Jack Engelhard
Maybe some people’s eyes were finally opened to reality.
For the first time ever a sizeable portion of Americans got to know what’s it’s like for Israelis to be living in a bloody hard-hearted neighborhood.
This was an unintended but highly productive consequence of AIPAC’s big showdown that featured our major candidates for president as each made his or her case as Israel’s best friend. They all spoke well, but that was expected. The surprise was the news — news that finally got to open some eyes across the country.
This must have been shocking for so many who’d been in the dark.
Because ever since the Arab conflict against Israel began, the networks made it a point to nurse along a policy that either blames Israel for defending itself, or at best measures out moral equivalency. In any case, Israel seldom (actually never) caught a break.
Monday was different… elaborately different as candidate after candidate spoke forthrightly about Radical Islamic bloodlust and Palestinian Arab atrocities.
Where has this been?
The cable networks had no choice but to let them tell it as it is, Kasich, Trump, Cruz and even Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for the Republicans.
CNN, Fox News and yes, MSNBC, actually got trapped into spreading the word that for years, for decades they’d tried to hide or suppress. They had no choice but to let it run, run in full, and it must have been painful for the masters of these networks to let all of that rip unfiltered, uncut, unabridged and uncensored.
AIPAC was the news of the day and it had to air practically all day. Multitudes saw. Multitudes heard.
The traditional channels, CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS, they too in their recaps will have to give truth a chance, if only for one day.
The truth, as revealed by the three GOP candidates, is that day after day Israelis face Radical Islamic barbarism through Palestinian Arab vehicular terror, guns, knives, rockets and terror tunnels. The books were opened upon Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah and the entire Palestinian Authority infrastructure that calls for nothing more, nothing less than Jewish blood.
Let others review how each candidate fared in making his or her argument.
For this observer it was something else. Something bigger. Something better than the usual speech that offers love for the Jewish State. We heard all that before, but mainly among ourselves. This was upon a grand stage, America was tuned in, and it was astonishing. Imagine the millions who never before knew that Palestinian Arab children were bred, nurtured and taught to hate and to kill.
For the first time millions learned about those textbooks, and about streets being named to honor Palestinian Arabs who kill innocent Jewish civilians.
Never before did these millions of Americans know that Iran and the PA offer cash incentives and restitution to these terrorists and to their families.
The more Israelis they kill, the more money they get, the mosques urging on.
This had to be news, news reaching non-political Americans for the very first time, that among Palestinian Arabs baby-killers are their heroes.
Providence works in mysterious ways.
The day was meant for the candidates, but chalk this up first as gratitude to AIPAC for being important enough to stop the presses in favor of Israel.
Score it as a loss for the networks, that for every act of concealment over these many years, finally they were lured into telling it like it is. This must have been a brutal day for journalists who’ve distorted and miscast Israel through false reporting going on for years, the drama of which we’ve recorded along these pages.
Call it a win for Israel.
We dare hope that a newly informed public will be less likely to be maneuvered, fooled and misled by entrenched media bias.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the international classic “Indecent Proposal” now followed by the prophetic thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com