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Source: http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=587920
Israel at 57
(Montreal Gazette/United Jerusalem) Gil Troy - What should be one of the Western world's great success stories is frequently treated as a pariah state. A democracy with a rollicking political culture, a fertile arts scene, a sophisticated economy, a tremendous infrastructure, a cutting edge scientific community, a young, growing, multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual population, is frequently caricatured as a fragile, dysfunctional, garrison state teetering on the edge of collapse. By any objective standards, Israel is thriving. The high-tech sector has bounced back and the economy is beginning to soar again. Israel won its first Olympic gold medal last summer, and just months later won its first Nobel Prize in science for chemists who discovered cancer-busting proteins. Israel won the ugly war Arafat and the Palestinians unleashed in 2000. Israel has proved democracies can defeat terror with a combination of effective fences, aggressive policing, active soldiering, vigilant citizens, and creative leadership. Given what Israel has endured, given the quality of life of so many of its citizens, given the many life-changing pharmaceutical, medicinal, and technological wonders emanating from there, given the symphonies and universities, the newspapers and bookstores, the full cafes and the booming businesses, the delicious mix of old traditions and new ideas, and the warm, effusive citizenry, it remains one of the 21st century's great hopes. The writer teaches history at McGill University.