Turns Out, Israelis Aren't Ready To Abandon Israel After All (Plus: Israel's Awesome Anti-Missile Tech)
Just so we have something to link to the next time an "Israelis hate Israel" story gets pushed by a major media outlet - we have to go through this every once in a while because of nonsense like this - here's the latest poll measuring Israeli patriotism:
The number of Israelis expressing a willingness to fight for their country has held steady over the past two years at 92 percent, according to the Expressions of Patriotism Index presented at the Herzliya Conference this week. Similarly, the number of Israelis defining themselves as Israeli patriots held steady at about two-thirds at the start of 2008, compared to figures during the past few years... religious identification seems to be on the rise, indicated by a higher level of pride among Jewish Israelis in their Jewish identity than their Israeli identity. The national symbol that holds the most resonance for the broadest spectrum of Israelis is the siren on Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, the study found.
In fairness, other parts of the study indicated a 10% decline in the number of young kids who want to hang around in the country. Since that's not because of an outright decline in patriotism or from anything religious, it could be that this is the beginning of the the mass migration that's expected to happen if Iran gets the bomb - it's psychologically impossible to live under the daily threat of another Holocaust. After the jump, what Israel is doing to convince citizens that that's less of a concern.
Nothing like a clear day, a strong breeze, and missiles that can knock Shahabs out of the sky:
The unusually clear atmospheric conditions that prevailed Thursday morning lifted the veil, for a moment, over a fascinating and secret world of Israeli military capabilities. For a moment, Israeli citizens were exposed to, all across the sky, cutting-edge technology being developed here that places Israel among world leaders in the field. The missile that was fired Thursday is two-phased. The test examined the critical moment where the missile’s first segment disconnects and the second phase of the engine combustion follows... Particularly, this capability enables Israel to produce missiles that can launch satellites into space, and also missiles aimed at thwarting incoming ballistic missiles fired at Israel from great distances at very high altitude.
The standard concern about successful ABM tests is that they're faked in order to boost public morale. Which makes sense especially in this context, minus the fact that at least some of these missiles definitely work because Israel is getting things to space (and over Iranian sabotage at that).
References:
* Newsflash: Israelis Are Happy [MR]
* Beit Hanoun Meme Watch - (6) "Israelis Demoralized and Blaming Themselves" - Actually, No They're Not [MR]
* Poll: Israeli patriotism holding steady [JPost]
* Message to our enemies [YNet]
* Launch of Israeli satellite a ''landmark event,'' says ISRO's M Nair news [Domain-B]
* Iran Attempted to Sabotage Israeli Spy Satellite Launch [A7]
Previously:
* Reminder: Palestinians Hide Behind Children, Morbidly Embrace Death Porn (Plus: The Media Lies)
* People Who Live In Glass Context Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones
* Siniora Asks International Media to Transmit Pictures of Israeli Atrocities. Which Is Kind of Like Asking Us to Keep Making Fun of Carter.
