LARRY KUDLOW: Israel is defending itself – but it's also saving western civilization

Israel is defending itself – but it’s also saving western civilization and that’s the subject of the riff.  

If you haven’t already read Gerry Baker’s opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, go immediately to your computer, or whatever you use to pursue information, and read it.  The title is “Israel Defends Itself – and May Save Western Civilization.” Gerry is an old friend. We used to go back and forth many years ago on the old Mclaughlin Group on Sundays.  

He’s a former editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal and he wrote a truth-telling article. All I can do is quote a few lines, express my complete support, and hope that those of you who haven’t read it will go out and read it as soon as possible.  

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“How will we ever repay the debt we owe Israel,” he asks and goes on to say: “What the Jewish state has done in the past year – will rank among the most important contributions to the defense of Western civilization in the past three-quarters of a century.” 

He talks about how it is still possible for our Western system of free markets and free people to defeat evils like Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. In my final word in last night’s show, I talked about how some day people will thank Israel for protecting freedom and democracy.  

Gerry Baker spanks the Biden-Harris administration for trying to restrain Israel, and he extends his spanking to Europe. I’m sure he would agree with me that the United Nations should be spanked as well, but what Israel has done in the past week – taking out the Hezbollah murderer Hassan Nasrallah and other commandos – is nothing short of a miracle, but, if it is a miracle, it’s a counter-terrorist technological miracle.  

They took out a Hamas commander in the middle of Tehran. They’ve taken out countless Hamas killers in Gaza. Really, it’s what Israel has done in the past year following the barbaric murder of  1,200 men, women, children, elderly, peacefully gathering people from Israel, Arab-Israelis, and people from dozens of other countries simply attending a music festival murdered by terrorist Hamas thugs. 

Israel has snapped back from that, and is taking the fight to their enemies – who also happen to be our enemies, even if the current administration in Washington does not always realize it.  

Speaking for myself, Israel has managed to overcome the appeasement, the so-called “de-escalation” policies of the current administration that is constantly preaching ceasefire to Israel. When, in fact, Hamas and Hezbollah have never agreed to a real ceasefire, much less one that returns hostages alive.  

It is as though Mr. Biden has a one-sided ceasefire definition: Israel stops defending itself, but what about the other side? How about: Let Israel be Israel. Let the IDF be the IDF. They’re winning the war. Let them keep winning it and that’s why we owe them such an enormous debt of thanks and that’s why someday the world will thank Israel for standing up to evil, and saving western civilization.  

As befitting his British heritage, Gerard Baker quotes Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”

Let’s hope politicians and statesmen around the world read Gerard Baker’s column in the Wall Street Journal. That’s the riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Oct. 1, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”