In Moral Defense of Israel
The Ayn Rand Institute's In Moral Defense of Israel webpage was created to explain why it is in the United States’ self-interest to support Israel against those acting to destroy it.
Israel and those who attack it are not moral equals. Like the United States, Israel is a “mixed economy,” which retains a significant respect for individual rights. Its citizens, whatever their race, enjoy many freedoms, including freedom of thought and speech and the right to own property. The purpose of Israel’s military is only self-defense, to protect its citizens from aggressors. As a consequence, Israel has a moral right to exist.
Those attacking Israel, by contrast, are terrorist organizations, theocracies, and dictatorships, which deliberately violate the individual rights of their own subjects, brutalizing them to retain and expand their power. Even if these organizations and regimes had never initiated the use of force against innocent Israelis, they would have no moral right to exist.
ARI’s support of Israel is obviously not an endorsement of all of its actions or governmental policies. We are critical, for instance, of Israel’s failure fully to separate state from both religion and economics, as the principle of individual rights demands. We support Israel not for its failings but for its virtues. And we recognize that those who attack Israel are not seeking to establish an even freer nation: they are seeking to wipe out the only outpost of freedom in the Middle East.
The terrorist organizations and regimes that threaten Israel’s freedom also threaten America’s. If they succeed in destroying Israel, thus emboldened, they will turn their full attention to the United States.
In the name of justice and self-preservation, therefore, we hold that America should openly support Israel against our common enemies.
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