No other country is infantilized as much as Israel.
Let's give Israelis more dignity, honor, and respect.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
During the last 11 years of living in Israel, I have spoken to many people across the world who, more often than not, talk about Israel as if its roughly 10 million people do not seem to know what’s good for them.
It feels like no other country is infantilized as much as Israel.
Many Americans, for instance, think they can project whatever tickles their fancy onto Israelis because of the nearly $4 billion in annual military aid that the U.S. offers Israel, yet plenty of them do not realize that this money is not actual aid in the altruistic sense of the word; it is a mutually beneficial arrangement in which the U.S. receives all types of assets (e.g. technology, defense, intelligence) for literal pennies on the dollar.
As Moshe Dayan, the famed Israeli Minister of Defense during the 1967 Six-Day War, used to say: “Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”
Unsurprisingly, at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Democratic Party unveiled its official “platform” which includes an entire section on the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war. It notes, among other items, that a ceasefire deal “will lead to a more secure Israel.” The arrogance and incompetence is pungent, as I have come to expect from the Democratic Party for which I used to exclusively vote.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Democratic Party has zero insight into what will actually “lead to a more secure Israel” — definitely not a premature ceasefire that they are trying to force down Israel’s throat.
And I can also tell you with absolute certainty that this prescription is a disingenuous attempt at appeasing extremist leftists amongst the Democrats — extremist leftists who are slowly but surely hijacking the entire party with their desire, among others, to effectively eliminate support for Israel from the entire Democratic platform, or at least make U.S. support contingent on ridiculous demands and expectations that grossly compromise Israel’s basic security.
But it is not just Americans who overwhelmingly infantilize Israel. Brits, Australians, South Africans, Argentinians, Canadians, French, and many others talk about Israelis as if we are purely incapable of making our own decisions.
Part of this mentality can be explained by Diaspora Jews and others who have given or continue to give money in some form or fashion to Israel. Accordingly, they feel (or at least act) entitled to speak about Israel and Israelis in certain ways because of their (apparently strings-attached) gifts.
In some respects, I can understand this mindset, but in other respects, it feels like many people cross the line by not differentiating between respectfully having an opinion about Israel and Israelis, versus prescribing us something we probably do not need and certainly do not want.
Either way, let me clarify something in case it is not clear to some in the crowd: Israelis are perfectly capable of managing, governing, and fending for ourselves.
At the same time, Israelis sincerely appreciate our relationships with the United States, Europe, and other countries, but our fate is not dependent on these relationships. They are a very nice luxury to have, even as Israel often gives much more to these relationships compared to what it receives.
But the Jewish state was not founded to rely on other countries rescuing our behinds at every beck and call. Israel has all the means necessary to not just defend itself, but to exact far more pain on those who attack us than we endure ourselves.
In a single day’s work, for example, the IDF could take out at least 30 percent of the oil and gas fields belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran and debilitate its already feeble economy, which would likely lead to another revolution in Iran and thus conclude the ayatollahs’ miserable regimes. Israel has the 98th-largest population on Earth to go along with the fourth-strongest army.
Yet so many people, including those who consider themselves staunch supporters of the Jewish state, condescendingly conversate about Israelis as if we are collectively a 6-year-old boy who can barely tie his shoes and still waters his bed from time to time. They make comments like, “It appears Bibi is prolonging the war. How long will Israelis keep his arrogant and corrupt a** around?”
Israelis are not stupid. We know Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu far better than outsiders and onlookers.
If we are “keeping him around” — indeed, the vast majority of Israelis are not taking to Israel’s streets to demand early elections — it is probably because, at least in part, the vast majority of Israelis realize that, while Netanyahu is indeed corrupted (like so many politicians in so many countries across the world), he appears to be the best person for the current job of fending off unsubstantiated yet increasingly stark international pressure to end this Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war prematurely, which would be a major blow to Israel for years, perhaps decades, to come.
At the same time, Israelis are not suckers. I use that word purposefully. The word in Hebrew for sucker is “frier” and you hear it frequently amongst Israelis — because the number-one thing you do not want to be in Israeli society is a “frier,” a sucker, or someone who is easily taken advantage of.
Thus, if Israelis eventually feel like Netanyahu is taking us for a ride, you can rest assured that we will let him and the rest of the world know about it. Those who truly know Israel know that Israelis are overly generous about voicing our opinions directly and unequivocally.
And that right there is the crux of this “infantilizing Israel” problem. Many people who wax about Israelis do not really understand us at our core. And I am not talking about the Israelis that you might meet in touristic places like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Eilat. I am talking about Israelis from Ramla, Kfar Saba, Rehovot, Kiryat Yam, Ashkelon, Nahariyya, Sderot, Afula, Be’er Sheva, Petach Tikva, and Hadera (just to name a few places).
The Israelis that agree with your worldviews or politics are not superior to the Israelis who do not. And if you find yourself perplexed, frustrated, and/or disappointed by why Israel does what it does politically, militarily, or otherwise, the likelihood is that you and countless others do not deeply understand what drives Israelis to think, act, and behave in the ways we do. Some call this “Western conventional wisdom” which usually does not apply to the harsh realities of the Middle East.
Israelis are mostly conservative, both religiously and sociopolitically, because we have to be. Show us another country that has fought defensive wars against warmongering, genocidal enemies literally every decade on its own soil for the full 76 years of its existence — and is not only standing, but remains one of the world’s strongest nations.
In fact, Israel is undoubtedly the strongest country relative to its population count (just under 10 million) and geographic size (22,145 square kilometers, 420 kilometers in length and about 115 kilometers across at its widest point).
And yet, as former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir put it:
“Moses took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!”1
And therein lies the real magic of Israelis. “Blessed” without any significant natural resources that we could manufacture into a worthwhile economy, Israelis used an asset that cannot be easily found across the landscapes of the Middle East: our brains. Today, Israeli innovation, ingenuity, and creativity are all hallmarks across virtually every multinational industry, and these attributes also help keep Israelis relatively safe at home via defense and security.
Hence why Israel’s self-professed enemies have never been able to defeat Israel militarily despite a multitude of genocidal attempts spanning 76 years.
Israel has no doubt had help of many kinds en route to its prominent place among the nations, but so has every country. Indeed, the Jewish state is like most every country: It has good, bad, and ugly.
Israelis are not perfect, and guess what? Neither are you. Israeli society is not perfect, and guess what? No such society exists. Some Israelis are corrupted and extremists, on all sides of the sociopolitical spectrum, and guess what? The same goes for people in your country. If we judged every country by its groups of corrupted and extremists, the entire planet would be terribly rotten.
In many aspects, Israel is an ordinary country. Its society, economy, institutions, and politics involve complex realities and sociopolitical challenges that are pulled at from many directions as a byproduct of Israel’s incredibly diverse population and its messy history (the same mess of a history that virtually every country has).
But I can tell you a few ways in which Israel is drastically different from virtually every other country:
Israel is subject to gross double standards which every other country would merely laugh at, before proceeding however they desire.
Israel is the only country with the word “anti” prefixed to its name, as in “anti-Israel” and “anti-Zionism.”
Israel faces growing threats of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions spearheaded by the nefarious organization, the so-called “BDS movement” founded in 2005, and rumored to be funded by some of the most heinous regimes on this planet, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Qatar and Iran.
The last point is quite interesting; since Arab countries realized that they could not defeat Israel militarily, they took a different path: Boycotts, divestments, and sanctions are tactics of political warfare used against Israel, intended to isolate it economically, culturally, and politically.
While it has chalked up only a few real victories, the BDS movement has garnered substantial visibility and supporters internationally, including on Western college campuses and in state parliaments like U.S. Congress.
This propelled Israel to, in 2006, create the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy which, among other activities, launched financial campaigns that resulted in the shutdown of dozens of bank accounts in Europe and the U.S. belonging to BDS-promoting NGOs.
I include this information not to get all surgical about real-life Israel, but to relay a more pressing point: Israelis face unique threats of all kinds — from antisemitic, genocidal folks who revere the Nazis — the reality of which generates increasingly daunting, no less reasonable, fears amongst those who live in Israel.
You can read about and listen and watch content and even talk to Israelis about these fears, but that does not replace lived experience. As the universal saying goes: “Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.”
Israelis are mostly decent, peaceful, family-oriented, warm, hard-working people. But we are also Jews. And thousands of years of Jewish history, combined with the newer Israeli history, have trained us to do what it takes to exist.
Don’t be surprised when we do it.
“Mrs. Meir Says Moses Made Israel Oil‐Poor.” The New York Times.
They will stop "infantilizing" us when they see we can take care of ourselves independently. Which means having a superior arsenal and weapons system we can sustain by ourselves and the will to kick out - or terminate - the enemies within Israel, regardless of what anyone says. I am 70 years old. I learned this lesson in my early 30s when some people who were dear to me tried to "step on my toes" financially; thinking I would be a good little girl and do nothing. They learned quickly that even a good little girl can get a lawyer to read them the riot act - and they backed down. I didn't hate them. We still got along, but in a different - more mutually respectful way. Israel's "arsenal" must include everything from weapons to intel that gives us leverage with our enemies - and allies. If we cower and cringe like little girls over our hostages, over the "unfairness" of the world's treatment of us - they will treat us like the infants they perceive us as. Modern Israel is 77 years old but we still must grow up.
The US treats Israel as a vassal to be used to further American objectives, including those adverse to Israel’s interests. What’s worse is that too many liberal American Jews believe their support for Israel obligates Israel to act against its own interest in the name of liberal values. From the comfort of their homes in NY, DC, Chicago, and LA, they find it easy to lecture Israelis who are under constant attack.