Good News Israel

Compliments of Anglo Saxon Ra’anana

Quote for the Week

I choose to stand [with the Jewish People] in Jerusalem and be counted

Glenn Beck Fox TV personality talking about his upcoming ‘Restoring Courage´ event. Bravo Mr Beck!

Now we don’t know what you’ve been reading about what’s happening in our neck of the woods but we’re assuming that it’s not particularly upbeat stuff so here’s a blockbuster to clear the air: Israel’s exports have grown 13,400, yes, 13,400 times since 1948 which is when it all began [it actually began about 2,000 years before that but the CBS wasn’t around to record it]. Here is a selection of figures released on Tuesday by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute (IEICI) to coincide with and give honor to, Independence Day. We started with $6m 63 years ago and we topped $80bn last year. Even if you allow for devaluation and anything else that you can stir into the economics mix that is one huge increase. Don’t go away.

While in the beginning, Israel exported mostly citrus fruit –remember Jaffa oranges and grapefruit? – and diamonds with very little in between, with the girls’ best friends amounting to $2.8m and agricultural produce accounting for a large part of the rest, we‘re delighted to tell you that the sparklers now bring $8.9bn into the national kitty but exports of goods and services in the high-tech industries – including research and development services [see the item below] – have now reached some $28.5 billion and that’s about 35% of the grand total. Important to note that markets in North America and Europe have served as main ports of call for what we sell and still do but exports to Asia that made up only 1% of Israel’s exports in the 1950s, have grown to 24% today and that’s about $20bn in hard cash.

To give you a concrete example, Israel signed a trade agreement, one of its first with real teeth, with Hungary, in Budapest, on January 12, 1949. Hungary would supply Israel with beef, grains, machinery and heavy industrial equipment, while Israel would sell Hungary, paint, chemicals, citrus fruit of course and dentures – dentures?! Who said anything about real teeth! Well today trade with Hungary stands at some $376 million even without the artificial choppers and it’s no. 37 on our list of business partners. But what of the future we hear you ask? Well the IEICI is predicting 7% growth this year to $86bn.

And as if that weren’t enough, according to the World Competitiveness Index of 59 countries by Switzerland’s IMD Business School, Israel is the world’s top investor in R&D as a proportion of GDP in 2011, no wonder that most of the big International companies have research centers right here. We’re also in #1 slot in the functioning of central banks due in no small measure to the fact that the Governor of the Bank of Israel, Prof. Stanley Fischer, also happens to be first in the field worldwide. We have heard rumors that the International Monetary Fund might be looking for somebody new to take over the helm and Prof Fischer is in contention as he should be. What can we say but: Stay with us Stanley, we need you more than they do.

When we look for true friends in the international arena we need go no further than the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews who have just announced that within the coming months they will be donating almost NIS 6 million ($1.65 million) to purchase vital medical equipment in the form of three MRI machines for hospitals in the peripheral areas. The funds will also finance the construction of a reinforced building for Emek Hospital in Afula, also in the north. True friends did we say? They give a whole new meaning to the term.

Rugby may not be everybody’s cup of tea and certainly Israelis are far more comfortable with football [of the soccer variety] and basketball but the 15-man game has been played here since the establishment of the State and longer and last week the Israel International XV beat the strong Norwegian side 15-3, a convincing win that places them firmly at the top of the 2c table.

The Israeli economy is continuing to grow: OK so it’s not growing quite as fast as it has, a 7.6% increase in the last quarter of 2010 is going to be a hard figure to beat, but the gross domestic product (GDP) rose by an annual rate of 4.7% in the first quarter of 2011, which is enough to make the other OECD countries green with envy. These latest figures reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday [we take full responsibility for the ‘green with envy’ part] are in line with the Bank of Israel’s annual growth forecast of 4.6%. Interesting to note that investment in fixed assets (homes, construction, equipment and vehicles) leapt in Q1 this year by a massive 23.7%, and there is no better indication of increasing confidence in the economy than that.

No surprise then that there was a further rise in the consumer confidence index in April. The index has been hovering around a relatively high level for several months and that probably reflects the good economic situation, particularly in the job market, with unemployment figures falling consistently. Economic indicators in the past few months continue to be positive [see items above]. Confidence in the economy invariably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and that, dear readers, is GN.

These amazing people continue to do us all proud. Israeli wheelchair tennis player Noam Gershony has advanced to the quarterfinal in the men’s quads division of the Japan Open. Gershony defeating Japan’s Hiroshi Toma 2-0. Gershony who is ranked 12th in the world is scheduled to face Shota Kawano on Friday, the Japanese player is ranked number 18.

There are about 5,500 lone soldiers serving in the IDF. A lone soldier? That’s a soldier who for whatever reason doesn’t have the support of family and sometimes even friends. So the army has decided not to play cupid, not quite, but that they will pay for the wedding: including up to 130 guests, a photographer, a DJ, invitations, a wedding dress and a suit for the groom. They’ll also help to pay for air fares for overseas guests. Of course a lone soldier who marries is not a lone soldier anymore. We loved this item perhaps because it’s all about love. What an army!

Anorexia is a frightful affliction and anything but GN and all too often the young people who inflict this damage on themselves do so to compete with the models that appear in ‘glamour’ adverts. Enter the Knesset, the Israel Parliament, introducing a law prohibiting models under a certain body/mass ratio from appearing in these advertising displays. A good start we would say.

“Oil and Gas Investor” has ranked the Leviathan –that belongs to us – natural gas discovery with 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as the best discovery of the year for 2010. The Tamar discovery, with a mere 8 trillion cubic feet – also one of ours – was named best discovery for 2009. So much for the present, now let’s have a peek into the future. Dr Harold Vinegar [we didn’t make that up. That’s his name. No kidding] chief scientist at Israel Energy Initiatives states with supreme confidence that Israel has the second largest deposit of shale oil outside of the US, 250 billion barrels. To get that into perspective – Saudi Arabia has total reserves of 260 billion barrels. We’re rich or will be. So Moses took the right turn after all.