Israel celebrates historic 70th anniversary
Seventy years ago, on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel came into being. It was born just three years after the greatest Jewish tragedy, the Holocaust, had ended.
It was a near-run thing: In November 1947, one day prior to the expected United Nations vote on partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the CIA urged U.S. President Harry Truman not to throw his weight behind the idea. It didn’t think this state could survive.
Yet Israel has become a modern, prosperous nation. It has a standard of living that rivals Western Europe, though it lacks significant natural resources. It can boast of scientific achievements and military and technological clout beyond its modest size.
It counts eight living Nobel winners among its citizens and has helped give the world instant messaging, Intel chips and smart, autonomous vehicles.
Economic indicators for Israel showed another successful year in 2017 as, for the first time ever, Israel’s GDP per capita has surpassed that of major industrialized countries such as Great Britain, Japan and France.
Despite facing more challenges than virtually any other country, Israel has transformed from a poor and fragile backwater to a nation of cutting-edge technologies and knowledge during seven brief decades, while fighting for its existence.
It has become a powerhouse which has seen economic growth for 15 consecutive years. Its labour market is close to full employment and the unemployment level is the lowest it has been in decades.
“We can stop and look back with satisfaction” at the “amazing achievements made by the Israeli economy in the 70 years of the State’s existence,” Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug said at a press conference in Jerusalem in March.
The skyline of Tel Aviv, its largest city, is changed beyond recognition. In the 1960s and 1970s, everyone in Tel Aviv knew exactly where the Shalom Meir Tower was located. It was the only skyscraper in town, or even in Israel. The 31-floor building served as an urban monument in the cognitive map of the city’s residents.
In the past decade, this entire area in central Israel has become a real skyscraper hub. More generally, close to 800 buildings across Israel contain 20 floors or more.
In 1948, there were some 650,000 Jews in Israel, who represented about five per cent of the world’s Jews. Today, 43 per cent of the world’s Jews live in Israel; this is now the world’s largest Jewish community. Israel is about to become home to roughly two-thirds of all Jewish children in the world.
The country managed to receive huge waves of immigrants, and this population surge has contributed to a mix of cultures which, many believe, created a fertile ground for innovation.
“Our ability to absorb immigrants and integrate them is something not many other countries have done,” said Yaniv Pagot, head of strategy for the Ayalon Group, an investment firm. “This is an achievement that has huge economic implications and also long term social impact.”
Efraim Karsh, the director of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, remarked that “Israel is a melting pot” and on the whole a success story.
Persecution in Europe had sent European Jews pouring into the country. They were later joined by immigrants from countries like Morocco, Yemen, Iraq and Iran. Later arrivals from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia have made Israel even more diverse. All of these people have been forged into a Hebrew-speaking population.
“And I think in a way it’s remarkable, because you don’t have many societies, Western or otherwise, absorbing huge populations several times their size and doing it in such a successful way,” he added.
Israeli Jews are a diverse lot, in outlook, style of life, and even attire. But on the shared sense of an Israeli nation they are far more homogeneous than might outwardly appear.
Not bad for a country under continuous siege.