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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn reveals the true face of evil

July 28, 2014
Wilson

Writer

Editor's Note: GlennBeck.com will not be posting the uncensored images from tonight's monologue in our story or video. Only subscribers to TheBlaze TV will be able to see the uncensored images in the full 7/28/2014 episode of The Glenn Beck Program. More details HERE.

I want to thank you for watching tonight. I want to warn you that tonight you’re going to see some very disturbing images that you won’t see on other outlets, but I think it’s really important. In fact, I spent a lot of time this weekend debating with myself whether or not to show them to you, and I came down on the side of we showed the pictures of the Holocaust, and if we hadn’t have shown the pictures of the Holocaust, I don’t think anybody would believe it. And as it turns out, because we don’t show the pictures of the Holocaust because they’re too horrible to look at, we no longer believe it.

I want to show you these pictures tonight not because of their brutality but because they don’t fit the narrative, and that’s why nobody else is showing them. It’s a narrative that is hopelessly lost in politics and completely detached from the old standard that we used to use. We used to use the standard of good and evil. It was very pretty basic, good and evil. Whether it’s due to wistful blindness or ignorance, but we have lost the ability to be able to distinguish between these two.

And I want to show you an example. These are things that are just off the top of my head that are pretty easy to be able to say, some of them. Swearing used to be the old standard. Swearing is wrong. It’s wrong. Don’t talk that way. Don’t talk that way in front of a woman. Don’t talk that way in front of, you know, your parents, whatever. Don’t talk that way. And it came from the Judeo-Christian values. But now swearing, I don’t even know if we teach that that’s wrong anymore.

Feed the hungry, is that good? Is that clearly in the good category now? Because there are people now who are angry that we fed the hungry down at the border. So is it good? Is it clearly good to feed the hungry?

How about greed? There are people who are libertarian that say greed is good. Ayn Rand would say greed is good. Is it good or is it evil? Genocide, is it good or is it evil? Lying, forgiving one another, slavery, comfort the sick…may I just suggest that there are a couple of things that are pretty absolute, and I would say feeding the hungry, feeding the hungry is always good.

Forgiving is always good. Comforting the sick, always good. Lying, yeah, that dress does make you look fat – sometimes, not sure. Swearing, I think it’s wrong, but I’m not going to – greed, you can go both ways on that. I think greed is wrong, but I understand what Ayn Rand was saying. But when you look at evil, on this list, I will tell you at no time is slavery or genocide anything other than evil, at no time.

TheBlaze TV TheBlaze TV

We can debate the fact that, you know, we have the death penalty. Well, should we kill those people? We can debate that. We can debate that. But if I said we’re going to kill everybody who is this race, color, or creed, and we’re just going to wipe them all off, everyone would know, I think you’re in the evil category, right?

Slavery, the same thing, you don’t have a right to enslave anyone. Well, both of these things are happening in the world today, and they’re both happening with exactly the same people, and we’re not willing to call it by its name. Here’s how you know. It’s really interesting to me, if you believe in evil, and I do, I believe in good, and I believe in an opposing force of evil. Not everybody does, but if you do, you know that the Dark Lord, the Sith Lord, never takes and introduces something entirely new. He always just perverts those things that are good, reverses it, turns it upside down.

That’s how you can spot it. It’s been completely perverted and reversed and reversed – L, I, V, E, live. When you’re snuffing out someone’s right to live, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I have a right to live, to live.

Let me show you. I’m going to start in Israel. Today, the world pounced on reports from Gaza police that Israel had bombed a hospital. Okay, that’s pretty bad, right? That’s evil, except there’s no real context here, it’s just Israel bombs hospitals. And we should condemn people who are bombing hospitals, except there’s one little problem, is there any context to this story? Every single little opportunity, as if this nation the size of New Jersey could possibly oppress the billions of Muslims who surround them.

Hamas continues to break cease-fire agreements and rain down thousands of rockets on Israeli civilians. We also showed you the videotape taken from the IDF of the hospital, of the schools. We showed you that they did an infrared scan to see is there anybody in there? Yet Israel gets the blame, and they get the horrible headlines.

I showed you last week how Hamas cowardly hides their stockpiles behind civilian targets. This weekend on TheBlaze there was a story about how they uncovered next to children’s cribs bombs from Hamas. The great pains that Israel goes through to make sure that they hit only terrorist targets, but they can’t do that all the time. It’s war. Those things are rarely reported. Instead, we just go right for Israel bombs hospitals. What? And then into another heroic freedom flotilla for Gaza.

That’s what’s being prepared now in Turkey, the same place the last freedom flotilla sailed back in 2010. We were together at FOX, and I took an awful lot of heat for pointing out the freedom flotilla. In fact, I was the only one. There is no national voice that I trust that is going to be telling the truth about what’s happening on this freedom flotilla.

I remember how much heat I took to not stop pounding that story because nobody else was telling you the story. The world now luckily remembers that event, at least you do in the context of truth, but the world looks at this as Israeli aggression and violence because that’s what the world showed on television. But the truth is much different.

The peace activists knew about the blockade. They were warned when they got close, but they breached it anyway. They prepared for the conflict. They wanted the conflict. They ambushed the two Israeli commandos who boarded the boat. They beat them first with metal pipes. At least one commando was stabbed. Do you remember this video? Another was tossed overboard. The IDF had to use force, but the spin was big bad Israel slaughters innocent peace activists. That’s not what happened.

Now, Turkey this weekend gave the blessing for another freedom flotilla. I want to give you some perspective here. Turkey’s Prime Minister just last week had this to say about Israel: “(Israelis) have no conscience, no honor, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.” That’s saying something because remember, we have all deemed slavery and genocide as evil, right?

TheBlaze TV TheBlaze TV

We know genocide is evil, and the Prime Minister of Turkey is saying that they are worse than Hitler who we know did genocide. That’s quite a statement. It is so far detached from reality, but if it were actually true, let’s just say it was, what he’s saying is the world has a responsibility for getting rid of the modern-day Hitler. Now, I love this logo here for him, and the reason why love it is because it’s very reminiscent of another logo.

And it makes sense because the current administration, President Obama, has a very close relationship with this man, and it’s extremely disturbing. The president has called him a friend. They have shared parenting tips. When the president won his election, he was the first guy that the president called. He says he is a partner in peace in the region, and it’s not just a hey, you know, they punch above their weight. He means it with this guy.

Why would we partner with this man? Why would we, especially with anti-Semitism and bigotry and hate rising all over the Middle East? Does a man who says that the Jews have surpassed Hitler in genocide and evil, is he a guy that we wrap our arms around? People are rioting now in anti-Israel protests all around the country. There were big, they weren’t riots, but they were big gatherings in the United States. But this one is an actual riot, and it was happening in Paris, France.

France has seen some of the worst protests that are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. That’s probably the bigger thing here is pro-Palestinian. They were seen making the Hitler salutes. I mean, the last time we had people that were giving Hitler salutes on the streets of France, it was a bad thing, I thought. The world thought was. I wonder where the Parisians are now.

But if Israel is more barbaric than Adolf Hitler, I wonder what the Turkish Prime Minister thinks of what ISIS is doing in Syria and Iraq. Mohamed Elomar, he is a terrorist that originates from Australia, and he has just posed for several pictures that were posted on social media. Most media blacked out these images. A few blogs have the full gruesome images. I warn you that these images are extraordinarily disturbing.

I made this choice because I think it’s irresponsible to not show you the face of evil. You have to know what’s going on, and you have to know okay, so wait a minute, people are defending their right to exist, because in the Hamas charter it says Allah has promised that he would wipe out all of the Jews, evil, genocide. That’s in their charter, and so Israel is making the case, hey, we have a right to live, we have a right to protect ourselves so we can exist, so we can live as a people.

It is irresponsible of me not to show you the face of evil because next they come for you, and that’s not hyperbole, that’s not Glenn Beck fearmongering. What that is is quoting them. Israel is being equated with evil and equated with Hitler, but those who surround them, those who oppose them are not, and this is what they are doing. There is your terrorist.

Okay, this is what they’re doing to Christians and Muslims who disagree with them. Notice the pile of heads. They are chopping off heads in Iraq, and they are smiling while doing it.

Photos from Twitter, via Daily Mail Photos from Twitter, via TheBlaze TV. The uncensored images can be found on the 7/28/2014 episode of The Glenn Beck Program on TheBlaze TV.

Editor's Note: GlennBeck.com will not be posting the uncensored images from tonight's monologue in our story or video. Only subscribers to TheBlaze TV will be able to see the uncensored images in the full 7/28/2014 episode of The Glenn Beck Program. More details HERE.

Do you remember how outraged we were when we thought that American soldiers would be urinating on dead bodies? This, my friend, is what evil looks like. This is what Israel is up against, heads on pikes and fences.

We have told you this was happening for a while, but we haven’t had the evidence to prove it until now. I believe you have to see the truth. You have to see what evil looks like, because it matters. It matters.

Let me take you someplace I never thought we would actually go. I never thought we would, you know, take the words, in talking about good and evil, take the words of an atheist who technically, again, I don’t think believes in good and evil, but the words of Christopher Hitchens. He was speaking in 2010, and I think this is really important that you listen to what he’s saying.

Hitchens: Because anti-Semitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny and fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people, but as the common enemy of humanity and of civilization and has to be fought against very tenaciously for that reason, most especially in its current most virulent form of Islamic Jihad.

Our task is to call this filthy thing, this plague, this, this pest, by its right name, to make unceasing resistance to it, knowing all the time that it’s probably ultimately ineradicable, and bearing in mind that its hatred towards us is a compliment, and resolving (some of the time, at any rate) to do a bit more to deserve it.

Amen. Maybe we should do a little more to deserve their hatred. Are we standing up against it? I will tell you that I was shocked when I heard those words because he absolutely is right. He gets it. If you look back in the history, the Holocaust happened once, once, but the attempt to kill all the Jews has happened 19 times. Let’s not make it an even 20. Let’s stand, let’s choose a different path. Let us be the people who say we know the difference.

We could argue all you want on swearing and greed and lying. We can argue all you want. On this one and this one, what do you say we get it right? That’s not a fluky sentiment. This is a pattern repeated throughout history. This is what evil looks like.

Some people are trying to stand for the truth. Hashtag went viral on social media, it’s #JewsandArabsrefusetobeenemies, what a great concept, what a great concept. I know Arabs, I know Palestinians, and I know Jews. And they don’t all hate each other. It’s like, you know, the Cold War. When the Iron Curtain came down, and we saw people, not the leadership, not what the politicians and the leaders wanted us to believe, but people, we were all the same.

But even this now has been co-opted online by the people who want to continue the violence and the efforts to wipe one side out. That’s why we can’t sit idly by now. That’s why I want you to share those pictures with your friends. You have to show them this is who we’re up against. I want you to see the break we have coming up in just a second. I’m going to be talking to a guy who has witnessed this firsthand, and he is calling for people, it is time, it is time to stand and call evil evil.

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.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

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.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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.