Monday's Q&A on innovation featured around a dozen references to Israel. Israeli propaganda water torture? Bloody oath!
For example:
Sandy Plunkett: Israel has been really, really focused on it since the 70s and really, really picked up in the 80s. They have strong military bases to encourage that pure R&D that then got commercialised. Israel is a place absolutely that is surrounded by hostile territory so it's invested and has pure science and other commercialised opportunities coming out of the military.
Bachir El Khoury: What lessons have you learned, Wyatt [Roy], from Israel that you can implement here?
Wyatt Roy: I'm really glad that you mentioned Israel because I think that it is a much more like comparison for our country... Israel is a small population. We're a small population. Israel is effectively an island in a commercial sense. They can't trade with their partners or their neighbours, and we're obviously an island culturally. I think there is a far greater alignment when we are at our best. So in Israel the biggest thing that they have is they have this deeply entrepreneurial culture that permeates into every aspect of their life. In Hebrew you call it chutzpah, right? This go-out-there-and-give it-a-go mentality. When we are at our best, I think we have that kind of deeply anti-authoritarian mind stance that Israelis have... "
Guys, guys, seriously now, get a grip, willya! If Australia had had US$133.132 billion thrown at it since 1949 by a sugar daddy like the US...
Think about it, or am I being too agile and disruptive for you?
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2 comments:
"effectively an island in a commercial sense". If you steal other people's land, drop bombs on or make threats against your neighbours, and participate attempts to bring down their governments that is what you might expect. It's interesting that Israel never thinks that it's isolation might be anything to do with its actions. Compare the definition of a sociopath:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
I would hope that Australia is not like that but under the previous PM it was heading in that direction.
There has been so much assertion, so much wishful thinking and ever so much hype about these fabled Israeli inventions and innovations, but where are they? How many do YOU have in your home?
Give me a list of the top ten products, for example, the ones we can't live without. Come on Wyatt.
Just to kick the list off I have one! It is true that Israelis do a certain kind of invention very well. So well that there is a book about it, and I highly recommend it: THE INVENTION OF ANCIENT ISRAEL, The Silencing of Palestinian History, Keith W Whitelam, Professor of Religious Studies and Head of Department at the University of Stirling. Great stuff.
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