I don't believe that any democracy could have survived as such in conditions that Israel has

had to cope with from day one of our existence.

We were created in war and we've never known a real day of peace since.

And so our reality is a constant balancing act between struggles for security and for democratic norms.

And sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong.

But even when we get it wrong, those fault lines are instructive because they tell us what the

pressure points are for democracy.

How much can democracy take before it starts to crack?

It's all part of this extraordinary experiment

of Israeli democracy. Today something a little different. I've long been a chronicler of Israel's innovation

economy going back to 2009 when Saul Singer and I released our book

Start Up Nation. Since that time Saul and I have watched in awe as the Start Up Nation has flourished.

As Israel's innovation economy grew and expanded into different sectors, as more and more multinationals from around the world

set up operations in Israel. It's about three times as many multinationals from

around the world in Israel today than when we released our book back in 2009 and as Israel

normalized diplomatic and therefore economic relations with surprising

regions around the world, especially Arab countries in its own neighborhood.

But today I want to talk about a different book we've been writing.

It's a story that Salin I think is as important as the start of nation's story, maybe even more so. Our new book is

focused on an aspect of Israel that is not just critical to understanding Israel's

dynamism but perhaps its greatest innovation. It's resilience, the

resilience of Israeli society. Now you may have two reactions to what I'm saying here. First, what about Israel's

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