Fresh off his first visit to Auschwitz, born-again Jew-lover Glenn Beck has arrived in Israel for several spectacle-filled days of Israel-pumping and Islam-bashing. The visit comes a little more than a month before his Restore Courage Rally in Jerusalem, which is being billed as “an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Israel does not stand alone,” but which might better be described as the official marriage ceremony of the Christian right to the Zionist front, right, and center. Think of this week’s visit as the engagement party for the happy couple–that’s certainly how it’s playing out. Never mind that the groom is a bona fide anti-Semite with a pungent history of anti-Jewish eruptions, he has been greeted as nothing short of a visiting Prince Charming come to rescue his besieged bride. His appearance earlier today before the Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, as described by Ami Kaufman at +972, gives some sense of the mutually-assured love-bombing on display between Beck and his fans.
Here is MK Danny Danon, the committee chairman who invited Beck to speak, introducing him to the standing-room only crowd inside the Knesset’s Negev Room:
If we didn’t have someone like Glenn Beck we would have had to invent someone like him.
Here is MK Arieh Eldad, rabid settler and latter-day Jabotinsky-ite, applauding Beck’s call for “truth”:
It’s true we must say our truth, as you say Mr. Beck. We are in an era where people are opposed to the truth. The truth is, that we must end the occupation: the Islamic occupation of the land of Israel!
MK Michael Ben Ari, an unapologetic disciple of Meir Kahane, had this to say:
I think Glenn Beck should take my seat in the Knesset. Whoever helps Israel is a partner in the work of God, who returned his land to his people.
It’s worth noting that Ben Ari’s aide, Baruch Marzel, was also in attendance and even managed to snag a few private, post-speech moments with Beck. Marzel lives in Hebron and spent time both as the secretary and chairman of Meir Kahane’s Kach movement, which, Noam Sheizaf points out, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and the European Union. Judging by the picture, it looks like the two shared an intent little chat.
But today’s love fest wasn’t only for wing-nuts. The so-called center was represented as well in the form of of Labor-turned-Independence Party MK Anat Wilf, who took advantage of her access to offer this hard-hitting statement:
The battle for Israel is moving to the media, in an effort to delegitimize Israel and Zionism.
I’d like to ask you one thing. Don’t portray us as the victim. We are not the victim. But I thank you for your help.
So there you have it, the great Defenders of the Jews, the True Jews, the ones who attack everyone else as self-haters, kissing up to a racist, quasi-fascist, anti-Semite. All because his shared Islamophobia and end-times philosophy inspires him to say things like:
Antisemitism is about to go through the roof. Because when tragedy happens, it’s always the Jew’s fault. My event here on August 24th could be the biggest ever. It is not for courage here in Israel. Israel already has enough courage. I’m doing it here, because the solution will be found here. I knew it when I read the book of Ruth and Esther. I want people to hear what I have learned from those books, that “your god is my god, where you go I will go.”
With leaders like these, who needs — well, you get it.
