People need to stop complaining. Are their issues? We will fall apart only if we believe the distortions of #10 who believe that all problems can be traced to the un "occupation."

Bibi may have problems but if Israel won't be the home country of some millions of African moslims, that's Pompei? Then why to maintain a border at all? Everyone should come to Israel, why not?

I was heartenened to read this article that mirrorred the sadness at lack of human kindness in many areas. In a cemetary in South Africa stands a monument to the 6 million lost in the holacaust - 6 enourmous shofarim that form a tunnel. The bronze plaque echoes a simple reminder " Man's inhumanity to man - lest we forget." The tears we cry at the daily occurences are not for us but for our children and grandchildren - LET US BE REMINDED WE HAVE NOT INHERITED THE WORLD BUT RATHER BORROWED IT FROM OUR CHILDREN. sic

Where is the connection to Netanyahu and the firebomb attacks? Has the author no decency?

Yael, don't despair. Just the fact that an article such as yours is printed in a major publication proves the vitality of Israel's democracy. We Jews are our toughest critics, but look around, read the news, and be happy you live in a country where democratic values are honored. Israel is not perfect, but what country is?

If You Look At Interneational news Lately, You would see That, Very Unusual Things are happening around the Globe not just Israel, Bibi Has A Job Like No Other politian in the world! I Am A Fan of P.M. B.Netanyahu and NoBody Is Perfect, If You Think You Can DoA Better Jon I suggest You People That Know It All Should Run For Prime Minister As Bibi Did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whilst lynchings are unacceptable and nothing to be proud of it is hardly Bibi's fault. Individuals must be responsible for their own actions, can't just blame it all on the government. There is no denying though that this whole article is based either on distorting facts or just plain making it all up because it sounds good if you hate. Bibi.

Prozac or Effexor, tell right.

when two failing leaders, Rabin and Arafat, shook hands and declared peace? Almost weekly terrorist attacks, a Prime Minister who turned his back on more than half the population of Israel ("...like propellors spininng around and around in the wind"), culminating in the signing of the suicidal Oslo Agreements. And the next Labor Prime Minister, Barak, was even worse. So don't blame Bibi for Israels problems. Between 1992 and 1994, when Rabin was PM, Israels inflation averaged appx. 12%. As of 7.2012, it stands between 1 and 1.5%. Unemployment between 1992-1994, when Rabin was PM, averaged appx. 9.66%, in Dec. 2011, it hit a record LOW of 5.4%.Tourism is breaking records, and tourists don't come to Israel if they dont feel safe. If I were you, lady, I would be real thankful for all the GOOD that there still is in Israel,

why is it when Jews have to show unity in the face of danger we get these left leaning peacenicks that want us act like the poor naive innocent souls that went to their slaughter like sheep. NEVER AGAIN .

Let me add this comment to your opinion. Each Prime Minister is supposed to become the scapegoat but maybe Yael is thinking of a better candidate who will also be accused of many other crimes while we the citizens are certainly ""innocent""

Yael, there is only one answer to your sadness; find a political leader and party to support and win the next elections. Anything else will be considered being a whiny little crybaby.

Laying all of these charges at Netanyahu's doorstep is nothing short of a blood libel.

No government can be held accountable or resolve all the problems, real or imagined, that are mentioned in this article. It is cowardly and pathetic to accuse Netayahu of being reponsible, for example, of the hit and run in Netanya. A nanny state is doomed to collapse under its own weight.

Yael Gvirtz needs to look at Israel with a different set of glasses. Apparently she supports a political party that is not in power, and this situation colors her view of Israel society. Like Yael, I'm very sad about all the bad things that happen every day. But these are events that happen in every country. In Israel, for example, our Ministry of Transportation is working on reducing road deaths, and the death toll from traffic accidents is down. And many other positive changes have taken place thanks to the Netanyahyu administration. Like improving our schools, train and road system, bringing free nursery schools to 3 year olds, and managing our economy so well that Israel is one of the only countries, if not the only one, to show positive growth in the last three months, against all expectations. I suggest that Yael get used to the fact that her friends are not in power and try to see the good things in life in Israel.

We will follow Bibi wherever he wants us to go.

started earlier under Begin. We shifted from a proud ISraeli country to that of a large shtetl where the whole world is against us ALL THE TIME. Now we are so scared Jews that we live our FEARS and validate ALL our actions we do out of this fears. And that is why Rabin was assasinated.

...he will secure the living space we need, he will keep out undesirables, and he will keep the Palestinians in their place (which is not in Greater Israel.)

be united about the basic issues. Remember the Holy Scriptures and Abraham Lincoln: "a house divided against itself can not survive". Leftists and rightists must not be enemies. Differences are normal into a Democracy. Salutes from a real friend of yours.

The many crimes from the religious are known, so please save your one sided ideas for others who have no idea of what happens in Israel. The religious in Israel are mostly criminals, thieves, perverts, treat women like dogs and even spit on little girls if they don't like her dress. The rabbis you speak of don't even accept Israel as the Jewish state, so shouldn't they leave and take you with them? I hate the left, but your comment is repulsive The author and you should get together and kill one another, you both deserve each other

You write like someone who doesn’t even remember Israel before Menahem Begin, and was brought up on the stories of her parents and grandparents about “what it was like before…” Unless you’re at least 50 years old, were old enough to remember and mature enough to have understood what was going on around you when the last labor government fell, your article is so much hearsay and [dare I say it?] politically-inspired bovine fertilizer (BS). You know, there are also South Americans who mourn the passing of the dictatorial governments and wish for the “good old days, when there was no corruption, no crime and no [this, that or the other]…”, without thinking of the disappearances, human rights violations, death squads and outright thuggery of the militaries involved. That people say something was so doesn’t mean it’s true. Coming to Israel as an adult in 1969 and living here for more than 40 years, AS AN ADULT, I can obviously remember things that you either don’t remember or don’t want to know. Do you know that Israeli Arabs were subject to martial law from 1948 until 1966? (Under LABOR governments.) Can you remember waiting for years to get a telephone? (I was lucky, I only waited for four years to get my first phone.) Can you remember when it took more than two hours travel on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway to get between the two cities? Can you remember when the main roads between Tel-Aviv and Haifa were one lane in each direction and it took more than two and a half hours to travel between them? Can you remember when virtually no one had a television, the IBA broadcast for about 8 hours a day, starting in the afternoon and continuing until just before midnight? Can you remember when only about one family out of ten owned a car and the majority of traffic was trucks, commercial vans, buses and taxicabs, and the vast majority of the public traveled by bus? All these things happened under Labor governments. Ben-Gurion may eventually be considered a great man by history, but he was also a fallible human being who made mistakes, some of which we still suffer from today. For example, today’s entire business of the Talmidei Yeshivot and the problem of drafting Haredim dates back to Ben-Gurion and his first government. In order to keep Begin out of his coalition, he made a deal with the Haredi parties, allowing them exemption from military service to study Torah—and in the beginning this was relevant for only about 400 men of service age. Subsequent governments (both Labor AND Likud) ignored the problem until it grew into proportions that could no longer be ignored. Space here doesn’t allow for more examples, but there are dozens. No, Ms. Gvirtz, if you really want to solve Israel’s problems, start with changing the electoral system, this stupid and idiotic system that allows thirty-plus parties to run for election and creates coalitions that are paralyzed before they even start because there are half-a-dozen or more parties, each with its own agenda that contradicts the agenda of at least one other coalition party. That’s a recipe for deadlock, any way you cut it. Make the elected officials responsible to their electorate for their actions, change the system so the citizen in the street, you, me and those reading this, can vote with our ballot and fire the corrupt, the inefficient, the disloyal and the stupid sitting in today’s Knesset. THIS is something Labor resisted from the first and has continued to resist. The only Labor leader not afraid to try to change the system was Yitzhak Rabin, and that is one thing I can’t forgive Netanyahu for—cancelling the changes that Rabin prepared when he became PM after Rabin’s assassination. You can blame this on the Likud, at least, and be right. The real sickness is the inherent rottenness of the electoral system, and BOTH major parties are responsible for this.

For those who try to " clean" Bibi's hands of what has happen and still to come, you are ignorants and Bibi brain washed. Bibi is weak, has no spine and cedes to the Haredim and settlers who he fears. Bibi is trying to pull a big event, on the account of the population, so he can be remembered, because so far, nil, zero, nothing of what he has done will give him a place in history. Remember well, all operations carried out during the first and present govt, under Bibi, we're total failures, and I will be pleased to provide the list.

You're the King of One-sidedness with your comment...

in Israel. The government only want's war by which a few wealthy Jews, who don't live in the country, can cash in. Israelis are being used as canon fodder for the rich. Most of the comments on this article don't represent the average Israelis who know they are being screwed and are trying to get out of the country.

Is extreme on Israeli side,this article by Mrs.Gvirtz is a good example. While you rarely if ever see any on the Arab and Palestinian side. That's why there are schools, townsquares,and musuems named after suicide bombers. That's why the unrepentant murderers of the Fogel family who stabbed an infant ,and 2 other children to death,and their parents, are looked upon as heroes by many young Palestinian men today. That's why the woman who orchestrated the Sbarro Massacre, who was freed in the Gilad Shalit deal, is celebrated as a hero in the Arab world,and can go on Arab television laughing,smiling, and talking about how excited she and other Arabs on a bus in East Jerusalem got every time the death toll from the Sbarro bombing she planned went up. and there is not 1 single criticism of her at all in the Arab world. Mrs.Yael Gvirtz seems to be a classic example of the Stockholm Syndrome. If I had evil neighbors like she, and other Israelis do. I might react the same out of fear.