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By Ira Sharkansky
 JERUSALEM—Political coping is an art and skill. It entails juggling flexible, but important goals and an assessment of possibilities. It is not for people who insist on finding a solution where there is none.
If you are confused by the above, the rest is not for you. Stay in your wonderland where all women are pretty and children above average, and where it is possible to solve every problem with a bit of effort.
Israel's insoluble problems begin with neighbors who curse it as illegitimate, and other neighbors who say they recognize Israel but insist on goals that would destroy it. Not too distant are Syria and Iran that encourage and support the most extreme. Currently the level of violence is modest, but not so long ago was an upsurge that killed 1,100, mostly civilians, and injured many more.
A problem that compounds this is a persistent call for Israel to be less assiduous in its defense, and to come up with accommodations that will settle the conflict. Currently that chorus is at a peak, led by an American president who learned his skills in law school and Chicago politics, and is over his head--but insistent--in a messy region from here to Pakistan.
Economics provides other problems. The World Bank places Israel in the category of the most wealthy countries, but close to the bottom of that group along with Greece and Portugal. Security puts a heavy demand on resources, proportionately three to twelve times what other western democracies spend on defense.
Israel's elemental goal is survival. Almost as important is maintaining membership in the club of the civilized. This provides access to travel, commercial and cultural opportunities, and at least a minimum of support in international forums all too often dominated by the uncivilized.
Related to these goals is maintaining an edge of military equipment, technology and trained personnel; an economy that grows enough to provide work and a quality of life associated with being in the "First World," including acceptable levels of education, health care, communications, transportation, culture, sport, environmental quality, and social harmony.
How to cope?
There is no simple recipe. The essence is to recognize opportunities and dangers in the ongoing flow of events, and to act accordingly.
Clearly a small and vulnerable country cannot insult the United States by a clear and unambiguous No to what is currently important for the president, even if a No would appear to be deserved.
Israeli officials are saying that they have not approved new construction in the West Bank, but that the freeze will not continue forever. One of Netanyahu's deputy prime ministers, a former chief of the IDF general staff, has said that Jews have a right to settle anywhere in the West Bank. The foreign minister has said that the American president should deal with problems more important than Israeli settlements. Such comments may be embarrassing to the prime minister, or they may help him hold off American demands. Israel is a democracy that must take account of contrary voices.
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Going along means making yet another effort at productive conversations with the moderate neighbors. Demands directed at the neighbor, and at those who aspire to world leadership, are also appropriate. Israel's demands and endless explanation may educate the new kids on the block about the problems with their aspirations.
Reductions in barriers and other security provisions that weigh on Palestinians can reduce friction. The hope is that enough Palestinians will take advantage of stability, contribute to economic improvements, and remember the cost of the violence preached by extremists.
Going along with the United States can mean foregoing Israel's own military options with respect to Iran, and accepting that Iran will acquire nuclear warheads and missiles to deliver them. American and European commitments to engagement, and modest sanctions, are likely to prove as useless with Iran as they with North Korea.
If Israel goes along, despite the expected futility, the American European arms shops may remain open to Israel, and add to its homegrown capacity to threaten Iran with enough destruction to keep it from actually using warheads and missiles.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is far from ideal, but may be the best achievable, given what appear to be the doubtful benefits and high costs associated with an attack by Israel alone.
Ideal is for someone else. This is Israel.
There is no shortage of other knotty problems: African migrants keep coming over the Sinai; tensions between ultra religious and secular Jews cause disturbances about what to others are trivial matters; extremist Jews demand absolute rights in contested territory; extremist Muslims preach that Israeli officials will destroy holy places; criminal violence and traffic deaths occasionally peak and cause despair, even though statistics indicate that Israel is no different from other places in these problems.
The government budget is chronically strained, and set upon by advocates of programs provided in wealthier societies that spend far less of their resources on security.
How to cope with problems of budgeting? Give a little to this and a little to that. Cut back here and there. Suffer the complaints that services do not function as they should. This process resembles what happens elsewhere in countries that are democratic and well-to-do, but not sufficiently well-to-do to provide all that is desirable.
It is possible to imagine horrible scenarios not currently on the horizon. Europeans or Americans may excite their governments to impose sanctions. The next international economic crisis may be even worse than produced by sub-prime mortgages. A new disease can emerge more deadly than swine flu.
The advantage of Jews is that we learned coping long ago. The process appears in Holy Text. Acting under the guidance of God, Moses misled Pharaoh rather than confront the powerful figure directly. He did not want to free the slaves but only take them into the desert for a short time in order to worship (Exodus 10:24-29). God coped with His limited power by advising a detour around a strong and hostile tribe (Exodus 13:17).
From Biblical times until today, Jewish history has been a story of coping with one powerful and hostile force after another. It has been uncomfortable and even catastrophic. Our achievements have been impressive. And here we are, still complaining about imperfection.
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