U.S. News has published rankings of Sixty Best Countries, and Israel made it to #25. Even though there's a list, I'm not quite sure what the criteria really were, since the photos are extremely odd and political on the whole. It's all especially strange since we're ranked between Russia and Greece.
I'd think Israel should be well above those two countries. I've been living in Israel since 1970, after having been born and grown up in New York. When I first came to Israel, life here was so much more "old-fashioned" than what I had been used to. But now, there's no difference. If anything, Israel seems more advanced than many countries, and quality of life, including necessary things like affordable top notch healthcare and public transportation are far superior to most. There are also the things you can't measure, such as community and caring, which are based on Jewish values, traditions and law. For instance, what the pollsters called "Quality of Life" does not score Israel correctly.
OVERALL RANK #34 OVERALL SCORE 1.5 ATTRIBUTES SCORE Economically stable 2.9 A good job market 0.7 Affordable 0.1 Safe 0.2 Politically stable 0.8 Family friendly 1.2 Well-developed public education system 4.3 Well-developed public health system 3.4 Income equality 0.7
Israel is "politically stable." It has a very stable government system. Frequent elections are not the same as revolutions, so the 0.8 ranking/score misses the point completely. I remember in the 1970's reading a similar type of survey about various countries and their quality of government in which Israel did poorly, because the Labor party had been in power without stop for then about seventeen years. Labor wasn't voted out of office until 1977, nineteen years after Israel's Independence. As of late we've had "early elections" more than once, but the Likud has held power for most of them, which is a sign of stability. And the Israeli political system gives certain power and status to the opposition, unlike the American system which gives no official status to whomever loses Presidential Elections.
To give an idea of how inaccurate the listing is, France is #8.
2 comments:
Surprised they didn't rank Israel at the very bottom. That's their dream. Do you expect better from a world that would like to see Israel disappear with its people, c'v?
Until Moshiach, expect nothing more, so then we can be pleasantly surprised when we do hear something positive.
They tried to put Israel as low as possible.
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