Howard Epstein – START-UP NATION – DEVELOPING FAST
Israel’s remarkable journey, over 75 years, from the shadow of the Holocaust to the sunlit uplands, delivered by technology, continues.
In Wikipedia’s ranking of countries by nominal GDP per capita, Israel is in 13th place and the UK 22nd thus:-
Israel’s position is astonishing to behold. Higher in the table are mostly minor, minimally challenged states. The only peer states are the USA and Australia, highly populated nations with advanced economies. Both the UK and Germany lie several places behind Israel. Something is driving Israel’s success and my money’s on its having been existentially challenged since gaining independence in 1948. The success of Israel’s arms industry is not a coincidence.
According to The Guardian of 21 May last, Britain’s arms exports doubled in 2022 to a record US$10.9bn (£8.5bn). At around the same time, the Israeli Defence Ministry announced record arms sales in 2022 of $12.5 billion. At a clear 20% lead over the UK, Israel continues to amaze. After all, Britain has been manufacturing weapons for centuries. Israel is but three quarters of one century old. And there is more to come, with the announcement last week that Germany has signed a $4bn deal to purchase Israel’s cutting edge Arrow-3 exoatmospheric, hypersonic, anti-ballistic missile system, jointly funded, developed, and produced by Israel and the USA.
Israel is a world leader in other sectors too: stem cell research, medical devices, computer sciences, artificial intelligence, cyber technology, agri-tech and water science, to name a few. As hosepipe bans are being introduced all over Britain, Israel has no water worries at all. Thanks to the water recovered for agricultural use via its vast sewage recycling system and to the deployment of five reverse osmosis desalination plants along the Mediterranean coastline, this means water aplenty for now. But this is just the start.
A study led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers found that Israel’s rising population levels, probably some 25 million by 2065, could require the construction of 30 new desalination facilities. With forward planning like that, what could possibly go wrong?
The answer is, of course, there are many challenges. For example, successive Israeli governments have failed to tackle violence, often gun violence, in Arab cities.
So far this year, 97 Arabs have been murdered, 86 of whom were shot to death (five in Nazareth on 8 June). “Deadly incidents of criminal violence and specifically of gun violence in Arab communities across Israel are well above the national average”, Reuters reported last week. Proposals from the Israeli police or the Knesset for tackling this sector-specific violence have yet to be observed.
Speaking of the Knesset, it has done nothing to dissuade thousands of entirely peaceful demonstrators from taking to the streets all over Israel for the * week of this last Motzei Shabbat. The good news is that in secret voting there appears to be less than 100% loyalty to the government amongst Likud MKs. As the Times of Israel reported on 14 June: “Coalition in chaos as opposition wins seat on the judge-picking panel while Likud left out” ….. “Several coalition members broke ranks to back the opposition candidate in the secret ballot”. Is it too much to hope that Israeli democracy may yet be saved by the collapse of the coalition? The next few weeks will be interesting.
Then, and always, there is the emerging nuclear threat from Iran, who appear to be on the cusp of another deal with the USA – which will have no teeth. As with Obama’s JCPOA, massive liquid funds will be released to Iran in return for promises that are not expected to be honoured by the recipient mullahs.
There is reassurance for Israel, of course. According to the Times of Israel last weekend: “As Washington appears to be nearing an interim nuclear agreement with Tehran, the US has assured Israel that it will maintain its security edge and freedom to act against Iran”.
Yet, as we know, such guarantees are often worthless. Take a not completely irrelevant example, the 1994 Budapest Memoranda, by which the Russian Federation, the UK and the USA were prohibited from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.” In return, Ukraine, along with Belarus, and Kazakhstan, duly denuded itself of its nuclear deterrent. And in consequence, Russia duly breached two-thirds of its obligations by invading Ukraine last year and by stationing nuclear weapons in Belarus last week. With a gulp, I hear you react. Don’t worry. I am on to it.
I’m thinking of emailing President Putin the opening of Tom Lehrer’s most apposite song:-
We will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.
© Howard Epstein June 2023
