Quora Answer: Is Singapore the Israel of Large Cities, in Terms of Its Efficiency?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Is Singapore the Israel of large cities, in terms of its efficiency?”

That is a strange comparison.  Singapore and Israel are similar in the sense that both are surrounded by Muslim-majority immediate neighbours who could be potentially hostile.  As a result, from independence, both sough heavy militarisation, implemented conscription, and developed an indigenous military industry.

Aside from that, they took divergent paths due to vastly different geopolitical realities, and have a different system of government.  When we think efficient, we do not normally think Israel anymore.  This is not the Israel of Golda Meir or David Ben-Gurion.  This is not even the Israel of Menachem Begin, or Yitzhak Rabin.  This is the Israel of Binyamin Netanyahu, a rightwing kleptocrat who has run the economy to the ground, disenfranchised large sections of the population, and pursued a reckless foreign policy to detract from his mismanagement of the nation.

Israel under Netanyahu has abandoned its secularist roots in favour of the Jewish Right.  You would never imagine Singapore pandering to any single religious group.  Netanyahu is under a corruption probe, and he is using political games to hold prosecution at bay.  Singapore ministers have had to resign simply because they had affairs.  Israel has been through several unstable coalitions, and each of them has collapsed recently.  You cannot imagine Singapore being so inefficient.

Singapore is efficient, but it is not because we are like Israel.  We are efficient because we do not have the luxury of the United States guaranteeing our independence no matter how corrupt or inefficient our government is.  That is Israel now, not us.