Time & Perspective Quote by Gerald R. Ford

Ford’s line fuses two arguments Americans often keep in separate drawers: moral obligation and cold-eyed strategy. By pairing “basic morality” with “enlightened self-interest,” he’s preempting the standard critique of foreign aid as either sentimental charity or cynical realpolitik. The construction insists you don’t have to choose. Supporting Israel is framed as both the right thing and the smart thing, a rhetorical two-key lock meant to hold through shifts in party mood, oil shocks, and regional blowback.

The phrase “security and future” quietly enlarges the promise. It’s not just about emergency defense; it’s about guaranteeing durability, a long horizon of backing that reads like reassurance to Israel and a signal to adversaries that U.S. commitment is not transactional. Ford’s diction is also careful: “commitment” suggests something binding, almost contractual, rather than a policy preference that can be renegotiated.

Then comes the domestic glue: “honors our own heritage.” That’s less about Israel than about America’s self-image. In the post-Holocaust moral landscape, “heritage” nods to Judeo-Christian narratives, immigrant memory, and a national myth of refuge and democratic kinship. It also functions as political insulation. If support for Israel is an extension of American identity, opposing it can be cast not merely as disagreement but as a breach of shared values.

Context matters: in the mid-1970s, after the Yom Kippur War and amid intense diplomacy, Ford had to reassure pro-Israel constituencies while navigating Arab relations and energy vulnerability. The sentence is designed to make that balancing act sound like destiny rather than compromise.