Recognizing that secure borders are essential to a free and safe country, President Donald Trump is insistent on securing our borders, particularly the southern one, and would gladly build a wall to accomplish that necessary goal.

Whether it is because Donald Trump is the one emphasizing securing the border or whether it is because the Left is soft on illegal immigration is less important than the high degree of foolishness of its position. It couches its position on “feelings” rather than national security and protecting Americans from the expense of supporting people who come here illegally, or from those who are dangerous criminals.

Some of the more recognizable names on the Left, particularly many people elected to Congress, make statements that can easily lead one to believe that they are more concerned with the feelings of those illegals than of their fellow Americans or of their own constituents.

A tripwire of these statements is Trump’s use of the word “animals” to describe members of the violent MS-13 gang and other ultra-violent intruders. And among those objecting to the use of the term is the agenda media, some examples of which follow:

• The Washington Post: “Trump compares illegal immigrants to ‘animals’”

• The New York Times: “Trump calls some unauthorized immigrants ‘animals’ in rant”

• Huffington Post: “Trump refers to immigrants as ‘animals.’ Again.”

• USA Today: “Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.’”

• Vox: “Trump on deported immigrants: ‘They’re not people. They’re animals.’”

But, of course, they were all wrong. Were they wrong because they have no idea about how to produce an accurate news story, or because the truth intrudes on their leftist, anti-Trump agenda?

Unless you can’t understand English or have an agenda, anyone who listened to, watched or read the entire text of the statement knew immediately that Trump was not talking about all illegal aliens or immigrants but was addressing the vile and repulsive members of the venomous and violent MS-13 gang. The gang, whose motto is “kill, rape and control,” has left a long trail of violence in its wake.

However, Trump is wrong in using the word “animals” to describe MS-13 members. In doing so, he has insulted animals everywhere by comparing them to the lowlife MS-13 creatures.

While the U.S. has problems with people who try and succeed at sneaking into the country, a nation with perhaps the most serious border problems is Israel.

The Jewish nation has accomplished great things in medicine, technology, and agriculture, and operates on democratic principles; it is a bright spot in a troubled world region. Despite this impressive record of accomplishments that benefit the entire world, some of its neighbors want Israel gone. It is surrounded by relatively huge Arab nations, with Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan either on its border or not many miles away.

The Palestinians have been conducting protests on the Gaza border for weeks, and they claim that the border protests are peaceful and civilian-led, which was parroted by elements of the Western media. But in fact, they have grown more violent over time. The protest earlier this month found participants creating dark smoke to hide their movements toward the border by setting tires on fire, trying to break down the border barriers and starting fires in Israeli territory by flying kites over the border that had canisters of burning gasoline on them.

Having warned the Palestinians not to attempt to cross the border, when the warnings were ignored Israeli Defense Forces defended their border, resulting in 64 Palestinians being killed and hundreds more wounded. Unfortunately, that included a few women and children. More information on that follows.

This defensive border action received a harsh response from the UN Human Rights Council, whose chief labeled the Israeli response “wholly disproportionate” and called for an international investigation as well as widespread condemnation from the anti-Israel media.

This is not a surprise, given the non-secret disdain for the Jewish state of many UN members. While the automatic response of Israel-haters everywhere is to blame Israel for the so-called “unconscionable murder of women, children and peaceful Palestinians,” the truth is quite different from that account.

A Hamas terrorist who was captured after he had breached the border told Israeli officials that the violence in the protests was the work of his organization. And an official of Hamas, Salah Bardawil, said, “In the last rounds of confrontations, if 62 people were martyred, 50 of them were Hamas,” members of the Palestinian terrorist organization.

The captured Hamas terrorist also said that the Islamic terrorist organization used women and children as shields, promising them they would be safe if they moved to the front line of the protest.

The Hamas terrorists among the protesters were armed with Molotov cocktails, guns and knives, and hid behind women and children in hopes of being able to break through the border barrier.

The accurate information about the terrorists taking part in this violent Hamas attack is not readily available, due to the bias of the United Nations and media outlets.