If you were to look at the news today, you would have to look twice just to make sure your eyes weren’t deceiving you. Anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests are erupting all over the world. First they started on streets and bridges and overpasses in major cities. Now, we have violent demonstrations at universities across North America, Australia and Western Europe. There are chants of “free Palestine,” or “from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” What does that mean (most of those chanting don’t even know)? What they’re saying is that all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the state of Palestine. Where does that leave Israel then? Nowhere. Not one metre of space for the Jews. It all belongs to the Palestinians. In essence, these people are advocating for the destruction of the State of Israel, another Holocaust to finish what Hitler had envisioned a mere 80 years ago. Jewish students and staff are being harassed, assaulted and prevented from even going on campuses. Synagogues around the world are being threatened and attacked. One Jewish lady from Toronto posted a video on social media saying she had to pull her 10 year old daughter from public school because of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric that was being taught in her class (and sanctioned by the administration). Less than a century removed from “never again” and we are seeing the same scene played out once more before our stunned eyes.
The first question we need to ask is what is this all about? Why is there such vitriol against Israel? What is their great crime? The claim of most protestors is that Israel is committing atrocities and war crimes against the residents of Gaza, even accusing them of genocide, a very serious crime. Many of these protestors and media pundits are screaming about how Israel is now behaving just like the Nazis did in WWII. Ever since the war in Gaza started back in October of last year, the world has been hyper-focused on every action Israel makes, every Palestinian that is killed or injured, criticizing Israel for every action or even planned action and vilifying and demonizing the Jewish state. Israel is being made out to be like the worst mass-murderers in history.
What many of the protestors and critics of Israel conveniently ignore is how this war started in the first place. The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th of last year, where thousands of Palestinians crossed over the border in to Israel and massacred over 1200 men, women, children and even babies in a scene of barbarity rarely witnessed even in our depraved world. Babies were burned alive, others beheaded, women were raped, tortured and then killed and several hundred hostages were taken back into Gaza. It wasn’t military targets the Hamas savages were after. It was any Jew they could lay their hands on. Almost 300 predominantly young people were slaughtered by gunmen arriving on motorcycles and hang gliders at a music festival near the border. Shani Louk, the 22 year old German-Israeli woman was the face of the attack, her partially naked body tossed on the back of a truck and paraded around while “innocent” Palestinians cheered, spat on her and abused her body even more in death. Whatever the circumstances behind the utter failure of the Israeli military to stop this attack, as I detailed in a previous article, this was an act of war and Israel’s primary goal was now the eradication of Hamas. Every leader was now a marked man and Israel’s ground invasion began shortly after. It was Hamas, the governing party of Gaza that launched this conflict (that even today, according to polls, 80% of Gaza residents still support) and therefore Israel’s response was nothing more than a counter-strike against an enemy whose boldly-stated mission is the destruction of the Jewish state and the elimination of Jews everywhere. This is a defensive war by every definition.
An anonymous quote that has been repeated extensively with many iterations essentially states that the first casualty in war is the truth. Propaganda is an integral element to war because were the general public to know the real reason for the vast majority of wars throughout history, they would rebel and never allow their governments to engage. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and every other totalitarian regime have had propaganda departments and Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, was one of the key leaders of the Third Reich. In order to gain public support for the attacking of another sovereign nation which will result in the deaths of thousands or millions of their own people, the powers that be must whip up a patriotic frenzy to have people believe that war is the only way to protect our way of life from the barbarians at the gate. Think the War on Terror, which got started in earnest after 9/11. It’s still going 23 years later and MIC (Military Industrial Complex) has made billions while killing millions of people in the process. The Deep State assured all of us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and invading Iraq was necessary to keep him from nuking our allies in Europe and the Middle East. None were ever found but those are just inconvenient details that get buried in history after the fact. The Palestinian propaganda machine even has a nickname: Pallywood, and is constantly producing fake videos of Israeli atrocities to deceive a world that can’t wait to have something to blame Israel for.
While the lies about Israel that are being promoted are too many to count, we will give it the ole college try to clarify a few misconceptions most people have. First is Israel’s right to the land. What is being blared from the rooftops is that Israelis are colonialist settlers who drove the poor Palestinian peaceniks off of their land and into refugee camps. Once the Zionist movement (more on that in a bit) began in the mid-nineteenth century, with a belief amongst many including evangelicals that the Jews should return to their own land, Jewish people began to emigrate. And contrary to what the media tries to portray, the land was desolate and full of swamps. When Jews started buying land from the Ottaman Turks at inflated prices, they laughed at them for being foolish. Many also contracted malaria and yellow fever from the swamps. Author Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain visited Israel in 1867 for six months and wrote of his impression “The further we went the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became…There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”[i] Hardly something to want to hang onto. The Turks were only too happy to take Jewish money for what they considered to be worthless land. Nonetheless, the Jews began to come back home and eventually turned a barren wasteland into an oasis, fulfilling the prophecy in Isa 35:1 “The wilderness and the desert will rejoice, and the desert will shout for joy and blossom; like the crocus.” The Palestinians had absolutely nothing to do with the land’s renaissance. In fact, when Israel left Gaza back in 2005, forcibly removing many settlers to give the land to the Palestinians, they even left fully functioning greenhouses. The new Palestinian administration immediately destroyed them because they wanted nothing from the Jewish people.
Palestine
Even the whole idea of a “Palestinian” people is a false narrative. There is no such thing as a country called Palestine and there are no native people to this fictitious country. Palestine was the name given to Israel after the third revolt against Rome, the Bar Kochba Rebellion from 132-135 CE. The uprising was in part caused by the Roman emperor Hadrian wanting to rebuild Jerusalem but renaming it Aiello Capitolina. The Jews caused such damage to the Roman armies (almost defeating the empire) that Hadrian banished all of the Jews from Israel and changed its name to Philistia, after their ancient enemies the Philistines. Anglicised, it is pronounced Palestine and when Britain took over stewardship of Israel after WWI and with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, they just kept the name that had been used for 1800 years. In fact, the Arabs that lived in Israel refused to be associated with the name Palestine because it was too closely associated with the Jews. Most Arabs in Israel are of Jordanian descent and many have Jordanian passports. It wasn’t until after the Six Day War in 1967 with the reunification of Jerusalem that Yasser Arafat, the terrorist leader of the PLO saw the opportunity to create a new identity and fabricate an ancient history around it. It boggles my mind how many Bibles actually have the name Palestine in them, even for ancient Israel before the Diaspora, or how many preachers call Israel by that name. It’s truly shameful.
The Palestinians actually were already given their own country after 1948. It was called Trans Jordan. The UN partition plan gave part of the land to the Jews after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed and the other part of the land given to Jordan. However, the day after Israel’s rebirth, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq launched an attack against the nascent state. Supernaturally, they lost and Israel was here to stay. This flies in the face of all those people who claim if Israel were to only go back to the pre-1967 borders that there would be peace. The Arabs have never been interested in a two-state solution because they already had their own state. They reject Israel’s right to exist and that is the fundamental issue. Yet a deceived and deluded world refuses to acknowledge this, despite Hamas having it written right into their charter. There were no pre-1967 borders to go back when Egypt, Syria and Jordan, with Saudi Arabia’s help were about to attack Israel that led to the miraculous Six Day War victory. There were no pre-1967 borders to go back to in 1948, or even 1929 with the Hebron massacre where almost 70 Jews were killed in an unprovoked attack before Israel was even a nation. There are, according to UNESCO, 23 Arab nations with 300 million people that live on 13 million square km of land and yet everyone honestly thinks that if the one Jewish state that has a mere 22,000 square km of space keeps giving up land that somehow there will be peace? That is avoiding reality.
What about the charge of being colonialist settlers? How did the Palestinians get to where they are today? When the five Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948, they told those who lived in the land to leave their homes and once the new nation of Israel was defeated, they could return. Many others left to avoid being in the crossfire (several Arab language papers accused them of being traitors). Then, when the promised victory didn’t materialize, they left them there to be a thorn in the flesh to the Israelis. None were taken into any of the countries that promised them a victory. Even today, with Israel destroying the terror infrastructure that Hamas created in Gaza since it took control in 2006, none of Israel’s Arab neighbours has taken in so much as one Palestinian as a refugee. Jordan and Lebanon both expelled the Palestinians from their countries in the early 1970’s for creating chaos and starting civil wars. The PLO assassinated the Jordanian Prime Minister in Cairo in 1971. They already know how much trouble these radicalized people, who are taught to hate as little children can cause. So the Palestinian people have not been displaced nor had their property stolen and much of their current situation can be blamed on their fellow Arabs, not the Israelis. Israel also offered full citizenship to any Arab who wanted it, which many took and they experience equal opportunity with any Jew in Israel and enjoy all the freedoms and same standard of living as anyone else. There are Arabs who serve in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and even on the Supreme Court. Contrast that with their brothers in the West Bank or Gaza Strip who are under Arab rule. When Hamas took over after the 2006 elections, they killed many members of the rival Fatah party and have ruled with an iron fist of terror against their own citizens since then. It’s not much better in the West Bank under Mahmoud Abbas, who replaced Arafat after he died in 2005.
What also never seems to be mentioned by these concerned protesters is the number of Jews who were expelled or had to flee the surrounding Arab nations while having their property confiscated. Before WWII, there were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Syria and yet, after Israeli independence, most of these countries drove out the Jews with nothing but their clothes on their backs. All of their property was confiscated and no compensation has ever been given or even offered. The world demands the Palestinian right of return but not the same for the Jews who actually did suffer losing everything. The double standard continues.
Genocide
The charge of genocide is an interesting one. Watching media pundits like Cenk Uygur, the Turkish-American hater of all things western jump up and down, scream and almost froth at the mouth about the “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” going on in Gaza is sickening. The term genocide gets bandied about these days like a beach ball in the crowds at a hockey game. Coined by Polish-born American jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1948 after the horrors of the Holocaust came to light, genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”.)”[ii] So everyone is accusing Israel of the wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians during this war, and many conspiracy sites accuse Israel of wanting to kill or deport every Palestinian in the Gaza strip to make way for oil and gas exploration off of the Mediterranean coast. It is estimated that somewhere around 30,000 Palestinians have been killed so far (but since most are relying on Hamas figures, no one is sure). Gaza is actually one of the most densely populated pieces of land on the planet and there are estimated to be about 2.3 million people who live there, up from 1.6 million in 2012. The growth rate is also one of the highest in the world as a full 40% of the population is under 15. If Israel’s objective were genocide, they are woefully incompetent at it. Israel goes through great pains to warn the civilian population about impending military actions with flyers and even texting residents, to its own detriment as hundreds of IDF soldiers have been killed in what many call the most complicated and difficult war in history due to Hamas terrorists hiding amongst civilians and dressing like them. No other enemy combatant in history has ever done that. It is also impossible to even determine whether a casualty is a civilian or a militant. They even hide their weapons is schools, hospitals and under children’s beds. It is Hamas that doesn’t care about its own people. Several of their leaders (who are billionaires living in the safety of other countries like Qatar) have said on multiple occasions that martyrdom through jihad is the greatest honour that any Gazan can have and Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza has stated several times that Palestinian deaths are good for the Hamas cause. The people of Gaza must give their lives for the sole cause of Hamas’ existence which is the destruction of the Jewish state. Yet, Israel continues to allow supplies and aide to enter into Gaza, even though they know Hamas will steal it and use it in the war against Israel. If Israel’s objective was to exterminate the Palestinians, they would carpet bomb the entire strip and turn it into a parking lot. Hundreds of thousands if not over a million would be dead already. The exact opposite has happened and despite the immense difficulties of this war, the civilian death count is the lowest by far of any urban warfare in history. Yet, Piers Morgan keeps asking Israeli officials on his show “how many children are too many?”, referring to the number killed in Israeli operations, as if it was Israel’s responsibility to minimize the number of people they kill in a war for their very survival that they didn’t start against an enemy that has no qualms about killing its own people. Were the allies grilled on how many civilian deaths there were as they bombed Dresden into oblivion after the war had pretty much been decided in 1945? It all defies logic.
If all of these critics were really concerned about genocide, why aren’t any of them protesting about the 5.5 million people that have been killed in Congo’s ongoing civil war? Where are the street protests about Bashar Assad’s murder of 500,000 of his own people in Syria, or the half million who have been killed in Sudan? Over 400,000 Yemenis have been slaughtered by another of Iran’s proxies, the Houthis, yet no one seems to care about their plight. Why no chants about the 300,000 brutally exterminated in Iraq, including many Yazidi girls who have been martyred for not converting to Islam and becoming sex slaves to their Muslim oppressors, or the over 250,000 Afghanis that have died since the rest of the world started meddling in their affairs. These are true examples of ethnic cleansing or genocide and yet, no protests, no media attention, nothing? Where are the cries in the streets and on the university campuses or governments around the world for the 52,000 mostly Christian victims of Fulani violence since 2009 in Nigeria where Muslim herdsmen surround and hack men and women to death with machetes? Where’s the outrage for the hundreds were killed on Christmas Eve in 2023, most in churches as worshippers were gunned down in cold blood and chased down and butchered in a crazed frenzy? How is it that a terrorist organization like the ANC in South Africa, which is waging a true genocidal war against white farmers can turn around and charge Israel with genocide in the International Criminal Court and have a Pakistani Muslim lawyer in Britain bring these charges against them (with the help of George Clooney’s Lebanese-born human rights lawyer wife Amal) and no one sees the irony? It is because, as the saying goes, no Jews, no news.
You see beloved reader, the real issue isn’t the plight of the poor Palestinian people, who the rest of the world couldn’t really care less about. It’s about the demonization of Israel. When the IDF just a few days ago rescued 4 hostages from 8 months of captivity from civilian homes and killed over a hundred people, the world was outraged that so many were killed. There was no rejoicing about the hostages being rescued or anger that among those killed were a doctor, his journalist son and his wife who were actually housing the hostages in their home (which makes them terrorists themselves), or that most who died were actually firing at the Israelis, some with advanced weaponry like RPGs, or sorrow for Israel that the commander of the operation died as he gave his life to save his countrymen. Only vitriol against Israel for somehow having a victory was expressed by many. When the massacre first happened and in the subsequent weeks, posters of the hostages were hung around the world, including of the youngest victim who was only 9 months old when he was captured, many people were tearing down the posters. Why would people do that, other than blind hatred for the captives? The hostages had committed no crime. It wasn’t them that murdered their enemies in cold blood in a time of peace. They are being vilified for simply being Jews and living in their own land.
There was also an exhibit a few days ago in New York City about Oct. 7, including clothing and other items from the victims. A huge protest erupted outside the museum that was hosting the display from Pro-Hamas demonstrators. How is it that sane people can demonstrate against the Middle East’s only democracy and shout slogans in support of a murderous death cult whose blood lust knows no bounds? There are even LGBTQ groups who say they support the Palestinian cause. You know, the same people whose lifestyle would get them killed the moment they were actually to set foot in the Gaza Strip. It is a complete disconnect from reality.
A Spiritual War
The only way we can come to understand this is that is a spiritual issue. Paul reminds us that we don’t fight against people but against the spirits operating behind them (Eph 6;12). Satan and his fallen spirits wage war against humanity and their primary weapon is deception. He told Adam and Eve in the garden that they wouldn’t die if they ate of the fruit, despite God saying that’s exactly what would happen. His tactics haven’t changed. But this doesn’t adequately explain this irrational hatred reserved exclusively for Jewish people.
If we read Gen 12:3, we see the beginnings of this conflict. Up until this point, God worked through individuals. Then He anoints Abram (renamed Abraham) to be the progenitor of an entire nation of people who will be His instrument to defeat the rebellious angels. When He says “through you, all of the families of the earth will be blessed,” He is speaking about the coming Messiah, the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent in the garden (Gen 3:15). Satan now knows through several prophecies that God’s redeemer is going to come through the Hebrew people and he is not about to stand idly by while it happens. Whether with Pharaoh tossing the Hebrew boys into the Nile River, Nebuchadnezzar wiping out Judah, Haman trying to exterminate all Jews in the Persian empire, Antiochus Epiphanies' slaughter that led to the Maccabean revolt, two Roman emperors laying waste to Judea and the Jews, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the European pogroms or the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, history is replete with examples of satanically-inspired attempts to wipe out God’s chosen people. That’s what Rev 12 is all about and after the Dragon (Satan) fails to destroy the Messiah before His mission was finished, Rev 12:13 says “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.” He goes to war against Israel and stirs up people who serve him to do his dirty work. Jews have been hated throughout history for being rich and being poor. They are reviled for wanting to assimilate or remain distinct. They are loathed for being stateless and wandering from country to country or now for having their own state. Rev 12:15 then says “And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood.” This is the Devil’s war against Israel and the flood means violence, chaos and perhaps even propaganda. He demonizes Israel through lies about who they are, what they do and what their intentions are. Think of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian Masonic forgery that “exposed” the Jewish plot to take over and enslave the world.
So how is it that so many have bought into the lies? Even Bill Maher, the hyper-liberal, Trump and children-hating comedian and pundit refuses to drink the Jews-evil-for-defending-themselves Kool-Aid. He has said several times “Here’s how to stop it (the war). Stop attacking Israel.” Pretty sensible advice, no? Yet, so many, even professing Christians are criticizing Zionism, which is simply the Jewish desire to live in the land that God promised them, you know, from the river to the sea? And that river, by the way, is the Euphrates River, not the Jordan so what does that say about who’s squatting now? How did Zionism get such a bad rap? Decades of slander, much of it coming from the Soviet Union using what they call placard propaganda, which is simply using placards to make a statement. The anti-war movement throughout last century utilized this very effectively. Years of saying Zionism = Nazism or Zionism = Racism and you have a bunch of people buying into it. The key to propaganda is simplicity to help simple minds believe what you want them to.
The Khazarian Hoax
Aside from all the other tropes against Jewish people throughout history, like the blood libel or the Jews own the banks or they’re Christ-killers, the one that’s in fashion now is the Khazarian Mafia lie. This little beauty gets its start through the 1976 book ““The Thirteenth Tribe”, a book written by Hungarian-British author Arthur Koestler in which he presents the highly contested thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of converted Khazars rather than of ancient Israelites. Koestler was aware that his theory could be exploited to delegitimise the State of Israel, but stated his hope that it would remove racial grounds for discrimination against the Jewish diaspora in Eastern Europe.”[iii] In other words, Jews aren’t really Jews but a nomadic Turkish tribe of practicing Satanists who were forced to convert to Judaism but kept their devil-worshipping practices. And the scriptural justification for this is Rev 3:9 - "Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie.” So Yeshua was actually talking about faux-Jews and since we have fake Jews, we have a fake, illegitimate Israel. This way, we can hate them without being anti-Semitic because Eastern European Jews aren’t really Jews. DNA studies has proven this to be pure poppycock but that doesn’t stop the haters from hating. And as Messianic Jewish columnist Cherie Zaslawsky brilliantly noted in a recent article “As a side note: According to the Khazarian hoax, Hitler made a big mistake. Someone should have told him that the 6 million Jews he exterminated were…wait for it…not really Jews!”[iv] You can’t make this stuff up.
A Strong Delusion
Although recognizing we have a spiritual battle going here helps explain what is going on, we are still left wondering how so many, including in the church have bought into the lie. While the protests are of course as spontaneous and organic as a Hostess Twinkie (notice how the tents on the campus protests all seem to look the same, as if they were bought on mass?), and are in fact highly organized by the same people who brought us the BLM riots in 2020 or Occupy Wall Street sit-ins back in 2008, there are still far too many regular, average people welling up with hatred toward the state of Israel and Jews all over the world. There are still far too many social media sites and channels brimming with the above examples I’ve listed, many of whom profess to love Israel’s Messiah but despise His brethren. What drives this?
Paul warns the Thessalonians in his second letter to them the following:
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” (2Thes 7-12 – Emphasis mine).
What is going on today is a direct result of this. The real reason the world is losing its collective mind over the Israel war is because there’s a strong delusion at work in the world, and many who profess to be believers really aren’t. Notice what churches are getting the most attention today and which ones are growing the most? The ones that are preaching a different gospel. A gospel without the core emphasis being on sin, judgment, repentance, humility, Yeshua’s death, burial and resurrection and on His shed blood is not the true gospel. It’s a different Yeshua they are preaching and He warns us in Mat 24 that many will fall away. The reason is they aren’t interested in the true gospel but one that tickles their ears and makes them feel good without having to change. They emphasize feelings, material prosperity and healing and how much God loves them just as they are. It’s a damnable heresy that will send people to an eternal torment in the lake of fire. Paul’s warning is that God sends a strong delusion on them because they didn’t want to believe the truth but delighted in their sins. Many within the church today are not sheep but goats. While there are those who know full well the lie they are living, including the savage wolves Paul warns the Ephesians about in Acts 20 who will enter the churches and tear apart the sheep, there are many others who think they are ok with God and will be the ones Yeshua tells us who will say “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” (Mat 7:22-23) They are going to hell because they did not do the will of the Father but practiced their own righteousness. They were deceived by the devil and will suffer for eternity because of it.
Much like how many were deceived by the lies with Covid, the world is once again being fooled into opposing God. While Israel doesn’t do things right all the time, as has been the case throughout history, they are still the apple of God’s eye (Zech 2:8) and are loved by Him with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3). It is simply unfathomable that anyone could support the kind of evil that Hamas (which means violence) stands for just because they hate the Jews and yet, the majority of the world is doing just that, just as it as always done. They are following their father the devil.
“And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” (Rom 1:28-32) Does this not describe the world and many in the Church today?
The war in Israel and the hatred that is exploding around the world is a direct result of a world that is in rebellion against God and so God has allowed them to be blinded by the devil. Israel is God’s plumb line. As the Body of Messiah, our command is to support and pray for it, including their salvation, not judge them. If you hate Israel, how can you truly love the Jewish Messiah? Are you a sheep, or really a goat?
Darryl Weinberg
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