On September 28, 1973, a band of Palestinian terrorists belonging to as-Sa'iqa took a group of Jews hostage on a train at the border of Czechoslovakia and Austria. As-Sa'iqa was a terrorist organization created and controlled by then Syrian president Hafez Assad. The Jews were Russian, heading for the Schoenau transit center in Austria, a former castle run by the Jewish Agency and assigned by the Austrian government as a transit camp for Russian Jews emigrating to Israel and the West. The hostages included a three-year-old child, a 73-year-old man and an ailing woman. The terrorists' ultimatum: Close the Schoenau camp or we will execute the hostages. Austria's chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, acceded to the terrorists' demands and announced he would close the camp. Kreisky, a socialist, was overtly antisemitic, apologetic toward former Nazis and had four of them in his cabinet. At the time, Israel's prime minister, Golda Meir, was returning home from a meeting of the Council of Europe. She diverted her flight to Vienna and met with Kreisky to try to change his decision. He refused. She returned to Israel, infuriated. The terrorists were flown to safety in Libya and the hostages were released. A week later, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, catching Israel's leaders and army by surprise. In the ensuing Yom Kippur War, 2,656 Israeli soldiers were killed and 9,000 wounded. I recall being hauled out of bed at 2 a.m. the night of October 6 and joining my artillery unit, with utter confusion everywhere and carnage on the roads with street and traffic lights turned off to implement a blackout. A 1984 book edited by US Marine Corps expert A.H. Dank claims that the Schoenau incident captured the attention of the Israeli government when it should have been focusing on the Egyptian and Syrian military buildup. The book's subtitle asks: Should it have happened? Meaning, should the strategic surprise have happened? The answer: No. Distraction brought destruction. I thought of what historians call the Schoenau Ultimatum while watching the Likud support rally for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on television on August 9. More than 3,000 cheering supporters filled a hall in the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds and listened to Netanyahu's 30-minute speech, carrying signs proclaiming him “World's No. 1 Leader.” All three major TV channels carried the speech in full. “They want to topple not only me, they want to topple everyone... they know they cannot beat us at the voting stations, so they try to attack democracy and topple us without elections,” he said. “They know that we win time after time in the elections because we brought the State of Israel to its best situation in its history.” Why is Schoenau related to the Likud rally? If and when Netanyahu is indicted, perhaps a year from now, after all the evidence is gathered and state witnesses complete their statements, Israel will be led by a prime minister preoccupied by the criminal case against him. Long before then, the “World's No. 1 Leader” will be focused on saving his skin, and, indeed, he already is, as the Likud rally proves. His supporters insist that even after indictment, Netanyahu need not resign. So, Israel, for years, may be led by a prime minister who is wholly distracted, working with his lawyers and preparing his defense. And what about the country and its people? Well, they will just have to wait. Once again, distraction would mean destruction. Israel faces a whole host of burning issues that demand full and immediate attention from the prime minister and his cabinet. Here are just a few. Economy: The economy is limping. In 2016, gross domestic product grew more than 4%, but GDP growth was only 0.6% in the first quarter of 2017 and 2.7% in the second quarter. Exports have been declining for two years, hurt by the strong shekeldollar exchange rate. Business: Three of Israel's biggest multinationals and exporters are in trouble. Teva's shares tumbled almost 50% in one month, August, after a $6 billion write-off of a failed $40.5b. acquisition of Actavis. Teva owes $35b. and will have trouble paying off that debt in the coming years because its profits fell sharply. As Israel's largest and main global company, Teva is too big to fail. Haifa Chemicals Ltd. announced it would fire more than 1,000 workers, as its Haifa ammonia tank was drained due to a court order and no alternative was put in place. The firing has been put on hold temporarily, but the entire episode has been a march of folly, mainly by the Environmental Protection Ministry. And, last November, Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL), a major exporter of fertilizers and phosphates, reported a huge operating loss, due to several failed projects and slumping prices. Disabled: Israelis with disabilities have been protesting about their inadequate stipends, amounting to 2,342 shekels monthly, or less than half the minimum monthly wage. An ego battle between Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Netanyahu has led to each appointing a committee on the issue with no solution in sight and the disabled growing more desperate daily. Several were brutally arrested by police during a protest on Route 4, near Ashdod, allegedly because the police knew Netanyahu was due to visit the area. Poverty: According to the National Insurance Institute (NII), one in every five persons over 65, or 185,000 seniors, is considered to be living in poverty. Many are Holocaust survivors who are rapidly dying. Current old-age pensions are inadequate, and even those inadequate pensions are in danger as the fund from which they are paid dwindles. According to actuarial calculations, the NII fund out of which pensions, survivor benefits, benefits for mothers, children, handicapped, work injuries, caregivers, unemployment, bankruptcy and vehicle injuries are paid, will run out of funds by 2045. That is nearly 30 years away but unless action is taken now, it will be too late. The inequality of income and wealth distribution in Israel is among the highest among OECD countries. Israel's Gini coefficient, at 42.7, ranks Israel 50th out of 63 modern countries in income distribution equality. Infrastructure: There is a serious infrastructure problem. Israel faces two large gaps: transportation infrastructure, which is far below OECD averages; and communications infrastructure. In communications technology, Israel ranks 23rd (out of 63 modern countries) and 25th in Internet bandwidth speed ‒ Internet speed in Israel is half that in South Korea. Israel ranks 55th out of 63 countries in communications investment. Productivity: Productivity growth is stagnating. GDP per hour of labor in Israel is only $39.50, ranking it 23rd out of 63 countries, and only 60% of the US's output per hour, which is $64. Growth in labor productivity in Israel is only 1.35%, which means industry is less and less competitive. Education: According to a report by the Shoresh Institute, led by Prof. Dan Ben-David, Israel's primary and secondary students rank among the lowest in the developed world in standardized math, science and reading exams. Despite having far more school days than any other developed country, Israel scored among the lowest in core subjects in 2016, according to the OECD. In the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, Israel ranked 37th out of 63 nations. Its scores in math (470) and science (467) compared unfavorably with those, for instance, of China (531 and 518, respectively). These low scores represent a strategic threat to a nation whose primary growth driver is hi-tech. Security: Despite peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, Israel does not currently have ambassadors in those key countries. Nor, indeed, does Israel even have a foreign minister. Meanwhile, Iran's militias draw closer to Israel's borders and have secured powerful influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Hamas's desperation in Gaza is growing, and a new round of war is not unlikely. There is another country in which an elected leader's myriad distractions are sowing destruction – the United States. President Donald Trump's zigzag response to a neo-Nazi white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has focused attention on Civil War statues of Confederate generals and a bitter civil war that ended 153 years ago, with 700,000 dead. The statues are seen by many as symbols of how the South tried to retain slavery; some want to remove them, others want to keep them. The battle rages. Meanwhile, the US faces crises in health care, crime, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, income and wealth inequality, schooling, public debt, political deadlock, slow economic growth and more. As in Israel, distraction means neglect and destruction. When Israel's chief ally and supporter is distracted, Israel often pays the price. I favor optimism over pessimism. But when the political leadership is not paying attention to what really matters, I think back to October 1973 and see myself again, metaphorically, grabbing a backpack and heading off to a destructive strategic disaster that need not have occurred had our leaders been paying attention. We need a full-time prime minister who is focused on the challenges facing the nation and not distracted by his own political survival. Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results ‒ let the Schoenau debacle not recur. The writer is senior research fellow at the S. Neaman Institute, Technion and blogs at www.timnovate.wordpress.com
