From Unpredictable to Precarious

I am often asked about what I see in Israel’s future. As a strong believer in the Bible, having lived decades in this land I’m expected to have some sort of “insider” knowledge. This question used to cause me distress. Of late, I’ve been able to reduce the multiplicity of possible responses to the following: life in Israel, presently and for the future is unpredictable and unstable with the only constant being change. My questioners are usually not satisfied with this response but it does lead to interesting conversations about the present and how we negotiate our lives in such a context. 

I no longer have an interpretive grid upon which I lay current events. It would be a pleasant illusion to have such a clear, almost blueprint-like rendering of how everything fits together. This would bring cohesion to the randomness of the unpredictability and provide meaning in the chaos of the intractable conflict of two peoples living in the narrow space that is Israel/Palestine. 

I think the better question would be: how do we actually live in the unstable twenty-first- century world with its rapid pace of change; inept, bordering on insane world leaders who control access to nuclear devastation; serial “natural disasters;” religious extremism; genocidal ethnic cleansing; wars and their rumors? 

Note: 
A version of this blog was originally written eight years ago. It remains current and even prophetic. It is in this time, 2025, when "inept, bordering on insane world leaders" are acting, and the world is perched on the abyss of nuclear war. The future of Israel and the world has moved from unpredictable to precarious.