LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS - II





This year Israel celebrated the 70th anniversary of its statehood. Many, and not only Jews, have described the incredible progress and development of Israel during that period as a miracle. Looking at it objectively, it is difficult to see it in any other way.
When David Ben-Gurion spoke of Israel as being The Light of the Nations the poor and arid country was barely able to sustain itself, let alone give humanitarian aid to others.

Israel started off in the most humble and adverse conditions. With the end of the British mandate and the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948,  a “war of extinction” was undertaken by all of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Israel’s small population then of just over 800,000 people managed not only to defend itself, but also to even conquer territory beyond the truncated partition lines allocated to it by the United Nations at the time.

In addition, this mostly desert state absorbed in its early years hundreds of thousands of immigrants streaming to its shores from among the Holocaust survivors of Europe, the Jews driven out of Arab lands in the Middle East and North Africa, and others, all of whom sought a new life in this tiny sliver of land called the reborn State of Israel. Jews the world over, as well as many Bible-believing non-Jews, saw this return of God’s chosen people to the land of its ancestors as a historic, earth-shattering phenomenon.
Experts now come from all over the world – including the developed world – to learn from Israel how to turn desert land into productive areas for growing food for a hungry populace, using recycled, purified waste water. Computer-controlled drip irrigation is another Israeli invention for making maximum economic use of scarce water resources; it is now used broadly in many places in the world. Having realized that it would be unable to supply the water needs of a growing nation by depending on natural water sources, Israel developed giant water desalination plants along its Mediterranean coast, a solution suitable for many water-starved countries who come to Israel to see and learn.  An Israeli company has even developed a prototype for directly converting moisture in the air into pure drinking water.
Israel has also become a world leader in utilizing its sunny climate for the development of clean, solar-generated electric power, which it shares with  other countries.
The biggest names in multinational high-tech companies – Intel, Google, Samsung, General Electric, Apple, Amazon, Cisco and more — all have centers in Israel for production and/or research and development. Apart from partnering multinational high-tech companies from abroad in Israel, there are new high-tech developments that originated in Israel and are now being incorporated into devices world-wide. These include the Waze highway navigation system and the Mobileye computerized driving safety system being installed today by major car manufacturers.
 If only Isaiah were around today, he would be amazed at what “a light unto the nations” the nation of Israel has become.




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