Israel’s Culture and Demography Make It Less Vulnerable to Epidemics—and to Terrorism—than Europe

According to the World Health Organization, Europe has replaced China as the center of the coronavirus epidemic. By contrast, Israel seems thus far to have been more successful at containing its spread. Eyal Zisser ascribes the differences to two factors: the much larger proportion of the European population that is elderly (and thus more vulnerable to disease) and Israel’s swifter and more aggressive response:

There is a distinct connection between these two factors: . . . the European ideal of living for today and preferring a certain quality of life and prosperity over having and raising children is . . . at the root of Europe’s low birth rates. These low birthrates have led to severe shortages of workers and the flooding of the continent with labor migrants from across the globe, mainly from Africa and the Arab world.

The challenges facing Europe were evident as early as ten years ago when the threat of Islamic terror intensified. At the root of this threat were the Muslim immigrants across the continent who failed to assimilate. The European response to this challenge was denial. Unlike Israel, instead of dealing with the threat, the Europeans opted to tolerate terroristic motivations and avoided implementing measures to protect themselves—all in the name of preserving the rights of the individual and concerns over lowering the quality of life.

The Europeans have grown accustomed to criticizing and preaching to the Jewish state, but it appears that tiny Israel has some things to teach Europe. . . . [T]he Israeli way of doing things provides a model of how a modern Western country can be capable of rallying society and state institutions toward a singular purpose, while also maintaining dynamism, growth, openness—and yes, a positive natural growth rate as well.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Coronavirus, Demography, Europe, Israeli society

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF