• Fact No 1: Using commerce, specifically high-tech, to integrate diverse parts of society is nothing new.
• Fact No 2: Israel has a successful high-tech / start up model.
• Fact No 3: Israel is not short of social tensions – geopolitical strains, religious-secular divides to name but two.

So can Israel find innovative ways to integrate non-Jews, roughly 25% of society, into its powerful high-tech sector?

Now we know that Israeli high-tech is highly sought after. Just this week, Microsoft has plunged a further US$200m on investment into the Holy Land, purchasing the app Aorato. We also know that Intel, Siemens, and at least a further 250 international tech giants have R&D centres in the country. And it would be a fair bet that most of these places are staffed and run by Jews.

So how does the Start-up Nation ensure that all ethnic backgrounds can have a fair crack at this tempting road to new wealth?

Bloomberg recently posted an article describing the imperative need for Israel to go beyond established recruitment drives. There are simply not enough new engineers and software architects to fill the vacant positions.

Only one in five of Israeli Arabs with a computer science degree works in the field, and a new government program is trying to change that. As part of a push to add 300,000 jobs in the Israeli Arab sector by 2020, the Ministry of Economy has budgeted more than 40 million shekels ($10.5 million) over the next three years to integrate one of the country’s fastest-growing populations into its most promising industry.

A newspaper from Abu Dhabi (ironically?) picked up on this theme. The National discussed intervention and integration into Israeli high-tech by Muslims. Consider that less than a decade ago, there were estimated to be only 350 Arab engineers working in the sector.

Today of the 100,000 software developers in Israel 2,000 are Arabs. In Nazareth there are 600 Arab software developers when there had been only 40 in 2008, according to figures from Tsofen, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to promote the integration of Israel’s Arab citizens into the high-tech industry.

Nazareth is a city that has an incredibly challenging mix, comprising of Jewish, Christian and Muslim neighbourhoods, often intertwined. Despite periods of stress, be it this month or back in 2000, there are on-going successful attempts to provide services available for all. A classic example is a new centre to help abused children.

Similarly, the local business incubator has a healthy range of programmes to enhance integration. A recent ‘make-a-thon’ competition saw around 100 developers and programmers, both Arabs and Jews, work for 36 hours straight to develop apps and software.

Life is not perfect. I am aware that of one Israeli exporter was seeking this Autumn a contract with a potential client in a large Western economy. The CEO of the prospect demanded that the Israeli firm declare on its website its openness to full integration. Strangely, that same prospect does not have a similar policy on its own website. Nor does it seem to demand the same standards from suppliers in other countries.

And, what the prospect failed to admit is that his own country can also be accused of failing re integration……….as does 200 other countries.

What makes Israel unique in this instance is that few places in the world have to cope with the rich and numerous conflicting social issues, which originate both internally and externally. Jerusalem continues to look for new ways to rise to those demands for the benefit of all.