A Great Look Into Celebrating Israel’s 60th Birthday

I recently read an article by New Zeland’s David Zwartz from the New Zeland Herald, and I found several quotes to be quite true and worth sharing. If you have time, click on the link above and read the whole article.

It is worth celebrating that the scattered and dispossessed Jewish people,
suffering oppression and having emerged from history’s worst genocide,
accepted the newly formed United Nations Partition Plan and built a vibrant
democracy in part of their ancestral homeland.

Had the Arab states accepted the UN’s plan in 1947, we could all be
celebrating the 60th birthday of both Israel and Palestine. Sadly, that
didn’t happen.

Although the security barrier between Israel and the Palestinian
territories has almost eliminated terror acts within Israel, only a final status
peace agreement based on the two-state solution will end the violence between
Palestinians and Israelis.

(Okay, I don’t totally agree with that one, but I do agree with the part about
the fence.)

The Jewish National Fund has planted 240 million trees over the last 100
years to make the desert bloom, and reduce greenhouse gases. Israel recycles 70
per cent of its wastewater for re-use. In January this year, the Government
announced its support of a plan to install the world’s first electric car
network in Israel by 2011, and the country has world-leading solar energy
projects.

Through its own overseas aid schemes, and by contributing to United
Nations multilateral programmes, Israel has extended humanitarian aid to more
than 140 countries, including some who do not maintain diplomatic relations with
the Jewish state.

Some 2400 African refugees have crossed the border into Israel from Egypt
since the beginning of 2008, making a total of about 6000 African refugees in
the country at present.

Israel, like all countries, isn’t perfect. But that’s no reason not to
recognise and celebrate its 60 years of achievements.