Israel is 72 years old, and a loud and hysterical sector from relatives is preparing for a funeral in March. For them, society is ragged, the economy is collapsing, health is ill, corruption is rampant, democracy is being slaughtered, individual freedoms are being eroded, poverty is rampant and apartheid is at stake. The most confused part of it even has a flag, and it's all black and black. Not that there is no problem, in front of the farce of the black flag, it is not worth waving a pale blue cloth. But those who have not lost any sense of proportion, know that Israel is not only conceivable in all important areas. If you know by what criteria to test her achievements, failures and failures - it turns out that for the most part it is a staggering success.

And the benchmark is the comparative framework. It is good to compare our performance with the perfect answer, and try to narrow the gap between them as much as possible. But this comparison should not be made without simultaneously examining our achievements with those of our similar companies, and seeking satisfaction when it turns out that our situation is much better than most. The first comparison gives motivation for improvement. The second is a self-confidence that persists.

There are rifts in Israel, mainly between the Zionist and the productive majority, and most of the Arabs and the hard-core of the ultra-Orthodox, but it is not a divided society. Solidarity is less than a mobilized society during the founding days, favoring, properly, a wide pluralism and a rich diversity of cultures and individualism erupting and creative. Next to them, the mainstream of Israeli society maintains the warmth of family settings, the number of children of high educated and well-established families in the developed world (twice as much in Europe, about a third as in the United States) and maintains a controlled and healthy degree of "tribal" solidarity. 

The economy is strong enough to withstand the severe setbacks and unavoidable hardships of the Corona epidemic. The health care system has already shown that it is capable of responding quickly to a dramatic and unpredictable crisis. Even without being the "best in the world", she is now showing some of the best, under extreme uncertainty. Corruption is present and in some places flourishing and outrageous, but Israel is not a corrupt state. It is located somewhere between Finland and Italy, such as France and the United States. Important institutions are not primarily corrupt - in the military, the judiciary and academia, for example, there is corruption, but they are not corrupt. Politics and government are more corrupt than tolerable, but less so than before. They are simply more exposed and the standards are stricter.

And democracy in Israel has never been more robust, certainly not endangered. She is sloping, by nature, in "stinky exercises" she always has been and always will be. "Clean politics" preaches those who have lost and those who knew better than others to expose the opponent's "filth" and hide theirs in the public arena. Everyone loves the theater that serves to strive for power and premiere: On the right, top judges claim to be recruited in the anti-Israeli leftist service (in effect, they seek political power). The left blames Netanyahu's emissaries who shut down the Knesset and the judiciary (in practice they tried to delay several days of legislative processes that would prevent the establishment of an emergency government).

Fid, Lieberman and another wanted to thwart a right-wing legislative exercise; Netanyahu and Gantz are now trying, in dubious legislative exercise, to secure their political future for years to come. Thus, obviously aesthetically correct, democracies are underway - in Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Italy and others - under conditions of decisiveness and crisis. Ridiculous to compare to Hungary, certainly to Turkey. In the Israeli political dictionary, "the destruction of democracy" is usually defined as "I am not in power." The gravity of the threat to freedom and freedom of expression is revealed when Ayman Odeh - a reverent of the Assad regime - is invited to speak in an emergency demonstration to save democracy in Israel. 

Israel has many difficult challenges. At 72, she is dealing with them on a solid foundation - values, social, political, economic, security and democratic. It must strive for more solidarity, more equality of opportunity, more welfare, less corruption, more public integrity. But very good condition in all the major parameters. Although threatened more than any other democracy and exists in a violent and failed environment, even its fierce critics know it is good to live in it. There are many Jews who cannot feel good if they do not feel bad. Why spoil them. To suffer for their enjoyment on Independence Day.

Dr. Dan Shiftan is the head of the International Security Program at the University of Haifa, and lecturer in security studies programs at Tel Aviv University