Israel, Besieged But Keeping Its Wits About It

Since what Israel experiences is what many other countries in the Western world, quite unnecessarily, are now beginning to experience, I thought I’d take a look at how that “great little Altneuland” — as Nabokov, alluding to Herzl, referred to Israel in a letter to the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland — has managed over the past half-century. There are many possible indices of success; I thought I’d take a look at the list of winners of the Israel Prize, to see if it looked like quality control was still being exercised, sober standards maintained, in the midst of so much besiegement and cruelty and venom. It is.

Here.