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.
Walter Sieruk says
It should be made known that the Muslim terror organizations, Hamas .and Hezbollah and so forth, are all fated to fail in their Islamic agenda of destroying the State of Israel and replacing with Islamic “state.” The reason that they will lose in the end and lose hard is because the members of those jihad terror entities are striving against the Will of God. The members who compose those Islamic terror groups might be too ignorant to know this, nevertheless the truth is the God had given all this land that now composes the State of Israel, including all of the so called “West Bank”, which in reality is Judah and Samaria ,to the Jewish people. This may be found in the Bible, as seen in, for example, Genesis 28:13-15. 35:10-12. Deuteronomy 32:48,49. Psalm 105:7-11. 135:4.
In other words the Jews have tall this land by Divine Right. Furthermore, the Jewish people should have this land by historic rights as shown in First Kings 4:20,21, 24,25. 8:55, 56.
Still, in all fairness, there is one way for the Muslim members who make up for those despots of Iran along with the jihadists of Iran’s stooge jihad terror /murder entities Hamas and Hezbollah, to convince God to change His Mind about being so much for Israel and then cause Him to turn His back on Israel and then have that nation be no more.
That way is for the members of the jihad origination to gather together and then change the laws of astrophysics, including those laws of astrophysics the control the sun, the moon and the stars. For God had declared in His Word, the Bible, in Jeremiah 31:35,36. “Thus saith the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and stars for a light by night…The Lord of host is His name. If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
Walter Sieruk says
First and foremost, the Bible informs its reader “For the Lord chosen for Himself, Israel for His special treasure.” Psalm 135:4. [N.K.J.V.]
Second, those Muslims terrorists who belong to the different terror Islamic terror /murder organizations may well be scheming for the conquering Israel and destroying her, and then all nations for a worldwide dominance of Islam with its Sharia.
Such a military Islamic alliance to destroy the Jewish State of Israel would be completely unsuccessful.
As the Bible in Proverbs, 10:28 reads, “The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.” “
Edmund Carey says
A small note. “From the river to the sea” is not only a call for Israel to disappear, it is a call for genocide. It means that justice will only be done in what Britain decided was Palestine in 1922 when the Jewish state has been forced out of existence by any means that will accomplish that. “By any means necessary” is an adjunct slogan that appears on protest signs at some hate-fests.
The point being made is that, if Israel can be destroyed by boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning, fine, do it that way. If Israel can be destroyed by “lawfare” through international tribunals, okay, do it that way. But if neither of those methods will work (and all signs are they won’t) then bloody force of any and every kind and dimension is completely justified, an example of which happened on October 7th 2023.
That, simply, is advocating that Hitler’s solution to his Jew problem should be applied to the Middle East’s Jew problem – kill as many of them as will make the problem go away.
“From the river to the sea / a bigger Auschwitz there should be”, that is, would be putting the motto in a form more in accord with its intent.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
One point was left out of my piece above: in the World Happiness Index, Israel is ranked #8, Not bad for a country under constant assault, militarily, diplomatically, and economically.
James Lincoln says
Hugh Fitzgerald,
Interestingly, the United States ranks number 24:
https://data.worldhappiness.report/table?_gl=1*12sclfd*_gcl_au*MTgwOTQwMjcxLjE3NjMwNzQ2NDg.
OLD GUY says
Could that be because we have allowed 20 million illegal migrants into our country?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Per capita GDP is the way to look at it. Otherwise, one gets misleading numbers about India, which is at #4 or so for total GDP, but floundering at #140 or so when per capita is considered. Or China, which is #2 in the former, and #75 in the latter. US is #1 in the former but #7 in the latter. Israel’s is impressive as well
ploome says
Through It All, the Jewish State Is Thriving
“Culture is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these groups.”
is that why there is so much antisemitism?
The Jews cannot be forgiven for thriving?
ploome says
interesting feedback