Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Israel's eye in the sky
It is beyond impressive that a country of fewer than six million people -- no bigger than the Chicago metropolitan area -- can do this.
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jun 12, 08:11:00 PM:
We give Israel like billions of dollars a year in defense technology, subsidies, and cash. If you gave me billions a year I could probably get a spy satellite built.
By 
allen, at
Tue Jun 12, 09:59:00 PM:
I doubt it.
For every 1 million Northern Europeans 4,000 will have I
Qs of 140+. For every 1 million Ashkenazi 23,000 will have IQs of 140+. The disparity continues at more or less the same ratio for higher IQs as well. Ashkenazi also have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group.
By , at
Tue Jun 12, 11:33:00 PM:
allen: Defense dollars and IQ have nothing to do with each other. If you give me a billion dollars, I can hire smart people to build my satellite too. Besides that fact, those studies you reference are of questionable validity, and also Israel is not composed entirely of Ashkenazi Jews.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence
for a discussion. Israelis are on average no smarter than the rest of us; they happen to be well-funded by the US though, which lets their military have cool toys like spy satellites which ordinarily would be unaffordable by a nation that size.
By Gary Rosen, at
Wed Jun 13, 01:19:00 AM:
Anonymous and Phrizz1: The amount of money Israel gets from the US is pocket change compared to what the Arabs have taken from the West in oil money. What do they have to show for it? Where are the great universities, the scientific and medical advances, the Nobel Prizes? All I see is a lot of brutal despots financing their concubines and limousines, with a few bucks left over for the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah.
By , at
Wed Jun 13, 03:13:00 AM:
Mr. Rosen, that isn't an argument, it's a distraction. I am not lauding the Arab culture. I am saying that Israel's spy satellite is not an amazing accomplishment when you consider the resources we provide them with.
allen's racism notwithstanding, the Israelis are not superhumans. In terms of money, the state of Israel would most likely go bankrupt without American support.
Which leads me to ask, what are we getting for our money?
By , at
Wed Jun 13, 03:39:00 AM:
Whether you regard support for Israel as worthwhile depends on whether or not you believe that Arab rage is caused by Israel or whether Israel is a convenient target for aggression that would otherwise be (further) directed against another target (e.g. the United States). Indeed it is true that Palestine is a humiliation for Arabs, but the Palestinians have had a long time to get their act together and have shattered the peace again and again with suicide bombings.
Regardless of what you think of Israel and its policies, I'm convinced that whatever money we pay to prop up Israel is well worth it, because it keeps the suicide bombers occupied somewhere that isn't in America. Until the Islamic extremists get over themselves and stop trying to take over the world, I'm convinced it's in our best interest to support Israel if only as a distraction to our declared enemies.
By allen, at
Wed Jun 13, 06:16:00 AM:
Phrizz11,
re: “those studies you reference are of questionable validity
I made reference to no studies.
Anonymous,
Sorry, I have so little time to address your points; I have to hurry out to burn a cross this morning.
By , at
Wed Jun 13, 06:34:00 AM:
US aid doesn't magically turn into really cool military equipment. If it did, we'd be reading stories like this about Egypt on a regular basis too.
It's not quite so simple as to say that anyone can do this if they have enough money. You still need ingenuity and an environment where these kinds of developments are necessary.
A small thought experiment: let's go back to the 1800s and give millions of dollars to everyone living in a 5 mile radius of Thomas Edison for the purposes of research. How many of them invent the light bulb?
By ICEX_71, at
Wed Jun 13, 08:02:00 AM:
Great job Israel !
Israel successfully launched a new spy satillite the Ofek-7. Putatively able to count the eyelashes on a mosquito.
It's orbit takes it over Iran every 90 minutes. The one thing not mentioned is that the supercomputers on the ground can immediately tell if a mosquito has lost even one eyelash...in other words if truck A is moved from spot A to spot B the computer can tell immediately and track millions of items in doing so...Mr Wizard would be proud.
As Gomer would say, surprise,surprise,surprise...we got you covered.
By Cardinalpark, at
Wed Jun 13, 08:47:00 AM:
Somebody asked the question what we get for supplying aid to Israel.
I think the list is pretty long, and keep in mind that we only began giving aid to Israel after 1967 -- until then it received far more assistance from France and England. That's why they teamed up in 1956 in Suez, and why the Israelis used Mirages to defeat Egypt in 1967.
1) Since the US has allied with Israel:
1) Egypt has come to heel, leaving the Soviet sphere in favor of the west
2) Saudi Arabia has joined the western sphere
3) Turkey has joined the west
4) The US benefits from Israeli investment in American defense equipment modification, which technology is shared back to the US
5) The US benefits from technology like the above reference satellite, which technology over time gets shared or sold back to the US.
The Israeli economy and people of course benefit tremendously from the support and friendship of the US. But it is a 2 way street. We derive great benefit from their alliance with us as well. One of the reasons they get so much benefit is that they are a democracy -- their aid goes to productive uses which benefit the entire economy and all of its people. This in turn fuels self-reliance as their economy grows. When you go to Israel -- say Tel Aviv, you see a city that looks like New York.
Unfortunately, many other nations which derive tremendous US aid, or oil revenue, do not invest that capital in their economy, or share that wealth with their people. They are corrupt and despotic, and frankly steal the money. Or pay it off to their and our enemies as in effect ransom or blood money. Now that is aid poorly spent.
By Georg Felis, at
Wed Jun 13, 09:44:00 AM:
Israel defense industry can be on a pound for pound basis much more effective than ours for a multitude of reasons, one of which was best phrased by Samuel Johnson, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” With their wonderful peaceful neighbors (whoops, sarcasm tag was turned on) inside artillery or rocket range at all times, they do not have the luxury of taking years to change processes or procedures. They have been first in a number of fields, or really heavy “pushers” including UAV’s, bomb disposal, ABM technology, and you can bet their intelligence agencies are not limited to looking at photos to tell what Iran is doing.
By allen, at
Wed Jun 13, 10:12:00 AM:
Georg,
Although little noticed under the current circumstances, Israel is recognized as the foremost exporter of irrigation research and technology. No body does it better. Many deserts bloom.
By , at
Wed Jun 13, 11:05:00 AM:
Another benefit we get from Israel is of course their vastly superior (to ours, anyway) human intelligence on the Middle East.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jun 13, 12:51:00 PM:
Without Israel, it would have been very difficult to have prevented the Arab Middle East from falling under Soviet influence. The same can be said today of Iranian influence. Like the Cold War, the wars against Islamic extremism are being fought largely through proxies, notwithstanding our considerable presence in Iraq and Afghanistan (for now). We need some proxies of our own, and Israel is an important one.
By , at
Thu Jun 14, 12:53:00 AM:
Big Brother is watching you 24/7
By davod, at
Thu Jun 14, 12:01:00 PM:
Tigerhawk:
This all the more amazing because a good portion of the Israeli political parties have socialist philosophies.
