Lubetkin.net

CompuSchmooze May 2007: Israel21c website provides 'good news' about Israel
By Steven L. Lubetkin
Copyright © 2007 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.
WORD COUNT: 630

One of the challenges facing Israel in the court of public opinion is generating positive news about the incredible intellectual and professional achievements of its citizens. Most Western news media are generally content to focus on stories about the conflict between Israel and its neighbors, while completely ignoring the technology, scientific and medical advances coming out of Israeli universities – advances which those of us living in Western countries frequently use on a daily basis.

Most cell phones, for example, are built around a chip design that came out of Motorola's development efforts in Israel.

A not-for-profit website based in California, Israel21c (it stands for "Israel 21st-Century"), has made a mission out of promoting positive stories about Israeli culture, technology, democracy, peaceful coexistence, and other issues. Its news stories have appeared, on occasion, in the mainstream US news media. For those of us accustomed to a steady diet of negative stories about Israeli politics, Israeli policy, and the conflict with Arab neighbors, the stories distributed by Israe21c are both refreshing and surprising.

In recent postings on the website's health page, we learn about researchers at Hebrew University studying drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease, including current research that combines an Alzheimer's drug with a Parkinson's disease medication. The combination, according to the site, "can not only slow the loss of cognitive function in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases but also help alleviate symptoms of major depression." Another story reports on an audio device invented at Technion University that helps patients with multiple sclerosis walk with less difficulty.

Under the technology heading, researchers at Ben Gurion University have designed a software program that converts handwritten Arabic script into printed Arabic characters on a computer, with a very low error rate, despite the complicated geometric calculations required to interpret Arabic script.

The global democracy section of the site reports on the Save a Child's Heart (SACH) program, which has brought more than 1,600 children from 26 different countries to Israel for life-saving heart surgery under the program since it was founded in 1992, according to the news item. The story reports that SACH provides medical training for Medical personnel from China, Ethiopia, Moldova, Eritrea, Nigeria, Vietnam and the Palestinian Authority at the Wolfson Medical Center in a Tel Aviv suburb.

The culture page describes positive interactions between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including the work of the Jerusalem Foundation, focusing on young people learning how to get along peacefully while enjoying educational and cultural activities together.

A section entitled "Profiles" features a story about Amitai Ziv, founder of the Israel Center for medical simulation, who last month received the Charles Bronfman 2007 Humanitarian Award for creating a training center where medical professionals can learn treatment techniques by actually simulating medical scenarios with both live actors portraying patients, and computerized mannequins simulating medical conditions. A former combat pilot, Ziv conceived of the idea of adapting aviation simulation technologies for use in medical training while he was a student at Hadassah Medical School.

The website also includes a series of links to blogs written by Israeli authors, about everyday life in Israel. On the home page, you can get a list of bullet-point factoids about countless technological and medical achievements by Israel, after being reminded that Israel is the 100th smallest nation in the world, "with less than 1/1000th of the world's population." These can be particularly useful in discussions with friends and family who often only know about the negative news coming from the Middle East.

Israel21c's goal is to ensure that the Western media have access to stories that show another side of Israeli life. It's a worthwhile goal, and a real eye opener when you start to browse through the stories of the incredible achievements of this tiny, continually surprising eretz of ours.

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