ISRAEL: Exodus of academics ‘unparalleled’

A new report on the flight of Israel's academic researchers to the United States foretells of catastrophic consequences for the economic and defence sectors if the haemorrhaging of leading minds out of the country does not cease, reports the Jerusalem Post. “The deeper I dug, the clearer it became to me that we have developed a problem that is at a magnitude beyond anything that exists anywhere else in the developed world," said Professor Dan Ben-David, of Tel Aviv University's Center for Economic Policy Research.

"This is a country where we depend on hi-tech which doesn't just come from private investment, but from basic research at universities," he said. "We need hi-tech to defend Sderot, to build an air force."

Ben-David said higher education was being "systematically destroyed. It'll take us a generation or more to repair the damage. In this neighborhood you only get one chance."
Full report on the Jerusalem Post site