Israeli Innovation

"While Detroit Slept"
A41 (Op-Ed), Wednesday 12/10/08
By Thomas Friedman

Popular NYT's columnist Thomas Friedman writes of Israeli innovation in "developing a real-world alternative to Detroit’s business model." More specifically, he is referring to Israeli-American dual citizen "Shai Agassi’s electric car network company, called Better Place," based in Palo Alto in California. Israel is one of the principal countries to work in partnership with Better Place to create a viable infrastructure for the electric car.

This is one of those rare NYT's article's that speaks of Israel in unequivocally positive terms, and should be commended for it. It demonstrates that the NYT's coverage of Israel is not so reflexively politicized that all Israel-related news, even of a non-political nature, is tainted by some sort of negative framing. This is more the case with certain European news sources that are much more vehement in their criticism against Israel.

One strange element of the article to note. Friedman does nothing to explain who Shai Agassi is, mentioning him as if everyone knows who he's talking about. It would have been interesting, and pertinent (given the emphasis on Israel in the article), to note that he a dual Israeli-American citizen that grew up and spent most of his life in Israel. The people, not the country, is where the real innovation lies.