In his weekly Canadian Jewish News media analysis column “According to Reports,†Paul Michaels, CIC Director of Communications, looks at coverage of a new book extolling Israel’s entrepreneurial spirit .
A new book, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, is receiving a lot of attention in the North American media.
Recently, Canadian Business magazine and the National Post featured major excerpts.
Introducing an interview with Senor in the Financial Post (“Israel’s startup spirit,” Nov. 28; also posted on CBC.ca.), reporter Eric Lam wrote: “Ever since Israel was born in 1948, smack in the middle of a hornet’s nest of hatred and resentment, the little country that couldn’t has done nothing but thrive… [Start-Up Nation] looks at how Israel’s disadvantages – a hostile environment, constant threat of annihilation, isolation from the outside world – have actually helped make the country a hotbed for entrepreneurs.”
How hot? As Senor told Lam: “There are more Israeli companies on Nasdaq than any other foreign country in the world, more global venture capital on a per-capita basis going into Israel than any other country. On an absolute basis, Israel attracts as much venture capital as the United Kingdom. How did the Israelis pull this off in the least likely of circumstances?
Senor’s answer is that Israel contains “the most dynamic combination of entrepreneurialism and innovation in the world today.” He added: “Our point is that not only does Israel have adverse circumstances, but they have an outlook on life and an ethos that includes a motivation to take problems and turn them into advantages.”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS program named Start-Up Nation its “book of the week.” On the Nov. 8 show, host Fareed Zakaria asked: “Why is it that Israel, a nation of just seven million people, constantly at war since its creation, has become the capital of start-ups? Believe it or not, Israel has produced more of them than Japan, China or India [with a combined population of about 2.5 billion].”
Zakaria also commented on the impact of the books findings for Israel’s immediate neighbours: “It’s a book, I think, that every single Arab businessman, Arab bureaucrat, and Arab politician should read because it explains this wide gulf between Israel and the Arab world.”
This should not be a cause for gloating, but rather a recognition the Arab world could use Israel as a model to unleash its entrepreneurial talent, just as Israel’s democracy serves as a model for the Palestinian political process.
However, with some exceptions such as the recent upsurge of economic growth in the West Bank (supported by Israel), the Arab world does little to encourage the sort of change that would lead to economic progress. Anything but.
As Thomas Friedman noted in the New York Times (“America vs. The Narrative†Nov. 28) too many Arab intellectuals and leaders are gripped by the theory that there is “a grand ‘American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy’ to keep Muslims down.”
Friedman quoted a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert who said: “This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances of the Arab and the Muslim worlds.”
Freidman added: “This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances over why their countries are falling behind.”
Many analysts have made the same point: Until leaders in Arab and Muslim communities take responsibility for their failures instead of promoting conspiracy theories, they will continue to fall further behind the rest of the world, and will remain breeding grounds for extremism.
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