I love playing the role of an Englishman in Israel. The Holy Land is a country, where weak tea is served black and with heaps of sugar, yet mine is still brewed well and drunk with milk.

August has been a momentous month for both countries. In Israel, social unrest has seen over 400,000 take to the streets in peaceful demonstrations and we have witnessed tent cities erected in many a city. The demand is for a change in the social agenda of the government, and the organisers have forced the Prime Minister to appoint a bipartisan committee to recommend reforms.

In parallel, less than a week after the senseless violence struck numerous English cities, I find myself visiting London. The media is still full of shock from the riots – how can gangs get away with stealing and murdering and torturing with such abandon? And why has nobody dealt with these thugs until now?

The causes of the problems in both countries are very different. In Israel, it is easy to point to the squeeze on the middle classes. The handling of the doctors’ strike has been pathetic. Housing prices are still high. And more. 

But note that the Prime Minister has supported his committee of experts with his own sub team from the government containing 17 ministers. SEVENTEEN ministers to deal with one issue, which they all shown that they did not see coming.

Why so many? I guess that the PM could not afford to offend sensitivities of various coalition partners.

As for the UK, I was fascinated by a comment by a social mentor on Sky TV on Monday morning. He questioned why people – especially gang members – should respect politicians. It is this elite group of people who have been fiddling their expenses for years and getting away with it. So why shouldn’t others go out and rob a store of electrical items.

Anyway, there will not be enough law enforcers to stop them, as successive governments have cut staffing and raised the level of paperwork for the constables.

Britain is arguably the oldest democracy in Europe. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

And yet, there is a common trend that links the social phenomena in the two countries. Politicians have spent so long looking after their own – or their own causes – that they have failed to notice what has been going on under their very noses.

They have forgotten that they have been elected to govern for others and not for themselves. Time for a wake up call!