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December 2019

Israel Is a Tech Superpower, and America Needs It on Its Side John Hannah And Annie Fixler

https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/12/israel-is-a-tech-superp

The number of AI and cybersecurity startups in Israel makes up close to 20 percent of the world’s total, likely eclipsing China and second only to the United States.

We find ourselves in strong agreement with the two central contentions of Arthur Herman’s valuable new essay in Mosaic, “The Impasse Obstructing U.S.-Israel Relations, and How to Remedy It.” First, China’s growing penetration of Israel’s economy over the past decade, particularly in the high-tech sector, poses real risks to the U.S.-Israel relationship if left unattended. But second, if addressed in a spirit worthy of the profound alliance that has bound these two great liberal democracies together for decades, the China challenge should serve instead as a major opportunity to propel the strategic partnership to new heights.

Indeed, that’s precisely the case that one of us, John Hannah, made in an article earlier this year:

Working together in close consultation, with the protection and strengthening of the alliance uppermost in their minds, [U.S. and Israeli policymakers] should make sure that China becomes the catalyst for the next major leap forward in the U.S.-Israel relationship rather than a dangerous source of division.

Herman is also spot-on in identifying the struggle for technological primacy as the central arena that will shape the geopolitics of the 21st century, in particular the escalating strategic rivalry between, on the one hand, the United States and other free societies, and, on the other hand, China, Russia, and the camp of anti-American authoritarians.

Gideon Sa’ar Cool Tel Avivian or Pro-settler Nationalist? Netanyahu Could Be Ousted by This Man

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001891.html

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces his biggest political challenge to the leadership of Israel’s ruling Likud party for over a decade, when he will be challenged in a Likud primary leadership contest by Gideon Sa’ar (a former journalist, lawyer and then a government minister). If Netanyahu loses, Sa’ar will likely become interim prime minister.

I attach two pieces below, by Anshel Pfeffer in today’s leading left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz, and by Isabel Kershner in the New York Times, a paper that continues to obsess about Israel and devote enormous amounts of space to scrutinizing the small Jewish state while all but ignoring much of the rest of the world.

Pfeffer is a very knowledgeable journalist though sometimes he allows his disdain for Netanyahu and the Likud to cloud the impartiality of his reporting.

Gideon Sa’ar is unlikely to win today’s vote. However, if he makes a strong challenge, as expected, he will set himself up as the clear favorite to succeed Netanyahu should Netanyahu fail to win the Israeli election on March 2 (the third general election in Israel in less than a year) and Netanyahu is then forced from power. (Sa’ar would likely then form a unity government with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz.)