On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. It did so following a United Nations vote to partition British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

The fact Israel is still here and still flourishing 78 years later is a modern-day miracle.

On the very day of its declaration, that beleaguered nation with fewer than 1 million people was attacked by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, a coalition with a combined population more than 30 times greater. Since then, Israel has resisted aggression undertaken by its neighbors in 1967, 1973 and 2023. A loss in any one of those wars would have meant the end of the state of Israel.

Even after the United Kingdom broke off over three-quarters of Palestine to form the Arab state of Transjordan, the demand for an Arab Palestinian state has persisted. Yet, in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008, Arab leadership rejected British, U.N. and Israeli offers for just that. Regarding the 2000 offer, former President Bill Clinton said, "You walk away from these once in a lifetime peace opportunities, and you can't complain 25 years later when the doors weren't all still open."

Despite being born in war and enduring constant conflict, Israel has seen its population increase twelvefold to 10.2 million. Over the past eight decades, Israel has grown faster than any other nation in the world. It continues to grow today with a birth rate of 2.9 per woman. By comparison, the U.S. rate is 1.6, and South Korea's is 0.7.

Israel's success is not just in numbers, but in achievement. Since independence, it places 10th in the number of Nobel Prize winners. On a per capita basis, it ranks ahead of the U.S. as well as Germany, France, Canada and Japan. The International Monetary Fund estimates Israel's per capita GDP at nearly $70,000, again ahead of many of the world's top economies.

It's no surprise, then, that the World Population Review lists Israel as the world's eighth happiest country, while the U.S. ranks 24th.

Critics apply the "apartheid" label to Israel, but the data suggest a different reality. Arab Israeli citizens make up 25% of all doctors, a figure slightly higher than their share of the total population. The average Israeli Arab household earns 66% as much as a Jewish one, a smaller disparity than in the U.S. where Black households earn about 61% of what white ones do.

On the Economist's Democracy Index, Israel is ranked 30th, four places ahead of the United States. Certainly both countries have plenty of room for improvement. Still, not one of the 22 members of the Arab League qualifies as a democracy at all. While Israel has held nine parliamentary elections in the last 20 years, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza have not held one since 2006.

The democratic state of Israel does remain under threat. The Hamas Charter does not call for a Palestinian Arab state alongside a Jewish one. It calls for Israel to be "obliterated" and all Jews to be killed. For years, Iran has called for Israel to be "annihilated." Iran's funding and military support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the former Assad regime in Syria show its words were not empty threats. No wonder Israelis continue to demand the end of the current Hamas and Iranian regimes.

Israel, like the United States, is far from perfect in how it wages war. Yet it is attacked as "genocidal" by the very forces that explicitly endorse genocide. A military that seeks genocide does not warn civilians to evacuate before targeting enemies ensconced in schools and hospitals. The demographic reality is clear: The Arab population within Gaza has roughly sextupled since 1967. Furthermore, news organizations are publicizing claims about alleged Israeli wartime sexual abuses that a Wall Street Journal article says are "no more than a patchwork of omissions, dubious sources and ever-more lurid allegations."

Still, as war rages on, Israel lives on. Prominent 20th century historian Arnold Toynbee asserted that Jews were merely "fossils" left over from a destroyed civilization. The history of Israel has proven him wrong.

In commemoration of the Maccabees freeing the Holy Land from Greek rule over 2,000 years ago, American Jews spin a dreidel on Hanukkah. On it are Hebrew letters standing for: "A great miracle happened there." In Israel, one letter is changed so the letters signify: "A great miracle happened here."

On the country's 78th birthday, the miracle is still happening.

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

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