The invaluable One Jerusalem held a bloggers conference call yesterday with Ron Dermer, which may have been their most interesting call yet.
Dermer is Israel’s Minister of Economic Affairs in the United States and the co-author, with Natan Sharansky, of “The Case for Democracy.” He holds a degree in Finance and Management from the Wharton School and a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford. He may be the most articulate English-speaking member of the Israeli government, bar none, including Benjamin Netanyahu.
Here is how he began the call:
[I]f I would have told people a year ago . . . that over the next year the following sequence of events would happen — that Amir Peretz, who is an unabashed socialist, would take over the Labor Party in Israel, if I would tell you that Sharon, a sitting Prime Minister, would leave the Likud Party, sending the political system into chaos, if I would tell you that he would have a stroke and be incapacitated as prime minister, if I would then tell you that Hamas would be elected to lead the Palestinian Authority, and then if I would tell you there would be an election where the leading party Kadima would have a fairly weak mandate and establish an unstable coalition, and then if I were to tell you there would be a war, with 4,000 missiles that would land on the northern part of the country — and then I would tell you, right after that conversation, that I want each and every one of you to invest in Israel, because if you don’t you’re going to lose a lot of money, you would have told me that it was absolutely crazy..
And what’s interesting over the last year is how Israel has seemingly defied the laws of economic gravity. Why has Israel been able to go through all of these events — any single one of them could have sent the economy heading south — and yet it was able to emerge with its economy almost unscathed after such a war? And just to give you an example of that . . . Israel ’s currency, which should have been hit quite hard, was actually stronger at the end of the war than at the beginning of the war. Israel’s stock market was higher at the end of the war than at the beginning of the war.
And people are really dumbfounded when they think about the question of why. Why did this happen? And I’ll just tell you briefly there are three main reasons for that . . .
You can listen to the rest of it here. It is a remarkable story.
He also covered the situation in Iran, the war in Lebanon, his meeting at the White House with Sharansky and Bush, the difference between freedom and democracy (and between democracy and elections), the impact of George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address, the collapse of moral clarity in the world’s response to the use by Hezbollah and Hamas of human shields and targeting of Israeli civilians, and other topics — ending with an inspiring connection of Maimonides to Israel’s current economic efforts and the secret of Israel’s ability to survive. Wow.
(hat tip: BtB).