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1. Israel's Birthday Merits Celebration
Israel's Birthday Merits Celebration
By Mitchell G. Bard
Israel is turning 54 and, despite the horrible events going on now, it is worth
pausing to reflect on the amazing, positive accomplishments of this still young
nation.
Let's start with the incredible story of the ingathering of the exiles. The
integration of people from more than 100 countries has been nothing short of
astounding. Consider that the Jewish population doubled in just the first three
years of statehood. Less than 60 years ago, 500,000 Jews lived in Palestine.
Today, the population exceeds six million.
Just think about America's immigration problems and then contemplate the
enormity of Israel's task, absorbing roughly one million Jews from the former
Soviet Union in less than a decade. It would be like the United States
assimilating the entire population of France.
Think about Israel as a haven. Since 1948, no Jew has had to worry about having
the doors closed to them as they were during World War II. Hundreds of
thousands of Jews escaped from Arab persecution in operations Ali Baba and
Magic Carpet.
Many of you may be too young to remember the incredible rescues of Operations
Moses and Sheba and Solomon in the 1980s and early 1990s, when more than 40,000
Ethiopian Jews were secretly airlifted to Israel. What other nation would have
done such a thing? As William Safire said: "For the first time in history,
thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in
dignity."
Those Ethiopians were on the lowest rung of one of the world's poorest
societies and today, less than 20 years later, thousands are productive members
of Israel's high-tech society.
From the earliest days, Israel was the envy of the developing world. Israeli
experts spent decades, for example, providing technical assistance in
agriculture to Africa and Asia. Israel is also now recognized as one of the
world's leading centers of research and development.
Are you aware that more than 10,000 American companies do business in or with
Israel, including Fortune 500 companies like Intel, Microsoft, IBM, McDonald's
and Baxter Healthcare? Why do they do business there? Because they're Zionists?
Of course not. American business has learned that Israel is a great place to
make a profit, to tap into a large pool of extraordinary talent and to serve as
a gateway to the European market.
Consider also the special alliance with the United States. There's nothing else
like it. Virtually every U.S. government agency has an agreement to cooperate
with its counterpart in Israel. At least 22 states have their own agreements to
promote state-to-state exchanges in trade, agriculture, education, culture and
other areas of mutual interest. Over the last three decades, the strategic
alliance between the U.S. and Israel has
evolved into one of the strongest in the world.
Zionism has triumphed. Israel has emerged from the desert, from the ashes of
the Holocaust, from the battlefields of six wars and unspeakable terrorist
atrocities as a strong, proud, important country. For every two Jews, you may
have three synagogues, four political parties and five organizations, but you
have only one blessed Jewish State, one Homeland, one Israel. Let us celebrate.
Learn more about Israel's history from my book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Middle East Conflict, which is available from the AVI CHAI Bookshelf. And give
some thought to this question, What will Israel look like 50 years from today?
Dr. Mitchell G. Bard is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli
Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and webmaster of the Jewish Virtual Library
(http://www.JewishVirtual