When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israel’s growing global isolation amid the two-year war with Hamas in Gaza, he delivered one of the strangest speeches of his career. He declared that Israel must become a self-reliant economy and transform itself into a “Super-Sparta.”
The analogy was both absurd and revealing. Sparta, after all, was a warrior society that vanished from history more than two millennia ago—a cautionary tale, not a model to emulate. Ever defiant, Netanyahu blamed Israel’s pariah status on his political rivals, the left, the media and antisemites. They bear part of the blame, to be sure, but so do his government’s own policies. Beyond the hostages, perhaps nothing symbolizes Israel’s loss more than the collapse of its global image.
Israel’s moral advantage after the massacre of its citizens on Oct. 7, 2023, was short-lived. The moment that Hamas’s atrocities faded from the headlines, the narrative shifted, as it always does, from the slaughter of Israeli men, women and children to the suffering of Palestinians. Hamas embedded its fighters and weapons in hospitals, schools, mosques and residential towers, ensuring high civilian casualties. Those images were inevitable—and devastating.
Dead Israelis rarely move the world; wounded Palestinians dominate its conscience. News coverage amplified Palestinian suffering, often without verification, feeding the now-familiar accusation of “genocide.” Media monitors helplessly whine about the coverage.
Harsh statements by Israeli officials made in the heat of the moment following the massacre were used as ammunition for charges of war crimes. Sieges that were tactically sound proved politically disastrous, eventually allowing Israel’s enemies to accuse it of starving Palestinians. Extremist ministers exacerbated the situation with their rhetoric and became persona non grata, even in the United States.
Protests erupted across Western capitals. University students, animated by moral fervor but ignorant of facts and history, built encampments from New York to London. On the TV talk series “Real Time with Bill Maher,” CNN political commentator Van Jones observed that millions of young people only know Israel as hurting Palestinians.
Diplomatically, Israel’s isolation hardened. The U.N. General Assembly issued predictable condemnations, and only Washington’s veto prevented harsher measures in the Security Council. On May 19, 2025, the United Kingdom, France and Canada jointly condemned Israel’s operations in Gaza as “wholly disproportionate” and warned of targeted sanctions unless Jerusalem ceased its offensive. A few weeks later, 10 countries—among them the three above, plus Australia—unilaterally recognized Palestinian statehood, despite Israel’s protests.
Israel faces boycotts in every sphere of international public life. Thousands of celebrities signed statements attacking the Jewish state and pledging to boycott its film industry, which, ironically, is left of center, and generally critical of the government and sympathetic to the Palestinians. Musicians refuse to perform in Israel, while at the same time, Israeli performers and speakers are canceled, disrupted and picketed. A campaign, likely to fail, was launched to bar Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest.
Academics from Israel have been shunned, professional associations and teachers’ unions call for boycotts against them, their papers are rejected from journals, and invitations to conferences and joint research projects have dried up.
Israeli athletes are targets wherever they go. An Israeli cycling team was excluded from a race in Italy out of fear of protests and subsequently changed its branding, removing the word “Israel.” FIFA is being urged to ban Israel from soccer while its matches generate sometimes riotous demonstrations. Indonesia barred Israeli gymnasts from the world championships in Jakarta.
A June 2025 Pew poll found that, among 25 countries, the only ones with a favorable view of Israel were Israelis, Nigerians (59%) and Kenyans (50%). In the United States, 53% had an unfavorable opinion of Israel. Turks had the most unfavorable view of Israel (93%), followed by the Indonesians (80%), Japanese (79%), Dutch (78%) and Swedes (75%).
When asked if they had confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing, only 32% of Americans said yes. After the Turks (94%), the least confident were the Spaniards (84%), Italians (80%), and the Dutch, Swedes and Japanese (78%). Only 21% of Americans in a September Quinnipiac poll had a favorable opinion of Netanyahu. In Gallup polls, his unfavorable rating in the U.S. went from 28% in 1997 to 52% in 2025. Gallup also found that favorability toward Israel has declined from 75% in 2021 to 54% in 2025.
“When the Western world is condemning us, our reaction is not to give in, but to dig our heels in deeper,” observed Michael Oren, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel. He argues, “There are some things that Israel just cannot do or will not do to ameliorate its international standing: For example, creating a Palestinian state which would fall to Hamas within 24 hours.”
As my colleague Richard Landis accurately documents in his book—Can ‘The Whole World’ Be Wrong?—the international community so often misunderstands the Middle East.
Israel’s instinct may be correct, but it comes with a price. It may not owe its critics moral surrender, but it also cannot ignore the erosion of its global legitimacy.
The situation may be more intense than in recent memory, but it’s not new. Netanyahu may be demonized around the world and Israel’s approach to fighting Hamas used as the pretext for the opprobrium directed at it; however, the effort to marginalize, if not destroy, the Jewish state started at least 80 years ago.
The Arab Boycott was formulated in 1945, two years before the U.N. partition vote and three years before Israel declared independence. That boycott was directed at the Jewish people and evolved into an effort to isolate Israel. And guess who is one of the last remaining advocates of that boycott? Our good friends the Qataris, who most recently attended the May 2025 regional conference.
More than two decades before the war in Gaza, the groundwork for Israel’s isolation was laid at the 2001 Durban conference, where NGOs and Arab states adopted a strategy for the “complete and total isolation of Israel” in every diplomatic, economic and cultural sphere. The boycotts we see today are simply the legacy of the Durban agenda.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also recognized the erosion of Israel’s support. “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world,” he said. Trump sees his peace plan as a way to get “all that support back” by ending the war, expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords created under his first administration and establishing a regional security framework.
No one should expect the world to applaud Israel if the war ends. Months of stories about suffering Gazans, especially children, and documentation of the destruction will make headlines. The lies about genocide will be repeated ad nauseum, along with calls for war crimes trials. Israel may yet have to invade Lebanon and strike Iran again—acts that will perpetuate the cycle of criticism.
And yet, for all the outrage, Israel remains far from pariah status. Before Oct. 7, Israel had ties with 166 of 193 U.N. member states. Just four—Belize, Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua—cut relations, and those were largely symbolic (and Bolivia’s new president plans to restore them). None of the Abraham Accords partners suspended relations. Perhaps more importantly, eight Muslim states endorsed Trump’s 20-point Mideast peace plan.
Governments are not boycotting Israel, and global investors are not fleeing. Israel’s technological innovation, cyber expertise and defense systems remain indispensable. Arms sales have reached record highs. As The Times of Israel aptly headlined, “When things get real, countries seeking defense tech put politics aside and go for Israel.”
And for all its noise, the anti-Israel BDS movement is a fringe sideshow. Not one Palestinian benefits from the demonization of the Jewish state.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir bluntly explained Israel’s position in 1970, and it remains unchanged: “If we have to have a choice between dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
Netanyahu’s “Super-Sparta” may never exist, but neither will the fantasy of a defeated Israel. The world may scorn, protest and boycott, but Israel endures. Its enemies continually misread the resilience, ingenuity and indomitable spirit of its people. Israel’s post-Oct. 7 renewal will not come from reviving Sparta’s forgotten legacy, but from reclaiming its Zionist mission—to be a light among the nations.
Part I: Gaza and the illusion of victory
Part II: Israel bloodied Hezbollah, but only Lebanon can defeat it
Part III: Houthis keep the rockets coming
Part IV: Unexpected consequences in Syria
Part VI: The tragedy of the hostages
Next: Part IX: Not in Judea and Samaria
