It is quite remarkable how, despite playing the role of punching bag for international institutions, Israeli policymakers increasingly use the loosely defined term “the international community.”

A year later, officials in Prime Minister Olmert’s government point to the deployment of U.N. troops in Lebanon as their most glaring success in the second Lebanon war. Some even talk about eventually applying the same model to the West Bank and Gaza. An aide to Shimon Peres — who was sworn in as president yesterday — explained the Lebanon model to me last week, saying, “The northern border is mostly secure, and our soldiers are not bleeding.”

Mr. Peres’s decades-long love affair with politicians in Europe, Arab countries, and international institutions has made him the darling of world capitals, but in Jerusalem, his popularity has suffered until recently. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni risks the same fate, but the two now have struck a nerve among an increasing number of Israelis.

A recent Ha’aretz cartoon — published just after the Live Earth concerts took place around the world, including Tel Aviv — depicts two soldiers in a Jeep on border patrol. “All these melting icebergs, it’s so scary,” one Israeli soldier in Daniela London-Dekel’s cartoon tells his comrade, seemingly oblivious to eight menacing Syrian tanks above.

Israelis would love nothing more than to become chartered members of some glamorous community where the sophisticates make long-term plans to stem climate change at the North Poll. In their long, hot summers, however, they wouldn’t mind if members of that community could pitch in to stem the wrath of enemies that threaten the West as much as they do Israel.

This vaunted “international community,” meanwhile, has been unkind to Israel. The U.N. Human Rights Council blatantly sees the Jewish state as the world’s only bad guy, without much protest from Europe. Some Israelis see this as plain anti-Semitism, while others say fears of Arab wealth and loss of commerce turn Europe mum.

“Many in Europe don’t like us. That’s a fact of life. But in the current clash of civilizations, we are on the same team,” a senior Jerusalem Foreign Ministry official told me last week.

In recent years, he explained, fear of global terrorism and the prospects of nuclear weapons in the hands of such countries as Iran have turned Europe, and increasingly some Arab regimes, toward more cooperation with Israel. “If we could utilize this trend to our advantage, we should,” the official said.

Proximity, commerce, and even the nature of Israel’s democracy, make Europe a more natural partner for Israel than America, he added. And the nature of the global threat is such that only concerted international effort could stop it.

Plenty of Israelis are skeptical. Mr. Olmert’s hawkish minister for strategic planning, Avigdor Lieberman, last week told the mass circulation Yediot Achronot that NATO colleagues have made it clear to him that they would tacitly support an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, if it comes to that, but that he should not expect any military help. If we must, we should go it alone, he concluded.

While Lebanon’s border may be quiet now, veteran diplomat Zalman Shoval noted, U.N. forces have done little to end the weapons flow or disarm Hezbollah. “I am concerned about handing over key security matters to foreign entities that do not necessarily share our interests,” he told me. The foreign policy adviser to the Likud Party, Mr. Shoval says that, rightly or wrongly, many in Israel believe America’s world leadership is on the decline. Meanwhile, President Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany have replaced hostile predecessors. Israelis increasingly look at Saudi Arabia as a potential ally, but Mr. Shoval believes the prospects for such a partnership remain limited at best.

No longer surrounded by hostile enemies, Israelis punch way above their weight in world financial markets, as well as in academia and other global arenas. An Israeli lawyer is reportedly working with American counterparts to update the Geneva Conventions to today’s warfare climate. To become an “international community,” in other words, institutions like the United Nations could do much better by turning to Israel as leader than by endlessly using it as a scapegoat.