RUTHFULLY YOURS

Since Glenn Beck’s dramatic rise to prominence two years ago, he has been portrayed by many members of the left as a kook.  The members of the left condemning Beck most loudly, to my utter dismay, have been Jews.  Jon Liebowitz, aka Jon Stewart, has dedicated his show to mocking Beck as a religious freak and a nut job; in his episode on Beck’s departure from his Fox News show, Stewart donned Beck-like glasses and then scoffed, “Glenn Beck was sent here by Jesus to take the 5:00 p.m. slot between Neil Cavuto and Shepard Smith for 27 months.”  Rob Eshman of the atrocious Los Angeles Jewish Journal said that Beck’s expose of self-hating Jew and anti-Israel fanatic George Soros was “the verbal equivalent of a Der Sturmer cartoon.”  Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, which spends far less time targeting radical Muslims who want to murder Jews than commentators who love Israel, condemned that same Beck vs. Soros episode as “completely inappropriate, offensive, and over the top.”  The Jewish Funds for Justice, a far-left Jewish organization, ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal taking on Beck.

Let me say this: I stand with Glenn Beck, and against these Jews.

Glenn Beck is a friend of Israel.  He is a friend of the Jewish people.  And anyone who argues otherwise is either lying or ignorant.

Beck possesses a moral clarity with regard to the Jewish State that has no equivalent in the leftist Jewish community.  He recognizes that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is not a conflict over land or over population exchange, but over fundamental values.  This week, Beck travelled to Israel, where he spoke eloquently about the Fogel family butchered in its sleep by Palestinian terrorists earlier this year.  “There’s something bigger than politics here,” he stated.  “I don’t think in my lifetime I’ve seen a more clear definition of evil that has been dismissed.”  In fact, Beck dedicated several segments on his Fox News show to explicating the Fogel family slaughter, exposing the American people to the true face of moral monstrosity as embodied by the Palestinians who celebrate such murders.

In his speech to the Knesset, Beck explained that he understood the conflict between Israel and anti-Semites the world over:  “I got my first death threat, because I came back and said the truth – the conflict is about the destruction of Israel and the end to the Western way of life …. What’s disturbing is that if a guy gets on television or the radio and says the truth, and that’s so unusual, then Israel and the Western way of life are in great danger.”

More impressive than his speech to Knesset is the fact that Beck does tell the truth to the American people about the Israel situation.  Too many on the conservative side of the aisle – Israel supporters! – will not label the conflict in pure moral terms.  They grant legitimacy to President Obama’s attempts to leverage Israel into concessions, or to the mad musings of Thomas Friedman, who believes that a few bucks can buy off Palestinian radicals.  They pretend that if the conditions are made just right, then peace will be achieved.

Beck, on the other hand, sees the conflict as it is, in its stark contrast between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.  And he stands with the forces of light in that battle.  “Where you go, I will go,” he told Knesset, quoting the Book of Ruth.  “Where you lodge, I will lodge.  Your people are my people.  Your God is my God, and where you die I shall die.”

Israel has never had friends like Glenn Beck before the religious conservative movement in America.  Jews are afraid to embrace Beck because he is so overtly religious, so utterly unafraid of mentioning God in public or with regard to Israel.  That that is why Jews should embrace him.  The Judeo-Christian notion of God is the unifying factor between America and Israel.

Beck sees the war, even though many Jews do not.  Some Jews are too cosmopolitan for Beck – Jon Stewart, for example, doesn’t bear any great love for Israel, since that would presumably be “ethnocentric” and unprogressive.  Some Jews are too parochial, like Eshman, thinking that Beck represents an old-school religion that will result in pogroms, or at the least, closed country clubs.

Those Jews are dead wrong.  Beck is an ally, and a very real one.  He represents millions of Americans who ally with Israel and the Jews.  Jewish Americans ought to roll out the welcome mat to Beck.  He’s certainly rolled out the red carpet for Israel.