2024, corner of 2014
Today's troubles are rooted in what we did a decade ago, so if we envision 2034 well now, we have 10 years to bring it about
(First featured on the Times of Israel)
Despite the dark uniqueness of the present moment, it may be useful to remember times when we faced similar threats that we overcame. It may be even more useful to look back to a point in time when many of the elements of the present political turmoil find their roots — in 2014. To learn from what we did and didn’t do in response to those events a decade ago, so as to set in motion strategies to ensure a better decade ahead. By looking at 2024 in the context of 2014, we may be able to lay the foundations for a thriving 2034.
In 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led Israel in another war in Gaza, then called Operation Protective Edge (Tzuk Eitan). Promising to send Gaza back to the Stone Age and teach Hamas a lesson they would never forget, Netanyahu chose to end that war with a ceasefire that permitted an increase in funding for Hamas over the decade that would come. Hamas, naturally, declared itself the winner of that conflict. Members of the current government, after that war, determined Hamas was an asset to the Israel they wanted to build.
As the war echoed in global circles, the group Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) rose to prominence across US campuses, introducing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) into the mainstream. At the opposite edge of the spectrum, the “hilltop youth” of the religious Zionist fringe also joined the mainstream as their representatives gained political credibility. Feeling the wind at their back, the hilltop youth carried out their first major “reprisal” attack, burning a Palestinian teen as vengeance for the kidnapping of three Jewish youth. Limited legal repercussions followed due to lackluster political condemnation from the right-wing Zionist parties, setting a pattern present until today.
In relation to our closest ally, our main supplier, and our largest investor, America, the war coincided with the then-soon-outgoing secretary of state John Kerry’s failure to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians and pivot to a new Arab-Israeli alignment against Iran. Local Arab monarchs and autocrats understood that the road to US defense treaties and advanced weaponry would go through Jerusalem, and began to warm towards normalizing relations.
On the domestic front, the war coincided with the necessity to legislate rules concerning Haredi conscription. Massive ultra-Orthodox protests shut down Jerusalem, blocked major thoroughfares, and caused Netanyahu’s government to back off from conscription plans. A janky compromise was made, and the growing Haredi community earned itself another decade of rights without responsibilities.
Widening the circle to the world — Israel being situated within a larger context after all — the Ebola crisis in Africa raised pandemic fears, yet resulted in little getting done; the Russian invasion of Crimea showcased an imperial tendency in Vladimir Putin that was not sufficiently challenged; and the rise of ISIS out of the anarchy of the Syrian civil war provided proof that loose groups of internet-connected ideologues can do more than blow things up. They can build their twisted paradise, if they are free from foreign interference.
Across the West, a new ideology rose to prominence on the back of a number of key events: 2014 saw the Ferguson protests and the rise of Black Lives Matter; the legalization of gay marriage by the US Supreme Court; and a growing spotlight on sexual harassment, thanks to coverage of assault allegations around the NFL and the Bill Cosby rape trials. The three catapulted “wokeness” to the main stage, and set the groundwork for the cultural moment to come.
Finally, on a civilizational scale, our very connection to other humans shifted when Uber changed the rules of the service business by birthing a new class of applications connecting people through an algorithmic intermediary. Consumer society — and how we view transactional relationships between people — would never be the same, as immediacy became the name of the game, and every industry sought to become “the Uber for X.”
These events of 2014 — picked by major publications at the time to reflect the year that was — all served as drivers for the events of 2024: an emboldened Hamas indeed continued to work towards realizing its dream to build an Islamic state; Putin’s Russia sought to rebuild its empire; Jewish anti-Zionists and hilltop youth both believe history is on their respective sides, and are only increasing their efforts to bring about their messianic ages; and the Haredim are as adamant as ever that they should have all the benefits of living in Israel and pay none of the prices.
Instead of lamenting about where we ended up, we should imagine how we could have done things differently — and do those things today. We can assume the current struggles of 2024 will be reflected in 2034 just as 2014 has been in 2024. By imagining the 2034 we would like to inhabit, we can walk back what we “did” starting in 2024 to escape the same fate that led to the present tragedies.
For example, if we would like to find Israel in 2034 as a more secure state with greater social alignment between the different cultural groups that make up Israeli society, what does that mean we need to do over the next decade about extremist desires to the contrary? How would the Haredim fit into a more secure and aligned Israel? What would it take for us to look back from 2034 and think, “Wow, 2024 was a mess — so glad we cleaned that up”? We may find that the “distance” we take from the current moment makes our thinking clearer, more strategic.
Jerusalem was not rebuilt in a day. By setting our objective on a longer timeline than one year or five, we can give ourselves permission to develop a longer term strategy that recognizes the compromises one needs to make along the way — so long as those compromises get us to where we want to go. Doing so requires us to recognize how long trends took to lead to current events, and to put in the work to disrupt those trends and built movement to the contrary. By expanding our consciousness of time — both backwards and forwards — and gaining a sensitivity to trends and patterns, we can expand our range of strategic options, and our ability to choose a path we can look back on with satisfaction.
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So, technically, how do you imagine a future and then walk that future backwards to develop strategies starting at the present? That's the question I am addressing this year through FutureTense workshops, bringing together civil society and organizational leaders along with certain citizens who are devoted to building a better future. Here is a write-up of the first of these workshops which we ran in Zichron Yaakov. Please let me know if you'd be interested in either participating or hosting such a workshop to develop a vision for Israel in 2034.
Very well stated. I hope your project steadily becomes a movement.