Harry's Place flags up asuperb piece by Thomas Friedman on Israel's astonishing hi-tech accomplishments, an aspect of the country which does not get covered as much as it should be:

Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java.

...That kind of hunger explains why, in the first quarter of 2008, the top four economies after America in attracting venture capital for start-ups were: Europe $1.53 billion, China $719 million, Israel $572 million and India $99 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Israel, with 7 million people, attracted almost as much as China, with 1.3 billion.

I have very little sympathy in the main for Binyamin Netanyahu, who I think talks a big game but has turned out to be a dreadful PM when in office. But he should be praised from the rafters for one aspect of his career: his time as Finance Minister. Israel was, it is often forgotten, set up on socialist principles, and this has meant the economy was shackled by the worst kind of dirigisme and statism. Netanyahu came in and set the ecomomy free, allowing Israelis to take charge of their own economic prosperity.

In foreign and defence policy he may be severely lacking; domestically, he has been an immense force for good.