Yogi Berra's saying, "It's deja vu, all over again," best describes a gnawing sensation that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. In the 1970s, the State of Israel began to settle Jews within the heart of Arab populations in the West Bank and Gaza, even as it completely ignored relative differences in birth rates between the populations. During the past few years, we have been experiencing the consequences of that leadership blindness. It is still not clear how we will extricate ourselves from that trap - and yet, here we go again. The cost of ignorance this time may be existential.

In Israel today, there reside two minorities whose members do not share the country's Israeli-Zionist narrative. As some try to keep themselves apart from the majority, however, many in the majority have adopted the "out of sight, out of mind" approach, and remain oblivious to what is occurring within these populations - as though what happens among them has nothing to do with us. This attitude is sometimes reflected in discrimination and sometimes in political coalition agreements with clauses that provide monetary disbursements to relieve pent-up pressures among those groups.