Put aside for a moment the truth that Glenn Beck is an ignorant, arrogant, self-righteous extremist. What most recently is alarming is that he has inserted himself into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and by doing so poses a threat to the Jewish democratic state of Israel and to Middle East peace.
Beck is against a 2 states for 2 peoples end-of-conflict resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He is for one state; ostensibly a Jewish state, but if there is only one state, by 2015 Jews will be in the minority in the land that Israel currently occupies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. If heavily populated Arab land is not given to the Palestinians in a negotiated deal that results in 2 states for 2 peoples, and they remain second class citizens in Israel, the Jewish State of Israel will become an Apartheid-like state in just three and a half years. If, however, Israel remains a democracy with equal voting rights granted to all its citizens (Arabs living in the West Bank do not vote in Israeli national elections), then Israel will cease to be a Jewish State and the Zionist dream will be thrown into the trash-bin of history.
Beck is in Israel this week preparing to hold a mass rally in Jerusalem under the banner “Restoring Courage” next Wednesday, August 24. While there, he has spoken to reporters to characterize the hundreds of thousands of housing protesters in Tel Aviv and all around the country as politically “hard left.” To the contrary, the protesters cut across all political party lines. They are middle-class Israelis having a very hard time making ends meet as inflation continues to rise and salaries remain stagnant. They have protested non-violently and are within their democratic rights.
Beck also said, “I’m wondering if there’s any financing behind any of that. Why even look, why even look to see if there is any global leftist financing involved in Tel Aviv. And you know what, do not even look to see if there is any Islamist movement that is joining them.”
What is he talking about?! Is Beck, the fundamentalist Christian, trying to provoke Armageddon and a Middle East war resulting in the second coming of Christ? This could be the only rationalization to his outrageous charges.
A disclaimer: I am one of 400 rabbis (Reform, Conservative and Orthodox) who signed a letter to Rupert Murdoch this past year to protest that Beck’s trivialization of the victims of the Holocaust on the Fox network should not be tolerated. In response, on the air, Beck charged that we Reform Rabbis (though, again, many of the signatures were rabbis from other Jewish religious streams) are all political leftists and cannot be considered religious leaders.
The only good thing I can say is that being on Beck’s enemy’s list is a badge of honor!
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 