HASBARA: Happy Yom Ha'Atzmaut! (24 April 2007)

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Hi Everyone,

Today is the day that a small country survived against all odds to provide a place of hope in a dark corner of the world...

Happy Yom Ha'Atzmaut! (Israeli Independence Day)

Chag Sameach!


Which coincidentally also provides all of this:

Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, can lay claim to the following:

1. The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
2. Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.
3. The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel. Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel.
4. The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.
5. Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
6. Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.
7. The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.
8. According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.
9. Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
10. Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
11. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
12. Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people -- as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
13. In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the second largest number of startup companies after the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).
14. With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration hi-tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, US.
15. Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.
16. After the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.
17. Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
18. On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.
19. Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees -- ranking it third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland -- and 12% hold advanced degrees.
20. Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
21. In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.
22. When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.
23. When the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day -- and saved three victims from the rubble.
24. Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship -- and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
25. Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
26. Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."
27. Israel has the world's second highest per capita rate of publishing new books.
28. Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
29. Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
30. In the field of medicine, Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
31. An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in US hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.
32. Israel's Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.
33. Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.
34. Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the US, over 70 in Japan, and fewer than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions, Israel places first in this category as well.
35. A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct -- all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.
36. An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant (in southern California's Mojave desert).
37. Israel did all of the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction and an economy continuously under stress by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth.

Learn more about Yom Ha'Atzmaut here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Ha%27atzma%27ut

Have a great Tuesday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Hat tip to Elder of Zion, Michelle & BlueStar PR. Todah Raba! (Thanks!)
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/04/yom-haatzmaut.html

P.S.S.
A joke for the celebration:

Digging to a depth of 1,000 meters last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1,000 years. The French came to the conclusion that their ancestors had a telephone network centuries ago.

Not to be outdone by the French, English scientists dug to a depth of 2,000 meters. Shortly thereafter headlines in the U.K. newspapers read:"English archeologists have found traces of a 2,000-year-old fiber-optic cable and have concluded that ancestors had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier than the French.

"One week later, Israeli newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5,000 meters in a Jerusalem marketplace, they found absolutely nothing." They thus concluded that 5,000 years ago Jews were using wireless technology.

Notes regarding photos / pictures: These are not all my images. I am using various images from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).