Explaining Israel: The Jewish State, the Middle East, and America

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This is the Introduction to “Explaining Israel: The Jewish State, the Middle East, and America” (Sept. 2025), by Peter Berkowitz.

In 2014 Israel’s future had never seemed brighter. Led by the high-tech sector, the economy was booming. The Israel Defense Forces—with advanced weapons, an outstanding air force, sophisticated intelligence capabilities, and cybersecurity prowess—gave the Jewish state the most powerful military in the Middle East. While not producing warm relations and bustling commerce, treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) brought cold peace and stability along Israel’s two longest land borders. World surveys placed Israelis among the happiest of populations. In a country whose national security interests compelled it to impose mandatory military service on men and women, life expectancy ranked among the longest in the West. Secular Israeli women had higher fertility rates than secular women in any country in the West; those of their ultra-Orthodox sisters were significantly higher. Israel pumped plentiful amounts of natural gas from offshore fields that had come online during the previous decade. Over the previous 30 years, the country had gone from a few vineyards making largely cheap wine for sacramental purposes to around 300 vineyards producing a variety of fine wines. And with its bustling commerce, stunning Mediterranean beachfront, culinary delights, thriving culture, and work-hard-play-hard spirit, Tel Aviv had become one of the world’s most exciting, and expensive, cities.