By Amit Segal<\/a><\/p>\nPut yourself behind a veil of ignorance for a moment. Imagine a tiny country that\u2019s been at war for 10 months straight. Hundreds of thousands of reservists pulled from their jobs. Flights in and out almost impossible to find.<\/p>\n
Now add this: That same year, the country faced a direct confrontation with its archrival\u2014the regional superpower\u2014and endured hundreds of ballistic missiles raining down on its cities.<\/p>\n
So tell me, how would you expect that country\u2019s economy to look at year\u2019s end?<\/p>\n
This thought experiment sounds facetious, I know. But only because we\u2019ve all grown used to the economic miracle that is Israel. So let\u2019s take a moment to appreciate the small wonders.<\/p>\n
At the close of 2025, Israel ranked as the third-best-performing economy in the OECD. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange finished among the top three markets worldwide. If you\u2019d invested $1,000 in the TA-125 on January 1, you\u2019d be looking at about $1,540 today.<\/p>\n
Unemployment? 3 percent.<\/p>\n
Inflation? A manageable 3 percent.<\/p>\n
Growth? A healthy 3.3 percent.<\/p>\n
And for Israelis who love to travel\u2014which is to say, all of them\u2014a nice bonus: the shekel hit a four-year high against the dollar.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a nation supposedly on the brink.<\/p>\n
Now, step behind that veil again\u2014and imagine a vast country. Safe borders. Young population. Endless oil wealth. You\u2019d expect prosperity, right?<\/p>\n
Meet the Islamic Republic of Iran.<\/p>\n
Reality there is far less miraculous: falling living standards, 45 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment, and a currency that just hit an all-time low.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m not saying Jews control international finance\u2014I\u2019ll leave that to some concerningly popular podcasters\u2014but whoever does seems to really hate it when someone attacks the Jewish state.<\/p>\n
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\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illustration Photo: Levi Meir Clancy\/Unsplash Commentary: What should an economy look like after a year of war, mass…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":497769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-497768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115851205312387672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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