The Jewish state’s high fertility rates buck all trends among developed nations, and cannot be explained solely by the large families of Ḥaredim or Israeli Arabs. While insurance coverage for fertility treatments, generous maternity-leave policies, and the like may provide a partial explanation, Melissa Braunstein also points to a variety of social and cultural factors—and urges America to learn from the Israeli example:

Israeli culture starts from an assumption that nearly every family will have some kids and will need kid-related things. By extension, parents in families with three or more kids aren’t looked at funnily or quizzed about their lifestyle choices. . . . It’s understood that kids . . . not only will be but deserve to be in public spaces like restaurants. It’s also not considered noteworthy if graduate students bring their kids to class because childcare fell through on a given day. . . .

Many workplaces are willing to work with parents on work-life balance. It’s not uncommon for parents to work from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., rather than from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and many workplaces will host kids for a week after summer camp ends.

Public school starts at age three. The group that typically runs aftercare at the local school also organizes activities on days when school is closed but parents must work. Beyond that, museums, national parks, and malls all have kid-specific programming, especially during school vacations.

[Perhaps most importantly], “free-range parenting” is the national default position. Kids are independent from young ages, arranging and ferrying themselves to playdates. A six- or seven-year-old walks to the corner store with friends for ice cream. Ten-year-olds regularly cross Tel Aviv on scooters or on the bus with friends. Parenting in Israel offers more freedom to both kids and parents. It also seems to result in happier parents with more kids.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.