Yes, I think a lot of thier curreny success comes from "exchange" with larger countries and a natural incentive to develop e.g. military technology. I guess it is similar to places like Taiwan.
If you removed all the US companies, restricted immigration and didn't allow people to go abroad to study it isn't clear how well they would do. From what I hear it is no dream to be young in Israel today. Also there seems to be a surprising amount of shady things coming out of Israel. Anything from spam and exploits to binary options and outright fraud. Which would suggest that people don't have better opportunities.
If you removed all the US companies, restricted immigration and didn't allow people to go abroad to study it isn't clear how well they would do. From what I hear it is no dream to be young in Israel today. Also there seems to be a surprising amount of shady things coming out of Israel. Anything from spam and exploits to binary options and outright fraud. Which would suggest that people don't have better opportunities.