The Ultimate Boycott of Brains?

On: October 1, 2010
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About Elias van Hees
Elias van Hees is currently a MA student of New Media, he studied at the University of Rotterdam and received his Bachelor Degree in Information Technology and Communication (2009). Elias is a self-employed web strategist, more information is available on www.eliasvanhees.nl. Interests: social media, research, politics, music, webdevelopment, seo, branding, concepting, user experience and usability.

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About the other, less seen, side of Israel: Technology and digital innovation

“People of good conscience have chosen to boycott israeli products and companies supporting the zionist entity.” is stated on the Anti-Israël website inminds.com. Such political statements are not new, in fact Israel has been fighting these attemps (and other attacks too) for decades. Nevertheless, Israel is one of the most technologically innovative countries in the world and they have introduced lots of digital inventions. Former richest man on the planet Bill Gates endorses Israel as a “science and hi-tech powerhouse”

Israel is responsible for a lot of solutions we are using right now in our modern society. Daniel Zajfman, one of Israel’s premier science researchers thinks that the explanation is embedded in the Jewish culture: “Jewish people are allowed to ask questions, to discuss it.” So the explanation maybe is that Israel is an entrepreneurial country from, the start. A country build up from scratch, 60 years ago,  mostly out of a desert area. The Israeli’s must have had a great vision: short after World War II the whole ‘Israel project’ resulted in experience how to deal with risks and issues. Because of the constant threats Israel was challenged to protect their country which increased the techniques used by the army and security agencies. Like the internet was developed in USA’s Defence Research and Development, lot’s of Israeli inventions are being invented during defense research. According to Bill Gates, Israel will remain the source of many important developments in the future and he wants to be a witness:

“It’s very important that I see the new developments taking place here.”

Did you know that?

  1. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
  2. The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
  3. With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley). (Source: Free Republic)

So i guess it’s simply not possible to boycott Israel. Because of their contribution to modern technology and current status (as an innovation company) a lot of new technology will still have its origin in Israel. Several countries worldwide profit from that and depend on Israels technology as well at the same time. This may be the reason why a global boycott did not take place and will never take place, despite many attempts by governments and organizations.

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