As Israel turns 75, its biggest threats now come from within

As Israel marks , take a moment to admire how it has triumphed against the odds. Before it declared independence in 1948 its own generals warned that it had only a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Today Israel is hugely rich, safer than it has been for most of its history, and democratic—if, that is, you are prepared to exclude the territories . It has overcome wars, droughts and poverty with few natural endowments other than human grit. It is an outlier in the Middle East, a hub of innovation and a winner from globalisation.Yet, as we explain, faces a different set of opportunities and threats in the coming decades. You can get a taste of this from the turmoil of recent weeks: a constitutional crisis over judicial independence triggered by the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu; an eerie power vacuum in the stagnant West Bank; and the rules of the old American-led order being shredded as Saudi Arabia, Iran and China cut new deals. In the 20th century the risk of invasion threatened Israel’s survival. In the 21st the danger is that internal splits sap it of the strength and agility it needs to thrive.