I'm back on the air after several weeks when I was away for family reasons. This will be a very interesting episode, because we'll be looking both forward and back.
Forward: to President Biden's visit to the Middle East, trying to pick up the pieces of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and begging the Saudis for oil. We'll talk to Avi Jorisch, who is doing the hard work of building alliances.
Forward: to the next hearing of the January 6 Committee, which is going to weave a conspiracy theory linking President Trump to far-right groups that stormed the Capitol. The committee is manipulating evidence and has refused to consider the offer of a leader of the Oath Keepers to testify under oath -- with the proviso that he be able to testify live, so they can't manipulate his testimony and make up things about him, as they have done to others.
Backward: to my visit to South Africa, which made the same mistakes 20 years ago that America is making today: failing to invest in power generation and using government investigative bodies to eliminate political opposition.
Backward: to my old home state of Illinois, where the governor is causing for more gun control despite the abject failure of the strictest rules in a liberal community on July 4th. No law can eliminate evil or the need for vigilance.
Forward: to the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential elections -- from Iowa. Yes, I was able to make it to the Hawkeye State this week, and I interviewed two Republicans who are building towards a hoped-for red wave.
Special guests:
Zach Nunn -- Iowa legislator and candidate for Congress in IA-03
Tom Cotton -- Senator from Arkansas and possible presidential contender
Avi Jorisch -- author forging ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors
Listen: 7-10 p.m. EDT, SiriusXM 125
Call in: 866-957-2874
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
