Her brother, Dan Senor, and her husband, Saul Singer, wrote the bestselling book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. Here are some excerpts of what she said:
Israel has one of the highest density of start ups in the
world: 5000 or 1 for every 2000
people.
When it comes to ranking nations by innovation (a term that
refers to a country’s competitiveness, ability to attract capital and talent),
the rankings are:
#1 – Switzerland
#2 – Finland
#3 – Israel
#4 – United States
The hottest sectors for start ups in Israel are software,
mobile telecommunications, life sciences, and big date, and in particular, cyber
security and digital health. When countries are ranked, per capita, for R & D
expenditures, South Korea is first and Israel is second.
Q: What is
innovation? What is a start up?
Innovation is something that disrupts current technology. A start up is anything from an idea with a team, to a
product with a team, to a product with a team and funding.
Israel attracts more venture capital per capita than any
other country except the United States.
During the rocket attacks of 2014, when many start ups in
the south of the country had to close up for several weeks, Tel Aviv start ups
provided space for their competitors to work.
300 companies set of R & D centers in Israel. Normally,
when a company sets up an R & D center in a foreign country it does so for
one of two reasons. Either it wants to take advantage of the local market or it
views the country as a regional hub.
Israel’s local market is too small and it’s too isolated to be a
regional hub. Instead, they are looking
for Israel’s innovation. They look at a
start up as the basis for operating here.
Wendy identified three key ingredients for Israel’s start up
culture:
1)
Government support
2)
Immigrants = entrepreneurs
3)
IDF training
Regarding government support, that normally means lower
taxes, less regulation in the tech center, etc.
In Israel, however, in the early-to-mid 1980s, start ups were starved
for oxygen (investors), and so the government stepped in to support with Yozma,
which provided material support.
Regarding IDF training, many start up entrepreneurs began in
elite tech units. They also learned a
set of soft skills in the army, like risk taking, leadership training, strategic
thinking, mission orientation, having a vision of something larger than
themselves, and tolerance for failure.
Another important difference we see in the Israel
entrepreneur is their age. Because of
army service, they are often delayed going into business. After they get out of the army, they often
work at other companies and then decide to get a degree. As a result, the average age is 34.
In sum: in Israel you have a vibrant
ecosystem plus tech talent plus a tiny market looking for overseas funding.
Q: What is the effect
of the BDS movement?
It’s like it’s in a parallel universe. The tech world is in its own bubble.
Q: How many women
participate in start ups.
It’s not great.
Roughly the same as in Silicon Valley, namely mid-to-high teens. But it is getting better.
Q: What about Haredi
women?
One of the main problems facing this sector of the economy
is the lack of human capital. To fill
that gap, they are looking at three areas:
the haredi, Arabs, and women.
Facilities created where haredi women can work together. Also allow for haredi men to work together in
the afternoons after 2 pm and when their studies end.
Q: What percentage of
the Israeli economy is start up? Is it
narrowing or widening income inequality?
When the session ended, we had a ten-minute break followed by a "Meet the Press" Roundtable
Majdi Halabi, Israeli Druze correspondent for Mor TV
(Lebanon)
Smadar Perry, Correspondent for Yediot Ahranot, covering the Arab world
Isabel Kershner, Correspondent for the New York Times covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs
Moderator: Lt. Col.
(res.) Avital Leibovich
Here are some excerpts of their talk:
Q: It’s been 10 years
since the Second Lebanon War, which has led to a decade of deterrence. My question:
has there been any change in the Arab media coverage of Israel? Is there more dignity, more respect? Or has it become more extreme?
Majdi: There have
been a lot of changes, particularly in regard to Hezbollah. In 2006/07, they were presented as
heroes. Now, in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia,
and Lebanon, the media want more negative information on Hezbollah.
They do want information on Israel but for “under the
table,” not for publication. They are
now looking for lots of positive stories about Israel, but not to print. They want the point of view of Israeli citizens. Now they want interviews with Israeli
politicians. A Saudi paper contacted him
to conduct a direct interview with an Israeli politician. This is happening more and more. Sure, all the time they are printing articles
about the need to solve the Palestinian problem and why there should be a
two-state solution. At the same time,
they want information on what’s happening inside Israel.
So there’s more coverage, it’s more balanced, but they also
want real stories from the inside. Not
just from the perspective of the Arab countries that view Israel as an
enemy. This is being driven in
particular by the Iranian issue. In
addition, he’s also delivered secret messages from Arab leaders to Israeli
officials, but he wouldn’t speak more about that.
Smadar: Lebanon isn’t
really a country any more. The Saudis
indicated their displeasure by cutting off their funding. There will either be an explosion or the
Sunni part will join the emerging Sunni coalition of Saudi Arabia, Tunis,
Jordan, and Egypt. There is a Sunni
channel of secret discussions. ½ of
Lebanon is waiting to see what will happen.
Q: Turkey. Are the winds of change real? Will we see a warming of relations?
Smadar: It’s not a
love story, but we will have an exchange of ambassadors. People are ready to do business, but there
will be no normalization of relations.
Q: Why are you
critical of relations with Turkey?
Smadar: This is
driven by the personality of the president, Erdogan. He is a Muslim Brother at heart. He’s dictating policy. Trade is working, and there are early signs
of security cooperation.
Q: In terms of
coverage of this agreement, what about the high price Israel has had to pay
(vis-à-vis compensation)?
Smadar: There is no
enthusiasm in Israel for this agreement, but it is seen as a must due to the
situation in the region. There are
several things going on “under the carpet,” mainly the efforts of Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, and Egypt. They have mutual
interests.
Q: Recently there has
been a decline in the number of foreign correspondents in the region, what are
the main areas of interests for the media?
Isabel: I wouldn’t
call it a “decline” but a “decrease.”
There’s no question that the number of correspondents in Israel has gone
down. Israel is not longer the
center: Syria, Iraq, ISIS – there is
huge interest in these stories. Nothing
much happening on the Israel/Palestine front.
This is also partly a result of the Syrian civil war, which
has pushed it off the front pages.
There’s still interest in some subjects:
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (violence vs diplomacy), or the study
of a politician or a nice archaeology piece.
Q: The present wave
of violence, to what extent is this incitement from Hamas TV? What about Hezbollah and Hamas social
media? What are they doing? What is their main message?
Madji: Hamas and
Hezbollah have invested a lot in social media, in Facebook, twitter, etc. Their main message is that Israel must be
destroyed; Palestine is an Islamic country.
There is an enormous emphasis on the al-Aqsa Mosque and on the religious
persecution of Muslims. All of Israel
belongs to Islam. Hamas is part of the
Muslim Brotherhood.
How popular are their messages? You cannot argue religion with anyone. Violence will not decline because it is drive
by religious views. Which are most
popular in social media? It’s hard to
say. Now, one sees a prominent
Sunni/Shi’a split among social media outlets.
Hezbollah is more Shi’a. The
Sunni sites now tend more towards Israel against Iran and Shi’a states.
Al-Jazeera is now
a station for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Arabiyah is
more Saudi oriented.
Smadar: A 17-year old
Palestinian boy killed a 13-year old Israeli girl in Hebron. Following that the Arabic media covered the
story. Abu Mazen did not condemn
it. He praised the murder as a martyr
and the family will receive stipend from the PA.
The government has a new proposal: deport the family of terrorists, either to
Gaza or to Syria (the no man’s land).
The world community will try to stop it and the Supreme Court will
probably strike it down.
Q: What about Egypt?
Smadar: The foreign
media lost interest in Israel after the Arab Spring. Israel was happy when the regime changed from
Morsi to el-Sisi, and worked behind the scenes to support Sisi.
Only recently, Egypt shocked everyone by admitted they had
91 million citizens (they had previously only said there were 60 million
Egyptians). Every seven seconds a baby
is born in Egypt. Currently, the two
prior leaders of Egypt are alive. That’s
the first time that’s ever happened.
Q: What about
relations with Netanyahu?
Smadar: el-Sisi
initiated a weekly phone call to Netanyahu.
Morsi, by contrast, couldn’t even utter the name “Israel.” Mubarak was disconnected from reality, and
this led to his removal from power.
Israel’s relationship will remain under the table until there is a
strong interest from the Egyptian side to change it.
Q: Israel is spending
a lot of time and money on advocacy efforts.
Is it doing what it needs to do?
Isabel: There are
plenty of advocates; the problem is policy.
I get lots of advocacy, but little useful information. No amount of advocacy can make all the
frustrations of the region go away.
There is no shortage of advocacy.
The stories on the food pages about new restaurants,
cheeses, and wines will not replace the news on the foreign pages about the
conflict.
Q: It’s been about a
year since the Iranian Agreement and it’s off the coverage completely. And Iran continues to throw gay people off
the roof.
Isabel: The Iran
Agreement was about the nuclear issue and not internal Iranian issues. The big story was the clash between Israel
and Obama. Once that was done, the story
diminished. There haven’t been any “stop
the presses!” violations. It’s in the
Iranian interest to stick to the agreement for at least five years. Even several Israeli officials say the
agreement has put the nuclear issue on the back burner. There’s been a drop in the perception of the
threat.
Q: Concerning the
coverage of the Palestinian issue in the Arab media, do they care about
it? What is the focus? Is it about raising sympathy?
Majdi: The Arab
countries are more focused on their internal issues (e.g., Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Egypt); they’ve put the Palestinian issue off to the side. They say “it’s important, platah, platah, but then tell me not to
bring any stories from the West Bank. AP
and Reuters can cover that.”
Yesterday, the editor of Mor TV called me about Netanyahu’s
trip to Africa. I asked why he’s interested.
He said “there’s a lot of Hezbollah people in Africa, what can Israel do
about the transfer of funds?”
Smadar: Here’s a
positive story: Rawabi. al-Masri comes to Yediot Ahranot in the very early stages and organizes a big bus to
take us. There’s lots of excitement, but
only seven reporters came. I closely
followed the developments with Bashar al-Masri.
Some Israelis were very helpful in finding him funding. I put him in touch with economics, legal
advisors, professors from Tel Aviv University.
The media was very helpful. I
wrote many articles. “This is a
beautiful project and Bashar plans to widen it, but his leader, Abu Mazen, has
never visited this place.”
and then it was off to one of my least favorite museums in Israel: The Museum of the Diaspora. We were originally supposed to be able to walk through the museum on our own, but somehow a guide showed up. The museum begins with a lie - that Jews were forced into the Diaspora in the year 70 by the Romans
- and ends with a lie - that the only future for Jews is to make aliya and live in Israel.
Instead of being a celebration of the variety of Jewish experiences and communities around the world, it is about shlilat ha-galut, the negation of the exile.
Thankfully, they have a few new exhibits that were far more interesting. Many of us abandoned the tour and found some interesting exhibits on say, alternating views of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Jewish and Muslim days,
an exhibition on the 30th anniversary of Operation Moses (which brought the Ethiopians to Israel), and a retrospective on Bob Dylan (which I only had five minutes to see).
We had to rush to a meeting with someone whose name I didn't get (they started 2 minutes early and I was late as I had gotten some coffee). He read us an excerpt from Rogers Brubaker from his new book Grounds for Difference, but I must admit I wasn't particularly impressed with the discussion. He seemed very excited by a post-modern analysis of Diaspora, ethnicity, and nationality. All I could think was: how wonderful that you are catching up to the 1980s.
The session that followed was far more interesting. We met with Fentahun Assefa-Dawit, the Executive Director of Tebeka (Advocacy for Equality and Justice for Ethiopian Israelis) and Alex Rif, the founder and artistic director of Cultural Brigade, a group of young Russian-speaking Israelis who were born in the Soviet Union, but grew up in Israel. They spoke about the experience of being a new immigrant in Israel and the kinds of discrimination they and their communities face.
Fentahun talked about how his organization, which provides free legal representation to Ethiopian Israelis, fields about a 1000 calls a year. Their specialization is racism and discrimination, and they refer out to other partner organizations to handle the load. One of their primary areas of interest has been in excessive policing. Last year they sat down with the Chief of Police and asked for an admission of responsibility for a policeman's violent attack on an Ethiopian Jewish soldier. They've demanded body cameras, and in August there will be 200 such cameras and by the end of 2017, all police will wear them. They also have been pushing for the recruitment and promotion of Ethiopian officers and for language accessibility in forms.
I asked about the status of the Ethiopian kesim (a kes is an Ethiopian Jewish priest). Fentahun said they are not recognized by the rabbinate, nor can they lead services at the Western Wall. There is an Ethiopian Chief Rabbi, but they are trying to make him retire at 67, even though the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi can serve into his 80s. Not only that but he doesn't even have the status of rabbi, and is officially a clerk in the Chief Rabbinate.
He also recounted a very bitter joke that "the Ethiopians are spare parts for the Yemenites."
Alex talked about being part of Generation 1.5 - Israelis who were born in Russia or other parts of the former Soviet Union but grew up in Israel. They live and think in Hebrew, like those born here, but they also have this prior Russian experience. She talked about the big fight to get the rabbinate to understand that the holiday of Novigod - the Russian New Year - is not a Christian holiday. It was one of the only holidays that Stalin permitted and it was purely atheist.
Then it was back on the bus. We had a break before our final session of the day, so I went to Dizengoff and bought a new notebook, and found a fantastic book (in Hebrew) on the history of the German Colony and Emek Refaim in Jerusalem. This is the neighborhood where I lived from 1998 to 1999. It's by David Kroyaker, who I met in 1999, when my father and I stumbled onto a tour organized by the US embassy and managed to join it. He led us through the Temple Mount, including the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa Mosque, and Solomon's Stables.
On my way back to the hotel, I passed my father's elementary school on Frischman St.: Tel Nordau.
Around the corner was my grandfather's old apartment on Ben Yehuda:
Our final session of the day was a doozy: an exchange between Professor Benny Morris, the most prominent of the so-called "New Historians," and Professor Yoav Gelber, one of their more prominent opponents.
David Ellenson introduces Benny Morris
From left to right: Dr. Benny Morris, Dr. Yoav Gelber, Dr. David Ellenson.
Again, what follows are excerpts:
Benny Morris: All national
movements, all revolutions, and all new states write their official histories
of their movements and how they succeeded.
The official histories of Israel were written in the 1950s, ‘60s, and
‘70s by the participants, and they swept the embarrassing things under the
surface. Everything was rosy, everyone
was wise.
In the 1980s, a new generation of historians emerged: “The New Historians.” Three books are published in 1987 and
’88. These books revised the traditional
historiography, providing more balance, more room for the Arabs. I called them the “New Historians” because it
made our opponents, the Old Historians, and gave us a leg up.
Ilan Pappé wrote a bad history, Avi Shlaim wrote a good one,
Tom Segev was very important. In
addition, there was Simha Flapan, and Ori Milstein. They were fresh to the field with open minds. The Lebanon War happened in 1982 and before
that, the 1973 war was the first unsuccessful one, and shattered the illusion
of the competence of the generals.
They were also influenced by western trains of thought. In addition, the opening of the archives in
the late 1970s/early 1980s in the US, Britain, and Israel, under the 30 Year
Rule, provided large numbers of new documents and cast a new, revisionist light
on the events.
Avi Shlaim’s book, Collusion
Across the Jordan, explored the Zionist-Jordanian connection, and he argued
that they essentially colluded in the 1948 War and reached an agreement to
partition Palestine between the Jews and the Jordanians. It was a tentative agreement, but when the
war ended, the final borders essentially were what was agreed to beforehand by
Abdullah and the Jewish Agency.
Ilan Pappé did his Ph.D. on Britain and the Middle East and
claimed that Britain engineered what
happened.
I wrote on The Birth
of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and it was the first documented book on
the subject. I showed that Israel didn’t
have a pre-planned expulsion, nor was it the result of Arabs fleeing because of
Arab leaders. They fled because of the
war.
Tom Segev isn’t an academic, but is a trained historian and
a journalist. His book, The Seventh Million was very important,
and looked at the Zionist movement’s reaction to the Holocaust and how Israel’s
leaders used it, like Begin in 1982 talking about Arafat in his bunker in
Beirut. It angered a lot of Israeli historians because he was a journalist, not a historian, and he wrote a book that everyone bought.
Some people claim that the New Historians were motivated by
left-wing politics. I don’t think this
is true; maybe for Ilan Pappé. Politics
didn’t drive the group.
Did the New Historians have a political impact? Their books
emerged in 1987 and 1988, during the first Intifada. Was there a connection? I don’t think so. Rabin was not influenced by the new
historiography to make peace with Arafat.
I can only think of one example of an effect: Yossi Beilin once told me that he recommended
my book to his aides in order for them to understand the Palestinians’
thinking.
My book was annoying to Israelis because my book made moral
underpinnings. Now this work is widely
accepted and seen as truthful and honest.
Yoav Gerber: I
arrived from a different place.
I began by studying things on the periphery of the
Holocaust: the Yishuv, the Transfer
Agreement, and the volunteers to the British army.
From there I transitioned into the history of the IDF and
the absorption of central European Jews.
I looked at the history of Israeli intelligence, which lead
me into the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel-Jordan relations, and Israel-Druze
relations. That, in turn, led me to
historiography, where I published a book called Kummiyut v’nakhbah (Establishment and Catastrophe).
I see the following reasons for the appearance of the New
Historians:
1)
Their appearance coincided with the emergence of
post-modernism.
Pappé and Segev take their ideas
from post-modernism. This also includes
the appearance of critical sociology and critical anthropology. This feeds into post-zionism and post-colonialism.
2)
Changes in the Israeli ethos.
Traditionally, Israel was
collectivist, putting the pioneer at the center. In the late 1980s, individualism was
emphasized. The New Historians abandoned
communal solidarity and the willingness of the individual to sacrifice for the
whole, and this is reflected in their field of historiography.
3)
There was a gradual blurring of the lines
between historiography and the social sciences.
Baruch Kimmerling has no problem writing history, but I’m not sure he
knows what history is. They don’t
understand how to use sources, what the best sources are, etc.
My books came out in the 1970s, and I used archival
material. The archives of 1948, yes,
those were new, but the other archives opened earlier.
The New Historians were not really a group: more of a
cluster of individuals from different places, focused on different issues. Not enough there to define them as a group.
Pappé, Shlaim, Segev, and Hillel Cohen do have something in
common: anti-Zionism.
Historically, Zionism was accompanied by anti-Zionism of
three kinds:
1)
Haredi
– which saw Zionism as trying to force the end of days
2)
Communist-socialist, in which the whole world
was to be redeemed, and the Jews would be simply saved along the way
3)
Western liberalism – in which the Israeli
academics of can be traced back to this.
Morris: I agree that the New Historians
are not a group, but individuals, but they did have some things in common. They
were all outsiders. They all trained in
England. Most wrote their dissertations
in Oxbridge; Tom Segev in Boston. They
did their research on non-Israeli things, and came to the subject with fresh
eyes. They looked as it as European historians,
which gave them a fair amount of objectivity.
Gerber: I'm opposed the hypocrisy of the left
and the stupidity of the right. The
hypocrisy of the left was the belief that we are to blame for the fact that
there is no Palestine. The stupidity of
the right is the belief that we can get rid of the Palestinians.
Q: To what extent did
the 2000 Camp David summit and its aftermath change your view of Israeli
history?
Morris: this is a common misunderstanding. They think because I published a second
version of The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem in 2004, then I must have revised my views. I didn’t.
I simply expanded my research.
Where I did change my views wasn’t in my history, but in my political
writings. Before I wrote about massacres of Palestinians, and in the revised book I added more material on massacres that I found.
Before 2000, I was cautiously
optimistic that the Palestinians were ready and willing to make peace. Now, I’m convinced that the Palestinians have
no willingness to make peace. My
historiography hasn’t changed.
Q: You’ve been quoted
as saying that if Ben Gurion had gotten rid of the Arabs in 1948, this would
have been better for Israel.
Morris: Had the ’48 war ended more clearly, either way, then the
Middle East would be more peaceful. Had
the Jews either been pushed into the sea, or the Arabs into the desert, then
there would be peace. I’m not
recommending that Ben Gurion should have done it. No point in 2016 of going into it. We had an intermixing of populations in 1948,
which was exacerbated through the conquest of 1967, and even more so by the
creation of settlements since then. This
has made it much more difficult to resolve.
Q: It is important to
remember and create reconciliation around the events of 1948?
Gerber: There have
been major events since 1948. The roots
of the major problems – refugees, borders, Jerusalem – began in ’48, but the
main issues aren’t there. The big issue
is that the Muslim world doesn’t recognize Jews as a nation, but insist we are
a religion only. The conflict began well
before 1948, from at least 1920.
There is a clash of mentalities, such that both sides are
hardly intelligible to each other.
In Arab culture, conflict ends through mediation.
In European culture, conflict ends either with conferences
or surrender.
Morris: The refugee
problem is the critical test. For the
Palestinians and the Arab world, the return of the refugees is a demand of
justice.
For Israelis, if 5 to 7 million Palestinians return to
Israel, Israel would cease to exist.
That’s what it was about in 1949, and that’s been consistent Israeli
policy to this day.
It is the central event; 1967 is an addendum. It was a moment of a struggle for
survival. The Jews recognized their
survival was at stake and that’s why they won.
The Palestinians didn’t understand that until after they lost.
We should also state that there has been no proper Arab
study of the 1948 War. No proper,
critical history in the Arab world. Arab
states have never opened their archives.
There is no basic history, there is no revisionist history, there is no
self-critical or objective study of their own role.
Q: What about Walid
Khalidi? Rashid Khalidi? They’ve written about this. In the absence of a state, institutions,
support, how can you expect them to be able to do this? Also, can you provide a source for the quote about driving the Jews into the sea?
Morris: Pappé’s first
book was based on his dissertation and was a run-of-the-mill Ph.D. After that, everything he’s written has been
politically motivated and slanted, full of distortions, misquotations, and
mistranslations. He’s “really trash,”
but “I like the guy.” Efraim Karsh, on
the other side of the spectrum is just as bad.
The line about “throwing the Jews into the sea” was a part
of Zionist discourse. I found that Arab
leaders in 1948 rarely used the phrase.
It was used, though, in broadcast propaganda. The Secretary General of the Arab League,
Azzam, did use it in his conversation with Alec Kirkbride, and it was in Arab
minds. Three years after the Holocaust,
Jews can be forgiven for thinking this was their intent.
Even if it wasn’t their intent, had they overrun Tel-Aviv,
they would have killed a lot of Jews.
One sees it today.
As for the Khalidis, Walid wanted to write a history of ’48,
but never did. Rashid Khalidi is at
Columbia, and he has written some passable works. He is slightly critical of Haj Amin
el-Husseini for rejecting the 1937 Peel Commission. But he is mostly uncritical of their side.
Look, they are not a state.
It’s much easier for us who have won to write critically about our own
side. In addition, while Khalidi is in
New York, he has family and cousins in Jerusalem. Depending on what he writes, he has to be
afraid that someone may take it out on his family here.
Q: Why would Arab
leaders need to be careful about using the phrase about throwing the Jews into
the sea?
They received money and arms from the Britain. They knew it wouldn’t look good to the
British, the French, and the Americans to be saying such things three years
after the Holocaust. It wasn’t politic.
Q: What do you think
about Avi Shavit’s claims that without the Lydda massacre, he couldn’t live in
Tel-Aviv?
Morris: Shavit is
very clever, he writes well. He gets the
facts of the Lydda chapter basically right.
He just put it in the wrong context.
Lydda doesn’t represent the war.
In 80-90% of the villages there were no massacres. This isn’t “the black box of Zionism.” Before 1948, they bought the land. In 1948, they fought back.
There was no policy of expulsion. Some generals threw the Arabs out, others
didn’t. In April 1948, Ben Gurion said
that he would prefer that there would be fewer Arabs in the Jewish state, but
this was never adopted as policy.
Gerber: the
expulsions from Lydda and Ramle were about those two cities. They were seen as an Arab fist ready to
strike Tel-Aviv. That’s why they were
expelled. But their expulsion were about
them; it wasn’t typical or representative of the ’48 war.
Summing up:
Gerber: the most
important thing is post-1967:
1)
the return of the Palestinians to the centrality
of the conflict
2)
the emergence of radical Jewish extremism
Morris: 1948 remains
the primary issue.
That was it for the day. I had dinner, typed up my notes, and went to sleep.
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