"No matter how you look at it, Israel is one of the most fascinating stories this world has seen. A story of a miraculous revival, of rising from the ashes, a rebirth of a nation that was scattered all over the world and finally returned to its homeland, to the same place where its prophets and kings lived 3,500 years ago.
Israel was born from war. The survivors of the Holocaust, together with the Zionists who settled their ancestors' land and Jews who lived here since the days of the Roman empire, few but brave, fought against the local Arab gangs and later 5 regular Arab armies, and defeated them against all odds.
Israel is the story of the impossible, a desert that was ordered to bloom, a penniless country that used brains as its natural resource (and now also found natural gas in the sea). It's a story of great challenges that we defeated, like being the 7th nation (!) to orbit the moon... and to crash on its surface in 2019.
Zionism has won and Israel is the living proof. Zionism was undoubtedly one of the most successful national movements in the world. It sought to create a safe place for the Jewish people, with an army that could defend it. The Jewish history of the last 2,000 years was a long chain of hard life, massacres, abuse and deportations, with a few good years here and there.
Jews were a minority wherever they went, usually a defenseless minority, relying of the good will of some local lord or king. When they were given a chance they thrived, which turned the less successful majority against them, and the cycle continued.
So what have we managed to do in 76 years? Here's just the tip of the iceberg:
▪️ Israel's population grew X12 since its birth in 1948. From 806,000 to almost 10 million.
▪️ 73.2% of the Israelis are Jews (7.247 m), Arabs make 21.1% and 5.7% are of other religions.
▪️ No Arabs requested to replace their Israeli nationality with a Palestinian one. That's apartheid in its worst form.
▪️ Since the last independence day Israel grew by 189,000 people (1.9%). 37,000 made Aliyah this year, even during the war.
▪️ Invented drip irrigation (1959) to allow agriculture even in the desert.
▪️ Won the Asia Soccer Cup (1964), beating South Korea 2-1 in the final.
▪️ Beat Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 6 days in 1967, conquered Sinai, Gaza, West Bank and the Golan Heights, and reunited Jerusalem. The Western Wall was finally in Jewish hands after 2,000 years.
▪️ Invented the shelf-stable Cherry tomatoes (1970s)
▪️ Win the Eurovision song contest for the first time in 1978, and then 3 times more.
▪️ Sailed the Suez Canal for the first time carrying an Israeli flag only in 1979, after signing the first peace agreement with Egypt. Many other Muslim and Arab countries followed later, while others still dream of chasing us away. Let them try.
▪️ Developed the Intel 8088 microprocessor, selected by IBM chose for its original line of PCs (1979), the first VOIP implementation (VocalTec, 1990s), the first Instant Messaging software (ICQ, 1996), the gastro pillcam (1998), the USB flash drives (M-Systems, 1999), Wix (2006), Waze (2008).
▪️ Launched the first Ofek satellite, built by the Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI), the 8th nation to achieve that.
▪️ Won the first Olympic medal, bronze in Judo in 1992. So far, Israel collected 3 gold medals, 1 silver and 9 bronze, all in sports without shoes (sailing, judo, gymnastics).
▪️ 13 Israelis won the Nobel prize since 1966. The number of Jewish Nobel winners is unexplainable - 22.2% of all winners in all times (212 out of 954).
▪️ Play Wonder Woman in a Hollywood blockbuster (Gal Gadot, 2017).
▪️ 2017: sell Mobileye to Intel for $15.3 billion, export over than $100 billion for the first time and see a record breaking year with over 3.6 million tourists.
▪️ Ranked among the most powerful, innovative countries by 2 major US surveys, and passed the US, UK, France in the World Happiness Report (2018).
