Life Expectancy in Israel

With all of the negative attention Israel has been receiving lately, there happens to be some good news to share.  Israel is now proud to announce that there are major gains in the raising of its peoples life expectancy.  Over the last 30 years, life expectancy of Jewish Israelis has increased considerably and ranks above the average of countries that are included in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).  Even Israeli Arabs, who tended to always be a handful of years behind due to cultural, social and educational reasons now live slightly longer than the average American.  Some credit can be given to the national healthcare system and other medical improvements for improving outcomes of Israeli lives.

Even though there is a positive increase in life expectancy, the difference in health outcomes among the several socioeconomic groups, mainly between the Jewish and Arab Israelis is still substantial.  It is just one of many challenges that the system is attempting to improve.  Since 1980, Israel has far outpaced those of other countries in the OECD and the USA (In 1980, however, all 3 were identical with a life expectancy of 74 years).  While the USA's life expectancy has only increased its average by 4 years and the other OECD countries by 6 years, Israel has increased a spectacular 7 years.  In 2005, a country and country comparison proved that Israeli Jews and Arabs are shown to live longer than people of any other country in the Middle East.  That same study also suggests that Israeli Jews actually live longer than the residents of all but four countries in the world.

Though life expectancy is important in the sense that it reflects information about health outcomes of entire life times, infant mortality rates are just as important because it focuses on the survival of infants during their first year of life.  In 1960, Israeli Arabs had a double mortality rate compared to that of Israeli Jews, Americans, and other OECD countries.  Today, Israeli Jew mortality rates are greater than the USA and are slightly above the rest of the OECD.  The remarkable thing is that Israeli Arabs showed the greatest decline and had the same mortality rate of the USA by 2005. Israel still hopes to continue its good fortune of life expectancy for as long as possible.

I find the reliability of this article strong.  The author, Judy Siegel-Itzkovish, got her research from the Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel in a comparative study done by Professor Dov Chernichovsky, a leading health economist at the center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba (she states it in the main article).  Not once does the author go off on a tangent or become biased in anyway.  This article is purely facts in which she got her research directly from the source.  However, not only was her research solid, she is part of "Israel's best-selling English daily and most read English Website", The Jerusalem Post.  She does a good job in picking out the most important details from the study.  Her point of view is quote obvious; she wants the world to know that the Israeli health care system is improving and that they plan on continuing to improve upon these statistics in the years to come.  Overall, I found this article to be quite surprising and can honestly say I have learned a great deal from it.

Main Article

Is it worse to be a Palestinian in Jerusalem or Gaza? The author attempts to discover which Palestinians have it worse under Israeli rule.  Israel has imposed extreme methods of isolation and insulation on Gaza.  Those who live there are cut off from water supplies and from any cultural, social, or family ties they have with their people. Then on the other hand, you have those Palestinians who are living in East Jerusalem.  The cynicism of the decision makers is turning the population there into a bunch of slum dwellers and then those same decision makers are priding themselves on the fact that they give those people national insurance payments.  In the neighborhood of Isawiyah, there are large piles of concrete and an immense collection of garbage.  Because of construction prohibitions, those who live there steal pieces of concrete from the roads so that it can be used on buildings.

There are some statistics that prove to be rather disturbing.  In Palestinian Jerusalem, about 65 percent of the Palestinian residents live below the poverty line compared to that of 30 percent of the Jewish population.  74 percent of Palestinian children in Jerusalem live below the poverty line whereas only 45 percent of the city's Jewish children do. Few classrooms exist in the area and about 50 percent Palestinian school children drop out.  24,500 dunams (6,000~ acres), were appropriated from Arab owners while 50,000 housing units were built on the same land for the Jewish population.  

The authorities prevent any Palestinians from building or developing land and instead allocate vacant lots to the Jews.  This tends to bring a rise in confrontations so the Housing and Construction Ministry provides hundreds of armed guards for the Jews at the public's expense.  Much of the time when Palestinians complain to the police, they are looked at as the suspects.  When Jews really are the suspects of causing bodily harm, the case ends up being closed in a swift matter.  For the Palestinians, there is no sense of security.  They feel that the authorities are aggressive, abusive, and belligerent.  They live in a world of constant violence even though the ministry denies that the guards harass them.  The ministry also said the guards are even praised for their professionalism because they show restraint and forbearance.  Roni Leibowitz, legal adviser to the police, believes that the testimonies of suspects are misleading because of their "erroneous portrayal of the way the situation developed".  Either way, conflict will always be unavoidable.

Haaretz, one of the largest Israeli news resources, is the world's leading English language website for real time news of Israel and the Middle East.  Also, since it is a source that was provided by the professor, I find its reliability even more credible.  What makes this article even more dependable  is the fact that the author got much of their sources by firsthand experience.  Amira Hass, who has held her post at Haaretz for 17 years, physically traveled to these hostile environments to get her information directly from the people living their instead of relying on false or undependable sources.  Her view on the subject is obvious throughout the article.  She honestly feels that the Palestinians of Gaza and Jerusalem both get treated inhumanly.  It seemed that she originally thought that Gaza was a worse place to live, but after her travels it seemed that was not the case.  Those Palestinians who live in Jerusalem do have it worse and she has seen it with her own two eyes.  

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My name is Ross Sheridan.

Here is a link to an article I found regarding holiday services in your pocket.