Quality of Life

In the vast spectrum of human achievements, personal satisfactions, the collective ability to persevere through the ages despite horrendous levels of racist assaults, Jews have proven themselves capable of surmounting all obstacles laid in their path toward advancing themselves within history.

So it's worth looking at the overall presence of life statistics measured and calibrated by world-respected institutions, looking at countries throughout the world, and using the results to view Israel's ranking as a comparative measure of human, social and political achievement expressed through the quality of life of her people.

In the 2006 United Nations Development index, the top one-to-thirty listings of the highest levels of achievement include Israel. In numerical order, one to ten, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Japan and the United States rank highest. Israel comes in at 22, between Germany and Greece. Nowhere near the top 30 are any of the countries surrounding Israel, within the Middle East.

In the 2005 Quality of Life index compiled by The Economist, the top rankings go to Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain. Canada is 14th on that list, with the United States 13, and New Zealand 15. And there is Israel, not too near the top, but nowhere near the bottom, at 38.

In contrast, Qatar is 41, Kuwait 55, Bahrain 62, Oman 67, United Emirates 69, Libya 70, Saudi Arabia 72, Jordan 75, Egypt 80, Iran 88, and Syria 97.

For all their vaunted oil wealth, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the United Emirates and Iran haven't succeeded in improving the lives of their people to any notable degree. Their rankings are testament to this, and the answer can be found in large part to their political system, the kingdoms, the theocracies, the totalitarian aspect of governance.

How could a population such as Israel's be considered as socially well-adjusted, intellectually and technically advanced when they are encircled by hostility, one might wonder. Yet, apart from border towns continually bombarded by deadly missiles, the incursions into farming communities by terror-wielding Arabs, most of the population goes about life "as usual".

When another survey was undertaken to quantify population satisfaction rates of 35 industrial countries, Israelis were found to "appear to love life and hate death more than any other nation". The country's fertility rate is 2.77, while the suicide rate is 6.2 per 100,000 people. As opposed, for example, to the United States with numbers of 2.1 and 11, respectively; France at 1.98 and 18.

It's telling, no doubt, that Israel's neighbours have been wont to boast - at least those who actively seek the Jewish state's annihilation - that they don't fear death; that as much as the Jews love life, they love death. They've institutionalized Thanatos as the spiritual adviser to Allah. Israel has the misfortune to be surrounded by neighbours delighted with the thought that their life-sacrifice as martyrs enables them to attempt the destruction of Israel.

Grade-school children in the Palestinian Authority are taught to aspire to become sacred martyrs, to dedicate their lives to the greater glory of Allah - in whose name their despised neighbour whom they regard as villainous occupiers and mass murderers - who orders the destruction of Israel. And then their patrimony - so long denied them pre-Israel by their own Arab brethren - will be restored to them.

When The Economist worked out their quality of life index they relied on a number of vital signposts of a country's health. They took into account material well-being; health; political stability/security; family life, community life; climate-geography; job security; political freedom; and lastly, gender equality.

In the UN Human Development index, the areas identified as vital clues to the health of a country and its population were life expectancy; education; adult literacy, GDP per capita. In all of these important indices the developed countries of the world with a national conscience guiding them toward providing the best possible social, educational and political environments for their populations came out on top.

Among them is Israel, doing herself and her population proud, despite having to contend with nation-threatening, population-averse threats on a continual basis, on each of her borders with her neighbouring states. Israel struggles to maintain herself and her charges, and in the process provides herself and her people with opportunities and advances matched only by the most humanely-productive and developed countries of the world.

Her neighbours continue to struggle to advance toward agendas beyond bitter enmity one to the other, possible extension of hegemony, tribal animosities, religious strife, tyrannical rule, and their score to settle with the one country in the geography that has managed, despite all ill designs, to set a template ignored by her neighbours.