Yet further strangulating factors for your review:

Ok here we go:

The facade of Israeli prosperity and its economic doom projected by the Economist:

There is no shortage of plans and ideas. The trouble is carrying them out. “Implementation is a science in itself, and in the current Israeli reality it's not possible to carry out long-term, top-down reforms,” says Shimshon Shoshani, a former director-general of the education ministry. Political instability, frequent staff changes, over-centralisation, lack of long-term planning by bureaucrats, aggressive unions and the occasional war all get in the way. And in Israel, where wealth gaps coincide with ethnic and social ones, economic policy is about a lot more than malnourished children and bad housing. It also affects the country's political and social stability."

Annihilation predicted by none other than Benny Morris:

Israel terribly missed a golden opportunity in 1948" to transfer the Palestinian Arabs out of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. "Because the Arabs attacked us, we had a chance to do this. We should have gone the whole hog as a result of the aggression [against us]. Now, [transfer] is neither moral nor practical. It may become so down the road, if we enter apocalyptic circumstances.

And later…

This is my feeling," he acknowledged. "I'm not optimistic. But then the whole Zionist experience has been almost miraculous. So maybe logic will be defied. Historical logic points to the eventual dissolution of the Jewish state. The powers around us are so great. There is such a strong will to annihilate us that the odds look very poor.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center details the growing power of Hamas forces:

Hamas is advancing its military buildup based on two main systems: the internal security system, at the center of which is the Executive Force, its main security arm for controlling the Gaza Strip; and its military-terrorist system, at the center of which are the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which deal with planning and carrying out attacks against Israel and defending the Gaza Strip from within…its forces, which today are estimated at 20,000 armed operatives…

More on that from the Jpost:

Since 2005's disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has forged a formidable military of 20,000 men, many of whom have been trained in Iran and Lebanon…

Terrorists tried to poison a restaurant but, hell,lets make easier for them to do so, and make the thankless jobs of the many brave men whose job it is to stop them that much harder.


Former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak and Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann duke it out:

Asked what damage Friedmann would cause, Barak replied, "Membership in the judicial authority will be more political, and its authority in the areas of human rights and the fight against corruption will be much more restricted. The judicial authority will be diluted and weakened, prone to strong political influence, its judges chosen not according to talent but [according to] political connections. It will be largely shorn of its ability to protect the rights of the individual, minorities and the ethics of government. It will be a castrated court, a midget court."

The haredi code of Omerta over Child Molestation:

"The famous conspiracy of silence among the haredi population, which the welfare services and police are dealing with, is a mark of disgrace to the entire sector. Wanting to maintain an image of morality at any cost, they fall into the hole dug by negative elements in the name of Torah, in the name of righteousness. An intensive brainwash has turned psychologists into 'religion's enemies,' social workers into those 'causing people to leave religion' and the police into the messenger of the foreign regime. In this glass house, monsters grow and thrive among us."

The mythical and dwindling establishmentarian dream of the obedience of the Arab Israeli sector:

DR. ELIE REKHESS, director of Tel Aviv University's Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation in Israel, says it's absurd to expect Israeli Arabs to celebrate their devastating loss in the War of Independence. "Today, 60 years after Yom Ha'atzmaut, there are very few Israeli Arabs who celebrate the holiday - and how could they? Independence Day for whom, a war of liberation from what? On the contrary, for them it's the nakba, and what is absolutely clear is that in the last 10 years, their conception of Yom Ha'atzmaut as Yom Hanakba has strengthened significantly."