Israel’s Purging of Christians From the Holy Land and the Plot to Keep Americans From Noticing

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There's something about true things

that just sound different.

When you hear something that's true,

there's a different pitch or tone or vibration.

It's gonna hurt to describe.

But when someone says something true,

even if you don't exactly understand what it means,

it sticks with you.

The truth rings differently from lies.

And recently, for a lot of different reasons,

mostly because of the pressure being exerted on our society,

you're hearing a lot of lies,

but you're also hearing a lot of true things.

And some of them are about the nation of Israel.

And they're obvious things,

like does the United States have an actual interest

in supporting Israel unequivocally?

Is Israel really our closest ally?

Is there a good reason for this?

Why are so many members of Congress taking money

from a foreign government lobby, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

These are all true things.

They point to the truth.

They are questions that evoke true answers.

And the response to this has been very, very telling.

The response has been shouting and screaming accusations.

It is not an engagement.

Almost nobody on the other side of the debate has said,

for sure, let me calmly explain why

Israel's our greatest ally.

And we should say, fund the killing in Gaza.

Here's why it's good for the United States

to spend this much money on Israel's worth this point.

Seven simultaneous wars, a seven front war.

We're paying for it.

Why is that a good idea for the United States?

How is it morally justifiable?

And what's the purpose of this exactly?

Is it really to defend the country

or is it to expand its territory?

No one will answer those questions.

And that is why simply you're hearing this very loud

conversation about anti-Semitism,

which all of a sudden is everywhere.

It's America's biggest problem.

Well, there is, of course, anti-Semitism

and it's wrong.

It's always wrong to hate people for their blood.

There's no question about that.

But is anti-Semitism really America's biggest problem?

Well, no, it's not.

It's not even in the top 100 biggest problems.

Bad as it is.

You're hearing about it as a way to shut down

truthful, honest questions.

And that's, of course, the dynamic.

And it's very clear to anybody who's paying attention.

The problem with this dynamic is that it can inspire

a lot of anger and, in fact, a lot of hate.

People are getting matter and matter and matter

on this topic on both sides.

And you have to wonder why that is.

Why doesn't someone to stand up and say,

let's have a reasonable discussion about this.

Let's just lay it out there in non-emotional terms,

non-hateful terms without attacking an entire group

of people, any group of people.

Whether it's the Jews or the Muslims or the Christians,

let's just slow down and be rational about this.

Why is no one doing that?

Well, it's possible that there are some people

in this conversation, maybe on both sides,

who want to inspire hate.

And that's not a good idea for anyone.

For this country, for Christians is forbidden.

Christians are not allowed to hate people.

They understand that it's against God's law.

It's also the fastest way to corrode your soul

and turn you into a monster.

And of course, you don't want that.

So how do you have a rational conversation

about what's best for your country without

becoming hateful yourself or inspiring hate

and other people?

We've really thought a lot about this.

Don't become what they call you.

That's our number one imperative, at least on this show.

They call you a hater.

Don't become one.

So we're trying.

So we're doing a couple of things.

The first is we're flying to Jerusalem

to interview Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee is, of course, the American ambassador

to Israel, someone I've known for over 30 years

and always liked, and also a Baptist preacher of some kind.

But certainly a prominent Baptist religious figure,

also US ambassador, and someone who has views

that I just don't agree with at all,

on questions of American foreign policy

and also on questions of theology.

He's a Christian famous Christian Zionist

and a famous proponent of Neocon foreign policy.

I disagree with both.

However, it seems like of all the people

you could talk to, maybe Mike Huckabee is a guy.

You could talk to in a reasonable way, in a calm way,

without shouting or hatred.

By the way, if you want a picture of what hell itself is like,

it's shouting in hatred.

It's a large group of people screaming,

calling for violence.

That is literally a picture of hell

and don't live in it if you can help it.

We don't want to.

So maybe Huckabee is the guy to begin a reasonable

conversation about what's best for the United States

and what's true about Christian theology.

So we're gonna try, we're flying to Jerusalem,

difficult to do, not without risk,

but we're doing it because we really believe

that the direction that this conversation is moving

is bad.

It's bad for everybody.

It's bad for the country and it's bad for our souls.

So maybe that's a start toward making it better.

And the second thing we're really trying to do

is to speak to Christians in the Middle East

about the situation in the Middle East.

And maybe not accidentally,

that is the one group you almost never hear from

in the United States.

There are an awful lot of particularly Protestant evangelical

ministers, leaders talking about Israel.

Israel, as they often call it.

And what Christians are supposed to think about it,

what they're required to think about it,

what the US government and the US military should do

to aid Israel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And those are almost always framed

in terms of the West versus Islam,

you know, Israel and the United States versus the Muslims.

Okay.

But there's almost never any mention of the fact

that the world's oldest Christian community

is in that area in the Levant,

in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria,

that part of the Middle East that is not so far away.

It's on the Mediterranean.

And is of course the birthplace of Christianity

or Jesus himself.

And there have been Christians there for 2000 years,

uninterrupted.

And we know that both from the historical record

and from DNA tests.

So if you're interested in Christianity,

if you are a Christian,

one of the first questions you ought to ask is

how are Christians in the Middle East doing?

And the political lines have changed, of course.

And after the fall of the Ottoman Empire,

at the end of the first world war,

that whole area was carved up into different countries,

the nation states run by colonial powers,

France and England.

And they became Syria, Lebanon, Palestine,

then after 1948 with the creation of Israel, Israel,

then after 67, the West Bank.

I mean, it's been carved up over thousands of years

by many different empires.

But that region has remained the same

and its population has remained remarkably stable

and the Christian population has never left.

These are not converts, these are the original Christians.

Doesn't mean they're right about everything,

but it means if you want to know what's actually happening,

maybe you should talk to them.

And to its great shame, it's great shame,

the American evangelical community,

such as it is where its leaders have been very resistant

to talking to Middle Eastern Christians

or even to thinking about Middle Eastern Christians

and the effect of American policy on those people.

But we think it's really important for two reasons.

One, it's just inherent.

What about the Christians?

Is a fair question for Christians to ask?

In fact, they should be required to ask that question.

And second, because sincere Christians

are not allowed to hate or be anti-Semitic

or hate all Muslims or hate all anybody or hate at all,

it's forbidden by their religion.

Talking to them directly is a great way to de-escalate

what is by design becoming a tribal war.

There is no reason for any conversation

about American foreign policy to devolve into Jews

versus everyone else or everyone versus Jews

or any of this stuff.

It's awful, it's all a dead end.

It will end in violence.

That's obvious and then censorship

and all the things that you don't want in your country.

So don't go there.

And we've really tried not to go there.

And of course, they've called this show anti-Semitic

Nazi and all this stuff and all of their paid shelves

have joined in on this.

But we still have to resist becoming what they call us.

That is our job, period as Americans and as Christians

to keep the hate out of our hearts and to stay reasonable.

And talking to Middle Eastern Christians

sincere Christians is a really important way

to keep the conversation exactly where it should be.

So if you spend the evening at my house,

you are guaranteed to find yourself

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The best.

So with that introduction,

wanna introduce you to Farahs Abraham,

who is a Christian minister.

He leads the ministry here in the United States,

who is originally from a town called Betsehora,

which is right outside Bethlehem,

birthplace of Jesus.

Betsehora, as you're gonna hear him explain in a minute,

is the place where the shepherds saw,

and the wise men saw the angels announce Jesus's birth

in the Gospels.

And so he is literally from that town.

It is a Palestinian village,

in what we call the West Bank,

the West Bank of the Jordan River,

that was part of Jordan until 1967,

but has always been there.

And it is a majority,

but 80% Christian village.

And it's disappearing.

The Christians are leaving.

And there's not a lot of debate about why they're leaving.

They're not leaving because, primarily,

because of the Muslims,

they're leaving because of Jewish settlers

moved into the town by the Israeli government

with funding from the United States,

from a lot of Christians, by the way,

in the United States.

It's not just Jews, Christians in the United States,

paying for these settlers to come

and are driving out the Christian population.

There is no rational justification for this.

There's no moral justification for it.

It's an atrocity.

And it has almost never spoken about

in non-plemical, honest ways.

And this man came to our attention some months ago.

We've talked to him extensively.

We think he is a truly decent man

who has no hate in this art.

You can judge for yourself.

But no matter what side of this conversation you're on,

and particularly if you're a Christian Zionist,

and by the way, go ahead and remain one, if you like.

But you should know that your views,

and in some cases, your money is funding

the displacement and the murder

of the oldest Christian community in the world.

So with that, here's Farz Abraham,

originally from Bezzahur in the West Bank.

Thanks for doing this.

So you are from a Christian village

outside Bethlehem,

birthplace of Jesus, correct?

Yes.

I'm Bezzahur.

Bezzahur, yeah.

So what is Bezzahur?

So first of all, thank you for having me here.

Oh my gosh, of course.

And I wish I never had to do this interview

to be honest with you.

But I feel compelled.

I feel a sense of urgency because the lidotown

that I come from is under existential threat.

And let me say I come here as a Christian,

first and foremost, very proud Christian,

and I'm Palestinian American Christian.

And I'm very proud of this country,

and for what this country stands for,

and for the great opportunity that I was given

as a Palestinian, this is my new homeland.

America gave me education, work, and then later I got married.

I met the, the women of my dreams here,

who, you know, my wife comes from Gaza.

And we met here in the States.

We started a family.

We pursued the American dream.

And I'm so grateful and so thankful.

But I'm here because I feel that the lidotown of Bezzahur

is really under imminent danger

that if nothing happens, if we don't do anything about it,

there will be no more Christians living in Bezzahur today.

So it's a, it's a Christian majority town.

And it's known for the Shepherds fields.

In Luke chapter two, when the angel of the Lord

appeared to the Shepherds who were tending to their flocks,

the angel appeared to them and pronounced the greatest event

that ever happened in history, which is the birth of the Messiah

in next door town, in the lidotown.

So they were right outside town and they were,

that's where they were.

Absolutely.

So this is, this, this happened in Bezzahur.

And if you go to Bezzahur today,

the Shepherd field is there, the people are there.

And the angel appeared also with a chorus of angelic halls

singing, glory to God in the highest,

peace on earth and great joy to great man.

Now, the significance of Bezzahur is that God

chose this Lord of town, the town of the Shepherds,

to announce the birth of Jesus.

God didn't choose the spiritual elites

and religious institutions in Jerusalem, right?

And he did not choose the powerful politicians,

military and Rome, but he chose to announce

the birth of a Savior in a town called Bezzahur.

And when the Shepherds went to Bethlehem,

they saw baby Jesus, they came back rejoicing.

And they were the first evangelists

that told the world about the birth of Jesus.

God with us, it was in the, it was in those fields

where they were tending their flocks.

They were poor, they were marginalized,

they were ordinary men and women

who just happened to be there and God chose them to be there.

So Bezzahur takes pride and it's not that we are privileged

and better than anybody else.

But that's the essence of the Christmas story

that God gives hope to the people in the margins first.

God's grace leaches those people first.

And the town of Bezzahur takes very pride

of this heritage and this legacy.

How long has it been, Majority Christian?

It's been always Majority Christian.

So for like thousands of years.

Since the time of Jesus,

we, you know, the town of Bezzahur

is the early descendants of the first Christmas story.

And they have maintained uninterrupted continuous presence

since the day of the announcement of the birth of Jesus.

That's amazing.

How long has your family been there?

Generations.

We always jog around like we go back thousands of years.

Unfortunately, we don't have family tree

that could trace back to the time of Jesus.

But the people have always lived there.

The people have always farmed their lands

so you're not a new convert to Christianity.

We're not newcomers.

We don't come from neighboring countries.

We're not, we're not converts.

We're not newcomers.

We're not immigrants.

We're an indigenous people of the land.

Christian people.

Christian Palestinians have a unique story to tell.

What's interesting is that over that 2000 year period,

you know, a lot has happened.

A lot of different people have ruled that area.

Of course, originally the Romans.

Yes.

2000 years ago was the Romans.

And then that, of course, you know,

them move up from Arabia, Islam starts.

And then you have the crusades kind of flip it over.

And then you have it flip back.

And it becomes the Ottomans.

And then Muslims run out of Istanbul, Constantinople, Turks.

And then you have the Brits.

And now you have the Israeli.

So during all that time, that village remained Christian,

but you're saying now under Israeli rule,

because it is ruled by the Israelis, correct?

Yes.

It's in danger of becoming extinct.

I call Palestinian Christians empire survivors.

Yeah.

We have survived empires.

Armies came and left.

Rulers came and left.

A lot of them.

Identity changed, language changed.

Culture has been shaved by those empires.

But the people have always remained there.

The church has always been open to worship,

has always maintained a gospel witness.

And this is my deepest concern that if nothing is happened,

if we don't do anything about it,

there will be no more Christians in the Holy Land.

So they remain there from, you know, 33 AD until 1967.

And then in 1967, when this area is annexed by the government,

the real threat begins, that's what you're saying.

Yes.

Israel has pursued one strategy, Tucker, over decades,

which is take as much Palestinian land as possible

and keep as few Palestinians on the land as possible.

This has been their strategy.

It has worked for them because they constantly

take in Palestinian land.

Within we're talking about, not proper,

Israel talking about 1967 when they captured West Bank,

East Jerusalem and Gaza, they have been taken land.

They have been building settlements there.

And this is threatening the local population,

especially it comes at a heavy price.

So that has been the policy for decades

and it has worked for them because it's almost near completion now.

They're taking, if you look at Bethlehem,

the governor to Bethlehem, the district of Bethlehem.

It is surrounded by Israeli settlements.

And it's actually, if you look it up, the Bethlehem ring.

It's actually a thing.

It's a ring of settlements all encircling

every town, every Palestinian village

and they choose these specific lands strategically

on health tops, taking water resources,

building walls around these settlements,

building new roadblocks, building new checkpoints,

building new security measures.

They call it motion sensors, electric wires.

And it comes at a really deep expense

at the expense of the local population.

So when is you grew up there?

Yes, I grew up in the town of Bezahor.

What was that like?

What was your experience of the Israeli government

growing up as a Christian there?

Well, I lived through the first Intifada

and we lived next to the YMCA in Bezahor.

There is actually a YMCA in Bezahor.

And down the road from us,

there was an Israeli bypass road only.

What does that mean?

It means whenever they built settlements,

they built those roads that are only accessible to settlers,

which these roads are connected

the entire settlements together

and they are directly connected to proper Israel

so they can easy of movement for the settlers to go forward.

What do you mean for settlers?

I mean, you're not allowed on them?

No, absolutely not.

Some roads in area B of the West Bank,

Palestinians are allowed on them,

like between the roads of,

between Bethlehem and Habran

or Bethlehem and Jericho.

There are some few very limited roads that you can't.

I mean, what are you gonna do?

We have to share the roads.

But in many of these roads,

Palestinians are not allowed to.

You're not allowed.

Like someone who's born there?

Absolutely not.

But those roads, that road down the streets from us,

we would see Saptars come and go.

We would see Israeli Army vehicles come and go.

And one day, we were playing outside.

Wait, I'm sorry, it's just kind of,

I mean, I've been there,

but it's hard.

I didn't fully digest this, I guess, at the time.

So how about right now,

you're in America and you live in the United States

you've been here in a long time.

Could you go and get on one of those roads?

Let me explain it this way.

Imagine you are in San Diego.

And then a group of people from Mexico

come to San Diego and take a piece of property.

Yes.

And they build fence around it.

And then all of the sudden,

they planned a Mexican flag on that,

you know, not to say that I love Mexicans,

but this is hypothetical.

I get it, but it's a country too.

Yes, right.

I love Mexican food too.

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So for the sake of this analogy,

imagine they come and they build fence

around this property.

And now it cuts your property in half

and sometimes it slice it up.

So you become, San Diego becomes fragmented.

And they set up this fence around it.

They take the water resources.

They build walls, sniper towers,

and all of the sudden you see the Mexican army

coming to protect those new settlers.

And those settlers are not friendly neighbors.

They're not coming to San Diego to be neighbors.

They're coming to take the land from San Diego.

And now if you are a mother, a Christian mother

who puts her children in Christian school

and you're school now is behind those new roads

that these Mexican settlers built.

They built a new road that connects San Diego to Tijuana

across the border.

And you are a mother who wants to drop off her kids

to a school that is beyond those bypass road only.

And this is not theoretical for us.

This is reality.

When you go to Bezahor,

you will see the settlements in circling

the Lurotown choking it.

It's like slow suffocation.

It prevents it from its natural growth.

That story that I told you about the mother

is actually my cousin who takes her children.

She has twins and she has a six-year-old

to the American Evangelical School built in Bezahor.

And with this new settlement they have built,

they have set up a roadblock at checkpoint

where Israeli come and man those checkpoint

to protect the settlers.

Now one day she was taking her children to school

and the Israeli army pointed guns at them.

Oh, come on.

Instructing them to let the kids walk

across the checkpoint to make it to the school

to the other side.

Now this is not an insulated incidence.

This is not something that happens every once in a while.

The army is always present to protect the settlers.

So my cousin told her a six-year-old,

you're strong, you can do this

and we can walk through it.

The teacher on the other side is going to receive you.

As soon as she walked, she held her head up high.

She passed through the soldier.

And she fainted at the feet of the school staff.

Now this brings a lot of psychological trauma.

It brings a lot of nightmares.

That's what Christian families in Bezahor are experiencing.

Now I remember I told you about our home

back in Bezahor.

It's not too far from the school.

It's not too far from the new settlement.

They are building a Bezahor.

And down the road is the Israeli bypass road,

which is only for settlers and Israeli armed vehicles.

In 1990, we watched settlers come and go.

There was an Israeli army vehicle that stopped.

And we saw, I was standing at the time,

I saw an Israeli soldier stepping out of the vehicle,

pointing a rifle at us and he started shooting at us.

Are you?

We were a bunch of kids.

I mean, my siblings, my mother was there and some of my cousins.

He started shooting life ammunition at us.

And then my mother rushed us all into the door.

She was the last one to get in.

She caught a bullet in the back.

Your mother?

Yes, my own mother, who loves the Lord and he loves Jesus.

And exit one, she dropped, come on.

She dropped on the floor, full of blood.

I heard to the back door, called my dad,

my uncle who was a physician, put pressure on the wound,

took her to the hospital, say you saw this happen?

This in front of my eyes, my own mother.

I'm sorry, I should say we've been talking off camera

before we start this interview.

And I detect, I didn't know the story.

It's not my interview notes.

And I detected no bitterness whatsoever

in anything that you said.

I don't know how.

Okay, sorry.

So you're just shocking me.

I didn't expect to hear that.

Palestinian Christians take the sermon

of the mount very seriously.

Apparently, when Jesus comes and he elevates our thinking,

when he elevates our outlook on life,

when he takes morality to a whole new standard,

when he said, you have heard, do not kill.

But I tell you, if you look at your brother

and you call him Raka, Arameyak word for fool or stupid,

right, you just have committed the murder.

Exactly.

And when he said, and remember the context,

Jesus was talking to a Jewish audience

who were under ruthless Roman occupation.

Yes.

They were persecuted.

They were discriminated against.

It was very brutal to live under the Roman occupation.

But Jesus telling His followers, love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you.

This is something that we have grown up,

we have grown up understanding the very essence

and the meaning of this sermon of the mount.

Wow.

I'm sorry, I totally derailed your story

because I'm just shocked.

I really didn't know that was coming.

So your 10 years old, you watch your mother get shot

by this, okay, so many questions.

Why did he do this?

Do you know?

This has been just random.

They do this not just to Palestinian Christians.

I mean, that has been the policy.

It's, they do it to the Muslims.

They do it to any Palestinians.

Did she survive?

She did.

Miraculous.

The bullet was just millimeters away from the spine.

It was an American rifle, I assume.

Who knows?

Of course.

We don't know the soldier.

Five, five, six round, right?

Okay, so that's my next question.

So some soldier, your mother wasn't throwing rocks at him

or screaming for she hot or anything.

We were just playing in front of the house.

We were just kids playing.

Not just, how can you live in this country

and listen to people who have no idea what they're talking about?

So this is, this is the real threat of the new settlements.

Okay, it's not just taking Christian land.

It's not acquiring and taking by force

the resources of the land of Christian land

who live there for generations.

It's inviting violence settlers to your neighborhood.

They're coming to take the land.

They're coming to squeeze.

They're coming to crush.

They're coming to, why are they mad at you?

What did you do being born in the,

I don't understand the hate

and I certainly have been the target of it,

but I don't understand, I mean,

I understand why people are like me.

I'm doing interviews like this,

but I don't understand why the,

why would someone shoot a mother in front of her children?

Like, I just don't get that.

Look, what is that?

You interviewed Bishop Hussam

and he mentioned the story,

the recent story just last month.

Yes.

The attack on a Christian widow.

She's a Christian widow.

That violence settler came to her property

grazing on the land with his cattle

and then he hits her with a stone on her head,

fractures her skull, takes her to, you know,

it's a, she almost lost her life

and when her son tried to defend her,

the son gets arrested by the Israeli military.

And then when the settlers,

bunch of settlers, they showed up at the house

in the presence and the full support

and the complicity of the Israeli army,

they knocked down the door.

Her daughter was inside, Nari Man, and I talked to her.

She drew the sign of her cross

and when they found out that she was Christian,

you know what the settler told her?

What?

He told her, what are you doing here?

This is not your land.

You don't belong here.

He said, go to France or go somewhere else.

You don't belong here.

God gave us this land.

Now this settler violence that has been on the rise,

the town of Taipei where they burned centuries old church,

they burned the crops,

vandalized properties, right graffiti,

spitting on clergy and pastors and leaders,

all of these atrocities are done in broad daylight.

They're done without accountability

and no one is being held responsible

for these atrocities.

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Off camera, I said to him,

people spit on you.

And my first thought was,

why don't you shoot them?

Like don't allow someone to spit.

I didn't say that because I, you know,

but that was my,

shows what a bad person I am.

And he said, every time someone spits at me,

I feel blessed.

They spit at Jesus.

And I was telling my wife,

I think Christians who live in that kind of environment

understand Christian in a much deeper way than we do here.

I think that to hear you say that you don't feel better

as your mother didn't feel better as after being shot

in front of her children for no reason.

And this is what the gospel does.

It transforms the heart.

Yes, I totally agree.

It's, it's, yes, I want to seek justice.

But in the meantime, I don't want to allow hatred.

Yes. To poison my soul.

I don't want, okay, please,

everyone watch this rewind, watch that again.

Can you say that again?

I love that.

I don't want to allow the, the, the atrocities.

And the sins that have been committed against Christians

to allow bitterness to grow in our hearts.

Jesus provided a better way.

Jesus gave us the example of forgiving

and for loving our enemies.

Jesus forgave the people who even crucified him.

And that's the model.

That's why Christians in the Holy Land

are the salt of the earth.

Are the light in the midst of that darkness?

And if we don't preserve that gospel witness,

this is the reason I decided to do this interview

with you, Cutter.

And I said a prayer this morning in my sauna

that you would, that God would speak through you.

And he is, it's the gospel witness.

We want to keep the message of Christ alive

in the lands of its births.

We want to share the good news of the gospel

with every person who is, who is traumatized

with every person who is suffering

with every child in Gaza who has lost everything.

The only hope is to tell them that God loves them.

The only hope is to break the cycle of violence

between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not,

it's not going, I don't, you know,

law will restrain your physical being.

But God sets your spirit free.

He sets your soul free.

You're making me emotional.

No, that's totally right.

He redeems us.

And these are, these are the basic values

that are lived on daily basis by Christian Palestinians.

Let me tell you about my friend, Salam.

Salam was the only child to his family

who lived right down the street from me

closer to this Israeli bypass road.

And on February 18, 1991, a hateful Israeli settler

parked his vehicle next to Salam's house

and he shot him in the head inside his house

through a window while having dinner with his family.

A new settlement coming to town

is going to pose real existential threat

to everyone living there.

And the Christian witness will be diminished.

So this is, this is a part

it's hard to understand as an American

and let's just start a few minutes

previous in the conversation.

A Israeli soldier IDF soldier shoots your mother

for no reason.

Who is that soldier?

Was there a trial?

Did you ever hear what happened to him?

No, I mean, these are like dumb questions,

but I'm an American, was he punished?

Like what happened next?

We have no idea.

Oh, nobody from the occupation authority

from the supposedly humane Western, Western,

Israeli government ever went to your house

and said, you know, we've questioned the sky

or even followed up at all.

Absolutely not.

You see, this is the,

you shot your mother like an animal

and then never the core issue here

is that there's a culture of impunity.

A lot of these acts, they go unchecked.

Oh, I've noticed.

It's a culture.

And that comes, it's not insulated incidents

and just to give you numbers, okay,

the Rossing Center in Jerusalem.

It's an Israeli human rights organization.

So in case, you know, people discredit

the Palestinian testimony,

Palestinian Christians, you know,

we often get discredit, this case.

Oh, I've noticed.

Yes.

And it breaks our heart when even our brothers

and sisters in Christ do that.

Well, I want to ask you about that

because that's where I have trouble controlling.

And I'm going to come back to the Rossing Center.

They documented 111 attacks on Christians in 2024 alone,

111.

You go to any Israeli human rights organization,

such as Bit Salem.

He's now documenting every single incident.

And you will find a pattern

that these attacks are not random.

They're not,

they don't happen out of the blue.

They're systematic.

Israel has created a pervasive system

and we call it a structural pressure

that they keep applying on the Christian population

to push them out of their land.

When I speak to Palestinian Christians in Bezahor,

what they fear the most, they saw what's happening in Gaza.

They have relatives in Gaza

and they fear that they are next.

It's a real danger that is pointed at Bezahor community right now

and this new settlement.

And it's not the only settlement.

I mean, Bezahor is surrounded by settlements

and we have long history of these settlers coming

and taking Palestinian lands

and building those, you know, lavish settlements.

And they're ugly, very ugly.

You know, they fill up their swimming pools.

They put their green grass wild Palestinian Christians.

They wait for two or three weeks for a water truck

to fill up their tanks on top of the roof,

giant black plastic tank

that we're not allowed to even have running water.

I've seen them.

Can I ask just because I don't want anything to fall

through the cracks here.

Your friend who was murdered while having dinner

by a settler, what happened to that settler?

Salam misla.

We don't know who that settler was.

He just stopped his vehicle, shot at him and left.

And Salam is not the only one.

Wait, me, I ask like was there no investigation of this?

No one was arrested for it.

Yep, absolutely not.

Salam is not the only one.

There was another guy named Edmoun Ranem.

You know, back in the days, this policy used to be much

in much bigger, full force.

They called it home mapping.

I don't know if you're familiar with home mapping.

So I'm American.

I don't know anything.

I've been wide to about this for a long time.

So thank God for organization like Breaking the Silence,

which is a group of former IDF soldiers

and they're there sharing their stories

and their experiences in the West Bank.

So home mapping is when an Israeli army decides

to go into a Palestinian home for the purpose,

quote unquote, of collecting intelligence.

And what they usually do is they lock up the whole family

in a room for a day or two and sometimes four weeks

and they take over the house.

And this usually is done to give the new soldiers

some practice and training.

It's called home mapping.

So when I grew up and these are stories from my childhood,

Edmoun was walking down the street.

When an Israeli soldier was on top of a Palestinian house roof,

dropped a stone on Edmoun and killed him instantly.

A Christian, a Christian young man for no reason.

Anton Shomeli, he was caught by an Israeli,

he ran away from an Israeli army.

For some reason he got scared.

They caught him and they shot him in a close proximity

in cold blood.

And I can give you stories of stories.

Those are not terrorists.

Those are not people who seek violence.

Those are people who want to simply stay in their land,

work, live, have a future, live in peace.

And let me tell you know, highlighting the violence

of the settlers does not mean we ignore

the violence committed by Sampalicinians.

I mean, as Christians, we recognize

there are some Palestinians who carry out attacks

and inflict terror on innocent Israelis as well.

And we're not going to bury our heads in the sand

and say, oh, it doesn't happen.

You know, stabbing, rhyming into some Israeli citizens.

And as Christian, Palestinian, American,

we condemn any attacks on any civilians.

We condemn any form of violence to achieve justice.

This is the very core of the Christian message.

We reject violence altogether.

Palestinian Christians have always extending the hands

of making peace with our Jewish neighbors,

with our Muslim neighbors, with everyone.

We just want to live in peace.

So we condemn violence at all levels.

But there is a difference between

when a Palestinian commits a violence

versus when a settler commits a violence.

When a Palestinian commits a violence, wrong,

to be condemned, not to be condoned,

to kill innocent civilians, usually he or she

are shot on the spot.

And if they make it out alive, they get detained

and they've thrown in prison.

And right now, the Israeli government

is really pushing hard to pass a law

to legalize the death penalty in Israeli, for Palestinians.

But anyway, he gets thrown in prison.

His house, his family, his family's house gets demolished

and his family gets a security block

not to travel anywhere outside town.

Collectively punishing the parents

for the crime that their son or their daughter committed.

Now, this is what happens.

So when a Palestinian commits a crime, this happens.

But when a settler commits a crime,

there is an Israeli army that backs it up.

There is a system that gives it impunity.

And this is the grave injustice.

As a Christian minister, this is why I come to your show

and say, this should not be done.

Especially when Christians are supporting this

without knowing the facts and the reality on the ground.

This is what really brings you.

Some of them don't know the facts and reality on the ground.

Just, and I don't think that applies

to your average evangelical Christian Zionist

in the United States.

I don't think they have any idea.

But some of their leaders know perfectly well

what's happening.

And I, because I know them and I know that they know.

And they know the Christians by name

and they have their data and they know where they live.

So, and I wanna get, I've weighed too many questions for you,

but thankfully we have time.

But this seems like a good time to try to understand

what's going on there.

And I've already admitted that's where my anger lies

is toward the people like me.

Christians in America who are making excuses for this

or are abetting it, making it possible.

What is that?

Why is that happening?

October 7 was horrific.

Yes.

I agree.

It was horrible what Hamas has done,

killing innocent civilians, kidnapping babies.

I totally agree.

This is wrong.

This needs to be condemned.

And Palestinian Christians have been consistent

in condemning violence to achieve justice, as I said.

But the overwhelming suffering lies on Gaza right now.

The disproportionate response.

I was in South Africa on October 7.

I was getting ready to speak at a Christian conference

before 5,000 people in the room in Cape Town.

And before I got up there, my phone started

all kind of notifications going on.

And I've learned about October 7.

Immediately that night, I went on my hotel room

and I recorded a video.

I said, I condemn this horror.

This is not the way we need to,

we need to condom, we condemn this act of violence.

But in the meantime, I said, I leaned over to my friend,

my pastor friend and I said, I am shaking

because of the level of retaliation

that the Israeli military is going to respond.

We grew up with it, so you knew.

My wife grew up in Gaza Baptist Church.

Gaza Baptist, and not too many people

know that Baptists have made it all the way to Gaza.

And Gaza Baptist Church was burned, was bombed.

There was some family.

Gaza Baptist Church was bombed?

Yes. Now, imagine that first Baptist Church

of Dallas people were bombed.

We're of Little Rock.

I believe the whole United States Army and Marine

and military and Air Force will be going

after the perpetrator.

Well, maybe not.

But yeah, no, it would be obvious that that is a crime.

I just don't understand that I've raised this question

many, many times with Christian leaders in the United States.

Like, what did the Baptist and Gaza do wrong?

Why are we paying to bomb their church?

Do you know?

It's not just the Baptist.

It's all the Palestinian people

are being collectively punished in Gaza.

What happened in Gaza?

It's really horrific atrocity that no one should be,

you know, if it doesn't shake us at our core,

I don't think we have any humanity.

Well, we're Americans.

We have no idea what's happening.

Gaza. So why don't you tell us?

On in October, there was a bomb that killed 17 Christians.

Historic church was bombed.

Fifth century church was bombed in Gaza.

In Gaza and killed so many Christians.

There's a lady that played the piano at Gaza Baptist church.

Her name was Ilham Farah.

She was an icon, music icon in Gaza.

Everybody loved her.

She was 84.

She went to her house to check on the house.

If it's still standing or not, she gets sniped.

Shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier.

Left to bleed to death for three agonizing days.

She was in the phone until her phone was dead.

On one of my closest friends,

he was with her on the phone.

And a few weeks later when they went to bury her,

they found out that the Israeli tank rolled over her body.

Ilham Farah, she played the piano.

She was part of the worship team in Gaza Baptist church.

Nahidah and someone...

When did this happen?

That was in November, 2023.

So we know it was a vengeance campaign.

It was a retaliation.

But why vengeance against 84-year-old Christian piano players?

Like, what does she have to do with it?

Nahidah and Samar Antone, another two lady,

a lady in their 80s and her daughter.

They were gunned by an Israeli sniper

on church ground, holy family church.

That was also later on bombed and three people were killed.

Those are real stories.

Those are real people who have suffered

because of this military power

that is directed on them, day and day and night.

And the whole idea is really honestly,

is getting rid of Palestinians,

is pushing them out,

doesn't matter whether they're Christians or Muslims.

That has been the strategy.

And now it's, they're taken a different approach

in the West Bank by suffocating the communities,

by creating as many Israeli settlements as possible,

so they can squeeze the communities out.

They push them out of their land.

And when you were a child,

there was Israeli settlement near your home.

Yes.

Did you ever have positive interactions with the settlers?

Not to be honest with you,

some settlers have no idea.

They just moved in there.

And again, we can't really paint with white brush

and say, all of these people are evil.

But there is a system that is enabling this evil to take

some settlers.

It's just cheaper, right, to live out there.

They get subsidized and they get government subsidies

to move into the West Bank and they call it Judea and Samaria.

And unfortunately, going back to your questions,

there is an organization, not just one,

but there's one that I know of

and they boast about it on their website

that they have raised and spent $3.5 billion

to support these settlements

and to bring people from all over the world

to return to their ancestral homeland of Judea and Samaria.

And they raised those $3.5 billion

from evangelical Christians,

from Christians in the United States.

Now, if you're American here and you go to church,

you love Jesus, you love scriptures, just like we do,

worship every Sunday, you're involved in ministry,

you're volunteering at your local church.

And if you hear the vision from your pastors that,

hey, where the Jewish people,

they have gone under severe, horrific holocaust

during World War II and now we have the opportunity

to bring some of these survivors back to Israel to their homeland.

If you're an American watching this and hearing this,

wow, this sounds really great, this sounds very noble.

And I agree, I mean, as a Palestinian,

I want the Jewish people to live in safety and dignity,

of course, but it doesn't have to come at the expense

of the local Christian Palestinians

and the local Palestinian indigenous people

who have lived in that land for the past 2000 years.

You see, what they're telling you is that this is a great vision.

It's, you know, Christian, when they hear about Zionism,

it's a compelling vision.

It's bringing people who don't have any land and having,

and create a homeland.

A land without people for a people without land.

Yes, but the land had people.

I know.

So what do you do to create room is you keep pushing them out.

So can I ask what you referred to Judean Samaria?

I know that under Ron DeSantis in the state of Florida,

it's now like required by law to call it Judean Samaria.

What we call the West Bank, which is part of Jordan,

formally trans-Jordan, whatever, it's, but it's...

Yes.

Right outside Jerusalem, all the way to the Jordan River,

it's the West Bank Jordan River.

That area was taken from Jordan in the six-day war in 1967,

okay?

And so we've called it my whole life, the West Bank,

and now we're required to call it Judean Samaria.

I mean, I guess I don't really care.

I'm wondering why some American politicians telling me

what I have to call a place across the ocean,

but because he's taking a lot of money

from proponents of this, of course.

But like, why are they so intent

on forcing me to call it Judean Samaria?

I honestly don't understand.

It's not just Florida.

I mean, I love Florida.

That you too?

It's a great sunshine state, you know?

I moved here in 2020 because I heard

that Governor DeSantis banned COVID here.

Amen.

So I moved here because we love Florida,

and we still enjoy it, but they passed a lot to call Judean...

Why is some American politicians telling me that?

It's many different states who are seeking to change the name.

And for us, you know, I'm a Christian.

Yes, it's the biblical name.

That's what Judean Samaria was called when Jesus was there.

But instead of really worrying about calling a region,

a biblical name, why can't we apply biblical principles?

No, but I'm just saying like,

so if these railies are telling our lawmakers,

you must force your people to use these words.

And they're doing that across our society,

and they say they're doing it, so they're doing it.

But why?

Why does it matter to them?

They want to invoke divine rights.

They want to make the connection that this land

divinely and theologically belongs to one group of people.

Now, if you look at the West Bank, let's break it down.

There is a legal implication,

but there's also a moral and theological implication.

The legal implication, the US politicians hate it.

They don't like to get into the legal complexity of the West Bank

because it's a losing case.

The whole world agrees that the Israeli settlements

are illegally built by an occupying force

on Palestinian land.

The land is occupied according to United Nations

for Geneva Convention, United Nations Resolution,

Security Council, even.

This has been the long-standing US policy

for the past 50 years.

I don't know if you remember the Hansel memo,

which stipulates that this land is occupied

and the settlements are illegal.

Now, from different administrations,

the language is different.

The some administrations like Obama,

they call it obstacle to peace.

Some administrations call it illegitimate settlements

that are preventing and hindering the two-state solution.

But interestingly, in Trump's first administration,

when Mike Pompeo was the Secretary of State,

he rescinded the Hansel memo.

And he said, those Israeli settlements

are not per se inconsistent with international law.

Whatever that means, but basically, these are not illegal.

They have a legal right to Judea and Samaria.

For me, OK, I am not a politician.

I'm not a legal expert.

I'm a Christian minister.

I look at the issue from a biblical perspective,

from a moral perspective.

What are the biblical implications of this?

Does God really approve this placement of stealing,

of land theft?

And there's a biblical story actually about this Tucker.

You know, when the evil king of Israel, Ahab,

he had an evil woman, wife named Jezabel.

They looked over and they saw a vineyard owned by Nabeth.

And they loved that vineyard.

They said, man, we want to take it.

That's, and being the king of Israel,

they could have invoked divine rights.

It's the king appointed ordained by God.

But unfortunately, he was dishonorable king.

He did not obey the ways of the Lord.

So I don't know how much divine rights he can claim.

But let's say for the sake of argument, they claim divine rights.

They went and they tried to acquire the vineyard legally.

They offered Nabeth money.

Nabeth refused to sell.

So what do they do?

They conspire and they kill Nabeth

and they steal the land and they take it.

It's the state backed by divine rights

stealing innocent man's land.

Did I ask did God notice that they did this?

Of course he did.

Oh, he did.

He sent the prophet Elijah to stand before Ahab

and tell him what you did was wrong.

God is going to judge you for it.

Now, I wonder as a Palestinian Christian

and then what happened?

Where are the Elijah's of our world?

Where is the church standing up to this injustice?

So they're cowards and they're making the wrong choice.

They're making the wrong, they're gonna have to answer for this.

And let me be very honest with you, Tucker.

We can't paint with a wide brush.

There have been so many great American missionaries

who have come to the Middle East,

who have labored in the Middle East.

A lot of great churches have given

sweat and blood for the Middle East.

They built great schools.

We have one in Bezahor, Evangelical church in Bezahor.

And they have built hospital, they have built schools,

they have plenty churches.

But there is a stream of Christians

that has disproportionate power and influence on you as policy.

And it's that policy

that is inflicting pain and suffering

on a community like Bezahor.

This is the core issue.

I know.

And they're doing it in the name of the Bible

where the Bible is innocent.

I got a lecture this morning from an Israeli,

this morning, you know, I'm not an anti-Semite.

I have poor anti-Semitism against my religion.

I've said that a thousand times and I mean it for them.

If I was an anti-Semite, I'd just say I'm an anti-Semite.

I am not an anti-Semite and I'm never going to become one

no matter what they say.

So I'm talking, you know, like, what do you want me to do

to prove I'm not an anti-Semite?

100%.

Recan't your attacks on Christian Zionism.

It wasn't stop saying mean things about the Jews.

I've never said to mean things about the Jews.

I don't feel bad things, but I'm not mad at the Jews.

Period.

I'm mad as I've said a million times about my people,

Christians distorting the gospel in a way

that allows theft and murder and the degradation

of human beings.

I just, I'm never going to be okay with that.

And there, that's what they're mad at me about

is because I've called out Christian Zionism

because they see that.

I just had this conversation an hour ago.

So it's a fresh in mind.

They see that as critical.

You have to have American evangelical pastors

telling their congregations who are sweet people

who don't know any better, that God wants you

to support the state of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.

That's what they need that.

Yes.

Is that fair, do you think?

What Christian Zionists get wrong here

is that not because they want to create a safe place

for the Jewish people.

That's, that could be an honorable cause.

Yes, I agree.

But the process, the implication of what that means.

To them, Christian Zionism means creating a safe place

for the Jews where they can feel safe and secure

and which is honorable, great.

Got it.

But for Palestinians, Christian Zionism means

taking our land, taking our resources

while declaring that you have a divine right

and the descendants of the shepherds

in the little town of Bezahor

who have maintained their Christian presence

for the past 2,000 years do not somehow

have that same divine right.

Our ancestors were Jewish.

Palestinian Christians, they first accepted the message

of Christ and that church is still intact today.

As I said, some people even converted

when Islam came to Palestine.

Some people converted, but they did not convert

from atheism.

Muslims converted from Christianity

and probably some Jews even converted to Islam.

So you might have some Muslims

that can claim that they have a Jewish DNA.

But again, identity changes, it's dynamic.

Of course.

It languid changes, but the people are there.

So I think now is a good time to ask you

to explain what Christian Zionism is.

And I'm at a disadvantage because I'm so ignorant.

I just didn't grow up around this at all.

So as fairly as you can, can you explain

what Christian Zionism is?

And I should say, you came to the United States

and went to Liberty University.

Yes. Correct. Yes.

Lots of great people there.

Lots of Christian Zionists there.

Lots. So I think it's, I think you understand it, right?

What is it? And I love my time at Liberty University.

Yes. So thankful for the great education I got there.

I had to meet a lot of great friends, great professors.

My life was changed there.

I actually re-dedicated my life.

And I committed my life to service at Liberty University.

And I received a vision to start Levant Ministries at Liberty,

which is the organization I now lead.

And, but here is where, you know,

Christian Zionism have a different understanding.

It's a few political movement that says that God

has two distinct people with two distinct plans

and two distinct covenant.

When Mike Huckabee was asked on, he was an interview at TBM,

Trinity Broadcasting Network.

And he was asked, what is the verse that guides your day

to day job as a US ambassador in Israel?

You know what he said?

He's a Genesis 12, 3.

I want to be able to bless Israel so I can be blessed.

I want to secure all the blessings for Israel

so the United States can receive the blessings and return.

So for us, we have to look at this theology.

Do you know what that means?

To me, as someone who's interested in words

of former editor, book writer, I care about definitions

and so when Christian Zionists say Israel,

what are they talking about?

That's a great question, because as Christians,

we have to look at the scripture

through the lens of Christ.

Christ is the point.

Christ is the fulfillment.

And the way I look at scriptures,

I look at the Old Testament, the faithful

and the righteous people of the Old Testament

and the righteous and the faithful people

of the New Testament as one faith community.

They're beautifully connected through the cross.

The moment that you start separating this,

this is when you start getting into

different interpretation of what Israel means today,

is it the government of Israel,

our God's people or not?

But when we look at the gospel,

we see Jesus as the very center.

We look at the New Testament with the lens of the gospel.

We see Jesus in the Old Testament.

And what Jesus did is very critical

and it really is important for us to understand

what Jesus did and the new covenant he brought

and how it changed and it transformed the Old Covenant

that God had with Abraham.

It didn't abolish it.

It didn't replace it, which is, you know,

we're not replacement theology.

I do not agree with replacement theology.

God is not done with the Jews.

God is not done with anybody.

God wants everybody to come to their saving knowledge

and to enjoy his grace and to enjoy his blessings.

God desires this, for God's all of the world, right?

But what Jesus did, he did not replace the Jews.

But it was a journey that God started with Abraham.

And when they called Genesis 12, 3,

that was a private conversation between God and Abraham.

And God came to Abraham and told him,

you no longer are called Abrams,

but you're gonna be called Abraham,

the Father with all nations.

So God's original plan is to redeem all nations,

is to bless the whole world through the seed of Abraham.

And when you look at the New Testament,

you read a verse like Galatians 3, 16,

where it says, Abraham has one seed.

He didn't say seeds.

And through that seed, you get to enjoy

all the Abrahamic blessings.

So what Jesus came to do,

and that seed, of course, it's Christ.

And that journey that Abraham started with God,

it's still in motion today.

It didn't divert, it didn't get replaced,

it didn't get all, well, Jesus came

and his people didn't accept him.

So let's me go to plan P.

There was always one plan for God's redemption

and God's salvation.

It started in Abraham and it culminated in Jesus.

And we are the extension of that Abrahamic blessing.

So if I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ,

I get to claim the Abrahamic blessings in Genesis 12.3.

What seems that way?

But I guess I don't, I mean, I have so many questions,

but first of all, how could Christians ever support

any movement that reject Jesus?

I just don't understand that.

How could we, we could say we feel so sorry

for people who reject Jesus, we want to help them.

In simple terms, I think Christian Zionism

has replaced Jesus with the current state of Israel.

Obviously, that's why I think it's heresy.

And I don't mean that in a, I mean,

like I should be calling anyone also heretic.

I've lived such a bad life,

but and I'm not, I hope it sounds self-righteous.

I just don't understand.

It's like I thought Christianity was about following Jesus

and Jesus was the key.

Is it not? You're the minister.

What Jesus did, he did two important things

that we cannot overlook.

He expanded the scope of the promise, right?

Of Abraham, to everybody, right?

To everybody and he expanded the meaning of the promise.

Okay, and let me unpack this for a little bit.

For our, for the viewers to really understand

that the theological importance and significance of this.

So when he expanded the scope of the promise,

what is the promise?

He expanded it from a mere geographical location

alongside the Mediterranean coastline, right?

To include the whole earth.

Yes. The New Testament spells it out.

Oh, I know.

The apostle Paul, you know, and his letters to the Romans,

Romans 413, he said,

by faith, God made Abraham the heir of the whole world.

Exactly. I've read it.

So for God's all of the world that he gave his only son,

that who's so ever, right?

So not only expanded the geographical location of the land,

he also expanded the ethnic line of the people

to include every tribe, every nation, every town says that

again, and again, and again, and again.

And that's the whole, that's the story of Acts,

it's the story of Revelation,

it's the story of the whole New Testament.

And that's what Jesus instructed his disciples to do.

He said, hey, leave your nationalistic aspiration aside.

We have a kingdom to build.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

The kingdom of God is among you.

So they let go of their dreams to build the kingdom for Israel

and they went and they paid for their life

for the kingdom, the eternal kingdom of God.

So Jesus expanded the geography.

That's, he is the locust of the land.

He is the one that speaks in Hebrew that, you know,

if we enter in Jesus, we find rest.

The land does not give us rest anymore.

So he expanded the geography.

He expanded the ethnic line to include every nation

and every tribe.

And that always, by the way, Takar,

it's been always God's plan that way.

In Psalm, the Old Testament chapter two verse eight,

it says, ask me and I will give you the nations

as your inheritance.

So God's plan has been always the whole world,

redeeming the whole world, restoring the whole world.

And it's been always inclusive for all people,

it's so clear that it's clear in Jesus' ministry.

I'm, we're spending the, you're just reading the four gospels

again and again and that jumps out at me.

It, I mean, who does, who does Jesus praise most?

The Roman officer, I've not seen anyone with faith

like this in Israel, right?

Is this some pagan guy?

Yes.

Right, so, but, but the meaning of the promise

and this is important, what does it mean?

Do it inherit a holy land

between the river and the Mediterranean?

Or does it mean something else?

The meaning of that promise have also been transformed.

It's not just the scope of the promise,

it's the meaning of the promise, right?

From temporary to eternal, from physical to spiritual,

from conditional, because it was conditional, by the way.

You know, he didn't just give them the land

and say, this is your land.

It's God's lands, by the way.

He is the land, Lord.

And the people that were given the land, they were tenants

and they have to obey the commandments of the Lord.

They have to love their neighbors.

They have to take care of the foreigners among them.

And when they don't obey the covenant that was given to them,

God always kicked them out.

Oh, yeah, they can take in a Babylon, yeah.

Yes, twice.

And the Old Testament gives graphic language

when it describes the, you know,

not for Israel not obeying the laws of the Lord.

It says, the land will vomit you out, excuse my language.

So it was conditional when it was given to Abraham,

but in Jesus, it's secure, it's eternal, it's no longer.

And you know, what really makes me fall in love with Jesus

and the patriarchs and the fathers, the church fathers,

and the church throughout history.

And the Palestinian church really understands this

because they truly understand the meaning of the covenant.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it spells it out in Hebrews

that they were eagerly looking for the New Jerusalem

whose architect and builder is God.

They were not fixated on a mere strip of land.

That's temporary.

That's going to be gone.

We should be focused on what's eternal.

And obviously when Jesus came and he was in John 18,

when he was being tried before Pilate, the charge was,

are you a king?

Are you threatening me?

Am I, are you a threat to my kingdom and my kingdom?

Jesus said, yes, I am a king,

but my kingdom is not from this world.

My kingdom is not from here.

Why are we bringing back a pre-Christian territorial mindset

to the church today?

Well, exactly.

And it is pre-Christian that's not Western at all.

It's Eastern.

And collective punishment is the sign

that we're not dealing with a Western mindset at all

because we reject collective punishment.

I may be mad at you, I can't kill your kids, not allowed.

Yes.

And there are some sincere dispensationalists.

Let me say this.

I have some dispensation of friends.

And Christians should debate this vigorously,

but it should stay in the seminary.

It should be staying within the walls of the church.

Well, that's the problem.

I haven't even gotten involved in it

because I'm just too ignorant.

Okay.

When you said replacement, I don't know what that is

and I'm not going to learn.

All I know is that Christianity, my read of it,

is just focus on Jesus and you will be transformed.

And so I'm just kind of stick with that.

But it's a political matter

and that's what I do cover and have my whole life.

I don't understand what Ambassador Huckby, for example,

is saying when he says, bless Israel, okay.

What is Israel?

So my read of Genesis is it goes from like a tributary

of the Freides in Iraq, all the way to the Nile.

Like, so that's like six countries.

I mean, what is that?

What are the boundaries?

And that's still too small for God.

Of course, it's a theological matter,

but I think if we're speaking in political terms,

this is a government run by secular people, by and large.

And they're saying, God gave us this land.

Okay, what land?

What are the boundaries?

So we should at least define the terms.

Second, who's we?

What does it mean?

Who are the people who inherited this?

So the Prime Minister of Israel is not religious.

He doesn't keep the Sabbath or keep kosher.

I'm not attacking him.

I'm just saying like, then what are you talking about?

Are you saying you've a genetic inheritance?

Like what?

Okay, let's see.

Someone who converts to Judaism,

claims divine right from Brooklyn, New York.

I don't even want to have these conversations.

They're the ones pushing them.

I think people, I'm happy that people

practice their own religions.

I don't want to get involved.

I don't want to know everything about Mormonism

Islam or whatever.

It's fine.

But as long as you're saying,

you have a right to my money and your parents land

on the basis of this promise in Genesis,

I have a right to ask you what the heck you're talking about.

Did you know that Israel goes out of its way

to prevent messianic believers from making alia?

No.

Jewish believers in Jesus.

If they find out that you believed in Jesus,

they don't give you the right to immigrate to Israel.

What?

So who's land?

Is that true?

Who's promise?

Yeah, I have a lot of Jewish friends

who are believers in Jesus and they share with me.

And they can't move back to Israel

and get all the rights of not those.

So they're really, okay, so now that we're talking,

like present day, concrete political realities,

there are two claims that they could potentially be making.

One is faith-based.

So I believe in this religion called Judaism

and we could bait what that religion is.

Is it Talmudic or rabbinic, whatever?

That's all separate conversation that I don't want to have.

But they're pushing this.

But it's either faith-based, I believe in this,

or it's blood-based, it's genetic.

I think they have also historical claims.

Say, Jews been here.

We have a historical...

But who are the Jews then?

Like do you have more DNA,

I don't know if you even know the answer,

but do you, if we were to say, okay,

who lived in first century Palestine,

current day Israel, are you more closely related

to those people or is Benjamin Netanyahu

more closely related to those people?

They should do DNA test and see.

And I did my DNA test.

And I'll say, Christians are 11 of origin.

So it's likely that you have more Jewish ancestors

than Benjamin Netanyahu is family from Europe.

Probably.

Okay, so then it can't be genetic because, right?

Well, again, as Christians,

we have to put the gospel lens.

I agree.

We can't ignore what Jesus did.

And this is the significance, you know,

and when Jesus went into Nazareth, his hometown,

synagogue on a Saturday.

He was baptized, went into the wilderness,

got tried with devil,

overcame with scripture,

and then he went to his hometown.

The scroll from Isaiah was handed to them.

And he said, this is the Nazareth's manifesto.

This is the first sermon he's ever preached, Jesus, okay?

Started, launched this ministry in Nazareth.

And it's so beautiful.

He said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

He has sent me to set the captive free,

to bring sight to the blind,

is to bring, proclaim the good news to the poor.

Everybody in the synagogue was so happy.

And remember the context, it was very,

a lot of tension between the Jews and the Romans.

So the Jews were waiting for the Messiah,

but they were waiting for a military liberator.

They were waiting for a politician

to come and lead them against the Romans.

But then Jesus gave two sermon illustrations.

One about a widow from Sidon,

which is current modern day of Lebanon.

He said, not because there weren't so many widows in Israel,

that Elijah was sent to the Sidonian widow, okay?

A foreigner, keep in mind.

When there were lots of needy widows in Israel at the time.

But he went to a foreigner.

And not because there weren't so many people with leprosy,

which is a skin disease,

that God's grace through Elijah,

Elijah Servant, reached a Syrian army commander,

whose name is Nehman.

So Jesus is saying the foreigner

gets to enjoy God's blessings and God's favor.

And the enemy from Oram

gets to enjoy God's blessings and God's favor.

When they heard this, they were furious.

They took him to the edge of the town that was built on

and they wanted to throw him over there.

To murder him, yeah.

So Jesus' message, if we keep it central on focus,

it disrupts all this exclusive mindset.

Why can't we share the land?

Why can't we live in peace?

We are extending an olive branch and saying,

let's find, obviously, there is seven million Jews

and seven million Palestinians

living currently between the river and the sea.

Obviously, they're not gonna kick the Palestinians out

although they've been trying very, very hard to do that

and had Egypt open the borders and Gaza,

I think the whole population would have been pushed out.

And they are trying to do it very, very closely

to the Christians' embezzahal right now

by bringing many different settlements

and making life extremely miserable,

restricted movement on all of that.

So obviously, the people are still there.

They're not gonna kick us out.

The other option is that the Palestinians

are gonna kick the Israelis out

and for me as a Christian Palestinians,

I don't wanna see that happen.

I don't wanna see another tragedy inflicted upon the Jewish people.

So the bottom line, and this is the posture

and this is the attitude

and this is the position that every single follower of Jesus

must adopt and follow.

Let's find a way to share the land.

Let's find a way to make peace

instead of getting caught in end time scenarios,

something speculative sometime in the future.

What is that?

Or preferring another group of people over another.

It's superiority.

It's becoming an ethnostate.

Are we gonna keep it as an ethnostate

or can we find a diplomatic solution?

The danger is when Christian politicians

start to mix the politics with theology

and they come up with this formula

that is indigestible, hard to solve,

so's confusion and it keeps people on the sideline

instead of actively engaging and becoming peacemakers.

Well, boy, you like every,

you know, the 11 teen peoples are so diplomatic.

It's like unbelievable.

Yeah, it's way worse than that.

I mean, you wind up, I mean, as I know you know,

you wind up with Christian politicians

who are constantly invoking the name of Jesus

supporting the murder of their fellow Christians

in the Levant.

So like, that is, I think that's very serious.

I don't think you should do that.

I think you're gonna suffer for that.

Like, don't do that.

How can you excuse or aid in the murder of innocence

in the name of Jesus?

And I've said this directly to a bunch of these politicians

because I get very upset about it

and they're like under a spell,

like they don't even in private,

they're like what we have to.

What is that?

Last December, the state of Israel,

the foreign ministry of the state of Israel

sponsored a summit in Jerusalem.

They brought 1000 U.S. pastors to Israel

to attend military briefings.

To military briefings?

Yes.

The head of the state was there.

The prime minister was there.

They were commissioning them as ambassadors,

not for Jesus, but for the state of Israel.

They were talking about this unholy alliance being formed.

But they attacked me by name, I know.

Right, and they attacked you and all of that.

But what really caught my attention, Tucker,

when I was reading over the website of that summit,

I was reading some notes and some guidelines,

do's and don'ts.

One of the guidelines, the Christian ministry also

who's organizing this with the foreign ministry affairs.

One of the guidelines stated that

do not speak of the name of Jesus.

Preaching is not allowed in Jerusalem.

Express your faith through acts of kindness and all that,

but do not mention Jesus.

Why?

When I read that, my mind went back all the way

to the Book of Acts, chapter five.

When the spiritual elites in Jerusalem,

they summoned Peter and the disciples,