Israel – artdiamondblog.com

Israelis Are Tenacious, Informal, Question Authority, and Tolerate Failure

(p. A15) Israel is a country of eight million people that at its narrowest point is 9 miles wide. It is surrounded on all sides by enemies who would like to see it wiped off the map: Hezbollah to the north, Hamas to the south, plus Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Islamic State and Iran to the east. It wouldn’t take a particularly pessimistic person to bet against this besieged slice of desert. Yet this tiny nation has also built an air force, anti-missile defense system and intelligence apparatus that is revered around the world–and relied on by the U.S. military, among many others. And it’s done it with a minuscule fraction of the budget available to larger nations.
How has Israel pulled it off? In “The Weapon Wizards” Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot tell the story of how the Jewish state’s military and defense sector became one of the most cutting-edge in the world. In chapters focused on particular technologies and weapons, such as drones, satellites and cyber warfare, the authors make the case that the same factors that have made Israel a tech giant have also allowed it to become a “high-tech military superpower.” The country’s military, its schools and its extracurricular institutions inculcate in its young people tenacity, insatiable questioning of authority, determined informality, cross-disciplinary creativity and tolerance of failure.
. . .
While “The Weapon Wizards” can be a bit technical for the lay reader, the authors have skillfully conveyed a key component of the dynamic innovation culture that has made the Jewish state one of the most important entrepreneurial and technology-driven economies in the world. Not bad for a country 9 miles wide.

For the full review, see:
DAN SENOR. “BOOKSHELF; Drafting Up Innovation.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Feb. 2, 2017): A15.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Feb. 3 [sic], 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Katz, Yaakov, and Amir Bohbot. The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.

Zionists “Risk Their Lives for an Idea”

(p. C1) . . . , without hesitation or (for the most part) complaint, proudly responding to the call-up, Israelis stand ready to defend their nation. They risk their lives for an idea.
The idea is Zionism. It is the belief that the Jewish people should have their own sovereign state in the Land of Israel. Though founded less than 150 years ago, the Zionist movement sprung from a 4,000-year-long bond between the Jewish people and its historic homeland, an attachment sustained throughout 20 centuries of exile. This is why Zionism achieved its goals and remains relevant and rigorous today. It is why citizens of Israel–the state that Zionism created–willingly take up arms. They believe their idea is worth fighting for.
Yet Zionism, arguably more than any other contemporary ideology, is demonized. “All Zionists are legitimate targets everywhere in the world!” declared a banner recently paraded by anti-Israel protesters in Denmark. “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Zionists are not under any circumstances,” warned a sign in the window of a Belgian cafe. A Jewish demonstrator in Iceland was accosted and told, “You Zionist pig, I’m going to behead you.”
. . .
What is it about Zionism that elicits such loathing? After all, the longing of a dispersed people for a state of their own cannot possibly be so repugnant, especially after that people endured centuries of massacres and expulsions, culminating in history’s largest mass murder. Perhaps revulsion toward Zionism stems from its unusual blend of national identity, religion and loyalty to a land. Japan offers the closest parallel, but despite its rapacious past, Japanese nationalism doesn’t evoke the abhorrence aroused by Zionism.
Clearly anti-Semitism, of both the European and Muslim varieties, plays a role. Cabals, money grubbing, plots to take over the world and murder babies–all the libels historically leveled at Jews are regularly hurled at Zionists. And like the anti-Semitic capitalists who saw all Jews as communists and the communists who painted capitalism as inherently Jewish, the opponents of Zionism portray it as the abominable Other.

For the full commentary, see:
MICHAEL B. OREN. “In Defense of Zionism.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., AUG. 2, 2014): C1-C2.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date AUG. 1, 2014.)

Organic and Kosher Chicken Have as Much Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria as Regular Chicken

(p. D3) . . . after a trip to Israel for his sister’s bat mitzvah, Jack Millman came back to New York wondering whether the higher costs of kosher foods were justified.
“Most consumers perceive of kosher foods as being healthier or cleaner or somehow more valuable than conventional foods, and I was interested in whether they were in fact getting what they were paying for,” said Mr. Millman, 18 and a senior at the Horace Mann School in New York City.
That question started him on a yearlong research project to compare the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant E. coli bacteria on four types of chickens: those raised conventionally; organically; without antibiotics, and those slaughtered under kosher rules. “Every other week for 10 weeks, I would go and spend the entire Saturday buying chicken,” he said. “We had it specifically mapped out, and we would buy it and put it on ice in industrial-strength coolers given to us by the lab, and ship it out.”
All told, Mr. Millman and his mother, Ann Marks, gathered 213 samples of chicken drumsticks from supermarkets, butcher shops and specialty stores in the New York area.
Now they and several scientists have published a study based on the project in the journal F1000 Research. The results were surprising.
Kosher chicken samples that tested positive for antibiotic-resistant E. coli had nearly twice as much of the bacteria as the samples from conventionally raised birds did. And even the samples from organically raised chickens and those raised without antibiotics did not significantly differ from the conventional ones.

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE STROM. “A Science Project With Legs.” The New York Times (Tues., November 5, 2013): D3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date November 4, 2013.)

The academic article on E. coli in different types of chicken, is:
Millman, Jack M., Kara Waits, Heidi Grande, Ann R. Marks, Jane C. Marks, Lance B. Price, and Bruce A. Hungate. “Prevalence of Antibiotic-Resistant E. Coli in Retail Chicken: Comparing Conventional, Organic, Kosher, and Raised without Antibiotics.” F1000Research 2 (2013).

“Israel’s Entrepreneurial Character”

(p. 272) Israel’s entrepreneurial character led Google to establish a center in Haifa as well as the more expected Tel Aviv. The Haifa office was a move to accommodate Yoelle Maarek, a celebrated computer scientist who had headed IBM’s labs in Israel. Google hired another world-class computer scientist, Yossi Matias, to head the Tel Aviv office. (In 2009, during Google’s austerity push, the company would merge the engineering centers and Maarek would depart.)

Source:
Levy, Steven. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Entrepreneur Arik Achmon Stood Down Powerful Union to Keep His Company Alive

Source of book image: http://www.seraphicpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/like-dreamers.jpg

(p. C2) Mr. Halevi, an American immigrant who has worked as a journalist and analyst in Jerusalem for 30 years, has created a textured, beautifully written narrative by focusing on seven men — and they are all men — . . . , who served in the paratroop brigade that conquered the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
. . .
. . . , the men Mr. Halevi has chosen are compelling. One is Arik Achmon, a secular liberal from a kibbutz who helped transform Israel’s failing statist economy into a thriving capitalist one. Mr. Achmon helped found the first private domestic airline in Israel. The story of how he stood down the once-powerful Histadrut trade union federation to keep his company alive illustrates the enormous changes that Israeli society has undergone in the past three decades.

For the full review, see:
ETHAN BRONNER. “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; 7 Paratroopers and Paths They Took Through an Israel at a Crossroads.” The New York Times (Thurs., September 26, 2013): C2.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date September 25, 2013.)

The book under review is:
Halevi, Yossi Klein. Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

“Yossi Klein Halevi.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited above.

Romney Praises Dan Senor Book on Israeli Entrepreneurship

“Dan Senor, left, a leading campaign adviser, at a briefing on Saturday for the Romney campaign on the plane en route to Israel.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A10) WASHINGTON — Moments after making remarks in Jerusalem about Middle East culture that enraged Palestinians and undermined the public relations value of his trip to Israel, Mitt Romney looked around the room for Dan Senor, one of his campaign’s top foreign policy advisers.

It was Mr. Senor’s book about entrepreneurs in Israel that informed his comments, Mr. Romney explained to the group of Jewish-American donors he had assembled at the King David hotel. The book, “Start-up Nation,” is among Mr. Senor’s writings that Mr. Romney frequently cites in public.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL D. SHEAR. “Adviser Draws Attention to Romney Mideast Policy.” The New York Times (Thurs., August 2, 2012): A10.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated August 1, 2012.)

The Senor book is:
Senor, Dan, and Saul Singer. Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. hb ed. New York: Twelve, 2009.

“L. Paul Bremer III, left, in 2004 when he was the top United States envoy in Iraq, with Mr. Senor, who was his spokesman.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.