Parade of Achievements - By Ben-Dror Yemini

Parade of Achievements

By Ben-Dror Yemini
September 30, 2011

Considering Israel's accomplishments in science, agriculture, irrigation, pharmaceuticals and more, boycotting Israel is a crime against humanity. Israel, with all its problems is still a good country to live in and one to be proud of

These aren't easy days and it wasn't an easy year. The Arab spring is turning out to be a bumpy ride for those who staged it and for those hoping it will bring about change. The social protest in Israel, the largest the state has ever seen, exposed gaps and social grievances and led to high expectations of change that will likely not come to fruition.

Israel's diplomatic isolation is increasing and every speech the prime minister makes is met with a long list of columnists and commentators denouncing Benjamin Netanyahu as a war monger. This is the background to a visit of our friends, a middle class family from a large city in France with good jobs and a nice apartment. They visit Israel every year and have picked up some Hebrew by now. Last month they decided that the time has come to move to Israel. "Are you crazy?" I asked them and they answered "not at all". Sometimes you need to listen to them and others in order to understand that despite social concerns, diplomatic isolation, the declining education system and the political impasses, Israel is still a good place to live in. Israel isn't the best option but it certainly isn't the worst. True, many Israelis live abroad, but if you think they are all living it up, you should go visit some neighbourhoods in New York. When dealing with Israel our media tends to show bad things and when discussing Israelis abroad they tend to focus on Bar Rafaeli so the perceptions are slightly skewed. Israel is not only bad and living abroad isn't a bed of roses either.

Israel's income per capita is reasonable though we still have ways to go. We are 28th in the world with PPP (power purchasing power) of $29,602 which is much more than Saudi Arabia for example. In terms of life expectancy we are making progress and are currently 8th close behind Sweden with a life expectancy close to 81. Despite all our troubles, we live longer than the French, Norwegians, Dutch, Italian and most western countries. This is an amazing accomplishment considering Israel's population is made of immigrants from dozens of countries mainly from Eastern Europe and Arab countries where life expectancy was and remains much lower.

When it comes to the happiness index we are in a place we would never dream of. In general, quantifying happiness is a tricky business and some polls contradict each other. The more reliable Gallup company came out with research spanning 4 years (2005 – 2009) polling thousands of people in 155 countries. At the top of their list of happiest countries were Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Holland. I'm guessing you haven't fallen off your chair reading that since those countries are considered as leaders in life quality. But here comes the surprise, Israel is ranked 8th in the poll. I'm doubtful if this would be the result post the social unrest of recent months however the poll was taken during a period when Israel went through the Gaza disengagement, the second Lebanon war as well as the unrest in the southern border with the Hamas controlled Gaza strip. Israel is ranked higher than Australia, Switzerland the USA and all the rest of Europe. If anyone had the impression that this is a very unpleasant place to live in, they were wrong. Objective indicators such as life expectancy and PPP as well as subjective feelings seen through the "happiness index", show that we have reasons to be optimistic.

International knowledge tests paint a pretty dismal picture of Israeli pupils. But somehow, in a process which in itself requires explanation, the same pupils achieve amazing results in the fields of research and development in high tech and science. For that reason Israel has 1.8 scientific papers published per 1000 people according to numbers last published in 2006. When compared to the decade before, it is evident that Israel is in an upwards momentum. This record puts Israel in a good place behind Switzerland with 3 publications per 1000 people, Sweden with 2; in the same place as the UK and Norway and before the USA and France with 1.1 or Germany with 1.2.

The Israeli story receives more support when checking the list of young scientists awarded prestigious scholarships. One of the world's most important organizations granting these scholarships is the European Research Council which receives thousands of applications a year. According to recent finding, 4080 scholarship requests were made of which 480 young scientists were selected. The leading countries are the UK (population 62 million) with 124 scholarships, Germany (81 million) – 64, France (65 million) – 57, Holland (17 million) – 47. Israel with a population of 7.4 million received 22 which means that per capita, Israel is the leader. Previous years' data shows the same trend. Indeed these are surprising figures considering the low grades achieved by young Israeli pupils in the international comparison tests.

In previous articles we spoke about Israeli achievements in many areas. It seems things are only getting better. Milk production of Israeli cows is the highest in the world (10,208 litres per cow per year vs. 6,139 litres in the EU). Israel also leads the world in agricultural output in several fields and in developing new pest resilient strains of crop (for example, one kilogram of "summer sun" tomatoes seeds produces by Hazera Genetics sells for $350k, roughly 7 times the price of gold). The same company also developed new tomato seeds which are projected to reach a 40% share of the European tomato market.

In the past few years the water industry is developing a lot. Already, Israel holds the world record in recycling treated water (75%) well ahead of second place Spain (20%). Irrigation techniques developed in Israel enable Israeli farmers to produce the largest quantity of produce per water unit. The desalination plant in Ashkelon is the world's largest and most advanced, producing water at the lowest cost per cubic meter.

Israel's achievements in the fields of high tech, pharma and advanced technologies are well known. When the boycott idea was being discussed in Britain, a British blogger, Barry Shore requested that boycotters treat all Israeli products the same. He asked every Brit to check how much of his computer's hardware and software were developed in Israel and then to open the medicine cabinet and check how many of the medicines are based on research conducted in Israel. As the time goes on more inventions and developments are added to the list and Israel is now the world leader in heart surgery stents. Are any boycotters willing to give all these developments up? Farms based on advanced Israeli irrigation techniques and know-how are established in many third world countries and are saving millions from hunger. Do the boycott backers want to deny this knowledge from mankind? Are the boycotters humanists or just hate mongers? I know these facts won't persuade the "professional" Israel haters but it is our duty to show these people the long list of achievements and facts and explain that boycotting Israel is really a crime against humanity!

On the strategic level, in the wake of the Arab spring (which is turning out to be not much of a spring), the crisis with Turkey and Iran's nuclear ambitions it feels like Israel is in a real tough spot. This might be true but another view is that this all might be in Israel's benefit in the end. Egypt and Syria are dealing with bankrupt economies and they will have to take care of themselves before looking at Israel. It is true that some of the mob's rage was directed at Israel's embassy in Cairo and it is also true that there will always be a move to channel rage towards the Jews. It was like that before the Zionist movement and before the creation of Israel and we have been living with this chronic illness for thousands of years. What is clear is that Syria and Egypt are weakening. This is not good for Israel, on the contrary, Israel should hope for strong democratic neighbours however this still means that now the last thing these countries can afford is a conflict with Israel. Turkey too is facing economic and demographic difficulties which put Erdogan' s imperial aspirations in a different light. In fact, it might be that the slander and lies of the Turkish leader are a direct result of these problems.

In his book How Civilizations Die, David Goldman analyzes world affairs and comes to the opposite conclusions to those which prevail today. He claims that Islamic fundamentalism will gradually loose power and that Europe and Turkey will slowly demise as a result of a dramatic decline in birth rates. An Iranian woman, Goldman claims, who grew up in a family of six or seven today gives birth to 1.7 children. Similar to European birth rates or maybe even lower. Goldman has good news for two countries – The USA which has still not lost its faith in the values of western civilization and to an even greater extent Israel. A common factor of these two countries is birth rates above 2.1 which is the minimum required to avoid extinction.

I must admit that the book contains many statistics leading to conclusions at odds with many things I have written in this column over the years. Assuming these statistics are correct, yours truly has some rethinking to do. It's not that all this new data will solve Israel's social divide, soaring housing prices, illegal immigration or the danger of becoming a bi-national state but this book does show a different outcome, one in which things look rosier for Israel. Examples of other countries prevailing over existential threats also give Israel a brighter future.

Five years ago I suggested a new index be created, an index which measures contribution to humanity per capita. Israel's achievements in the years since then force me to suggest this again. Israel is by far not the world leader in income per capita or social justice but if there were an indicator of a country's contribution to the good of mankind – scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical research, agricultural advances, irrigation techniques and water savings – Israel would reach a high rank. It is probably safe to assume that Israel would come out first on a per capita basis.

Sadly, in one aspect Israel is a leader for the past five year. Global polls indicate Israel's horrible image in the eyes of the world as seen in this BBC poll showing Israel to be the most dangerous for world peace. We sometimes get to share this dubious honour with the likes of Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.

There is a world of difference between the real Israel, the Israel of science, agriculture and development and Israel's image as a "danger to world peace". It is the same difference between the anti-Semitic view of Jews as a "danger to the world" and the real Jewish contribution to mankind in the fields of medicine and science.

All that said, no country is free of criticism and some of the criticism is well placed yet still we find a huge gap between vibrant, researching, developing and contributing Israel and the Israel portrayed in the media and in academic papers.

We must also admit that we here in Israel also tend to ignore the real Israel. We focus on being watchdogs and fear that any positive article or compliment about Israel's achievements will label us as Pravda. But sometimes, like on Rosh Hashanah, we are also allowed to look at the half full cup. It is not only the quantifiable achievements but the day to day life we should be proud of. In many cities in Europe or the USA an eight or ten year old can't go out of his house on his own. In Israel it is possible. The families that come here do so because it is good here. Israeli bureaucracy despite all its shortcomings and there are plenty of them, is still more flexible and at time efficient than many western countries.

In conclusion, let's be a little optimistic. We don't need army marches with tanks and long range missiles. We should march our tomato seeds, amazing patents, drug advancements and our water purification and irrigation systems. This won't solve our big problems nor will it prevent a strong and unrelenting press from performing its important role but criticism has become our national sport. We love internal and external criticism and so we sometimes need a little reminder that there are things we should be proud of.

Ben-Dror Yemini is a researcher, jurist and a journalist (bdyemini@gmail.com)