Israel the lonely The country is not as isolated as its critics hope, but it is alienating some true friends May 21st 2026 “DID YOU watch the Eurovision Song Contest last night?” asked the barber in a Jerusalem back street, razor in hand. Confessing that he had unaccountably failed to tune in, your columnist knew why the question was asked. Protest politics intruded on this year’s Eurovision—a contest cherished by fans for terrible songs, corny lyrics and bad-taste costumes— after Israel made it to the finals. Citing Israel’s iron-fisted military occupation of Gaza, five European countries boycotted the competition. Mingled boos and cheers greeted Israel’s second-place finish. Israel’s isolation is not a frivolous matter. Increasingly its scientists report unexplained refusals when international research grants come up for

renewal. Parents worry about youngsters being ostracised if they enrol at foreign universities, especially after completing national service in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Boycotts do not intimidate Israel, though. Five days of interviews with serving and retired military officers, government officials and elected politicians reveal a country that still sees itself as fighting for survival in a dangerous neighbourhood. Such a nation can endure solitude. With a world- weary pride, an official quotes a Bible verse from the Book of Numbers, calling the Jews “a people that dwells alone; not reckoned among the nations”. Moreover, Israel is less alone than critics and enemies hope. Israel’s image has taken a battering since the Gaza war killed over 70,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, women and children. In Israel, global criticism is called unfair and dismissive of Israel’s right to self-defence after the surprise attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7th 2023, which saw 1,200 people murdered, mostly civilians, women and children. Led by the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, many Israelis accuse critics of antisemitism. Israel can ignore bad-faith attacks, defenders say, because relations with America have reached new heights under President Donald Trump. There is talk of unprecedented military co-operation with American and Israeli officers working “shoulder to shoulder” in Israeli operations rooms. Some predict that the country will become a “fortress” for American troops and hardware in the Middle East, long after the war with Iran. American officials call their collaboration with Israel a model for working with partners such as Japan in a conflict with China over Taiwan, this columnist heard. Israel’s defenders make an angrier claim, too. Many governments condemned Israel for using disproportionate violence in Gaza and for tolerating violent attacks by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. This year several have deplored what they call indiscriminate Israeli air strikes on Lebanon, aimed at Hizbullah, the Iran-backed Shia militia. Foreign leaders have rebuked America and Israel for launching an ill-judged war against Iran. But some finger-wagging governments, notably in Europe and the Gulf, take a different line in private, it is said. They admire Israel’s toughness, and ask to share its intelligence and buy its defence kit.

Israel’s closest Arab partner, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has “crossed the Rubicon” and made an irreversible decision to align with Israel, whose air-defence systems are now shielding the UAE from attacks by Iran. Jordan is called a close partner, as is India, whose prime minister, Narendra Modi, made public his country’s deep ties to Israel when he visited the country in 2017. For all its criticisms of Mr Netanyahu, Europe remains Israel’s largest trade partner. Led by Germany, there are vast two-way flows of air-defence systems, submarines and the like. Greece and Italy dream of being connected to energy pipelines running through the Holy Land. Israel, then, is not all alone. Yet shared interests are not the same as trust or admiration. As a result, some high-ranking Israelis say their country is dangerously lonely. Many ordinary Israelis revere Mr Trump as their country’s stalwart friend. Members of the security establishment are less confident, expressing fears that Israel dazzled Mr Trump with plans to kill Iran’s supreme leader and top aides in one strike. That primed Mr Trump to expect a swift regime change. Instead, Iran remains defiant. On May 18th Mr Trump halted planned strikes following pleas from Arab rulers. Mr Trump’s vanity will not let him admit that he was led into an unwinnable war, says a source. But senior figures worry that many elected Democrats and Republicans will blame Israel for dragging America into disaster. They know America cares more about opening the Strait of Hormuz than Israel does. They dread a skittish Mr Trump making a deal that fails to end Iran’s nuclear programme, Israel’s priority. Israel used to enjoy bipartisan support in America. Now many Democrats are sharply critical and young Republicans are increasingly hostile. Some in Israel argue that foreign relations will reset if elections this autumn end Mr Netanyahu’s long reign. Others see a need for larger changes. Ami Ayalon is a former naval commando, head of Israel’s navy, director of Shin Bet, its security service, and government minister for the Labor Party. Leaders cannot safely ignore public opinion, he counsels. Egypt’s president and Jordan’s king may wish to preserve ties with Israel. But if Israel cannot offer Palestinians a state of their own, “we won’t be able to preserve peace with Egypt and Jordan.” The old warrior compares terrorism to water rising from a spring, rather than a target that can be bombed. Any child of 12 or 14

who sees his father killed may “take up a knife and be ready to die”. Most of the international community “believes in Israel, alongside a Palestinian state” he says. “They don’t hate us, but they will if we don’t change our policy.” Israel, an embattled and divided country, is not about to grant statehood to Palestinians. On the Palestinian side, there is no sign of a negotiating partner of vision and authority. Until the world sees grounds for hope, Israel will be an ever lonelier place. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//international/2026/05/19/israel-the-lonely

1843 | Sport Dope and glory: inside the Enhanced Games Athletes want to break records. The founders hope to take performance- boosting drugs mainstream May 21st 2026 Almost every day for the past 15 years, Ben Proud had to make his whereabouts known to the doping authorities. Travelling for work? His hotel would have to be logged on a clunky website. Staying over at a new girlfriend’s place? That would have to be recorded, too. It didn’t make for the most spontaneous of lives. But it’s what you have to do if you want to be an Olympic athlete. In 2024 Proud had won a silver medal in the 50-metre freestyle swim at the Paris Olympics. It had been his third Olympics and the high point of his career. But last November he was in a slump. He was 31, old for a competitive swimmer. His knees hurt and his back was shot. There was a persistent, dull pain in the tendons around his elbows.

One Wednesday at 6am he heard a knock at the door of his flat in Stratford, east London. He opened it to find a man and a woman, sent by UK Anti- Doping, Britain’s drug-testing body. They were there to check that Proud was complying with what is known among Olympic athletes as “the Code”, a set of regulations from the World Anti-Doping Agency that includes an agreement not to use certain substances. Proud knew the testers might pay him a visit that day, but hadn’t expected them to come so early. He had gone to the toilet just before they arrived, so they would all have to wait before another urine sample could be collected. The three of them didn’t make small talk; rather, they sat on the sofa and looked silently out of the window at the view. Nearly two hours later, Proud was ready. The male tester followed him into the flat’s only bathroom, an ensuite; they had to creep quietly through the bedroom to avoid waking Emily Barclay, Proud’s partner, who is also a competitive swimmer. Proud found the experience profoundly awkward. “You stand there with your trousers around your ankles and your bare arse out like a schoolboy,” he said. After the testers left, Barclay emerged tentatively from the bedroom. She passed Proud her phone to show him a piece of news. “Kristian has just broken the world record,” she said. Proud stared at the screen, confused. He frequently competed against Kristian Gkolomeev, a Greek swimmer. They’d tied for fifth place at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but Proud had comfortably beaten him in Paris. He couldn’t believe that Gkolomeev had somehow become the fastest 50-metre swimmer in history—in the off- season, no less. Reading on, Proud learned that Gkolomeev had signed up with the Enhanced Games, a company that was seeking to disrupt conventional sport by allowing athletes to compete while on performance-enhancing drugs. Later that day, Enhanced (as the wider company is sometimes known) released a documentary about Gkolomeev’s swim, which he had done alone in a pool in North Carolina. Not only had he taken the world record—Enhanced had paid him $1m for the achievement. “The swimming world is going to hate every second of it,” Brett Hawke, Enhanced’s head swimming coach, says in

the documentary. “This is where human performance is going. And I think a lot of people will start to embrace it over time.” As the couple watched the documentary, Barclay had to pause it several times because Proud had been so overwhelmed with emotion. His pursuit of Olympic glory had come with steep costs. He’d grown up in Malaysia and moved to Britain to train when he was 16, leaving most of his family behind. There had been years when he had scraped by on nothing more than the £28,000 ($38,000) stipend provided by the national aquatic sports association to elite swimmers. He wasn’t sure what was in store for him after his swimming career came to an end—which, at his age, could be as soon as his next injury. If Proud joined Enhanced—and adopted its controversial drug protocols—he could keep swimming at the highest level, perhaps even faster than before, and potentially earn a life-changing amount of money. But he knew it was a Faustian bargain: taking part would tarnish his reputation, and he would probably be barred from mainstream competition for ever. Proud asked Barclay if she would judge him if he threw in his lot with the Enhanced Games. When she said she wouldn’t, he called his agent. He was ready for something new.