The Holyland VS. The State of Israel

Seth Godin inspired me the other day. I recently saw his video-cast (Vodcast), titled "the tribes we lead". Seth is hailed as the great prophet of marketing by many, I tend to agree.

In this video he made a correct claim which is backed by many scholars that the world we live in is broken into various tribes. These tribes are formed as a result of the complete overflow of information which enables people to mix and match multiple componenets of their identity thus creating a complex pathwork of interwoven, yet rarely interlinking, intrests, hobbies and prefrences.

The tribes are created when people who share a preference, or a passion, start to interact with each other and begin a discussion, thus forming a community. The community has its "evangelists" who facilitate and maintain the tribe's discussions and growth. Naturally, each tribe has a chief - the original individual who found the raison d'être of the tribe.

The actual flow that Mr. Godin suggests is one in which:

1. An individual finds something in the world worth fixing and decides to lead this cause.


2. He creates a mechanism, manned by various officers to facilitate the project.


3. The mechanism brings together people with the same intrest who interact and form a community.

As fun and as applicible this concept is in the world of marketing I could not help but to think about the political side of things. It seems to me that one could equate the concept of the tribes to that of Hertzel who saw the lack a Jewish homeland as a critical problem. Herzel's efforts evetualy created a mechanism - the Zionist movement and this mechanism created a critical mass forming a community or the modern tribe of Israel. Thus the Jewish homeland problem was solved.

But wait, logically, if Zionism was a movement set out to create a homeland for the Jews what is Zionism now? Zionism or the Zionist movement is a thing of the past, it is an accomplishment that should now, I beleive, be replaced by a new vision. A new leadership must arise to create a new tribe that Israel, as a state, will lead. The tribe of Israel should become a component of a larger tribe - the tribe of the Holy Land.

The land of Israel which is the the holy land of the three monotheistic faiths, should indeed become a community \ tribe which is leae which will nurture tourism, academic research and the study of the three faiths which are unitied, uniquely, in a single geography. To date, Israel is a State which focuses solely on facilitating the needs and intrests of the Jewish population. Revisiting this concept, without surrendering the unique rights Jews require for lack of another Jewish state is in everyone's intrest.

In essence the concept is to rebrand the nation from the Jewish State to The Holy Land (being run, in concert, by The State of Israel) and set in place laws, budgets and plans to make The Land of Israel to The Land for All.