When Israel was reestablished almost 63 years ago, it adopted the ancient Jewish precept of Tikkun Olam as part of its national philosophy. This term, literally meaning "repairing the world" is an ancient Jewish value of reaching out to those in need and a social instruction to better our surroundings and society.
During its formative years, Israel faced enormous development challenges, including difficult climactic challenges, including water scarcity and the absorption of massive waves of immigrants. Israel in 2010 joined the OECD as a sign of successfully meeting those challenges and moving from a developing to a developed nation.
Israel's seminal ethos was "making the desert bloom" and its first leaders understood that their experience could be replicated in other regions dealing with the challenges of desertification, agriculture in arid conditions and water management.
The Jewish State was one of the first in the world to establish a development agency, MASHAV, Israel's Center for International Development Cooperation. MASHAV was created at the initiative of Golda Meir, Israel's first woman prime minister, after returning from her historic visit in 1958 to the newly created countries in Africa.
Meir felt that Israel had a moral obligation to share its experience in nation-building with others. She felt that Israel could be a role model because, in her words, only a few years after the founding of our state, it "had shaken off foreign rule, and had been forced to find solutions to the kinds of problems that large, wealthy, powerful states had never encountered."
For the next decade Israel was invited to support development programs in African nation-building, in the fields of agriculture, health and community development. This ended in 1967 when African nations were forced to sever relations with Israel by the Arab and Muslim bloc which held an automatic majority in the developing world.
Over the subsequent decades MASHAV did not stand idle and built a reputation in other regions like Latin America, Asia and in Arab nations that signed peace agreements with Israel, like Egypt and Jordan. MASHAV has also assisted our Palestinian neighbors with a focus on human capacity building and institution building.
However, according to the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the year 2000, Africa remains a continent in need of partnership.
The MDGs represent our common humanity, a global partnership for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, to ensure universal primary education, access to health services, gender equality and provide more to millions across the world.
Since its inception, MASHAV's work in the developing world has been guided by the basic approach that development work is organic in nature. Israel is committed to do its utmost to achieve the MDG's for the benefit of the billions who desperately need our sustained collective effort.
To this end, the State of Israel has signed agreements regarding cooperation in aiding developing nations, with emphasis on matters of water, agriculture and health, with many nations.
Israel is partnering with the United States in Ethiopia, with Germany in Ethiopia and Ghana, with Italy in Senegal, Japan and Denmark in the Middle East and we are hoping to sign an agreement with Canada in the near future to assist development in Asia.
Only last week, Israel and Germany signed a Declaration of Intent to plan a joint program in the vital Lake Victoria region of Kenya to improve the ecosystem there for the benefit of the entire area, including Uganda and Tanzania.
Israel, having joined the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) late last year, has a moral commitment to assist the developing world. The Jewish State is hoping to sign many more bilateral development agreements with partner nations in the developed world.
These agreements represent the Jewish State's willingness to extend a hand and cooperate around the world for the benefit of developing countries. This sends a clear and moral message to the people of the world that Israel remains faithful to both its Jewish and universal value system.
Rabbi David Wolpe: In Israel Debate, These Jews Should Be Ignored
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/opinion/09friedman.html?ref=opinion
From Tom Friedman's column today.
The Irish peace activist--who won her Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work bringing peace to Northern Ireland--arrived at the Tel Aviv airport this morning from Frankfurt. Airport authorities allowed Maguire's travel companion and colleague, Ann Patterson, into the country. Both women were coming to Israel as part of a women's peace delegation organized by the Nobel Women's Initiative, a global organization co-founded by Maguire and five sister Nobel Peace Laureates.
Last June, Maguire was detained after Israeli naval commandos intercepted and illegally boarded the Irish cargo ship MV Rachel Corrie, in international waters. The ship's passengers included Maguire, former UN assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday and other Irish and Malaysian activists.
The MV Rachel Corrie--named for a young American peace activist who was bulldozed to death by the Israeli military--was the last remaining vessel of the Gaza Freedom flotilla, a 40-nation effort to break through Israel's illegal blockade. Nine people were killed the previous week when Israeli forces boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of the vessels taking part in the flotilla."
http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/about-us/laureates/mairead-maguire/article/nobel-peace-laureate-refused-entry-into-israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-mUChpnVyg
You will see how much they clam up when asked how they are financing their "project". In fact, though Theroux did not pursue it, Alteret Conahim, the organisation creepy Aussie Daniel belongs to is financed by tax free dollars from America, with Irving Moskowitz among the principal donors. The West Bank is an American colony.
That's why a UN conference on desertification was singling Israel out and trying to figure out how they could duplicate Israel's success in other parts of the world.
I'll be waiting.
Again, thank you Danni! You should write more often.
In her first visit to Israel, Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez visited both the Jewish and Palestinian side of the city of Hebron on Tuesday. She decided to skip the usual trip offered to dignitaries which goes to Jerusalem and Ramallah, and instead she asked to tour Hebron, despite the opposition of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, in order to get her own sense of the situation.
Jimenez was accompanied by the governor of Hebron and visited the area surrounding the Tomb of the Patriarchs as well as the neighborhood dubbed the "Eastern Casbah" – a residential area recently abandoned by Palestinians where the European Union is funding a project to restore the area and return its original residents. Jimenez entered several homes and spoke to the families living there. "
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/settlers-in-hebron-receive-spanish-fm-with-calls-of-nazi-anti-semite-1.342018
No, they are participating in, the destruction, occupation and oppression of Palestine. Talk of Israeli "Global Development" is a mockery, until Israel stops occupying Palestine, the settlements are "regional destruction."
Very nice article, Israel does some great work. Perhaps the demonstrators in Egypt, who are angry at the lack of economic opportunities in the Arab world, will begin to recognize that economic joint ventures with Israel would help bring the economic development they crave. Instead of hating Israel, the Arab world should embrace and learn from it. As the only advanced economy in the region, the Arabs, starting with the Egyptians could help themselves a great deal.
The problem is that the pro-Israeli, pro-Occupation, crowd doesn't accept Palestine's right to exist.
For a great article that illustrates what Israel does, how intelligent and advanced Israel is despite all the opposition that exists against it, including from her own. Israel is a beautiful democracy, and the envy of those who surround her.
Am Israel Hai!
And the best part? you'll have no one to vilify any longer!
I assume you would want the arab nations to acknowledge the rights of those they expelled as a pre condition to "entry into the family of Nations".
But, the Palestinians are not guilty for the crime of Arab nations, and the crimes of Arab Nations does not absolve Israel's crimes against Palestinians.
"I was five years old in 1950 when my family reluctantly moved from Baghdad to Ramat Gan. We were Arab Jews, we spoke Arabic... We were not persecuted but opted to leave..."
-Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations, Oxford University.
"I came at the behest of Zionism......Nobody is going to define me as a refugee"
-Iraqi-born Ran Cohen, former member of the Knesset.
"We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations".
-Yemeni-born Yisrael Yeshayahu, former Knesset speaker.
"I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."
- Iraqi-born Shlomo Hillel, also a former speaker of the Knesset.
"Shlomo Hillel, Mossad’s man in Baghdad, makes no secret of the fact that in setting up Zionist cells, he had only one objective: to promote mass emigration. "
-Adam Shatz, senior editor, London Review of Books.
"Moroccan Jews.... expressed gratitude to King Mohammed V ...for protecting them from the Nazis during World War II."
-Haaretz 28.01.05
"all properties owned by Syrian Jews have been left untouched for when they choose to visit or return."
- Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the United States
While at home it destroys the olive trees and water cisterns of the Palestinian neighbors and bombs the sewage and water treatment plants in Gaza.
"Palestine will be re-established almost 63 years later"
It’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face. This sounds like something dreamed up in the Yvet-Danny Ayalon muscular hasbara factory. Bibi no doubt approved it thinking he’d let Lieberman have his bit of fun without realizing that this creates yet another embarrassment concerning Israel’s lame foreign policy apparatus which does a marvelous job of driving away allies. At least one can be happy Lieberman didn’t make Hague sit in the dunce’s chair as his deputy, Ayalon, did the Turkish ambassador."
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/tag/danny-ayalon/
–Pirkei Avot, 2:21
I’ve been writing Tikun Olam, one of the earliest liberal Jewish blogs, since February, 2003. It focuses on Israeli-Palestinian peace but includes commentary on U.S. politics, a world music mp3 blog, and other writing on Jewish life, literature, and culture. Technorati ranks this blog 38th of all world politics blogs and a member of the Top 100 in that category.
I also created the Israel Palestine Forum, a discussion forum for progressives about the I-P conflict. Israel Palestine Blogs aggregates 50 peace blogs writing about the conflict. I wrote a chapter for the Independent Jewish Voices essay collection, A Time to Speak Out. I contributed to Haaretz, Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free, Al Jazeera English, and Alternet. My work has also been in the Seattle Times, American Conservative Magazine, Beliefnet and Tikkun Magazine, where I am on the advisory board. I’ve been quoted in the New York Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jewish Week, Slate and by Swiss and Turkish media."
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/about-me/