Israel at 78 — I must start with a declaration. I make no apology for loving this country.

On Shabbat, I read an interview with a widow. Her husband was 44, a schoolteacher, a father of five. When Hamas attacked on October 7th, he did not hesitate. He went to defend others. He did not come home. His story, like my son’s story and like thousands of others, is not the story of a warmonger. It is the story of someone who believed that some things are worth defending, even at unbearable cost.

Israel is not a perfect country. Corruption exists. Extremism exists. Deep political and social tensions exist, within the Jewish majority and beyond it. These realities demand honesty and accountability – especially from those of us who live here and care about this society’s future.

What I reject is not criticism, but asymmetry. A standard applied to Israel that is rarely applied to any other nation facing persistent existential threats. What I also reject is the erasure of what has actually been built here.

So alongside my words, I built something else – an infographic. Four tiers. Every figure verified against primary sources: OECD, SIPRI, the World Happiness Report, Dealroom, Freedom House. And I don’t hide from the gaps. Cost of living, income inequality, labour productivity – they are all there in the fourth tier, because a country that cannot name its failures cannot fix them.

But here is what the data shows:

#1 in the world for R&D spending – 6.3% of GDP, more than double the OECD average #1 globally for wastewater recycling – roughly four times higher than any other country #8 globally for happiness, #3 for youth happiness – while at war #1 in the OECD for fertility rate – 2.9, nearly double the developed world average #1 globally for young people “having someone to count on”

And the number that frames everything else: in 2024, Israel spent 8.8% of GDP on defence – the second highest military burden of any country in the world, behind only Ukraine. A 65% surge in a single year. Every other ranking was achieved while carrying that weight.

In 78 years, a nation of roughly 10 million people; forged from refugees, Holocaust survivors, and immigrants speaking dozens of languages; built all of this. Around 21 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab, with full civil rights under the law, active across medicine, law, academia, journalism, the judiciary, and parliament, even amid an unresolved national conflict. The states beside Israel in the happiness rankings had centuries of stability. Israel has never had that luxury.

I grew up in the UK. In my childhood, Britain was safer, wealthier, and more stable than Israel. Watching that gap reverse within a single lifetime is not triumphalism. It is testimony to what democratic persistence can build under pressure.

None of this absolves Israel of responsibility. A democracy must be judged by democratic standards, first by its own citizens. I hold Israel to those standards. But I refuse to let an unequal global narrative define a country I know from the inside – generous, innovative, argumentative, and stubbornly unwilling to give up.

Israel’s anthem is HaTikva. The Hope. At 78, battered and brilliant, surrounded and still standing, that word feels exactly right.

For those who gave everything so the rest of us could live here, may their memories be for a blessing.

Chag Yom Ha’atzmaut Sameach.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)