“INSTEAD OF THE BRIER...”

RON A. HILL (UNICEF)

TABLES AND CHARTS of growth can never replace the great privilege of seeing development expand over the years. The writer was in Israel from February to June, 1945, travelling extensively and making contacts with a number of firms and organisations. It was a fascinating experience. Return visits were made in 1947, 1954 and 1960. Marked changes were observed, and helpful continuity was provided by discussions with many friends made in 1945. The effect of the great diversity of human skills and wisdom brought to Israel with the return of Jewry from all quarters of the earth was noted with astonishment. From die distant past came the Word of the Lord through the Scriptures supporting what was seen and heard.

The agricultural scene was especially striking. For centuries the land had been neglected; it had become an almost empty desert—a harsh contrast with the time of Moses and the report of those twelve men who searched out the land as recorded in Numbers 13. It was then the time of the first-ripe grapes, and they “cut down a branch with one cluster, and bare it between two upon a staff”. They brought also pomegranates and figs, and told Moses and the people, “We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it”.

It is interesting to note that early Jewish settlements of the 1850 period took up the cultivation of grapes. Later came the growing of citrus fruits and this was the first major export commodity. David Horowitz in The Enigma of Economic Growth says: “During the two decades 1950-70 Israel underwent an unprecedented economic expansion: the curve of economic activity rose steeply and the pace of development was unusually rapid. This phenomenon in an area of a few thousand square miles can only be explained by some peculiar array of circumstances. The crucial issue is whether it has its source in external or in internal conditions, although obviously each category of conditions reacts on the other and their inter-ratios are constantly changing”.

We go to the Bible for the explanation: “Oh Lord”, pleads the prophet, “Revive Thy work in the midst of the years,... in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2). And that is what has happened. Here is the unseen external force—the Spirit of God—which many have forgotten; it has a major bearing on the increase in citrus fruit production—272,700 tons in 1948/49 to 1,513,500 tons in 1970/71. If in times past the God of Israel could, in one year, provide His people with a harvest that would enable them to give the land a rest in the seventh year, this same land, with this unseen blessing, can surely bring forth plentifully after the years of desolation, as a prelude to that time still to come when the ploughman shall overtake the reaper because of the abundance of the harvest. He has permitted modern Israel to help :

For the period 1948/49 to 1970/71 we reproduce below two tables from Facts about Israel. Table No. 1 indicates the increase in use of land, and Table No. 2 the average increase in agricultural yield of selected items.

1948/49

1958/59

1969/70

1970/71

Citrus Fruit

272,700

587,600

1,261,900

1,513,500

Grapes (table and wine)

17,800

57,800

60,700

66,600

Olives

10,700

8,000

6,600

12,500

Bananas

3,500

31,600

61,150

56,300

Other Fruit

7,200

42,000

162,800

172,300

Wheat

21,200

73,700

125,000

199,500

Barley and Oats

20,900

66,000

13,600

17,600

Sorghum

3,000

40,700

10,900

20,600

Hay

40,600

123,100

137,300

141,200

Green Fodder and Silage

372,800

1,534,300

1,479,100

1,383,000

Groundnuts

300

15,300

18,700

21,200

Cotton Lint

—

7,300

35,300

36,700

Cottonseed

—

12,250

55,000

59,000

Tobacco

600

2,400

1,600

1,100

Sugar Beet

—

122,100

237,000

258,600

Vegetables, Potatoes and Melons

11,900

441,900

740,900

765,300

Poultry Meat

5,040

40,650

101,700

124,200

Cattle Meat

2,010

18,900

35,600

36,500

Fish

3,500

13,200

21,800

26,100

Milk (kilolitres)

85,950

300,800

487,700

497,500

Eggs (thousands)

242,500

1,027,000

1,320,000

1,423,200

In The Enigma of Economic Growth David Horowitz, analysing agricultural development, says:

Table No. 1 shows how the irrigated land area has increased; Mr. Horowitz points out that in Israel an irrigated acre can produce crops paying four to five times more than an unirrigated acre. But one must note his reference to “scarcity of water as a limiting factor”. The growth of industry in relation to agricultural development is seen in Table No. 3 which reproduces, in part, figures from The Israel Economy of February 1973.

When viewing accomplishment in “tables of figures” and statistics it is possible to miss the significance of improved efficiency. When the writer stayed for a week in 1945, in the settlement at Ashdod Yaakov, he learned that Dutch Jews from the Netherlands were caring for Holstein cattle whose milk yield per lactation was higher than in the U.K.! In 1969 the reported average yields of milk per cow were 4,890 litres Israel, 4,150 litres Netherlands, 3,330 litres West Germany, 2,225 litres France, 2,830 litres U.K., 800 litres Greece. The yield of wheat in Israel between 1940 and 1969 rose from 300 kilos to 740 kilos per acre of land.

Table No. 4 shows percentage yield increases per unit of land and per cow.

There has been not only the need to increase yields per acre, but also the need to increase financial return. So, under irrigation, vegetables have supplemented milk and eggs to the point where scarcity of water is a limiting factor. The outcome of this agricultural development (beginning in the 1850s with cereals, and grapes for wine, and changing through experience and force of circumstances to citrus and protective foods) is demonstrated by the growth in exports of agricultural products equivalent to 18 million U.S. Dollars in 1950 and 126 million U.S. Dollars in 1970.

Within Israel the nutritional standard has been improved. Coupled with improved medical services, this has lowered the deaths at birth from 47.3 per 1,000 in 1950 to 24.4 per 1,000 in 1971. During this period the Arab population increased from 126,000 (1948) to 458,500 (1972) and Table No. 5, taken from Facts about Israel, shows that their life expectancy increased from 52 to 70 years.

The Druze community has also prospered; whereas Arab and Druze farmers tilled 172,500 acres with only 2,000 acres irrigated in 1948, by 1971 the figures were 234,000 acres with 11,000 acres irrigated; and there were 960 units of agricultural machinery in 1971 compared with 5 in 1948. Jews returning from less-developed areas such as Yemen have similarly benefited from the improved nutrition, and the better health and medical services. The whole period 1950-1970 has shown almost uninterrupted economic growth, and Israel has been a study area for economic theories. Further, Israel has received trainees from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Mediterranean and other areas,, and she has supplied experts for the same areas. In 1971 there were 1,684 trainees in Israel and 414 Israeli experts overseas.

“In the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert”

In the autumn of 1964 the writer attended a conference in New York organised by the American Technion Society. The theme was “Water, Power, and Research”. The first speaker, Mr. A. Melamed (Chief of Water Resources Department, Tahal Water-Planning for Israel Ltd.) stated that “by early 1970’s the growth of domestic and industrial needs will be met only at the expense of reducing the irrigated area”. Both Facts about Israel and David Horowitz confirm the accuracy of this prediction. The forward estimates for consumption of electric power made in 1964 have been shown to be very close to actual.

It was said that by the use of all known sources of water, a total of about 650,000 acres could be irrigated after meeting higher priority demands; that would be about one half the irrigatible land. It was expected that the proposal of 1964 for a power plant (to provide 175 to 200 megawatts of saleable electric power and to produce 100 to 120 million gallons of fresh water) would be approved, but so far finance has not materialised. However, work has commenced on some smaller projects —one serves Eilat—from which data on costs and performance will guide the larger projects which are still needed. The world-wide importance of additional supplies of pure water only serves to raise the significance of this development in Israel.

A great healing of the land has taken place before our eyes after 2,000 years of desolation. It is in accord with all that God promised through the prophets of Israel, 3,000 years ago. It has been accomplished in the face of opposition and war. One might say it confounds economic theory, and defies reason.

The prophet Ezekiel was one of the many prophets who foretold the return to fruitfulness of the Land of Israel in the latter days. As he prophesied in Chapter 36, this was to come to pass after “the ancient high places” (v. 2) had been taken back from the hands of “the nations that are round about” (v. 5). In the hands of the Arab nations, the Land of Israel would become “desolate wastes” (v. 4), and whereas ten of Moses’s spies disregarded the fruitfulness of the Land in their day and gave an “evil report” of it because of their lack of faith, the Arab tenants would have good cause to speak derisively in later years about the sterility of the Land during their possession of it (compare Num. 13:32 with Ezek. 36:3,4 and 13, RV).

Ezekiel 36 stresses above all that God’s main interest at the time of the fulfilment of the prophecy would be the Land of Israel itself. God’s jealousy was to be for the Land first (v. 5), and only subsequently for the people. But verse 8 clearly, foretells that when this sign of the returning fruitfulness of the Land was given, the people of God would be “at hand to come”; and verses 9-15 depict the peace and blessedness of those who, having been reconciled to God, will forever enjoy the superabundant fruits of the Land (v. 11). The time cannot now be far off when God, having visited His Land and having blessed it with increased prosperity, will “cause men to walk upon (it), even My people Israel” (v. 12). At that time, even the Land itself will “know” that Yahweh is Lord (v. 11), and Israel will not “bear the reproach of the people any more”.

Only a fool would measure trees in terms of money alone . . . forests pay off in so many other ways—they stop soil erosion, help build topsoil, hold back flood waters . . . why, they almost pay their way in re-creation alone !