Last week, we received further proof that the whole world is against us. This time, it was the CNBC network, which aired an interview with Dan Senor, co-author with Saul Singer of the latest book about Israel, entitled "Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle".
Israel's media responded as they should. The report made no impact whatsoever here. The journalists of Israel, our freedom-fighter scoop troops, who delight in reporting layoffs and bankruptcies at high-tech companies and failures by investors, showed due civic responsibility, and denied a platform to the book's propaganda. Let no-one spoil our atmosphere of gloom, the knowledge that everything's bad here, that our high-tech companies are reduced to a crawl, that our local investors are worthless, and that foreign investors for a long time now haven't understood what they are doing here.
Out of a natural self-flagellating urge, I decided to reveal some of the things that were said in the CNBC report, broadcast live across the US. Parents of young children, you have been warned it's nasty stuff.
The wily interviewer opens by presenting Senor, formerly a foreign policy adviser in the Bush administration, and asking him to sum up what his book is about.
"Israel is the fastest growing, one of the most dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovation-based economies on the planet, that barely got hit by the global economic crisis of 2008." Senor replies, "More Israeli companies on Nasdaq than all of Europe combined, than all of India, China, Korea, Japan combined. More global venture capital each year going into Israel on a per capita basis than the US two-and-a-half times more than the US, three times more than Europe. Surrounded by enemies, in a state of war since its founding, no oil, no access to regional capital or regional markets, and what can we in the West learn from it at a time when we are trying to reboot our own innovation economy and get real productivity gains, not credit bubble gains."
Now the interviewer leans back and cunningly asks the reasons for Israel's entrepreneurial prowess.
"We go through eight factors in the book," says Senor, "Let me just focus quickly on two or three of them.
"The Israelis have very innovative policies in how they bend over backwards to bring people to the country from around the world… they spend more as a percentage of their economy on R&D than any country in the world, and they have some very innovative ways for how they actually make that R&D spending matter…
"And the military... these young 18-year olds go into the military when they finish high school… they get the most incredible leadership and entrepreneurial experience on the battlefield, and the entire economy knows how to read a military resumé - investors, CEOs of companies, when these guys come out of the military they know how to integrate them with their battlefield experience into the economy, and the US does not know how to do that."
Thus Senor unblinkingly continues to pelt Israel with compliments.
Towards the end, Senor is asked how the West can learn from tiny Israel. "If we can cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation among our young people the way the Israelis do," is the response. "We interviewed the CEOs of Google, we interviewed the CEOs of eBay, senior executives from Cisco - Cisco has bought nine companies in Israel and they are looking to buy more - we interviewed the senior leadership of Intel, and they all say: you take the average Israeli 25-year old, when they've finished their military experience and they've finished their university experience, you take that 25-year old and put him or her up against their peers anywhere else in the world, every single day of the week they would hire the Israeli, because their capacity to manage and lead at a young age and deal with real problems and have real perspectives is unlike anything in the world."
After these harsh words, the interview ends with best wishes for the success of the book. How hurtful, more underhand propaganda in an unforgiving world. But we ignored it, and we'll continue to ignore it. No-one is going to confuse us with compliments and praise.
However, anyone who like me nevertheless enjoys suffering can look for themselves at the full CNBC interview.
Izhar Shay is a general partner at Canaan Partners and manages the venture capital firm's Israeli activity.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 11, 2009
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2009