JaredR
Save Sderot
As the “robust democracy” of Israel quickly approaches her 60th Birthday, I wish her congratulations and call for any intelligent discourse of those open to new ideas and not blinded by anti-Semitism or hatred to the Jewish State.
P.S. Sorry if you’re over the whole Israel thing, but I just can’t help to see people wrongly informed!
P.S. Sorry if you’re over the whole Israel thing, but I just can’t help to see people wrongly informed!
130 years ago, when much of Ottoman Palestine was barren marshland, the first Zionist pioneers settled. Living alongside their Arab neighbours, they worked together building roads and infrastructure. At the same time, the Jewish National Fund bought land of absentee landowners, most living in Lebanon, and used it for kibbutz agriculture and the settlement of towns and cities, such as Tel Aviv (built amongst sand dunes) and Rishon L’Zion.
With the approval of the UN Partition Plan in 1947 and the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the State was established out of the ashes of the Holocaust ending the British Mandate.
Immediately following, Israel was attacked by her Arab neighbours, but was successful in fending them off with crucial territorial gains. Unfortunately, lessons weren’t learnt and wars were raged against Israel again in 1956, 1967 and 1973. Israel has made land concessions for peace with both Jordan and Egypt.
Modern-day Israel is a vibrant democracy and a land of diversity. It boasts a flourishing technological sector and is the world leader in irrigation and desalination technologies. Intel computer chips are developed in Israel.
Israel has a population of 6.8 million, and holds the highest ratio of university degrees per head in the world. She produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation – 109 per 10,000 people. Israeli scientists developed the first ingestible video camera as well as the first fully-computerised, non-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer. Israel has the highest percentage of home computers per capita and she leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000 as opposed to 85 in the US, 70 in Japan and 60 in Germany.
Israel has provided aid to numerous countries including Albania; Angola; Argentina; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Benin; Bolivia; Bosnia & Herzegovina; Bourkina-Fasso; Brazil; Bulgaria; Gurundi; Cambodia; Cameroon; Chad; Chile; China; Columbia; Congo; Costa Rica; Cote d'Ivoire; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Democratic Republic of Congo; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; El Salvador; Eritrea; Estonia; Ethiopia; Fiji; Gambia; Georgia; Ghana; Greece; Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; Hungary; India; Indonesia; Jamaica; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Kyrgystan; Laos; Latvia; Leshotho; Liberia; Lithuania; Macedonia; Madagascar; Malawi; Malta; Mauritania; Mauritius; Mexico; Micronesia; Moldova; Mongolia; Morocco; Myanmar; Namibia; Nepal; Nicaragua; Nigreia; Palestinian Authority; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Poland; Romania; Russia; Rwanda; Senegal; Seychelles Islands; Singapore; Slovakia; Somalia; South Africa; South Korea; Sri Lanka; Swaziland; Tadjikistan; Tanzania; Thailand; Togo; Tonga; Tunisia; Turkey; Turkmenistan; Uganda; Ukraine; United States; Uruguay; Uzbekistan; Venezuela; Vietnam; Yugosloslavia; Zaire; Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Israel has an openly gay community, and was one of the first countries to have a female leader.
Israel’s actions are comparative to the threat they face. The United States and Britain, two of the world’s most respected democracies, responded to Hitlerism with indiscriminate bombing of cities and civilian population centres. The US later dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities in order to spare the lives of its own soldiers in an invasion. The Arab countries that surround Israel – Jordan and Egypt in particular had Palestinian intifadas of their own and dealt with them with gigantic massacres that included mowing down thousands of Palestinians with tanks and machine guns. Israel, in many respects has placed human decency ahead of her own security even after the words of Martin Luther-King Jr. “Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.” – March 25, 1968.