The Happiness of the Israeli Defense Forces

Michael Lumish

It was only a few years ago that I came across the following video of what appear to be tank-men in the IDF singing the Pharrell Williams song "Happy."

I am charmed by this bit because it demonstrates a joyous indomitability of spirit that I can never know because I do not live under those circumstances. At the same time, the tune is sort-of doofy. It is fluffy, syrupy, sweetness, but very upbeat and fun and I love it and, yet, the joy of the tune seems entirely discordant with men in a tank.



The Jewish people in the Middle East are a people under siege. For thirteen hundred years, from the time of Muhammad until the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the indigenous Jews lived as second and third-class non-citizens under the boot of Arab and Muslim imperial rule. And, now, upon securing their freedom - and thus, in some measure, the freedom of all Jewish people everywhere - they are set upon by constant warfare.

Decade after decade, from the early twentieth-century until the early twentieth-first.

There are three hundred to four hundred million Arabs in the Middle East and about six million Jews. The Arab leadership, both political and religious, make no secret of their delicious genocidal ambitions. They scream malice from the hillsides on a daily basis and, yet, are still funded by morally self-righteous western-progressives who do not even believe, despite three thousand years of historical evidence, that the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel.

So, those young guys in the video above are Israeli Jews who are forced into the military by their Arab and European enemies because otherwise their entire civilization will, yet again, get knocked out. That could very easily mean the death of their own families and children.

So, my question is, how does the weird and wonderful video emerge from Israeli Jewish culture?

Furthermore, how is it possible that the Jerusalem Post can report that according to the UN annual World Happiness Report that Israel is ranked eleventh in the world in terms of "happiness"?

How is this possible?