This sum covers only the defense allocations and does not include the enormous amounts of research and development money that is poured into the technology sector -- being much of the military sector -- by both government and "private" enterprise. That is the main myth presented in this work -- that the Israeli economy is a miracle of entrepreneurial free enterprise combined with the can-do chutzpah of a "small and threatened" country.
The authors use the latter phrase several times in comparisons to South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore in particular. The thread breaks when the information presented is all about how the IDF and the military are great training grounds for business entrepreneurship -- which they well may be as they are both intertwined in the bigger economies of the world, in particular the U.S. They are also good for "inculcating" an ethos (inculcating coming from the Latin "to grind in with the heel") of innovation, an ability to contradict authority, and the famous chutzpah.
Only Normal
The general trend of the work indicates two norms. The first is from the 1970s and early 1980s when a series of books were published discussing the highly innovative companies that had made the U.S. the business/economic leader of the world (In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman, Harper Collins. 1982 was the main one). All the business ideals extolled by Senor and Singer have been found in new upstart successful and excellent big businesses all along -- it is not simply an Israeli trait.
The other norm that is exposed is the lie of "free enterprise" and "private entrepreneurial" spirit. It does not exist in Israel any more than it exists in the U.S. Instead, intensive state supports allowed the industries to be successful -- this is what also initially propelled South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan to economic power.
It is not living "under threat" that made these countries wealthy, nor was it any particular unique strand of spirit, but rather the largesse provided by the state to grow and protect its own industries. Only after the wealth of the country was established did they dare open their markets in a supposedly free enterprise manner, a manner that really leaves the supranational corporations and financiers of the world free to ignore national regulations on a number of fronts.
Leaving What -- Chutzpah?
Leaving perhaps that the miracle of Israeli business technological success is built on state support, imported state of the art technology, and a denial that the country is built on the farms, fields and villages of an occupied indigenous people. The way Start-Up Nation explains it all, chutzpah is the distinguishing factor -- perhaps it is also really the force behind the Israel defiance of international law and international humanitarian rights concerning warfare and occupation that the authors choose simply to ignore. An "in your face we don't give a damn" attitude would certainly explain the erratic controls used by the IDF to enforce the subjugation of the occupied Palestinians. It would also explain the power the Jewish lobby and AIPAC have over the elected representatives of Congress in the U.S.
So this book does explain a lot -- by omission in part, by inadvertent admission in others. There is no economic miracle in Israel. There is a state-supported economy that derives much of its initial wealth from stolen land and U.S. largesse, both economically and militarily.
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