"Spend enough time in Israel, and youll hear a particular brand of national frustration part sarcasm, part survival instinct."

"Might be running on an Intel chip designed in Haifa."

"You dont hear similar nuance when discussing 9/11, or the Bataclan massacre, or the Manchester bombing."

"Only when Jews are murdered does the global intelligentsia reach for its pipe, sigh, and say: Its complicated.Is it any wonder Israelis think the world has lost the plot? Exhibit B: The United Nations (or, How to Lose Credibility in 194 Steps) Consider this: The UN has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than any other country on Earth. More than Syria. More than North Korea. More than Iran. More than Russia, even on a good day.Israel (a democracy with gay pride parades, Arab Supreme Court justices, and a higher startup rate than Silicon Valley) has been declared a bigger threat to world peace than regimes that literally execute dissidents in soccer stadiums.To Israelis, watching the UN operate is like watching a Monty Python sketch in real time only its not funny. Its infuriating. The gap between reality and rhetoric is so wide, they wonder if the whole system is run by people who failed basic geography, history, and ethics. Exhibit C: Campus Activism as Kabuki Theater The explosion of anti-Israel activism on Western campuses is another case study. Students at elite institutions (supposedly future leaders of the free world, no less) are now marching under banners that praise intifada, call for globalizing it, and sometimes even cheer on Hamas resistance. Many seem to have all the conviction in the world, but none of the facts.Ask them about the Hamas Charter blank stares. Ask them if they know how many times Israel offered peace  crickets. Ask them if they know that Arab Israelis vote, serve in parliament, and have full civil rights zilch.But ask them to chant From the River to the Sea! and the whole quad lights up like like Queens Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985. Its performance without substance, rebellion without reading comprehension.From the Israeli perspective, this is not a good-faith protest; its a TikTok-age tantrum dressed up in radical chic. Exhibit D: The Media (Or, if it bleeds, its Israels fault.) Then theres the global media, which seems to operate under a different editorial standard for Israel.A hospital in Gaza was bombed? Run the headline: Israel Attacks Hospital. No need to confirm who did it. Only later, when the damage is done and the street protests have already erupted, do we find out that it was actually a misfired rocket from a Palestinian terror group.A correction? Buried. A retraction? Optional. An apology? Never.Now, imagine youre an Israeli watching this unfold, knowing full well that your country (imperfect as it is) is trying to fight a war against an enemy that embeds itself under hospitals, in schools, and in mosques. You build bomb shelters. They build rocket launchers in kindergartens. You try to evacuate civilians before airstrikes. They try to keep them in place to maximize the body count for propaganda.And yet, somehow, you are the villain?At a certain point, you stop wondering why Israelis think the world is dumb, and you start wondering why more people dont agree with them. Exhibit E: Boycott us, then buy our innovation. Theres also the small matter of hypocrisy the kind that makes Israelis want to bang their heads against the worlds WiFi router.Because, while activists chant boycott Israel, post angry Instagram infographics, and call for divestment from Israeli companies, theyre often doing so on devices powered by Israeli technology.The irony? Its coded into the protest itself. Literally.That Zoom call about Israeli apartheid? Might be running on an Intel chip designed in Haifa. That slick social justice post? It might owe its speed to a cybersecurity algorithm developed by Israeli engineers. Even Waze, the navigation app guiding anti-Zionist protesters to their next rally, was invented in Israel.Of course, Israelis notice this. The same countries and institutions that benefit from Israeli agricultural technology, water desalination, medical research, and emergency response software are often the first to condemn it in diplomatic forums. Its the international equivalent of borrowing your neighbors tools while suing them for existing.To many Israelis, this behavior doesnt just seem dumb; it seems performative, incoherent, and fundamentally unserious. If youre going to wage economic war, at least have the intellectual honesty to unplug. Exhibit F: The world taunts Israelis, then secretly wants to be them. Its hard to talk about Israels place in the world without mentioning its most mythologized institutions: the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad (among other Israeli national security establishments).To much of the global elite, the IDF is framed as a symbol of oppression: armed, aggressive, and disproportionate. But behind closed doors, military and intelligence agencies around the world are studying its tactics, mimicking its counterterrorism protocols, and trying to figure out how this tiny country manages to defend itself on multiple fronts, under daily threat, while habitually embarrassing its enemies with the most audacious maneuvers.The Mossad? Its treated like a shadowy villain in bad Netflix thrillers until, of course, it carries out an operation so surgically brilliant (like spiriting Irans nuclear archive out of Tehran, or exploding Hezbollahs pagers and downing the Iranian presidents helicopter, or finding Nazi war criminals in South America decades before it was cool) that intelligence professionals across the globe cant help but applaud. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes with envy.Israelis are very aware of the dissonance: Their soldiers are caricatured in the media as brutes, while their enemies (some of whom literally strap explosives to children) are cast as freedom fighters. And yet the same critics who call the IDF occupiers would sell a kidney to get their kids into an Israeli Krav Maga class.To Israelis, this isnt just dumb; its theater. A world that relies on Israeli intelligence, studies its security doctrine, and depends on its tech to foil terrorist plots, while simultaneously wagging its finger and signing condemnations?Welcome to moral schizophrenia, international edition. But also: The world is not entirely dumb. Herein lies a twist in the story.For all the cynicism, Israelis have also seen something extraordinary over the past year: the emergence of a broader, louder, and more passionate group of allies, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who have stood up, spoken out, and shown up for Israel in ways that many Israelis didnt fully expect.From Christian Zionists organizing rallies to Indian influencers defending Israel on social media, from African-American pastors flying to the Knesset to Jewish students risking their safety to wear Stars of David on campus something is shifting.This isnt just fringe support. Its growing, global, and often driven by people who simply refuse to play dumb about terrorism, moral equivalency, and the right of a democracy to defend itself.Many Israelis, long used to feeling isolated or vilified in international arenas, are now discovering unexpected pockets of solidarity. Some are reconnecting with Diaspora Jews they assumed had checked out. Others are hearing from strangers in countries theyve never visited. In many ways, October 7th clarified not just who hates Israel, but also who truly sees it.Its a humbling reminder that, while global institutions may continue to disappoint, the global people are more complex and sometimes more courageous than the headlines suggest.And, lets be honest: Israelis dont actually think the world is stupid in a literal sense. What they think is worse: They think the world is unserious. That it is drowning in postmodern moral relativism, obsessed with optics over substance, afraid to name evil when it wears the right scarf or uses the right hashtags.Israelis have had to grow up fast. Surrounded by enemies, scarred by trauma, and anchored in memory, theyve had little choice but to learn how to distinguish survival from symbolism. The vast majority of them know the cost of self-delusion. They dont have the luxury of pretending that peace slogans can stop bullets.So, is the world dumb?Maybe not dumb, precisely. But when it comes to understanding Israels reality (or even acknowledging Jewish history with any consistency), the world is far too comfortable playing the fool.And Israelis? Theyre just tired of having to explain the obvious.Thank you for reading Future of Jewish. Help us make more people smarter about Israel and the Jewish world.Share"

"Many seem to have all the conviction in the world, but none of the facts.Ask them about the Hamas Charter blank stares. Ask them if they know how many times Israel offered peace  crickets. Ask them if they know that Arab Israelis vote, serve in parliament, and have full civil rights zilch.But ask them to chant From the River to the Sea! and the whole quad lights up like like Queens Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985."