Israel is like the U.S. of old.

There are a lot of things in common between the US and Israel, even as many on the Left turn against the Jewish state and falsely accuse it of genocide and starving Palestinians. There is, of course, a shared religious core and similar values. It’s a funny thing to see “Trans for Palestine” and “Gays for Hamas” when the only country that would not turn them into alternative sewer covers is Israel. While Israel has a strong Jewish ethos, it is a secular state and promotes “liberal” ideas like having “Gay Pride” parades in Tel Aviv, though homosexuality is explicitly forbidden by Torah law.

One shared area is the “can-do” mentality. Europe once had it, but through socialism and a loss of religiosity, it has lost it. Only one European company is in the top 30 by market value, while the US holds 23 spots. The US dominates this list, but even then, most of the companies are 30 years old. Local, state and federal governments find every way to stymie creative growth and make technical revolutions harder and harder. Elon Musk has told the story of how he had to provide impact studies of his rockets on sharks should one land in the ocean. And after they provided the same, they had to make a similar study for whales. The sun-based electricity generation plant that is going out of business in the Mojave Desert (Ivanpah) once had to drop $55 million to buy an adjacent parcel of land. They needed to move an endangered turtle to the new site, as the state of California threatened that if one more turtle was killed during site construction, they would revoke their license and end the project.

Israel is not yet there for sclerosis, though it is doing its best to turn “Start-Up Nation” into another over-regulated, over-taxed Western country. A few months back, the Harvard Club of Israel had Bill Ackman address local associates of the university. Just before he spoke, a cherub-like........

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