There is a grave danger brewing in America, Glenn Beck warns, and it revolves around the Israel/Hamas debate. So, he sets the record straight on where he stands and why he believes the survival of Western civilization is on the line: "The enemy that Israel is currently facing today will be the enemy that the free world will face tomorrow."
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: I want you to really hear me carefully.
There is a grave, the brave danger that is building.
And I want to talk toy about it. I saw it last night, with my own eyes. In a very small number.
I want to make this really clear. Very small number of students. I saw it last night. And I want to talk to you about it. But, first, let me set it up with this. So Christopher Rufo wrote: On the right, many supporters of Israel -- I think that would be you and me. Many supporters of Israel -- because I'm a supporter -- including prominent Republican politicians argue that America has a theological duty to support the Jewish state. Now, I think personally for me, I feel that's true. But what does that mean, exactly? I'll get into it, in a minute. Their view is based on a complex interpretation of Bible prophecy. As a Catholic, I find it mystifying. As a political analyst, I find it unconvincing. Analyst, sorry.
The other supporters would like to shut down critical analysis of the war altogether. Equating criticism of Israel, with anti-Semitism and suggesting those who question the wisdom of America's support should be welcome in polite society. I want you to know, at the outset, absolutely wrong.
Because you disagree with Israel, does not make you an anti-Semite. It doesn't. It doesn't.
It makes you a thinking human being, honestly. These moves might have been effective in the past, but not so much anymore.
Instead of theological or shame-based approaches, friends of Israel must frame their arguments in terms of national interest.
One hundred percent right! One hundred percent right!
We need to understand our national interests. So hear me out on this: So you know, I have received the defender of Israel award from Benjamin Netanyahu years ago. I was just named by the Jerusalem post as the number one Christian supporter of Israel in America.
So I'm kind of known as -- I guess as a Zionist. Okay?
I believe that Israel has a right to exist, and the Jewish people have a right to live. Somehow or another, you get awards for saying that.
But I want you to understand something. My support is not blind loyalty, nor is it anything that is -- makes me Israel first.
It doesn't. God first, America second. Israel is in the pile of everything else. Okay?
My first citizenship, is to the kingdom of Christ. My second citizenship, is to America. I will do nothing that will violate my citizenship, my passport to the kingdom of God.
And I certainly won't violate things for my first citizenship, to save my second citizenship. But that's the rank of my citizenship. God first, America, right behind it. And the earthly sense, America first, okay?
No loyalty to the government of Israel. In fact, there's many things I don't like about the government of Israel. But you know what, I'm not a citizen. I don't vote. And I don't have to worry about their laws.
When it comes to war, I want nothing to do with that foreign war. Or, quite honestly, almost any foreign war. Pragmatism I'm tired of paying for it. I'm tired of our blood being shed. I want nothing to do. That's not my support of Israel or the Jewish people. It -- what is required when we talk about these things, is Israel's -- Israel's existence is not just about their national survival. It is about the survival of Western civilization itself.
It is the only -- lone beacon in the Middle East, that is standing against radical Islam. They're the only ones. They're the number one target of radical Islam.
Now, look at what's happening in the Middle East right now. Those countries that we used to think of as having real radical ties, now Saudi Arabia, they're actually saying, you know what, we can actually co-exist.
That's what's necessary. Coexistence in the Middle East. As long as we have a reason -- as long as we believe we each have a reason to live, and we have a right to live, we can solve any problem. We can solve any problem.
They are facing Islamist evil. And that evil is the same evil that wishes to dismantle our civilization and our country! And it's happening in our own country. My support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics. A people's moral and historic right to their homeland and to their right to live in peace. That's it. And I would say that to anybody. If the Gazans wanted their own land and say, because this is a two-state solution. That's been offered to them, over and over and over again.
But it wasn't river to the sea. Which is the definition of wipeout all of the Jews. No Jews in this land. Okay?
You want to share? I'm totally fine with that. But I can't -- I couldn't. We wouldn't put up with a neighbor who is constantly saying and trying to kill you.
So when it comes to politics. I believe Israel has a right to defense herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction. But I'm not going to fight that.
I don't agree with everything that Israel has done. But what difference does that make? Because I'm not making for our dollars or our blood to be spent. I just say, "Everybody has a right to live."
But let me make it personal, if -- if somebody told me, over and over and over and over again, that they wanted to kill me and my entire family, that I didn't have a right to exist. That I was the source of all evil in the world, and then acted on that threat, over and over again. Do you believe that I would have a right to defend myself? If I couldn't get anybody in the world to listen and stand with me, and I had to do it all myself, would I have a right to -- to take action in response to them?
Remember, I believe nature's law gives us a lot of stuff.
If I walk into a bear cave and mama and the cubs are in there, I think the bear has a right to maul me to death. Because it senses trouble. Now, that's an animal, but if I go in and I'm hunting those cubs, Mom does have a right to kill me.
But that would assume that she had any kind of intellect. Humans have intellect.
If Hamas were Canada and we were Israel.
And Hamas, Canada, did to us, what we did to Israel, answer this question honestly: Would there be a single building left standing north of our border today?
If they came and raped the same percentage. Killed, slaughtered. Set our babies on fire, do you think that we wouldn't have crippled Canada right now?
And no matter what anybody said, you think we would stop until that threat stopped!
That's not a question of morality. That's just the truth. All people, everybody has a God-given right to protect themselves, period. And Israel is doing that, in the way they feel is right. You can argue with that. And you can disagree vehemently with the way they're fighting the war. My support for Israel's right to finish the fight against Hamas, comes after 80 years of rejected peace offerings.
Two failed state solutions.
Hamas has not hidden its mission. Hamas says, it's the eradication of Israel.
That's not a political agreement. That's not a reasonable disagreement. In my book, it's not a land dispute.
That's -- that's a nihilist.
That's people who -- who -- who are actually calling for genocide, and proudly calling for wiping out of all the Jews.
Okay. Do I believe that America should be in that fight? No. Do believe that that should be in our national interest? Yes.
To support the people who are standing up against what will be our, possibly, last foreign war, as Jefferson said. Islamists believe, if you listen to what is being said in Dearborn, they are planning on Sharia law here in America.
That is -- that will wipe everything of the West out, and they are moving in to our countries.
I have no problem with Muslims. I have a big problem with Islamists, and there's a huge difference. What we saw on October 7th was the face of evil. Women and children slaughtered. And beyond that, even the Nazis tried to hide it. Okay? The Nazis, they knew the rest of the world would not approve. These people were proud of it. We've played the tapes for you. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped. Dragged through the streets.
And now, we see people defending that evil, in our own country!
That is nothing short of a moral collapse! That is probably the greatest danger that we have, is this -- is this ideology that says, "If I disagree with you, I can kill you."
The -- the confusion of, I disagree with Israel the way they're fighting a war, and so I'm going to say, "I support Hamas, because the Jews are always wrong. The Jews are lying. And I don't believe any of those videotapes because it was probably Jewish propaganda." That's moral collapse. If the chants in the street were Hamas, give up the hostages, don't ever do anything for that again. And Israel, for the love of Pete, stop the bombing, I would be totally cool. Totally cool.
Because that's reasonable. But that's not what we hear. We hear open sympathy for genocidal hatred. That is a chasm that has opened up in our society, and it's not just a chasm opening up, you know, from decency, but from humanity itself. And that's where the danger lies. The same hatred that we saw in the 1930s, that I predicted would happen again in about 2008, that we would see it in our vetoes. That hatred is taking root here, in Dearborn, in Minnesota, in London, in Paris.
And not as horror, but heroism. And if we're not vigilant, the enemy that Israel is currently facing today, will be the enemy that the free world will face tomorrow.
That's not about politics. That is truth. It's not -- it's -- it's about having the courage to call evil by its name. And say, that doesn't happen. Never again, not in the future. That doesn't happen.
You don't have to open a Bible to believe or understand this. You don't. But if you do, if you're a believer, then the issue cuts much, much deeper. And I opened an op-ed on this. And I will be publishing on GlennBeck.com, that goes deeper into that. But I don't expect you to believe the Bible or believe what I believe. I believe it's a very strong case, good versus evil here. Or right versus wrong, if that's the way you want to phrase it.
And national interests. If you look at what the world is headed towards. This -- this is not just about Israel's right to exist.
This is about whether we still know the difference between right and wrong. Good and evil.
Life and death cults.
It's about, do we have the courage to stand for the principles, that God outlined?
And that's not, you're going to inherit the land, or any of that crap. The principles of, you can live, I believe you have a right because you just like me, are a beloved child of God. That's what it is. And if we can't -- if we don't have the courage to make the case and -- and we're trying to convince people, just to blindly follow, because God says. God expects to us kick into reason. God expects us to think things through. And God expects us to disagree. And if we can't do those things, if we won't do those things, then the question is not will Israel survive?
The question is: Will we survive?