Unraveling the Israel-Palestine Conflict with Dr. Michael Brown

♪ Gannon Zone, Auto Zone ♪ Welcome to Auto Zone. What are you working on today? I gotta change the oil in my car.

Right now, get five quarts of Pennzoil Platinum Full Synthetic with an STP Extended Life Oil Filter for only $36 .99.

♪ Gannon Zone ♪ What do I do with my old oil? We can recycle your used oil for free. ♪

Gannon Zone ♪ And do you have oil for my old work truck? You can find the right high mileage oil to help it go farther right here at Auto Zone.

♪ Gannon Zone, Auto Zone ♪ Restrictions apply. All this lays at the feet of Hamas, and they're the ones responsible for the death of their own civilians.

I believe if God is looking down and judging, he would hold them primarily responsible for the suffering of their people right now.

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the Christian podcast community. For more content, or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian podcast community, of which this podcast is a proud member. With over 50 podcasts, we produce about 40 plus hours of content.

So I guarantee if you go there, you will find something you will enjoy and probably more than you'll have time to listen to in a week.

But hey, you could try, I do it. But I am joined this week with a brother in Christ who

I would like us to hear from because we're both gonna talk about something, a topic we are moved by, we have a lot of love for, and that is the situation currently in the state of Israel.

Now, I'm gonna say upfront, my brother, Dr. Michael Brown and I have differences.

I'm gonna let him introduce himself and let him share how he came to Christ. Both of us are from a Jewish background.

Though we came about it differently, our understandings of Judaism, we had a little bit of a different upbringing there, came to Christ obviously the same way and have moved on in different paths within Christianity.

Our differences, we will actually be debating them sometime soon. I'll let him explain that since he's the one that requested it.

But Dr. Brown, welcome to The Wrap Report. And like I said, start by introducing yourself quickly, how you got saved, and then how you and I got to talk to one another.

Yeah, and it's actually warmed my heart in recent weeks to speak with you on the phone, to pray with you on the phone, to exchange emails, to hear your graciousness and the camaraderie we have as Jewish believers in Jesus.

I'm 68 years old. God saved me in 1971. I was a heroin shooting LSD using, 16 year old, long hair, hippie rock drummer and met

God's mercy then. I was raised in a conservative Jewish home. Those listeners that don't know what conservative means, it doesn't mean conservative, like conservative morally or politically, it's just a branch of Judaism, but it tends to be very liberal.

And I was actually raised in, it's a very wishy -washy form of Judaism. And we didn't observe the

Sabbath, go to synagogue regularly or anything like that. But I was born in Mitzvah 13. That was more of a social event than a spiritual event.

To give you an idea, I had to learn to chant a portion of the Hebrew Bible and I did that well, but I never knew what it was.

No one ever said to me, Michael, you should read this in English now and meditate on this. I was just saying words.

I didn't even know the meaning of. The big thing that impacted me at the age of 13 was seeing Jimi Hendrix in concert.

And I said, the counterculture revolution, I wanted to be like the rock stars. So that's opened the door and getting high and all this.

And then my two best friends, they were Gentiles, but nominal Christians. They liked these two girls who were going to a little

Italian Pentecostal church. So that's what we get to debate later. God willing, Pentecostal charismatic beliefs versus scripture, et cetera, compared to scripture.

Anyway, God starts to work in their lives, starts to change them. I go to pull them out. The people in the church begin praying for me.

I don't know they're praying for me, but the Holy Spirit begins to bring me under deep conviction. Because I was not just a sinner,

I was a proud sinner. I boasted in the evil that I did. And God begins to convict me.

I come under deep dramatic conviction. God's love is revealed to me. And December 17th of 1971,

I said, Lord, I'll never put a needle in my arm again. He'd been dealing with me. I had started to believe that Jesus was real, but I wasn't willing to give my life to the

Lord. And that night I was instantly set free. And when I went home, told my dad, he didn't know what to make of it.

But as the days went on, he saw his change. And he said, Michael, I'm glad you're off drugs, but we're Jews.

We don't believe this. And he brought me to meet the local rabbi. And the local rabbi and I became friends.

He gave me a book on antisemitism in church history and then challenged me that I didn't know Hebrew. So once I started college,

I thought, well, I should take some Hebrew classes. They only had modern Hebrew. So I took that, but I taught myself biblical

Hebrew, then started to add other languages. Then thought, you know, I've got to be able to study this myself and not rely on commentaries and dictionaries and ended up getting a

PhD in Near Eastern languages and literatures from New York University. And that's been a major part of my life.

You know, the academic scholarship, Old Testament scholarship, debating rabbis. And I've written five volumes on answering

Jewish objections to Jesus. But my heart's always burned to see the church come alive and be fervently devoted to the

Lord, living passionately for him. So true revival renewal in the church is a great burden of mine.

And then out of that, out of the church being revived, let the society be awakened.

So we've really been on the front lines of standing for a gospel -based moral and cultural revolution, being the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

And then of course, the great burden for the redemption of Israel. So I've got a daily live radio broadcast,

The Line of Fire. I normally write about four or five op -eds a week on what's happening in the world around us, and then just keep active in these other areas of ministry.

And when the cessationist movie recently came out, and then there was a cessationist conference, and then the

G3 conference, teaching on cessationism, an announcement of a big conference next year, Christianity Today reached out to me to do an op -ed explaining why

I was not a cessationist. And in it, I said, hey, listen, let's, and I did this on the air as well, to anyone involved with the movie or anyone speaking at the conference or involved with Strange Fire previously, let's have an open, moderated, full -length debate.

One reason being to model, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, how we can respect one another and have differences, and then hopefully present things in an educational, edifying way so people can sort the issues out better for themselves.

And you were the one that responded. And it's been a delight to get to interact since, and especially to emphasize, before we ever do that, the common ground that we have and the deep, deep concerns that we have about what's happening with our people these days.

Yeah, which brings us to today's topic, because as I have been on many different podcasts talking about the state of Israel, I have been amazed at,

I guess, the ignorance that even professing believers have on Israel, the state, how it became a state, its history.

I've been amazed at how much the Palestinian myths have been understood to be fact, even amongst those who

I would think would have more of a heart for Israel. And I'm saying this, I know that a lot of people think that, oh,

I'm just for Israel because I'm a dispensationalist. No. As I said to one person, it probably has more to do with the fact that I'm Jewish.

You know, that I have a love for Israel. Somewhere in Israel, there's a tree planted for my bar mitzvah. But I'm glad that I was able to get to Israel last year.

We were planning on returning in 2025. I don't think that's gonna happen, but I heard you on a podcast talk about Israel.

There was a lot that you brought out that I hadn't, and I wanted to have you on to discuss this because I find that there's a lot of things people don't understand about the nation of Israel today and how it came about and things like this.

So would you be able to give us just a thumbnail history of the state of Israel that we know of now, which people think really 1948, that's when it was official, but even 1914, the discussions had started, but last 100 plus years.

Sure. So we know with the scatterings of the Jewish people in 70 AD and 135

AD, after the first and second Jewish revolts, that continued with our exile and dispersion around the world had begun by the

Assyrians in 722 BC and then the Babylonians in 586 BC, now 70

AD, 135 AD, further scatterings, further dispersions. But over the centuries, there remained a

Jewish presence in the land. There was an Arab presence and the land was led and conquered by different groups.

It was under Christian control. Then with the rise of Islam, it was under Muslim control. Then after Crusades for time again,

Christian control and Muslim control under the Ottoman Empire. And that continued into the early 20th century.

But we have to remember that in the Jewish consciousness, this was always the homeland. There was no such thing as a

Palestinian people or a Palestinian homeland. Various peoples lived there. Arabs, people from the surrounding

Muslim nations, Christians, Jews, but there was no Palestinian state. It was part of greater

Syria. It was just part of the Ottoman Empire, et cetera. Even the modern divisions we have, states like Jordan, states like Iraq, these are more modern innovations in terms of drawing these borders and boundaries.

A lot of this was tribal, just tribal affiliations and things like that. So what happens though, is there's always been a

Jewish presence there. Jews around the world over the centuries have prayed facing Jerusalem.

And we know it goes back to Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 8. We know that goes back to Daniel praying in the same way in Daniel 6.

So this is an ancient tradition. The Passover tradition develops in next year in Jerusalem.

If in contrast, you're a Muslim living in Jerusalem, even though Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam, you would pray with your back to Jerusalem and your face facing

Mecca. So towards the late 1800s, there begins to be an increase in Aliyah and Jews returning to the way, mainly secular.

It was not a religious based thing. There had been Jews that lived there. There was a command if you could live in Israel to live in Israel, so people would do that.

But there was the prayer for the Messiah to regather the Jewish people and the Messiah to rebuild the temple, et cetera.

But it begins to increase as antisemitism worldwide begins to increase more and more Jews start coming in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

Now at this point, there are far more Arabs in the land than Jews, but it's a fraction. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of totals.

It's a fraction of the current population, plenty of room for everybody. As more Jews are coming in, they're now buying the land from local

Arabs. More Arabs are coming in to work the land. So they're coming in from surrounding areas. So yes, there are

Arabs slash Muslims who lived there for many centuries, but that's the very, very small minority.

The great majority also came in more recently. So basically now after World War II, this comes under the control of the

British mandate, the Balfour Declaration says that there will be a home for the

Jewish people. And what happens in the late 1920s under the influence of the

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al -Husseini, is you have what would be really called the first intifada of the slaughter of scores of Jews in Hebron by Muslim militants.

And now the situation, this is the late 1920s, begins to get very testy, ugly, difficult.

And the whole mandate for a Jewish state is a little withdrawal under Arab pressure.

So the Peel Commission looks into this, and in 1937, it's a multi -hundred page document.

They come up with a plan for there to be a Jewish state. I mean, it's very little portion of the land.

At one point, it's almost not even connected. Jerusalem under international control, the great majority of the land for the

Arab population. This was debated among the Jewish leaders, hotly debated. Ultimately, it was going to be accepted, but the

Arab leadership said no. And now the tensions are increasing. Now you've got violence now back and forth starting to increase more and more hostilities rising.

And you have a long history of Islamic anti -Semitism as well, because remember the Jewish population that Muhammad preached to rejected him as a prophet.

And then Jerusalem was ultimately conquered and mosques that are built there to say Islam rules. So any place that Islam has taken, in Islam you have

Dar al -Harab and Dar al -Islam, the world of the sword or war in the world of Islam. So everything that is under Islamic control, that's now like part of the family.

And if someone takes that back, that's a grave insult. And the rest of the world is at war with Islam.

So finally, during the Holocaust, very few Jews are allowed to enter the land.

This could have saved so many lives. Again, violence out both ways, Jews fighting against the

British rule, just like we did many centuries, a couple of centuries earlier here. So ultimately out of the ashes of the

Holocaust, probably the only way there would be world Jewish sympathy, the UN 1947 votes for the partition plan,

Golda Meir, David Ben -Gurion, all the Jewish leadership, they accept it. They say to the Arabs living there, let's live in peace together.

There's room for both of us. The Muslim leadership says, no, we will destroy you. We will drive you into the sea.

So there could have been a two state solution, massively unfavorable to the Jews. That could have happened in 1937.

That was rejected by the Muslim leadership, Arab leadership. Same thing in 1947. Israel is now attacked leading to full blown war when

Israel declares its independence in 1948. And now as a result of that, you've got 800 ,000

Jews who live in the surrounding Muslim countries. They are kicked out. They are expelled because of the war.

So they now, most of them moved back to Israel. Others go to other parts of the world, US, Canada, et cetera.

You've got six or 700 ,000 Arabs who are now living within what becomes

Israel. And some flee on their own accord because the leadership said,

Canada can't distinguish between a Jew and a Muslim. Get out when we drive the Jews in the sea, you come back, right?

Others left just because it's a war and they fled and others were expelled by Israel.

And when you read about war atrocities, yes, they happen, but in the history of war, when you analyze them, they're actually minimal in comparison to other wars in terms of Israel.

When you hear genocide and cleansing of all ethnic cleansing, these are these horrifically exaggerated terms.

So since then, Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbors. That has been the situation.

1967, as the surrounding nations are about to launch another war, Israel hits the first preemptive strike and is able in the six day war to now capture further territory.

And this happens, boundaries of nations around the world are written out by wars and conflicts.

And that's, you have this, you didn't have it before. So Israel occupies, and I'll sum this up quickly.

Israel occupies all the way down to the Sinai, right on the border of Egypt, Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian control.

It occupies now the so -called West Bank, Judea, Samaria, which had been under Jordanian control.

And now they take this back and now Jerusalem is reunited, which is such an incredibly emotional thing.

As part of the peace treaty with Egypt, early seventies, they give back the Sinai Peninsula. So this large portion of land.

They maintain control of Gaza Strip. They maintain control of West Bank to this day.

2005, under pressure from the Bush administration, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon turns

Gaza completely back over to the Palestinians. There are about eight or 10 ,000 Israelis living there.

They lived there for many, many years. They had vineyards, businesses, synagogues. They were physically uprooted. The Israeli army has to physically uproot them because they don't want to leave.

Pulls them out. It is now completely under Palestinian control. What will you do? They elect

Hamas. Hamas came into existence in 1987. Its specific goal, the eradication of the

Jewish people from the land, the eradication of Israel. When you hear people chant from the river to the sea,

Palestine must be free. That does not mean a two -state solution. That does not mean let us live in peace side by side.

That means make this land, Yudanine, cleansed of Jews. No more Jews living here.

No more Israel. It calls for the annihilation and extermination of Israel. That is the Hamas charter and viewpoint and belief system to this moment.

Remember, this is radical Islam like ISIS, like Al -Qaeda. Israel has no right to be there.

The Jews who are the despised descendants of apes and pigs have no business being in what is

Islamic territory. So once Hamas was elected, that is why there's been a blockade.

That is why hundreds of millions of dollars that have come in that should have been for the development of the people of Gaza, for jobs, for infrastructure, for hospitals, for humanitarian work, instead has gone for terror tunnels, for missiles, weapons, and to enrich the coffers of some of the

Hamas leadership. That's what Israel has been faced with ever since, having terrorists living next door to you, ruling the government, raiding rockets down on you, digging tunnels under your land to come into us, kindergarten and kidnap children.

I mean, this is who they're dealing with. And they've still been providing electricity and water, gas, and things like that, just in the humanitarian level.

That is the current reality. Israel got, there is no occupation of Gaza.

And the only reason it's called an open -air prison is simply because you have terrorists there trying to kill you.

Yeah, and I want to spend time, because that's the biggest thing that people don't understand is who really is the oppressors when it comes to Gaza.

A couple of things you said that people may not realize. You know, it's kind of interesting, you mentioned about the Muslims facing with their back to Jerusalem toward Mecca.

That actually wasn't how Muhammad started. He started by looking at, you know, having everyone face Jerusalem until the

Jewish people rejected him as a prophet. And then that changed. So even within early

Islam, they had done the same thing as Jewish people do with looking to Israel.

You know, another myth that people, I want people to pick up as you gave that history, prior to 1948, the

Jewish people that lived in this land were called Palestinians. So the

Palestinians were not a Muslim, and that's the view it is today, that these are these

Muslim people that were, there were a lot of people that lived in that land that got moved around. People don't realize that when it was under Muslim control, the

Jewish people did live there. We know that because they paid an extra tax for living there. They had to pay a very heavy tax that Muslims didn't have to pay.

So there were many people, both Arab and Jewish people that lived there for a long time.

I'm glad you pointed out the fact that during war things do change. I mean, no, I don't hear anybody complaining about Russia coming in to take over land,

Ukraine fighting back to say, no, we're gonna push back. I mean, when that is all done, do we expect that Ukraine, if Ukraine was to win to say, you know what,

Russia? Okay, we're done. How about we give you back the land that you just fought, you know, you fought and lost over?

Like no one would expect that. On some of the borders of the United States, things that were attained in war.

I mean, it's the way things happen around the world. What's different here is that this refugee situation is different than any.

When the 800 ,000 Jews were expelled from countries around the world, well, Israel would have taken them all.

And if they came, whoever came, Israel took in. And you have refugee situations in the late 70s, early 80s.

My family took in, in our church, almost everyone did. We took in families from Vietnam and Cambodia.

They had fled boat people crisis. We heard there's an urgency with refugees. They became part of our families for years and lived with us until they were able to get settled on their own.

But not this refugee crisis. Oh no, you have now several generations later, this is the one that is a multi -generational crisis.

It was an edict of the Arab League in the 1950s, not to give citizenship to the

Palestinians. So, and you just think right now, okay, the war in Syria, I believe there are about a million and a half

Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in Iraq, and they've gone to other places as well as the result of the war in Syria.

Well, why is it right now with Egypt on the border that the people of Gaza are not just given refuge?

Hey, just come and be part of our country, even temporarily, let's set up camps for you, et cetera. Let's get everybody out, and let's

Hamas and Israel fight it out. No, no, you can't give home to the refugees. Why is it,

Andrew, that in Judea, Samaria and the West Bank, in Gaza, there are still

Palestinian refugee camps within these very places? Why is it in countries like Syria and Lebanon, you still have

Palestinian refugee camps? Why don't they have full status in the society? Because this is the one thing to make

Israel look bad, and now, because of high birth rates, this is very common in religious Muslim families, their numbers have grown to millions and millions, and they say, well, we want the right to return back to our land, and this is what people are advocating for.

It's absolute madness. And yet, I don't hear Gaza giving the right of the

Israelis to come back to Gaza. If the Palestinian Authority had its own state, so right now, the controversy about Jewish settlements there, et cetera, the bottom line is, if there was a two -state solution, they'd be clear, no

Jews will live here. So you say, hang on, hang on. What happened to the Arabs that stayed?

And you did mention the identity. The Palestinian Orchestra was Jewish. The Jerusalem Post used to be called the

Palestine Post. So if there was a Palestinian people, it was the Jews living there. Let's think of this for a moment.

You have this whole history now with people coming back, being accepted, being part of the land.

So if you have a two -state solution, no Jews living there. What happened to the 200 ,000 that remained within Israel, the

Arabs that remained, so the Palestinians that remained within, and they weren't called Palestinians then. They were just the local

Arab population. Well, there are about 2 million now. They have seats in the Knesset.

They've had Supreme Court justices. They are professors and doctors and lawyers and everything else.

And they can freely protest. They can burn an Israeli flag. They can do what they want. They can convert to whatever religion they want.

They have more liberty than any Arabs living in any of the surrounding nations. So this whole idea of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, those that stayed are full citizens.

That's what happened. If it was ethnic cleansing and genocide, they all would have been wiped out. Instead, they've gone from 200 ,000 to 2 million.

And that's a very key point because that undermines so much of the rhetoric we hear today, right?

Is the fact that the ethnic cleansing is not on the side of the Jewish people. I think what bothered a lot of the

Arabs, I mean, you look at Israel, size of New Jersey, not very big, you go look at a map and look at the rest of the

Arab world. I think what upset them is one of the policies that Israel had in 1948 was that anyone from a

Jewish descent could get citizenship there, except of course, you and I, we would not be able to. Once you convert to Christianity, you are not allowed.

So I tried, I actually had tried to get citizenship. My daughter even had tried and they actually have it in there that if you convert to Christianity, you cannot get citizenship, but she tried being a second generation, but still rejected.

But a big thing of it is the fact that as we look at this, the narrative that they say is somehow,

Israel wants to be the ones to, they're oppressing the Palestinians, they're trying to wipe them out.

You pointed out the fact that in the charter of Hamas, it is to wipe Israel out. This is a major point of understanding.

I know Christians who, I know professing Christians that have claimed

I'm not saved because of my support of Israel, have told me I'm a heretic, that I believe in a cult of Israel, and will not listen to discussion on the facts that you're bringing out.

And yet these facts directly undermine the narrative that we are hearing, that Israel is the oppressor.

You mentioned 2005, that becomes essential. So who is the oppressor?

If there are people, if there's someone oppressing the Palestinian people in Gaza, can a case be made that it is

Israel or is it, can we look to someone else factually to see where the oppression is?

Yeah, of course it's Hamas, and all this lays at the feet of Hamas, and they're the ones responsible for the death of their own civilians.

I believe if God is looking down and judging, he would hold them primarily responsible for the suffering of their people.

Right now, Ephraim Karsh, a great Middle Eastern scholar, wrote a book a few years back called Palestine Betrayed.

And he basically said it's been the leadership that has hurt the people, the leadership that has betrayed the people.

But let's just think for a moment, just go down through some facts. Okay, what would have happened if after the end of any

Israeli control of Gaza and even any Jewish presence in Gaza, no Jews there, no

Jews, no Jews living there. Okay, so it is now given over to people of Gaza.

Let's just say that they have the option of a peace -loving government that said, we fully recognize

Israel's right to exist, and let's work together cooperatively. They'd be prospering today. There'd be beautiful buildings instead of rubble.

There'd be a better educational system. There'd be a better hospital system. There'd be better job opportunities.

The border would be open for Gazans to be coming in and working in Israel back and forth, et cetera.

It'd be beautiful, it'd be wonderful. You say, well, that hasn't happened in the West Bank. Well, when you're still having kids in Judea and Samaria, Palestinian kids who are growing up and watching

TV shows where martyrdom is glorified, where their elementary schools are named after, or jihadists who blew themselves up killing

Israeli children, and this is something heroic, when you have constant propaganda being put forth, when you have, not that many years ago, the

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem citing the famous Hadith that the end will not come until Muslims fight against and kill the

Jews, which is also in the Hamas charter. Well, you don't exactly have a complete well -meaning peace partner.

But let's go back over to Gaza. What would happen again if the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on endless tunnels and missiles and weapons, where are they getting all the money from for the weapons?

This is a lot of bombing and technology and everything. If that had been poured into the people, what would be happening?

If Hamas did not set up headquarters under a hospital and put rocket launchers next to children's schools and stop people from fleeing, what would this look like?

When Israel drops leaflets over areas saying, we are going to bomb, leave here.

When Israel says, everyone evacuate, and we are giving you time to evacuate, and we'll send humanitarian aid down to where you evacuate.

And from what we understand, Hamas has blocked people evacuating. Hamas snipers have killed them on the streets as they're trying to evacuate.

And then there's other evidence that's been published now of Hamas going to hospitals and other places to take fuel so they can continue to support their war efforts.

Who are the oppressors there? Who are the ones causing the bloodshed?

And then let's just remember, Hamas has confessed to this with their own words. They say, what do

I mean? They gave an ultimatum to Israel. If you bomb us without notification, we will kill one of your hostages each time and make it public.

So Hamas is saying that the Israeli policy is to notify before they bomb you.

Picture we're in a boxing match. Okay, Andrew, I'm about to hit you with a left jab on the right eye.

I mean, this is what Israel is doing to preserve civilian life. The loss of life is on Hamas and there are

Hamas leaders saying, we need this bloodshed for our cause. And it is a strategy to make

Israel look bad. And then one last thing, let's remember who Hamas is.

We can never take our eyes off this. Journalists, I read a report that some of the journalists who saw the 43 minutes that the

IDF put together from body cams of Hamas terrorists, from other footage they had from cell phones that were used by Hamas to pick what was happening, to capture what was happening.

Some of those who watched this recently went into shock and had to be hospitalized.

Just watching Knesset members who were shown and had to leave weeping, they couldn't watch anymore.

When you are talking about putting babies in ovens and burning them alive, decapitating babies, cutting open pregnant women before killing them, raping elderly women until their pelvises are broken before shooting them in the head, burning whole families alive, that is who

Hamas is and shouting allahu akbar as they do it. That's what we're dealing with.

By, and then to add insult to injury, but to further expose the spiritual madness here, you have, and this has been for many years now, pro -Hamas demonstrations, queers for Palestine, radical feminists for Palestine.

Go ahead, do your march, queers for Palestine, that's the last thing you will ever do out of a prison cell or alive there.

Go ahead, hey, you ladies who really are pro -Hamas and evil Israel, just go in your typical daily outfit, your summer outfit, walk down the streets and see if you ever do anything again publicly or if you're even alive.

I'm sad to say you could have a gay pride march in Israel and be celebrated for it. You could be a radical feminist, you could walk around in a skimpy bikini and that'd be just fine.

I don't celebrate that in Israel, but that's the reality. You do that in Gaza, you're dead. And yet all of these stand together for Hamas.

It is the irrational, demonic spirit of Jew hatred that is behind it, the demonizing of Israel and the

Jewish people. And any Christian that has a heart for justice first and foremost says, I categorically, without equivocation, denounce

Hamas. They have no justification for what they did. And I stand with Israel's desire to eradicate terror.

Now you can say, I want Israel to use more restraint or I think there should be a ceasefire or let's look for a two -state solution.

You can have all those other positions, but unless you make those other things morally clear, I say you are not morally right.

You hit something that always amazes me because Christians get attacked from the transgenders, homosexuals.

Let's look at that message. You put me in a room with someone that's practicing homosexuality.

I am going to share the gospel with them. You put that same person in Gaza and they're dead.

They're gonna be thrown off a building. I just am amazed, but I shouldn't be because we know the source of that.

The source behind this is the enemy of God. You know, the demons and the world system that hates

God that will agree. I mean, here you got, you know, transgenders for Palestine and yet the

Palestinian, you know, if they were left in Hamas, Hamas would kill them and yet they're gonna support that.

It's crazy to think about, but you know, they're on the same side spiritually than we are.

So you mentioned something, I think a lot of, there's been talk, but I don't think a lot of people understand fully who are not following Israel.

You mentioned that they dropped these leaflets. Why would Israel feel the need to warn?

I mean, tactically, that doesn't seem to make sense in war. Okay, I'm gonna bomb here. I'm gonna let everyone know, we're gonna bomb this location right here.

It doesn't make sense. So why would Israel feel the need to do things like that? Because I think the underlying thing here helps us to realize some of what we're hearing with the rhetoric from Hamas.

And by the way, Israel in recent days has placed more than 20 ,000 phone calls to families saying we're bombing this area, we're bombing this building, get out.

Who else does that? And when Israeli soldier starts in service, the first thing they do is they learn ethics and they even have a card that lays out their ethics.

They're not allowed to leave base without their identification and that ethics card in their possession.

And when they'll be going in on the ground, we'll get calls and emails from friends of ours saying, hey, my son's about to go into battle, please pray because they have to go through so many precautions before they do certain things that they put their own lives at risk.

So here's the unique thing about Israel. Even though it's obviously a far from perfect country,

I always say Jews are like everybody else, except more so. There are good qualities that are exaggerated or bad qualities are exaggerated.

And I think it's partly the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. In Romans 11, 29, there is something on the

Jewish people for good or for bad. And we've been called to be priests to the world and represent

God. If we get things wrong, it's really wrong. If we get things right, it's really right. But even in the midst of the sexual immorality like in Israel and other parts of the world, and then the ultra religious

Jews that so strongly reject the gospel, there is a recognition that Israel is supposed to be moral, that there is a history of being a chosen people, that there are ethical commands from God.

That's why within Israel, you have left -leaning organizations that are very strong critics of Israel, that are critics of the war, that are critics of the settlements.

This is right within Israel. And they're in political parties because you have this liberty to do this. And Israel is the most self -critical planet on the earth.

You think our political fights get intense. Just watch in Israel. They savage each other, but you can do that.

But the point behind all of it is that there is a belief that there should be a certain ethic and that there is a morality on which

Israel must operate. Let's say Israel has the opportunity to assassinate a terrorist.

It goes through a whole series of ethical evaluations. And Israel's not the only country that does it, but they do it on a high level.

Legal scholars evaluate it, and then it has to get ultimate approval. It could be from the prime minister himself because they're gonna dot their

Is and cross their Ts before they do this. So Israel has an ethical goal of preventing civilian casualties.

Hamas, PLO have the history of using civilians as human shields.

So number one, you make it difficult for Israel to fight back. Number two, you make

Israel look bad when it fights back. Number three, you get even more sympathies from your own people who are now, you know,

Israel's killing us, Israel's slaughtering us. And then the media is there to take the picture, evil Israel, ethnic cleansing, genocide, et cetera.

And by the way, it's so widespread. Right before I came on the air with you, Andrew, I got a note from a grad from our ministry school and her daughter, she and her daughter, so a teenager, they're going to McDonald's and the daughter says, oh, no, no,

I don't wanna go. Do they support Israel? What? Yeah, genocide. This is growing up in a

Christian home and a good family. They were shocked with what she was involved with both in public school and social media.

So it's good PR, more dead civilians is good PR for the cause of Hamas and for the anti -Israel cause.

It's that tragic. Israel on a very, very high level does its best to minimize civilian casualties as an ethic and they will call a house.

Okay, there's a terrorist cell there but there are other families. They will call and say, leave, we're going to bomb.

And again, this is all documented, actually released recordings of these things, drop the leaflets because their goal is to deal with the terrorists.

And last point, everyone agrees that it was right to take out the Nazis. I mean, unless you're a neo -Nazi yourself and that meant bombing

German cities and things like that, lots of civilians die. It's tragic, but it happened.

When we went into Iraq, maybe with misguided intentions but thinking they had weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of 9 -11, a lot of civilian casualties.

It's a shame you try to minimize it, but it happens and more. It's the cost of the government making terrible decisions and the people supporting those decisions.

Same with this war. The difference is Hamas intentionally, joyfully targets civilians.

Israel does its best to avoid civilian casualties. Yeah, and I'll just correct one thing. Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction.

They were moved to Syria. So the fact - Yeah, that's the narrative I think should be true. That's why I said perhaps.

Yeah. But I haven't studied it sufficiently, so thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I unfortunately have.

But you know, this is the point. The fact that they put their military bases in hospitals and then there's a bombing of a hospital and it's like, oh, look at the casualties.

But in this case, it wasn't even a bombing of a hospital. Yeah, well that - It was a Jihad missile that fell in the parking lot next to it, but today it's the myth.

Once it happened, it's the myth. It's never coming back. Just like hands up, don't shoot myth. It's never coming back. Yeah, and I mean,

I wasn't even thinking of that specific hospital, but you're right there. But they put their military weapons in places like hospitals, in mosques, in children's schools, in apartment buildings so that when they're bombed, they bring, oh, look, here's all the people that aren't, there were civilians that were killed as if civilians aren't always killed.

As you brought out, they are. And so the thing is, is that people were being warned to leave for the very simple fact that Israel knows

Hamas won't let them leave. Hamas is telling you it's your duty to stay in these buildings when warned.

By the way, folks, if you don't know, the Hamas leadership doesn't live in Gaza. They're in Qatar. So when they're telling people, you have to stay in this apartment building that's being gonna be bombed and you've been warned it's gonna be bombed, you have to do this for the cause, just remember they're in a different area completely.

They're in Qatar living comfortably and not having to deal with the ramifications of what they're making everyone else do for their political agenda.

So that's the thing we have to recognize. And with that, not only is Hamas not letting them leave, but I wanna ask you this question,

Dr. Brown, after this break, is the fact of why are none of the Arab countries taking them in?

Gaza is on the border not just of Israel, but also of Egypt. This becomes an interesting thing that everyone's saying that Israel alone has to let them in.

Why are none others? And so after this, I wanna have you address that topic.

But maybe all this talk of the war in Israel, the war in Iraq, you're thinking, the world is coming to an end.

This is gonna be World War III. Those who believe in the rapture, they're thinking it's coming. I know,

I talked to them. Everyone is thinking this is the end. Well, is it? Well, I don't know.

Paul thought this was the end during his days. But if you wanna help yourself to get a good night of sleep, let me recommend our sponsors at MyPillow.

At least you could get yourself a good sleep until the rapture or when the end comes. But you could go to get yourself a good pillow or what

I love is their mattress topper. Absolutely love their mattress topper. Has helped me sleep better.

So that is a three inch mattress topper. I don't know what it is that they got in there, but it controls the temperature.

My wife is one of these people there. She is constantly throwing extra blankets on and I'm wearing nothing and still sweating, but their mattress topper somehow has cooled that off.

I enjoy my sleep much better. They have robes, they have slippers, they have pajamas. They got a whole lot of things, but I do not travel without my

MyPillow. I granted the name is kind of silly, MyPillow, but hey, but the reality is that if you wanna get yourself a good night's sleep and at the same time support what we're doing here, go to mypillow .com

and use the promo code SFE. That stands for striving for eternity. Just use promo code

SFE to get your discount and let them know to continue supporting us here. So not only will you get a better night's sleep, but the gospel will also be going forth more because of your better night's sleep.

Just a way of thinking of it. So Dr. Brown, why is it that none of the other

Arab countries, especially Egypt, which shares a border is allowing these refugees in.

We talked about why Hamas is keeping them there, but there are people that wanna flee. Where do they have to go?

Why is no one letting them go anywhere? Yeah, so again, this goes back to stated

Arab League policy into the 1950s. It was a resolution to not give them citizenship in other countries.

And one of the big motivations is when you do that, you now have an ongoing problem for Israel.

You now have, and there's a brilliant strategy with a lot of foresight, you can say, but if you keep the refugee crisis, now you keep having evil

Israel. If in fact, those that fled, the six, 700 ,000 that fled because of the war had been assimilated into the surrounding countries, it's basically the end of the story.

I mean, you may have, okay, Egypt, Iraq, et cetera, still wanted to wage war. Iran still wanted to wage war, but there'd be no talk about two states.

Solution is just Israel has a state, the refugees left, and that's that. Those that stayed part of the country and they live and grow together, wonderful, great, live in peace together.

And by the way, it's not to say Israel's perfect in every way. It's not to say Israel doesn't have some anti -Arab sentiments or that Arab Israelis in certain cases feel like second -class citizens.

These things can happen just like America continues to work through race issues. Things like that, legacies of other things.

And then the more their hostilities, then the more everybody gets tense. But it has been an intentional policy.

And that's why, like I said, you can have a country like Syria or Lebanon that does have

Palestinian refugees, but they've been there for several generations now, and they still live in refugee camps.

And it's an abomination. It is a cruelty from fellow

Muslims, fellow Arabic -speaking Muslims of the same culture and background to not assimilate these into their own world.

And the UN has been a driving force that has helped this as well. If folks are not familiar with UN sentiments towards Israel, go to unwatch .org,

unwatch .org. And for those that wanna just get out of the horse's mouth, well, what are the

Palestinians actually saying? Go to palwatch .org, Palestinian media watch, palwatch .org.

And just about every day, they're gonna publish, here's the latest statement that was just made, here's Palestinian national TV calling for the eradication of Israel.

If you wanna see what's happening in the wider Muslim world, go to memritv, M -E -M -R -I -T -V .org,

memritv .org. And you'll see a sermon from a mosque in Iran.

I mean, it's somehow actually recorded. And you watch and here's the transcription and the translation.

Here's a sermon from an imam in Syria. And I mean, this is what people are hearing.

This is the fuel that's fueling their fires. Hence, not long after the slaughter of Israeli Jews in October 7th, not long after that, you have

Muslims in Sydney, Australia, chanting, gas the Jews. At the Sydney Opera House, gas the

Jews, standing outside of that. Of course, many moderate Muslims say that's not us, that's not who we are, that's not what we believe.

But that's the reality, a concerted effort to say the refugee crisis must continue to make

Israel look bad. Yeah, I mean, understand folks that Israel has modern weapons and Hamas really doesn't.

The thing is that you look at Israel. When I first went to Israel, just after I had gotten saved,

I was 16 years old, so 39 years ago, was there with my family. And it was interesting, the guide said something interesting.

He said that one of the reasons all the Arabs hate Israel is because how green it is.

In other words, Israel poured their money into the technology to create a land that could be farmed, that could be, you could have agriculture, where would you see, as Michael has mentioned,

Hamas took that money that they got, they got far more money for aid, and they use it for warfare.

And so Israel has the means, the weapons to fight back. What are the weapons that Hamas has?

The media, the American media. That's why all these people, these innocent people in Palestine, in Gaza, get used as fodder, to be used as pawns, to be killed so that they can show, oh, look at this, it's about the media image.

That's the concern for them. It's about, because our media is their weapon.

And the more we buy into the lies that the media gives us, and it's amazing, after COVID, Christians had a response to the media, and now even

Christians are buying into the narrative from the media. Amazing, but this is their weapons.

This is all they have of a weapon, is the media. Because their weapons, well, as Dr.

Brown mentioned, their weapons aren't so good. They launch them, and instead they land into hospital parking lots, and what do they do?

They blame that on Israel, and that becomes the media narrative. So, as we wrap up, let me ask this.

You mentioned the politics in Israel. I was just in Israel back in February.

There was protesting everywhere. Prior to October 7th, the National Guard was refusing to be called up, refusing to go to duty.

There was great division in Israel politically. And when this happened,

I remember I was down with my father and we spent the entire Saturday just watching the news.

Even CNN, it was interesting. They were actually kind of defending Israel, which

I was surprised. I knew that wouldn't take long to change. But they were trying.

They were getting all of Netanyahu's opposition and asking about this stuff and trying to drive the wedge.

And what amazed me was person after person said, now's not the time. I have disagreements with Netanyahu.

Now's not the time. There is a unity now in the Israeli politics that I haven't seen before,

I don't think, in my lifetime. Can you describe what you think the effects that this had on Israeli politics, taking from that great division that was there to really unifying around this and what

Netanyahu's done to help encourage that? Yeah, so, number one, as the

Israeli populace has gone more and more right wing, both because of the constant attacks by the terrorists and the fact that religious

Jews have more babies than secular Jews and religious Jews are more conservative and right leaning.

So the nation continues to lurch further right. But Bibi Netanyahu, in order to come into power, once again, made a coalition with some really bad apples.

And unfortunately, they've got power and a lot of people are rightly not happy with it.

But when you come to an existential crisis like this, you know, just think about, you're a family, you're having an argument over the dinner table, suddenly realize that there's a fire in the house, you all unite in a hurry to get out of there.

When it's a life and death struggle or some intruder breaks in, you know, you're in the midst of a heated argument with your spouse and an intruder breaks in, well, right now you have a common enemy.

And that's what's happened. Israel went from the utter shock of the attack to a united resolve to fight back.

And even with a unity government forming around that saying, let's all work together. That being said, there is a rising anti Netanyahu tide because he is rightly being held responsible for the massive security lapses.

It happened on his watch. And many believe it was because of the right wing elements in his government that he had more focus on West Bank than he did on Gaza because of settlement issues and things like that.

Whatever the reasons are, the vast majority of Israelis in polling hold him responsible.

And now actually protests have renewed on a smaller level, but it's the families of the hostages saying you must get them out.

You haven't gone to funerals, you haven't done this, you haven't, it's obviously he's engaged day and night in the war effort, but it could well be that once Israel is able to finalize this, that a new government will form and that it will not include

Netanyahu this time. Of course, he's a great statesman. He's done much good for the country.

He's more loved by evangelical Christians in America and conservatives in America than he is within Israel where things are much more contentious, but he's done a tremendous amount of good.

He's been a good international statesman and in many ways has fought against terror and has been a peacemaker with other nations, but there were some big mistakes this time, it seems, just with the goal of staying in power and the consequences may be massive.

So there's unity now, and I believe the unity will stay pretty much until the war is finished.

There'll be ripples, but I think Israel realizes they have to stay united against this horrific common front.

But then after that, there may be some major changes. The big question to me, because you mentioned this at the outset, is how can

God bring beauty out of ashes? The horrors of the Holocaust, which we know so well as Jewish believers, can never be fixed, can never be remedied.

When 3 million out of 3 .3 million Polish Jews are slaughtered in cold blood, you don't fix that.

You don't remedy that. It's a massive loss. That when you have three generations wiped out in one moment with Hamas terrorism, when you have bleeding pain really in every family in an extended way throughout

Israel, that doesn't just go away. But as God brought the modern state of Israel out of the

Holocaust, could he bring something good out of this? Now, we're both premillennialists.

You're a pre -Trib, I'm post -Trib. I don't think at this point we're about to launch into the final war.

Obviously, there could be another world war, but World War I was not the end of the world. World War II is not the end of the world. I don't think this is going to be the final war and conflict, but it is massive.

And the goal is always to see minimum loss of life and God's purpose is accomplished.

What could come out of this? It's very, very debatable if you go in many bad directions.

So the prayer is God brings something good out of this to the extent of the pain, the agony, the loss, and now the loss for many

Palestinian civilians as well. Terrible suffering for the people in Gaza as well, regrettably, but that's, and that blood is just as precious in God's sight as Israeli blood, but that's got to be the prayer.

God brings something good out of it, adventure of kingdom purposes in the midst of the pain and suffering.

I have to be more specific. My prayer is that the gospel would be the thing that seemed to bring the unity between Gaza and Israel because that would do that.

I mean, the gospel of Jesus Christ as Jewish people and Arab people in that area come to Christ and get saved, we could have true peace.

And that would actually be, because I don't want to see some world leader come in and figure, okay, we got a peace deal.

Here's the, I would rather see it that people are getting saved, that there's a revival in that area. People are turning to Jesus Christ and living.

And because they're living out a Christian life, they're getting along with one another. Like how,

I mean, just let's think about that Christian. How would that impact the world to see, oh, there's a

Middle East peace because of the gospel. Would that encourage you more in your neighborhood to share the gospel?

I know it would for me. If we will saw God do something, a moving of God in Israel with the

Arabs, the Palestinians and Israelis getting together, being one country, maybe even, but because of the gospel going forth.

So instead of us looking at this and being, oh, this is the end of the world or panicking or letting it upset our sanctification as so many people are looking at what's going on there and panicking and getting upset, this should not weaken our faith,

Christian. It should strengthen our resolve to pray for the furtherance of the gospel in this area to see what

God would do. Yes, sir. And so that's my encouragement to you listeners. It's what

I'm doing, my prayers are. Dr. Michael Brown, I appreciate you coming in and helping to enlighten us.

I think that, I mean, there's so much more we could talk about with this, because there's a lot to this that a lot of people don't understand.

But I wanna give you a chance to give any parting words, anything you think that maybe I didn't ask that we should address for people to understand the situation currently with Israel.

No, again, there's so much we can talk about and I appreciate the gospel perspective, the Jesus perspective.

And when I see Muslims have come to faith who are lovers of Israel, it's a beautiful thing. And when

I see Messianic Jews in Israel working side by side with Arab Christians from different countries, it's a beautiful thing.

It's a microcosm of what we're praying for. Folks can go to my website, askdrbrown .org,

askdrbrown .org, click on read or watch, and you'll see lots of recent articles

I've written on Israel, warnings about the rising tide of Jew hatred, of antisemitism, and shows that we've done on it.

Our app is Ask Dr. Brown Ministries, askdrbrownministries.

I just say this very last thing, let us not underestimate the spiritual battle. Let us recognize that the physical war that we see is a reflection of a much uglier spiritual war.

That same enemy wants to destroy us, but right now we see a manifestation of his character and what the Hamas terrorists did.

We see a manifestation of his character and the world rise afresh of horrific anti -Jewish sentiment.

So let us not underestimate the spiritual dimension. So let's do our best to educate with truth, get the facts out, but remember this is a spiritual battle above all.

Yeah, you know, and I think I'm pretty sure that in about a hundred years from now, you're gonna be both pre -tribulational and a cessationist.

That's my theory. But... No, we...

Hey, you can have your theory. I'll stay with the word. How's that? Even though we have differences, when we stand before the feet of Christ, he's gonna correct all our theology and we're never gonna be so glad to have been corrected.

Yes, sir. But I do appreciate getting to know you more and more, your views, and even the way that in our private conversations we discussed some of our differences.

I'm looking forward to being able to debate with you. One of the things I'll just say, the thing

I think I'm looking forward to the most is to be discussing the topic of the continuation or cessationist of gifts without making it down to personal arguments, but to deal with it from scripture, because that's the thing that I'm looking toward.

Unfortunately, I don't get that a lot when people want to debate that, but I'm also not usually dealing with someone who is as scholarly and used to doing debates as you are.

So it'll be, I gotta up my game, you know? It'll be a joy. It'll be an absolute joy, my brother.

And for people who don't realize, the Jewish people, we're raised to debate. Like this is, it's like entertainment.

By the way, like a 10 minute just free for all. Hey, we'll just do it the Jewish way here, then we'll come back to the Christian civility and all that.

That would be fun to do. Well, thank you for coming on. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for helping to educate the audience more on the situation in Israel.

And I look forward to seeing what God's gonna do in your life. Thank you very much. And folks, with that, that's a wrap.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

We made USAA insurance for veterans like James. When he found out how much USAA was helping members save, he said, it's time to switch.

We'll help you find the right coverage at the right price. USAA, what you're made of, we're made for.