As an Israeli living in Canada, I defend Israel without hesitation. This is not because I am blind to its flaws, nor because I believe every action it takes is justified simply by virtue of being hers. I do so because I refuse to judge Israel in isolation from the reality in which it exists: a reality of terrorism, declared enemies, relentless incitement, and moral standards applied to almost no other nation on earth.
It is precisely outside of Israel that this distortion becomes most visible. In many Western circles, there is a clear expectation of the “proper” Israeli: to be, first and foremost, a critic of Israel. The harsher one’s condemnation, the more one is perceived as moral, enlightened, and intellectually honest, as if loyalty to one’s own people is itself morally suspicious.
I reject this premise.
There is a fundamental difference between blind loyalty and worthy loyalty. Blind loyalty denies flaws and treats belonging as an excuse. Worthy loyalty does not eliminate criticism; it places criticism within context. It acknowledges failings without allowing them to become the entirety of the story. Serious moral judgment is tested not only by what was done, but by the conditions under which it was done, against whom, and under what threat.
This is exactly what is often missing from discussions about Israel. Her enemies are frequently interpreted through the lenses of history, frustration, political grievance, social conditions, or psychological despair. Israel is rarely afforded that same complexity. When she uses force, the context disappears. When she responds to violence, she is met with demands for a level of moral purity that has no realistic equivalent in international affairs.
Her enemies are interpreted; she is convicted.
Some argue that because Israel is “ours,” we have a special duty to judge her more harshly. There is truth in the idea that loyalty includes the willingness to criticize. But that principle loses its moral value when criticism becomes the automatic adoption of a framework of accusation. Criticism that refuses to ask what Israel is confronting, the nature of its enemies, and the double standards directed against it is not necessarily deeper criticism. Often, it is simply another form of blindness.
I do not claim that Israel is beyond reproach. Like any state, it can err, and at times err gravely. But there is a profound difference between acknowledging flaws and turning them into the entirety of the truth. There is also a difference between moral responsibility and cooperating with a public discourse in which Israel must endlessly justify its very right to defend its citizens while those who openly seek its destruction are granted endless explanation and interpretive softness.
Loyalty, properly understood, is not lying for your people. Nor is it silence in the face of wrongdoing. Loyalty is the refusal to blindly adopt the perspective of those who seek to strip your people of legitimacy. It is the ability to maintain proportion even under social and political pressure to abandon it.
I defend Israel without hesitation because, in certain circumstances, hesitation itself ceases to be a virtue. When terrorism receives intellectual whitewashing, and when Israel’s right to self-defense is treated as morally questionable, refusing to defend Israel is not evidence of moral sophistication. It is simply evidence of moral weakness.
That is why I defend Israel without hesitation. Not because I have abandoned judgment, but because I refuse to surrender it to a moral framework that has already decided who deserves explanation and who deserves condemnation. Not because I fail to see Israel’s flaws, but because I refuse to see only them.
Dr. Dotan Rousso holds a Ph.D. in Law and a master’s degree in Philosophy. A former criminal prosecutor and legal research adviser to the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset), he currently teaches philosophy at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He is also a published commentator on law, ethics, artificial intelligence, and Middle East affairs.