http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/11/the_technion_the_engine_of_a_young_nation.html
The modern day state of Israel celebrated its 65th birthday this year. Throughout this period of time, the nation has faced unremitting challenges to its security and existence. Now American President Barack Obama seems to be telling Iran, a nation that considers Israel an illegitimate nation that should be destroyed, and has been advancing its nuclear program with impunity for many years, that if “you like your nuclear weapons program, you get to keep it.”
At the same time, the American Secretary of State John Kerry, unhappy that Israel is not caving to Palestinian demands, is blaming Israel for an impasse in peace talks, and there are threats of a heavy handed American response that will push for adoption of the Palestinian position in the negotiations in the months to come. With “friends” like these now in office in America, the country that has been Israel’s strongest ally for decades, the ability of Israel to defend itself, and grow and prosper is hardly a settled question for all time.
But Israel has found answers before, and it continues to do so today, regardless of the hostility the nation has faced from abroad. One of the major reasons is a university, the Technion, which arguably is more tied to the current success and to the future of the country, than any other single university’s role for any other country in the world.
I am just back from a short trip to Israel as part of a group of individuals from several states who visited the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where we met with Technion students, faculty, researchers, and administrators, as well as executives of various startup companies and more mature companies in the life sciences field, which have adopted Technion-developed technologies for commercial use. To say that the Technion has been critical to Israel’s enormous success in becoming a member of the developed world of nations and a center for entrepreneurship and advanced technology, would not be doing justice to the extent of the connection.