If you pick up the July 6 edition of the New York Times and turn to the international news section, you will find a Jerusalem dispatch with dire forebodings that Israel is about to fracture into separate ''tribal" groups. Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren sounds the alarm at the top of the article that there is a "growing cleavage among its tribes," that Prime Minister Netanyahu's governing coalition is "on the brink of collapse," that a "civil war" is about to break out between "two cultures, two civilizations." ("Israeli Identity Is at the Heart of a Debate On Service" page A4). What's going on?  And is Israel really in the throes of social and political disintegration, as Rudoren suggests?  Well, there's no question but that the government faces a major challenge following a High Court ruling that voided a law that had exempted ultra-Orthodox youths from service in the military.  To comply with the court's decision, the government has to come up with some kind of...(Read Full Post)