Israel 61st Yom
Ha’atzmaut is coming up. It’s a good
time to ask where we are up to so far:
Well Israel’s population grew from 0.6m
in 1948 to 7.2m 2009. Israel had around
every 10 years a major
war (not counting on-going warfare like
the intifada). We’ve rescued hostages in
the Entebbe Operation and we’ve boomed
the Iraqi nuclear reactor (and maybe a
Syrian one too!). We’ve reached peace
with Egypt and Jordan. We’ve had Ilan
Ramon sent to space; Ciechanover got a
Nobel Prize in
Chemistry
and Fridman; an
Olympic
gold in windsurfing. We had 10 Oscar’s
nominees with out anyone that won it.
Most of the Windows NT and XP operating
systems were developed by
Microsoft-Israel. The Pentium MMX Chip
technology was designed in Israel at
Intel. The technology for the AOL
Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in
1996 by four young Israelis. According
to industry officials, Israel designed
the airline industry's most impenetrable
flight security. In proportion to its
population Israel has the largest
number of start-up companies in the
world. Israel is the only country in the
world that entered the 21st century with
more trees than in the 20th century ,
which is more remarkable because this
was achieved in an area considered
mainly desert. "Israel is one of the
countries that is leading the way in
medical research… Israeli researchers
are some of the best in the world.” so
says Christopher Reeve. Two of the most
revolutionary drugs on the market -
Copaxone, which treats Multiple
Sclerosis, and Rasagaline, which treats
Parkinson’s - were brought to you by
Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals. Israel
has the world's second highest per
capita of new books. Twenty-four per
cent of Israel's workforce holds
university degrees, ranking third in the
industrialized world, after the United
States and Holland and 12 per cent hold
advanced degrees.
And that was just the
tip of the iceberg. So are we ‘there’
yet? (Not that I’m sure where that is!)
I’ll tend to say ‘no’
and for one we’ll never be ‘there’
because there’ll always be a better
place to be heading to and second, we
still have some points to improve in our
lovely Israel.
We haven’t achieved
peace with our neighbours yet (and our
moral and human ground is declining
every day because of it). We have a huge
(and growing) social-economic gap. I
can’t say that religious and secular
Israelies are getting along perfectly
nor that we’re a very equal society with
only two female ministers out of 30.
Though there is Yossi Benayoun, there’s
still some place to develop Israeli
football and as I wrote earlier we still
haven’t won an Oscar. Again it’s only
the tip of the iceberg.
So if Habonim Dror is
building Israel’s future for 80 years
now, I think we could be proud of it but
there’s more work to be done yet, as
we’re celebrating Israel 6st Yom
Ha’atzmaut.
Article supplied by Ido Horowitz, JAFI
Shaliach to Habonim Dror (2008-2010).
