On Thursday I was on a train platform headed for Manhattan when I saw a friend of mine ahead of me, a silverhaired woman I had had dinner with back in January, before she went out to Israel. I called out to her and asked her how her trip had been. Oh, we really have to have you over to dinner, she said.
You see, she had asked me over to dinner before her trip, to get my insights. She and her husband were going out with a college tour group, her alma mater. They served roasted chicken and red wine, and I sang for my supper. I explained why the situation is unsustainable-- that nearly half the population between the river and the sea have no rights. And have had no rights for many years. The Arab Spring has changed young people’s view of their future. But what about Palestinians rejecting every deal and responding with terror? the husband had asked me over the bread pudding.
Imagine if immigrants took over our town and forced us out of our homes and wanted to impose a government on us, I said. Well I would be up in the hills with a gun, and so would my friends. He had nodded, accepting the point.
But now she had gone and come back, and we stood on the train platform.
It was really astonishing, she said. We saw many of the universities. Ben Gurion University was especially impressive.
In the desert, I said.
Yes. In the desert. But the buildings are amazing. There is innovation written all over them, literally and figuratively.
It was not a political trip, I said.
Oh no. Cultural, educational. Have you been to Haifa University?
No, I said.
Well it is on this dramatic hillside over the sea and it goes up 30 stories. It is beautiful, you’re overlooking the sea and you can see Lebanon and Syria and all of Israel, and then you look down and there is IBM’s facility. It's IBM's second most important research facility in the world. And it's there for a reason. Because innovation is such a central part of the culture there.
The train came and we sat in separate rows, I had to get to work, and I was downcast. I thought, we're losing. They really are flooding the world with this propaganda about startup nation-- the Brand Israel message the consul is selling on the Upper West Side-- and it's working on our elites. I thought back on my passionate description of the persecution in the occupied territories. But everything I said about human rights meant nothing in the end, up against the brand-name techno-wizardry (a lot of it funded by military aid).
“what about Palestinians rejecting every deal and responding with terror? the husband had asked me over the bread pudding……The train came and we sat in separate rows”
they are elitists, the colonizers. and they will always exist and the meek will inherit the earth.
They have been SOLD a story, namely, that there is SUPPOSED to be a negotiation, that negotiating the future (division) of the (remaining) 22% of Palestine is RIGHT, and that it is therefore improper for Palestinians to refuse a DEAL.
It is not a matter (or not ONLY a matter) of elitists. It is propaganda, misleading story-telling. Even poor Americans have been told that the Palestinians must return to the negotiating table.
“Have you been to Haifa University?
No, I said.”
No degree of political engagement can replace first-hand experience.
>> Terryscott @ May 12, 2012 at 11:49 am
A visit to Haifa University does not alter the reality of Israel’s 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder.
A visit to Haifa University does not transform Israel from a religion-supremacist Jewish state into a secular, democratic and egalitarian Israeli state of and for all Israelis, equally.
Phil: tell them at the next dinner party that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde coexist in Israel.
A butcher shop may sell the most delicious sausages, but many people have never been into the back room to see how the sausages are made. No visit to (beautiful, innovative) Israel is complete which fails to visit the back room. (Would anyone think a description of Nazi Germany was adequately complete without a description of Auschwitz? Don’t permit omission of the H/R part of the story.)
The sad part is that (in my opinion) the innovative aspect of Israel could very well be carried out without holding onto the OPTs and Golan. That is, the (claimed) innovation (and friendliness to Gays, etc., on which Israel prides itself could be carried out without the anti-human-rights-ishness.
pabelmont, the heated US discourse about Trayvon Martin shooting keeps me from paying enough attention lately.
But since it is really rare to see Phil in a pessimist mood, and since you mention the Germans.
For me and others the the construction of “Israeli modernity” versus the “Arab village” has deep ultimately German orientalist or antisemitic roots. (I’ve mentioned Eyal Gil’s highly interesting study The Disenchantment of the Orient, or Gil Anidjar’s smaller study: Semites, race, religion and literature, quite often before in this context)
Consider this, can’t you simply replace German know-how and work ethics with Jewish know how and work ethics, a meme the dominating Jekkes carried along as a cultural burden?
German Jews and the Claims of Modernity, Jonathan M. Hess.
Interesting how this first-hand experience works. My tour guide points to an Arab village and says how wonderful it is. The trouble is I had real first-hand experience when I talked to Palestinian Christians in Nazareth and they directly contradicted my Israeli guide. Pointing to an IBM plant and lying is faux first-hand experience and it’s amazing how many people (on my tour Christian Zionists) fall for this crap all because it feeds their confirmation bias. First-hand experience means actually talking to people but that never, ever happens because people would come to conclusions different than their Soviet handlers, err, Israeli tour guides want.
“Have you been to Haifa University?
No, I said.”
No degree of political engagement can replace first-hand experience.
What’s your point, Terry? Would a visit to Haifa U. have changed Phil’s perspective in anything but a deceptive, “Brand Israel” sort of way? Would it have contradicted any of the facts that he knows by research and first hand experience (in both Israel and the West Bank)?
In other words, it was a cheap shot, entirely in the spirit of the “Brand Israel” campaign. What brutality? We’re on the Nasdaq! Critical of the “separation fence”? Wait until you see our patents! Your impressions of Israel are all hearsay until you’ve seen the Intel plant in Kiryat Gat for yourself! The chips, the semiconductors, O rapture! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Here’s some more details on how the propaganda of so-called “first-hand experience” works. You will be riding on a tour bus and your guide goes “don’t trust CNN trust your own eyes”. (Funny how he didn’t mention Fox News which was in my Jerusalem hotel.) He specifically asked for us to tell people back home in the U.S. what we saw in order to undermine any critical media of Israel.
But think about for a second. How relevant is looking at something from a tour bus window where your handler controls 100% of the context? So, he points at a Palestinian village and tells us how great their health care is. (This is a similar narrative to your friend, Phil. Economic prosperity, even pretend prosperity, somehow justifies taking away people’s freedom.) I ask him where do Jews and Palestinians live together in Israel? He hems and haws and points at the courthouse in Nazareth Illit(!) and says there are Palestinian judges there. Never, ever, does he have the Palestinians speak for themselves, even the Christian ones.
The West Bank “first-hand experience” is even more propagandistic. Our guide has the gaul to say this is the West Bank and see how safe it was while pointing out of our tour bus when we were on a bypass road! He pointed to the settlements which he refused to call settlements and noted how they had fences while the Palestinian villages did not. This was, according to him, because the settlers needed protection from the Palestinians but not vice versa.
I understand how this works well for conservative Christians. They can easily be convinced to only listen to “approved” sources of Pravda and Izvestia. That liberal Jews will not use a wide array of information sources is especially disappointing. But it’s not surprising. See Chris Mooney’s new book the Republican Brain. In it he notes authoritarian brains fall easily into confirmation bias particularly when they perceive a threat. This is because they are thinking from their Amygdala. Even though liberal Zionists like to think of themselves as liberals, they in reality think like my Tea Party friends on the bus.
Well Ive been to Haifa University, and it is a very pretty campus.
When you arrive their as a non degree seeking student, you have to sign a contract saying you won’t visit any Arab areas.
Well, to counterbalance, we held a Go and Learn session at a (yes, Reconstructionist, but still) synagogue last night that was attended by about 25 congregants, not a single one of whom expressed any Zionist hostility towards the BDS message we were delivering. The few critical responses were about strategy and effectiveness, not goals.
Maybe it was a self-selected bunch of lefties, I don’t know, but I felt it represented some kind of small progress.
The Brand Israel people aren’t stupid. Our society is taught to worship technology and confuse it with virtue. It sells stuff and keeps people quiet. Tap into that, and talk of human rights and human cost will go in one ear and out the other. Thirty stories and IBM? What’s not to like?
I seem to recall that Germany was admired for its technical expertise, pre-WWII. Not to make comparisons, but perhaps the admirers of “start-up nations” should be reminded.
@Philip
You cannot expect much from her. It seems she just attended scientific facilities, so that is the same as not even living home in terms of seeing the truth.
In my country there is a saying in my country, Brazil, that goes like this “Começar a comer pelas pontas”(Beginning to eat something by its edges). That means when you have a difficult problem to solve, you start by its weak edges, in the same way when you are very hungry you star eating by the coolest places, the edges.
I think a better strategy would be not expect too much from your fellow Jews, but also start targeting Christian groups usually associated with Zionism since Israel cannot do their Hasbara as efficiently directly to them. Also, these groups are the ones who holds far more votes, so in the end, getting their support would be much more rewarding in the end.
And I think Mondoweiss is still lacking too and passive much in this regard. Christian groups are mostly referred here when they actively start a movement, like the Methodist with their support for BDS or the recent covering of the CBS covering of the Christian repression in West Bank. I do not see very frenquently Christians posting articles here, in Mondoweiss, about their struggle for the Palestinian civil rights, or their talks in churches .
What I see here, more frequently, instead, are Jews at Synagogues or other meetings trying to convince other Jews. But I do not feel this is the most appropriate strategy because the power, in reality, emanates from the Christian majority. There should be more talks to Christians.
And this should be actively seek here and not merely just wait for sporadic happenings.
Daniel de França
Good advice. According to RT TV earlier today there are 70 million evangelical Christian supporters of Israel in the US. I have no idea if that is true but the claim was they are more significant in determining the electoral outcome than AIPAC.
NickJOCW,
You are making a good point, but it’s also important to ask how many of the evan. supproters vote Democrat, and how much the Democrats vie for their votes.
This is not quite the right question. Of the evangelicals that might vote Democrat what is important to them? See my analysis looking at the them from 2008: link to dailykos.com
The short synopsys of my analysis is young evangelicals are more YOUNG evangelicals than they are young EVANGELICALS. These young evangelicals also share another important characteristic with their secular peers. They are much more anti-Zionist than their elders. So, if the Obama campaign wants to repeat their inroads into the evangelical vote they need to counter-intuitively to go to the left on I/P and be on the side of justice and human rights.
Another thing I noticed was the composition of Obama donors from last week. The loss of funds from Wall Street — read Jewish donors — has been almost entirely replaced by GLBT donors, making 1/6 of his total intake. Netanyahu’s gambit to manipulate our election may well result in much lower Jewish and Israeli influence if Obama wins another term.
MTd2 says some interesting things. An ideal person to post an article from, or an article about, is Mark Braverman.
He is a US Jew whose grandfather was born in Jerusalem. He grew up as a Zionist but was so impacted by a visit to Palestine and Israel that he became actively opposed to Zionism. He has written the book “Fatal Embrace” and works extensively with Christian churches in support of Palestinians, without himself being Christian.
Reaching Christians already sold on Zionism is no easy task. Most seem to have foreheads of flint and hearts of stone in this area, but Braverman is one of few who could gain some traction, as he may also do with Jews.
link to markbraverman.org
Unfortunately human rights are a minority concern amongst most peoples and Nations of the world, people are only engaged when the abusers are resisted violently or peacefully, then, even when reported [how many in the US know about the hunger strikes] are their own consciences raised or their own way of life is disturbed. The Palestinians have the dead weight of the US and western elites to overcome and through them the corporate media, the Palestinians have the sympathies of most of the world but it would be nice to have a countervailing force within the Arab world [remember when the former Saudi Ambassador to the US threatened dire consequences over US intransigence, all hot air] that will take time, at the moment the Arab league could not agree on what colour wallpaper to put in their HQ.
Phil, to be blunt, was she Jewish?
Look Israel is a very impressive country economically and in terms of innovation. The last Nobel in Chemistry went to Israel. So it’s happening now.
I stumbled across a link in the UK Guardian the other day about a paralyzed woman being able to complete the London Marathon(16 days after it begun with many breaks, mind you) with hi-tech equipment latched onto her body that stimulates her nerv cells.
Who made that revolutionary equipment, why you ask, an Israeli of course. A Jewish Israeli. So yes, Jewish genius is reaping a lot of economic benefit for Israel and if you’re Jewish, it’s an obvious point of pride. Even as a Gentile it impresses people.
Still, she had to go there to be wowed. You said both were nodding in agreement when you had them for dinner. And how many people can go to Israel?
No, the conversation’s changed. But thinking this will go down without a fight is naive. I’ve often said that Israel will be much harder than South Africa because Zionism has hijacked Judaism, they can claim minority persecution when criticized for their push for war, dragging America in with them. They have a much more organized lobby. South Africa basically only had the word of Reagan, and even he only saw them as useful as long as the Soviets, by then in rapid decline, existed.
Israel’s usefulness to America has since long passed, but they have said lobby and much more cultural power, and this is why you understand why we have to have an internal Jewish discussion on this because there were no circular firing squads within the top echelons of the MSM if you attacked white rule South Africa. And that is the case here.
Krauss
I saw that article as well. That is what Israelis can do when they aren’t torturing Palestinians. But the cost of YESHA is far too high and it’s going to hit the tech sector. The education system is already suffering. Look at the PISA comparisons. Between the settlers and the orthodox Isrel is going to run out of money. It is already running low on diplomatic capital.
So it looks fine from Haifa uni but the country isn’t run by research focused academics. It’s run by people like Lieberman and Bibi who don’t understand history . Or economics.
And the shock when it comes will blow everything out of the water.
Most Jews who go to Israel don’t want to know. Algeria was paradise in 1949 too, you know.
“link in the UK Guardian the other day about a paralyzed woman being able to complete the London Marathon(16 days after it begun with many breaks, mind you) with hi-tech equipment latched onto her body that stimulates her nerv cells.
Who made that revolutionary equipment, why you ask, an Israeli of course. A Jewish Israeli.”…..
I hate to keep being the Grinch that steals Israel’s thunder but that innovation has been around forever and came originally from the Cleveland Clinic, which is one of the main centers of this research…but the research in this has always been world wide and involves dozens of international experts..that are really into ‘Cyborgs’..as they joking refer to it…and got it’s start during WWII with maimed soldiers.
There was Jewish fellow who was one of the pioneers in this during WWII but he was American and Swiss, not Israeli.
But outside electrical stimulus for the paralyzed is now old stuff. Go to the Cleveland Clinic on this or to the Christopher Reeve Foundation for info.
Now electrical chips and devices are being implanted directly into patients spinal cords to send signals to the nerves to spark the command to the brain to move a muscle…even this isn’t all that new and has been done in the research world for a while now. In fact chips are now being invented and tested that can be implanted directly into the brain for this purpose and don’t have to be controlled from outside the body sort of like heart pacemakers. Really fascinating.
Phil Weiss wrote:
“I thought, we’re losing.”
Well all I can ask, Phil—somewhat assuming that this lady is jewish, but not necessarily—is why you seem to think you will have better luck persuading American jews or American elites to change their fundamental ideas here because Israel isn’t helping but rather hurting itself, as opposed to persuading Americans *in general* that America’s support of Israel is causing *America* and *their* interests all kinds of great great harm?
Indeed it seems to me it’s this precise mistargeting that’s the biggest strategic mistake being made by lots of folks, wasting a whole lot of energy, resources and etc. Indeed, it’s choosing to fight on the very grounds Israel wants you to fight on: Choosing Israel or the Palestinians.
Wrong grounds, possibly catastrophically bad framing; the question is choosing Israel … or the United States.
“is why you seem to think you will have better luck persuading American jews or American elites to change their fundamental ideas here because Israel isn’t helping but rather hurting itself, as opposed to persuading Americans *in general* that America’s support of Israel is causing *America* and *their* interests all kinds of great great harm? “….SN
Because he or they or whoever have this idea that all the average non elite, non intellectual Americans will become raving anti semites if they are introduced to/enlisted in the Israel problem…..LOL
Better to keep the problem confined to salon discussions and the feeble minded elite intelligentsia of cows endlessly chewing on their own cud …..or Gawd Forbid! …something might actually happen on Israel! Someone might really ”do something”…it could end in a divorce in the family!
Just exaggerating ..LOL But no doubt there are some who hold one or both of these opinions/fears regarding the American street getting involved.
Someone contact Websters….Elite now means Shallow.
Come to think of it, it’s probably always meant intellectually shallow, limited, confined.
Tea cup intelligence.
They can only focus on Israel as an industrialized, Western country because, right now, there’s no violence against Israelis. In other words, it is the Palestinians’ commitment to non-violence which gives Israel the space to bring in droves of tourists and sell the brand. And Americans, at some level know this. It wasn’t so long ago, when Americans were terrified of going to Israel.
Not to argue that it’s possible to change people’s minds or stay close to those who see Israel as good, but I find, that there is usually an opening for making this point. Yes, things are calm there, but only on the Israeli side of the wall. On the other side, there is violent Occupation. My experience has been that most Americans object to the settlements.
“MTD2: What I see here, more frequently, instead, are Jews at Synagogues or other meetings trying to convince other Jews. But I do not feel this is the most appropriate strategy because the power, in reality, emanates from the Christian majority. ”
Power may emanate from the Christian majority in Brazil but it’s not true in America.
That’s true everywhere. If it happens in USA( it is quite interesting that they call their country as the entire continent), it is because people agree with that and let it happen.
” If it happens in USA( it is quite interesting that they call their country as the entire continent), ”
No, they don’t. The continent is called “North America.” I have never heard of an American calling the country “North America.” They call is by the state’s conventional short form name: “America.”
I’m good friends with Randy Isaac who is a retired head of IBM’s TJ Watson laboratory. (See his APS fellowship citation here. link to aps.org Note that all the IBM fellows are either from Yorktown Heights or San Jose. ) So I put to him the following question:
I heard a claim about a place being the second most important research facility for IBM. In your opinion where would that be? I’m not telling the answer I heard to not prejudice your answer.
His response:
I’ll bet it was Albany.
Randy Isaac
According to their website, IBM has research labs around the world. The one in Haifa was set up in 1972. All of the rest, with the exception of those in the US and Zurich, were opened later than that, including labs in China, Japan, Brazil, Ireland, Australia and India. Looks like IBM thinks that innovation and research is a global phenomenon, not something particular to Haifa.
link to research.ibm.com
From the descriptions of their “focus”, it seems like more of the cutting edge stuff is being done elsewhere, not at Haifa. I imagine that every facility, outside of Watson, probably describes itself as the “second most important” IBM facility. It makes the employees feel good.
I imagine that every facility, outside of Watson, probably describes itself as the “second most important” IBM facility. It makes the employees feel good.
Which is why I asked Randy. As head of the number one facility he would have a more objective answer of who is number two. He picked the facility that does IBM’s nanotechnology work. Before someone infers the wrong thing from Randy’s name he is not Jewish. He’s currently the executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation a fellowship of Christians who are career scientists and technologists.
Good points about how Israeli innovation is happening now. RTE (Irish Radio) reported this morning that there are more high tech companies in Israel than the entire EU– combined! It’s second only to Silicon valley.
But feel free to invest in Spanish banks and Greek utilities.
I couldn’t find that on the RTE website. Please provide a reference.
Jeff Halper has noted that Israel’s hi tech industry is heavily involved in military contracts. For instance, Elbit’s technology is used on the separation wall. (Phil makes the same point out at the end of his article. ) Maintaining low grade violence against the Palestinians boosts the Israeli hi-tech industry. You can’t beat the label: “Tested on the battlefield.” Israel needs to keep its battlefields active enough to lend credence to this claim.
Given how dependent one of its leading industries is on war, it would be disastrous for Israel to have peace.
Classic article on the subject by Naomi Klein: link to guardian.co.uk
Great article Shmuel. Thanks for the link – I did not have it in my files. All very true too.
Yeah that doesn’t sound like complete and utter bullshit. I heard Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
link to globes.co.il
So let me get this straight. Out of 5896 patents the Haifa labs got 45. And that was the leading patent recipient in Israel! Here’s some more perspective: I personally have 10 U.S. patents. Maybe I’ll start calling myself Startup Dude.
Your link also says that “over 22%” of IBM’s patents were made by inventors outside of the US. Twenty-two percent of 5896 is 1297. Forty five divided by 1297 means that a whopping 4% (generously rounding upwards) of IBM’s 2010 patents came from its Israel facilities. Not a very impressive total coming from the “second most important” R & D lab at IBM.
>> RTE (Irish Radio) reported this morning that there are more high tech companies in Israel than the entire EU– combined! It’s second only to Silicon valley.
Wow! No country that is second only to Silicon Valley could possibly be an oppressive, expansionist, colonialist and religion-supremacist state involved in a 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder! All hail the Glorious Jewish State of Greater Israel!
I would not deny achievements of Israel. What is needed is a proper perspective.
When Darwin was developing theory of evolution, the Irish were starving by millions and Dickens was writing his novels(about Dickensian conditions of the less fortunate members of the most advanced nation in the world).
Under Czars, Russia had many achievements, particularly on the aesthetic side. Imperial Ballet was perhaps the best in Europe (and US was rather backward in this respect at that time). In sciences, everybody knows Mendeleyev table.
Actually, in sciences Germany was most advanced for quite a while. Around 1900 about 40% of all scientific publications were in German.
Israeli universities definitely do good science. However, in my area I noticed something interesting: a number of top graduate students in USA are from Iran. And the department head in Tehran graduated from my department (in USA). I guess a visit to Iranian campuses may leave a very good impression too.
Last I heard, there were more women students than men in Iranian universities, even in the traditionally “men’s subjects” like engineering.
There’s an idea for a new Israeli innovation: Exportable Hasbara! If it could work for Israel, perhaps it will work for your regime too.
To dictatorships and other mortally flawed regimes around the world: Come to Israel to learn vital skills that ethically-compromised states cannot afford to ignore. In Israel you will learn how to:
1. Develop a national narrative that appeals to the superpower’s dominant religious group.
2. Focus the world’s attention on your cool industries.
3. Develop a mythology of victimhood.
4. Intimidate your detractors.
Let Zionism be a light to the nations! A beacon that makes even the darkest regimes shine!
There is a critical element of High technology and research centers that people outside these fields perhaps do not process so well, perhaps because the key ingredients are not the most visible ones. The most significant element – based on my experience, at least – is the availability of capital. Many places around the world – and in the US – quite a few with highly skilled, enterprising locals tried to make new Silicon Valleys. Many areas and countries found out that skilled engineering labor and high levels of learning are not enough, no matter how deep and diverse. Spirit of entrepeneurship is not enough. A top university is not enough and neither is a supportive government – local or national. The ultimate lubricant for all ventures is money. And not just any money but the kind that can be had for a song and a prayer (that’s called a Business Plan, I think). Money and investment flow to israel from compatriots in the US and elsewhere. With enough money not only start-ups can be had (and you need 20 at least for one to strike, that being optimistic), and time can be bought for a few to germinate and produce products that lots of people want to buy . With money, what local research facilities there are can be beefed up in a big way. Top researchers and facilities can be bought. Students can be attracted. the University of Texas in Austin did just that. From a happy somewhat sleepy college town, Austin is now a mecca for all manner of companies and research institutes, UTA is a world class institution with the 4th largest endowment in the US (almost $17B from what I just read).
Haifa has always had the Technion, which produced lots of first class engineers, a, physicists, chemists (and historians, and poets, etc etc. no disrespect meant for any field). But it’s in the past 20 years that a huge push was made to draw substantial investment into it, using the American model of endowments and outside investments and partnerships with corporations and other institutes. This has, in turn spilled over into the start-ups around, and outlets of multi-nationals then set up shop to take advantage of the local talent. IBM and HP and Intel do it all over the world, using the same pattern. They always show up, in due course.
The importance of substantial investment and an easy flow of human capital to and from other, capital rich countries such as, eg, the US, cannot be overstated. Take Romania, for example. Huge human capital there, especially in software and material science. It’s also becoming more common to meet Romanian origined researchers and students from Romania both in the US and in Europe. EU companies have also been going there and investing, trying to draw on that skilled labor. But the process is in its infancy. Romania does not yet have the infrastructure and it takes a long time to recover from the soul deadening effects of communism. neither has its population reached sufficient proficiency in the international language of start-ups, which, for better or for worse is English. But given enough time, a new generation that did not know the trauma of imposed communism, a central location, and an increasingly well-to-do diaspora abroad, it’s going to happen there too. Silicon Valley on the Caspian sea? why not? It will happen also in Hungary, and the Czech republic and even Russia (did I neglect Poland? oops,..).
Israel had a head start in terms of money, rich supportive “diaspora”, salesmanship and workforce fluidity. But networks spread and many countries are using the same model, many with great success. I once bet with someone that with $5 B to spend as I wish, a location of choice with a half decent university nearby, 10-15 years head start I could produce a Silicon Valley. And I confess to being thoroughly disorganized and not nearly as disciplined and/or focused as one might wish (that not to mention a long list of missing talents…). But such talents as are missing can be hired too. With enough money, a desire to spend it productively, and a little bit of intuition about what not to do and who not to hire, why, anywhere in the the whole world can be a magnet for a High Tech oyster. The location doesn’t even have to have great weather. Finland did quite nicely – it has hardly any sun for 6 months, yet boasts some of the best technical centers and enterprising companies in the world (it helps that it can draw on some good Russians from near by St. Petersburg). And Finland has all of 5M people (yes, I know its students keep winning on the TIMMS assessments – way ahead of israel, BTW. Not to mention poor little US of A). How about the West Bank next door to that Israel place (ie assuming, of course easy commute anywhere)? Or, an Indian reservation in the US? Alas, no one took my bet, so we’ll never know (OK, I know… that predilection to frequent ranting might have been perhaps a bit of draw-back…not to mention a talent for shopping). Point is, with a few favorable starting conditions + plenty of capital + a few people that spend it well, the right people – if they are not all there to start with – will come. The right ideas will flourish. What can grow will, and I will get fired for talking (and ranting) too much.
As for Israel High tech – it goes both ways. Yes, there’s that nice globalized, educated coastal strip. But there’s a brain drain too and a profound, accelerating shift in demographics towards less productive segments of society (the ultra-orthodox?). And there is that creeping malaise that comes with pressures for increased insularity from its surroundings and from knowing, deep underneath, that the entire enterprise of zionism was built on human misery, and must continue to inflict misery to survive. These effects take time to exact their toll, but they will. Even on High tech edifices. I was always kind of partial to the Tower of Babel story. There are important lessons there, I think. And the longer it takes for the lessons to be learnt, the harder the fall, when it comes.
you’re so brilliant danaa
Brilliant and humble.
and humble…
Back where I came from, humility was taught as a hyperbole. An interesting theoretical concept best left to e.g., the Christians to practice. When I was 8 or so, and they asked me what I wanted to be when grown up, I’d reply without hesitation “god”. Well, even in Israel they stopped asking (thanks god). As you can see, some progress has been made (but obviously it’s a long road. Uphill all the way. Kind of Sisypian too).
Correction made under duress: apparently, UTA was neither “sleepy”, nor “little”. Ever.
Got a couple of Texans gunning for me now. And they are definitely armed. Possibly dangerous too.
Mr. Weiss, I think I’ll send you to the tagline of this site here. Or as Beckett wrote: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” What else is there to do?
Which reminds of the following:
It is time to think of resistance in a new way, something that is no longer carried out to reform a system but as an end in itself. African-Americans understood this during the long night of slavery. German opposition leaders understood it under the Nazis. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union knew this during the nightmare of communism. Resistance in these closed systems was local and often solitary. It was done with the understanding that evil must always be defied. The tiny acts of rebellion — day after day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade — exposed to everyone who witnessed them the heartlessness, cruelty and inhumanity of the oppressor. They were acts of truth and beauty. We must take to the street. We must jam as many wrenches into the corporate system as we can. We must not make it easy for them. But we also must no longer live in self-delusion. This is a battle that will outlive us. And if we fight, even with this tragic vision, we will lead lives worth living and keep alive another way of being. [my emphases] – Chris Hedges
The importance of substantial investment and an easy flow of human capital to and from other, capital rich countries such as, eg, the US, cannot be overstated. – Danaa
You can add Canada to the list. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Australia on such a list, as well as most of the European countries: France, UK, Germany, and others.
I heard Apartheid South Africa had great surgeons! Some magnificent hotels too! Oh, and their Rugby team was the best in the world! Also, some of their women were most beautiful too, I should know I met one..
Sh*t for brains!
“We’re still losing”
Nope! Maybe still not winning but certainly not losing.
For what it’s worth, the lady went and saw what she wanted to see.
Imagine if you wanted to go to the American West after reading stories about the cowboys, since your relatives are cowboys. You have a friend who sympathizes with Indians. That’s nice, now I go to the West and see the cowboys and see how romantic it is. A nice trip to the Open Range where the deer and the antelope play. It’s exactly what I wanted to see.
You would basically have to be visiting a fort and be conscripted into massacering an Indian village for you to recognize that a problem exists. And then of course you could make justifications about how the cowboys are good, but that particular fort was bad, etc. etc.
Or to give another example, how about people from the North who visited the pre-war South. They could be treated with Southern Hospitality and fail to recognize anything was wrong. The black slaves they saw were fed enough, well cared for, so what’s the problem? It’s just if they are lazy or run away that they are brutally punished, but hey that was their choice to be lazy. etc etc. This is obviously an unfortunate pscyhological problem that someone goes to a place or lives there and fails to realize there is anything wrong because they themselves are treated well by the unequal society.
Not everyone wants to become involved in intractable problems that don’t concern them directly. This is particularly true of the silver haired who have lived through a lifetime of ups and downs, developing a degree of stoicism along the way There is always injustice somewhere, when has there not been? That’s the way the world is. Besides, What would justice be without injustice?
Phil we are not losing we are winning them over one at a time, these jewish friends of yours who went on the tour have always been Israels friends, you tried to turn them but they have been courted back, that is all, in the meantime go tell it on the mountain, it’s the right thing to do, look at it sort of like your midlife barmitzva project.
by the way everytime i go to a bar or bat mitzva now i always think of Rachel Corrie, who trained in the jewish way went out to do her good deed to help people and was taken by the predator state.
As i heard it tell and also have read the tales of, Russia once upon a time used to invite other national communist from round the world to a tour of the motherland to show off their proleterian wonderland so as to impress their disciples, the potemkin villages would light up at night during the long train rides across russia on their way into moscow where they were headed to receive their marching orders.
Israel is rotting from within. The tours serve only to impress on their acolytes how beautiful things look from the outside.
The rot from within will only become serious when many insiders begin to lose confidence in their cause, and that event, for all I can see, is not imminent. In the Western world we are still outclassed in almost every respect – all forms of organised opinion, most silent-majority orthodoxy, money, political and academic respectability. We are a rag-tag bunch, many of us eccentric. Our only advantage is in being right and non-racist, which I think means that we will not lose for ever but that we will suffer many bitter setbacks for the foreseeable future.
MHughes976 wrote:
“The rot from within will only become serious when many insiders begin to lose confidence in their cause….”
Wrong. The cause will only begin to lose when the insiders are deprived of the resources to continue it.
Again, that’s why so much of the posting here is misdirected: Those that aren’t just expressions of anger think by dissecting the injustices delivered unto the Palestinians by the Israelis the Israelis and their American partisans are going to change their fundamental minds.
And yet, this is still written right in the face of Phil’s story about this woman who he had even cornered beforehand and “sensitized” and then who went there and saw (or had the opportunity to see) for herself. And what happened?
The rot from within will only stop when the American people realize the damage they are doing to themselves by subsidizing that rot, and that they have been are are being fleeced by a foreign power. All the rest of this stuff is akin to street theater demonstrations: Fun and exciting and stimulating to be a part of maybe, but ineffectual.
Israel is like Kurz in Heart of Darkness , every day going deeper into the madness. It won’t fall apart this year but the collapse when it comes will be sudden and shocking.
Quite frankly Phil? You are losing. The American Jewish community shows no signs of redemption whatsoever. That’s why I don’t hang around this site as much as I used to — the solution can’t be found here. Zionism has permanently changed the nature of Jewish culture and there really isn’t any going back. Or at least, I see no evidence that there is. Too much of American Jewish culture is invested in Israel, and not in their fellow Americans.
Hard to disagree, Chaos. Israel is above all a Jewish responsibility. If Judaism doesn’t force the necessary change then the goys will have to.
Judaism has been tried and found wanting, and so have the goys. The potential is there, but it’s never really been tapped and harnessed. All we really know is that empires come and go, and justice usually prevails in the end. But who knows how in this case, and how long it will take?