Norma Zager
Israel's Friends with Benefits
August 25, 2009

Israel must survive but American Jews are “over it.” AIPAC sold out for a glass of lemonade in the Oval Office and J Street is as pro-Israel as David Duke. It is time to wake up and realize the menu in the White House has changed. However, the financial dynamic has also changed and a healthy bottom line trumps political propaganda any day of the week. The Golden Rule is alive and well and “him with the gold is still making the rules.”

Some believe the enormous buyouts of American companies by Arab investors is proof of the growing fear by many Israelis Arab money and control will threaten US pro-Israel policy. By virtue of this very mindset, Israel is showing weakness and dependence on a parent who long ago passed into the great beyond.

Time for Israel to move on and become part of the upcoming “in” crowd of nations. The vast untapped market of new friends is unlimited. Israel’s ability to sell its innovation and world class advances to countries like China, Russia, Japan, India, Germany, France, England and every country in either the Old or New World is a gold mine of wealth.

Israel has left the US behind and breezed ahead by miles. The United States continues to slip and slide downhill in education, innovation, manufacturing and wealth through the loss of capitalist incentive and a new socialist agenda. In the meantime, a new world order has evolved in Asia, and voices to distance oneself from the Dollar as the international currency are already being heard.

Israel is not only capable of becoming an integral member of the group; it is capable of playing a pivotal role.

While the Arabs rush around trying to find places to invest soon-to-disappear oil fortunes, the rest of the world is slowly entering a world they cannot fathom. Science, technology and medicine will drive the future of man, not oil.

The Arabs have neither the inclination nor the ability to fuel these fields, and they along with the United States will be left in the dust of those who do. Brains not brawn drive the future, and Israel has no shortage of either.

I don’t blame America. Israel has too long behaved as a college graduate who returns home to live at Mom’s and Dad’s and finds they moved out of the ten-room house in Great Neck to a small condo in Florida. The extra room no longer houses baseball trophies and awards but a sofa bed and computer desk for Grandpa.

The breed that built Israel, tough and determined and fresh from the Nazi atrocities with energy fueled by a passion, is gone. Energized by a loathing at what they witnessed and a commitment it never happen again, they built the State of Israel with the power of a volcano spewing lava into the sea creating a new land mass.

Now, Israel is populated with a new generation of Jewish minds. A young innovative breed combines the genius of the early European inventiveness of its builders with a science and tech mindset so strong the innovations just keep coming. And the world just keeps benefiting – from vaccines to medications, from cell to computer technologies, from nano-explorations to splitting the basic particles– Israel is the heart and center of creativity and innovation.

According to an article in the New York Times this year, “There are more companies on NASDAQ from Israel— 91—than from any other country outside North America, and NASDAQ lists more Israeli companies than all other foreign bourses combined.”

Israel is more than capable of standing on its own feet.

Because of the blood and sweat of post-war Israelis, fruit grew in the dessert, buildings rose to house scientists, hospitals, universities and research centers.

With the chutzpah of the Maccabee’s, Israel battled to survive. War after war, terrorist attack after terrorist attack, but still they marched and blossomed.

In the short 61 years since the United Nations Vote, Israel brought the world the cell phone, most of the windows operating system, an earthquake detector for home use, instant messaging (the ICQ instant-messaging program was created by four Israeli computer geeks who made it possible for people to communicate with their friends and know when their friends are online), firewall security software, Intel wireless computer chips, numerous medicines, and miniature video camera capsules to examine internal organs, voice mail technology and agriculture advances a hungry world already embraces, not to mention new technologies to harvest the power of the wind and the heat of the sun and to desalinate ocean water in order to reduce our dependency on oil and adjust to living in severe water-shortage conditions.

Cardiology, genetics, neurology and ophthalmology are but a few of the medical sciences benefiting from advanced Israeli technology.

Israeli medical and biotechnological firsts include state-of-the-art surgical lasers; fully computerized no-radiation diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer; an intelligent medical sensor that can be used to track and direct instruments to an exact three-dimensional location in the heart or other organs via a real-time virtual image; the fully flexible waveguide fiber for endoscopic surgery; unique computerized monitoring systems for critical care patients; pain-relieving transcutaneous devices; a revolutionary autoclave design to combat AIDS and other infectious diseases; and many more.

A new type of internal combustion engine was developed that will double engine efficiency, reduce carbon emissions by half and cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.

Israeli Tzion Badash, 16, invented a small, circular device, called the Z5, that once fitted onto nearly all existing car air filters will change, for just a fraction of a second, the way air behaves when it enters the combustion chamber and allow the engine to use air more efficiently. It will save up to 40% on fuel and give more thrust at the same time.

The list is endless.

Israel’s future is not predicated on American support, but by its own confidence and ability as a nation. I envision the Jewish Homeland as the Rocky of the 21st century. I see Israel as a long-shot contender with the soul of a giant who rises from obscurity to become the champ.

Oh wait, I’ve heard this story before. And little David slew Goliath to become King. Perhaps recalling Bible history may go a long way in reviving Israel’s self esteem and rebuilding its image.

We’ve won the match, now let’s wear the belt and behave like the champion and “light among nations” Israel is meant to be.