Want to boycott Israel? Boycott this!
If you haven’t seen this story from the Wall Street Journal, you need to. Reviewing an extraordinary new book: “Start-Up Nation,” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, the piece begins by quoting an executive from British Telecom thus:
‘There are more new innovative ideas . . . coming out of Israel than there are out in [Silicon] Valley right now. And it doesn’t slow during economic downturns.”
And, the piece goes on to say of the Jewish state:
“Civilian research-and-development expenditures run 4.5% of the gross domestic product—half-again the level of the U.S., Germany or South Korea—and venture-capital investment per capita is 2½ times that of the U.S. and six times that of the United Kingdom. Even in absolute terms, Israel has only the U.S.—with more than 40 times the population—as a challenger.”
And:
“At the start of 2009, some 63 Israeli companies were listed on the Nasdaq, more than those of any other foreign country. Among the Israeli firms: Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world’s largest generic drug maker, with a market cap of $48 billion; and Check Point Software Technologies, with a market cap of $7 billion.”
And…well read the piece and buy the book.
So, if you’ve ever wondered why the verbal hostility of many Europeans does not translate into the kind of boycotts that are so frequently demanded, don’t forget plain old self interest. Everyone needs a piece of this pie…
To read the full article, click here:
To purchase the book, click here:
Tags: Israel
November 24th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Already purchased. :)
November 24th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
This book has benn presented a couple of weeks ago on an American news channel.
The really interesting thing about the book is not necessarily the book itself -the claims it makes are no big news for those who have some knowledge about Israel that goes beyond the usual emitional bias - but the reactions and to it.
Just have a look at the reviews made by different sources (esp. the big newspapers) and compare! Should be an interesting read… :-)
November 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
it’s ‘been’ and ‘emotional’ :-)
Sorry for the typos!
November 24th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
A week ago was published that Israel ranks fourth in the world in scientific activity, according to data compiled by the Council of Higher Education. The data puts Israel behind Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark in terms of the number of scientific publications per million citizens! Following Israel were Finland, the Netherlands and Canada. The United States placed 12th.
“Israelis have written about one percent of the scientific articles in the world,” says Professor Yehudit Bar-Ilan of Bar-Ilan University (I’m sure that her last name just coincides with the university name :) ).
Unfortunately, Israel was also ranked 4th most violent place in the world by the Global Peace Index (GPI), placed after Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia…
November 24th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Has the Guardian given it a review yet?
November 24th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Am currently reading ‘Start-Up (ie. upstart) Nation’. It’s inspiring stuff and highly recommended. The utter mediocrity and nastiness of the C4 Dispatches programme made me depressed, but this book is the perfect antidote !
November 25th, 2009 at 1:00 am
here’s the interview with Dan Senor:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1311023934&play=1
November 25th, 2009 at 1:11 am
This is the interview on CNBC with Dan Senor. Watch it… it’s great!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1311023934&play=1
November 25th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
1) “The Israeli model is the one to emulate”…
From an article in the Economist:
“The country that has led the world in promoting entrepreneurship has also done the most to plug itself into global markets. The Israeli government’s venture-capital fund, which was founded in 1992 with $100m of public money, was designed to attract foreign venture capital and, just as importantly, expertise. The government let foreigners decide what to invest in, and then stumped up a hefty share of the money required. Foreign venture capital poured into the country, high-tech companies boomed, domestic venture capitalists learned from their foreign counterparts and the government felt able to sell off the fund after just five years.
Last year Israel, a country of just over 7m people, attracted as much venture capital as France and Germany combined. Israel has more start-ups per head than any other country (a total of 3,850, or one for every 1,844 Israelis), and more companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange, a hub for fledgling technology firms, than China and India combined. It may not have the same comforting ring as “the Swedish model” or “the polder model”, but when it comes to promoting entrepreneurship, “the Israeli model” is the one to emulate.”
http://tinyurl.com/ya3krkb
2) “It’s impossible”…
Jeffrey Goldberg and Dan Senor discuss divestment from Israel:
“JG: Go to one final thing, something that struck me when I was reading this book. You have a boycott movement in Europe, but in the U.S., too, you have forces that want to delegitimize Israel. I realized in reading this that it would be quite something to go tell Intel or Google or IBM to divest from Israel.
DS: They’ll never do it. I mean, it’s impossible. What various companies told us is that if they had to shut down operations in India tomorrow, they could survive because it’s basically a lot of outsourcing and a lot of call centers. They said if we had to shut down our operations in Ireland, we could survive. But what one person after another told us is that the one place in the world that would devastating for them to have shut down would be Israel, because they put so much of their mission-critical work and R&D in Israel. The Intel story we tell is amazing, this key chip that was central to Intel taking off was designed and then manufactured in Israel, so it would be devastating to these companies to lose Israel. And one more thing — the most interesting data point on all of this is that European venture capitalists invest more in Israel than they do in any single European economy.”
http://tinyurl.com/yaovgao
November 25th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
On the other hand, the ******** did manage to boycott Robin Shepherd. Melanie Phillips writes:
“Until a short while ago Shepherd, now Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society, was a senior fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs — commonly known as Chatham House — in charge of its European programme. After two years he left in bitter circumstances, claiming he had been forced out principally because of his publicly expressed support for Israel”
http://tinyurl.com/yfybcem
November 25th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Let’s not forget new weapons technology, in which Israel must surely lead the world. Three examples immediately come to mind. Israel, together with the US invented the drone (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV), and Israel Aircraft Industries has perfected it with its current MALAT family of UAVs.
The recent waterproop sandproof Tavor TAR 21 bullpup assault rifle from Israel Weapon Industries is the envy of the world’s infantry and is used by ten countries, including India. Wouldn’t any British squaddie in Helmand province, Afghanistan, with his notorious “sandjammer” SA80 rifle developed in 1976, swap it for a Tavor in an instant?
Finally there is the “Tankbulance”, which holds the usual armament, has rear door entry and a full life support medical station and two stretchers. It is the latest Mark IV incarnation of the famed Merkava battle tank. The Merkava was developed after Edward Heath’s British government boycott on sending Chieftain tanks (already paid for) to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The tankbulance would, doubtless, be useful in saving British troops’ lives under fire in Helmand, were it not for foreign secretary David Milliband’s recent boycott on gun parts to Israel for the machine guns on her Sa’ar 4.5 missile boats. In British troops’ chronic underequipment in Helmand we can directly see the wages of boycotting Israel.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Newsweek - Published Nov 14, 2009
Soldiers of Fortune
How the Israeli Army became the most prolific innovation engine on earth.
“How does Israel—with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around—produce more tech companies listed on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, and China combined? How does Israel attract, per person, 30 times as much venture capital as Europe and more than twice the flow to American companies? How does it produce, for its size, the most cutting-edge technology startups in the world?
There are many components to the answer, but one of the most central and surprising is the Israeli military’s role in breaking down hierarchies and—serendipitously—becoming a boot camp for new tech entrepreneurs.
While students in other countries are preoccupied with deciding which college to attend, Israeli high-school seniors are readying themselves for military service—three years for men, two for women—and jockeying to be chosen by elite units in the Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.”
Remainder of the article at the link:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/222793