Our Character, Our Future: on War & Peace


Support Israel on moral grounds, not economic nor strategic

As US Ambassador to the UN Economic & Social Council, I spent somewhere between 50% and 70% of my time dealing with our policy toward the Middle East in general and with the US-Israeli relationship in particular. It is not easy to defend our special relationship with Israel at the practical, pragmatic, entirely material level: strategic interests; sheer economics; geopolitics; where the oil is. You can’t sustain the argument in favor of a strong partnership with Israel solely on the basis of those considerations.

The best case we can make is at the level of our moral identity. When we come face to face with the ultimate issues of war and peace, all of those geo-strategic things go by the boards. [We should] appeal to arguments that stir the moral sentiments of this nation, and that call upon our willingness to moral commitments, to the things that we believe are right.

Source: Our Character, Our Future, p.112-3 May 2, 1996

  • The above quotations are from Our Character, Our Future, by Alan Keyes.
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Page last updated: Feb 20, 2019