Israel views itself as a small country engulfed by hatred and existential threats, an embattled and besieged democracy in a region replete with authoritarian and sometimes fundamentalist regimes, some of whose leaders publicly advocate its destruction.

On the other hand, an increasing number of outsiders, not all of them inimical to the Jewish state, view Israel rather differently: as a military juggernaut, possessing nuclear capabilities, occupying Palestinian territories, and denying the Palestinian people independence and self-determination.

Which is it? Paradoxical as it may appear, neither of the two perceptions is totally false, yet none of them represents, in isolation, an adequate picture of Middle Eastern realities and the place of Israel within them.