E-Paper
India-Israel ties: Aligning national ideals to build a common future
The next revolution will not only be digital. It will be civilisational — a fusion of faith, science, and imagination to expand what it means to be human
We are living through the greatest burst of innovation in human history. Artificial intelligence (AI) is rewriting language. Quantum computing promises to decode nature itself. Private rockets are racing toward Mars. Everywhere, humanity is reaching higher, faster, farther. But amid all this velocity, something essential risks being left behind — not our intelligence, but our imagination. Not our capability, but our conscience.
We talk about moonshots for medicine, energy, and climate. What we need now are moonshots for meaning — an audacious renewal of the human spirit to match our technological ascent. When President Kennedy called for America to reach the moon, he wasn’t just issuing a scientific challenge. He was offering a moral one – to dream beyond fear, to cooperate at scale, to choose greatness. The same call now echoes for this generation — but our frontier is no longer space. It’s the human spirit itself.
India understands this instinct better than most. For millennia, this land has believed that knowledge without wisdom is incomplete — that the outer and inner journeys must evolve together. From the Upanishads to Digital India, the Indian imagination has always been about expanding human possibility, marrying technology with transcendence.
Today, India is launching its own moonshots — literally and figuratively. Chandrayaan-3 placed the tricolor on the lunar south pole. Digital Public Infrastructure is revolutionising inclusion. And yet, India’s greatest innovation may not be technological at all. It may be the belief — ancient and alive — that progress must serve the soul.
In Israel, I see a parallel spirit. A people who revived an ancient language and turned deserts into data farms. A nation that sees innovation not just as profit, but as purpose. From drip irrigation to AI security systems, Israeli creativity often begins with a moral question: How can this serve life? That is the bridge between our nations — and the invitation to the world. To build not only the smartest future, but the most human one.
Because the next revolution will not only be digital. It will be civilisational — a fusion of faith, science, and imagination to expand what it means to be human. We must design technology that strengthens, not weakens, our shared humanity. Machines that amplify curiosity, not cynicism. Systems that encourage wonder, not division. Tools that help us see one another more clearly — not as data points, but as souls.
India and Israel can lead this charge together: Two ancient civilisations reborn as innovation nations, reminding the world that progress without purpose is power without direction. Let us treat ethics as infrastructure. Let us fund moral imagination the way we fund quantum labs. Let us build new alliances between scientists, sages, and storytellers — between Bengaluru and Be’er Sheva, between Jerusalem and New Delhi — to ensure our tools reflect our deepest values.
Humanity’s next leap won’t be from Earth to Mars, but from capability to consciousness — from intelligence to wisdom. If we can align our technology with our ideals, we will not only extend life; we will elevate it. That is the moonshot that matters most: To build a future as brilliant as our minds, and as luminous as our souls.
Avi Jorisch is CEO, Israel Economic Forum, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, and author of NEXT: A Brief History of the Future. The views expressed are personal
