fighting for the lives of their families.
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It's a different feeling for us as Americans.
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Our wars are on the other side of the world.
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They feel it as a direct threat to their families and their communities.
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So these young people have learned the only way that they can keep their families and
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their communities and their nation safe is by staying one foot ahead, one step ahead of
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the enemy.
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And that means in technology and in weaponry and in technique.
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And so they are always looking for ways to develop technology and to develop new weapons
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with new capability to stay one step ahead.
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So then that young person leaves their military service and goes into the private world and
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they take that same drive with them.
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And that is why Israel has become known as the startup nation because they have so many
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young people there developing new technology as a business.
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And then once they get it up and running, they usually sell it to a big company.
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So these big companies like Microsoft and Intel and Naimum, they have R&D research and
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development centers in Israel and they are using this very drive in the young people
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that is birthed in them in the military.
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One last thing I am going to tell you quickly about Israel.
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So Israel is not only leading the world in innovation and science and medical technology
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and all these wonderful things that they are inventing and discovering.
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But Israel is also leading the world in volunteerism.
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And this is not because of the army so much, although the army does play a part in this.
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The army teaches them how to deploy, how to take a makeshift tent and set up a mobile
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hospital and these things, they learn all this in the military.
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So then they get out as a young person and they want to help the world.
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And so they are the first, if there is an earthquake in Haiti or in Thailand or Malaysia
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or wherever in the world, there is a tidal wave, whatever, they are the first on the
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scene with this advanced technology of these hospitals that they can just put up in a
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matter of hours and be fully ready not to treat injuries but to do surgeries even.
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Why is that?
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Well, the military.
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But secondly, why is it?
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It is because of the Jewish DNA that for centuries the Jewish people have prayed for
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tikkun olam in Hebrew and I will translate it, it is translated as repairing the world.
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They have a drive within them to make the world a better place.
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They are driven to help people that are hurting.
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They want to repair the world and so they are leading the world in volunteerism and
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little bitty Israel has taken humanitarian aid to over 140 countries in the world.
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That is amazing.
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Now my very last point to you before I close is about the Israeli people.
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They have been referred to and they call themselves actually Sabra, amongst themselves.
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A Sabra is someone who actually was born in Israel.
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They are real Israeli because they were born there.
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The others are olene, they are immigrants that come in but their children are going
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to be Sabra because their children will be born in Israel.
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What is a Sabra?
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Well, Sabra is a cactus fruit.
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It is very, very prickly on the outside.
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It has thorns.
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It will hurt you if you try to touch it.
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But on the inside, it is very soft.
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It is very kind and that is the people of Israel.
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They are known for being kind of brusque but on the inside they are very warm.
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They are very caring.
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They are very friendly.
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And so I hope you can go with me one day to see all of this for yourself.
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I want you to know we have a tour going later this year.
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I invite you to go with me down below in our show notes.
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We are going to give you a link to a tour interest sign up.
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Sign up today.
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Get on that list because just as soon as we have dates and pricing, we are going to
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send it out to everyone.
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So get on the list and if you can't go this year, maybe you can go next year.
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We will keep you informed when we have a tour for you to go.
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Go with me, experience the miracle of this most fascinating place on earth called Israel.
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So with that, I am going to end.
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I can't wait to see you back here next week and in the meantime, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube or wherever
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00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,400
you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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