by Steven Plaut
Israeli radical leftists have long had an intense hatred toward American conservatives. This is in spite of the fact that American conservatives are almost all pro-Israel. In actuality, the hatred of Israeli leftists toward conservatives is precisely because conservatives are pro-Israel. Like in most other countries, the radical leftists in the Jewish State are anti-Israel in addition to being anti-American.
Israeli leftists insist that overseas supporters of Israel who are conservative should be shunned. They demand that Israel proclaim that those conservatives are just not ethical enough to be accepted as friends. Israeli leftists insist that Israel should only allow itself to be befriended by foreign leftists. Never mind that the search for pro-Israel foreign leftists is about as productive as the search for human life on other planets. The Left outside of Israel is almost entirely anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and foreign liberals are by and large (although not entirely) anti-Israel. Israeli leftists want foreign pro-Israel conservatives to be regarded as personae non gratae by Israel. A few years back, Amiram Goldblum, a professor at the Hebrew University and a founder of the leftist Peace Now, called upon Israel to prevent American evangelist Christians from entering Israel. He objected to them because they are too pro-Israel. The Israeli Left is outraged that Israeli cable TV carries Fox News, because it is pro-Israel. The anti-Israel BBC and CNN channels, however, are fine.
The most dramatic manifestation of the Israeli Left’s hatred of pro-Israel foreign conservatives was evident in the severity of “Beckaphobia” in recent days. The Israeli Left is suffering from an intense phobia regarding conservative media powerhouse Glenn Beck.
Beck was in Israel last week (and has been here a lot in recent months) for one purpose only – to support Israel. He is an outspoken and well-spoken American conservative. His political opinions are solidly conservative and you cannot listen to his recent speech in Jerusalem without being convinced of the sincerity of his love of Israel and solidarity with Jews. You might even be moved to tears (from his citing the Scroll of Ruth, for instance).
The Israeli Left has been jihading all week against Beck. Yossi Sarid, the ex-head of the semi-Marxist Meretz party, crayoned an op-ed demonizing Beck, and just recently had an op-ed in Haaretz claiming that Israel fought the Six Day War out of a Nazi-like quest for Lebensraum (his word) and expansionism. Sarid was joined by lots of left-wing Haaretz writers in Beck-bashing. And even the normally sensible Maariv editor, Ben-Dror Yemini, decided to gripe about Beck. Naturally, Peace Now denounced the decision to allow Beck into the country. The daily Haaretz, Israel’s analogue to The Nation, ran a nasty editorial denouncing Beck.
The leftists demanding that Beck be regarded as persona non grata are almost without exception the same people who protested when Israel denied the neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein, the anti-Semitic Stalinist Noam Chomsky and the pro-jihad pseudo-academic Richard Falk, entry into the country. Israel had prevented those people from entering because of their ties to Islamic terrorists and anti-Semites. The lesson is clear – the Left’s mantra is really this: Israel, hate it or leave it!
Meanwhile, Israeli patriots loved Beck and many attended his rallies. The conservative columnist Caroline Glick wrote:Beck is rare, because he refuses to bow to the intellectual intimidation and groupthink that plagues the discourse on Israel in Israel itself and throughout the world…. Unlike the leftist public intellectuals such as New York Times columnist Tom Friedman who are celebrated and obsessively covered by the Israeli media, Beck exerts real influence on public opinion in the US. His calls for action are answered by hundreds of thousands of people. His statements are a guidepost for millions of Americans. Aside from radio host Rush Limbaugh, no media personality in the US has such influence. It is highly significant that thousands of Beck’s supporters followed his call and came with him to Israel for a week to express their support for Israel and the Jewish people. It is similarly significant that millions more of his supporters followed his actions on Internet.
Beck, of course, is also the right-winger that the American left-wingers most love to hate. He is perhaps the only TV and radio personality who can upset the Left even more than Rush Limbaugh does. But those who hate Beck, in almost all cases, also hate Israel. True, some American liberal “reform rabbis” denounced Beck for criticizing George Soros and even demanded that Fox News sanction Beck, but if anything, Beck should carry their condemnation as a badge of valor. And lots of those “reform rabbis” are supporters of radical anti-Israel groups like J Street, the New Israel Fund, Tikkun Magazine, or worse. Of course, few of those clergypersons have issued any complaints about National Public Radio’s Israel bashers, and none has ever had any complaints about liberals and leftists who appear alongside Holocaust deniers on Counterpunch, the pro-jihad Web magazine.
Some American Jewish liberals squirm when Beck’s name is mentioned because they have a hang-up about Mormons. Give me a nice team of Mormons any day over liberal Jewish pseudo-clergypersons preaching that all of Judaism is really “social justice” and pursuing the liberal political agenda. Mormons may invite you to join their faith and pray for you to do so. Liberal pseudo-rabbis fraudulently misrepresent Judaism as liberal political fads and are guilty of Chilul Hashem (sacrilege). I feel fine with the former. And I salute Glenn Beck.
Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/29/beckaphobia/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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