the area covering 23 nation states on
planet Earth
from Mauritania in northwest Africa
across the whole line of northern Africa
to Egypt the Sudan all the countries
around the Raven peninsula it’s a
stunning territory 400 million souls 30
percent of the population in that area
under 30 years of age I have to tell you
and in part of that area at least half
of it they are blessed with
extraordinary resources vast seas of oil
and gas so looking at planet Earth you
would have thought the Middle East is
one of the most privileged sectors of
this planet and thriving the awesome
news I have to offer you is that the
Arab world as of March 2017 is in a
desperate state almost across the Arab
region countries are dominated by
dictators and oligarchs who’ve been
milking these countries there’s a recent
report of the United Nations on human
development which talks of leaders in
the Arab world having literally filched
a trillion dollars from these countries
over the last 50 years unemployment
across the region
rampant reinvestment in the area
terrible
and the result is therefore that the
Middle East is heaving with discontent
and violence there has been a revolution
over the last six years sadly it hasn’t
brought an Arab Spring and the figures
from the UN suggests that in global
terms 45% of terrorism across this
planet and we’ve seen it this week in
Westminster has emerged from the Middle
East 58% of world refugees are emerging
from that region and 68% of battle
related deaths come from the Arab world
as of now the Middle East at least large
sectors of the Arab world
tragically are in a mess not thriving
what I want to do is to juxtapose their
situation with that of contemporary
Israel not to offer some
nice neat black-and-white contrast
because not for one second would I
suggest that contemporary Israel is
without problems but the reality is the
Israelis have looked at their situation
strategically and have come up with
fantastically positive responses
contemporary Israel is that tipsy little
scrap of land northeast of Egypt the
slither along the Mediterranean coast
it’s absolutely tiny 300 miles by at
very most 80 something wide it’s the
same area as Wales it has huge
disadvantages more than 60% of the
landmass is desert mostly mountainous
and therefore lousy for agriculture it
hasn’t got any oil it doesn’t have that
raw mineral wealth that’s made countries
in the region will see they have
latterly discovered some natural gas
it’s got water problems as do all the
countries in the area and global warming
is felt in that part of the world how
then have they addressed their domestic
situation the eight million who make up
the body politic of Israel Jews
Christians Muslims have a very widely
scattered and and diverse population
they have really come to the conclusion
that they do have one resource that they
can turn to advantage and I say that not
to flannel you but it’s the gray cells
the innovative creative abilities of
guys men and women like you there is not
a high school in Israel that doesn’t
have technology status it doesn’t mean
to say they don’t teach all the other
subjects but the reality is they do put
an emphasis on technology the sheer
volume of students going up to read
basic science or the Applied Sciences
electronics the the Computer Sciences
and the rest huge and those with the
greatest skills given unbelievable
encouragement through a whole network of
incubators to actually take raw ideas
and work on them so that Israel has
become a knowledge economy and in the
last 20 years this country has
absolutely gone through a transformative
revolution they’ve addressed their their
raw problems like for example the issue
of water
the reality is Israeli agro scientists
have developed the most effective
irrigation systems anywhere so that
water is used to maximum effect second
of all they recycle waste water at a
level higher than anywhere else on this
planet I’m not just hyping up the
statistics but we’re talking about
nearly 90% of all wastewater is
converted for reuse in agriculture and
now by building a huge network along the
Mediterranean coast of desalinization
plants there is now water available to
populations around Israel and its
neighbouring areas so that the price of
water is coming down and for once there
were no people are no longer talking
about shortages and and wars over water
in terms of the land they’ve drawn the
harsh conclusion that though Israel can
grow brilliant oranges Jaffa oranges
that isn’t the way of the future farming
is shrinking all the time becoming
evermore technological instead of that
what they are doing is they are engaging
in research in all sorts of high-tech
fields and then characters up
commercializing and developing these
ideas if I give you a few examples that
will give you an idea of a global
preeminence that they have because they
are really playing in the Premier League
today in terms of technology in 1998
five Israeli teenagers no doubt the bane
of their teachers lives sold a product
to AOL they had created the very first
serious messaging service which some of
you may recall it went under the
initials I see QED namely ICQ role
reality is these five guys literally
made this invention available as a free
download they collected tens of millions
of names which clearly were a set of
addresses that AOL was interested in and
in 1989 this product was bought by AOL
for 287
million US dollars first down payment
that has been followed laterally by a
whole brace of inventions in a variety
of fields perhaps you’ve seen this pill
cam which is the bog-standard now gizmo
for looking at people who’ve got pains
in their stomachs invented by a team at
the Technion in northern israel so any
one of you guys any one of you ladies in
the room could develop pains in your
stomach now to investigate what exactly
is happening to you you would be sent to
a hospital in Kent or anywhere else
where you’d be asked to swallow a pill
which contains a piece of nanotechnology
a miniaturized camera a pill does not
dissolve but which floats through the
human frame taking eight solid hours of
travel through the body taking a picture
every other second so now we can show
you the full run of your energy ography
and the specialist can identify and
diagnose what problems you have a
painless investigation which won prizes
and Technology all over the world but
that’s been followed by a whole tranche
of other ideas perhaps some of you
runners in the room have seen pictures
of an extraordinary doughty lady Claire
Lomas she lives in Leicestershire she is
a paraplegic yet she has now taken part
in two UK marathons standing walking on
crutches wearing a bionic suit invented
by a quadriplegic in Israel a suit that
enables that individual chair
wheelchair-bound
to propel themselves forward with all
sorts of impulses going through the leg
in enabling the paraplegic to stand and
jerkily walk forward but I can add to
that two other of the more recent
innovations and technological
contributions that come out from Israel
which are utterly extraordinary an Arab
professor from the Technion which is
Israel’s premier engineering university
who’s created a nano device which he
calls the Nath nose
a nos e this is a device which actually
acts as a breathalyzer and analyzes from
people’s breaths whether they are
carrying bacteria whether they already
profoundly sick and identifying what
sickness they carry and the degree of
severity of that sickness
it’s an extraordinary piece a piece of
kit but the most recent hotshot success
of Israel is a company called mobile I
they’re producing an element for
driverless cars Intel has just bought
out mobile I for the absolutely eye
watering some of twelve and a half
billion pounds sterling now I don’t want
to suggest to you for a minute that
contemporary Israel is thriving and
everything is going swimmingly well
because you wouldn’t believe that and it
wouldn’t be true of any society any open
democratic society is going to have its
trains and its domestic problems that’s
inevitable not everybody is making it
not everybody has these creative skills
so there is poverty and there’s
inter-communal difficulties and their
different views about how this society
should surge forward it is as
democratically divided as the UK is or
the Netherlands or the United States of
America let’s not speak of the fact that
the Middle East is an area fraught with
terrible tensions and violence that is
on Israel’s doorstep and an unresolved
conflict with the Palestinians that is
all a backdrop to all of this and yet I
can say to you that in the register of
happiness and there is a listing of
states Israel isn’t quite up near the
absolute top the Nordic nation states
win those plaudits but actually in terms
of people’s sense of engagement and
involvement in their society Israel is
pretty high up in the global League of
the hundred and ninety odd states that
make up our planet it’s not just
surviving it’s thriving and it’s a great
story
that’s when I bring to you this morning [Applause]