On the occasion – this week – of both the 78th annual Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) and the signing of the Isaac Accords between Israel and Argentina, I want to share a comparison between Israel and Argentina that hardly anyone reading this would probably have even begun to think about. At first glance, it might be quite odd to compare those two countries, as they are extremely different in many ways – indeed, Israel is the Startup Nation, a massive economic success story despite limited natural resources, while Argentina has been mired in one serious economic crisis after another despite its educated population and bountiful geography. Nonetheless, it makes much more sense the way I’m about to explain.

In particular, this essay makes a comparison between the State of Israel as it arose in 1948 on the one hand, and on the other hand a counterfactual partially-English-speaking, more developed Argentina that could have arisen (but didn’t, in real life) in the wake of the British invasions of Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807, whose primary purpose was to secure British commercial access to the lucrative South American market in the wake of Napoleon’s Continental European blockade. (In the end, the British did gain commercial access to the soon-to-be independent South American republics – including Argentina and Uruguay – later on, albeit only by means of informal empire.)

The counterfactual Argentina would pretty much be a South American version of Canada or Australia. It is important to note that the counterfactual Argentina would include Uruguay, the Falkland Islands, and the southernmost part of Chile (along the Strait of Magellan plus the western half of the far southern island of Tierra del Fuego – counterfactually known as Fireland in English) as well as what we, in reality, know of as Argentina. It would not, however, include the fairly small northeastern finger-shaped panhandle called Misiones; that would instead be a part of Paraguay in that scenario.

To preface, British Argentina (some 40% leaning towards English these days, and some 60% leaning towards Spanish) could easily have happened, and Israel as the Jewish state could even more easily not have happened. That is, the State of Israel arose in 1948 against all the odds, indeed being termed a “miracle,” whereas the incorporation of the present-day counterfactual Argentina into the British Empire in 1807 would logically have had much more of a chance with shorter odds, but in real life it missed the mark.

(For Argentina, this would have been in bits and pieces, much as the British did it in such areas as Canada, South Africa, and India. This would have started with direct control of the strategic port of Montevideo and the granting of independence – as a British protectorate – to the much more populated and much more lucrative Buenos Aires before ultimately being incorporated into the empire a few decades later.)

It is important to note that British Argentina would have been wealthy for quite a long time, whereas Israel only became wealthy in recent decades (itself even less of a probability than the very emergence of Israel in 1948). Israel had even greater odds against its very emergence and existence in 1948, and further odds (again, greater than Argentina) against its existence in 1967, 1973, and so forth, as well as against its more recent emergence as a powerful First World country and top US ally with its expertise in high-tech, defense, and the like.

Even in real life, despite opposite economic trajectories, the overall story of Argentina is somewhat similar to the story of Israel, and both of those stories are quite unique, for good and for bad. Argentina’s story is unique even among riches-to-rags stories,........

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