Matthew Bell

Matthew Bell

Matthew Bell is a Jerusalem-based Middle East reporter. He has been with The World since 2001 and has filed stories from cities across the US and abroad.

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Glenn Beck’s ‘Restore Courage’ Rally in Jerusalem

August 24, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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A jumbotron is set up next to Jerusalem's city hall building for people to watch Glenn Beck's rally Wednesday. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

A jumbotron is set up next to Jerusalem's city hall building for people to watch Glenn Beck's rally Wednesday. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Glenn Beck held a rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the culmination of several events that the rightwing TV and radio personality planned in Israeli this week.

By chance, I ran into a member of Beck’s entourage in Israel a few days ago: the actor Jon Voight. We met in the rocket-damaged bathroom of a school gymnasium in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. Like me, Voight was there to see the scene first hand. Voight told me Israel made a big mistake when it decided to pull out of lands it had conquered from Arab armies in decades past, and he named southern Lebanon, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

“They got back the land, and then they gave it away,” Voight said. “I would have instructed them not to. I would have said, ‘Don’t give it away; who are you giving it to? These people don’t appreciate it. They’re going to fight you.’ So they gave away Gaza, and what happened? This — this happened.”

Voight went on to say that no one should pressure Israel to give away any more land for the sake of peace.

This is the kind of talk that Jonathan Daniels loves to hear from Americans. Daniels is excited to be part of the Israeli team helping out on Glenn Beck’s highest-profile visit yet to the Jewish state.

“Glenn is an incredibly unique, decent and truthful human being,” Daniels said. Daniels is an adviser to the conservative lawmaker Danny Danon, probably Beck’s most prominent supporter in the Israeli government. Last month, Danon invited Beck to speak at the Israeli parliament. Daniels said Beck is a rare example of a powerful media personality who gives full-throated support for Israel.

“It’s like whoa, hold on a second, we’ve got a friend. We’ve got somebody that’s willing to take our side and not be afraid of doing that,” Daniels said. “This is one of the most influential men in America, willing to stand up and stand with Israel, and we were so glad to be able to embrace that and give him everything that we possibly could.”

But there’s been no shortage of Israelis who are doing just the opposite. A Facebook group called “Glenn Beck Stay Home” put out a video with some particularly colorful comments by Beck, including one where said that “Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did.”

“If Glenn Beck is our biggest friend, I think we are in a big problem,” said Etai Mizrav, with the Israeli group Peace Now. The group organized a counter rally Wednesday against Glenn Beck’s appearance in Jerusalem. Mizrav said he doesn’t appreciate Glenn Beck’s vocal opposition to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mizrav pointed out that he’s a soldier in the Israeli army and Glenn Beck is not. “Since he’s not going to be here to fight the next war, we say to Glenn Beck, please stay out of our business. If we want to make peace it’s probably in our best interest.”

Beck's "Restoring Courage" rally takes place next to the holy Al Aqsa Mosque, or Temple Mount as it's known to Jews, in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

One thing that’s fueled criticism of Beck from both the left and the right in Israel is the location of his Wednesday rally. The live stage was set up in the shadow of the Al Aqsa mosque – holy to Muslims – and just steps away from the Western Wall – revered by Jews. The fact that a controversial American broadcaster was allowed to use one of Jerusalem’s most sacred sites as a backdrop for a TV event strikes some Israelis as inappropriate.


Discussion

8 comments for “Glenn Beck’s ‘Restore Courage’ Rally in Jerusalem”

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6L6FTDBJYFKOHEZCN6BO6ZEGQ dorn

    Unfortunately, Jon Voight was correct. Giving away land for peace has ensured only more war. The core issue is Arab rejection of any permanent Israel, and they see the peace process as a means for the piecemeal destruction of Israel. Can you imagine what the map of the world would look like if any other country was forced to give away vitally strategic land, won in wars of mere survival?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6L6FTDBJYFKOHEZCN6BO6ZEGQ dorn

    I have spoken to a great many Palestinians and Arabs and have received a consistent message: they will never allow Israel peace. It is humiliating to them that the Jews, who they treated as third rate dhimmis for the last 1400 years, can stand up as equals. It violates their sense of pride, and their religious injunctions.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6L6FTDBJYFKOHEZCN6BO6ZEGQ dorn

    How strange that Matthew Bell first describes the area as the Al Aqsa mosque, and only after mentions the Western Wall/ Temple Mount (Judaism’s Holiest site).  How strange too that Bell overplayed the opposition to Beck and underplayed the support. I read that the supporters at his event numbered over 1400, and the Peace Now demo consisted of a few dozen.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6L6FTDBJYFKOHEZCN6BO6ZEGQ dorn

    How strange that Matthew Bell first describes the area as the Al Aqsa mosque, and only after mentions the Western Wall/ Temple Mount (Judaism’s Holiest site).  How strange too that Bell overplayed the opposition to Beck and underplayed the support. I read that the supporters at his event numbered over 1400, and the Peace Now demo consisted of a few dozen.

  • Anonymous

    Jon Voight is delusional and dangerous.  He includes Lebanon, with Sinai and Gaza, as lands that Israel should have retained control over.  Lebanon?!  There’s no easy solution — neither in a negotiated settlement, but certainly not in a belligerent and unending occupation of disputed territories with millions of people, not to mention a neighboring country!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/OHRORFA3SAT4Y23A7QBJCLA7PE Iolanthe

    Ooooo!   *1400*!!!!!    Ooooo!   He’s a PROPHET!   He’s a SAINT!

    Wrong, although it’s amusing to see his nasty little Fan Club show up here.  

    He’s an anti-Semite, a narcissist, and a delusional fool.   I’m sure he thinks he’s one of the Witnesses of Revelation, but he’s just an increasingly sad nutjob, with a dwindling audience made up entirely of other sad xenophobic nutjobs.

  • Anonymous

    Excuse me…..but just why is it that we are discussing a has-been American actor and a media clown? What credibility do either have……about anything of international significance?  If the ultra-right of Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews have no better heroes……then they are bankrupt.
    The main rub here is that Jonathan Daniels, et al attempt to believe that Beck is what he is most certainly not…….’decent & truthful’.  He claims to be a staunch supporter of Israel…… I am not convinced of that….but why try to paint him as anything other than a megalomaniacal weirdo…..who does serve that limited purpose for those who defend Israel?  How can Danny Danon ignore Beck’s recorded anti-Semitic statements?  Beck is also clear that he is rooting for the destruction of Israel and the conversion to Christianity of those ‘wise’ enough to believe the preachings of a lame media whore.

  • Anonymous

    Excuse me…..but just why is it that we are discussing a has-been American actor and a media clown? What credibility do either have……about anything of international significance?  If the ultra-right of Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews have no better heroes……then they are bankrupt.
    The main rub here is that Jonathan Daniels, et al attempt to believe that Beck is what he is most certainly not…….’decent & truthful’.  He claims to be a staunch supporter of Israel…… I am not convinced of that….but why try to paint him as anything other than a megalomaniacal weirdo…..who does serve that limited purpose for those who defend Israel?  How can Danny Danon ignore Beck’s recorded anti-Semitic statements?  Beck is also clear that he is rooting for the destruction of Israel and the conversion to Christianity of those ‘wise’ enough to believe the preachings of a lame media whore.