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Has Israel made a positive difference in the world?

Step Up For Israel 2012/05/15 19:16:35
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Quick facts about Israel:

> Israel has the highest number of companies listed on the U.S. Stock exchange after the US and Canada

> Israel leads the world in the numbers of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000

> Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in the number of trees

> Over the past 25 years agricultural output has increased sevenfold with hardly any increase in the amount of water used

> Many bus stops in busy areas have tzedaka (charity) boxes

> Almost 1/3 of all Israelis are volunteers

Learn more about Israeli innovation and humanitarian aid by watching this week-long FREE stream of new hit PBS film ISRAEL INSIDE and also enter to win a free flight to Israel!

Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference is a new feature-length documentary that explores the positive characteristics of Israeli society from a humanistic, psychological, and emotional perspective.




The film is hosted by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, who gave up the unique distinction of being Harvard University’s most popular lecturer to return to his native country, Israel. In the film, Ben Shahar explores the core character strengths – called “actualizers” – that enable Israelis to succeed against incredible odds. Through Tal’s eyes we explore the deep-seated values such as education, family, and responsibility for the world (a Jewish concept known as “tikkun olam”), which directly contribute to Israel’s accomplishments in the economic, technological and humanitarian spheres.

Read More: http://www.stepupforisrael.com

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Top Opinion

  • Fef 2012/05/15 19:50:09
    Yes
    Fef
    +15
    Israel has made a positive change for the world for thousands of years!

    The people of Israel have given us the Torah -- for which all Western civilization should thank Israel.

    The world owes Israel for its modern contributions as well.

    Israel gives liberties to its citizens, including Arabs, women and other minorities -- unlike the rest of the Arab region.
    torah moses

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Opinions

  • gregaj7 2012/05/15 20:10:38
    No
    gregaj7
    +2
    I have absolutely NO use for anything that the Rothschild/Rockefeller international banking cabal is chiefly part of:
    balfour treaty
  • fuzzy K... gregaj7 2012/05/15 21:40:15
    fuzzy Ken "In G-d We Trust"
    You don't text, use a cameraphone or have security software?
  • Josh Stephens 2012/05/15 20:09:29
    Yes
    Josh Stephens
    +2
    But you already knew that based on the facts you've listed.
  • Rio 2012/05/15 20:05:21
    Undecided
    Rio
    The U.S and Israel have had a long-standing- relationship. Political agendas are sometimes hard to decipher. Read the Israel: Background and U.S. Relations
    Jim Zanotti
    Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
    February 29, 2012 Report to Congress

    then read: The Desert Herald- The History of US-Israel Relations (1) How the “Special Relationship” was Created

    http://desertherald.com/?p=57...
  • bob h. Rio 2012/05/15 20:50:40
    bob h.
    +1
    But this one is amazingly simple. The US gives Israel money; Israel says: gimme more.
  • Rich Ma... bob h. 2012/05/15 20:57:39
    Rich Matarese
    The known - hell, well anticipated - effect of government-to-government transfers of taxpayer spending power as "foreign aid" is to divorce the officers of the recipient government from accountability to their own citizens.

    There are plenty of Israelis who want their elected and appointed government thugs OFF the U.S. dollar pipeline if only so that the Sabras can get their Knesset Critters firmly choke-chained.

    They want control of their country. Big surprise, right?
  • fuzzy K... bob h. 2012/05/15 21:42:17
    fuzzy Ken "In G-d We Trust"
    That can be said of ALL the countries receiving US aid. That includes our "friends" like Pakistan. What's your point?
  • The Sane One 2012/05/15 20:03:49
    Undecided
    The Sane One
    +2
    They've done some good, but they've also done a lot of evil... I think the scales might be just a bit tilted towards the evil side. Hopefully they can make the swing back, by having the citizens paying a lot more attention to what their government is doing in their name.
  • sickofselfish 2012/05/15 20:01:27 (edited)
    Undecided
    sickofselfish
  • Magnilo... sickofs... 2012/05/15 20:23:10
  • MadAsHEck sickofs... 2012/05/15 20:36:17
    MadAsHEck
    +1
    Using your rationale, we should now bow to the UN's demands that we give back the lands we "Stole" from the indians. What next? Shall we give the rest of America back to those we "Stole" it from?

    The lands that Israel occupies were won after being attacked and kicking the butts of the attackers. And any that they have given back, which they have, were totally destroyed, and turned the people back to a barbaric existance.

    Quote from an interesting article on the situation. Too bad we don't do the same with our borders.

    "Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967 War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.

    And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an example of apartheid?

    That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico as an example of apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to...





    Using your rationale, we should now bow to the UN's demands that we give back the lands we "Stole" from the indians. What next? Shall we give the rest of America back to those we "Stole" it from?

    The lands that Israel occupies were won after being attacked and kicking the butts of the attackers. And any that they have given back, which they have, were totally destroyed, and turned the people back to a barbaric existance.

    Quote from an interesting article on the situation. Too bad we don't do the same with our borders.

    "Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967 War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.

    And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an example of apartheid?

    That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico as an example of apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to keep unwanted people from entering the country.

    Israel built its security wall in order to keep terrorists from entering Israel and murdering its citizens. What appears to bother those who work to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state is that the barrier has worked. The wall separating Israel from the West Bank has probably been the most successful terrorism-prevention program ever enacted."

    Arabs in Israel live a better life than in many other Arab countries.

    http://townhall.com/columnist...
    (more)
  • sickofs... MadAsHEck 2012/05/25 18:21:06
    sickofselfish
    Apparently, someone is brainwashed by Fox fundamentalist "news". The comparison between the U.S. and Israel and their occupation and borders is a fallacy and ludicrous. The settling of this land and the settling of that are two distinctively different events. Winning land after a war is not winning, but a holocaust. Your innate racism is clear in "turned the people back to a barbaric existence". You are just a hateful individual who is looking at the Palestian people as less than human. Despicable.
  • sickofs... sickofs... 2012/05/25 18:22:06 (edited)
    sickofselfish
    ...
  • MadAsHEck sickofs... 2012/05/25 18:37:56 (edited)
    MadAsHEck
    Actually my words are facts, and in no way insulting or degrading.
    Your words are the racist intolerant words. and show a total ignorance of the situation.

    "The comparison between the U.S. and Israel and their occupation and borders is a fallacy and ludicrous" Your statement. Do you have a clue as to how many Native Americans we killed, and put on reservations? Reservations that were nothing more that Concentration Camps, one shade shy of the WWII Holocaust.

    So yes the comparison is not much different.

    I do not tolerate those that insult me personally for my views. Especially when I present facts that they do not have any way to dispute.

    You are the hateful one here. And bear in mind that when you refer to the "Palestinisn Peoples" you refer to a government that is not in existance.

    There is no Palestine state, and cannot be so long as their government has said that for them to exist, Israel and all jews must be destroyed.

    Go and dispense your ignorant trolling somewhere else.
  • sam123 sickofs... 2012/05/15 22:59:30
    sam123
    and not only that Mr sickof... but I read someone saying

    '''Israel gives liberties to its citizens, including Arabs, women and other minorities -- unlike the rest of the Arab region.;;;

    free liberty like this one ???



    this is what they want from muslim women and arabs !!! -libeeeeeeertttttttyyyyy. yeahhhhhh?
    and where ? in holly land ?
    do you really call these people religious ?

    what a joke
  • MadAsHEck sam123 2012/05/25 18:45:12
    MadAsHEck
    He is really one of the most ignorant people I have seen in here. You are absolutely right about Arab life in Israel.

    http://townhall.com/columnist...
  • sickofs... sickofs... 2012/05/28 05:27:03
    sickofselfish
    As you can see from the ignorant replies to my post: yup, they've whipped the crazy fundies into a frenzy. Religious extremism of any kind is evil and the cause of the suffering of millions.
  • frank 2012/05/15 19:59:36
    Yes
    frank
    +2
    I think Israel has made a very positive difference unlike the Muslims’ of the world.
  • beachbum frank 2012/05/15 20:37:20
    beachbum
    I have been to Israel twice........and unless it has changed a great deal, you could always tell where it was Israeli land, and where it was 'disputed terrority'...........the Israeli side was clean, worked, etc. The other side had trash most everywhere.................just saying that was my experience.
  • sam123 beachbum 2012/05/15 23:16:47
    sam123
    +1
    good observation
    every advert to promote tourism , is focused on blue sky, blue sea , naked woman
    and some roads and hospitals
    but if you asked them to go to muslim areas or chritians one, you will vomit!!


    this is what they will not show you
  • sam123 frank 2012/05/15 23:08:00
    sam123
    unlike the Muslims’ of the world!!!!

    does this means muslims have no positive impact on this planet ?
    just go back years ago - before 1500 century ago ? before even isreal exist?

    what about this century you may ask ?

    well , thank god you are living in their land and they are surrouding you protecting you from very long time and letting you live despite killing them and imprisonning them to start with.
    and that is the best ever postive thing they have done , showing tolerance, understanding peace and co-oexistence ...
  • Bob DiN 2012/05/15 19:55:54
    Yes
    Bob DiN
    +1
    Against overwhelming odds, they showed democrisy is possible in the Middle East.
  • Mad Moose Mama 2012/05/15 19:55:45
    No
    Mad Moose Mama
    +4
    I hardly call annihilating the Palestinian people a POSITIVE difference...I say they are no better than the Nazi's they whine about~!! But hey...IF I had $48 Million dollars I guess I could buy myself a country and do WHATEVER I wish with the people who already live there...all while playing my victim card~!! FREE PALESTINE~!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Bob DiN Mad Moo... 2012/05/15 19:57:56
    Bob DiN
    +3
    What's so bad about annihilating terrorsits? We need more of it!
  • Magnilo... Mad Moo... 2012/05/15 20:26:27
    Magniloquence
    Do you mean something like what the North American whites did to the native Americans.
    It sounds like pots and kettles to me.
  • beachbum Mad Moo... 2012/05/15 20:41:25
    beachbum
    What about the millions and millions and millions that has been poured into 'Palestine' thru the years? That $, for the most part, has been squandered by their leadership, and often ended in Swiss bank accounts. The bulk wasn't spent for the infrastructure..........
  • MadAsHEck Mad Moo... 2012/05/15 20:42:36
    MadAsHEck
    Read about the truth of the situation. And bear in Mind that Muslims are in the process of worming their way into Canada. As well as the USA.

    Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967 War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.

    And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an example of apartheid?

    That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico as an example of apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to keep unwanted people from entering the country.

    Israel built its security wall in order to keep terrorists from entering Israel and murdering its citizens. What appears to bother those who work to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state is that the barrier has worked. The wall separating Israel from the West Bank has probably been the most successful terrorism-prevention progra...







    Read about the truth of the situation. And bear in Mind that Muslims are in the process of worming their way into Canada. As well as the USA.

    Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967 War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.

    And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an example of apartheid?

    That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico as an example of apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to keep unwanted people from entering the country.

    Israel built its security wall in order to keep terrorists from entering Israel and murdering its citizens. What appears to bother those who work to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state is that the barrier has worked. The wall separating Israel from the West Bank has probably been the most successful terrorism-prevention program ever enacted.


    http://townhall.com/columnist...


    Palestine is Free. And would not be getting attacked if they would quit lobbing missiles into Israel, and sneaking across the border and killing Israeli Citizens.

    How would you feel if Radical Americans were to start firing Rockets across the border and killing Canadian citizens. Or sneaking in at night and killing off families, or blowing themselves up in your crowded malls?
    (more)
  • Mary Ann 2012/05/15 19:54:05
    Yes
    Mary Ann
    +2
    I am always struck with the screaming of tolerance from the left, yet the Jews and the Catholics are met with anti tolerance.
  • dano29 Mary Ann 2012/05/15 20:25:56
    dano29
    +1
    You Jews and Catholics think you get a bad rap from the left, try being a Mormon.
  • Nadrasta 2012/05/15 19:53:08
    No
    Nadrasta
    +4
    The negatives far out weigh the positives.
  • Rob Nadrasta 2012/05/15 19:57:36
    Rob
    +2
    Fine. Don't use cellphones, irrigation, or many of the latest medical science technologies like stents. Oh, and don't use your computer. If it uses a Pentium chip,it was invented and most likely made in Israel. A lot of Windows software and HP gear is made there as well, so steer clear...Jew hater.
  • Nadrasta Rob 2012/05/15 20:12:42
    Nadrasta
    +3
    Please...Like no other country contributed to those innovations.
    Why is it that if anyone is critical of Israel they are labeled as antisemitic? Even if they're Israeli's themselves? I'm the "hater" but it's the Israeli's who are murdering and oppressing millions of Palestinians. That makes sense. >.>
  • Rob Nadrasta 2012/05/15 20:33:44
    Rob
    You're the one who has a bug up his behind about Israel. I merely suggest you act on your principles and boycott all these innovations that came from the minds and hands of people you hate.

    Also...The Israelis are oppressing and murdering millions of 'Palestinians'? Please don't embarrass yourself. It was the ARABS who attacked Israel at its birth, the Arabs who attempted to massacre every Jew in Palestine in 1948, the Arabs who ethnically cleansed almost a million Jews from the Arab world after plundering everything they owned...not the Jews. And it was Arab violence and unrest that caused the British to issue the White Paper on the eve of the Holocaust barring all Jewish immigration and trapping millions of Jews in Europe with no place to flee to. The Arabs are thus directly complicit in the death toll of the Holocaust.

    The 'Palestinian' Arab leader, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini was an overt Nazi sympathizer and a great friend of Hitler and Eichmann, with whom he planned a death camp for Palestine's Jews to be located in Nablus. He recruited European Muslims for Hitler's SS and translated 'Mein Kampf' into Arabic, where it's still a best seller.

    With that kind of history, if the Arabs gifted the Jews ten times more land than the state of Israel contains, it wouldn't compensate. The 'Palestinians' are lucky the Israelis haven't treated them the way the Arabs would treat Israel's Jews if the situation was reversed.
  • Nadrasta Rob 2012/05/15 21:23:19 (edited)
    Nadrasta
    Hmm..Maybe I'd "act on my principles and boycott all these innovations" if they actually came from there. Please stop exaggerating on all the good Israel has done in the hopes of trying to compensate for all the evil it has contributed to the world.

    You're clearly brainwashed by the media as are a majority of Americans sadly. You think it's okay for the Israeli's to play the victim card to try and justify what they're doing in the region? The Arabs attacked Israel at it's birth? They attempted to massacre every Jew in Palestine? (Notice how you refrained from stating the number of Arabs Israeli forces killed during that conflict in 1948, or how it started). Before the Zionist movement, the Jews that lived among the Arabs in Palestine had friendly relations with each other. Things didn't get ugly until the Zionist movement where the Jews felt they needed a homeland so they all decided to migrate to Palestine. They used the "God gave us this land" ploy to justify what they were doing. They came into Palestine and pushed Arabs off their land, were the Arabs that were living there for centuries supposed to be okay with this? The British only supported them at first because they felt bad after what happened during WWII, they later went back on that and agreed that there should be ...

    Hmm..Maybe I'd "act on my principles and boycott all these innovations" if they actually came from there. Please stop exaggerating on all the good Israel has done in the hopes of trying to compensate for all the evil it has contributed to the world.

    You're clearly brainwashed by the media as are a majority of Americans sadly. You think it's okay for the Israeli's to play the victim card to try and justify what they're doing in the region? The Arabs attacked Israel at it's birth? They attempted to massacre every Jew in Palestine? (Notice how you refrained from stating the number of Arabs Israeli forces killed during that conflict in 1948, or how it started). Before the Zionist movement, the Jews that lived among the Arabs in Palestine had friendly relations with each other. Things didn't get ugly until the Zionist movement where the Jews felt they needed a homeland so they all decided to migrate to Palestine. They used the "God gave us this land" ploy to justify what they were doing. They came into Palestine and pushed Arabs off their land, were the Arabs that were living there for centuries supposed to be okay with this? The British only supported them at first because they felt bad after what happened during WWII, they later went back on that and agreed that there should be a nation created for Palestinians.

    I am sick of Israel playing the victim card when justifying their actions. Every day they are illegally infiltrating Palestinian regions and displacing Palestinians in order to create homes for Israeli pilgrims that continue migrating to Israel. Just about every country in the world realizes what Israel is doing is illegal. All the Palestinians want is a homeland, a place they can call home. What is so wrong with that? Why can an Israeli homeland be established but a Palestinian one can't? The saddest part is that the media only portrays the Israeli side of things since the Israelis control what journalists can publish thus once again displaying Israel as the victim and the Palestinians as these "terrorists", meanwhile they are pretty much defenseless against the Israelis.
    (more)
  • Magnilo... Nadrasta 2012/05/15 20:37:45
    Magniloquence
    If the Jews kill Arabs for their own survival then it is wrong, unlike Americans who kill Arabs because they want their oil. It all depends on which side of the fence you're sitting.
    The Americans sticking their nose into the mid-east and the Brits, French, Portugese and Spanish colonising Africa and N & S America and killing the inhabitants is/was all OK.
    Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
  • Nadrasta Magnilo... 2012/05/15 21:34:36
    Nadrasta
    But the Arabs the Jews are killing are pretty much defenseless. The Israelis are the ones with nuclear weapons not the Palestinians. It's one thing to eliminate people in order to survive and actually pose a threat to one's existence, it's another thing to use propaganda to convince others that the people one is exterminating are dangerous when they really aren't.

    I agree though that America/Europe should not be sticking it's nose in all this middle eastern business. America should also stop funding the Israeli military with American tax dollars. A lot of the problems probably could have been avoided if America among others hadn't helped aid in building up Israeli's defense so much.
  • beachbum Rob 2012/05/15 20:42:55
    beachbum
    Not to mention that the bulk of flowers on tables all over Europe/middle East come from Israel, and all the food that is grown.
  • George Zook 2012/05/15 19:53:06 (edited)
    Undecided
    George Zook
    +3
    Israel has been busy fighting for survival from the day the first Israeli got off the boat

    I am impressed that they have contributed as much as they have to the sciences and arts

    People have been hating jews for thousands of years and muslims for hundreds some people just need to hate

    now I would like to change my vote to YES!
  • Shantay Thompson 2012/05/15 19:51:37 (edited)
    No
    Shantay Thompson
    +6
    The "creation of the State of Israel," has caused nothing but oppression of countries and cultures who were living there before Israel......after all, anyone who knows REAL history, knows the Rockafellers, the Rothchilds, the Bushs, and other monied families financed the "creation of Israel." Why? Because after the war w Nazis ( which was financed by the same families,and supprted by the Vatican) all the Jewish people after, were told,"Here is your REAL place to live......Israel. You are OWED this land." SO. IN came the Israelis, the military financed by wealthy, powerful American and European families. Why? Because the "Familias" make become rich and powerful through war!!!!!!! Just as they did with Nazi Germany. A nation can't morally pay their way to God, period w their collection boxes and supluses, while at the same time, hate and kill their neighbors..........hypocritic...
  • fuzzy K... Shantay... 2012/05/15 20:00:04
    fuzzy Ken "In G-d We Trust"
    +1
    You really don't seem to have much of a grasp of history, do you?
    Start with who the Zionists were. The reason for Zionism and when that was. That should give you some clues.

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