Daily Wire co-founder and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro rejected the idea that the United States has no foreign policy interest in assisting Israel in its war against Hamas during a Wednesday conversation with Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
“I’m very much in favor of America following her own foreign policy interests,” Shapiro said. “But I think that there’s a category error that’s been made by some members of the Right that the ridiculous belief that America has a moral duty to intervene in every conflict on the basis of morality — obviously that’s silly.”
Shapiro appeared on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” where Kirk asked his guests and audience how American conservatives should respond to the latest war in the Middle East after decades of U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts that have left many feeling apathetic toward deploying American troops overseas to fight against Hamas.
But with the West’s deeply sympathetic views toward Israel, Shapiro said the “converse belief that America never has a duty to provide even moral support when an ally is being attacked is similarly absurd.”
“Israel, by the way, is by far the most pro-America, American ally there is,” he added. “I mean by polling data, Israelis love America. Not only do they love America, they provide extraordinary levels of intelligence and support military technology to the United States. They’re a powerful economy in the region. They’re a powerful intelligence asset in the region — that’s just on a pure realist level, putting aside all of the sort of moral coincidence that exists between the State of Israel and the United States.”
As Israel entered its fifth day of battle against the terrorist organization, officials reported the death toll jumped again late on Tuesday night to more than 1,200 Israelis killed and nearly 3,000 injured from the attacks.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of defense Benny Gantz, his chief opposition leader who heads the National Unity party, have agreed to form an emergency unity government “needed to lead to victory in the war.”
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The number of Americans killed in Hamas’ deadly invasion increased to 22, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday. The White House later reportedly said 17 Americans were still missing.
The U.S. military said they have not seen any sign as of Wednesday that other Israeli adversaries — including Iran — have signaled joining Hamas in its fight against Israel.
Although the Biden administration has pledged U.S. support for Israel with additional military aid and ammunition, Shapiro reported that Israel had not asked the U.S. to get directly involved in the conflict, specifically with Iran.
“I know there’s that strawman that’s been set up by some people — that’s ridiculous,” Shapiro said.
“Again, there can be arguments to be made and had over what America’s foreign policy commitments ought to be, how much money we spend on foreign aid, and all the rest,” he continued. “But the notion that there shouldn’t be any sort of baseline care when Islamic murderers run through a border and start murdering Western civilized babies — I find that hard to imagine. And I also think that many of the people who are making that sort of argument would not be making that sort of argument if you’re talking about Islamists running through a border in France and then simply murdering babies in a preschool.”