By James Wilson
Israel is a miracle of astronomical proportions on multiple levels. That she should be born again two millennia after total destruction at the hands of a vengeful Roman Empire and centuries of occupation by an expiring Muslim Empire is galaxy-sized miracle number one. Number two is despite the vast majority of her population emigrating from totalitarian cultures she becomes and remains the only viable democratic republic in the region. Number three is becoming the subject of a bestseller (Dan Senor and Saul Singer, 2009) called simply Start-up Nation. It is the story of how a people – universally derided as an upstart nation by friends and foes alike – become an economic tyro within sixty years of birth in the first of six – and counting – wars meant for her extermination.
Israel is a world leader in medicine, high tech communications, and agricultural innovations for starters. She can boast sixty-three companies on the Nasdaq registry – more than any other nation in the world – all of them being venture capital or start-up endeavors. US Congresswoman Gabriel Gifford survived the attempt on her life because of an elasticized bandage developed in Israel. Many innovations we associate with Google were developed and sold to the Silicon Valley giant by Israeli concerns. They transformed the malarial swamp that was Galilee into a world renowned citrus source by planting eucalyptus trees. Universally detested by farmers because they invade land and consume available water, their bad traits became salvation as they drained the swamps before replacement by the crops grown there today.
How do Senor and Singer explain it all? Two factors stand out for the authors. One is universal – except for ultraorthodox Jews – military service. The service becomes a great cultural leveler for Israelis at the same time it provides grounding for the spirit of innovation so prevalent in Israeli culture. Their military is as non-hierarchical as a military can be; questioning orders and offering alternative solutions is encouraged at all ranks when there is no immediate danger. Israeli culture is a meritocracy nourished and flourishing at all levels beginning with military experience.
The second ingredient is the prevalence of immigrants. A nation of half a million in 1947 has become a nation of seven and a half million through wide open doors for all wanting to throw in their lot with this miracle of the Middle East. The authors note, “Immigrants are…by definition risk takers. A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs.” The fruit of the factors is Israel boasting sixty-three Nasdaq companies as of 2009 – more than any other nation – and more start-ups per capita than any other nation. They are available to teach other nations how to maximize water resources – the next great resource to be fought wars over according to forecasters – from conservation and recycling to desalination at minimal costs. Their expertise and export record in medical and high tech development astounds larger nations.
Senor and Singer acknowledge the impact of foreign aid cannot be denied, but add it does not explain Israeli prowess any more than oil wealth explains the ongoing poverty of most people in lands bordering Israel. The differences are cultural and the authors note a striking contrast between Israel’s meritocracy and the culture of entitlement seeming to prevail in their Arab neighbors.
Parenthetically it is clear this entitlement mentality is neither intrinsic nor essential to Arab people. These are the people who brought great progress to the world from medicine to mathematics while Europe remained in the grip of the Dark Ages. In more recent epochs they have been held back first by residence in a decaying Ottoman Empire and later by the sense of entitlement for men that is intrinsic to Sharia Law. Even so at least one Palestinian leader keeps a copy of Start-up Nation handy for bedside reading. The challenge for leaders of such visionary inclination will be to abandon entitlement – which stultifies creativity – on the one hand, and hatred for all things Israeli on the other. Hatred, like entitlement, crushes vision itself.
Politically correct American and European leaders face this same challenge.
When I met and approached California’s Governor Jerry Brown about proclaiming a Day of Repentance in our state he never examined the proclamation I had written. This was despite his own background as a former aspiring Christian pastor with knowledge of what God has to say about repentance addressing causation and cure for drought. In a state plagued by record breaking drought – in many dimensions – this betrays a lack of vision. But had the governor read and considered the document he would have come to the clause honoring Israel – another challenge to his vision-capacity – and his track record shows this too to be a stumbling block for him. When I requested endorsement of the Day from my own bishop he liked the idea of repentance but could not grasp what Israel might have to do with it; rather than wrestle with the place of Israel in his faith he too declined support. The Messianic rabbi I asked to participate could not imagine a Biblical basis for identificational repentance though the Old Testament is shot through and through with it from Isaiah to Ezekiel.
This inability to grasp the idea of Israel having a special place in the heart of God does not stem from militant stupidity – it comes from militant ignorance and they are not the same. The enemy of all life – the fallen angel who demanded to be worshipped as God – hates those God loves most with an abiding hatred that outstrips all other hatreds. The Jewish and Christian scriptures declare as much in multiple citations. Paul spends three chapters of his epistle to the Romans (9-11) making the case that Israel remains the apple of the Abba’s eye. Old Testament prophets – in the midst of their most scathing denunciations of Israel’s ancient apostasies – stress over and again God’s promise never to ultimately forsake His own. Outside this supernatural hatred of God’s Chosen People there simply is no other rational explanation for the failure of so many leaders to comprehend information plainly available to them.
Israel is a miracle across the board. Identifying and analyzing their achievements outside of mere survival does not explain their success apart from intervention by their God and ours. All people who seek the abundant life God lives to give need to place themselves in the path of that life by recognizing the central place of Israel in the love of God. But identifying and analyzing the practical process of repentance that leads Israelis to sacrifice their sacred cows in favor of vision and innovation offers hope to the rest of us that we too can engage in pragmatic repentance. The Jews knew more than fifteen hundred years ago – they read it in their book of Jeremiah – that the Father means nothing but blessing for all the children He has created. The catch is we need to seek His Face, not sit on our past achievements or insist on our own way until we get new results trying the same old thing.
Honoring Israel teaches as much when we study their history. They are the world’s poster child for trying it their way and repeatedly returning to God when their way does not work. That is what the Bible is all about.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@gmail.com
