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The Jews are by far the ethnicity I have the most respect for, they punch so far above their weight class it's ridiculous.
As someone who finds HBD glaringly obviously true, I have little compunction about praising them, if only it wasn't for their propensity to embrace wokeness, at least in the US.
And Israel is the country closest to being an isekai protagonist, absolutely cut off, besieged on all fronts, yet absolutely wrecks armies a dozen times their size. The only potential threat to their hegemony would be the Arab armies embracing automation, unless they decided to train their military AI on Classic Arab Doctrine, it's far harder for them to be as hilariously incompetent.
What other nation tolerates being bombarded with rockets on a regular basis, only to swat them away like inconvenient flies? Palestine should count itself lucky they pose no real threat, because the Israelis could and should clamp down on that cankering sore, and all concerned would come out better.
Besieged on all fronts but the one that matters - the air. If Israel gets in trouble, they need only threaten to use their nukes (that curiously fly under the radar of the US-sponsored anti-proliferation treaty) and the US will airlift them as much weaponry as they need and more. No matter the cost! It doesn't matter if the Arabs then organize a devastating oil embargo that costs the West hundreds of billions in economic damage, the US will not suffer Israel to come to any harm. It doesn't matter if they poison US relations with the Arab world, if they sell weapons to China, if they spy on the US, if they create a rather interesting precedent for annexing other people's land in the sacred post-WW2 rules-based international order... They get immense military aid, generous subsidies for their own military industry and all the US's best toys.
Your isekai protagonist metaphor is spot on. I'll add another trope - the strongest warrior in the world inexplicably falls in love with the MC and will stick with him, no matter what wacky and expensive disasters he embarks upon, she'll bail him out.
It literally happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nickel_Grass
That the Israelis won a couple of battles by the time the C-5s started landing doesn't make the aid useless, the extra aircraft and supplies made it much easier for them to counterattack. One can be much more aggressive when your losses are sure to be replenished.
The Arab war goal was to retake the Golan Heights and Sinai peninsula which they lost when Israel attacked them in 1967. The US persuaded Israel to give up Sinai and bribed Egypt extensively to accept the deal, to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Partly this was due to Soviet pressure on the other side. Golan remains in Israeli hands. The US foreign aid budget to Egypt increased enormously (as it did when other Arab states recognized Israel and signed peace treaties). All the generosity here is flowing from the US to Israel, by bribing its enemies to stand down and persuading the Israeli govt not to bite off more than they can chew.
It's the worst deal in the world. The US got massive enmity from the Arabs, in exchange for forever paying bribes to Egypt, Lebanon and so on so they wouldn't be quite so angry with Israel. And endless military aid to Israel, so they can bomb and invade their neighbours whenever they like.
If the US simply stopped meddling in the Middle East, stopped reflexively prostrating before Israel (the Iraq War was heavily motivated by the perceived need to destroy Israel's enemies), the US would be a lot better off. On the pure logic of national interests, the US should favoured the Arabs (who are numerous and have oil) over the Israelis who are few and lack oil.
This has me imagining a potential counterfactual world, though, one in which Israel sided with the Soviets (which I think they threatened to do in reality), and today exists as a stubborn and nigh-impossible-to-dislodge pariah state with ties to America's modern enemies (a la North Korea), and internet pundits like us ceaselessly bemoan the state of America's Arab allies, all of whom can't fight a war to literally save their lives (a la the Republic of China and the Republic of Vietnam), who we expect will get blown away first the second WWIII starts, and who keep spitting in our faces despite our supposed alliance because we're an insufficiently-pious nation.
Interesting scenario. Would they do so well though? Where would Israel even get oil for their military? North Korea has China and Cuba actually has a surprising amount of oil.
I think Israel would instantly disintegrate the moment it loses its superpower sponsor. North Korea and Cuba could endure losing Soviet subsidies because they were pretty homogenous. How could Israel survive if its fuel and trade were suddenly cut off? The Palestinians and their friends in the CIA would see about the end of the Tel Aviv Regime. Of course, if they had nukes it would be different. Then again, without US support, they probably wouldn't have nukes.
But just think about the gains to be had from the Arabs! Cheap, secure oil supplies. Saddam and Syria would be on our side, no problems there. Osama Bin Laden wouldn't be angry with us. Negligible Islamic terrorism. Maybe we'd get an Israeli terror group to substitute for Al-Qaeda, which could be alarming, especially if Israel has nukes.
Wasn't this the British?
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