In order to ensure that those present at the game and the more than 100 million people watching on television cannot avoid hearing it, the "black national anthem" will, according to the schedule I have seen, be played after the actual national anthem of the United States. If that is the case, this will presumably be done in order to also ensure that everyone is still standing when it is sung. The NFL probably fears that some of those attending the game – specifically, those who possess two increasingly rare traits: love of America and courage – might not rise for the "black national anthem." But if they were already standing for the national anthem, few will sit when the "black national anthem" is then sung. The NFL doesn't want a repeat of what occurred at last year's Super Bowl in Arizona, when, as ABC News reported, "Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake went viral in 2023 for remaining seated during a performance of the song at Super Bowl LVII." Last year, the "black national anthem" was played prior to the national anthem.

How destructive a decision performing the "black national anthem" at sporting events is – whether before or after the national anthem – can be summarized this way: Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, is among the few Americans of whom it will one day be said that he seriously damaged America. In 2021, the Washington Times noted, "Under Roger Goodell, the NFL has gone far beyond the kneeling; it's doubling down on 'social justice.' In addition to painting more slogans in the end zones and on players' helmets, the League will be donating $250 million to Black Lives Matter and other activist groups to 'combat systemic racism and support the battle against the ongoing and historical injustices faced by African-Americans.'"

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(Also in 2021, the NFL released a 30-second video titled "Football Is Gay.")

Last week, the "black national anthem" was sung before the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Detroit Lions playoff game.

The National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball are competing with the NFL to see which organization can inject more divisive left-wing politics into sports. For example, before the 2023 NBA All-Star Game, played in Salt Lake City, black singer Jully Black changed an opening word of the Canadian national anthem from "O Canada! Our home and native land!" to "O Canada! Our home on native land!" – emphasizing the word "on."

During the 2023 baseball season, the Los Angeles Dodgers honored – yes, honored, not merely featured – an LGBT activist group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, composed of men dressed as nuns mocking Catholic nuns.

Meanwhile, the NFL continues to paint "anti-racist" slogans in end zones and play the "black national anthem" before important games.

Not to be outdone by the NFL, NBA or MLB, the U.S. Open men's and women's tennis singles finals did not even feature the U.S. national anthem. Instead, the "black national anthem" and "America the Beautiful" were sung. The latter is indeed a beautiful and patriotic song, but the fact is that one "national anthem" was played – and it wasn't America's. As former ESPN anchor Sage Steele wrote on X: "Ahhh … the irony of refusing to allow our national anthem … at the *US* Open. I remain hopeful that we can get back to truly appreciating the greatness of America, but man … this is sad."

Two big lessons here.

The first is that the Left seeks to destroy America as we have known it. Playing two "national anthems" has no other goal than disuniting Americans. The message of singing the "black national anthem" is as clear as day: There is a black America and there is the rest of America. That many Americans, especially blacks, welcome this is nothing less than a national tragedy.

The second is the most important: The Left destroys everything it touches. High schools, elementary schools, universities, journalism, the nuclear family, young Americans' mental health, male-female relations, religion, our borders, love of country, medicine and medical schools – the list includes every noble institution and ideal in our country.

And sports.

In 2001, following 9/11, the great black Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa hit a home run and ran around the bases waving a small American flag. Fifteen years later, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the playing of the national anthem. The Left, led by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, the media, the schools and universities, had done their damage. So, now we play two "national anthems."

E Pluribus Unum is dead. For the Left, another touchdown.

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"Our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day. That's why we plan for 50% of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color."

In the past few weeks, a 2021 interview with United CEO Scott Kirby, in which he promoted United's pilot-training policies, went viral.

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The bottom line is clear: It will no longer be merit alone that determines who half of United's pilots-in-training will be; it will be race and sex (or "gender," as the Left prefers to call it). Despite the New York Times and the rest of the Left defending United, there is no other honest conclusion to draw.

As one who flies about 100 times a year, often on United, this worries me. Until now, I rarely worried about safety issues. I have certainly never feared flying.

But this is troubling enough that, although I will probably have flown a million miles on United by the end of 2024 and I am at the second-highest level available to United Airlines flyers (Premier Platinum), I will now do my best to avoid flying United. I am also giving up my United Visa card.

And I am asking all Americans who have a choice in airlines and a choice in credit cards to do the same. If you don't fight this battle, you have no right to complain about the demise of our society, let alone of United or any other airline adopting similar policies. You have an opportunity to make a difference. United may be willing to compromise about safety, but it isn't willing to compromise about its bottom line.

United is a particularly woke company. As one left-wing observer of the airline industry and defender of United, Gary Leff, writing on viewfromthewing.com, put it: "United was out way ahead of the Biden administration with vaccine mandates. This angered many pilots."

It is important for me to note that until now I could not care less if my pilot was black, white, male or female. I have flown on planes with black pilots and female pilots, and I slept equally well on board. Those of us who oppose United's affirmative action do not do so for race- or sex-based reasons. To cite a medical example, people of every color sought Dr. Ben Carson if they needed one of the country's best neurosurgeons for their child. But if people know that a hospital was hiring surgeons using affirmative action criteria, they might well think twice before undergoing surgery with a minority surgeon.

Here's a good test of whether opposition to United's affirmative action for pilots is racist or not: Ask a black friend or colleague if he or she would prefer a pilot (or surgeon) who was chosen on merit alone or by also using affirmative action criteria.

We already know that colleges engaged in affirmative action have not helped black students succeed. Why should it work in the cockpit? Would anyone respect the decision of an NBA team to diversify its players by using affirmative action to hire more white players?

The woke DEI notion of companies, physicians and cockpits having to "look like" the rest of the population is as absurd as it is dangerous. In fact, I can think of no area of life where this matters to anyone who is not on the Left.

How, exactly, have all the black mayors, congressmen, and even a black president, helped blacks in any way? Has the virtual absence of Indian American, Taiwanese American, Filipino American or Pakistani American mayors, congressmen – or pilots, for that matter – hurt any members of these groups in any way? Those four groups are the top-earning ethnic groups in America (Census Bureau, 2021).

The notion that the cockpit or the mayor's office has to look like the rest of the population is just foolish – as foolish as the idea that professional athletes have to look like the rest of the population. It is an idea, like most stupid ideas, that appeals primarily to college graduates.

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One example I recently came across is a column titled "When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism," published in 2005 in the Los Angeles Times. When I looked to see who wrote the column, I saw – to my surprise – that I did. I did not recall writing the piece. But it is very much worth reading today.

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"American Jewry is experiencing a cognitive dissonance the likes of which it has never known. To illustrate, consider my recent lecture in Virginia Beach, Va.: 'Anti-Semitism at the Universities: What Can We Do About It?'

"It is very significant that a mainstream (i.e., largely secular and liberal) Jewish organization (the Jewish Community Center) would fly a speaker from across the country to speak on anti-Semitism at universities. …

"Universities have become society's primary breeding ground for hatred of Israel. This hatred is often so intense that the college campus has become a haven for people who use anti-Zionism to mask their anti-Semitism. Moreover, anti-Zionism itself is a form of anti-Semitism, even if some Jews share it. Why? Because anti-Zionism is not simply criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any country. Anti-Zionism means that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. And when a person argues that only one country in the world is unworthy of existence – and that happens to be the one Jewish country in the world – one is engaged in anti-Semitism, whether personally anti-Semitic or not.

"Not long ago, on my radio show, I invited a UCLA student who, on the occasion of Israel's birthday, had written a hate-filled article about the Jewish state in the Bruin, the school newspaper. I asked her if she had always been anti-Israel. She said that as a Jewish girl growing up in Britain, she was actually a Zionist who had visited Israel a number of times on Jewish student trips there.

"'What changed you?' I asked.

"'The university,' she responded.

"That sort of transformation may be what inspired Harvard University's president, Lawrence Summers, to deliver a speech in which he identified the university as replacing the far right as a center of anti-Semitism. 'Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists,' he warned, 'profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.'

"The vast majority of pro-Israel Jews, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, know this. That explains the lecture topic I was asked to speak about in Virginia to a largely secular and liberal Jewish audience.

"To make matters worse for many Jews' psyches, not only has the institution they most revere turned out to be a moral wasteland and the most congenial place for enemies of the Jewish people – and of the United States (but that is another story) – at the same time, the people whom many Jews have most feared, conservative Christians, have turned out to be the Jews' most loyal friends. That the secular university is bad for Jews, and conservative Christians are good for Jews, is more than enough cognitive dissonance for a Jew to experience in a lifetime."

Two reflections on what I wrote 19 years ago:

First, neither I nor any description of the universities as "moral wastelands" would be printed in the Los Angeles Times today. The Los Angeles Times was liberal for at least 60 years – the last Republican presidential candidate the paper endorsed was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 – but it is now leftist. Its editorial and opinion pages went from liberal, which meant that I and other conservatives could often be published, to left-wing and woke boilerplate. The level of its editorials and columnists is as low intellectually as it is morally. One of these columnists actually wrote that Larry Elder, one of the most brilliant conservative minds in America today, is "the black face of white supremacy." The fools who run the Los Angeles Times are consigning the paper to a fate similar to that of Sports Illustrated. "SI," as it was known to sports fans, was once the country's most revered sports magazine. Then, like the L.A. Times, it went woke. Soon it will be no longer.

Second, the deterioration of Harvard is also reflected in my column of 19 years ago. I quoted Harvard's then-president, Lawrence Summers, who decried the Israel-hating, leading-to-anti-Semitism views of "progressive intellectual communities." From Larry Summers to Claudine Gay, Harvard's moral decline perfectly mirrors that of Sports Illustrated and the Los Angeles Times. Everything the left touches, it destroys.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

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Now, why is that? Why, if a person says "men give birth" or says that men who say they are women should be allowed to compete in women's sports, can we be virtually certain that the person sides with Hamas in its war to eradicate Israel?

Theoretically, the two claims – that men as well as women give birth and Israel is the villain in its war against Hamas – have absolutely no connection.

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But they do – for two reasons.

Reason No. 1:

When people have a distorted moral value system, that distortion applies to just about every issue. Just as a broken compass will almost always point in the wrong direction, a broken moral compass will do the same. However, to be more precise, people who say "men give birth" and who side with Hamas, i.e., progressives and leftists – liberals don't believe men give birth or side with Hamas – do not merely have a broken moral compass. They have a moral compass that works in the way progressives and leftists have configured it: North always points south and east always points west.

Some examples of how the progressive compass works:

Women who object to men who say they are women competing in women's sports – even in weightlifting – are haters and bigots ("transphobes"). The men who compete against them are heroes.

Adults who object to schools' sponsoring drag queen performances for 6-year-olds are haters and bigots ("transphobes"). The teachers who take children to drag queen events are progressive, compassionate and open-minded.

If a 9-year-old girl says she is a boy, the only therapists she is allowed to see are those who engage in "gender affirmation," which is, of course, a left-wing Orwellian term. The one thing these therapists do not do is affirm the actual gender of the child.

All-black dorms on college campuses are anti-racist. Objecting to racially segregated dorms is racist.

Those who want to build walls or fences to prevent millions of people from illegally entering the country are xenophobic. Those who oppose building such barriers and declare their cities "sanctuary cities" are humanitarians.

Demanding that citizens show a voter ID before being allowed to vote – the norm in virtually every democracy in the world – constitutes "voter suppression."

If we have fewer police officers, we will have safer cities.

Marriage is a product of patriarchal misogyny. It wasn't created to protect and honor women, but to exploit them. Anyway, a woman needs a man as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

Scientists who express skepticism about catastrophic man-made global warming are science-deniers.

These are some of the morally and factually perverse positions of the left. Just about every individual who holds these positions also holds the morally perverse position that Israel is the villain and Hamas and its Palestinian supporters are the moral party.

The converse is also true: With the exception of Muslims, those who are anti-Israel also tend to believe that men give birth and the other examples of left-wing moral chaos. Few Muslims – certainly no religious ones – believe that men give birth or that children should be taken to drag queen shows. They just want Israel destroyed.

Reason No. 2:

People who say that men give birth also say that Israel is the villain because these positions emanate from the same aim: the destruction of Western civilization, beginning with the destruction of the West's moral and social norms.

When people say that men give birth and that men can compete in women's sports, they are seeking to undo the bases of Western civilization: truth, science and the belief that we live in an ordered universe. That is why the left is so adamant about denying that sex ("gender") is binary. The fact that there are only two sexes represents order – natural and, worse, divine.

Those on the left unwittingly acknowledge the connection between their anti-Western positions and their Israel-hatred. They routinely attack Israel for being an "outpost of Western civilization." That is precisely what Israel is. Which tells you a great deal about both of Israel's enemies – the left and much of the Muslim world.

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Politically speaking, the purpose of the speech was clear. Given that Biden has among the lowest favorability numbers ever recorded for a sitting president, he cannot make the election about his achievements.

Because he has none that warrant his reelection. In every way, he has made America a worse country.

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He has terribly damaged the economy – increased an already unsustainable national debt; changed an energy-independent and energy-exporting country into an energy dependent and energy-importing one.

He hurt America and the world by withdrawing – and in the way he withdrew – American troops from Afghanistan. He showed that America cannot be counted on by those who depend on us. He abandoned $7 billion in weaponry, much of it now being used by Islamic terror groups. For example, as NBC News reported, "Most of the weapons recovered so far, officials say, are from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations." Other weapons have ended up in Gaza, and others in Iran.

He has hurt America and Israel by enriching the Iranian regime. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The Iranian surge in oil exports since President Biden took over has brought Iran an additional $32 billion to $35 billion, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. ... The cause of the Iranian windfall is clear: As part of Mr. Biden's quiet diplomacy with Iran, the U.S. has curtailed sanctions enforcement. ... Iran's funding for Hamas ballooned in the past year to $350 million." In addition, Biden paid Iran $6 billion to ransom five American hostages.

Why didn't Russia invade Ukraine while Trump was president? Probably because Putin feared Trump. What foreign leader fears Biden? The only people who fear Biden are half of the American people.

He has done terrible damage to the most important freedom – freedom of speech. Among other things, his administration worked with Big Tech before and since the 2020 election to censor political speech.

He has created the first large set of political prisoners in American history – hundreds, soon perhaps thousands, of Americans sentenced to prison for merely entering the Capitol, or for just being present on the Capitol grounds, on Jan. 6.

He has weaponized the Department of Justice against his political opponents, and is overseeing the prosecution of an ex-president and political rival for the first time in American history.

From his first day in office, he has stoked racial tension in America. His inaugural address was the most hate-filled and divisive inaugural address in American history.

He has so demoralized the American military that recruitment levels are at their lowest ever.

He has promoted biological boys competing against girls in high school and college sports under the guise of "transgender rights."

Therefore, his one route to victory is to convince Americans that Trump presents an existential threat to every core American value – democracy, freedom and the Constitution. This is purely Orwellian. It is the Democratic Party and the rest of the Left that threatens democracy, freedom and the Constitution.

Some excerpts from his speech:

"Today, we gather in a new year, some 246 years later, just one day before Jan. 6, a day forever shared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America – lost it all."

What happened on Jan. 6 was shameful, foolish and when violent (which it overwhelmingly was not), criminal. But to say "on that day we nearly lost America – lost it all" is a lie.

"Trump's claims about the 2020 election never could stand up in court. Trump lost 60 court cases – 60."

The statement is false because no Trump claim about the 2020 election results was ever allowed to be heard on the merits in an American courtroom.

"And since that day, more than 1,200 people have been charged for their assault on the Capitol. Nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pled guilty. Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison."

The vast majority of those imprisoned people engaged in no violence and did nothing more wrong than trespass.

"So, hear me clearly. I'll say what Donald Trump won't. Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States political system – never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy. None."

That is another lie. 2020 saw a staggering amount of left-wing violence, and apparently it did have "a place in a democracy."

"He's threatened the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the death penalty."

What Trump said was that the meeting of Gen. Mark A. Milley, the just-retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the Chinese government after the Capitol protests, was "an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death."

That was an observation about the serious nature of Milley's violation of diplomatic norms, not a threat to sentence Milley to death.

"This coming from a president who, when he visited a cemetery, called dead soldiers 'suckers' and 'losers.' Remember that?"

Even Snopes and The Washington Post concluded that there is no evidence for Trump having said that about the soldiers who died at Normandy Beach. Even John Bolton, who wrote a scathing attack on Trump after leaving office, defended Trump against this claim made by an anonymous source cited by The Atlantic. Yet Biden declares it as a fact.

"America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear: Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot."

If democracy and freedom are on the ballot, it is because the Left, of which the Democratic Party is its political arm, threatens democracy and freedom.

But Joe Biden knows that he has the entire mainstream media and all the giant social media companies except for X, formerly Twitter, on his side. So, he can hide his record and stoke hatred for Trump and his supporters from now until November. And get away with it.

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The automobile, that magnificent enhancement to human freedom and joy, is a target of the Left. The idea that individuals should be able to go where they want when they want in their own car is anathema to the Left – it provides way too much individual liberty. Ideally, almost no one should own a car. We should all aspire to live in a high-rise apartment building in a major metropolis and use public transportation, ride bicycles or walk. If for some reason we have to travel a longer distance, let us say to conservative relatives who selfishly own their own homes in the suburbs, we can use public transportation; and if none is available, we can use Uber or Lyft.

Even the family, one of life's greatest sources of joy and meaning, is a target of the climate-change activists. They believe that there are way too many people in the world. Kids are carbon-emitting machines. So, an increasing number of women, including married women, are choosing not to have children. They don't see how they can justify bringing children into a world in which they will be roasted to death. And frequently their progressive parents (the would-be grandparents) agree with them. As I wrote in a previous column, based on the many comments of New York Times readers on an opinion piece written by a woman who has decided not to have children because of global warming, many readers wrote that despite the fact that they long for grandchildren, they support their child's decision to go childless.

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Now we have another joy of life that progressives are targeting in the name of combating global warming: Christmas gifts. Many progressives have long opposed giving Christmas gifts in the name of combating "consumerism" (to be fair, some religious conservatives share that ascetic view). But climate change will soon constitute the greater moral reason.

In the Daily Mail this week, a woman wrote an article making this case.

"Last year," she wrote, "surrounded by wrapping paper and abandoned gifts, I suggested to my husband Chris that next time we shouldn't buy anything – for each other or the children.

"Not buying anything for my husband is trivial because he can buy for himself. But not buying presents for our two girls, aged 6 and 3, is a trickier proposition. …

"We're increasingly aware of the global impact of our purchases. Everything we buy the kids will go into landfill. …

"With the planet on fire and plastics everywhere, it seems like we are at a moment of reckoning and have been for some time. …

"I've forced this rule on the family, telling my mother, in-laws and the brothers and sisters not to buy the girls anything.

"My sister was appalled and very cross that she will be thought of as the mean old aunt. Just because I want to strip the joy out of Christmas, why should she have to?"

This woman's article encapsulates much of the darkness the Left represents and creates.

First is the war on joy. Part of the joy of Christmas, especially for children, is receiving gifts. To deny this is to deny reality. This can be verified by asking any adult to describe the joy they experienced as a child looking under the Christmas tree for their gifts.

Second, it is a war on altruism. Gift-giving may be animated by a number of factors, but one fact is undeniable: Giving people gifts is an altruistic act. If people stop doing so – whether to combat "consumerism" or to combat global warming – they are ending one of the most widespread expressions of altruism in our society.

Third, children are the primary targets of this nonsense. Progressives seem to have a particular animus for children. They wage war on children's innocence with early "sex education," with LGBTQ activism in elementary school and by promoting drag queen "story hours" beginning at age 5; by their closing schools for nearly two years for no valid reason; by depriving children of God, religion and patriotism; by their irrationally frightening children about their future (they will essentially be burned alive); and now by depriving children of Christmas gifts and, presumably, birthday gifts (they, too, add to landfills).

Fourth, the woman who wrote this article has no qualms about imposing her beliefs on everyone else. It is not enough for her to tell her husband not to give her 6- and 3-year-old daughters Christmas gifts. She has ordered the girls' grandparents, aunts and uncles not to do so: "I've forced this rule on the family."

Fifth, progressive reasoning is not only morally defective, but also factually defective. If no one in the United Kingdom gave a single Christmas gift, nothing would be accomplished with regard to global warming. But a whole society would be deprived of a major joy of life, and the country's economy would take a major hit.

Just remember this rule of life: Everything the Left touches, it destroys.

That includes joy.

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Now substitute "Israel" for "Italy," and you'll understand the dishonesty and absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionist – that is, against the existence of a Jewish state – but not be anti-Jew.

Yet, that is precisely what anti-Zionists say. They say that Israel's existence is illegitimate. They don't say this about any other country in the world, no matter how bloody its origins. And then they get offended when they're accused of being anti-Jew.

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How can they make this argument?

First, they change the topic. They say it's unfair to charge those who merely "criticize" Israel with being anti-Semitic. No one says criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But anti-Zionism isn't criticism of Israel. Anti-Zionism is opposition to Israel's existence.

Zionism is the name of the movement for the return of the Jews to their historic homeland. Over the past 3,000 years, there were only two independent states located in what is called Israel. Both were Jewish states, and invaders destroyed both. No Arab or Muslim or any other sovereign country ever existed in that land, which was given the name "Palestine" by the Romans so as to remove all memory of the Jewish state they destroyed in the year 70.

Second, anti-Zionists claim they can't be anti-Jew because Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. That is the same as saying Italy has nothing to do with being Italian. Judaism has always consisted of three components: God, Torah and Israel (the people Israel and the Land of Israel). Israel is as much a part of Judaism as are God and the Bible. Moreover, the most pro-Israel, i.e. the most Zionist, Jews are the Orthodox, the most religious Jews. That there exists one tiny group of ultra-Orthodox Jews (Neturei Karta) that is anti-Zionist means nothing. They are as representative of Judaism as the Ku Klux Klan is of Christianity.

Third, anti-Zionists claim that Judaism is only a religion; therefore, Jews are only members of a religion, not a nation. But the Jews are called a "nation" more than one hundred times in the Bible. That is why there can be irreligious, secular and even atheist Jews – because Jews are not only a religion, but a people – a nation. No one thinks non-religious Jews are not Jews. There can be no atheist Christians because Christianity is a religion, not a nation.

Fourth, people point to anti-Zionist Jews to prove that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Jewish. That would be like pointing to Americans who gave Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb to argue that siding with the Soviet Union in the Cold War was not anti-American. Or, to provide another Jewish example, it would be like pointing Jews who eat pork in Yom Kippur to argue that eating pork on Yom Kippur is Jewish. What Jews do or believe is not always the same as Judaism.

Fifth, anti-Zionists claim that Israel is illegitimate because Zionism – and therefore, Israel – is "racist." This is a libel. Half of Israel's Jews are not even white, and anyone, of any race or ethnicity, can become a Jew. Furthermore, one in five Israelis isn't a Jew. And these Israeli non-Jews, mostly Arab Muslims, have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. As for Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza (Israel completely abandoned Gaza in 2005), that has nothing to do with race and everything to do with security. It is because the Palestinians and other Arabs tried to destroy Israel in 1967 and lost the war.

If the Palestinians would stop killing Israelis, Israel would have no problem with a "two-state solution." But Palestinians have rejected offers to have their own state on four separate occasions since 1947. That is the only reason they don't have their own state.

And why have they always rejected having a Palestinian state? Because the only state they would accept is one that eradicates Israel. They have therefore been solely dedicated to destroying the Jewish state, not in having their own state alongside Israel.

Sixth, and finally, anti-Zionists claim that Israel's origins are illegitimate. Of all the world's 200-plus countries, the only country anti-Zionists declare illegitimate is also the only Jewish one. That's pretty much all you need to know about their motives.

Why don't they make this claim about Pakistan? In 1947, nine months before the establishment of Israel, India was partitioned into a Muslim state (Pakistan) and a Hindu state (India), just as Palestine was partitioned into a Jewish state (Israel) and an Arab one (Palestine).

But, unlike Israel, no Pakistan had ever existed. And unlike Israel's founding, which created about 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands and about 700,000 Arab refugees from what became Israel, the founding of Pakistan created about 7 million Muslim refugees from India and about 7 million Hindu refugees from Pakistan. And while the highest estimate of Arab deaths in the fighting that took place when Israel was established is 10,000, the number of deaths as a result of Pakistan's creation is around 1 million. So why is Israel's legitimacy challenged while Pakistan's isn't? The only possible answer is because Israel is Jewish.

Of course, not all anti-Zionists hate all Jews. But if you seek to destroy Italy, you don't have to hate every Italian to be anti-Italian. Not every anti-American hates all Americans, but they are still called anti-American. If you seek to destroy the one Jewish state, you don't have to hate every Jew to be called anti-Jew. And the name for that is anti-Semite.

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The primary reason American Jews have lived in the most Jew-friendly, even Jew-honoring, country in history is that most Americans have been Christian. But we must make a key distinction here. American Christians have been not just Christian, as Europe was, but Judeo-Christian. Nearly all the American Founders were either traditional Christians (i.e., believers in the Christian Trinity) or believers in God but not in the Christian Trinity. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin fall into this latter category. But almost to a man the Founders were Judeophiles. Indeed, Jefferson and Franklin wanted the seal of the new United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt.

In an 1808 letter, John Adams wrote about the Jews: "They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern.

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"I will insist the Hebrews have (contributed) more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. ..."

It wasn't just the Founders who appreciated the Jews' contribution to the formation of the great concepts of Western civilization.

Mark Twain who, though not a religious man, was raised in a religious Protestant home, wrote in 1899, in an essay in Harper's magazine, "Concerning the Jews":

"The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

The only inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Hebrew Bible, specifically the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah: "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof."

Until 1800, you could not graduate from Harvard University without knowing Hebrew. The insignia of Yale University is in Hebrew, depicting the breastplate of the Jewish High Priest.

In a famous study published in the American Political Science Review, Donald Lutz, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, surveyed the political literature of the American founding. He found that the Bible was cited more frequently than any other work or any other author. The Bible accounted for approximately one-third of the Founder's citations. The single most frequently cited work was Deuteronomy, the fifth of the five books of the Torah.

The late great Catholic theologian Michael Novak wrote that the roots of the doctrine that "all men are created equal lie in Judaism, carried around the world by Christians."

As American society and Americans individually become less religious, i.e., less Christian, the Jews become less significant.

Yet, many, perhaps most, American Jews, have bought – and promulgated – the idea that Jewish security in America lies in secularizing, i.e., de-Christianizing, America.

As noted above, I have warned against this dangerous foolishness all of my life. As I said to John Anderson, the former deputy prime minister of Australia, on his podcast: "I say this as a Jew. ... I don't romanticize Christianity when I say its death is the death of the West. I am rooting for Christianity's survival as much as you, the Christian, are."

Look around, my fellow Jews. Are you happy with the results of the secularization of America? Do you feel more secure? Or less?

I ask you: Is it not obvious that when more Americans attended church every Sunday, America's Jews were far more secure?

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The case for doing so is not difficult to make. Just as people should put their family's well-being first, they should put their country's well-being first. Just as we would regard parents who put the well-being of others' families before – or even on par with – the well-being of their own family as defective parents, we should regard people who place other countries' well-being before that of their own country as defective citizens.

Similarly, with rare exceptions (such as in a time of war or when saving another person's life in an extreme situation), people should first take care of themselves.

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In this regard, I am guided by two Jewish teachings.

One is the basic and well-known principle, stated 2,000 years ago by Hillel, one of the most important thinkers in Jewish history: "If I am not for me, who will be for me?" To paraphrase Hillel: "If Americans are not for America, who will be?"

The other Jewish teaching is the Talmudic principle that when deciding to which poor people one should first give charity, "The poor of your own city come first."

The idea of America First accords with both reason and religious morality.

However, some prominent conservatives, whom I know and respect, seem to equate "America First" with "America Only."

And that is neither logical, nor moral, nor American.

It is not logical because the word "first" implies a "second" and more. In baseball, "first base" implies a "second base," etc. If first base were the only base, it would not be known as "first base." If you said that your first choice among airlines was, let us say, Delta Air Lines, no one would assume that Delta was your only choice. By definition, therefore, "America First" does not mean "America Only." So, those who believe that Americans should be concerned only with America are being disingenuous when they say, "America First." They should say what they mean: "America Only."

But "America Only" violates one of the most basic principles of morality – that we should not only take care of ourselves, our family and our country. Indeed, the second part of Hillel's famous aphorism makes this clear. His rule begins, "If I am not for myself, who will be?" But that is not his entire rule. His first question is immediately followed by this one: "But if I am only for myself, what am I?"

On the important conservative website, American Greatness (my own column appears there), an America First advocate wrote a column last week titled, "The America First Response to the Israel-Hamas War."

He opens his column with these words:

"Not my circus, not my monkeys. The America First position on the Israel-Hamas mess is clear: stay far, far away."

He then writes:

"Before anyone in any position of power begins to think about even commenting on foreign conflicts, they should solve the crises roiling our civic life at home."

This is another example of the amorality inherent to "America Only."

To take the subject of his article, the current Hamas-Israel war, if the writer really means what he says – that no American in a position of power should "even comment" on that war, that is as pure an example of an amoral position as one can imagine. Israel was attacked by a terrorist movement that has announced for years that it seeks not to merely defeat Israel but to annihilate the country. Its members tortured, burned and otherwise murdered entire families, raped women, kidnapped grandmothers and babies to hold them hostage, and murdered more Jews than on any one day since the Holocaust – yet no American official should "even comment" on this?

He then writes:

"The answer to who Americans should support in the war between Hamas and the Israelis is simple: America."

Presumably this author would have written in 1940-41: "The answer to who Americans should support in the war between Nazi Germany and Great Britain is simple: America."

If this is what he and other spokesmen for America First believe, these people should tell the truth and rename their movement "America Only."

Which brings me to the third problem with this version of America First. It is not only illogical and amoral; it is un-American.

America has never been just a country. Nor is America an ethnic group or race. America is an idea: the greatest nation-making idea in world history. America was set up to be a "bright shining light," and has always seen itself – correctly, I believe – as exceptional. The America Firsters who believe in America Only do not see America as a moral force for good in the world. It should not "even comment" on good and evil outside of its borders.

As for the argument – offered by every America Only advocate – that America must first deal with its own problems before helping any other people on Earth, this simply means that America will never help any other people on Earth. There never was and never will be a time when America is free of domestic problems.

The argument that we should concern ourselves with our borders, not those of Israel (or, presumably, Taiwan) is a non-sequitur. That we have made America into a country with open borders has nothing to do with Israel or any other country. It has to do with the left's desire to undo America (and Western civilization in general). And it is not an America First argument; it is an America Only argument.

If conservatism succeeds in changing "America First" into "America Only," you can say goodbye to American exceptionalism, and to freedom on this planet.

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I was raised by Jewish parents who believed that the best place Jews ever lived (other than in their own country in the Holy Land) was the United States of America. When the most prominent Jew of the 20th century, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the head of the Chabad movement from 1950 until his death in 1994, came to the United States from East Europe in 1941, he sometime thereafter declared that America was a medinah shel chesed, "a righteous country."

Yes, there have always been individual antisemites in America; yes, there have been antisemitic policies (quotas on Jews at Harvard, country clubs barring Jews from membership, law firms closed to Jewish lawyers, among other examples) and there have always been Jews who believed American Christians were no different from Europe's. But the fact is, even with the aforementioned flaws, America has always been a blessing to its Jews.

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It is therefore nothing less than tragic – as much for America as for its Jews – that for the first time in American history, many American Jews are afraid. They watch the Jew-hatred on college campuses, the large demonstrations featuring calls to wipe out Israel, police guarding schoolchildren attending Jewish schools, and see armed guards at virtually every synagogue in the country.

They worry.

So much so that many religious Jewish college students, who until very recently wore a kippah with nary a thought, now wear a baseball hat or some other head covering that does not identify them as Jews, and some Jews are removing the mezuzah from the doorposts of their homes and apartments.

This time therefore presents America's non-Jews with an opportunity to do something powerful for the Jews of America. And many would like to.

Unlike during the Nazi era, when helping Jews often entailed hiding a Jew and thereby risking one's life and family, helping Jews now can be done with little or no risk. And if many millions of Americans do this, America and the world will be profoundly affected for the good.

Americans should put a mezuzah on the doorposts of their homes and apartments. In effect, they will be saying, "We are all Jews."

There are powerful precedents.

One took place during World War II in a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

As reported by the Army:

"Sometime in January 1945, German forces instructed all Jewish POWs to report the next morning. Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds (the senior noncommissioned officer) was in charge of the prisoners, which included Jews and non-Jews. He ordered all of his soldiers to stand together when the Jewish prisoners were to report.

"When the German officer in charge saw that all the camp's inmates were standing in front of their barracks, he turned to Edmonds and said, 'They cannot all be Jews.'

"'We are all Jews,' Edmonds replied.

"The German officer drew his pistol and threatened Edmonds," but Edmonds stood firm, and no Jewish soldier was hurt.

Another example took place in Billings, Montana, in 1993. During Hanukkah of that year, a Jew-hater tossed a brick through a window displaying a Hanukkah menorah. The home belonged to a Jewish physician and his family. Jews traditionally place the Hanukkah menorah in a window for all the world to see the lights of the eight-day holiday.

When word of what happened spread, the citizens of Billings bought or made replicas of menorahs and placed them in their own windows. There is a powerful photo representation of this showing people of every religion, ethnicity, and race in Billings holding up a menorah, photographed through a broken window.

In the Nazi POW camp and in Billings, America's Christians and other non-Jews responded to Jew-hatred by saying, "We are all Jews."

Once again, a time has come for Americans – especially, but not only, Christians – to announce, "We are all Jews."

Put a mezuzah on the doorpost of your house or apartment.

The mezuzah is a small box that Jews place on the right doorpost of their home. The commandment to do so is thousands of years old, coming, as it does, from the Bible. In the fifth book of the Torah, in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, it is written:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Those words are written on parchment (just as are the words of the Torah scroll) and placed inside the mezuzah. When written by a scribe on parchment, the mezuzah is considered a "kosher" mezuzah.

However, there is no need for a non-Jew to buy a "kosher" mezuzah. For considerably less money, one can buy the mezuzah box with nothing inside or with the Hebrew words inside printed on paper rather than handwritten on parchment. Just use the internet to search on "mezuzah."

Ideally, once you've done this take a photo of it with your cellphone and post it on your social media account. Let the world know where you stand.

What matters is that non-Jews put this distinctive Jewish item on their doorpost. If enough Americans did this, the message of solidarity with Jews would reverberate around the world, that in this time of greater antisemitism than any since the Holocaust, "We are all Jews."

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