Please read the following excerpts from Abraham Rabinovich\’s article for Washington Free Beacon. See if you join me in simultaneously being elated and disgusted by it:
Haunted since last summer’s war in Gaza by Hamas\’ success in infiltrating fighters into Israel through tunnels, Israel announced on Thursday the development of the first effective system for detecting tunneling activity at a distance.
One of Israel\’s leading defense electronics firms, Elbit Systems, said the system it developed in conjunction with the Israeli Defense Ministry is based on a series of sensors. Data that they furnish is analyzed by a control system, using algorithms. Terming the system “the first of its kind in the world,” the firm said the method enables the precise identification of tunnel building “without false alarms.”
The new system is already being hailed in the Israeli press as the underground equivalent of Iron Dome, developed in Israel as a response to the rockets fired into Israel by Hamas and by Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the Gaza War, the system interdicted close to 90 percent of the rockets heading for inhabited areas.
The estimated cost of constructing the system is $3.5 million per mile. The intention, said officials, is to build the system along the entire 35-mile land border between Gaza and Israel.
Before explaining why I am both elated and disgusted by what you just read, please also look at this information, excerpted from an article published four years ago in The Peninsula, which operates out of Doha, Qatar (I have no reason to believe things have changed since):
DOHA: There is no doubt that Israel is superior to all Arab countries in the sphere of Information Technology, a comparative study between Arab nations and Israel on \’Scientific Research and Patent Rights Compared\’ conducted by Dr Khalid Said Rubaia, a Palestinian researcher at American Arab University in Palestine, says.
Israel spends 4.7 percent of its total GDP on scientific research, which is the highest in the world. However, Arab states are spending 0.2 percent of their total incomes and Asian Arab countries around 0.5 percent of their incomes on research, said the report.
Regarding patent rights, Israel has registered 16,805 patents. However, Arab countries have only 836 patents which is 5 percent of what Israel has.
Israel spends 0.8-1 percent of the total expenditure of the world on research work and Arab states spend 0.4 percent. It means Israel spends more than double that spent by Arab countries in this field.
Israel spends 4.7 percent of its income on research. However, Arab countries spend 0.2 percent of their total income on the same. United States spends about 2.7 percent of its income, UK 1.8 and Germany 2.6 percent on research work.
I am elated that Israel technology has apparently come up with a way of combating the tunnels used to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
But I am disgusted that Israel, arguably the single most prolific producer of techology in the world, has to spend so much of its time and effort on systems like this, instead of producing even more advances in science, medicine and agriculture than it already does.
I have often said that if Palestinian Arabs would stop trying to kill Israelis and start trying to learn from them, both sides would be 1000% better off. When you read the above information, you realize just how true that is….and what a terrible waste of humanity and of resources the ongoing effort to obliterate Israel is.
Note to Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria (aka the west bank): Please get serious about making peace…and reap the huge rewards it will bring you.
To paraphrase the late John Lennon..that\’s all I\’m saying. Give peace a chance.
