Has America lost its soul?
Has America lost its soul?

Terrific news for those of us living in New York City. Last year there were only about 325 murders around town.

Chicago? Not so lucky. Over there 750 people got killed, and, we assume, for no good reason, except that this is what they do.

For America’s 100 large cities the New York City figure stands pretty much for all.

In Journalism 101 you are taught never to say “only” even if only one person gets killed. It is understood that every life is precious.

Yet in town after town people celebrate when the murder rate is down. So, for example, if at the end of 2017 we learn that the murder rate in Chicago Hatred is in the air – thanks to him and his race baiting and his cop-hating and his white trashing. I have never seen it this bad.
decreased from 750 to something lower, even by a fraction, we will call it a successful year in the fight against crime.

People will make speeches about the fact that “only” 740 got murdered instead of 750.

We don’t get it, do we? We don’t get it that we really are a violent country.

By the numbers we’re not much better that those crazy people in the other half of the world where it’s Islam and they murder because it’s Islam. We’ve suffered our own terrorism from their hands, but the figures I’m talking about pertain not to war, nor to jihad, but simply to local, domestic, neighborhood crime.

That’s where people get shot for wearing the wrong sneakers, or for stepping into the wrong gangland turf.

Under the Obama years domestic crime may not be better or worse than times before, but the atmosphere he created is poisonous.

Hatred is in the air – thanks to him and his race baiting and his cop-hating and his white trashing. I have never seen it this bad.

The picture…this picture of a white disabled youth being brutalized and tortured by four African American teenagers has outraged the nation, but it symbolizes Obama’s entire wrathful presidency. It is his legacy. The hapless victim was cursed and blamed for being “white and a Trump supporter.”

All is not well in a country where that can happen.

Yet for all that, nobody is talking about our SOUL. Nobody is saying America has lost its soul and nobody is saying that America needs to examine its soul.

Nobody is saying that America needs to be dismantled.

One reason, and the main reason, is that for all our flaws, we are a good people. We are a great people.

So now we turn to another country, much smaller, that is likewise good and great, the Jewish State of Israel.

Something else happens there when there’s a situation. Well in every country there are situations. But when it happens in Israel, headlights around the world get turned on, all facing Israel. Now the crime rate in Israel is ridiculously low. Not talking here about all those acts of Islamic terrorism against Jews that I covered in The Bathsheba Deadline.

No, we are talking crime, the civilian neighborhood variety. It happens, but so seldom. Yet when a situation happens out of the ordinary, like the case of an IDF soldier who may have been correct or not correct in finishing off a terrorist, cries go up about Israel losing its soul. The New York Times and Haaretz and CNN and the BBC and all the rest of them jump in to howl that Israel has lost its moral compass.

They go further. Israel must be dismantled. Nobody cares that the IDF is tops, along with us, on ethical behavior. Standards are high, the highest.

The soldier was in fact found guilty.

Yet read any number of columnists, say, at the Times, or pick any columnist like, say, Tom Friedman, and stand back for all the anguish and hand-wringing against the Jewish State. This, they will tell you is so unacceptable and that there is no choice except to dismantle the Jewish State.

Under those terms – what about us here in the United States given our own crime stats? What about our SOUL – and shouldn’t we also be dismantled?

Or put it like this; who are we to judge? Who are we to judge Israel? Dig deep into our own failures. Fix that first. Then worry about Israel – okay?

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. New from the novelist: “News Anchor Sweetheart,” a novelist’s version of Fox News and Megyn Kelly. Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” He is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com