On October 12, a girl was born in an Israeli hospital and given the name Be’ri, after the kibbutz that had so recently borne the brunt of Hamas’s onslaught. Since then, at least 44 other Israeli children have been given that name. This small fact reveals something profound about the Jewish state, writes Jacob Sivak:

On November 23, the Population and Immigration Border Authority reported that close to 18,000 babies had been born in Israel since October 7, many named after locations attacked by Hamas that day. Some might view this as a strange announcement to make in the middle of a war, a war that Hamas initiated by killing, torturing, and raping 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children, and kidnapping 240 more, but not if you are aware of what Ofir Haivry calls Israel’s “demographic miracle.”

An OECD chart for 2021 . . . shows that the disparity between the fertility number for Israel and that for other developed countries is even larger than [previously] reported. The value for Israel (3.00) is essentially unchanged from 2015, but the overall OECD average is 1.58, reduced from 1.68. The number for the U.S. went down from 1.80 to 1.66, for Canada from 1.61 to 1.43, and for Italy from 1.39 to 1.25, while South Korea’s number went down from 1.19 to 0.81, which is less than one child per woman!

Israel’s high birthrate has attracted a lot of attention and the reasons for it have been attributed to a number of factors. . . . Most importantly, however, . . . children represent survival.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.