Yoram Ettinger asks 'What is the secret of the economical success in Israel'. I think a point that is being overlooked is the people of Israel. They are a nation blessed with intellect, influence and favour. Even the staunchiest atheist must scratch his head and wonder how a 7 million people state thrives in the face of the enemy. At the risk of sounding corny I am reminded of Psalm 23: "He provides a table for me in the face of my enemies". Thanks for the article!

and hear more of this. And don't forget to mention all those good-looking men...... OK, I'm old, but I'm not blind :-)

Non-high tech salaries are pathetic, the public schools produce the world's most poorly educated Jews, in 10 years there will be more Arabs in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel than Jews, and all those scientists and academic types are clamoring to live anywhere else while the number of people from the civilized world who move to Israel is negligible and decreases every year.

What good is all that ? compared with the Muslim, who sits in Allah's lap with 72 mMaidens.

country!

thank you for putting this out there... I knew it as a supporter of American Technion Society, but the rest of the world needs to know it. How about getting this into the AP and Reuters wires?

I want to live in Israel. I wish I could.

Certainly sounds a helluva alot more appealing than Egypt, Lebanon, or Syria. One starts to sense why refugees from Africa move Heaven & Earth to get into Israel. Good sell-job, Ettinger.

I'm in high-tech and travel quite a bit and it's astonishing how many technology companies headquartered in Silicon Valley, Boston, DC, Austin and other areas were started in Israel. Whenever I check out a new company I look at their website and so often the management team are Israelis.

As a nude salsa insrtuctor I wanted to produce a nude gay show and carnaval. Unfortunately they don't allow to dance salsa in nude there. My husband is from Gaza and could'tn get in because his brother is in Israeli jail. He is not even a "terrorist" but a regular car thief. They claim that my husband is a man according to his passport . What nonsense. Who cares?

Under such circumstances surely we in the US could make more productive use here at home of $3 billion/year aid (plus $2billion to Egypt for playing along). Yes, I know that lot's of that is spent here in the US via defense contracts. We need to spend our tax money on better education, better health, better infrastructure--not on a country able to achieve the feats described in this article. This shows how distorted and corrupt the political process has become in the US. Once again, congrats on the achievements--you're strong enough to fend more for yourselves.

To assume that the cellphone or AOL Messenger was developed in Israel. There is a whole wide world of Google out there to find out how and where things were invented and developed. Certainly not in Israel.

From the "displaced persons" camps of Europe, the desert towns in Arab countries, the shtetls of Poland and the gulags of Russia, from all the corners of the world, began an ingathering to a land that had never belonged to any other people. A land that welcomed our people back with love and miracles. The words of the Holy Bible are coming to our mind : "Look what their G-d has done for them! How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwelling places O Israel!" We returned to the land, "Am Chofshi B'Artzeinu" to be a free Jewish people in our own land... "And I will bring you back to the land that I promised to your forefathers, and there I will make you a great people." Noone can deny the fact that it is ours as explained at : http://xrl.us/bj5ng

Passionate anti-Semites who manipulate historical facts will never allow the truth to abort their plans for our people. We've been at death's door many times over, but a remnant has always survived to continue our story to its next chapter. When a third of our people were in the graveyards of their golden medinah of Europe, as another third cowered in self-consciousness and fear of anti-Semitism in America, and the balance were scattered in countries ready to finalize a solution for them; when the future looked like no future at all, destiny opened the gates to the Land of Israel and Jews from around the world rushed to a barren land that nobody else really wanted. This land is our land not only because of historical truth and International Legitimacy (The San Remo agreements) but also because we, the Jewish people, have build it and made it bloom. The historical and political truth about rights and legitimity can be read in its 5 parts at : http://xrl.us/bi5c6

I hope this doesn't upset you, but Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, a Jewish.

the social and economic problem ; the gap between the rich and the poor ! racism ,violence ,the road accident ,corruption,mafia ! this is also the other israel and you should be blind not to see it !

but how many flies can you cach with one swoop of your hand i thought so believe me not a lot here in gaza the record is 72 flies soon we will have the first world flies caching olympics now i am proud palistinian believe me

What will they do when all the resources stolen from the Palestinians are exhausted and the black money from rich plutocrats in the US and the ex-USSR runs out? Will the begging bowl be coming round again for the poor Israelis?

Its pretty clear that all that israel does is based on its human resources..israel has no natural resources...so now you are claiming that the jews in israeli are stolen palestinians?

from larger organisations is because American Jews force these companies to invest in "Israel" are you actually telling me that if these countries invested in countries that had a similar population size to Israel that they would prosper aswell? are you saying that the jews are superior in fields then other people... give an african country the same size as israel billions of dollars and the support of Jewish and Israel lobby groups and they would do the same! israel is not special, but just a blood sucking little brother to the US. thats all... Your God isn't going to ask you how rich you were, the clothes you wore, or the cars you drove, but how you treated you neighbours... and Israel is lacking so far behind in that department that any other "achievement" can is voided.... peace

Really Adam? Perhaps you would care to enlighten us as to why 23% of Nobel Prize recipients have been Jewish, even though Jews are less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's population? I eagerly await your response. The Jews are not genetically superior to anyone else, as all humans are essentially genetically the same. However, I do believe that Jews as a totality are culturally superior to many other cultures.

This is really funny coming from someone resident in the former British Empire, which brought Britain unimagineable wealth from all its colonies and dominions. That I have to point this out shows how totally ignorant you are. Israel, on the other hand, had to pull itself up with it's own bootstrings.

You've sucked this all out of your thumb, which I should imagine is badly infected. Alternatively, you have been reading papers such as The Guardian. The latter is maybe understandable. If the former, I would get that thumb attended to.

You selfish Jews -- if, instead you had created a Palestinian State look how much farther along the world would be. Shameful.

passage between africa and asia, in the greater syria, during the ottomans and the empires that preceded. those arabs doubled their number in the area during 500 years until 1880, when zionists started to come. since 1880 arabs quadrupled their number untill 1948 in the area called israel, . that bit of sand, that the newly found palestinian nation calls it's own, was a home to pallahin, who wondered into this place from other areas, and to bedouin nomads. comparing to damascus or cairo, it was an arid desert. distinguished people of the arab world would never come to stay, unless they were guests on their way to another place. it was definitely an underdeveloped corner of the less then developed arab world, with no oil in its soil. this land turned into a resource by the zionists.

Are you Rashid's wife? you know the palestinian guy? Because you two have the "same head" or think alike. Mind you, looking at you two I think Adam from London # 23 is your little boy or as they say "an apple don't fall far from the tree" What a family you have Chanalau.... anyway, thanks for the laughs .

Israelis , who are criticized so strongly- most often unjustly- need to hear the good news about themselves. Our people need to know that the society as a whole is a very advanced one. On the same time of course the other side of the story should be told, including that of the large part of the population which is , to put it mildly, not prospering at all.