From Israel: We Know: the Source of Our Resilience!

Arlene Kushner | Mar 16, 2026

Israeli Air Force F-15I Ra’am warplanes. Photo by IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia

We Israelis are going through a tough time. There is no denying it: the whole country is on edge. We are suffering from serious sleep deprivation because of sirens that go off in the night. We are regularly called upon to make decisions regarding whether a particular outing is wise, and relatively safe. We are enduring a heightened sense of loneliness because safety restrictions curtail social interactions.

And yet, I have not encountered panic amongst my fellow-Israelis. Not once have I head “OMG, we’re going to lose this war!”

When I say to people, “We’re going to be OK at the end of this time,” the most common response I receive is “I know.”

We know. What precisely is it that we know?

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Clearly, there is no certainty that every single Israeli will be OK. Approximately 15 Israelis have already been killed in the course of the war. A very small number out of 10 million people, but each individual is an entire world. There are others who have been wounded, and several buildings that have been hit as well – cluster bombs increase the damages. It remains incumbent upon us to be mindful of the very real risks that adhere and to follow the rules for maximum safety. I do not minimize this.

What we do know, however, is that Am Yisrael, the People Israel, will endure. Even more: At the end of this war, we will, as a nation, be stronger than ever.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

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We are not like other peoples.

Historian Arnold Toynbee was among those who remained baffled by the founding of the modern state of Israel. He had written extensively on the stages that civilizations pass through: starting with growth and ending with disintegration. He maintained that the Jewish People was no more than a “fossil civilization” – a relic of an ancient culture best understood as natives of their host countries.

But we Jews defied this pattern. We were exiled for 2,000 years. Nor did we settle intact in another locale: we were dispersed to various locales and driven from place to place. Yet we retained our identity and returned to our land.

Over the years, Israel has absorbed millions of Jews from over 100 different nations. This situation has created a rich cultural diversity, while the people continue to identify as Am Yisrael, one people.

There is no parallel to this situation in all of history.

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David Ben Gurion demonstrated extraordinary determination when he declared the Independence of Israel in 1948; there was a not a single nation in favor of his doing this. What is more, the Arab League was determined to finish the new Jewish State at the very moment of its genesis. Five members of the League – Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, supported by contingents from Saudi Arabia and Yemen – invaded Israel, which was not expected to survive. The Jewish population of Israel at that point was only about 700,000 and they struggled with a meagre stockpile of weapons.

And yet, Israel won that war. This was extraordinary.

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Over the years there were other wars Israel fought and won in defiance of the odds. The lightning victory of the Six Day War was so unexpected that to this day military analysts are at a loss to explain it. (I believe the battles of this war are still studied at West Point.)

Some say that the victory of the Yom Kippur War was even more astounding.

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But it is not just the fact that Israel has won war after war (we are still dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah, in addition to their sponsor, Iran) that is astounding.

Israel has flourished and grown in strength and importance in the course of her almost 78 years of existence. Our state is so miniscule in size, and confronts so much hostility, that one might have expected her to have almost no importance in the world.

And yet this turns out to not be the case at all: today we are a modern, thriving, fiscally stable first-world nation with a population of 10 million, of which about 8 million are Jews. We have the second most powerful military in the world (and maintain an exceptional ethical standard in battle). Because of our innovative (“start-up nation”) culture we have made significant advances in such fields as medicine, agriculture, and advanced technology, including cyber technology, providing blessings to many nations of the world. Israel has a highly educated populace with an extremely high rate of literacy; we also boast a very high output of literary work relative to our population.

At present, Israel, which is at the forefront of a war against the enemy of Western civilization, is of immeasurable importance.

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We might call this astounding (it is) or extraordinary (it certainly is). But I call it miraculous.

What I have described would not have been possible without protection from Above.

This is what we know.

It behooves us, then, to utter prayers of gratitude and to implore the Almighty to continue to provide protection.

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More on the war coming soon…

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©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.