and, what kind of innovation is coming from Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, exactly?

Third Man, in 500 years of so-called democracy and peace all switzerland has innovated is the cuckoo clock. That's a trifle unfair. Adding the Swiss army knife and a couple of complications in watchmaking provides a fairer perspective.

Among the other negatives in this report, Israel ranked 29th in terms of the bureaucratic burden facing start-ups, putting it only eight places above China, the last-ranked country. Israel was also found to be lacking in terms of investment in growth capital - investments in mature technology companies: Israel's venture capitalists tend to invest in young start-ups. In summary, though Israel is a lot more open than it was in the heyday of socialism, much work remains. And the "cottage cheese" protests shows there's a big difference between oligopolistic, crony capitalism and a truly free market.

Switzerland? Innovation? Is this a joke? Or do they count that assisted suicide "hospital" as an innovation?

Israelis have a lot to be proud of! Congratulations!

What are they innovating? New forms of antisemitism, of course. Singapore is only a distant third.

All of the countries ranked ahead of Israel have less students per teacher in their schools. So, it is actually surprising Israel is ranked so high. Also, without America's help there would be even less research grants for Universities and students would have no funding for advanced degree studies. Congratulations Israel, but please find the money to pay your teachers better and have more teachers employed in education.

If you look at Israel's scores (globalinnovationindex.org) you will see that one of the areas in which Israel was very low was the proportion of R&D that is financed from abroad. This is an area in which those abroad who have an interest in Israel can have real impact, and illustrates an important need.

of course not, so many of the best and the brightest in Yoredistan - the USA and elsewhere...

innovation is ok but then selling out after a couple of million does Israel a bad turn every time...