We're not as divided as our politics suggests.

So I think that line of Obama in 2004 does not describe America.

America is as divided as its politics suggests.

Ironically, that line describes Israel today. So this is a grand experiment

in politics. The course of observers are worried that the U.S US has become so polarized that we've entered a new level of insanity.

It's a phenomenon that's not unique to the US.

It's happening to democracies all across the globe.

It's certainly a theme of these 20-20s.

Every day there's a new story, or at least it seems so.

I don't need to spell them all out for listeners of this podcast.

You follow the news the question is is there

any way out of it well Dr meika Goodman thinks we can get out of it I called

him up at his place in Jerusalem where he's been thinking a lot about the Israeli

model of consensus as an antidote to polarization and what we overhear can learn from it.

Mika is on the speed dial of several of the leaders of Israel's

new centrist coalition government. This government is important to follow. It's like

nothing else in Israel's history or anywhere else for that matter.

Regardless of what one thinks of the government, it is kind of extraordinary that it consists

of eight political parties that span the extremes of the ideological spectrum and everything in between.

In fact, the government would not have been formed without the kingmaker role of a Muslim-Arabic party. Get party in Israel's parliament was essential to bring the government together.

How about that, Amnesty International?

Mika is a polymath having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel's geopolitics. Not only of all of his books been best-sellers in Israel, but he essentially created a new genre,

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