In this week’s episode of “Top Story,” JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin discusses how antisemitism fueled by toxic left-wing ideologies is motivating the mobs calling for Israel’s elimination. In so doing, they’re not merely erasing Jewish history and rights, but ignoring the myriad successes that Israel has accomplished in its 75 years of existence.
He’s joined by Dan Senor, co-author of the best-selling book Start-Up Nation and the newly released The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World.
According to Senor, much of the world is not outraged about the Hamas atrocities committed on Oct. 7. But they are outraged that Jews “would object to being slaughtered.” The reason for this is “the oldest hatred” in the world: antisemitism.
As Senor’s book explains, Israel’s ability to cope with crises, even one as serious as the war that followed the Oct. 7 attacks, is due to its “societal shock absorbers” that hold it together, despite religious, ethnic and political divisions. Moreover, he pointed out that divisive arguments such as the one that fractured Israeli society this year over judicial reform are nothing new. Several such moments in history seemed like Israel was coming apart, though each time, the nation stuck together.
Israelis are, by any measurement, among the happiest people in the world. “The metrics that you look at in Israeli society are astonishing in terms of the health of Israeli society, the sense of communal health, the sense of national health, the sense of belonging. It’s the kind of data that any affluent Western democracy in this day and age would just kill to have. And Israel’s got it. And these other countries don’t have it.”
Israelis, he says, “have a purpose, their community has a purpose, their lives have a purpose. And from that, they get happiness.”
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