The growing pains of Israel, aged 58

I linked to this article before but I think it's highly significant that it appeared first in Ha'aretz and now in the Financial Times. Curiously, the FT has changed the title from the Ha'aretz one: The country that wouldn't grow up to Why Israel cannot always rely on America's helping hand. I wonder if they're telling their readers to divest from Israel.

By the age of 58 a country - like a man - should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and ill, who we are and how we appear to others, warts and all. And though we still harbour occasional illusions about ourselves, we know they are, for the most part, just illusions. In short, we are adults.

But the state of Israel, which has just turned 58, remains curiously immature. The country's social transformations - and its many economic achievements - have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: confident of its uniqueness; certain that no one "understands"; quick to take offence, and to give it. Like many adolescents, Israel is convinced - and aggressively asserts - that it can do as it wishes; that its actions carry no consequences; that it is immortal.

The earlier post is here.