Israel and the Nations
The world is in turmoil, but it seems that a tiny nation in the sea of nations, albeit experiencing the same problems like any other nation, succeeds in leading the world on so many levels. So much so, that the world would have been poorer without this nation.
Israel is only 1/6 of 1% of the land mass of the Middle East, 20,770 sq km (154 on the world rankings) and the size of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. The population is 7,821,850 (99 on the world rankings) and is only 2% of the population in the Middle East. Israel’s population is half the size of Metropolitan New York City and yet, has the highest ratio of university degrees per capita in the world. Israel’s unemployment rate is 5.8%. Compare that with South Africa’s unemployment rate of close to 25%.
Due to external and internal threats, Israel spends more money per capita on its own protection than any country in the world. Without the hate-mongering against them, the money could have been used on the economy and would eventually benefit the Palestinian economy as well.
Israel is a country with many achievements. Tel Aviv has been named as one of the ten most technologically influential cities in the world. Since 2000, Israel has been a member of EUREKA, the pan-European research and development funding and coordination organisation.
Among the host of scientific advancements in Israel are:
Ø Discovery of Quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman of the Technion. The discovery led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Ø Discovery of the role of protein Ubiquitin by Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion Institute (together with the American biologist Irwin Rose). The discovery led them to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Ø World’s smallest video camera – a camera with a 0.99 mm diameter, designed to fit in a tiny endoscope designed by Medigus.
Ø Development of the “Pillcam” by Given Imaging, the first Capsule endoscopy solution to record images of the digestive tract. The capsule is the size and shape of a pill and contains a tiny camera.
Ø Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – a notation system for recording movement on paper that has been used in many fields, including dance, physical therapy, animal behavior and early diagnosis of autism.
Ø Development of the Copaxone immunomodulator drug for treating multiple sclerosis. It was developed in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel by Michael Sela, Ruth Arnon and Deborah Teitelbaum.
Ø Development of the Interferon proteins by Michel Revel from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Ø Development of taliglucerase alfa (Elelyso), a recombinant glucocerebrosidase enzyme produced from transgenic carrot cell cultures. Taliglucerase alfa won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 2012 as an orphan drug for the treatment of Type 1 Gaucher’s disease.
Ø Nanowire – a conductive wire made of a string of tiny particles of silver, a thousand times thinner than a human hair, developed by Uri Sivan, Erez Braun and Yoav Eichen from the Technion.
Ø World’s smallest DNA computing machine system – “the smallest biological computing device” ever constructed, according to Guinness Book of Records, which is composed of enzymes and DNA molecules capable of performing simple mathematical calculations and which uses its input DNA molecule as its sole source of energy it was developed in 2003 in the Weizmann Institute of Science by professor Ehud Shapiro and his team.
Ø Amir Pnueli introduced temporal logic into computing science.
Ø A mechanical voice system run by the Intel Core i7 Processor developed by the Israeli division of Intel.
The above are only a few examples of impressive achievements in science which benefits the world. And yet, Israel is made out to be the problem while nations are struggeling with their own problems. It is hipocracy of the highest level.
The tragedy is that so many South Africans are ill informed about the modus operandi of anti-Israel organisations and groups and are negatively influenced by their propaganda. For example, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign branded Israel as an Apartheid state and ask the world to boycott Israel – a gross travesty of justice.
Why is it that majority Christian nations like the US, Europe and even South Africa are confronted with so many challenges. I believe the answer could be found in the fact that they departed from their Judeo-Christian values.