See the article from Globes (Israel's WSJ) below, ranking world happiness.
Palestinian territories ranks 128 - ahead of egypt (151), Syria (142), and Jordan (141). These are the alternative countries that actually Israel fought in 1967, and captured THEIR land. Bottom line, the palestians are in better shape under "israeli occupation" than living in Syria, Egypt or Jordan!
Israel 58th in UK university's World Map of Happiness
University of Leicester: Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria are the happiest of 178 countries.
Aaron Rosen 30 Jul 06 15:34
Six countries from Europe and two each from Asia and North America are the ten happiest countries in the world according to the first ever World Map of Happiness compiled by an analytic social psychologist Adrian White at University of Leicester in the UK. The top happiest countries in the world are Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, the Bahamas, Finland, Sweden, Bhutan, Brunei, and Canada.
Israel is ranked 58th in the list of 178 countries, ahead of France (62nd), Japan (90th), and not far behind Italy (50th) and the UK (41st). Germany is in 35th place, the US in 23rd, China 82nd, and India 125th.
Lebanon was ranked 113th, even before the present war. Among Arab countries, Saudi Arabia is in 31st place.
White found happiness to most closely associated with health, followed by wealth and then education. He quantified and analyzed data from UNESCO, UNHDR, the World Health Organization (WHO), the CIA, the New Economics Foundation (a UK organization), the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer to create a global projection of subjective well-being.
The result is a “satisfaction with life” (SWL) index. Israel accumulated 223.33 points. According to the survey, Israel’s life expectancy is 79.7 years (a figure apparently taken from the CIA database). The US, by contrast, accumulated 246.67 points, with a life expectancy of 75.4 years. Israel’s GDP per capita is $24,600 (according to the CIAfigure for 2006), compared with the US figure of $41,800. The figures are in purchasing power parity (PPP), not the nominal dollar value.
Israel has 93 points for access to education, compared with a score of 94.6 for the US, 157 for the UK, and 109 for France.
At the bottom of the World Happiness Map were the African countries Burundi, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (which is holding its first democratic elections in decades today).
White said, “There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.”
White added, “The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology…There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 30, 2006
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2 comments:
Are you serious? "conservative, but balanced."???? In an earlier post, you actually suggest that Israeli Occupation should be preferable to freedom for the Palestinians. How about this: why don't you come down to the West Bank, pose as a Palestinian for 1 week. I guarantee you would not last a day. The state of Apartheid imposed by Israel on the Palestinians has been condemned by both Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, both people who have lived the prime of their lives under such rule. The Apartheid Wall, the economic deprivation, the daily invasions by the Israeli Occupation Forces, the random killings by Israeli colonizers, the sustained, systematic confiscation of Palestinian land by these colonizers, the Israeli-only colonies, the Israeli-only roads, regular extra-judicial deaths, the arbitrary "arrests" (abductions, really), the long-term incarceration of children, women and elderly - even Martin Luther King would spit on Israel and you for suggesting you are "humane" or "balanced"!!
Do you know what "ethnic cleansing" is? Ethnic Cleansing and Terror are foundations on which Israel is built. As a nation, you have displaced and murdered about 100 times more innocents than those "terrorists" have from across the border. Here's a fact that you should take to bed with you tonight: the random, sporadic suicide bombings that take place in Israel are the children and survivors of YOUR acts of violence against them. YOU bred and nurtured these suicide bombers, with America's ample help, as they pretend to be "honest brokers" of the Middle East "Peace" Process.
Oh, and your economic stability and prosperity comes from America: you receive approx. $15 million A DAY from American taxpayers. Without them, where would you be?
Thanks you, Anonymous, for the comment. I would prefer it if you came out of the 'anonymous' closet. Be that as it may, the article that you are commenting on simply quotes an academic study from the UK that crosses GDP per capita, life expectancy and access to education - to arrive at a "happiness" ranking. the Palestinian territories provides better health, better working opportunities,and better access to education than the countries that the Palestinians actually originate from; namely, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. These are facts. Not political beliefs.
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