From Dr. Kenneth Stein
Professor of Middle Eastern History and Political Science, Emory University

The news from Israel has had somewhat of an ominous ring lately.

"The Jubilee Party Goes Bust." That was the title of a recent article in The Jerusalem Report explaining why a national sense of malaise is taking the fizz out of Israel's 50th year celebration.

"Mutual trust in the region has collapsed and Israel has lost all its ties with Arab countries," State Department spokesman James Rubin said in March, "The (Arab-Israeli) process has been stymied for a year. The only results are further deterioration and fear of a real danger to Israel's security."

These assessments are reasonably accurate; Israel's social fabric and the state of Arab-Israeli negotiations are in a shaky, pessimistic state.

But in historical perspective, Israel's domestic and foreign problems are not immediate existential threats. For the Jewish state, the glass is more than half full, not half empty if we look at the changes in the Middle East over the last 100 years.

-- In 1898, except for Egypt and Persia, contemporary Middle Eastern states did not exist; Zionism was just born. Palestinian Arab nationalism was not even a dream. And oil as a coveted resource was barely discovered.

-- In 1917, Britain promised to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. No explicit political promises were made to the local Arabs.

-- In 1948, when Israel was established, neither Arab states nor Israel wanted the burden of providing for the Palestinians.

-- In 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin recognized the legitimate political rights of the Palestinians.

-- In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed to share historic Palestine with the local Arab population.

-- And in 1997 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to leave Hebron, a city perhaps as holy as Jerusalem is for Jewish identity and history.

Israel and a majority of the Arab world have overcome some of their animosities to reach a point where their violent conflict has turned into a series of disjointed relationships.

If there are four stages along the spectrum of Arab-Israeli relations --- hot war, cold war, cold peace, and hot peace --- then Israel and its Arab neighbors are in the cold war-cold peace stage.

Israel's materiality as a state is not in doubt.

In 1882, there were 24,000 Jews in Palestine, which later became Israel; in 1948, there were 600,000; today about a third of the world's Jewish population (4.8 million) lives in Israel.

In the 1880s, when a trickle of Jews immigrated to Palestine there was no gross domestic product (GDP). In the early 1970s, Israel's GDP per capita was $3,400; today it is over $16,000. In 1998, Israel's GDP is $96 billion and has exports of more than $30 billion per year.

Until recently, it was neither this easy nor this good for the Jewish people in every corner of the globe.

At the beginning of the century, Jews were systematically persecuted, especially in Europe. Their synagogues and institutions were burned, their villages were pillaged, and they barely survived organized state-sponsored annihilation.

Jews, especially from Eastern Europe, fled to the West, but a few Jews rallied around the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish national territory. It would be an alternative to intimidation and assimilation.

In securing the Jewish homeland, the virtues of improvisation, discipline, consensus, manipulation, and secrecy prevailed in overcoming Ottoman, British and Arab opposition.

Abstract principles did not guide the early Zionists or Israeli leaders. Security concerns and rescuing Jews in peril took precedence over press freedoms; the quasi-sacred status of the army went unchallenged. When required, the judicial system was subordinated to national security interests.

Equality before the law could not be stated if an Israeli constitution were to be written; Arab citizens of Israel were not equal to Jewish Israelis. Perhaps Zionism's greatest failure was the inability to establish the state sooner. Doing so might have saved the lives of 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

The central turning point in Israel's modern history was the June 1967 war.

David slew the Arab Goliath. Israel won a lightning victory; after the war, Israel held the Syrian Golan Heights, all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, all of Egyptian Sinai, and controlled the lives of half the world's Palestinians.

The Arab world, Israelis, diaspora Jews, and a world community learned that the Jewish state was not subject to destruction. Emerging from the June war was an American-dominated 30-year process of negotiating Israeli agreements and treaties with the Arab world.

Under what conditions, over what period of time, and what security agreements would Israel receive if and when it returned some or all of the territories. These were the key points of negotiations.

A L S O : CNN Interactive Special Report: The Mideast Struggle For Peace

With its economy booming and with the Arab-Israeli conflict evolving into a series of Arab-Israeli relationships, Israel is now redefining its character and soul.

Israel's domestic agenda is no longer sublimated to all-dominating security concerns. Economic, political, electoral, social, and educational systems are under some form of scrutiny and review. In its quick assumption of adolescence, Israel's national hormones are raging. In its early years Israel was based on a sense of community and consensus; now it is balkanized by sectarian politics, special interests, and a redefinition of national identity.

Once politically untouchable sacred cows are openly criticized. A new Israeli historiography has emerged that shares the blame of Palestinian refugee creation with Israel's founders. The press, once restrained by security interests, now vilifies its politicians without much sense of accountability. The validity of institutions that anchored the state, like the Histadrut labor federation, and scope of the army's intelligence organizations are openly debated. The nature of the Israeli society is hotly discussed, revised and contested.

Fifty years after Israel's establishment, Israeli existence is no longer defined strictly by its enemies. Its independence is no longer wholly reliant upon the United States. There is no Holocaust lurking around the corner as Israel easily protects Jewish life.

The success of Zionism and Israel enabled the once disenfranchised diaspora Jew to enjoy power and choice. In defining itself and the nature of its relationships with Arab neighbors, Israel is slowly learning that power has its limits and requires compromise.

How Israeli power and choice are expressed will determine the amount of fizz in the 100th anniversary celebration.

Dr. Kenneth W. Stein is Professor of Near Eastern History and Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. His major publications include "The Land Question in Palestine," 1917-1939 (1984), "The Blood of Abraham-Insights into the Middle East" (1985) which he wrote in collaboration with President Jimmy Carter. In 1991, he wrote "Making Peace Among Arabs and Israelis: Lessons from Fifty Years of Negotiating Experience." He has just completed a manuscript, "Turning Point: American Involvement in Arab-Israeli diplomacy," 1973-1977. It will be published by Routledge in 1999.

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