Shalom everyone. Despite the fact that my country Pakistan doesn’t have any sort of diplomatic relations with Israel and despite the ubiquitous anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments in my country, I have triumphantly mustered up enough courage to articulate my admiration for and fascination from scientific and technological developments of a country which isn’t being often seen in a positive light in my country and is being often seen as playing a role in almost all international conspiracies. I have always been quite curious and eager about exploring Israel as it’s a country with which my country’s relations are almost non-existent and that non-existent part was adequate enough to augment my curiosity to explore Israel and also I can’t even travel to Israel and see myself and behold with my eyes Israel’s technological hubs like Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva(which houses the Israeli headquarters for the Oracle Corporation, IBM, Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, ECI Telecom, and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. The largest data center in Israel, operated by the company TripleC, is also located in Petah Tikva. Furthermore, the Israeli Teva company, the world's largest generic drug manufacturer, is headquartered in Petah Tikva. One of Israel's leading food processing corporations, Osem opened in Petah Tikva in 1976 and has since been joined by the company's administrative offices, distribution center and sauce factory. Strauss is also based in Petah Tikva) as its being written clearly on my Pakistani Passport that “This Passport is valid for all countries of the world except "Israel". One day while I was reading some article about Middle East in a well-renowned American magazine on global political and socioeconomic affairs I came across while flipping through the pages an article on Israeli economy and how much Israel has progressed particularly in Science and Technology. I was flabbergasted when I read about how Israel has a progressive and growing economy and it has managed to accomplish and triumph in the field of Science and Technology on par with many developed European nations despite being located in a highly turbulent and volatile region and being surrounded by hostile neighbors and has also been a victim of terrorism both from beyond and within its borders and has been also confronted with cold relations recently too with some of its former regional allies like Turkey (under Islamist Erdogan) . I was impressed at how despite being subjected to persecution and all sorts of maltreatment by their Arab neighbors and by Europeans when Jews didn’t have a state of their own before 1948 but still this nation has mustered up enough strength to convey a strong message to world that “Don’t ever think we are weak” and apart from being militarily strong and politically stable Israel is also progressively proceeding with its scientific and technological developments. Israel has far surpassed its Arab neighbors and its regional foes in science and technology and has proved that the battlefield has now shifted to the field of Science and Technology and it is again Israel which is also triumphant in this battlefield.
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed; less than 24 hours later, it was assailed by the regular armies of five Arab countries, forcing it to safeguard the sovereignty it had salvaged in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland .In 1948, Israel had a population of some 650, 000, while thousands of European Jews (survivors of the Nazi Holocaust) and Jews living in Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa (From Yemen to Morocco) were waiting to immigrate to Israel. Given the country’s struggle for survival and the exigency of provision of the fundamental needs of a population which tripled itself in a decade, it was quite arduous to think that Israel would make significant economic progress along with rapid progresses in Science and Technology. While reading that magazine article which narrated about Israel’s evolution into a scientific, technological and economic powerhouse from being a state initially confronted by hostile neighbors craving for war every time with the nascent state and its inhabitants (who were already wounded with agonies stemming from The Nazi Holocaust which was horrible beyond words and which consumed lives of many of their relatives, friends and family members) I was amazed at how now according to a UN report mentioned in that article Israel has been ranked 23rd in world for its standard of living based on per capita income, life expectancy and educational standards. I was also amazed at reading how Israel which has fewer people and has a small piece of land as compared to neighboring Arab states like Egypt but still Israel is far ahead of them in development and it has been ranked as 21st for its GDP per capita. Israel is a country which has been almost devoid of natural resources like Oil or Natural Gas as compared to other states in the region such as Saudi Arabia and Iran but has progressed just because of advanced education and scientific research which further augmented my admiration for Israel. Israel also developed and consolidated its military infrastructure on its own when it had difficulties at times at acquiring weaponry from allies in West such as USA and when it confronted well-equipped hostile Arab armies in several wars it surmounted with decisive victories.
Today Israel along with a flourishing high-tech entrepreneurship is also enjoying a significant increase in foreign investment in high tech industries which has kept on increasing since 1990s as visible in how such investment increased from $240 million in 1995 to $850 million in 1996.Israel’s 1800 high tech companies have also been expected to generate exports worth over $9 billion which will also be greater than the ones generated in the 1990s.Israel also in 1988 officially entered the space age with the lift off of its first satellite Ofeq-1 from the locally built Shavit launch vehicle. The launch of Ofeq-1 was coordinated by the Israel Space Agency (ISA). With that launch, Israel joined an exclusive club of countries that have developed, produced and launched their own satellites and this group included countries like Russia, China, USA, India, France, Japan and UK.Apart from a thriving high tech entrepreneurship and launch of a satellite in space, Israel has also made significant contributions in areas such as laser communication, research into embryo development,osteoporosis,monitoring pollution, mapping geology and soil and vegetation in semi arid environments. Along with students from around the world, school children like the ones in Haifa’s Ort-Matzkin school are also participating in scientific research and experiments with equal vigor and enthusiasm and this again dazzles me about the deeply ingrained innovativeness in Israelis which contributes to Israel’s uniqueness and peculiarity among Middle Eastern nations. These laudable school children from Haifa have devoted themselves to investigating the growth of crystalline fibers in the absence of gravity. I was also impressed by how Israeli government is now aspiring to turn Beersheba (which has been a comparatively poor Southern Israeli city and has also usually been a target of rocket attacks of Hamas from Gaza) into one of the world’s prime cyber security centers by attracting multinationals to work with Israeli startups and also with the computer science department of Beersheba’s Ben Gurion University. Israel according to the 2015 list of the Bloomberg Innovation Index was 4th most innovative and impressive country in the global technology market even ahead of countries like China and the US. According to the same list, Israel was the 2nd most innovative and impressive in research and development, 4th in education, 4th in research personnel, and 11th in high-tech companies and 21st in manufacturing. I also discovered while reading a news article by Sharon Udasin for Jerusalem Post regarding the recent visit of Indian Prime Minister Modi to Israel in which Sharon wrote how “Israeli venture capital community is beginning to truly discover India and its enormous potential not for just the IT sector, but also for many different hi-tech fields”. I was impressed while reading her article by the idea of a robust triangle envisioned by an Indian American named Rangaswami (who is the co-founder of Sand Hill Group, one of the first angel investors in Silicon Valley) and by his praiseworthy Indian American colleagues to connect three global high tech hotspots which are Israeli Tel Aviv, American Silicon Valley and India’s very own Bengaluru. Indian government has wisely constructed a very strong bilateral relationship with Israel which isn’t at all parasitic but symbiotic with benefits enjoyed by both sides of a highly fruitful relationship whereas my country Pakistan which has no direct territorial or political issues with Israel has recklessly abstained since its creation from establishing strong fruitful relations with the strongest democracy in and scientific and technological powerhouse of Middle East which is Israel and no other Middle Eastern nation is yet expected to reach the same levels of progress as Israel. Pakistan has always abstained from establishing a fruitful bilateral relationship with Israel primarily owing to the diplomatic pressures of its Muslim Arab brothers like Saudi Arabia (which though has been alleged to have covert relations with Israel by many in the region including Iran) and secondly due to its own Muslim majority population which has never been under a secular influence to ponder at least at once over establishing relations with Israel like Turkish or Azerbaijani populace(Muslim countries which have recognized Israel and have established bilateral relations with Israel too) but has been Islamized since the Islamist dictator General Zia ul Haq’s dictatorship from 1977 to 1988 which completely radicalized a country initially envisioned by its founding father as a secular and an exemplary state among Muslim Ummah but alas that dream of his was never actualized and my country fell to the menaces of religious extremism and subsequent Islamic terrorism. Majority of Pakistanis have always been exposed to a very diabolical and villainous portrait of Israel (as a nation which has nothing good to do and which is always massacring Arab brothers in Gaza or Beirut) through their country’s media and also through media of their Islamic Arab and Iranian brothers. Pakistanis don’t know much about Israel’s status as a science and Tech hub in Middle East and if they start acquainting themselves with and realizing how beneficial a relationship can be between their country and Israel then they will probably get rid of their extreme and overt anti-Semitism instilled relentlessly in their mind by their leaders supported by Arabs and Iranians and the Mullahs who have always garnered all sorts of espousal from Saudis from the funding of their Madrasas to the funding of their ill covert motives.