From One Jerusalem :

Gilder Answers His Critics

The Israel Test In Ten Questions

By George Gilder

1) What does it mean to pass the Israel Test?

You must admire and emulate those who surpass you in achievement and excellence rather than envying them and resenting them and trying to tear them down.

2) This is a moralism applying to everyone. Why do you focus on the Jews?

Throughout the 20th century, the world's tiny minority of Jews has led the world in excellence and achievement, whether measured in Nobel Prizes, fundamental inventions, or wealth creation. Thus they arouse the envy and resentment of anti-Semites, who fail what I call their Israel test.

3) But what does this have to do with Israel as a country?

Israel now concentrates the genius of the Jews. Of all the nations in the world, Israel ranks first in per capita achievement and excellence, whether measured by technological innovation, venture capital investment, share of GDP produced by high tech companies, scientific papers, or numbers of companies on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Most of that is per capita. But even more impressive, Israel ranks second only to the U.S. in absolute terms in such fields as telecom, microchips, software, biotech, medical instruments, and clean-tech. Anti-Zionism today is just another form of the anti-Semitism of the past, resenting excellence and achievement.

4) This "achievement" and "excellence" all seems to come down to measures of capitalist wealth. But doesn't much wealth come at the expense of the poor and the environment? Wasn't Israel launched as a socialist country attempting to escape the economics of selfishness, greed, and imperialism?

The golden rule of capitalism is that the good fortune of others is also your own. Israel's creativity and entrepreneurship has opened opportunities for others around the world, particularly in the United States. For just one of many examples, the world leading American microchip company Intel Corporation has been so deeply dependent on Israeli research and development centers and factories that its products should be stamped Israel Inside.

Until Israel transcended its socialist beginnings, though, it failed to achieve real wealth and power. It was heavily dependent on help from outside. As a socialist country it might well not have survived.

Socialism--whether in Russia, Hungary, or Germany--has always been a disaster for Jews. Socialism focuses on gaps rather than on achievements; on equalizing excellence rather than nurturing it. Historically, equalizing excellence has meant beating down and restricting the achievements of Jews.

5) If Israel is so creative and generous why does it have to exploit and oppress the Arab Palestinians?

The Arab Palestinians are the greatest single beneficiaries of Israel. Between 1967 and 1991, for example, when Israel inherited the territories after Arabs rejected offers of land for peace after the 1967 war, the West Bank and Gaza were world leaders in economic growth. Their GDP and investment rose by close to 30 percent per year for more than two decades. During this period the territories grew far faster than Israel itself, which was still bogged down in socialism.

6) But didn't all these statistical gains come from a brutal process of occupation and settlement, displacing Arabs from their homes and farms?

During this period from 1967 to 1991, the total number of Israeli settlers was 250 thousand, while new Arab settlers numbered close to 2 million, or at least eight times more. So there was no net displacement at all. Quite the opposite. Israeli investments in infrastructure, electrification, irrigation, healthcare, education and industry attracted the migration of millions of Arabs. Not only did the Arab population nearly triple in 20 years but their per capita incomes also tripled. Their lifespans rose on average from 40 years to 70 years. Their educational levels soared. It was nothing short of a golden age for the Palestinian Arabs.

7) But isn't that claim ridiculous? Like saying that the United States provided a golden age for the native American Indians, or that the British empire provided a golden age for the American colonials, or even that bringing slaves to the U.S provided a golden age for African blacks in America?

That's changing the subject to very different historic eras and events. But if you insist... Unlike the African blacks, the two million Arab Palestinians settled freely and in general prosperously on the West Bank and in Gaza, as the Israelis improved conditions there. And unlike the Indian tribes indigenous on the American continent who at first suffered displacement and deadly diseases, the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli rule drastically improved their health and wealth. Unlike the U.S. colonials, moreover, if the Arab Palestinians had desired a state, they could have created one peacefully at any time. From 1948 to 1967, for example, the territories were ruled by Jordan and Egypt, but there was no move toward statehood.

8) Doesn't the huge growth of the Arab population in the territories portend a day when Jews will be a minority in the area, unable to reconcile majoritarian democracy with a Jewish homeland?

If the Arabs wish to live in peace with Israel, they can negotiate many different forms of federation and self rule. I agree with historian Benny Morris that the eventual solution should be a federation of the Palestinians with Jordan. It is only Arab unwillingness to accept an Israeli state that makes it essentially impossible to create an Arab Palestinian state.

9) Isn't all this argument beside the point when Israel is surrounded by millions of enemies devoted to the destruction of the country, including an Iranian power moving rapidly to acquire nuclear weapons? And how can Israel, which already possesses nuclear weapons, complain when Iran seeks them?

By publicly declaring an intention to use nuclear weapons against Israel, Iran made itself a nuclear outlaw. Israel and its allies must do what they can to save the country from such an attack. As for the Arab advantage in numbers, in this age military defense is a function more of technological capabilities than of military manpower. Israel is steadily and decisively increasing its military and economic advantage over its adversaries. Time is on the side of Israel. But in the short run the U.S. government confronts an Israel Test. As Israel faces attack, the U.S.--still overwhelmingly the world's greatest military power--should come to its defense with any aid necessary. The U.S. needs Israel perhaps as much as Israel needs the U.S.

10) How can you say such a thing? Israel is a tiny nation while the U.S. is a global leviathan. Isn't it way overreaching to say that the U.S. needs Israel?

During the 20th century, just a few score Jewish scientists saved the West by leading and manning the Manhattan project that created the atomic bomb. Jewish scientists played a key role in the rise of the computer industry, with all computers based on the essential architecture invented by John von Neumann. In recent years, U.S. technological leadership has been heavily based on Jewish inventions and Israeli designs. Today, while the U.S. suffers from economic turmoil, Israel commands what is perhaps the world's most creative and promising economy. It is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the world's most knowledgeable and experienced warrior against terrorism and most learned economic leader from his early days at the Boston Consulting Group. Israel is vital both to the future of American capitalism and to its defense.