Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa
I don’t think Israel and South Africa are in any way comparable.
i'm not sure what the phrase "in any way" means any more then.
How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
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Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#32The conversation is around whether and how Israel became a high-tech hub. Please let's keep politics out of it.
apartheid is not politics
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#33Israel's rise as a tech hub has quite a few similarities to Silicon Valley's early history. Having good schools and a frontier spirit seem like key ingredients. Perhaps most important is the involvement of military spending in seeding research which leads to new technologies, which in turn spin off from their government-funded roots and form new private companies, which then seed other new companies, venture capitali…
Ditto for South Africa. There is (or was) an awful lot of home grown military and mining technology from the days of apartheid and sanctions when everything had to be invented locally.
Ironically a lot of the Isreali inventiveness was from the days when they didn't get automatic US military support. If you want to crush a country's R&D drive, simply give them shiny military toys for free.
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#34Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#35Israel has extreme human rights issues they need to deal with before I'll consider doing business with them. The Israeli government insists on continuing to settle its citizens onto Palestinian territory, driving local Palestinians off their land. As long as settlements continue, businesses should not look to Israel as a country to work with.
You're right. Israel does have serious human-rights issues with the Palestinians. But: Israel also has a thriving democracy that subjects its government officials to constant, withering criticism and investigation. We have a court system that isn't afraid to punish government officials. (We just sent a former president to prison for rape, and a former prime minister is being tried for corruption.) We have a free pres…
specifically because israel has many characteristics of a liberal western democracy, it's worth being particularly concern about how militarism, ethnic nationalism, etc. flourish there.
by and large we know what's wrong with north korea, libya under gaddafi, etc.
we need to pay particular attention to a country that can almost pass as western and still perpetrate atrocious human rights violations, because it's more plausible that we could end up like that.
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#36Israel has extreme human rights issues they need to deal with before I'll consider doing business with them. The Israeli government insists on continuing to settle its citizens onto Palestinian territory, driving local Palestinians off their land. As long as settlements continue, businesses should not look to Israel as a country to work with.
Israel got its territory the same way practically every other country in the world got its territory - they obtained it through a treaty, or they won it in a war. You know, there's a term for holding Jews to moral standards no other nation on earth is subjected to. And as far as 'extreme human rights issues' are concerned - in the Palestinian National Authority, the freedom to criticize the government is a sham, jour…
Israel runs a two tiered right system. In the West Bank Israeli settlers live under Israeli laws while the non-Jewish Palestinians live under military rule where their land is constantly being confiscated for Jewish settlers.
That is wrong, plain and simple.
It doesn't matter what you said is wrong with Arabs, running a two tiered system of rights is very wrong.
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#37Israel has extreme human rights issues they need to deal with before I'll consider doing business with them. The Israeli government insists on continuing to settle its citizens onto Palestinian territory, driving local Palestinians off their land. As long as settlements continue, businesses should not look to Israel as a country to work with.
Israel got its territory the same way practically every other country in the world got its territory - they obtained it through a treaty, or they won it in a war. You know, there's a term for holding Jews to moral standards no other nation on earth is subjected to. And as far as 'extreme human rights issues' are concerned - in the Palestinian National Authority, the freedom to criticize the government is a sham, jour…
It's likely he's not going to do business with the Palestinian National Authority, either.
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's a reason that 20% of the population are Arabs who choose to stay in Israel Because they'd like to return to their homes one day?
Fact: 77 percent of Arab citizens would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/05/study-israeli-...
Now if only all the Arab residents in Israel had rights and freedoms then everything would be okay. Israel is much better for the Arabs who are citizens that it is for the Arabs in the West Bank who don't.
Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#39Re: How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa
I don’t think Israel and South Africa are in any way comparable.
Both South Africa and Israel were created by European refugees fleeing persecution. Both countries became very militaristic and has Western allies who overlooked the way they treated their natives. Both countries where populated by a people who felt that their culture was under attack and vulnerable.