Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here. Jerusalem CNN — When Israel declared independence in 1948, in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Tel Aviv was a small city of low-level dwellings. Today, where once there were sand dunes, there are now skyscrapers hosting some of the world’s richest high-tech companies. And the small, scrappy army that improbably fended off much larger Arab forces during the ensuing wars is now considered one of the more sophisticated militaries...