ISRAEL staged its 60th birthday bash with fireworks, air force flyovers and a great sense of pride yesterday, but also with uncertainty about its future and with doubts about prospects for peace with the Palestinians.
Across the country, Israelis held barbecues in gardens and public parks and were entertained by naval parades and a Bible quiz.
Israel at 60 is a paradox of exuberance and despair – a country enduring near-daily rocket attacks from militants, whil
e producing scientists who have pioneered wi-fi and instant messaging.
Six decades after rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish state is still plagued by threats from abroad and an identity crisis at home. Its 41-year occupation of Palestinian territories has invited international condemnation. Yet Israel is a thriving democracy that has provided a haven for the world's Jews.
According to an Israeli author, Yossi Klein Halevi, the country's Independence Day is a "celebration of the possible".
He said: "It means taking the dream out of the realm of the ideal and into the realm of the concrete, and that, in turn, means living with a certain amount of disappointment."
This year's celebration was marred by a fresh criminal inquiry involving Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, whose legal woes are calling his political survival into question just as he is moving to forge a peace deal with the moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
But peace talks have produced no tangible results. George Bush, the United States president, wants to see a deal by the end of the year, but that target date appears increasingly unrealistic. Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, warned yesterday that "the peace process is facing difficulties, when compared with its declared goals".
Meanwhile, in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians staged events to remind the world that Israel's creation has been their nakba, or catastrophe.
Hundreds of thousands were uprooted during the 1948 war over Israel's creation, and 4.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants are scattered across the region today.
In Bethlehem, some 500 marchers followed a lorry carrying a huge key, meant to symbolise the hope of refugees that they will return one day to their villages, most of them levelled, in what is now Israel.
Israelis, meanwhile, put aside their frustration with politics for what was billed as one of the most joyous celebrations since the first on 14 May, 1948 – a date marked each year in Israel by the Hebrew calendar.
Independence Day began at dusk on Wednesday, just as Memorial Day for the nation's fallen soldiers ended – a jarring contrast between solemnity and joy that underlined the link between the military and the existence of Israel.
Jerusalem's Zion Square was inundated with people on Wednesday night, as revellers watched the annual fireworks display. Vendors sold inflatable and light-up toys – all emblazoned with the blue and white Star of David of the Israeli flag.
During the holiday, Israel is prohibiting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from entering Israel, amid fears that militants might attempt to disrupt the celebrations.
DOING THE BUSINESS
ISRAEL is a technology powerhouse, attracting massive investment in innovative companies. But it is also home to exporters of more traditional products, such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals, some of which benefit from just about the only natural resource Israel possesses – the desert.
The country's biggest companies include:
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Israel's largest firm with a £20 billion market value, makes lower-cost generic drugs. It has said it expects to double its revenue to £10 billion by 2012. Its drug Copaxone is the US leader for treating multiple sclerosis.
• Israel Chemicals is the second-largest company, with a market value of £12 billion. Its share price has more than doubled in the past year on soaring demand for its potash and phosphate fertilisers, extracted from the Dead Sea and southern desert.
• MA Industries is the world's biggest maker of generic crop protection products. It is benefiting from the global rise in food prices that has sent farmers scrambling to increase their output.
• Altair Semiconductor develops microprocessors and accompanying software for the wireless broadband market, including the technology known as mobile WiMax, which is expected to take off in 2009.
• Discretix develops embedded security technology for mobile phones and portable devices and is entering a new market – mobile television. The firm, whose customers include leading semiconductor companies and device manufacturers, plans to go public on Nasdaq in the second half of next year.
