Israel & Gaza: An Update from Skip Heitzig - Part B

But look at the words of the 4th Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir. She said this, a special series of updates about Israel at War. On this broadcast, Skip gives an overview of Israel and Gaza, and is joined by a former member of the Israel Defense Force, who is also an experienced Israeli tour guide. Now, let's join Skip Heitzig with this Israel at War update, part two of Israel and Gaza. Steve Ben Yashai, also known as Steve the tour guide, a very intelligent guy, has a PhD, served in the Israeli Defense Forces in the Israeli army for a number of years. Steve the tour guide, thank you for joining us.

My pleasure. Listen, there's now around a thousand who have died, and that includes, I think, 11 Americans. When you heard the news, you and I were texting, but when you first heard the news, what did you feel? Well, like everybody else, I was horrified, but it was also combined with a feeling of gratitude as I was scheduled to depart for Israel myself 24 hours before the carnage began. Remember that you and I were witnesses of the Second Intifada, which claimed 1,000 lives over three years. This claimed the exact same amount of people in only a few hours. Wow.

So, of course, it's mind-boggling. If you reduce it to these statistics, 25,000 dead if you scale it to the American population, and the entire Second Intifada, which you and I knew at the time to be the darkest days of that country's history at the time, has now been eclipsed by the darkest day in Israel's history, all of which took place on Saturday the 7th. Almost 50 years to the day of the Yom Kippur War, and also important because even though between the Yom Kippur War and Saturday's events, Israel's been in many military conflagrations that you and I consider wars, but in their own terminology, they were always termed as military operations. When Israel declared war on Hamas on Sunday, it now made it the first war in 50 years.

In other words, to Israel, all those other things were kids play compared to this war. This is the first declared war that Israel's had since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which many cite as a precedent for this shocker also. One of the bases that they overran on the Gaza border was a base associated with my own military unit that I was in, the battalion known as the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade. I saw the whole thing filmed by the Hamas invaders. I saw the Golani flag and the battalion flag amongst the corpses of the soldiers on the ground. The soldier in me not only identified, of course, with that particular unit, but what shocked me was how quickly the base was overrun as if there wasn't even a fight. That's what's shocking about all this. How rapid this invasion took place.

It's believed that at least 1,500 terrorists infiltrated the country through 40 breaches of the border fence in addition to the paragliders that maybe some of you have seen on footage. Air, sea, and land invasion, and Israel's even elite soldiers were killed easily. I think that's what adds the humiliation to the shock.

It's not only a shock, but it's a humiliation. I would tell you that the second intifada almost eviscerated what was left of Israel's left wing. By the way, when I say left wing in the Israeli context, I'm referring to those that have always upheld the belief of land for peace. While that second intifada almost eviscerated that movement, this totally destroyed it. I would say there's almost nobody left in Israel. I'm not only referring to people that want to make peace with the Palestinians, but the country's almost united with one voice, the flat in Gaza. In other words, the secular humanism of the left that often humanized the enemy, such as Hamas, no longer. It's a national humiliation, a shock. What it is, is eventually will give way to anger because of the government. Remember, Golda Meir, who was the prime minister in 1973, after the war, her prime ministership ended in disgrace over this. There's no way the current prime minister, Netanyahu, survives this politically. Saturday, October 7th, was the darkest day in Israel's national history. That's not going by my words, but by nearly every single person who comments on their media. In Hebrew, it's become the consensus. It was the darkest day, the day of infamy.

Wow. Steve, tell us a little bit about Hamas, this group known as Hamas. We know the name, most Americans have heard it. I don't think they understand what it is in particular, because there are so many groups in the Middle East that are poised against Israel. Tell us about Hamas. So the name Hamas is an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic resistance movement.

And according to their charter, they stand for three things I can just think of the top of my head. Jihad against the Jews in particular, jihad against the world in general, in other words, all infidels. First, the Saturday people means they'll first kill the Jews, then the Sunday people means they'll secondly kill the Christians. And to set up a global Cali faith, the same belief that ISIS had, the same belief that Al Qaeda had, it's just the local Palestinian expression of it. But with the same inspiration, the same methodology, I'm not sure how aware you have become of the grisly details of this attack. But on one kibbutz that was overrun by these attackers, 40 babies were killed, many of them are beheaded, others were burned alive. So their tactics, similar to what you know of the ISIS era, you know, in Iraq and Syria, associated with the global jihad, but it's the local Palestinian expression of that global jihad. So Stephen, look, these are obvious atrocities.

There's no question. You see these images and videos coming in. And yet, if you listen to some of the other side, there's a narrative claiming it's Israel's fault. It's what I get on my social media when I put on posts about praying for Israel.

There's people who are waiting for this because they want to tout the other narrative. I want you to respond to those who claim this is really Israel's long-term policy consequence. Well, look, first of all, I want to say, Skip, that where people stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict betrays a lot more about them than where they stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It cuts down to their orientation on all sorts of things, whether they believe in God or whether they're atheists, whether they're leftists or whether they're rightists. There's many issues behind where people stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But, you know, the main charges that Israel in the past, you know, when they go to war with the Gaza Strip, you know, innocents are killed in the process, and therefore Israel's cruel and kills innocents. And I would say, look, Israel has inadvertently and unintentionally killed innocents in a built-up, the most densely populated strip in the world is the Gaza Strip. The Hamas leadership hides behind its civilian population is a great example that really meets the gold standard of it. Back in 2014, during Operation Cast Lead, the whole Hamas leadership made its headquarters under the main hospital of Gaza City, which presented Israel with the choice, and they were two awful choices, either preserve the lives of Hamas's leadership to fight that war and fight another day in the future, which is an awful choice. We were living with the consequences of that right now, versus dropping a bomb on that hospital and killing all the people in it and being accused of a war crime. What did they decide to do of those two options?

Well, there's two choices. They led the Hamas leadership to fight another day and that same leadership just committed the worst atrocity in Israel's history. Being an American yourself and an Israeli who has lived in both places, what would you leave us with going forward? How we are to think and pray and responsibly stand for Israel going forward? So I think on Saturday we saw a moral clarity that has rarely been presented to us.

The face of pure evil on display versus the face of its victims. And I think, Skip, in the next few weeks, a lot of people, including Christians, are going to be put to the test. As Israel entrenches itself in this war, you're going to see the amping up of anti-Semitism is going to amp up dramatically, dramatically. You're going to see these mass, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian rallies throughout every American city. It's possible that your co-workers, those that work in secular endeavors, their co-workers are going to confront them and say, aren't you one of these pro-Israel nutjob Christians?

Look at these people, look at these Jews. A lot of Christians, they're going to be tested and how successful they are on that test has to do with their convictions and where their convictions are has to do with how much time they spend with the Lord each day. So one of the things, and this may surprise you, this answer, because you were asking me about politics, but now I'll just give my one spiritual insight. We're so bombarded and unfortunately so many of us spend so much time in front of cable news, more than we do in the presence of the Lord. And we've entered a very dark time where if we're going to survive these days, Skip, if we're going to pass the test as individuals, we have to spend that time in the presence of the Lord and let that other stuff be chatter.

And if there's anybody listening to this who can do what you call in Hebrew a heshbon nefesh, an accounting of where's the state of my soul today? Am I allowing my soul to be filled more by cable news and by headlines and by all the emotions that stirs more than I'm spending quality time with the Lord each day, whether that's in the morning or whatever time that person does that. The well of our strength is in that time, not the time that we spend in front of the TV or news sites. And by the way, I'm preaching to myself, the last couple of weeks I've been doing everything I can even before this broke out, this war, to really dig deep into my daily fount of strength, because it doesn't come from the media, it doesn't come from the chatter, it comes from the spirit that's within, for those of us that are believers. And that's what I would say to encourage all of us.

And that's not exclusive to the Israel issue or anything going on. We've entered a very dark time. We're already in that time. The only way any of us can survive it and stay clean and keep our garments clean and be able to love the other, you know, even people who we disagree with, is to go to that fount where we get the living waters, you know, that Jesus spoke about in the book of John.

The living waters that keep giving if you agree to go to them each day and drink from them. Yeah, that's a good word. You sound like a preacher, Steve. Let me help frame this a little bit, contemporarily as well as biblically in the time we have remaining. I know the Middle East seems like a very complex situation.

It's actually pretty basic. One side wants the other side dead. On one side you have a Jewish nation, a Jewish state called modern-day Israel. Israel wishes to exist as a sovereign state living in peace, but they also recognize that the Palestinians want their own state and they want, it would seem like, a level of peace.

That's their presumption. Effectively, what Gaza has been in the past is a Palestinian state. Contrary to what you may have heard, Gaza is not occupied by the Israelis.

In 2005, under Ariel Sharon, they completely left Gaza, completely gave it over to the authority of the Palestinians, who then elected Hamas to be the ruling governing body in that district. Most Palestinians and other Arab nations, not all but many of them, deny the right of Israel to exist. They don't believe Israel is legitimate.

They don't think it has a right to even exist in that part of the world, and that has been true since all the way back to 1948. In 1948, of course you know the United Nations declared Israel is a sovereign nation. They sought to partition the land into a Jewish state and into an Arab state.

The Jews accepted the partition of the United Nations. No Arab nation did accept it. In fact, not only did they not accept the partition, but on the day after Israel became a nation, that was May 14, 1948, on May 15, virtually every Arab neighbor attacked Israel to destroy it. Israel had been a nation one day. They didn't have an organized army, but you had all of the surrounding nations laying siege to destroy Israel. Miraculously, Israel survived that incursion. That happened again in 1967 when Egypt's President Nasser, in his own words, allowed his army to attack Israel, in his words, to destroy Israel. On that day, Egypt attacked, Syria attacked, Lebanon attacked, Iraq attacked, and the Jordanians, the trans-Jordanians, also attacked. Israel survived that 1967 incursion. Shortly after that, just a couple of months, was the first time since that war that there was an Arab summit in Sudan, in Khartoum.

Where the Arab states who were represented at that meeting gave the famous three no's going forward. There will be no recognition. There will be no peace. There will be no negotiations.

Let me explain that. There will be no recognition. We will never recognize the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign nation.

That's number one no. Two, no peace. We'll never form a peace agreement or treaty with Israel, secular Israel as a nation. And finally, no negotiation. So no recognition, no peace, no negotiation.

So what does that mean? It means no peace treaty can be signed, no agreement can be made. They will never recognize Israel.

I want you to get this. There's a charter, for those who care to read it, called the Hamas Charter. And the charter calls for the destruction, the destruction of the nation of Israel. In Article 13 of the Hamas Charter, it says, and I'll put this up, there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

You see what they're saying. Don't bother coming to us to sign an agreement. We'll never agree to anything. We want Israel completely annihilated.

In fact, just the other day, this resurfaced. This is from Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is a commander for Hamas. He warned, and we should take this warning to heart, that Israel is only the first target. He said, and I quote, the entire planet will be under our law. That's their goal. There will be no more Jews or Christian traders.

The entire 510 million square kilometers of planet earth will come under a system where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, and no treacherous Christianity. This is what they believe. The unofficial motto of Hamas, that terrorist organization, is this, we love death as much as the Jews love life.

How do you negotiate with that? We love death as much as the Jews love life. So this is why the Palestinians historically have never really settled on any peace agreement.

They've never come to a settlement. Though there was an agreement under Bill Clinton, there was a few different agreements, historically the Oslo Accords, it didn't last very long because of this ideology. Instead, Palestinians, Arab nations, especially Iran, who fund some of these terror groups, how did they respond? By sending wave after wave of suicide bombers into the nation. It got so bad that Israel built a security wall for its own protection, which cut out about 90 percent of that terrorism. And of course they were chastised, Israel was chastised for defending itself. They also responded by writing curriculum for elementary school students. In the curriculum, it's degrading of the Jewish people. In the curriculum, they're training a whole next generation of terrorists.

In elementary schools, they will show children how to behead teddy bears to get them prepped for what we have seen going on this week. This week, Gaza attacked Israel with thousands of rockets. You know how many rockets have been fired, indiscriminately just fired over the border from Gaza into Israel since 2001?

That's when they started. Over 20,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. Then in 2020, they come up with this brilliant little device called an incendiary balloon. They took balloons and filled them with ignition fuel, tied them to a kite, and flew them over into Israel hoping that it will light the farms on fire, the forests on fire, some of the cities on fire.

Then as you have seen, paragliders with machine guns coming from Gaza into Israel, then drones with bombs on them being unleashed. And so now, Israel finally said, enough, and they formed this formal declaration of war. That's according to their constitution. Article 40A, they invoked that, and there is now this next level declaration of war. This is not what Israel wanted. They did not begin the attack.

They did not begin the attack. They gave Gaza completely to the Palestinians. Ariel Sharon brought any Israeli settlements back, giving it to them since 2005. But look at the words of the fourth prime minister of Israel, Golda Meir. She said this, we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.

Quite a quote. We'll only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us. But for those of us who are Bible students, we realize it always comes back to Israel. It always comes back to Jerusalem, right? And we have noted that.

We have just concluded a series on The End is Near where we talked about some of these things. Here you have this nation that is smaller than the Central American country of El Salvador. You have a country that is roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. And yet it all comes back to Jerusalem, all comes back to Israel. So many of the headlines.

It cycles through. In Zechariah chapter 12, the prophet said, it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples and all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces. Though all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. So the Bible predicts as it has been in the past, the Bible predicts so in the future that the focal point of history will center on the Jewish people, the state of Israel, the city of Jerusalem. That is Skip Heitzig concluding this edition of an Israel at War Update. As part of this special week of programs, we've been listening to Skip's overview of Israel and Gaza, a biblical and global perspective. On our next broadcast, Skip will speak about the issue, the rise of anti-Semitism.

Why do people hate the Jews? That's next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig. For this week of important messages, we've assembled this resource package by Pastor Skip. When events on earth become increasingly confusing and disturbing, we need to understand what the Bible says about the days we live in and what's ahead. The Book of Revelation speaks strongly about both of these issues, but many are reluctant to consider the Bible's final book.

As part of this special Israel at War series, we're offering Skip Heitzig's book, You Can Understand the Book of Revelation. The book that we're dealing with are signs of that future period, the tribulation period, seven-year period, whereas the rapture is a sign-less event. In other words, it can happen at any time. But future events often cast their shadows before them. You can understand the Book of Revelation, and you need to. Only God can accurately predict the future. We aren't told that the book of the future.

We aren't told everything, but we need to understand what is revealed. Also included in this package is Skip's booklet, Are We Living in the Last Days? Get this booklet and the book, You Can Understand the Book of Revelation, when you make a donation of $50 or more to support Connect with Skip. Your gift will go toward the financial costs of this teaching program. Request your package online at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. That's 1-800-922-1888. Join us next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig, when we will continue our Israel at War special series. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.