As birthrates decline across the world, countries including the U.S., South Korea, and most famously Hungary have devised various incentives to encourage citizens to have more children. So far, they have little to show for the effort. The economist Catherine Pakaluk believes such policies, which focus on tax breaks, cash payments, and perks like free daycare, are doomed to fail. Instead, she argues, countries should look to religion, and the demographic success of Israel. M.J. Koch writes:

Women can’t simply be bribed into having more children. What’s needed, instead, is a more pro-children culture. “Free market solutions are the only ones that stand a chance,” Ms. Pakaluk, herself a mother of fourteen, tells the Sun.

America could instead learn from a country that has been immune to cratering birth rates around the world—Israel. “They have a larger percentage of people who have religiously devout families who believe children are blessings, and that it’s worth taking on these extra sacrifices,” Ms. Pakaluk says. If a substantial minority of the population is forming large families, there can be spillover effects that make the whole culture more family-friendly and inspire more people who are on the fence about having children to go ahead and do it.

In America, organized religion is in a decades-long decline and faith-based education has grown more expensive. “Intergenerational transmission of values is much stronger when parents are working together with churches, which pass on their values to their children,” says Ms. Pakaluk. “Schools are an enormous way in which that channel of passing on faith gets broken.”

To help reverse the inverting pyramid of America’s population, Ms. Pakaluk advocates for giving parents more “educational freedom” in deciding whether to send their children to school, and giving churches a greater role in shaping people’s values.

Iran recently announced its plans to install over 1,000 new advanced centrifuges at its Fordow nuclear facility. Once they are up and running, the Institute for Science and International Security assesses, Fordow will be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for three nuclear bombs in a mere ten days. The U.S. has remained indifferent. Jacob Nagel writes:

For more than two decades, Iran has continued its efforts to enhance its nuclear-weapons capability—mainly by enriching uranium—causing Israel and the world to concentrate on the fissile material. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently confirmed that Iran has a huge stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent, as well as more enriched to 20 percent, and the IAEA board of governors adopted the E3 (France, Germany, UK) proposed resolution to censure Iran for the violations and lack of cooperation with the agency. The Biden administration tried to block it, but joined the resolution when it understood its efforts to block it had failed.

To clarify, enrichment of uranium above 20 percent is unnecessary for most civilian purposes, and transforming 20-percent-enriched uranium to the 90-percent-enriched product necessary for producing weapons is a relatively small step. Washington’s reluctance even to express concern about this development appears to stem from an unwillingness to acknowledge the failures of President Obama’s nuclear policy. Worse, writes Nagel, it is turning a blind eye to efforts at weaponization. But Israel has no such luxury:

Israel must adopt a totally new approach, concentrating mainly on two main efforts: [halting] Iran’s weaponization actions and weakening the regime hoping it will lead to its replacement. Israel should continue the fight against Iran’s enrichment facilities (especially against the new deep underground facility being built near Natanz) and uranium stockpiles, but it should not be the only goal, and for sure not the priority.

The biggest danger threatening Israel’s existence remains the nuclear program. It would be better to confront this threat with Washington, but Israel also must be fully prepared to do it alone.