Bad News? Israel Has Lots of Good News

With the Iran-Israel war (very hopefully) over, it’s time for some (re)assessment. With lots of Israeli life lost, and huge destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure, the tendency is to focus on the negatives. But that’s not “reality.” I’ll get to a real evaluation of where Israel is at this juncture – but first, an unusual detour as background.

There’s a somewhat trivial cultural “anniversary” this week: it’s been exactly fifty years (!) since the huge box-office hit JAWS hit the movie theaters. The ensuing panic about bathing at beaches was over-the-top. Indeed, to this very day, whenever someone gets bitten by a shark – even as far away as Australia or Hawaii – that incident will be reported, further engendering fear for what should be a very calming experience: swimming at the beach.

However, billions of people around the world swim in the ocean. How many, on average, are killed by a shark every year? Ten! In the U.S. during the long “JAWS” era (1970-2000), exactly 12 people died from a shark attack – that’s one person every two-and-a-half years. By comparison, on average 150 people die annually worldwide from… (are you ready?): falling coconuts!!

The point here is the old journalism adage: “if it bleeds, it leads.” The problem is that human psychology imprints scary (or simply negative) information in our brain far more deeply than positive news. That’s because our ancestors wouldn’t have survived (and we wouldn’t be here) if they treated possibly “dangerous” stimuli (a tiger sneaking up in the tall grass) equally to positive info (that grass swaying in the breeze).

But such an approach is no longer functional in modern society with very, very few lethal dangers around. Overreacting emotionally to every piece of “bad” news is not healthy –- especially given that such news constitutes a large percentage of contemporary journalistic production (whether in the traditional media or virally spread through social media).

This is not a critique of journalism. After all, as news consumers we’re the ones that “ask for” the preponderance of negative news. How many people would subscribe to a media venue if the usual headlines would be something like: “Yesterday, 10 Million Israelis Lived Thru the Day Without Incident”.

However, this doesn’t mean that we have to focus all our attention on negativity. It might take some mental effort but thinking about our numerous positive elements (the last 24 hours, or in general), is a much better way of getting through life. So to that end, here are a few exercises in positivity dealing with Israel’s current state of affairs.

Last month, the IDF reported that Israel’s Laser Light anti-drone system was successfully employed against Hezbollah’s drones over the past year or so – with a 100% success rate! At present, this complements the Iron Dome and other such systems (America’s THAAD), but ultimately it will replace most of the others because of its extremely low expense: every firing costs only the electricity used; no physical missiles employed, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

Foreign corporations are afraid of investing in Israel? Quite the opposite! So far this year, foreign investment in Israeli companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is at a five-year high, averaging around NIS 4 billion monthly. Indeed, during the 12-day war with Iran, the Israeli stock market went up!

In late May, a conference was held in Paris where over 300 European doctors and medical students showed interest in moving to Israel. Nor was this an outlier: through 2024 and half of 2025, around 650 doctors from around the world have already immigrated to Israel.

As reported here in The Times of Israel (https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-tops-list-of-countries-with-highest-self-reported-ai-skills/), “Israel tops the list of countries with the highest concentration of AI talent in the world.” Even more impressive: “Israel takes the first spot for women with a score of 2.95, meaning that female representation in AI-related roles is nearly three times the global average among 87 countries.”

Honestly, how many of these good-news items have you heard or read about? That’s exactly the point. Indeed, one could even claim that precisely when lots of “bad news” truly exists we need to balance our outlook with a healthy dose of actual good news. That’s not only because such balance reflects reality, but also because such balance contributes to our mental health.

Finally, back to the end of Israel’s war(s). Hezbollah is no longer a threat; neither is Hamas (although we still haven’t reached any closure on that front); the Iranian nuclear program is decimated, and even perhaps completely eliminated; Syria wants decent relations with Israel, eventually perhaps even a peace treaty; and the U.S. government remains solidly behind Israel. Not bad for a country traumatized a mere 21 months ago!

Do serious problems remain for Israel to deal with? Of course! Focusing on the positives is not a call to ignore the negatives. But it does demand perceptual balance.

“Ups and downs” in life? Absolutely. But there’s a good reason that this expression places the “ups” before the “downs.” You don’t have to be a Pollyanna to focus on the better side of our personal and national existence. Just be real.