Size worked against Israel. The huge United States provided its early pioneers with vast expanses of empty land to live free. By the time the American bureaucracy had established control over its subjects, they had grown used to freedom. Israel lacked that immense advantage of space. The early Israeli kibbutzniks were pioneers not inferior to the Americans. The Israelis were tough and daring in peace and war.
But in minuscule Israel bureaucracy established itself quickly and bound citizens with legalese. The system usurped responsibility, but wasn’t responsible. The political echelon and the army bureaucratized and played according to rigid rules, and lost consistently. Now even soldiers are afraid to shoot Arabs, and there is no question of commanders performing independent operations. If the Yom Kippur war happened now, Ariel Sharon wouldn’t violate orders and break behind the Egyptian lines.
Talmudic tradition made Jews legal-minded. There is no way to limit bureaucratic expansion in the Jewish state. It must be Jewish, but not a state. The Bible teaches us that in the absence of a righteous and rightful monarch, the best system of government is Shoftim—independent townships without legislative power, only with judges. In modern political theory, that’s free market anarchy. It presumes minimal legislation, diversified among jurisdictions. Sort of like every town having its own speed limit, though in reality basic laws tend to converge among jurisdictions. Judea must adopt the biblical system of Shoftim.
Unless Jews break the state now, the state will break the Jews.