Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech before Congress about Iran’s nuclear program earlier this month certainly increased the American media’s focus on the recent Israeli elections.

However, The Times of Israel reports that polls are showing the Prime Minister’s speech had little to no effect on Israeli voters.

How can this be?

The American media made such a fuss about it — calling it an insult to the White House, demanding boycotts and coining tickets to the speech “the hottest ticket in town.”

Not to mention the speech itself, which raised more than a few eyebrows in its scathing portrayal of Iran, Islamic movements and even the Obama administration.

Many accused Netanyahu of using the chance to win some political points back home, as well.

But Israel’s Channel 2 reported that while about two-thirds of polled Israeli voters acknowledged the possibility of Netanyahu’s political motives, neither his strategy nor his position on Iran seemed to be their main concern in the election.

Instead, The Guardian reports that over half of the people polled by the Knesset Channel voted based on socioeconomic issues, and understandably so, with the 55 percent increase in the price of housing between 2008 and 2013, according to the State Comptroller of Israel.

The Israeli Bureau of Statistics further reports that about half of Israeli households have had to go into overdraft.

In addition, The Economist highlights a severe decrease in tourism — a normal component of Israel’s yearly GDP — as a cause for further financial problems, as well as the sinking of both inflation and industrial exports to dangerous rates.

Many young Israelis are actually leaving the homeland — either  because living expenses are too high or, perhaps, from a sense of disillusionment.

The Haaretz reports that roughly 40 percent of these mostly middle class, mostly educated and mostly secular young citizens are willing, and even eager, to start a new life abroad.

So we’re left with a country drastically intertwined in foreign struggles with an unhealthy habit of irritating other countries — a country that furthermore has severe economic issues and a frustrated generation of young middle class citizens ready to throw up their hands.

Sound familiar?

As a part of that frustrated young generation here in the United States, it seems to me that Israel should be paying more attention to this growing group of “wanderlusty” citizens, and perhaps the U.S. should be doing the same.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported in 2013 that 45 percent of unemployed Americans are millennials, and, like the Israelis, 59 percent of young Americans polled by the Boston Consulting Group reported that they would be in favor of looking for work abroad.

It’s easy to see why so many young people, whether in Israel or in the United States, want to leave a country that seems unable — or perhaps even unwilling — to support them in their attempts to start their adult lives.

If Israel wants to maintain its Jewish heritage and avoid further accusations of being an apartheid, it’s going to need a younger generation to keep it alive.

And if the United States wants to preserve the American Dream, it’s going to need young Americans to continue to believe in that dream.

Perhaps both governments then, should spend less time trying to look tough for the cameras or make inflammatory headlines and spend more time facing the problems of their citizens head-on.