Here is what you are not getting right now, even from that section of the media in America that is still pro-Israel: Israel is as important to the U.S. as the U.S. is to Israel. To the extent we damage our most reliable Middle Eastern ally, we are damaging ourselves.
George Gilder's The Israel Test is the one book out now that tells, extensively, how Israel matters to both the U.S. economy--especially in the cutting edge high tech field--and to America's strategic aims. It treats the cultural and historical reasons for U.S. support of Israel, but others do that, too. What matters, and what is missing from our national discussion, is how vital Israel is to American inventive prowess, manufacturing relevance and national defense. Israelis even have invented a device to let soldiers see through walls to activities that might be going on in a building they are about to inspect!
Start with Intel, then go on to Apple, Microsoft and many other U.S. companies. All have major facilities in Israel. Gilder says of the Intel chip, "It could as well advertise 'Israel Inside'.")Continue with fabulous start-ups like Easychip (full disclosure, I own shares in this company). Overall, Israel is second only to the U.S. in new tech companies, and first in the world on a per capita basis.
Right now, Israel is being brow-beaten rather than supported by the Obama Administration and has been abandoned by many liberal U.S. Jews who put their political ideology first. At home, however, Israel is as united as ever in its own defense. Except for a fringe on the far Left, Israelis eschew the naivete and appeasement pursued by many in Europe and this country.
The situation is dangerous. US vacillation invites attacks on Israel. As a result, some Israeli companies and other key facilities actually are putting their plantsunderground to protect them from the increasingly accurate, Iran-supplied rockets that are now in southern Lebanon and Gaza. This is quite apart from the nuclear threat actively posed by Iran.
Dr. Raphael Beyar, head of the pathfinding medical center, Rambaum, in Haifa, with 4,500 doctors, is in the process of putting his entire facility underground. "This is not paranoia," reports Gilder. "Since 2006 Iran and Syria have quadrupled the number of Hizbollah's rockets, supplying longer-range solid fueled missiles bearing larger payloads" that already can reach almost anywhere in Israel.
Do you think Israel might have some cause for wanting to prevent "humanitarian flotillas" from entering Gaza without inspection?
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