Glenn: Why do I care about the Middle East?

Why does Glenn care so much about the Middle East? Quite honestly, a lot of it has to do with the scriptures. Faith and family are the foundation of who Glenn is and why he does what he does. But it's not just Glenn - The Bible has been around for thousands of years and heavily influenced America and the Founders. Glenn explained why the Middle East and Israel are so important during a candid and powerful monologue to open tonight's Glenn Beck Program.

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As you’ll see in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to have some pretty frank conversations with you because my life is changing and needs to change some more. And I don’t think we’re all that different from one another.

What makes me different than most hosts on television is I’ll take you through the things that I’m going through because I don’t think we’re different. And I think they’re important. And tonight is a good example of the change in approach that I want to take on the program. I’m going to tell you why I care about things, not from a political standpoint, but why I care. And if you have a different reason, fine. But we have to be able to explain to people why things matter.

Before 9/11, I was a slug. I didn’t care about the Middle East. I didn’t know. I figured if it all went into a sinkhole…they want to blow themselves up all the time, whatever, I’m cool with that. I’m over here, they’re over there, whatever they want to do. But after 9/11, I admitted that doesn’t work, and there’s a lot that I don’t understand.

But I remember a listener called in and said what is happening to us? And I said I don’t know, but I vow to find out. And I will tell you, ever since that day, I’ve not stopped learning. I made a promise just as you did on that day, never again, and I’d figure it out. I’ve never stopped trying to understand the world around me, why the things are the way they are. That’s what led me to the idea of Progressivism and how bad it really was. And most importantly, not just why things are, but why I should care.

There are so many things that happen today, and you can’t care about all of them. So what is it that you have a gun to your head, what is it that matters to you? To me, what matters is my family and my God. That’s it. I like history because it teaches me what’s coming next, but the only thing that matters is my soul and my family.

So when it comes to the Middle East, I have something else I can look at, and you may disagree with it, but it’s important – if you disagree with the Bible that’s fine, whatever, but you have to understand the role it played in history, and why this matters. We are connected to Israel. We are wound in so deeply to Israel, and most people don’t even know it. The Bible and our own history shows us how, and I’m going to show you just a couple of things tonight.

And this is a history that I’m teaching to my own family because too many people no longer care about our history, no longer care about the history of, you know, God. They don’t care, and they’re trying to change our history to fit an agenda, and that’s what happened yesterday with Oprah Winfrey and now tonight with the Middle East.

Let me give you a little bit of history here, and excuse me, because I’m not the guy to go to on this, but in a real quick nutshell, biblical times, this is Israel. And Israel was split into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The southern kingdom was Judah. That had Jerusalem, root Jew, right? The ten tribes were up here in the north. That’s the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Judah remained, and they were cut off from Jerusalem. They started worshiping false idols. They became spiritually bankrupt, and God says in Jeremiah, he’s like, you know, you’re becoming the whore of the earth. What are you doing? And you’re passing it around to all of the other nations of the earth. Stop it. And he tells Judah you tell them to stop it, and you two get along. And they don’t, and they’re warned – you’re going to be taken by the Assyrians, and you’re going to be taken into captivity. Well, that’s exactly what happened.

Judah remained, but the tribes in the north, they were taken, and they went throughout the Assyrian Empire. The Kingdom of Judah was not scattered. This is where the term Jew comes from, Judah. Assyria at the time was the most feared nation on earth. Their name was synonymous with atrocity. They skinned prisoners alive. They cut off body parts. They pulled out tongues and eyes. They put piles of skulls on display so everyone knew, don’t screw with us.

Here’s what I find very fascinating on who they were. When they were finally defeated, they had all of these, this tribe of Israel as captives. But when they were finally defeated, the Assyrians and the Israelites, they fled, and they went north. And they fled out of captivity through the Caucasus Mountains. The Caucasus Mountains are where you hear the word Caucasian, the Caucasus Mountains.

What’s interesting is the Assyrians who were very good, meticulous record keepers, and who were just brutal, they settled in Italy and in the Germany area and the Russian area where Fascism comes from. But the Israelites, the lost ten tribes, they went north, and they started to scatter the other direction, and they went to the coastlines, generally in the area where our pilgrims came from.

Judah kept the Torah alive. Those who were taken captive by the Assyrians, Caucasians over the mountains, and they started to populate the western part of Europe. All of Western civilization is based on the laws of Israel. And our entire history is directly tied to this moment. Our pilgrims thought that they were completing the journey out of captivity from Moses.

The Statue of Liberty reflects this. On her base, she’s got a broken chain. She’s carrying the tablets. She has the rays of light. That’s God’s light. She’s a symbol really of Moses, and she is depicting his descent from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, what keeps us solid, the Ten Commandments, the law of God.

Okay, that’s just one, but I contend these symbols are everywhere. And you can believe ’em or not. It doesn’t really matter to me. I’m talking about me, why I care. Let me show you this. If you’re anywhere around the president, Air Force One, or you’re sitting here in the office, you’ll see this flag. And we see this flag sitting behind the president a lot, but nobody really ever looks at this flag, and what this flag really means.

What’s on this flag? And I’m just going to show you a couple things. There’s more, and we’re going to get into it later. We know about the olive branch for peace and the arrows for war. There’s much more to tell about this. There’s 13 olives and 13 leaves, the 50 stars around the shield, from many one, but what’s this? And what does this have to do – why would I be telling you this when we’re talking about Israel?

Well, when Joseph from the Bible, when Joseph is with his brothers, he tells his brothers that he had a dream, and he said I had a dream where the sun, the moon, and the stars all bow down to me. You mean like the sun, the moon, and the stars? That’s what this is, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Nobody talks like that. Nobody says the sun, the moon, and the stars unless it’s biblical, so is the concept of unity biblical – out of many, one, one God.

There’s strong symbolism with the number 13 being represented everywhere, 13 arrows, 13 stripes, 13 stars, 13 olives, 13, 13, 13. Yeah, I know, well that’s the 13 colonies. That’s what everyone will tell you, and that is one answer, but there is another one that many people believe. Thirteen, what else is 13? Twelve disciples surrounding Jesus, but more importantly, I think, the 12 tribes of Israel.

Well, there’s only 12 tribes, Glenn. What do you do with 13? Hmm, except the tribe of Joseph split into Manasseh and Ephraim, and those were in northern Israel. That’s the northern Kingdom of Israel. That’s the 13 tribes. Okay, hogwash. That’s all garbage. Okay, you say that’s not what any of these symbols mean on this flag. Okay, that’s reasonable, okay.

Let me take you to not the Presidential Seal; let me take you to the Great Seal of the United States. It’s the same eagle, right? Except where you have the sun, the moon, and the stars, what replaces it? Well, it’s this thing here. I don’t even know what that thing is. You don’t know what that is? I know, that’s pretty hard. It’s 13 stars again but strangely 13 stars in the shape of the Star of David. Wow, why is that in the shape of Star of David?

Well a couple of reasons – one, Haym Solomon. He was the guy who helped us. We are bound; we owe the people of Israel – Haym Solomon, that’s why it’s in that triangle. Now, what’s this surrounding it? I don’t know. Well, when Moses led his people out of Egypt, what did they follow during the day? Oh, cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. That’s what this means.

By the way, you can find the image on the back of your one dollar bill, and if you really think that’s a stretch, if you really think okay, Glenn, that’s crazy, well, you’re right. That one was done in, I don’t even know when. In the late 1800s is when they finalized this, and then I think it was, I don’t know, Wilson or one of them that finally said okay, we’re really going to use this one all the time.

So let’s go back to the original seal, the one that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and John Adams recommended. It wasn’t this. It was instead that one. Tell me that one, Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea by a pillar of fire. Hello? Look at the clouds around the fire in the center in exactly the same position as the eagle. Listen to me, the slogan that they wanted to have was opposition to tyranny is obedience to God, opposition to tyranny, to pharaohs, is obedience to God.

They felt Moses was the figurehead of America. So why am I telling you all of this? Man, I have been called an anti-Semite by everybody under the sun for the last six years. As soon as I started caring, the Muslim extremists started calling and writing, and we had to have security because Glenn Beck has gotta stop saying these things and stop saying that Muslim extremists are violent, or I will cut off his head myself. That was my favorite quote the FBI gave me from one extremist.

No, you’re not violent – you’ll cut my head off to prove that you’re not violent? Nobody wants to be a pariah. I didn’t care a few years ago, but after 9/11, I promised I would find out what was going on. So what is it? We are a nation that is based on Judeo-Christian values and the Bible, period. You might not buy into the olives and the branches and everything else. It’s fact. It’s fact. But there’s no way to deny that the majority of our laws come directly from the Scriptures, right directly from Deuteronomy.

And the Bible comes from Judah, not the northern tribe, the southern, Judah. They were supposed to preserve it, and they did. The people of Jerusalem, we owe our existence in many ways. We owe our laws to them. Do you really think that we – I am a religious guy. Others who are not will think this is hogwash, but I don’t care anymore. I haven’t for some time. I’m stating who I am.

We owe the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we owe our support and our allegiance, not blind allegiance, and I’m not talking about putting troops down on the ground. We have to be on not only their side but God’s side. When Thomas Paine wrote about his disbelief in God, Franklin felt compelled to write him, giving him a scathing critique. It was like father and son.

Here’s part of it. He said, he wrote to his adopted son, if you will, Thomas Paine, “I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?”

Samuel Adams wrote the same thing. He wrote, “When I heard you had turned her mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished, and more grieved, that you had attempted a measure so injurious to the feelings, and so repugnant to the true interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States.”

Here’s what he’s saying, how dare you? You have actually grown up, and you have benefited from a society that has Judeo-Christian values. You don’t have to go to church. You don’t have to like church. You don’t even have to like God. But to condemn God and try to say to the rest of society that’s nonsense, how dare you? The only reason why we exist is because of God.

I feel like I have to shake the shoulders of some of my friends and look ’em in the eye and say without the Torah, without the people of Judah, you have no law. Ours doesn’t exist. Our country doesn’t exist. Nothing exists. You get rid of the Torah, you get rid of the Bible, nothing works anymore. Then what are our laws based on? Opinion, man’s opinion. Oh, well that’s good.

This is why I care about Israel and what we’re going to do tonight. If Israel goes, if the Bible goes, you need an entirely new way to govern, because ours is nonsense then. And that’s exactly what all the powerful on the earth would like. I want you to take a second and look at what they want to replace our government and our system with. They’ll tell you right now well, we’ll just kind of wing it. Oh really?

When they really get down to it, they’re all saying that the State Capitalism, as they call it, Communist China, State Capitalism, the model of China, that’s what the future is going to be. May I remind you, may I beg you, that system has people throwing themselves off of buildings. That system is evil. And we have gone dead inside, and we don’t even know it anymore. I don’t want to live that way.

The other model that is currently out there and being talked about is sharia law. Oh, well that’s crazy. Is it? Not for a billion people on earth based on the Qur’an. I don’t want that either. The other model will be something that nobody really has articulated yet. Don’t be silly. We’re not going to do either of those. Well, give it to me, because I’ve never sold a house, even a crappy house, with absolutely no idea where my family is going to live. Have you? Because I haven’t. Until you can show me the address of where we’re headed, I’m not moving. What are we doing?

Sorry, one thing I don’t want to do is get my blood pumping. I want you to sit down with your kids, and I want you to teach them. I want you to teach them American history like we told you last night. Thank you, Oprah Winfrey, sincerely. Thank you for reminding us about Emmett Till so we could remind America who he really was. And then I want you to teach your kids biblical history, because it is our history, and it matters as I will show you tonight.

 

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

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If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.