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Why Israel Could Be the Next Cybersecurity World Power
jfruh writes: Beersheba is a small town in southern Israel, more than an hour's drive away from Tel Aviv and the bulk of the country's population. But the city is a hotbed of cybersecurity startups driven in part by a graduate program at the local university and the country's military and intelligence apparatus's keen interest in the subject. "To become such a cyber nexus, any place has to have several ingredients: A great university with a solid computer science department with a penchant for security research. Check. Several industry partners who have set up their own research and innovation laboratories nearby, to take advance of the cheap labor pool of graduate students. Check. An active venture capitalist operation that can fund startups is also essential, along with mentors who can help entrepreneurs along. Double check. And finally some solid support for local and national government to grease the wheels of progress. Check."
More importantly: don't start wars you can't win (a universal and timely maxim). And when, having chosen to decide the contest on the field of battle, do not expect a redo in the courts of law. The biggest mistake the Palestinians every made was letting their regional neighbors (that hate them anyway, btw) egg them into starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. They lost their land, and the Jewish population swelled from expulsion from Arab countries. They had a two-state solution already and they fucked it up.
Another fact that is often ignored: The Arab states could have absorbed the Palestinians who fled Israel when they were told "flee and you can have your land back when we wipe Israel off the map." Instead, they set them up in refugee camps so they could point to them and say "Look at how horrible our brethren have it. This is all Israel's fault. Keep looking at these downtrodden folks and ignore the horrible things we're doing to our own populace."
I'm not saying Israel is blameless (far from it), but the people who try to claim that the conflict in the region is all Israel's fault vastly oversimplify the entire situation.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.