RUSH: Dave in Albuquerque, I’m glad you waited, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rushbo. Earlier in your show you mentioned how Clinton appeased Arafat, and Arafat actually didn’t want peace, all of which is factual, but haven’t we in the US or Republicans done the same to Israel over the last several years, by giving them a blank check to really do whatever they want with it, and a lot of our support for Israel comes from a misinterpretation of scripture. They’re not the promised land anymore. But let me ask you this, Rush. What has Israel done for us as a country? And, more than that, why do you support the Jews so much but they’re all so liberal?
RUSH: Well, it’s not a question of supporting Jews. That’s not the way I look at this. You, obviously, do. I do not. By the way, this moral equivalence that you’ve set up doesn’t exist, either. There is nothing at all similar in what Israel has been offered in a negotiation with the Palestinians that comes even close to what Clinton offered Arafat. I mean, Arafat’s making demand left, demand right. Arafat’s demanding all kinds of things, and Clinton gave it to him, and he turned it down.
The point of that is, Arafat, when given everything, when given a solution, when given a Palestinian state, when given everything he demanded, walked away from it, because he didn’t want a solution. I don’t know what the equivalent that you think is that we have offered Israel. They are an ally, so, yeah, we provide them with money. But they are an ally. They have been an ally since their founding days.
You know, what Israel does for us, that’s a sad question. Israel represents the same Judeo-Christian democratic values that we represent and stand for the world over. But to me, this is has nothing to do with biblical prophecy or any of that. I mean, it’s involved, but as far as I’m concerned, I am not even taking that into account here. This is a strict geopolitical deal. This is good versus evil, as far as I’m concerned. I really don’t understand the concept here, how people like you do not understand the concept of good and evil, good guys and bad guys and how it never seems to fail, we’re not the good guys anymore. Or maybe that’s sometimes in question. And it isn’t. I believe in the United States of America all the time.
I don’t believe we’re perfect. I don’t believe that we have done things perfectly. I don’t believe we haven’t made mistakes. But I’m nowhere near selling out my own country. I’m nowhere near selling out allies, which is what we’ve been doing lately. But I don’t know what the commensurate is. If Clinton offered Arafat everything he wanted, I don’t think we’ve ever offered Israel everything. Depending on the administration, Israel has always been asked to give something up, usually land.
Israel is attacked and wins wars and claims territory, and everybody says, “You gotta give it back, not fair.” We were minding our own business and we were attacked, and they still give up the land. They make concession after concession. They got a nine-mile-wide country at its narrowest. They at one point had to give that away. And now you’ve got the president of the United States is actually running around condemning our ally and painting our ally as the problem in that region.
I don’t know what the equivalent is. I don’t know where we are giving Israel everything and anything it wants, and I don’t know with that we ever have. That’s my point. We’ve been trying to broker a peace here ever since Israel was formed in 1947. We’ve been trying to broker a peace with the same futility. Everything is the same except the people change. The diplomats change. The secretaries of state change. And the same thing in the other countries. And yet it’s the same arguments over and over again with never, ever any resolution. In fact, this whole Israeli-Palestinian peace thing has become its own thing. A solution is not even dreamed of anymore. Anyway, I appreciate the call nevertheless.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now I’m debating whether or not to tell a story. I’ll tell the story. This snarky — and I’ll leave the names out — we just had this snarky caller who, “What do you care, it’s just a bunch of Jews, the Jews are all liberal, what do you like the Jews for?” Clearly a call filled with snark. Now, the caller could have been one of two things. Could have been an extreme, way, way out anarchist right winger type, or could have been a dyed-in-the-wool leftist. More than likely, the guy was a leftist. And, of course, I treated the caller with respect, and I did not respond to the snark.
It reminded me of a story. I went on a guy golf trip. I’ve told you about this trip before, I think. I just can’t remember if I used all the names. I probably didn’t, so I won’t now. But there’s some Hollywood actors on this trip, some morning TV stars on this trip. And, as usual, I was the circus act. I was invited to provide the political yuks. Everybody else on this guest list was either agnostic or highly liberal. And I knew it.
But it was a trip to Ireland and Scotland, I said, “What the hell, I’ll go, play golf over there. I’ll put up with it. I can handle it.” I knew full well that I was the circus act. I mean, it just happens. So we got on the plane, we have to stop in New York. We leave here, we stop in New York to pick up the New York contingent. We’re gonna head on over to Ireland overnight, get off the plane over there, start playing golf. And one of the Hollywood actors gets on the plane, I can just tell he’s looking around trying to find me. He’s just trying to find me, spots me, comes walking down, sits across the aisle and immediately — first thing he says to me — and his father is well known.
The first thing he says to me is, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I asked him how his father was, “How’s your dad doing?”
“Yeah, he’s reading the Talmud. Do you know what that is?”
And I said, “The Talmud? Sure, I know what that is.”
“Well, that’s what he’s doing. That probably really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“No, not at all. In fact, I’m not surprised he’s reading the Talmud at his age. Is he enjoying it, is it helping?”
The guy was floored because the guy expected me to be an anti-Semite, you know, whatever his caricature of a conservative right winger was. He was stunned that I knew what the Talmud was, and then stunned that I didn’t put on some public display of disgust or whatever.
That’s not the first time that happened. Back in the era of my first book I happened to be invited to an Oscar night watching party somewhere down in the village in Manhattan at, at that time, the CEO of HBO’s house. I told you about this. This is a Ron Silver moment. I’m in there with my book editor and Ron Silver comes in and blows a gasket. Carly Simon came in and blew a gasket that I was even there. And the head honcho of HBO, I made a point of saying, “Hi, I’m glad to be here. It’s nice of you to have me.”
“I just want you to know I’m a Jew and I’m proud to be.”
Fine. What the hell, dude. Fine, you’re a proud Jew. Cool. I love Israel. What is this? The caricatures that these people have, and I think this caller had the same thing. And to me this whole Israeli-Palestinian thing, I mean, supporting Israel for me is not because they’re Jewish. It has nothing to do with the Bible. I mean, I could go there if you want me to, but I support Netanyahu ’cause he’s one of us. Same values. Same ideology. Same decency. It has nothing to do with anybody’s religion.
The people on the left accuse everybody else of being sexist or racist. They are the most surface oriented people. They judge everybody on the surface characteristics, what they look like, what their sexual orientation is, what their gender is, their skin color is. That’s how they look at people. That’s how they decide whether they like ’em or not. That’s how they judge them.
Not us. Certainly not me. I couldn’t care less about any of that. But, boy, these people are so lost in their little cocoons where they live with all of this prejudice and bile. And they’ve convinced themselves that they’re right about it. Then they run into people like me and when it doesn’t play out they’re totally confused, shocked, and stunned. And from that point I was ignored. The rest of the golf trip I was totally ignored, ’cause I wasn’t gonna be any fun.
On the flight home from wherever, Scotland, I finally decided to throw down and I started getting into political discussions, for the first time on the trip, first time. I wasn’t gonna be the circus act. That’s why I was invited, but I wasn’t gonna give them the satisfaction. The flight home, somebody brought up Bob Graham, Senator, so we started talking about politics, and the host looked at me with a smile, but actually somewhat angrily, “Where the hell has this been?” They were hoping for this. It was like a seven or 10 day trip.