The Israel Test

In this book, George Gilder asserts that widespread antagonism toward the current state of Israel springs from, like anti-Semitism everywhere, envy of superior accomplishment. Israel’s sudden rise as a world capitalist and technological power, he argues, stems in part from the Jewish “culture of mind” and in part from Judaism itself, which, “perhaps more than any other religion, favors capitalist activity and provides a rigorous moral framework for it.” Critics of Israel—in the U.S., in the surrounding countries of the Middle East and in Western European nations that are facing socialist decline—have failed the “Israel Test” because they seek to tear down this country’s success rather than emulate it. America’s ability and desire to defend Israel will define our future survival as a nation: “If Israel is destroyed,” he says, “capitalist Europe will likely die as well, and America, as the epitome of productive and creative capitalism spurred by Jews, will be in jeopardy.”