http://israpundit.com/archives/2005/10/a_middle_easter.php

A Middle Eastern hub of innovation and enterprise 
LUKE JOHNSON, UK Telegraph 2005-10-03

One of the more astonishing economies is Israel. This small Middle Eastern state has reinvented itself in the past 15 years as an extraordinary hub of innovation - despite the Palestinian conflict.

The roots of its economic success lie in its connections to America and its significant industrial-military strength. Almost a quarter of its workforce are graduates, many of them scientists, engineers or technicians. Others were educated in the US and Russia or are graduates of the Israel Defense Forces.

They are reaping the benefits of substantial military research and development budgets in civilian life. There are strong ties between business, the armed forces and academia and this has fostered a remarkable number of start-ups.

The US software, telecoms and electronics industries have invested heavily in Israel. IBM, Motorola, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Applied Materials have pumped billions into plants and R&D facilities, taking advantage of tax breaks and a skilled workforce. Their confidence - and capital - have stimulated hundreds of spin-off ventures which have transformed Israel.

America also taught Israel the importance of venture capital. Today it has 80 local VC funds which manage more than $10bn. This is the second largest pool of such risk capital in the world - in a nation with fewer than 7m people.

Each year for the past six years more than $1bn has been invested in Israeli technology companies. This funding has fuelled more than 1,000 businesses in areas such as mobile telecoms, computer software, semiconductors and internet security.

Moreover, Israelis have learned how to tap money abroad. There are more than 70 Israeli companies quoted on Nasdaq. And increasing numbers of businesses raising investment in London have Israeli connections.

Empire Online, the internet gambling company recently in talks with PartyGaming, and 888.com, which went public this week at a value of almost £600m, were both founded and controlled by Israeli entrepreneurs. Remittances from foreign supporters are vital for the country.

Meanwhile, several of the leading Russian oligarchs are Jews who have invested heavily in Israel and have close connections with the country.

Indeed, rapid immigration of more than 1m mostly highly qualified, ambitious Jews from the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s provided a considerable stimulus to Israel - as well as boosting its population by more than 20 per cent.

The economy has shrugged off a sharp decline in tourism, a stagnant agricultural sector and the high costs of terrorism, and grown at rates of up to 6 per cent annually in recent times. GDP per capita at $19,000 is now higher than Spain, Portugal or New Zealand.

The high-tech boom commenced in Israel with the formation of the government-sponsored Yozma programme in 1993. This channelled investment into early-stage technology companies.

Since then a number of world-beating technology businesses have been established, including Checkpoint, a leader in enterprise network security; Teva, a giant in generic drugs; Amdocs, a pioneer in phone billing systems, Converse, a big noise in voicemail systems, and various companies such as ICQ, Audiocodes and Vocaltec which specialise in internet utilities such as instant messaging and internet telephony.

But money is not the only thing that has inspired Israel's development. Its talented people also have an appetite for risk. Israel is yet another example of a small nation which has outperformed much larger countries endowed with far greater natural resources: Singapore, Ireland and Switzerland are other cases in point. Each demonstrates that intellectual capital is the most important asset any state can possess.

What is remarkable is that Israel was founded in 1948 as a socialist republic, and that the government still controls more than 45 per cent of the economy - even though this proportion is declining, as free-booting capitalism becomes the dominant creed. The kibbutz lifestyle has fallen in popularity, and nowadays tech billionaires, rather than generals or politicians, are the heroes.

Other Middle Eastern states such as Dubai are beginning to learn from Israel's example. Perhaps with oil at over $60 a barrel, more Gulf nations will adopt the civil freedoms and can-do attitude of the Israelis, and invest wisely to enrich all their peoples.

• Luke Johnson is chairman of Channel 4 and Giraffe

Posted by Ted Belman at October 3, 2005 10:23 AM

The very title of the article, A Middle Eastern hub, perhaps not intentionally, points towards arch liberalist, Shimon Peres' ideal of "A Middle East without borders" - as part of a borderless world. EU-paid agent, Jossi Beilin (at the level of about $350 - $400,000 a year), also contends that he doesn't believe in borders ...that they are the cause of war ... that Israel can only live in peace if it eliminates its borders. (Ron Pundak, one of the two academics Beilin shipped to Oslo to negotiate - interview with Barry Chamish, 07 December 2003 ).

The ideal is actually to shape Israel into a "Tel Aviv State (Daniel Ben Simon, a correspondent for HaAretz newspaper, 01 Nov 2004), based on the Hong Kong model (Henry Gluksman, the advance man for the Oslo negotiations).

This "City-state" concept, of course, entails giving up all Messianic Zionist** claims of land, except that surrounding Tel Aviv, and self-sufficiency when it comes to food production. A society, therefore, that needs to thrive on its excellence in scientific, technology and business acumen.

**	JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Monday told the Jewish settlers that the “messianic complex” that causes them to believe they must settle their entire God-given homeland must give way to the need to appease a hostile world. Editor - Jerusalem Newswire <listmaster@jnewswire.com> 25 Oct 2004

Consequently, the plan is that the Arabs (so-called Palestinians) take up land-based production enterprises. The Oslo Process, therefore, firstly served to turn the myth that the so-called Palestinian are a nation, into reality. Secondly, it began to revolve around money to develop Palestinian business and industry, with everybody jumping on the bandwagon for profit - Jews, Arabs, CFR, EU, IMF, the World Bank, the Quartet, etc. (Yitzchak Rabin's opposition to this development, was most probably the reason for his assassination  - Henry Gluksman to Barry Chamish - and he definitely was not the only one who got in the way - Zionsake Editor).

In the end, however, this scheme will not work due to various factors that will foil man's plans and cause them to be overridden by the God of Israel's plans with his people and his land.

1. The land of Israel becomes desolate when it is not occupied by its rightful heirs, the Jews.

   • Zech 7:14 I scattered them as with a whirlwind among the distant nations, where they lived as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. The land that had been so pleasant became a desert.” (TLB)

   • Ezek 36:33 The Lord God of Israel says: I will bring you home again to Israel, and rebuild the ruins. Acreage will be cultivated again that through the years of exile lay empty as barren wilderness; all who passed by were shocked to see the extent of ruin in your land. (TLB)

   • In 1874, Reverend Samuel Manning wrote: "But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude.... Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter -- `the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.'"

   • The Palestinian Royal Commission, created by the British, quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913: "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the [Jewish] Yabna village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."

   This desolation can even today be seen in areas of Israel that are  predominantly "occupied" by Arabs. This phenomenon led to the line separating the so-called "Territories" from the rest of Israel, being called the "Greenline" -- since there's very little "greenery" beyond that line - except for the hills where Jewish "settlements" have been established.

2. The inability of Arabs and other Hamites to rule themselves and to create employment opportunities.
   We see this in the endless need of foreign aid in Africa and the fact that the so-called Palestinian Arabs in and outside Israel have been willing to live in squalor the last nearly sixty years - depending on UNWRA for survival.
   PCPO Palestinian Poll no. 110, 14 April 2003 shows that 64.7% Palestinians believe that the PA is incapable of creating job for them.
   It is therefore doubtful that attempts by Israel and the international community will succeed to establish industry and entrepreneurship in "Palestine."

3. The quarrelsome nature of Ishmael and his descendants:
   Gen 16:9 The Angel of the LORD said to her ...11 "Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael ...12 He shall be a wild (pere) man (adam); His hand shall be against every man, And every man's hand against him.
   And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." NKJV  

   • Compounded by Islam: "There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien. A world that makes those who are not part of the camp of Islam fair game. Revenge is also important here. Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions. If it obtains chemical or biological or atomic weapons, it will use them. If it is able, it will also commit genocide." Survival of the fittest. Interview with historian, Benny Morris. By Ari Shavit Haaretz Magazine Section 9 January 2004 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/380986.html

   • Compounded in the "Palestinian" Arabs by indoctrination with hatred: "The Palestinian leadership, including Arafat and his sidekick for forty years - current Palestinian President Abu Mazen - has mainlined failure, conflict, and bitterness into the minds and hearts of the Palestinian culture for years. Their drug of choice is volatile hatred and their intended victims, the Jewish people. When the death of children suicide bombers, resolution of conflict with weapons, and a victim mentality dominate, good fortune is an unreachable goal for any people group." By Arlene Bridges-Samuels, media liaison, FrontPage Jerusalem. 2005-10-05.
     

4. The "panning" out in the end of the relationship between the descendants of Noah's sons Shem and Japheth due to his prophetic blessing on them and on Ham's descendants due to his curse on them - actually, just on his grandson Canaan, but it must have included Ham's descendants in general, based on their poor performance also in our time.

   Gen 9:25 "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren." 26 ... "Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant." NKJV

   We have already seen the "enlargement" of Japheth in the spread of his descendants over Europe and from there to many continents, e.g. Africa, the Americas, Australia, Nu Zeeland, etc. However, an "enlargement" was also prophesied for Shem in the Middle East and without limit beyond that, that hasn't happened yet.

   Isa 54:2 "Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes. 3 For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited. NKJV

   This "enlargement" will preclude attempts in times soon to come, of trying to squeeze Israel into a state of less than about 5 percent of the area mandated for a Jewish homeland in 1920. Since Japheth will live in the tents of Shem, his descendants will also benefit from the "enlargement" of the tents of Shem. So they should rather bless Israel because their blessings will revert back to them.
   

   The prophecy above, "he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren," shows that the descendants of Ishmael, who became Hamites from just marrying into Hamites, will serve their Shemite brothers, versus sharing their inheritance with them - since the descendants of Isaac (Shemites) were to be the heirs of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

   It is in any case completely against the God of Israel's will to let the Arabs share in the Jews' inheritance.

5. The Palestinian Phased Plan to destoy Israel, starting with the "Two-state Solution."
    A top PA official has reiterated the end-goal of the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel: a Palestinian state instead of Israel. In a seeming re-affirmation of the PLO's 1974 "destroy Israel" program, commonly known as the Phased Plan, Fatah co-founder Farouk Kadumi termed the struggle for a two-state solution just a "stage" on the road to "only one [state]." Fatah´s Farouk Kadumi: "Two States." Just a Temporary Solution. news@IsraelNationalNews.com Arutz-7 News: Friday, December 3, 2004.
   
   And the boost in power and influence Hamas has received from PM Sharon's evil "disengagement program" has increased the danger of Israel being destroyed multifold. Arlene Bridges-Samuels, media liaison, FrontPage Jerusalem. 2005-10-05, described the situation as follows: As Elliot Jager, the Jerusalem Post’s Editorial Editor said recently in an interview on Front Page Jerusalem Global Radio Network,

   “The only difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is in degrees; the PA calls for gradual destruction of the Jewish state and Hamas wants immediate destruction.”