Let’s leave the demented to the left.
Let’s be honest. People have zero obligation to love the state of Israel or the Jews. All of us have different levels of affinity to different peoples and countries: that is normal. And one may hate a country and give a litany of reasons for such a feeling. If the explanations are true and fair, then one could certainly understand why the other guy feels the way he does.
There are people—lots of them—who hate Israel. Go to an expensive college campus and hear them scream that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and must be wiped off the face of the Earth. Don’t waste your time arguing with them. They have an external coating of Teflon against facts. One expects Jew and Israel hatred from BLM, Antifa, Western Muslims, pampered college morons and the professional left. It’s baked into the system. And nothing you could show or say will make them admit that Israel is not the monster they claim. It’s like showing them that Trump is not Hitler—you can’t get them to come down from that tree.
In 1989, I went to Israel for the first time in my life, as my father had a chemistry meeting in Jerusalem. The trip was amazing and set the stage for me coming back three years later on a Fulbright Fellowship. During our stay, we hired an Israeli driver who took us all over the country. When we reached the Lebanese border, he showed us something quite interesting. This was before the days of Hezbollah terrifying northern Israel. The area we visited was called “The Good Fence.” There, Lebanese citizens came to Israel to receive drugs that they could not receive in their country. There were dozens of Lebanese—mostly women—waiting in line to receive medications that were not available to them. Have you ever heard of the Good Fence? If you told a Jew hater about it, would he do a 180 and say, “Wow, those Jews are okay.” Not a chance.
While the left seems to have most of the Israel haters, the right would be embarrassed not to have its own. One fellow in particular really hates Israel. He won’t come right out and say it as it is considered impolite in certain circles to show that you are a card-carrying Jew hater. It was no less than Dr. Martin Luther King who said that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. So this fellow goes around and around in his criticisms of Israel. When confronted with a statement that “Israel is a U.S. ally,” he looked dumbfounded and said that he “doesn’t know what that means” (whereas he called Qatar with its big U.S. airbase an “ally”). Every U.S. president for the past 50 years has called Israel a strategic ally. Ronald Reagan said the U.S. is a “friend and ally” of Israel. Israel has stood more faithfully with the U.S. during good times and bad than any European country. Israel has three 9/11 memorials, a Kennedy Forest, and hosts U.S. forces on a permanent basis.
This same person more recently said to Matt Walsh that any country that relies on U.S. aid “doesn’t have a right to exist.” Now, that’s a very strange statement. One can say that the U.S. should stop giving foreign aid—many libertarians say as much as their default position. One could say that foreign countries should wean themselves off of U.S. largess. This guy went on to say that Israel has dozens of lobbyists in Washington. News Alert: every country has dozens of lobbyists in Washington. The Palestinian Authority, whom we are fighting in U.S. federal courts, has the top Washington law firm not only as its lawyers but also as its lobbyists. As to Israel receiving American money, there are a couple of points. Firstly, Israel is very grateful for this money. Egypt gets billions and just ran air force exercises with China, so as to expose sensitive U.S. military technology to our No. 1 enemy. Next, nearly all military aid is spent in the U.S., as per treaty requirement. Third, the U.S. benefits from its relationship with Israel. Think of all of the data that Boeing and Lockheed receive from the country that makes the most use of their airplanes and other platforms. The U.S. armed forces benefit from the reams of data that Israel provides on airplanes, bombs, helicopters, missiles and tactics. Do you have an electronic device in your house? Dollars to donuts that there is Israeli tech in it.
I believe that this fellow hates Jews and Israel for religious-nationalistic reasons. Ben Shapiro and others have offered to either meet with him or debate him, with no reply forthcoming. He cannot simply come out and say, “I hate Jews and I wish that Israel would vanish.” Doing so would be as impolite as passing gas in an elevator. So he invents reasons to hate Israel—like Israel receiving aid, killing children in a war that Hamas started, and not really being an ally of the U.S. He blamed Israel for Erdogan’s coup in Syria that has threatened the Christian population there. On the one hand I feel sorry for the guy: his hatred has overtaken his neurons. On the other hand, I know that his lies and distortions have millions of listeners to imbibe them.
Hate Israel, but at least be honest about it. Israel is not a perfect country and one can bring very legitimate complaints about it and/or its leadership. But don’t lie. Israel is a sworn ally of the U.S. and the U.S. benefits from its relationship with Israel. Yes, the U.S. has no obligation to provide aid. The U.S. does so in order to get some reciprocal benefit. And the U.S. does benefit from Israeli military prowess, business markets, tech knowhow, and having a friend in a generally bad neighborhood. Qatar is a terror state, even with its U.S. base. The violent activities on U.S. campuses stem from Qatari money coming to U.S. universities and the concomitant acceptance of Jew-hating students from the Middle East.
I hate seeing this fellow’s Israel tantrums. He is so smart, analytical, and funny—and then when he gets to Israel, he loses his mind and blames the country for all of the world’s problems. Israel has done more than any country in history to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. He should have a conversation with Ben Shapiro and lay out his feelings against Israel. I can promise that it will be one of the most watched events in internet history.