Where Have all the Adults Gone?

The End of the Elder Statesman

Democratic systems are dependent not only on the processes and the institutions set down in the law or a constitution to maintain stability and keep the extremes at bay, but they also depend on extra-legal or extra-constitutional institutions that, when times become tense can, in public or in private, advise and admonish. Just like in a traditional stable family there is someone that can step in and calm the emotions and bring the family back to its regular life of not only bliss but regular sibling rivalries, parent-child confrontations and other all too human aspects of relationships that can stretch but not tear the family’s fabric. That person can be a parent or grandparent, an aunt or an uncle or that one more rational and more staid sibling. This person has no “official” capacity in the family yet he or she has the moral authority and often the experience to influence behavior before things get out of hand.

In a country, too, there needs to be what we used to call the “elder statesman” who might have dirtied his hands in politics, diplomacy or war but now can sit back, with no more to prove, and steady the ship of state. Each country draws on its own reserve of retired politicians, lawyers, judges, warriors and diplomats to advise and admonish privately and calm the furies publicly. In the United States it used to be the ex-Presidents who took the job, no longer being involved themselves in even their own party’s politics except to show up at the quadrennial convention, but who wanted what was best for their country and not their party.

I am old enough to remember that both President’s Turman and Eisenhower filled this need as did Nixon and for a short time, Carter. Hubert Humphrey was such a man as was Henry Kissinger and George Schultz. There were even retired businessmen like GE’s Jack Welch. There are other anonymous ex-diplomats and military officers who, instead of going on cable news and podcasts sat with Presidents and Secretaries of State and Defense and gave advice – or admonished. Maybe there are still some of these today although with the hyper-partisan atmosphere that has slowly increased since non-acceptance of Bush’s 2000 victory and on to Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump again, it is difficult to believe that someone who disagreed with one’s policies in the past would ever be invited to present their views.

In Israel, this is a problem that is more acute since the country is so small and politics have always been so personal - and the politicians hate retiring. Ben-Gurion left after one term only to return shortly after. Rabin and Peres would not give way to the younger guard and Netanyahu is doing the same. Ehud Barak left official politics but seems to be one of the main instigators in the wished for civil war. The ex-generals go into politics or get partisan think-tank jobs and there are no retired diplomats who have the stature to make much of a difference. The entire law profession has become politicized. Of the actual retired politicians I can’t think of one who could calm the situation and offer advice, public or private on any of the many crises that this country faces.

President Herzog tried to be that person during the legal reform crisis of 2023 but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to break from chorus. Aaron Barak and other ex-supreme court justices ought to have been calming influences but Barak led the way in deeming any change to the system, large or small, as a call to arms. As the person who invented contemporary Israeli law, he had a special responsibility and had the moral authority to bring the parties together and yet, he turned from adult in the room to just another one of the children. Much like the 51 “security experts” who assured the country that Biden the son’s laptop was Russian misinformation, the ex-judges, generals and spies in Israel are sure that each and any change to whatever they now believe is the end to democracy and the country. These are the words and actions of children, not adults. These are people who no longer have to face the voters or their enemies face to face, who enjoy a life with pensions paid for by the taxpayers and the respect of their colleagues and friends. They have proven what they have to prove and yet they cannot take a step back to advise or calm the waters. They attack in the lowest and most irrational sense.

Sadly, Israel has no elder statesmen and it doesn’t seem that the United States or Western Europe has any either. Where were the adults in the room when the UK and France decided to back Hamas and Hezbollah? Where were the adults in the room when UK streets turned to jihadi celebrations? American universities are the same and they are starting to pay for their childishness.

This is not a nostalgic call for the “good old days” but rather a call for those who have done much in their lives to lend their experience to their country and not to their ideologies. An uncritical clinging to one’s Ideology and past decisions is what one expects from children and the politicians who want their vote. A self-critical attitude and an ability to step back and survey the situation as it is, is the job of the adults in the room. Sadly, they all seem to have regressed back to their childhoods and their childishness.