The Futures Market, M.E. Division

Jeffrey Goldberg Feb 17 2009, 7:10 PM ET

Ian Bremmer, guru of the political futures market, takes a gamble on what the future of Israel will look like. Not so good, in short:

Once Hezbollah can hit Tel Aviv with a rocket equipped with a relatively sophisticated guidance system from anywhere inside Lebanon, life will be much tougher for Israelis.
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[A]s Tel Aviv becomes directly vulnerable, Israel's extremely mobile and globalized population -- and its strong activist diaspora -- will become a weakness, because they will be the most vulnerable to attack and the first to leave.
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At that point, there's a risk of a sharp shift to the right in Israeli politics, much sharper and further to the right than the one we've seen in recent months. Under this circumstance, we'd likely see the most democratic government in the region in much more direct conflict with Israeli Arabs. We'd also see a spike in violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel's borders.

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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.