Mark Levin receives JNS ‘Shield of Jerusalem’ award

(JNS) — The conservative talk-show host and lawyer Mark Levin hearkened back to the U.S. Civil War, seeking a comparison to present-day Israel, as he took the stage before an overflow crowd in Las Vegas on Wednesday evening.

“You think it was worth over 700,000 casualties to end slavery? I do,” he said at the event, which took place on the sidelines of the annual RJC Annual Leadership Summit, this year held in Las Vegas from Sept. 4-6.

Levin described Abraham Lincoln’s position ahead of the 1864 presidential election, with draft riots tearing the North apart and nearly every family in the nation devastated by the war.

“Lincoln was told it was time for compromise. It was time for a settlement,” Levin said. “He said ‘No. I’m going to lose this election, but I’m going to do what’s right because if we stop now, we’ll have two countries—one slave, one not—and all these people will have perished for nothing.”

With his country torn apart, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is being told over and over and over again, ‘Settle. Make a deal with these people. You’ll get the hostages back,’” Levin said. “He says, ‘We can’t make a deal with these people.’”

Netanyahu is refusing to buckle, just as Lincoln did, according to Levin.

Levin’s discussion was part of a tribute during which JNS presented him with the Shield of Jerusalem award for his “unapologetic stance” against rising antisemitism and “courage in fighting Israel’s critical media battle.” JNS also recognized his “dedication to Israel and the Jewish people” and “tireless commitment to truth and integrity, and standing up for the fundamental values of the United States and Israel.”

Levin told the crowd, “It really is an honor for me when people come up to me and thank me for doing what I want to do, which is use every day the platform I have to fight for the two countries that I love and to fight for our liberty.”

‘What matters to me is action’

The awardee thanked attendees but told them that they weren’t doing enough this election cycle. “Whatever you’re doing, do more,” he said. “There’s a Kristallnacht going on in this country every damn day. Do more while we can.”

He told attendees to use their media platforms—however large—and to be like Paul Revere and Thomas Paine, and make an impact.

“You have power like you’ve never had before,” he said. “Look at your role. Look at your life. Everybody can’t do what I’m doing, but you can do something.”

Levin was harshly critical of some world leaders, including those he said claimed they were acting on behalf of the Jewish community.

“We have a prime minister in Britain who likes to brag that he’s married to a Jew. We have a candidate in this country who likes to brag that she’s married to a Jew,” he said of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Vice President Kamala Harris, respectively.

“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is action,” he said. “What matters to me is what they believe, what they’re going to do.”

He told attendees to consider Hamas’s execution of the six Israeli hostages, including 23-year-old Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

“I know what Reagan would have done. I know what Trump would have done. What the hell have we done? Attack the prime minister of Israel,” he said. “It’s the most disgusting thing imaginable. It’s incomprehensible to me.”

Drawing another historical comparison, Levin said President Joe Biden’s actions are worse than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler.

“Chamberlain never funded the Third Reich. Biden funds Iran,” Levin said, of Biden lifting sanctions on Iran and releasing billions of dollars in frozen funding to Tehran.

“They say, ‘Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy.’ Diplomacy with a terrorist state,” he said. “All those deaths on Oct. 7, the hostages, everything that has occurred from that point forward, it’s obviously the fault of the enemy.”

“But it was made possible because this administration unlocked the door for the terrorists that Donald Trump had slammed shut,” he said.