Oil Isn't Everything

Martin Peretz on Israel's 60th:

It cannot be denied that the return of half the Jews dispersed in the world to what is now Israel is unprecedented, and the revival of an antique prayerlanguage into a Hebrew both resonant and innovative is no less revolutionary. Add to these the realization of the essential conditions of serious democracies: civilian primacy over military power; the rule of independent legal institutions; an utterly free (and obstreperous) press; a plural society of religious, irreligious, and the utterly indifferent; an indigenous culture open to foreign cultures; the viability of moral values at odds with positivist fact; a scientific ethos at once triumphant yet skeptical of its own achievements; a technological foundation to its modern economy which still leaves space for the ethical critique of its market.

In contrast to these achievements--but not only in contrast--the surrounding world of the Arabs is a functional and philosophical calamity. There are deep riches in this orbit, but its wealth has only magnified the differences between the entitled and the crowd, perhaps more accurately put, the mob.

Are the "deep riches" the Arab world has to offer limited to material wealth?

Technorati Tag: Israel.