Article from the “Dispatch From Jerusalem”
A Publication of Bridges for Peace
While the Muslim world continues to undermine and vilify Israel, the record of Israel’s contributions to the world is impressive. If Israel, with her dynamic workforce from over 100 nations, did not exist, the world would be less advanced than it is today. Here is a capsule of Israeli accomplishments you may not be fully aware of. Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, can lay claim to the following:
o The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
o Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.
o The Intel Pentium chip technology was designed in Israel.
o Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel. In January 2005, an upgraded version of its Centrino chipset was, like its predecessor, conceived in Intel’s development center in Haifa. The product features new graphics and audio capabilities, faster processing, and greater security features. Intel’s next major endeavor, a chipset to support the more advanced WiMax standard for wireless Internet, is also being spearheaded in Israel.
o The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.
o Internet voice-mail technology was developed in Israel.
o Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the U.S. in Israel.
o Four young Israelis developed the technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ in 1996.
o Nobel prizes have been awarded to 167 Jews and persons of half-Jewish ancestry, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients world wide between 1901 and 2004 and constituting 37% of all U.S. recipients during the same period. In the scientific research fields of chemistry, economics, medicine, and physics, the corresponding world and U.S. percentages are 26% and 39%, respectively. Jews currently make up approximately 0.25% of the world’s population and 2% of the U.S. population. Yet they have won prizes in these fields:
o CHEMISTRY: (28 prize winners, 19% of world total, 28% of U.S. total)
o ECONOMICS: (21 prize winners, 38% of world total, 53% of U.S. total)
o LITERATURE: (12 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of U.S. total)
o PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE: (52 prize winners, 29% of world total, 42% of U.S. total)
o PEACE: (9 prize winners, 10% of world total, 11% of U.S. total)
o PHYSICS: (45 prize winners, 26% of world total, 38% of U.S. total)
o In 1955, Jewish doctor Jonas Salk gave the world the polio vaccine, which was composed of “killed” polio virus that retained the ability to immunize without running the risk of infecting the patient.
o Jewish entertainers, musicians, artists, comedians, singers, and film producers have blessed the world in a percentage far greater than their proportion in the world’s population.
o Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S., Russia, and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel’s air force has an arsenal of over 250 F-16s. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the U.S.
o Israel’s US $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
o Israel has the world’s highest percentage of home computers per capita.
o According to industry officials, Israel has designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security. U.S. officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.
o Israel has developed on in-flight cell-phone system that will allow cell-phone use on airlines at an affordable price.
o Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world; 24% of Israeli workers hold university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the U.S. and Holland, and 12% hold advanced degrees.
o Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin—109 per 10,000 people—and has one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
o In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of start-up companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of start-up companies compared to an other country in the world, except the U.S.(3,500 companies, mostly in high-tech). And with both high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of high-tech companies in the world—apart from the Silicon Valley in the U.S.
o The first PC antivirus software was developed in Israel in 1979, and Israel continues as the world leader in developing antivirus software programs.
o Israel is ranked number two in the world for venture capital funds, right behind the U.S.
o Outside the U.S. and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies.
o Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East.
o The per capita income in 2000 was over US $17,500, exceeding that of the United Kingdom.
o On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups.
o Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
o In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews, at risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.
o When Golda Meir was elected prime minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world’s second elected female leader in modern times.
o Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship—and the highest rate among women and among people over 55—in the world.
o Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
o Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as “conflict-free.”
o Israel has the world’s second-highest per capita of new books.
o Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, a remarkable feat because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
o Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
o In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, the Israel Philharmaonic Orchestra played a concert wearing gas masks as Scud missiles fired by Saddam Hussein fell on Tel Aviv.
o Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
o Israel has two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, with both English and Russian spoken widely.
o An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U.S. hospitals, 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.
o In response to serious water shortages, Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip-irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.
o Israel’s Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. It is used to view the small intestine from the inside to detect cancer and digestive disorders.
o Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, and innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with a camera and helps doctors diagnose the heart’s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.
o Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its workforce employed in technical professions, Israel places first in this category as well.
o A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct—all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.
o An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale, solar-powered, and fully functional electricity-generating plant in southern California’s Mojave Desert.
o Date palms have been growing in the Middle East for centuries. The average tree is about 18 to 20 feet tall (about 5.5 to 6.1 meters) and yields about 38 pounds (about 17.2 kilograms) of dates a year. Israeli trees are now yielding 400 pounds (181.4 kilograms) per tree each year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder.
So despite the doom-and-gloom attitude of the Muslim world and their propaganda against Israel and the Jewish people, they remain the most innovative and productive people per capita of any group on planet earth. Israel accomplishes all this while engaging in regular wars with an implacable enemy, which seeks its destruction, and sustaining an economy that is continuously under strain because Israel must spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth.
If there were NO Israel or Jewish people in the world, we would be less advanced and blessed than we are. Consider that God chose them to be a blessing to the world, and they have fulfilled their calling. We need to support and encourage them as a people and a nation because they are part of God’s plan to bless the world, materially and spiritually. Without them, we would not have had the Bible, the examples of living a life for God, our salvation, nor our Savior, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ), who was born as a Jew in Israel and gave the world the opportunity to be grafted into the ancient covenants and promises god gave to the Jewish people (Gen. 12:1-3, Rom. 11:11-32, Eph. 2:11-22).
When God said that they were a chosen people who were blessed by Him and that they would be a blessing to the world, He was correct. They are a blessing to the world. Instead of the world finding so much fault with and criticism against the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, it needs to applaud their achievements, which have blessed the world spiritually and materially.
