Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself.

Meaning of the quote

Israel is like a canary bird in a coal mine. A canary is used to detect dangerous gases in a mine. If the canary dies, it means the air is not safe. Similarly, what happens to Israel can be a warning sign for what might happen to America later on.

About David Horowitz

David Horowitz is an American conservative writer and activist who went through an ideological transformation from the New Left to neoconservatism. He founded several organizations, including the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Students for Academic Freedom, and has written extensively on cultural criticism and prominent American families.

More about the author

More quotes from David Horowitz

For thirty years, beginning with the invention of a privacy right in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the Left has been waging a systematic assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

Conservatives, please. Let’s not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

The issue here isn’t whether every student is brainwashed, it’s whether it is appropriate.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

Instead of educating students, these professors are trying to indoctrinate them.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

Politics is about winning. If you don’t win, you don’t get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

I have also been attacked by my opponents as someone seeking to purge university faculties of leftist professors. This is false. The first provision of the Academic Bill of Rights is that no professor should be hired or fired because of his or her political views. I have never myself called for the firing of any professor for his or her political views, nor would I.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

As a result of America’s efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

You could mention my name in any hallway in any academic institution and you would have people foaming at the mouth.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

There can be no peace with someone who wants to kill you.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

In practice, socialism didn’t work. But socialism could never have worked because it is based on false premises about human psychology and society, and gross ignorance of human economy.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

A university is not a political party, and an education is not an indoctrination.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

A key to the mentality of the left is that it judges itself by its best intentions, and judges its opponents – America chief among them – by their worst deeds.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

When schools produce students who learned to think on the left or on the right, they’re not thinking for themselves.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

We can trust our doctors to be professional, to minister equally to their patients without regard to their political or religious beliefs. But we can no longer trust our professors to do the same.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer

What the left says sounds very good but, in practice, it works out very badly.

David Horowitz

Neoconservative activist, writer