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Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/21/dont-shun-israel-take-notes/
Don't Shun Israel. Take Notes
(Telegraph-UK) Jake Wallis Simons - Israel is the only OECD country to have a birth rate above replacement, with an extra baby boom of 10% taking place during the war. Its citizens are among the most resilient, patriotic and innovative on Earth. Its economy is booming - per capita, its GDP ranks five places higher than Britain, according to IMF data - and despite three years of appalling war, it is the 8th happiest country in the world, showing extremely low levels of crime, addiction, family breakdown and mental illness. In the realm of defense, both Hamas and Hizbullah are shadows of their former selves and their Iranian paymasters have taken a huge battering. Today, Israel has military buffer zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, preventing another marauding attack as seen on Oct. 7. It has proved to the world that no amount of pressure, either from terrorists or their sympathizers in the West, can deter its mission of protecting its people. What is Israel's secret? The first factor is its unapologetic sense of peoplehood, that most unfashionable yet fundamental of concepts. In Israel, whether a political rally is supportive of the government or against it, both groups of activists will fly their national flag. And beneath all the arguments lies a basic solidarity. These citizens will fight and die together, whatever their political differences. Such is the power of peoplehood. It produces great national resilience as well as strong social bonds, a deep sense of meaning, and happiness. While the Jewish state speaks the language of existential war, so removed are other democracies from such things that they can only think in terms of luxury morality. Our leaders lecture Israel on "human rights" and the U.S. on "international law," without realizing that to anybody facing true tyranny, whether Israeli or Iranian or Ukrainian, their words sound like the quacking of pompous ducks. Those who wag their fingers at Israel should really be taking notes. For all its problems, the Jewish state's 78th birthday dawns on one of the mightiest open societies on the planet. When it comes to the future of democracy, my money is firmly on Israel.