You're Welcome, Israel. But it is time to grow up, be independent now. Economic support will end one day, son.

While NYT columnist David French is getting hard in Ukraine watching the US missile shield at work, NYT columnist Bret Stephens -- both war hawks -- is in Israel, visiting immigration welcome centers and celebrating as the country he used to work in celebrates 75 of survival.

Here's Bret's take on how it all came to be (note:  He never thanks the United States taxpayer, nor acknowledges our role in helping the country succeed. Acknowledging extra help is not lessening Israel's success.  It just makes our ally look grateful for our ongoing help.  Why can't he give credit where credit is due?  I do not understand this mindset...)

On a visit to Israel last week, I casually checked an iPhone app to see where the rockets were falling — not too worried, since the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile systems provide effective defense.

If the success of a society can be measured by the speed at which the miraculous becomes the mundane, Israel is doing fine.

In Jerusalem, I visited an absorption center for new immigrants, most of them in their 20s and 30s, from Ethiopia, Argentina, France and Russia. Israel welcomed nearly 75,000 newcomers in 2022, the equivalent of more than 2.5 million immigrants to the United States (or more than twice America’s legal intake). Nations that attract immigrants tend to succeed.

Countries that make a future also have one. Israel’s fertility rate, at around three births per woman, is significantly higher than India’s (2.05), the United States’ (1.7) and South Korea’s (0.8). Israel’s high birthrate correlates with strong economic growth. Last year, Israel’s economy grew by 6.5 percent, compared to an average among developed countries of 2.8 percent. Israel now has a higher G.D.P. per capita than Germany and attracts more foreign direct investment than Britain. ... 

It helps to remember the circumstances in which the country was born. Israel is a post-colonial state. It started its national life dirt-poor. Its peer group of countries includes Syria, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and North and South Korea. These states came into being with many of the same core problems: hostile neighbors, unsettled borders, deep poverty, restive ethnic and religious minorities and other unresolved dilemmas from their independence struggles.

As with Israel, many of those problems still dog most of those states. The Koreas don’t have a settled border. India and Pakistan have painful memories of forced population transfers. Those who think the Palestinian issue is unique should consider the situation of Kashmiris in India, Tamils in Sri Lanka, or Kurds in Syria... 

How pitiful.  Trying to compare Israel and make her look good by putting down other counties.  That's not what our wisest minds do.  That's where an insecure intellect is led:   "Everything's great here.  Can you say, Win-ning?  Look at how far we've come from our dirt-poor roots... We Built This, not like those lousy third-worlders... If you think Israel has work to do, well... look here.  Look at these others.  We're better than them...

Always with the "we're better than them!" defense.  I can tell you this:  that's not the mindset of a builder or a creator or a person aspiring every day to be better.  That's the mindset of an insecure person trying desperately to hold on to what he did not earn and is not qualified to judge.

I'm not talking about Israel here.  I'm talking about Mr. Stephens himself.

These war hawks... always convinced that they are Win.ning.  Even when so many losses occur all around them, costly losses, that they simply refuse to acknowledge in their celebratory summaries, it seems.

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 Amos 5:24: "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."