Israel’s problems are real. So is its toolbox.

Here is a question I like to ask audiences outside Israel: which prime minister has a harder job, running Israel or running Britain?

Most people answer Israel’s within seconds, and they are right. A war on several fronts. A society still recovering from 7 October. Deep internal divisions, a cost of living that squeezes young families, and the unresolved question of how the ultra-Orthodox community shares in the burden of work and service. Those of us who care about Israel from abroad, and the many Israelis living overseas, know this list by heart and it keeps getting longer. We dissect every failure of hasbara and every speech by every politician, and much of that criticism is deserved.

But a list of problems is only half a description of a country. If we define Israel by its problems alone, the picture is gloomy. If we define it by its toolbox, the things it has to work with to solve those problems, the picture changes.

Start with basic demographics. Israel’s fertility rate is roughly 2.9 children per woman, about double the OECD average. In England and Wales, it fell last year to 1.39, the lowest since records began. Almost every developed country is planning for a shrinking, aging workforce. Israel is planning for growth.

Then agency. On 7 October, I was called up to reserves, where I have led technology teams working on urgent battlefield problems. What struck me was how fast people moved. Within days, volunteer networks were outpacing ministries. Young Israelis who had spent the previous year arguing bitterly with one another were standing side by side, building, fixing, and improvising. No government can legislate that kind of initiative. Israel has it in abundance.

Then water. Not long ago, Israelis watched the level of the Kinneret on the evening news with dread. Today more than 80 percent of the country’s domestic and industrial water comes from desalination, and since last October, desalinated seawater has been flowing uphill to refill the Kinneret itself. In one of the driest regions on earth, Israel has a surplus.

Then energy. Gas fields off the coast have turned a country that once depended on imported coal and oil into an energy exporter to Egypt and Jordan. And the Negev receives roughly twice the solar radiation Germany does.

None of these tools solves anything on its own. Emigration has risen in the past three years, and that deserves honest attention. A growing population without housing and good jobs becomes a strain, not a strength. Surplus water and cheap energy are worth little if they stay surplus. The toolbox is real, but someone has to pick the tools up and use them.

That is the question I spent the past two years on. I ran an experiment of sorts, applying the filter I use as a venture investor: an idea had to be worth something on the order of $100 billion to the country, and it had to survive the scrutiny of the leading experts in its field, especially the ones who disagreed with me. Most ideas did not survive.

The ones that did range widely. A regional water network that makes Israel’s neighbours depend on Israeli water. A defence industry opened to start-ups and real competition. A fund that would bring Jewish education within reach of middle-class families across the diaspora, including here in London.

So, back to the question. Running Israel is the harder job, no contest. But a harder job is not the same as a weaker hand. I came away from this work more optimistic than when I started. Not because Israel’s problems are small. They are not. But because Israel has more of what it takes to solve them than most of us give it credit for.

Judah Taub is founder and managing partner of Hetz Ventures. His new book, Moonshots for Israel: 12 Big Ideas for a Small Nation, is published by Wicked Son and out now. He will be speaking at JW3 on November 18, in conversation with James Harding.