Israeli Lefties Royally P.O.'d, Mortified, That Israeli Capitalism Is a Roaring Success

From the lefty point of view, it must really suck that Israel is flourishing at a time of Arab chaos, EU debt calamity and the Occupy "movement" (which, considering the iffy hygiene of the squatter community, might be summed up as a bowel movement) . The reason we know that that's so: Israel's "social justice" cretins are emphasizing the negatives and kvetching up a storm:

Had a foreigner arrived here and listened to the revolutionary milieu headed by our social protest leaders or by the media, he would have no doubt that Israel's citizens are no less than slaves; that the local middle class has been destroyed; that nobody can make ends meet around here unless he was fortunate enough to be born to a wealthy family compensated endlessly by Steinitz and Bibi; that Israel never faced such diplomatic isolation; that our higher education and research are maligned by backward, Third World standards; that racist and discriminatory laws are pulverizing Israeli society; and that the Bibi-Lieberman government is at fault for everything.

Had this foreigner paid some attention to some tedious archives, he would discover, for example, that the “country that reached a scientific nadir” is third in the world in terms of per capita scientific articles; that the number of academic researchers per capita is second in the world; that Israel’s share in the global science production is almost 10 times greater than its relative share in the global population; that the country is third in the world in research investment in universities in relation to its GDP; and that it’s the first in the world in national expenditure on civilian research out of total GDP.

If we dig deeper, we shall discover that Israel’s economy is 17th on the list of developed economies (according to the Swiss IMD); that in recent years it has grown more than all other Western states and that unemployment here is lower than in all these countries; that according to American journal Atlantic, when adjusting the calculations to various economic and technological innovation and development indexes Israel is ranked fourth in the world; that in 2010 this country climbed to 15th place in the United Nations’ standard of living index; and that this state boasts the fifth highest life expectancy among OECD countries.

Every time I read one or another Israeli leftist whining about how everything's falling to pot, I can't help but think of Mark Twain's famous quip about (false) reports of his demise having been greatly exaggerated--and grin.