A Self-Fulilling Prophesy

I'm indifferent about most countries, with two exceptions: Canada and Israel. I am a strong supporter of both. Canada, because it's where I live—where my ancestors fled persecution and where my family has planted roots for three generations. Israel, because it is the historical, cultural, and spiritual homeland of my people.

I care about Israel the way I care about Canada. I feel a certain responsibility for both, and I don’t always agree with the policies of either government. The difference is that I have a direct say in Canada’s policies, but not in Israel’s.

Treat Canada badly and I get angry. Same with Israel. Canadians recently got a small taste of what Israel has endured for decades: having its very right to exist questioned. I was enraged when trump suggested Canada should be the 51st state, and that our country exists only because of the United States. I realized the challenge to Canada's legitimacy as a country is the same kind of threat Israelis have been living with since 1948.

The difference is that Canada’s “right to exist” isn’t really in question—except in the mind of a delusional megalomaniac—and most people recognize that.

For Israel, the threat is more present and insidious. Questioning its right to exist carries the stench of the world’s oldest and most enduring hatred: anti-Semitism.

But the “right" of a country to exist is not, in itself, a meaningful concept. Human beings have an inherent right to exist; countries do not. Countries are human constructs—formed around shared economic, political, historical, or cultural interests. They come into being, and they pass out of it. In recent decades alone, the Soviet Union dissolved into fifteen states, and Yugoslavia into seven. No one questions their right to exist.

The question of Israel’s “right to exist” is therefore not a legitimate inquiry—it is propaganda. An attempt to delegitimize the country, driven by political hostility and hatred.

I also take issue with the term “Zionist” as it’s used today.

Zionism once had a clear historical and political meaning: the project of establishing a Jewish state in its ancestral homeland. That project was realized in 1948. After that, the term becomes less useful—and, in many contexts, counterproductive.

We don’t describe Italians through the lens of the Risorgimento anymore (the 19th century movement to unify Italy). Italy exists. To keep using the term would sound strange and inappropriate.

Yet we still speak of support for Israel as Zionism. As if the project is unfinished, its legitimacy unresolved. It opens the door to those who wish to question it. It is more accurate—and more normalizing—to speak in terms of Israeli citizens, or support for specific policies, as we would with any other country.

But the hostility Israel's opponents have shown is not just rhetorical. It has taken the form of proxy warfare, terrorism, and a pursuit of nuclear capability.

It is, to say the least, an uncomfortable reality for Israel.

And yet, stepping back to look at the last 50 years, a more complex picture emerges.

Israel has flourished—economically, technologically, and militarily. It has signed peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. It has built one of the most capable militaries in the world, along with layered defense systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling. It also possesses the ultimate deterrent.

Iran, by contrast, has become increasingly isolated. Sanctions have strained its economy to the point of collapse. It has been labeled a state sponsor of terrorism and remains an international pariah. Internally, the regime has faced growing unrest which it has met with increased repression.

In broad terms, one country has been on the rise; the other, on the ropes.

But if you listened to Benjamin Netanyahu, you might think it was the other way around.

Netanyahu has been warning about an imminent Iranian nuclear threat for more than thirty years. As early as 1992, he suggested Iran was only a few years away from a nuclear weapon. The same warning appeared in his 1995 book. The timeline kept shifting, but the urgency remained.

It never materialized.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran’s nuclear program was significantly constrained: enrichment capped at 3.67%, international inspections, strict reporting requirements. These concessions suggest the program functioned, at least in part, as leverage for sanctions relief.

That changed after trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, with Netanyahu's urging. Since then, enrichment has reached 60%—approaching weapons-grade—and international oversight has diminished. What once looked like bargaining leverage now looks more like a hedge for regime survival.

To my mind, Israel was never under an imminent existential threat from Iran. The gap between rhetoric and reality was always considerable.

The war has further exposed the limits of Iran’s actual power, confirming what many suspected—that Iran was paper tiger. Much of its posture appears to have been projection, useful for a regime that relies on external enemies to justify itself.

But projection cuts both ways.

Over time, it can be internalized, shape public opinion and political ideology, turning hypothetical threats into real ones.

And that may be the deeper danger now in both Israel and Iran: that in preparing for the worst version of your enemy, you help bring it into being—a self-fulfilling prophecy.