What is coming in Israel after this week's exciting elections is a coalition, as usual. But, facing stressful and consequential days ahead, this coalition could turn out to be unusually conducive to vital domestic stability.
It is in this sensitive moment that Discovery Senior Fellow George Gilder is completing the edits for a new book, The Israel Test. This work will surprise many of his fans, but it makes sense in the progression of George's interests over four decades--from war to politics to families to "wealth and poverty" to entrepreneurism to technology and technology companies to (now) the Israel of the past dozen years that concatenates new free market policies, brilliant minds and the most fecund technology, acre for acre, in the world. For Gilder, the success of the United States is now linked as never before to the success of Israel. The links are more than sentiment, and more than political and military interests. The new links are shared technical knowledge, imagination, business acumen and, most of all, mental agility.
Benjamin Netanyahu helped usher in this new era when he was finance minister in the 90s. Now, as George first found on a Discovery-sponsored trip two years ago, the country is fairly bouncing with brash young businesses that have made tiny Israel an amazing tech powerhouse. In his distinctive fashion George weaves a story of the people who made this happen and their successors today. He interprets this account in the context of the history of the Jews in modern times and gives a frank report on the undeniable genius of the Jewish people.
Our Discovery colleague David Klinghoffer, who writes often on Jewish matters, read a draft this week and tells me he found it "brilliant, visionary, original, exciting, and beautiful... The fundamental insight about an 'Israel test' we all face is so intuitive and obviously true--yet not like anything I've heard before. Once he articulates it, I know exactly what he means and have to admit I've not always passed it myself.... It snaps so much into perspective, unarguably, I think."
Gilder is original. He's also funny and challenging.
Richard Vigilante Books is the publisher. The Israel Test is slated for publication this spring.
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