Ben Shapiro: US Should Learn This From Israel

Ben Shapiro tells sold out Tel Aviv event what US and Israel can learn from each other.

By JNS.org

At his first-ever address in Israel on Wednesday evening, Ben Shapiro, the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, made the case that Israel and the United States have a lot to learn from each other.

“Our countries have something profound and vital in common; they are both gifts from G-d, blessed by him, founded in liberty, consecrated to the idea that he is present in history and that he guides history towards his ends,” Shapiro told the 2,500 people who attended the first International Conservative Conference in Tel Aviv.

Shapiro said his home country has a lot to learn from Israelis about nationhood.

“America has one major thing it can learn from Israel: that a nation-state must have, at its heart, a nation,” he said. “And what that really means is that America has to learn from Israel the necessity of common history, common culture and common destiny.

“America has spread freedom to more people than any nation in the history of the world,” he continued, “and spread prosperity to all corners of the globe. America has liberated hundreds of millions and fed billions. That is because America is the greatest country in world history. America has a special history and a special purpose.

“But here’s the thing,” Shapiro said, “America is forgetting that history and that purpose. In fact, that history and purpose are being purposefully undermined by people who despise what America stands for and who wish to substitute utopias of their own for [the] covenantal destiny America represents.”

Shapiro also pointed out that conservatives in the United States and Israel have many of the same adversaries. “It’s not a coincidence that those who oppose American exceptionalism also oppose Israel,” he said.

‘Negotiating with Terrorists Never Works’

Following Shapiro’s speech, Israeli journalist Amit Segal asked him why he had not immigrated to Israel.

“Jews should live where they can be a light to the nations, and for me, as a person with millions and millions of followers in the United States promoting what I think are values that are eternally good, living in the United States is a point of morality for me,” Shapiro replied.

The Q&A portion of the event began with one attendee asking: “How do you solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?”

“The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist group, Hamas is a terrorist group, Islamic Jihad is a terrorist group, and negotiating with a terrorist group will never work,” he replied.

Shapiro was also asked if he would run for president of the United States, to which he responded that he is content with his life and career and is not currently contemplating embarking on a grueling American presidential campaign that “sounds like hell.”