The Israel Test

The Haps

The events in Bondi are horrific. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and Jewish communities around the world. We hope all New Zealanders, including politicians, will take a moment to reflect. No amount of violence in the South Pacific will bring peace to the Middle East, it is stupid and evil.

Yesterday large banners were placed on Remuera Road, Auckland, outside a Jewish school, saying ‘One state solution, Palestine for all.’ Today politicians in New Zealand have one mission. Condemn such actions and unite to make anti-semitism unacceptable in this country.

The Israel Test

…is the title of a book by George Gilder. The thesis is that someone’s views on the politics of the Middle East reflect their wider political views – a litmus test. How someone looks at the region will depend on whether they believe life is zero sum or positive sum.

When anyone looks at the Middle East, the narrow green strip between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean stands out. If you zoom in you’ll see more detail, Israel is not just really good at irrigation. They are the world leader in Research and Development, spending 6.45 per cent of GDP. The OECD average is 2.7, New Zealand’s figure is 1.6.

Israeli tech has been so prolific the country has been called a ‘start-up nation.’ Intel manufacture silicon chips there, in some years there’s been more NASDAQ start-ups from Israel (population 10m) than the entire European Union (population 500m). Even a sliver of Israel’s tech sector, that exported $78 billion in 2024, would transform New Zealand’s economy (half the population, but only $9 billion of tech exports).

They do all this while under constant threat and frequent attacks from rockets and terrorism. How someone looks at this astonishing success depends on your wider political view.

People who believe life is a zero-sum game think there is only so much to go around. Interactions don’t create any wealth, they just divide it up. When people with a zero-sum view look at a map of the Middle East, their belief system tells them that the wealth must have been stolen.

Violence against Israel is not wrong, if you have a zero-sum view. It is necessary. It is the recovery of stolen goods.

People with a positive-sum view take a different view. They ask questions. What is different on that narrow strip? How do they do it? What could the rest of the region learn from those guys, so they could be rich too?

It turns out the answers are familiar. Democracy. The rule of law. Celebration of success. Academic excellence in education. Openness to overseas trade and investment. These are the things that release human creativity to solve problems and give rise to joy.

If you take a positive-sum game, violence against Israel is not only wrong and unjustified, it is stupid. It interrupts production and problem solving, it leads to human misery for no reason.

The thesis of the Israel Test neatly explains the political positions of nearly everyone in New Zealand on the Middle East.

People who take a zero-sum view and generally want more taxes to divide up the wealth that currently exists are anti-Israel. They whip up crowds with chants about wiping Israel from the map. They liken the situation in the Middle East to colonisation in New Zealand, which they also view through a zero-sum lens.

Crucially, they also tend to believe in group, rather than individual, responsibility. After all, if wealth is finite, the only fair outcome is for it to be shared by the group.

People who take a positive-sum view tend to believe government cannot create wealth, but it can create the conditions for citizens to create it. They tend to have sympathy for Israel’s predicament, even if they don’t agree with all of the Israeli Government’s actions.

They also tend to believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. If wealth is limited only by creativity, then it is useful for people to be able to take risks and bear the consequences.

The timeless divides between zero-sum and positive-sum, group and individual, explain why antisemitism has reared its ugly head, even in our country. People who believe wealth is a zero-sum game believe Israel took its wealth. They believe it is just to fight back against those who took it. They believe in group responsibility, and so Jewish people on the other side of the world can somehow be responsible for Israeli actions.

New Zealand politicians have one job today, to unite and make clear that antisemitism has no place in our country.