 Hello there and welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal and this YouTube channel covers all things related to living in Israel from my lens as an immigrant. Last week I uploaded a video about the demographics of Israel and how densely populated this country is. Did you know that there are 16 cities with 100,000 residents or more in Israel? If you'd like to know more about that, check out that video in which I share some stats about how densely populated this tiny patch of the Mediterranean coastline is. Today I wanted to introduce a really interesting resource for diving into much more info about socioeconomic policy in Israel. It comes from the Shoresh institution for socioeconomic research and it's headed by a guy called Professor Dan Bendavid who I'm excited to be interviewing for this YouTube channel after Pesach. That video will appear here when it's ready which will hopefully be later this month. If you're also keenly interested in themes like income, inequality in Israel, the state of our education system and the disparities between key demographics, then I recommend keeping an eye out for that video. Professor Bendavid has been making headlines among the English-speaking community in Israel recently for a series of widely shared articles that he published in The Times of Israel critiquing various aspects of Israeli social policy. He is a professor of public policy at Tel Aviv University and socioeconomic research is really his jam. His words carry resonance. For those interested in reading the five-part series I'll include a link in the video description. The piece arguing that the Israeli government priorities kind of went astray in the 1970s is worth a read although those on the religious right will certainly take issue with his argument that diverting resources towards nationalistic projects was in the detriment of the national interest. However, if you want something with really striking conclusions check out the final installation of that series part five of five which is entitled for a glimpse of Israel's future looked not at Poland or Hungary but Afghanistan. Let me add a little bit of context to make the piece seem more understandable for those who haven't been following the judicial reform debate in Israel that closely or for those like me who've just been finding it kind of overwhelming and you have chosen to turn down the volume just a little. Many protesters over the past few months have been warning that the chart Israel is heading down with its judicial reform proposals resembles that of Hungary which is often titled as an example of a country that remains a democracy on paper only if even that. Last September the European Parliament published a report asserting that Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy even though the report was non-binding given the fact that Hungary is a member of the EU that conclusion had symbolic meaning and gave a more formal imprimatur to what had then just been a widespread opinion. Although the judicial reform proposals in Israel haven't been passed yet prominent voices on the international stage including many supporters of Israel have been issuing a comparable warning. Dr. Asaf Shapiro of the Israel Democracy Institute put it bluntly stating in the Israeli context it is clear that we will no longer have democracy even in the narrow sense without a strong and independent Supreme Court that protects the rights of Arab parties and candidates to run for office. Lest the name not provide a clear giveaway the Israeli Democracy Institute is according to its mission statement quote an independent center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy unquote. Those protesting the judicial reform proposals in Israel have argued that Israel under its current government like Hungary is a strongman led state with increasingly prominent features of autocracy. The fact the Prime Minister Netanyahu has a cozy relationship with Hungary's PM Viktor Orban only makes the comparison seem more apt. Israel is an emerging autocracy with a fitting pool of bedfellows or so the argument goes and just as Hungary has been facing increased international scrutiny and ostracization under the Orban regime they argue that the same could be in store for Israel. In its times of Israel piece however Ben David goes even further. He argues that neither Hungary nor Poland provides the most apt comparison for the path Israel is heading along but rather drum roll Afghanistan. Although there are certain differences between Israel and Afghanistan for one Afghanistan has a population of 40 million which just dwarfs Israel. Ben David argues that the incursion of religious fundamentalism and totalitarian ideology into the political mainstream in Israel could make the countries oddly comparable notwithstanding the differences in religious ideology between the country's two sets of leaders. Ben David states without a complete overhaul of Israel's education system along the lines outlined in the previous article in the series the country's future will be a Jewish version of Afghanistan an inhospitable place that are children and grandchildren will not want to live in a racist country that is a pariah in the international community. In order to stop this Ben David argues that Israel needs to completely overhaul its system of governance to ensure independence between not only the legislator and the judiciary but also the legislator and the executive. He also argues that Israel needs to codify its constitutional law into one single document bringing order to the current system which can best be described as a quasi-constitution comprised of a number of laws with special elevated stature the so-called basic laws. Ben David says quote Israel needs to completely overhaul its system of government the executive branch should be able to lead and implement its rulings alongside the creation of effective checks and balances with independent legislative and judicial branches also a must a constitution setting in stone the national foundations that will protect the country's basic institutions and minimize future destabilization attempts unquote the Shorosh Institute which he heads dedicates its time to providing evidence-based analyses about the challenges facing Israel and advocates for policies that it believes would lead Israel on a more sustainable long-term trajectory although Ben David himself clearly has strong political opinions about Israel's current political leadership the Shorosh Institute is itself a political a particularly useful resource on the website is the graph gallery at its top it contains what the institution describes as three core problems which it says are fundamental issues that Israel needs to address these core problems also form part of Ben David's argument in his times of Israel piece he believes that if Israel can remedy these issues and avoid the drastic change to its governance structure that the judicial reforms propose that the country has a brighter and more moderate future ahead of it the core problems highlighted are one that the basic level of education provided in Israel is at the bottom of the developed world two that half of Israeli children receive a third world education and that Israel is the only developed country in the world that doesn't mandate that this children receive a core curriculum and three that there is a major lack of transparency in Israel surrounding budgetary transparency the graph library contained on the Shorosh page makes for really interesting reading Israel joined the OECD in 2010 the OECD now contains 38 member states and the organization ensures that its members collate comparable statistics allowing for comparisons to be made between economies on different continents while not all of the graphs on the Shorosh page contain the very latest stats they do paint an interesting picture showing how well Israel is doing at the macroeconomic level but also how stark some of the differences in educational attainment and income are between different demographics the charts are really worth a good scroll or a good print if that's how you prefer to consume information so if you're also interested in diving deeper into the socioeconomic dimensions of life in Israel go ahead and check out the page I'll link to it in the description but here are just a couple of the charts this is Israel's actual GDP per capita growth from 1973 onwards set against a dotted blue line which represents an extrapolation of what Israel's GDP per capita growth would have looked like if the level between 1950 and 1973 had been maintained again Ben Dovey argues that Israeli government policy pivoted away from the greater good in the 70s there is also an interesting chart looking at the Gini coefficient between 1973 and 2013 the Gini coefficient is a representation of the income inequality in an economy with one representing perfect inequality and zero representing perfect equality in other words an economy in which everybody earns the exact same the closer an economy trends towards one the more unequal the distribution of its income the graph plots both a general line for Israel as well as one which excludes ultra orthodox Jews Harry deem and Arab Israelis we can see income inequality in Israel steadily climbs from the 1970s to the 2000s before actually marginally overtaking that of the United States anyway I'm not an economist and rather than try to interpret all the data here and there are lots of charts I wanted to point others interested in doing some digging in a direction that may prove fruitful if you have questions about socioeconomic policy in Israel that you'd like to have answered by Professor Dan Ben David here's an opportunity let me know what questions you'd like me to ask either by leaving a comment here or by writing to me by email my address can be found in the about tab of this youtube channel or you can simply email public at danielrosil.com and as a quick reminder Rosal is two L's at the end I hope today's video was interesting and if you'd like to get more videos from me please do consider subscribing thanks for watching