Israel & the Free World
Their futures are one in the same.

By Robert Goldberg, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute
February 6, 2002 9:20 a.m.

ohn Derbyshire's column on whether Israel has a future can be summed up with (but not done justice by) the following statement: The state of Israel was born of the world's guilt about the Holocaust — itself a product of the inability of democracies to boldly defeat its enemies; and the unwillingness of democracies to defend themselves against its enemies will lead them to sacrifice Israel, and the Jews, for expediency's sake once more.

I add "and the Jews" because there is no doubt in my mind that a world that would sacrifice Israel to the forces of fundamentalist Islam, and to those who hate modernization with a religious zeal, wouldn't have much use for Jews either. (Jews have always been a modernizing influence wherever they have gone. They have historically been accused of being "cosmopolitans" — which in today's parlance means being a globalist.) A world that does not destroy these forces, but instead seeks to appease them with airtime and international forums and apologies, will also destroy itself. In short, if the long-term prospects for Israel aren't good, those of the rest of civilization aren't much better.

Like Derbyshire, I agree that central to Israel's long-term survival is the fact that "…intellectual, litigational, over-educated elites who run modern democracies are much more interested in hearing a case argued than in organizing the grueling, deadly, morally ambiguous work of counter terrorism." Perhaps it's because democracies and markets are largely self-correcting that so much of their cultural expression takes the form of apologies — apologies such as the World Economic Forum, in which I participated. There was not one WEF panel or forum that embraces the thesis that democratic capitalism must be strengthened, and its institutions protected. You would think the leaders of the biggest companies and largest market economies would want to weigh in on the yea side of this statement. Instead, the panels — like mine on Intellectual Property Rights and Global Poverty — will be filled with people from Oxfam, Brazil, and South Africa who still see capitalism as evil.

For instance, here's what Oxfam thinks about capitalism as a model for social and economic progress: "The success of China and Vietnam in sustaining high growth with poverty reduction and equity since the economic reforms of the late 1970s and mid-1980s respectively, underlines the powerful effect of previous policies in redistributing assets and creating opportunities through social investment." Other panelists argue that patents are the major obstacles to public health in their countries, despite their own nations' unwillingness to invest in public-health systems, and despite the fact that many drugs used to treat AIDS had no patents to begin with. The president of South Africa is fighting a plan to distribute free medicine that would reduce HIV in infants by 50 percent — even while striving to make the case that stripping drug patents are the principal means for promoting global health.

Both these views will get a sympathetic hearing, more sympathetic at least than my view of the world. Countries and governments that seize property — intellectual or private — are not safe havens for Jews or anyone else in the long run. Someone in my breakout group suggested that intellectual property rights are in conflict with human rights. But the first strike of the anti-globalists and al Qaeda alike want to suppress the creative energies of men and women wherever they seek to organize their energies to advance and enrich themselves, their families, and communities. Without protection of intellectual rights, the human condition diminishes.

I have no doubt about Israel's determination to defend itself against Arafat and other aggressors. What Mark Twain once wrote about the Jewish people could be written about Israel — as both a state and a people — today: "He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him… The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and Roman followed, and made a vast noise and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now or have vanished."

The Jews, and Israel, can survive in a post-Holocaust world thanks in part to a religious heritage that weaves God, the people, the state, morality, and human progress into the fabric of everyday life. But neither the Jews nor Israel can survive in a world that does not dare to defeat tyranny and evil when the opportunity arises — or that gives up, in the elusive quest for redistribution, the individual freedom to compete with and control what one creates. Just as President Bush has urged the nations to stand with America against an Axis of evil, so must those who live in democracies strengthen and expand the force of free markets and free-market institutions.

In 1936, Arab "nationalists" joined forces with the Nazis to run the Jews out of Palestine. Today, another "nationalist" movement is linking arms with global terrorist networks and using international forums to generate world sympathy. Now that the lessons and carnage have hit home, how can we expect to stand and secure our future merely by saying, "Never Again"?