Who Is Naftali Bennett?

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. That means phone lines are open for your Jewish-related calls 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. If you're a Jewish person and you have different views about Jesus, about the Messiah, about the Bible, want to interact with me or challenge me, same number to call 866-34-TRUTH.

So, Jewish-related, anything related to modern Israel today, anything related to the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew language, Jewish tradition, culture, messianic prophecy, anything like that, that qualifies for a Thursday call into the broadcast. Okay, so, where things stand, there is a new coalition that has come together, unexpectedly a bunch of smaller pieces of the puzzle joining together to bring forth a new government in Israel. If you remember the system there, you have many different parties vying for seats in the Knesset, the parliament, which has 120 seats total. So, to lead the government, you need to have a majority, so at least 61. But because there are so many different parties running, nobody, no one party gets 62 seats, 61 seats, let alone 70 or 80. You may get 4 seats, that's the minimum threshold.

You may get 4, you may get 8, you may get 12. The coup this last time, that's the party of Benjamin Netanyahu, got 30 seats, but that's down from where they were. And they were unable to form a coalition government because there's just too much hostility towards Netanyahu from others who are on the right who likely would have served with him in the past but aren't now. So, a bunch of different groups have come together, and very surprisingly, Naftali Bennett, who leads the Yamina party, which had, what, 7 seats, 1, he's going to serve first as prime minister after that Yair Lapid with the Yeshati party, there is a future. Yamina, by the way, is right-leaning. That means to the right, to the right. And it is a religious nationalist party.

Then you have Yeshati that's more center, center-right. And they got, what, 17, 18 seats. They were the next down after the coup. So, they've come together, they've come together with Meretz, which is left-wing. They've come together with United Arab List, which is led, it's an Islamist party. So, this will be the first time that an Arab Israeli party is formally part of the government. They've been part of the Knesset for years, but part of the actual government where they get to pick, okay, we get this seat or we get this or that or we want this out of it. So, it's a very unusual coalition.

It has those on the right and on the left. And Bennett said, look, the worst thing for Israel is another election, a fifth election in two years. Think of the trauma that America went through with the last election. And then we're still going through with questioning the results and things like that.

Think of going through that four or five times in two years. And then during that time, you don't really have a functioning government to the full because no one's clearly in power or has put together a majority or a coalition that can work properly and so on. So, here we are with Naftali Bennett, who is a religious Jew. He will be the first prime minister.

So, they're dividing two years for him, two years for Lapid. He will be the first kippah wearing, yarmulke wearing prime minister in Israel's history. So, in terms of who he is, that would make him the most orthodox Jewish prime minister in Israeli history. At the same time, he is not ultra-orthodox and he is nationalist. Now, the most religious, the ultra-ultra-orthodox Jews, you know, the men with the long black beards and the black coats and things like that, you know, many, we dress like that. Many of them are anti-Zionist. Many of them are not nationalist at all. They tolerate the modern state of Israel, but their goal is to grow healthy religious communities in the midst of Israel and then have religious influence over the nation. But they see the state as way too secular. So, there's this ongoing conflict. Bennett would have been someone who was friendly to these parties in the past and looked at as an ally in many ways, but now he is considered a hostile, dangerous outsider. Let's just take a look at some of the articles in the Jerusalem Post. There are a few I want to go through quickly with you. One of them by Jeremy Sharon asked the question, will the ferocious Haredi assault on Bennett hasten religious reform?

Another, in fact, let me start with the one that's up on my screen. Haredi Fury over Naftali Bennett masked real concern. Haredi, that's ultra-orthodox. Haredi is short for Haredim, which is the God-fearers. They are the ones who shake with fear before the Lord.

It's a way of speaking of ultra-orthodox, so singular Haredi or used as an adjective, and Haredim, the group as a whole. They are really going after Bennett. And according to this article, the concern is less that the Jewish character of the state will disappear and more that the impact of being in the opposition will have on the budget going to the Haredi community. So in other words, these rabbis who are now ruthlessly, ferociously attacking Naftali Bennett, even telling him he should take his key polish, should take his head covering off because he's not an authentic religious Jew.

I mean, that's how far they're going. According to this perspective, it's not primarily because it's going to affect how Israel operates as a state, but rather that they won't get the funding they desire. Let me just read a few quotes from this article.

This one was by Herb Kenyon or Kenyon, this particular article. Oh, let's see. One of the rabbis here said this, the government headed by Bennett will destroy the Shabbat, will destroy the Sabbath. Another rabbi refers to him as that evil one and said the name of the evil shall rot. After he signed the agreement he just signed, he should take off his kippah.

He is shaming it. Okay, these are pretty intense quotes. The three leaders were spitting fire and brimstone at a press conference in the Knesset they called because they charged Bennett was about to destroy the delicate status quo that governs religion, state relations in the country. Okay, that's it for that article for the moment. But what's the religious status quo?

What do they mean by that? When the state of Israel was being formed, again, its origins were secular, Theodor Herzl, modern Zionist movement, things like that. Many of the early pioneers were secular, many atheists, communists background. Now they were going to kind of have a Zionist expression of their communal living and things like that, the kibbutzim and stuff like that. So rabbis looked at this as a wrong thing.

This is not being initiated by the Messiah. This is going to be a secular state. God wants it to be a God-fearing, Sabbath-observing, Torah-observant state. So many in the religious community opposed it, but over time some saw that God was in the process. Others, after the horrors of the Holocaust, realized, okay, we need a homeland.

In any case, the question was how do we work together? So based on a letter from David Ben-Gurion to the religious Jewish community, what, 1947, they established the status quo that the rabbis would have control over religious affairs. So, for example, if you have a government institution and you're catering an event, then you have to have rabbinic supervision. It's got to line up with the dietary laws. If you're having a wedding, that's a religious ceremony.

It must be officiated by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, even if you're not religious. The Sabbath will be Saturday, sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. That will be the day of rest. Doesn't mean every business in the nation has to be closed or there could be no transportation, but that would be the official day of rest.

You'll follow the biblical calendar, et cetera. But there'll be freedom. This is not imposed on everyone in terms of you can be a secular person, you don't have to be religious, but it will be a Jewish state. So that's been the status quo. So these rabbis are saying that Bennett, by his coalition with the left, will now destroy the status quo. Well, Bennett's himself a religious Jew.

Why would that be? Well, according to this article, the big issue is funding, meaning that the ultra-orthodox community in Israel has followed a tradition, which is a relatively recent tradition, that as much as possible, all the men in the community should give themselves to studying Torah and rabbinic tradition and praying day and night. And that sustains the nation, that their spiritual energy, their study, their worship of God, their praying is what God uses to sustain the nation. So of course they don't serve in the military, obviously. The military is secular and worldly and that would take them away from their Torah study. So of course they don't serve in the military. And of course, because the families live on the poverty level, you know, they have 10, 12, 14 kids and very little income coming in, you know, not a lot of entrepreneurship in terms of, you know, making big bucks among them. So they need to be subsidized by the taxes of the state in order to study day and night. So yeah, there is some income and there is work and it's not that they're lazy, it's just this is what they give themselves to.

It could be 15 hours a day, but this is what they give themselves to. So the concern is, and this is what some of these articles are saying, that the issue is not the status quo of religion-state relations. The issue is that funding will be cut and Viktor Lieberman and his party is definitely more hostile to Russian Nationalist Party, more hostile to all the funding that goes to the ultra-orthodox. And ultimately at a certain point, things have to change because if they keep growing in number, their birth rates are so much higher than the birth rates of the rest of the nation, that if they keep growing in number and the state has to support many of the men studying day and night and almost none of them serving in the military, you're going to reach a breaking point.

Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin, as we met years back and had great time interacting, first time we ever spent time together, he said it can only go on so far. Just from an economic viewpoint, they can only go on so far and then the custom, the tradition has to change, that the men have to work, there has to be more education. Something has to shift because it can't keep going on this way. And then many secular Israelis are hostile towards the ultra-orthodox. So you don't serve in the military, you study all day, we have to pay for that.

No, you are in your keep and you fight in the military like everybody else. You know, some respect them but others are hostile. So these are the concerns. This is what's going on and really in many ways, that's the battle in the coalition government. Who gets over what department? And by the way, Messianic Jews, many have not been supportive of Netanyahu recently because he's been so close with the ultra-orthodox.

The ultra-orthodox make it very difficult for Messianic Jews in the land. All right, more to process, more about Bennett, but we'll come back and take your calls. 866-348-7884.

Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. It's Early Jewish Thursday, as the voice of Paul Wilber reminds us. 866-344-TRUTH, any Jewish-related question that you have.

I know I said I'm going to the calls, which I am momentarily, but I was just looking at this other headline. Bennett is an evil and wicked Reform Jew who will rot, say, Haredi MKs. Those are members, ministers of Knesset. So some of the quotes I was just referencing, but to call him a Reform Jew, that's ultra-liberal.

That's left-wing. That would be questioning, you know, the Bible is God's inspired word. That would be ordaining gay rabbis. That would be, I debated a Reform rabbi years back, and after his initial, I spoke, then he spoke, I got up and said, the big difference between him and me is that I believe the Bible is God's word.

He doesn't. And people kind of go, oh, how could you dare say that in the audience? And he said, that's right.

He shouted out, that's right. And then he told me, you know, even questioning the existence of God, that he's, you know, very much to the left of Reform camp. And yet these ultra-Orthodox Jews are calling Naftali Bennett, who himself is Orthodox, now calling him Reform. That's, yeah, it's getting pretty intense. By the way, those are also typical in Israeli politics. And in the ultra-Orthodox parties, when they'd be attacking each other, you know, one rabbi would be offering you a blessing if you vote for this candidate and the other rabbi threatening to curse you if you voted for that candidate.

So believe it or not, American politics is tame compared to Israeli politics. It's, it's, it's the truth. It's reality. All right.

866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Alan in Charleston, West Virginia. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, how are you doing?

Doing well, thank you. Yeah, I got a comment. It's, it's more or less to do with, with, it's both Gentiles and Jews. But I think there can be a big problem with either one observing the festivals, the feast days, or the Sabbath day.

And I'll tell you why. Because we've almost inadvertently will put faith in an action we do. And I would, I would be hard pressed to say that anybody, you are Gentile that's doing that in some way, shape, or form, they are putting their faith in some way in those actions they're doing. And that, that my friend is not only idolatry, but it's sin.

So I think it could be, it could be a big problem. I'm not saying everybody does it, but we almost without fault will do that. So what, why do you think, why do you think God made the Sabbath so important in Israel and called them to honor the Sabbath and called it a delight and to sanctify the Sabbath, if in doing so that they would be guilty of idolatry?

No, no, no, no. What I'm saying now is, is if you're keeping the Sabbath, that's fine. There's, I'm not saying you can't do that. What I'm saying is almost inadvertently, if you probably ask a Jewish believer that's doing that, they will, they are, they are thinking that by doing that, that gives them a greater access to God or God is more pleased with me because I do.

And that, that, that is what makes it wrong, whether it's a Sabbath or feast days. And that's why I think it can be, I think it can be a problem. I'm not saying it's a problem for everybody.

I'm saying that it can be a problem. So, so let me ask this, would it, would it be the same as far as spending time in prayer? Would it be the same as far as abstaining from certain sins that...

Absolutely. Okay, so you're saying this in a universal way that you can put... Go ahead. If I'm putting faith in my study time, I'm not saying that I don't study, but if I think that by me studying the Bible, that that gives me a, that I'm more saved or I'm more righteous or I'm more acceptable than somebody that don't study as much as me or somebody that, let's just say, don't study at all. That, that is, that's wrong, I'll study.

So let's, let's press this once, once more. In 2 Corinthians 7, 1, following a series of promises and God calling us to come out from among them and be separate, it says, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. And we know, you know, Hebrews 12, 14 tells us to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Are you saying that a man who casts off holiness, leaves his wife and is living in adultery, is just as acceptable to God as a God-fearing believer who loves Jesus and is seeking to please him and live a holy life? Oh, no, no, no, that's not, that's not what I'm talking about. Okay, just trying to get clarification. If I'm misunderstanding you, others might as well. No, we have to live a godly and holy life. I'm just saying, Dr. Brown, that if we put faith in a godly action, a godly discipline, like I, like I said, either, either if you think you're more special because you pray or God loves you more, now that don't mean that I believe that if you do those things, I think you'll have a closer walk with God. Got it. And I think that, that, that you might experience God more, but you know what I'm saying, people almost inadvertently think, because I do these things, that makes me more, I'm more righteous, more holy. Right, it's easy, right, got it, got it.

Yeah, that's why I'm following up with questions to get, to get clarification. Right, and so, it could be, it has nothing to do with whether it's Jewish or not. It could be going to church on a Sunday, it could be having a Passover meal in your home. One of my colleagues, the Lord was dealing with him about some things, and he thought, Lord, you can't use me, I'm not worthy, and the Lord said to him, you've never been worthy, and in a million years, you could never be worthy.

I love you because I love you and I love you through Jesus. Understanding that, the Lord calls us to walk worthy of the Lord. So there's the recognition in myself, I cannot muster up enough good works to please God, or by obeying the letter of the law, somehow obtain a higher righteousness.

Understanding that, now as children of God, of course we're called to live godly lives and walk worthy of the Lord. Hey Alan, thank you for the call and for interacting. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to Tampa, Florida. Steven, welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Bratton, how are you?

Doing well, thank you. Hey, I have a quick question about John 17.5. You know, I'm writing an exegetical paper on this chapter, and I'm curious of what the Jewish understanding of when Jesus, of course, says that, you know, with the glory that he had before the world began, how would a Jew during that time understand specifically before the world began? I know not necessarily the Trinity, but maybe that is a big part of it, but I just want a better understanding of that birth in a traditional Jew or Jewish people during that time.

Right, so there are two problems with answering this in a definitive way. One problem being that there were various Jewish beliefs at that time. There was not one singular traditional Jewish belief that everyone held to. The second problem is that we have a lot of literature reflecting Jewish beliefs in the centuries after that, and there's some debate as to how much of that existed in Jesus' day. For example, there's a tradition that's found in the Talmudic writings about the Messiah being pre-existent. Some would simply say the name of the Messiah was pre-existent. Some would say the concept of the Messiah was pre-existent. The soul of the Messiah was pre-existent. The Messiah himself was pre-existent.

What exactly does it mean? If that concept existed at that time, then that's what would have been understood, not necessarily that the Messiah was eternally God, but rather that the Messiah was pre-existent, that he was somehow on a higher plane than a regular human being and was created by God before the world began, before there was a human race, and that his destiny was then to come into the world at a certain point. You might deduce something like that.

You wouldn't just from that passage get a full-blown Trinitarian deduction. You wouldn't from that passage get a full-blown, the eternal pre-existence of the sun idea, but you would certainly get an idea of the Messiah's pre-existence. And it seems from other traditions that we have that that concept was something that was known or held to in different Jewish circles at that time. Yeah, I think that answers my question perfectly. I can point to where you can see Jesus even on earth as we know in Genesis, but specifically his divinity before the world.

I think you bring a lot of insight into stuff I wasn't really thinking about, so I really appreciate that. Yeah, and look, there are passages we look at now and we understand them to be Theophanes or Christophanes, you know, the Son of God appearing in human form or appearing in different ways to the people of ancient Israel. So we read it and we recognize who that is. To say that someone in the first century before the full revelation of Jesus the Messiah would have read that the same way, some might have but otherwise that there would have been different answers for it or angels or things like that or how God was appearing. It's interesting you have a character like Melchizedek in Genesis 14, then mentioned again especially in Psalm 110 and Hebrews 7, that there is literature from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's fragmentary, but it does speak of him as on an angelic level, almost as a co-creator.

So you have a figure like that indicating that in the Judaism of that time there were these exalted figures and in some circles the Messiah would have been one of them who existed before the creation, before the world began, before Genesis 1-1 had taken place. Hey, thank you for the question and keep digging in your studies. You always learn a lot. All right, we've got some phone lines open 866-34-TRUTH. Hey, thank you for your YouTube donation, Rosh Arma, for the debates with Adam Green. Appreciate your comments there and appreciate your standing with us. All right, we'll get back to more of your calls and more about Naftali Bennett.

Stay right here. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. You know, as I hear the sounds of these Messianic Jewish worship leaders and psalmists and singers here, Misha Getz, daughter of Marty and Jennifer Getz, I'm reminded of some interesting times with some of these friends and co-workers, Paul Wilber and Marty Getz. It is the Early Jewish Thursday. This is Michael Brown, 866-34-TRUTH. If you have a Jewish-related question, 866-34-87-884.

But quickly, just a couple of personal stories. Paul and Marty have been in many, many meetings where they led worship, especially Paul, but many with Marty as well. And they love the Lord. They love to worship. They love to lead God's people into His presence.

And, you know, they can do it by the hour, day in, day out because of their love for God and love for worship. And Paul was part of a leadership team that I was on. I was leading our ministry school and traveling out. Dan Juster was the apostolic leader of the team. Paul led Israel's hope to worship group that led worship in our congregation and traveled out. So we had this leadership team and we gather sometimes and, you know, we're going to have a meeting. And I didn't like the meetings because there's a lot of business administrative kind of stuff for just things that didn't interest me, but things we had to discuss as leaders. And every so often, Dan would say to Paul, Hey, you have your guitar?

Yeah. Hey, why don't you just lead us in a song or two? And I thought, that's it for the meeting.

Goodbye, the leadership meeting. Because the moment he'd start to sing and worship, we all just get caught up in worship. And if we had two or three hours allotted for the leadership meeting, a lot was going to be spent worshiping. And I thought it was a little dangerous, a little dangerous to ask Paul to start leading in worship because you just got caught up.

And then with Marty, he's powerful as well. And sometimes he would minister in song right before I'd get up to speak. It's like, oh, boy, I'm just so overwhelmed by the message of that song and the presence of God. But what a blessing to have people who bring us into God's presence with anointed words and music.

By anointed, I mean the Holy Spirit has endured the words and music with a special grace so that we're impacted by it as well. Okay, we are going to talk a bit more about the elections in Israel and Naftali Bennett. But first, to the phones. Robert in Mountain Home, Texas. Welcome back to the line of fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. The orthodox thing and the way they conduct themselves, I had assumed they were using Numbers 1, 47 and following the Levite exemption as their motivation and were saying they were the modern day Levites. Is that their motivation? Are they tying themselves to that scripture to justify? No, that scripture is a sense of scripture.

It's simply saying that they're not recorded in the numbering because they have their own inheritance. So it's an interesting concept and you might make a spiritual parallel. But to my knowledge, that has never been one of the main arguments because they would love the whole community of Israel to be religious. In other words, they would ideally, I don't know who would finance it, but they would want every man, every male Jew in Israel living the way they live.

They would want the whole country to be totally religious and I guess they would feel that God would somehow back them in doing it. So they're not looking to be just like the priestly or the Levitic class. Rather, it's based on their view of the calling to study day and night.

Taken literally. Joshua 1.8, don't let this book of Torah depart from your lips, but recite it, repeat it, meditate on it day and night. Or in Psalm 1, the righteous man, his delight is in the Torah of the Lord and in that law, he meditates.

It means repeats, recites, day and night. So they would see it as their calling. The concept is called Talmud Torah Lishma, study of Torah for its own sake. And that is considered to be, Torah being the whole world of rabbinic literature, that is considered to be the highest form of spirituality.

Yes, so that's what it comes from. Now, if you go to the Judaism of Jesus Day, it did emphasize the importance of study, but it was understood that people would have a vocation. So, you know, you have sayings from, you know, within a few centuries of Jesus, Tov, Talmud Torah and Derek Harris, which is that study of Torah is good with Derek Harris, literally way of the land, but it would mean with an occupation. And some of the most famous rabbinic scholars in history like Rashi and Rambam had professions.

Rambam, for example, was a medical doctor who worked many hours a day. So this is a more recent phenomenon in Judaism, and some of it is a reaction against liberalizing of Judaism and a reaction against the secularizing of the society. So, yeah, it's interesting, but again, I've not seen that verse used as a foundational argument in any way, but I appreciate the call and the question very much. And by the way, rabbinic Judaism can deduce things in a homiletical way, that you can take a text that really doesn't mean this, but say, well, we're going to interpret it to mean that and kind of make it the basis, almost like, you know, your pastor saying, hey, that may not be what the text means, but it's good preaching.

But they'll actually now base legal precedent on that. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Shannon in Richmond, Virginia. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. The reason I'm calling is, I've always been curious about the Genesis 1720. It says, God said, And as for Ishmael, I have also heard thee. Behold, I will bless him and increase and multiply him exceedingly.

He shall beget twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation. Can you historically expand on that? Yeah, I mean, much of the Arab world today would ultimately trace themselves back to Ishmael.

Of course, in the Quran, Ishmael, not Isaac, is the chosen son, you know, the one through whom the chosen lineage comes. But yeah, much of the Arab world today, it's divided into nations. But that's a relatively recent thing. A lot of it is post World War I, when Western powers started carving things up into nations. For the most part, these were tribal peoples, and the affiliation was tribal. And you know, be it in Saudi Arabia, be it in, you know, other parts of the world like that, that they would trace themselves back to Ishmael. Now, you know, you do have, so if you look at, say, Persia, that's separate. That's not Semitic. The Iranians are not Semitic people.

Their language, Farsi, is not Semitic. So a country like Iran, that's separate. But many of the, and then Egypt has its own history, right, a separate history. The same with Ethiopia and some of these other countries. Ethiopia having Ge'ez being a Semitic language that's spoken there.

And of course, Egypt having an ancient history side by side with Israel, and pre-dating Israel as a nation. But other countries that would identify as Arab, like Saudi Arabia, or you know, many of the people, be it in Dubai or Qatar or United Arab Emirates, many others among them would be able to trace their lineage back to Ishmael, just like Jews would trace their lineage back to Isaac. This would be the Islamic religion then? Well, yes, the Islamic religion, but the Islamic religion has many non-Muslims, non-Arabs among it, okay? So when we speak of Arabs, we speak of ethnicity. When we speak of Islam, we speak of religion.

So those are two separate things, right? Okay, and then around 700 came Muhammad and the Prophet, and... Right, a little before that, right. So the one, the founder of Islam, so a little before 700, the founder of Islam is himself an Arab, and then you could argue potential descent from Ishmael. And the earliest converts were themselves Arabs, and therefore potentially descendants of Ishmael. However, over time, for example, a country like Afghanistan, which is a Muslim country, there's no lineal ethnic connection to Ishmael, or Iran, as I mentioned, or Egypt, as I mentioned, these are all Muslim countries, but there's no connection, or Turkey, a Muslim country, but there's no connection between them ethnically and an Ishmael. So just to be clear on that. Hey, thank you, thank you for the question.

Now, here's something really interesting. At the end of Isaiah 19, it says that God will pour out His Spirit on Egypt and Assyria. So ancient Assyria, a lot of that would overlap with Iraq today, and that the three of them, Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, would all worship the God of Israel together. And then you can get into passages like Isaiah 62 with references to the Arab world in different places, Kedar and places like that, and it would indicate that there are future promises that remain for many in the Muslim world. No, I do not believe there is a promise paralleling all Israel shall be saved for the Muslim world, that all be a national or international turning of Muslims to the Messiah at the end of the age. I don't believe there's a promise for that, but I do believe that there are promises of major turnings within Islam. Of course, we see a great outpouring of the Spirit in many Muslims coming to faith supernaturally around the world, and in the last 50 years, more Muslims have come to faith than in the previous, what, 12, 1300 years before that.

Many would argue this combined, the harvest has been that great. So God is moving in the Muslim world, but in particular, it seems that some of the descendants of Ishmael along with people of Egypt and others have these promises that somehow there may be shaking, there may be catastrophe, there may be purging and numbers and only a remnant left, but there'll be major turning to the Lord, to the God of Israel at the end of this age, and that Israel will be called the third part along with the other two. I mean, that's how gloriously it's expressed at the end of Isaiah 19. So there is something kindred.

You know, in that sense, much of the Arab world, which is predominantly Muslim, overwhelmingly Muslim, and the Jewish people, there are still blood brothers, and that's why sometimes the tensions and the differences go as deep as they do. Okay, a little bit more about Naftali Bennett when we come back and maybe some more calls. 866-342. Thirty minutes from now. Thirty minutes from now, we'll be right back on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel for our weekly exclusive YouTube chat. So join us, 4.15 Eastern Time, right here on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel.

We'll be taking a ton more questions then. Stay with us. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-342.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Yes, yes, it is thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Some Middle Eastern sounds of worship. Okay, one more religious quote attacking incoming Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and then an interview from nine years back before he was politically involved that someone recently uncovered with something very interesting about his own background in terms of nationalism. But this is from the article by Jeremy Sharon that I referenced earlier in the show. Bennett is an evil and wicked Reform Jew who will rot.

Okay. And just just want to give you a little bit more of the ultra Orthodox Jewish attack on him. So one of the one of the leaders ultra Orthodox parliamentary members said this, we won't allow in any way Judaism or those things connected to the religious and Haredi community for the continuation of religious life to be harmed. We won't allow it. There will be a war in every detail. This evil man was a partner to these agreements won't be able to do anything. In other words, we're going to oppose him tooth and nail.

It's let's just say this. This is not going to endear these religious politicians any more to many other Israelis. It will have effect within their own circles to me. This further alienates people and some who are religious but more moderate will be drawn to Bennett rather than against him. We'll see how this plays out. We shall see but there's an article in Israel national news, a rich a rich shava and it's entitled will the will the real Naftali Bennett please stand up and it says a previously unpublished interview with a man who would be prime minister and going down into this interview. This is someone needed a speaker and it spoke English well and they were connected with him and didn't know who he was but end up interviewing him again going back nine years and the order the entry never went to print.

But he's asked this question. What do you think was the biggest determining factor in influencing your nationalistic views and he said I served in the Sierra Mactel unit which is the unit that both BB so Benjamin Netanyahu and BB's older brother Yoni who died served in so Yoni Yonatan Netanyahu famously died in the raid at Entebbe to free the hostages there under Idi Amin and is a national hero in the memory of Israel for for dying for his people. Growing up Yoni was my hero.

I read his letters the famous myth of a Yoni letters of Yoni and my first son Yoni is named after him. I fought in all major conflicts in the past two decades. I learned a big lesson from the Lebanon years. I noticed that after we took out several Hezbollah terrorists we'd have quiet for a few months when we stopped attacking that's when they'd start hitting us. That's where I learned very clearly that Israel's only option is to be on the offense. We cannot be defensive because that only invites aggression from their side. When the second Lebanese war came which was not a big war coupled with Ahmadinejad who was just emerging and talking about wiping Israel off the earth I realized whoa this isn't Teaneck New Jersey or LA. Israel's not America. We have a clear and present threat that wants to wipe us off the earth. They're not looking for a piece of land. They're looking to remove the Jews.

That's the reality. The next question how did this realization impact you in a practical way? Bennett said at that point instead of going back to high-tech Bibi Netanyahu was head of opposition and was looking for a chief of staff who was at his lowest head of a very small party of 12 seats. I joined him there with the goal of turning him into the prime minister again. I got up every day from 2006 to 2008 as the chief of staff because I deeply believed in the man and in his ideas and his older brother.

In 2009 the heads of the Yesha council asked me to join and run the council as CEO. That's where our heritage started. It's if you give up Chevron, Beit El Elon Moreh, Beit Lechem or Kavar Rachel Israel will be a body without a soul.

A body cannot exist long term without a soul and for security reasons too. So speaking of different disputed territories in Israel anyone understands that if you try three times to pull out of an area in Yehuda and Shomron so-called West Bank but Judea and Samaria and Lebanon and Gaza and each time Iran comes in you have to be really insane to try a fourth time. And this last interesting question do you hold any current political position now or are seeking any?

No. When I joined the Yesha council I also co-founded an organization called My Israel, Yisrael Sheli, along with a very talented woman named Ayelet Shaked who's now one of the leading politicians in Israel. It's a grassroots national organization that started with zero members.

Today we exceed 80,000 members. It is Israel's biggest grassroots organization by far. Okay so interesting that this man who had no political position then but was supporting Netanyahu and helping him become prime minister again is now being viciously rejected by Netanyahu. Looked at his enemy. He would have formed a coalition with Netanyahu. He would have done it. But the other key man that was needed, Gideon Sa'ar, would not I mean oversimplifying and others wouldn't work with Netanyahu.

He would have. That didn't work he said okay let's see if there's another solution and then positions himself somehow with only seven eight seats to become the prime minister incoming prime minister. But I'm hoping for the best.

That's all I can say. You say yeah but hang on. How can you possibly make a coalition with those on the left? Well if you say this is the only way to move the nation forward, that we're tearing each other apart, and and that we have to at least work to find a way to work together and everybody compromises a little.

Others would say that that the the power that the left will have and certain things that wants to legislate and bring in they won't really be able to because there's going to be too much opposition on the right. As as for the Islamist party, Mansour Abbas, the leader of that party, is speaking in conciliatory ways and he says hey we just want funding to build up our communities. We we want to build up our communities and and and not have them neglected.

Well that's a good goal. If the money actually goes there and is implemented properly that's a good goal. And they are, the Arabs there over a million and a half, are Israeli citizens.

So they should be cared for in an equal and righteous way and if that can happen, fine. Now the whole thing may completely blow up. It may be worthless idealism. It may collapse into chaos quickly.

It may dissolve quickly. There may be more elections and who knows Netanyahu may emerge one more time. And then Israel may lurch even further right if if there's another war or more danger with Iran or the Biden administration is not considered to be loyal etc.

So we don't know what's coming. But to me the pragmatism here has to be with this many parties trying to move forward and as much as there are many good qualities among the ultra-orthodox, I've been talking about the negative, but as much as there are many good qualities among the ultra-orthodox in terms of being God-fearing people and many with devoted to family and seeking to live a life that they believe is pleasing to God. Yeah I know they're intensely hostile to messianic Jews. Look at us as the arch enemy. I've had them chanting at us, you know, Hitler won on our bodies, you want our souls. So we looked at, we looked at as the arch enemies. I understand that.

But as much as there are positive qualities with them because they have goals that are so centered on the well-being of their own community to the neglect of the well-being of the nation as a whole, to have them excluded from power right now could be a very positive thing and that's how many messianic Jews feel. Yeah I've got time for one more call. Let's go to Christian in Columbia, Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey doctor, how are you doing?

Go ahead. Hey, I wanted to ask you, you know, as a Christian I'm really excited to meet our, the patriarchs of Israel and everybody that was part of the early stories of the Bible and carry the faith up until now. But one question that I just, really puzzles me. What does the Jewish leadership say today about why they were in diaspora for the last 2,000 years?

Yeah, you'll get three basic answers. For religious Jews, traditional Jews, it's because of our disobedience to God. It's, and the more secular we've been, the more we haven't followed tradition, the more confirmation of that. There are even religious Jews at the time of the Holocaust who felt that it was divine judgment on Judaism becoming more liberal and so many hundreds of thousands and millions of Jews becoming secular. They even saw that as divine judgment. Of course that view is largely repudiated in the Jewish community today.

But the first answer would be disobedience. Now not rejecting the Messiah, they would not believe that. They wouldn't believe Jesus is the Messiah.

That failure to observe the Torah failed to live lives that were pleasing to God because of that they came under divine judgment and were scattered. That would be the predominant religious view. The secular Jewish view would be it's just what happened in history.

Just one of those things. You know that there's history, we had wars, we get exiled, and here we are. So there wouldn't necessarily have to be a supernatural explanation. If you don't believe in a supernatural God working in history in supernatural ways, you're not looking for a supernatural explanation to history. So secular Jews would just look at it as it is what it is that happened. And then a third view would be that part of the problem was lack of Jewish initiative to go back to the land. You have that in some religious circles but you might have it more in secular circles like hey let's just look at this pragmatically.

We have not ever launched a major international movement to go back to the land and to make it our own again and because of lack of initiative then it's what's happened once we started to take more initiative in the late 1800s that it started to grow and then we were forced you know with the horrors of the Holocaust to say we have to have our own homeland and the moment the United Nations ruled on it we declare independence then Jews were just kicked out so now they had nowhere to go Arab Muslim nations around the Middle East kicked out nowhere to go they had to flee to the land so some would look at it in that way but the large religious view would be that we've been under judgment and praying for mercy for God's restoration. All right friends 15 minutes from now, join me on YouTube Ask Director Brian A.S.K. D.R. Brown on YouTube for exclusive weekly Q&A chat. See you then. Another program powered by the Truth Network.