The speech Glenn wanted to give in D.C.

About halfway through Glenn's speech at the "Stop Iran Deal" rally on Wednesday, music started playing to let Glenn know his time was up. He pressed on, and with the crowd's encouragement, the music stopped until Glenn finished his remarks.

But it wasn't the full speech.

On radio Thursday, Glenn revealed to his listeners he'd cut out about 30 percent of what he'd originally prepared.

"The speech I wanted to give in Washington yesterday, because of time I had to edit on the fly as I was speaking. And I want you to hear the words that need to be said," Glenn said.

While apologetic to Tea Party Patriots for exceeding his allotted time, Glenn said he felt it was important to deliver the speech as closely as possible to the way it was written.

"I don't believe I wrote this speech," Glenn said, describing how he'd planned to spend an entire day writing the speech, but the words just flowed and after about fifteen minutes, he was like "okay, I think I'm done."

"And I think it's important that you hear it," Glenn said.

Listen to the full speech Glenn delivered on radio or read the full transcript below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: We live in really confusing times. The world is suffering under the delusion of peace and prosperity. We've been told that the world is safer and the world economy is safe and that Islamic killers are men of peace.

The confusion that we all feel comes from the abandonment of truth. A truth that's been chased out of the public square, our media, our university, and many of our churches. But God's timing is always divine. Know this, if we fail to restore the truth, God will.

So let's speak the truth. Let's share God's truth to the powers of the earth. I don't think it's a coincidence that when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress last year about Iran, the Torah portion that was studied that week in synagogues all over the world, that millions of Jews learned, was the story of Esther. It was God's message to us.

America, like Esther, has a special role. And we can either recognize it and know that we were born for times such as this and we can stand up and save lives, or we can lose our role and our life.

But once again, God's timing is perfect. As we debate what we're going to do with Iran, this week's Torah portion, we're told that the story of the early Israelites, we're told of the story where Moses stood on the edge of the Promised Land and commanded God's people to choose life over death. He warned them, "If you choose darkness and death, you will be swept from your Promised Land."

I believe we face the same choice today. Choose life and light or death and darkness.

But I actually have somewhat renewed hope that we will choose correctly because, honestly, I feel something is happening in America and around the world. I can't put my finger on it yet, but I know it's good. I know that we're no longer fooled by those who have made good evil and evil good, with Planned Parenthood. We're not fooled by those who call for the killing of our cops.

While we get into bed and run guns in Benghazi, to those who now rape children and sell them into slavery, we realize now that we've been silent for far too long, that we have been told you into some kind of a sensible slumber. And you might feel yourself surrounded by those people today, but there are millions around the world that are waking -- they're shaking themselves and their families. That are coming back into line with eternal principles. Because there's a hunger for truth, unvarnished and authentic.

We accept even to the point that we're not going to like the truth, and we know it's not going to make us comfortable, but we can no longer deny the truth. We return to eternal principles, to stand with God, and in Iran's case, with his chosen people. And make no mistake, that's what the deal with Iran really is all about.

Even though they're not coming for the Jews first, this time, evil has quenched its thirst for blood with the extermination of Christians. Just a few years ago, there were 2 million Christians in Syria. It's now down to 400,000. And the world is silent. There's a genocide already underway. But it's of Christians.

Make no mistake, it will also kill the Muslims that aren't Muslim enough, the homosexual that is homosexual, the women, the children that are just women (sic). Evil will get around to the Jew because it always does.

Who are we?

The world took a vow after the slaughter of innocents in World War II, and we said, "Never again." Well, good God Almighty, never again is now.

Two weeks ago, 30,000 people -- 30,000 came to the same streets that gave birth to a movement that ended the evil of segregation. We marched on the same streets that Martin Luther King marched, and the city of Birmingham said it was the largest march in the city since 1963. It was a civil rights march, but it was more. It was a unity march. People from all backgrounds, all different faiths, all different colors, joining to take a stand, to stand up for victims being slaughtered by terrorists supported by Iran, to rescue those children that have received the mark of the Nazarene, the mark of death.

Our Statue of Liberty cries out to those people. They are the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. They are the tempest tossed, but our American government won't take them. We'll transplant entire Somali Muslim communities here, but we stand silently by while Christians are crucified. And even worse, we will fund Iran's goal of vaporizing Israel. In minutes, Iran will be able to accomplish more than Hitler did in a decade.

And those in Washington are giving us this false choice: You take this treaty, or it's war. This is exactly what the world was told just before the breakout of World War II. And the sane and the rational, the educated, were so desperate to avoid war that they sent Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of England to meet with Adolf Hitler. And evil wore its mask. It played the game and spoke the words the world was eager to hear.

I own the letter that Neville Chamberlain wrote to the Hitler youth upon his return to England, explaining to the Hitler youth that their leader Hitler wanted peace just as much as everyone else.

And on his return, the masses cheered as Chamberlain stepped from his airplane and held up that document and announced, "Peace in our day!" Just as it was then, so is it now: A lie.

There can be no peace with people who chant for your death, chant for the death of Jews, chant for the death of anyone. Chamberlain's Accord only gave evil more uncontested time to build the Nazi weapons of death and genocide. Peace in our day was the lie that Hitler promised the West, and it is the lie the ayatollahs whisper today.

And today, our acceptance of this lie -- I don't even know, is it made out of ignorance? Wishful thinking? Desperation? Loyalty to parties? Or is it collusion? We could debate it, but it doesn't matter really which it is. What matters is that the world hears someone -- anyone say, "This is a false premise, and it is a lie."

The only one that can choose war are those who wish to cover the world with their corrupted ideology that Allah is our God and that Allah demands the death of all those who will not submit. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the God of spirit over flesh. He's a God of love and light over hatred and death.

Today, we must each of us choose the God of life over the false God of death. We must not cower, and we must not compromise. I find it beyond unreasonable or beyond irresponsible to not take seriously when somebody says, "I'm going to kill you." When somebody says, "I'm going to wipe the Jew or the American off the face of the earth," you need to believe them because history shows us time and time again, they mean what they say. To choose to ignore is to cast our lot with what will be a global war that will plunge the world into darkness and death, that will wash this world in blood, unlike anything mankind has ever seen.

So it's not just unreasonable to dismiss or ignore these warnings, it is evil. And all those who make good evil and evil good. To those who excuse or, worse, partner with this evil, they need to know, they're going to be remembered as the Neville Chamberlain or, worse, the Mussolinis of this age. You will not be remembered well.

Yet, those few who choose to stand and most times mocked, ridiculed, or ignored as they stand against the tide of this insanity, I want you to know, you'll be remembered by your children and the world's grandchildren as the righteous men and women of courage. I want the Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I want him to know that I stand with his law, not those that are passed in the chambers of corruption and graphed in greed and iniquity in our capitols all across the country and in Washington, DC.

But what's more, I no longer am going to fight against something. And I ask you to join me, to fight for something. To fight for life. To fight for decency. To fight for the women who are devalued. The homosexuals, who have a right to live. The Jew that has the right to live. Fight for the children who are crucified and who are raped up to ten times every single day, fight for those people. Fight for the light because the light will conquer the darkness.

I pray that my voice somehow or another will get to the prisoners of religious conscience who have been left to rot by. Us. That somehow or another my voice is heard by the freedom fighters who were abandoned by us when they rose up for what was right in Iran. Somehow, that our voice can slip through the bars of the gulags and the torture chambers and the prisons and the rape rooms, to let our brothers and sisters who feel alone, be it in Iran, in Syria, in Tel Aviv or the capitol of Israel, Jerusalem, somehow or another they hear our voices so those who feel vanquished and abandoned know that they are not forgotten. Let them hear us today say that, while there are 34 or 41 senators now who have sold their sold souls to darkness for party or 30 pieces of silver, whatever it is, there are millions of Americans and more around the world that are calling upon the ultimate power in the universe, the Almighty God. And no matter where evil lurks, be it in the councils of power in Washington or Iran or anywhere else in the world, evil needs to be put on notice. The mighty arm of God is rising up, and evil will be defeated.

You should, if you're on the wrong side, you should -- boy, this season of chaos right now, but know it is going to be very short-lived. Because we know how the story ends. Now, God doesn't pick sides. Because all of us are God's children. But he does require us to choose sides.

Rest assured, one way or another, evil's days are numbered, as are the days of those who rule are fear, terror, death, backroom deals and corruption. Everybody should be put on notice today. You can play your games. You can count your votes. You can -- to those who say that they're going to drive the Jew into the sea, you might think you've won, but understand this: First of all, you haven't seen America for who we really are in over 70 years. And you have no idea who God is.

You've poked this bear one too many times. America may be delayed, but God's not going to be delayed. To those in the prisons and the rape rooms, they should know their prayers have been heard. Your tears and cries for help will be answered. He is going to comfort the poor in spirit. He will heal the sick. He will mourn with those who mourn. He will open up the doors of the prisons and the rape rooms. And here's the message to America, he's going to do these things with or without us. Which side are you on?

Know if you choose the wrong side now, you're going to pay a heavy eternal price. And make no mistake, treaty or none, the nation of Israel is going to stand.

No Jew in Europe would have believed in 1944 that God would use that never-ending night to hold true to his promise and restore the nation of Israel in just a few short years after, but that's exactly what he did. His ways are not our ways, and he's going to do the same thing again in his time and in his way. This era of confusion and error, these days of darkness, they're going to end because our God is a God of covenants. But that's a double-edged sword. We as a people must understand, God's going to keep all of his promises, not just the ones we like.

He has told us clearly he's going to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her. I want you to understand that this too shall be fulfilled. Our actions as a nation and as individuals, what we do today will seal our fate. So we have to be very, very clear. We shall serve no king other than God.

I beg all those with eyes to see and ears to hear, that I believe this is the last call to return to our roots. We are dangerously close to the end of that hedge of protection. We must choose life because the hour is later than we think and the morning will come. And I warn anyone who wishes to stand on the sidelines, anyone who just wants to claim ignorance, anyone who even wants to say, "I don't know what to do. I'm helpless." Not to stand is to stand. Not to speak is to speak. There aren't going to be any spectators in this struggle. And God is not going to hold any of us blameless.

We're told by the people in Washington that we have to give in on this treaty and just about everything else. We have to give in or the world will abandon us. First of all, I don't think that's true. But if it is true, good.

We're supposed to be that shining city on the hill. That's who we are. That's our purpose. We're supposed to be the light in a world of darkness. We're supposed to be the ones that take a stand for morality when no one else will. We're supposed to be the ones who will fight for those who cannot protect themselves.

So while everybody else is freaking out, I say, "Let the world abandon us." Because if that's who they are, America is going to be better off standing alone.

There's a really powerful quote from Maimonides. He has the wisdom of the ancients. It's the message that each individual stand. Each individual that stands now is responsible for the entire world.

He said, "A person should always look to himself as equally balanced between merit and sin and the world as equally balanced between merit and sin. And if he performs one sin, he tips the balance and that of the entire world to the side of guilt and brings destruction upon himself. On the other hand, if he performs one good deed, he tips the balance and that of the entire world to the side of merit and brings delivers and salvation to himself and others."

I think this is what's meant in Proverbs 10, where it says, "A righteous man is the foundation of the world." I wish I could explain this so people could really hear it and understand what I mean. But this is a time of giants. This -- it's now for a new generation of men and women that the world will look to, those who are going to move beyond the empty words and broken promises. It is time to stand and act, to bend the arc of history towards truth and justice and love, to tip the balance of the entire world to merit, and save it.

Bill O'Reilly asked me the other night why I -- "Why are you going? Why are you going to speak in Washington at this rally? This has already been decided."

I want to remind people that you don't need to have a vote on the floor of the Senate or in the halls of Congress to change the world. To be the foundation of the universe, all you need is a conscience and the stamina to perform one good deed and then another and then another. While the world hangs in the balance, we have to be good.

Too many members of our government lack the courage to choose life. But we, the people, will rise up and choose life for ourselves and life for the planet. To the vulnerable victims of an enriched and emboldened Iran, let the message go forth, "We will not abandon you." We resolve now to perform acts of charity and kindness each and every day on a global scale to tip the balance toward merit.

If political maneuvers in Washington can't be relied upon to bring salvation and healing to those in needs, then our hope belongs exactly where it always should have been in the first place, in the redeemer of the world, and then acting as he would act, with billions of acts of goodness and kindness performed by you and me and others of good faith in this country and beyond. More acts of goodness and kindness, this is our commitment. This is the plan of action, to choose life for ourself, to choose life for the victims of Iran in this terrible deal, to choose life for the world during a dark time.

You know, we have seen dark times before. The dark time of the civil war, it's reported that Abraham Lincoln overheard one say, "I hope the Lord is on the Union side." Abraham Lincoln had a sharp rebuke. He looked at him and said, "I'm not concerned about that at all because I know the Lord is always on the side of right. It's my constant anxiety, it's my constant prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

That's the choice we have to make today, to be on the Lord's side and declare that no matter what, no matter what a few people in our government might decide, we, the people, will stand with Israel because we choose principles over party. We choose love over hate. We choose light over darkness and life over death. We choose that, even in our own lives, knowing that it will be changed forever.

We choose that with the understanding of history, that that road less traveled is one fraught with difficulties and many times jail time and death. But we choose it with confidence because the outcome has already been decided because our God is just. And our God is a God of mercy and our God is a God of life. Our God is a God of power and strength. He's a God that speaks the truth. And he's a God that keeps his promises.

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

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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.

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

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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.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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.