Through It All, the Jewish State Is Thriving

Tiny Israel has been fighting, simultaneously, a war against Hamas in Gaza, against Hezbollah in Lebanon, against the Houthis in Yemen, against Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria, and against its most dangerous enemy, Iran. It has demolished most of Hamas, killing 26,000 of its fighters so that the only units that have survived intact are in Gaza City. The IDF has battered Hezbollah, destroying 80% of its antebellum vast arsenal of rockets and missiles, killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah and Nasrallah’s successor Hashem Safieddine, and put out of commission close to 4,000 Hezbollah fighters who were victims of the “exploding pagers.” Now Hezbollah has been weakened to a point where the Lebanese national army finally dares to take it on. Israel has bombed Houthi targets in distant Yemen, including the airport in Sanaa and the port at Hodeidah, making it almost impossible for Iran to deliver weapons to the Houthis, leading the group to call a halt to its own attacks on Israel. In a 12-day war in June, the IDF managed, with American help, to obliterate both Iran’s nuclear facilities and its ballistic missile stockpiles and factories.

Three hundred thousand Israeli reservists have been called up to the IDF, and while fighting in Gaza, they are no longer contributing to the civilian economy. Much of the world seems determined to libel Israel, charging it with “genocide.” The anti-Israel and antisemitic protesters who insist that “from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” are in effect calling for Israel to disappear, to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state. Another chant calls for “globalizing the Intifada,” which means carrying out terrorist attacks on Jews worldwide. At the UN, more resolutions are passaged against Israel than against all the other 193 member states put together. Many countries in the West — Spain, Ireland, France, Norway — now have said they recognize “a state of Palestine,” though no one has yet said where the borders of this state should. be, or who will govern it, or what will happen to the 520,000 Israeli Jews now living in Judea and Samaria. And yet, through these years of terrorism and war, and economic boycotts, and diplomatic assaults on Israel’s legitimacy, the country has defied all expectations and is thriving.

More on this tale of extraordinary resilience can be found here: “Why Israel Is Thriving Despite Years of War and International Attacks,” by Jacob Sivak, Algemeiner, November 11, 2025:

An October 2025 ranking of the world’s economies, using 2026 projections from the International Monetary Fund, indicates that in spite of two years of existential war against multiple enemies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis, Israel’s economy is performing surprisingly well.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to increase to nearly 700 billion dollars, ranking 27th in the world — impressive for a small country with a little more than 10 million people. Per capita, the situation looks even better. Israel’s per capita GDP ranking is 16th, edging out Germany (18th) and the UK (19th) and well above Canada (22nd) France (26th), and Italy (28th).

These numbers could not help but remind me of a column by Alistair Heath in the June 2025 Daily Telegraph on “Israel’s Divine Survival.” Heath starts by saying there is something about Israel that makes people uncomfortable:

A nation this small should not be this strong. Period. Israel has no oil. No special natural resources. A population barely the size of a mid-sized American city. They are surrounded by enemies. Hated in the United Nations. Targeted by terror. Condemned by celebrities. Boycotted, slandered, and attacked. And still, they thrive like there’s no tomorrow.

Is Israel thriving?

Well, besides economic measures, other indicators also defy expectations. For example, it was also recently reported that life expectancy in Israel increased by one full year, a significant jump, to 83.8 years, between 2023 and 2024. Life expectancy in Israel is now the fourth highest in the 37 member OECD, exceeded only by Switzerland, Japan, and Spain….

But to Alistair Heath Israel doesn’t make sense unless you believe in something beyond the math. “There is no historical precedent for surviving the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust, and still showing up to work on Monday in Tel Aviv,” he wrote. Perhaps the secret to understanding Israel’s success is not any different from appreciating the resilience displayed by the Jewish people through the ages. Or, as expressed by a quotation attributed to the noted Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

If Israel can accomplish all this — a high ranking in the GDP Index, the World Flourishing Index, the World Happiness Index, in its low rates of infant mortality and the steady increases in life expectancy, and succeed by every other measure of mental and physical wellbeing — imagine what it would. be like if the Jewish state were not constantly threatened by those both within and outside the country who wish to see it destroyed.

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