Israel’s Current Reality and Ultimate Hope
August 29, 2024
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Guest(s): Dr. Craig Hartman
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/29/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Isaac Crockett: Welcome to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, and it is a pleasure to have our guest today, Dr. Craig Hartman from Shalom Ministries, located in New York City and in Israel, the Shalom Ministries. Dr. Hartman is based out of New York City, New York City attorney, and before we start the lawyer jokes, he also is an author, speaker, pastor, preacher, adjunct professor. I don’t know, Dr. A lot of things we could say about you, a lot of good things, but thank you so much for taking the time to be in our program today.
Craig Hartman: It’s my pleasure to be here, and that’s far too much to be said about me anyway, but I’m glad to be here with you. Very much so.
Isaac Crockett: Well, Dr. Hartman, you have been on our program before radio and tv, but for those who don’t remember that, it’s been a while. Could you just maybe give us a little bit about you and the ministry that the Lord led you to start? Shalom Ministries?
Craig Hartman: Sure. We’re basically a gospel outreach, seeking to engage in dialogue with Jewish people, all people really, but our focus is reaching out to Jewish people, discussing biblical matters with them and teaching the church the biblical Jewish roots and Jewishness, if you will, of Christianity and the Bible. I mean, after all, the Bible is basically a book or compendia written by Jews, two Jews about Jews. And so the more we understand the context, the more we understand what’s in there regardless of who the reader might be.
Isaac Crockett: Well, now even as we are just talking right now, I was just remembering, I think my first experience with your ministry was as a student at Bob Jones University. We partnered with Bob Jones Press, and I remember you as I think you were an adjunct professor in my missions class and a speaker at chapel. And then I think I’ve heard you again when I was getting my first degree at Bob Jones Seminary. So you yourself have been kind of a lifelong student getting a lot of different degrees, starting with the law degree, but you’ve gotten all kinds of other degrees and you’re involved with education. And so I’d love to ask you before we get into some of the things about Israel today, but just about antisemitism on college campuses today. We see it across the country, but especially in your hometown there, New York City, we see this a lot going on. Could you maybe talk to us about what you’ve seen even in the places you called home, places, university campuses that you have degrees from and things, maybe talk to us a little bit about what’s happening and maybe even this ridiculous chant we hear from the river to the sea that I think a lot of these young people maybe don’t even get what that means.
Craig Hartman: Sure. Well, I’ve had the privilege of receiving a law degree from NYU New York University as well as the privilege of studying later in life for postgraduate work at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, which has an academic consortium, which is in an academic consortium with unit theological seminary and Columbia University. So I definitely watched with interest and shame and horror at the events that unfolded in these in particular Columbia and to a lesser extent, NYU and other places. Obviously there were no protests at the Jewish Theological Seminary, but they’re sharing professors, they’re sharing students. And so there was sort of an overlap there to a certain extent, and it was shocking, I’m sure, to the people that are now at JTS, but I think it’s important that your audience understand that this is not new, actually. I mean, there is a lot written on, and there’s been a lot of research done on the long history of antisemitism in the ivory towers and in the Ivy League in particular.
Craig Hartman: So what the events of October 7th did was that it enabled people that wanted to draw back the curtain and really expose themselves for what they really are. And we also need to remember that in a general sense, antisemitism has been on the rise dramatically for decades and even before October 7th, the incidents of antisemitic acts throughout the world have reached the proportions just prior to World War II in our time. So it’s not surprising, but what you had here was a confluence between antisemitism and anarchy because some of the people involved may have had no real opinion of Israel, but they were part of the anarchist arm of this conglomeration that just unleashed itself on the school campuses. And quite frankly, if I could be very blunt, a lot of these schools have leadership without a backbone. So even setting aside the fact that I’m Jewish and we’re talking about antisemitism, no organization can let chaos rule the day within their midst without having complete breakdown of all the whole structure.
Craig Hartman: So shame on Columbia and shame on other places that allowed this to happen in the sense of protest. Even protesting according to the law is not unfettered. There are certain restrictions even on having a protest and where to meet and you have to sometimes get a permit so you’re not disrupting the workday. There are certain reasonable constraints that are put of these things, and none of that was followed. And so yeah, it was horrible, but some of these people didn’t even know what they were talking about. They were just joining in to do something anti-Jewish or anti society, I mean from the river to the sea. Many of them don’t even know they’re talking about the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and when you talk about that, you’re talking about Israel, what sits between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, if you’re talking about from the river to the sea, the implication at certainly understood in the Arab world and definitely understood by Hamas is death to the Jews that are existing in between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River because there shouldn’t be any Jews there and they should be gone.
Craig Hartman: The good news is, if you want to look at it from a societal perspective, NYU, for example, has announced that they’re expected to open up this fall any day now, a new center for the study of antisemitism. And there are other efforts being made, but I think that’s really a bandaid approach, and I think what we’re seeing is going to stay for quite a while and may never completely go back behind the curtain.
Isaac Crockett: Well, you brought up a lot of interesting things, and we only have a moment here before the break, but do you think there was real threats to the Jewish students that they felt threatened? Do you think that there were real threats to their safety?
Craig Hartman: Absolutely. I mean, we know of, yes, without getting into detail and saying things that are maybe certain people want to have kept discreet, yes, students were harmed, students were physically harmed, the students were chased, students were fleeing into libraries and other places to be protected, all because they’re Jewish and have actually nothing to do with the Middle East in most cases. They just happened to go to that school, but hey, let’s go after them. They’re the Jews.
Isaac Crockett: And we all think about this. If this would’ve been a reversal of somebody of Arab descent or Middle Eastern descent and they were being chased because of their ethnicity and they weren’t Jewish, you would see a lot of outpouring of anger and things. And this is something that we have to look at and grapple with as a nation. Well, we want to come back and we want to look at the impact globally, but especially in Israel of October 7th, how is Israel dealing with this? What is this impact? What is the perspective for us as Bible believing Christians? What does a biblical worldview tell us to see as we see Israel going through this? A lot of questions, don’t know how many we can get through, but a lot of questions for Dr. Craig Hartman from Shalom Ministries in New York City. We’ll be right back after this brief timeout.
Isaac Crockett: Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m talking to Dr. Craig Hartman, the founder of Shalom Ministries, as well as being an attorney and an author and preacher and many things, brother Hartman, a lot about Judaism, about Israel, about being Jewish because you are Jewish and you have a lot of family roots in connection to Israel and things. And so we want to kind of pick your brain on some of the things that are going on. And when we look at October 7th, it’s one of those dates that stands out like December 7th of Pearl Harbor or September 11th with New York City, the World Trade Towers and Washington, DC and October 7th. What happened in Israel is a big deal to us in America, but I just can’t even begin to fathom what the impact was in a nation like Israel with the history that they have with the size and population there. So could you maybe talk to us a little bit about the overall impact, whether historic or just how something that horrible and gruesome affects everything from daily life to security resiliency of the people in Israel?
Craig Hartman: Sure. I mean, I think it’s safe to say that things will never be the same in Israel. I think that this was a dramatic event and a historic event, but it’s a pivotal event because I really don’t think there will, things will ever be the same. Certainly from a security perspective, Israel has to reevaluate everything while at the same time trying to defend themselves. On other borders. You have the Mediterranean Sea to the West, but to the north you have Lebanon and Syria and the terrorists primarily Hezbollah. And to the east you have Jordan, which is sometimes friendly, sometimes not, but cannot be relied on since they joined in every war against Israel in the modern period. And then of course to the south, you have Egypt, which is currently quiet, but in the middle of Israel you have the West Bank with that terrorist group, and you’ve got the Gaza kind of alongside in the southwest corner of Israel and Egypt where it borders against Egypt. You have Hamas, which we’ve seen. You have the Gaza run by Hamas. And so for this to have happened, it’s really shaken up. The Jewish people, not especially, but one of the things that has shaken people up is that some of the very villages along the Gaza that were attacked and bore the brunt of the initial attack, these were people that were very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and wanted to live in peaceful harmony with the Palestinians. And they learned the hard way and sadly that that’s not going to happen.
Craig Hartman: But the interconnection of the Jewish people in Israel and the society in Israel, and the fact that no one has a stranger in Israel has resulted in a tremendous impact to the heart, really. I would say worldwide Jewish people have been impacted greatly, and I think it’s going to take a long time for normal to come back. The normal will be a new normal. The Jewish people are resilient, and then they will stand strong. But I think it’s going to take time because the war has to end and whenever that happens, but once the war ends and things start, then getting put back together again, we’re going to see a very different Israel and a very different structure over there in my view.
Isaac Crockett: Can you give us some context, population, geography of Israel, and I think with the attack on October 7th, it was so brutal, and I don’t even think that’s a word for it. I mean, we had them coming in and filming despicable things. I don’t even want to think about much less mention, but just despicable acts of horrible things of the most violent nature and otherwise, and then promoting that, almost like sending it out like movie trailers or something. But could you maybe talk to us a little context of the nation, how big is it, but also the human toll that takes on the people there?
Craig Hartman: Sure. Well, Israel is a small country. It’s about the size of New Jersey and about a third of it, maybe a little bit less than a third of it is just wilderness. And so people aren’t living there anyway, so it’s very small and there’s about 9 million people living there, about 7 million Jewish and about 2 million, excuse me, Arab or of Arab descent or Muslim. And there’s a scattered small number of others in there. You are very astute to mention the filming of all of these things. One of the things that causes October 7th to stand out is because it’s the worst atrocities committing against Jews since the Holocaust. But the Holocaust to many people is a movie or a picture or a drawing or a story or a book, which is horrible, and I’m not trying to minimize that, but the technology gave everybody in the world a full view of all the atrocities and even some have been kept back.
Craig Hartman: You’re going to see more. There’s going to be more and more stuff coming out, and more and more people are going to be shocked to their core to see what had happened. And not just atrocities, but in many cases against women and more shocking if you could be more shocking in that against children. I mean, I won’t even mention some of the stuff that I’m aware of, but I will say this, it was very difficult for the Israeli military when they first went in to clear some of the villages and sort of find the body parts and even figure out what happened to this particular person because of what was left of the person. It took a great deal of effort to kind of piece all of this together as part of the initial stages, and that was difficult for the people that went to the medical people and the military as well. We know people that were part of that effort and the world. Maybe it’s good to take a step back and actually talk about it sometime, maybe not further during this session, but it is an example. It’s a real example before our very eyes, for those of us that care about the Bible, that sin is real and the depth of sin can be rather great and beyond our comprehension at times, and yet it’s real
Isaac Crockett: Program. A few days ago, and he was talking about the word depravity, saying we don’t use that as often from pulpits anymore, but the depraved nature of man, and that really, I think highlighted that my grandfather lived in Holland, went through the Dutch underground in World War II. Some of the worst public atrocities were public firing squads of men, but most of the atrocities happened in closed doors, gas chambers and things like that away from the population. And this was of course much worse and much more public. So well, can you maybe give us some context about and perspective on the false narratives that are being thrown around about Israel? I know Robert Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr has been very public lately defending Israel and defending some of these false narratives out there. But could you maybe just do a little bit to dispel some of the falsehoods out there?
Craig Hartman: I mean, sure. I mean it’s amazing to me, but Israel’s being accused of in being an apartheid country, it’s accused of ethnic cleansing, it’s accused of being a colonizer, and yet when you look at the facts, they fly in the face of those accusations and the accusations are really another part of antisemitism. Israel became reconstituted as a nation in the modern sense back in 1948, and at that time, all the Arabs that were living in Israel were given an opportunity to accept citizenship in Israel. Some accepted it and some didn’t, and some of those that didn’t ended up being part of this Palestinian issue that we can talk about some time. But those that did accept citizenship were several hundred thousand and they’ve now grown to 2 million. I mentioned that number earlier. Well, you can’t be cleansing ethnically a group if they’re growing in size and Israel is not taking over any of the Arab land that first of all, Israel has a historic right to this land.
Craig Hartman: There’s a presence in this land books, anybody that doesn’t want to believe that is willfully, willfully denying it. And so you have Israel not trying to take on other land that was not historically its own. And I would argue biblically Israel has a right to even more land, and there is equal opportunity for Arabs in Israel. Arabs can serve in the Israeli parliament. That’s not an apartheid nation. They have equal access to medical and everything. You go to a hospital, which I’ve said this many times when I’ve spoken the hospitals were a great place for people to see these things working out. You see Arab and Jewish doctors serving Arab and Jewish patients who are seen in the order in which they show up. The Arabs for a long time have learned Hebrew for a lot of different reasons. Now the Jewish doctors are starting on their own to learn Arabic, to be able to interact with them. My own grandson, I’m happy to say, big announcement Sunday, he starts first grade. Well, not that anybody cares except me, but that’s enough for me. But anyway, he starts first grade and the school he’s going to be going to is 70% Arab and 30% Jewish. This is not an apartheid state. They do not engage in ethnic cleansing and they are not colonized. These are lies that are part of the antisemitic problem in general.
Isaac Crockett: There’s just so many things even in talking to you that you’ve helped open my eyes to some of these falsehoods that are out there. We’re going to take a quick break here, but when we do come back, I want you to maybe mention why it’s interesting of all the different politicians that are coming out, many of them unfortunately are not saying enough. Many on certain sides are kind of quiet because they’re afraid maybe of offending people or being targeted. But why it’s so important that RFK Jr that he is speaking out about this because there’s a big tie to his family and Palestinian terrorists. I think you’re going to want to hear some of this, some of it you may remember, some of it you might want to listen to. We’re going to take a quick break to hear from some more of our partners and when we come back, we have more questions for Dr. Craig Hartman and Shalom Ministries, and we want to look at some of the defense strategies that Israel has and ultimately we want to end the program by revealing the ultimate secret weapon that Israel has in this war and in every conflict.
Isaac Crockett: We’ll be right back on Stand in the gap today. Welcome back to the Stand in the Gap Today program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’ve been talking with this whole program, Dr. Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministries in New York City. We’ve talked about Israel antisemitism in New York City, the aftermath of October 7th. And if you are just now joining us, and if you’re not driving, you probably can’t do this if you’re driving, but if you’re not driving, I would encourage you to at the end of this program, go back to stand in the gap media.org and listen to the whole program. Or better yet, if you don’t already have our app on your smartphone, just download, go to your store, the Apple, the iTunes store, the Android Google store or whatever, and just look up Stand In the Gap app, and you’ll be able to access our live stream and archives of all of our programs, TV and radio and transcripts of our radio as well, if that’s easier.
Isaac Crockett: And a lot of other things on the app or at our website, stand in the gap media.org. But I would encourage you to listen to this entire program if you couldn’t listen to all of it. We talked about antisemitism and then Dr. Hartman, you were just explaining some of the things where falsely Israel is accused of things like apartheid and you just prove that. Be honest, out of a doubt that’s not possible. I would love for you to maybe just give us first of all your ministry website because I know that you have an itinerary there. You do a lot of speaking and your speaking is very informative and very biblical worldview. It comes from a biblical worldview, very helpful to Christians, but also Shalom Ministries does a lot of Holy land tours, and you were just talking about when you go to the hospital in Israel, you see Arab and Jewish people together working together, helping people that are sick.
Isaac Crockett: And you’ve even said if you’re on a tour there, it’s nice. Just go into a big hospital and just sit in the waiting room and look at the ethnic differences. And then you were just mentioning your grandson’s going to school, he’s going to a school that’s only about 30% Jewish. The rest are Arab, some interesting things. But I’d love to hear a little more of your thoughts, get your website and maybe more thoughts on any of these false things that are being said about Israel. But I would love to especially get you to talk about Robert Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr, and the importance of his family with what we’re talking about with Palestinian terrorism.
Craig Hartman: Sure. Well, the website is shalom nyc.org, shalom nyc.org, and I appreciate that mention. There’s a lot more that can be said. I was just giving a little taste of it. But I like the idea of touring with the tour. I mean, it’s hard for a tour to stop at a hospital, but if it were possible, I’ve long promoted people trying to get to a hospital because if people see for themselves what’s going on there, they might, and you don’t know any more these days, but they might be less likely to fall prey to nonsense and propaganda. Israel is a society of life, and so they do not perpetrate any of these nonsense situations, especially when we are a people that have been persecuted for who we are. We do not persecute others for who they are. We do however want to not be shot at and killed.
Craig Hartman: So we will do what we have to do to protect ourselves, but we do not affirmatively look to harm or isolate or marginalize anyone. And perhaps people ought to contact the Arab members of Parliament and ask them how they managed to get voted in an apartheid state. Just little things like that. With respect to Robert Kennedy. Many people don’t realize this, but let’s take a step back and just remember what was the year of his death? 1968 in 1968, if you’re counting forward comes right after 1967 and in 1967 was the very well-known 67 war right now. Israel was reconstituted as a nation in the modern sense. In 1948, a family that lived in Palestine was displaced as a result of Israel becoming a nation in 1948. And they moved to America and they had a son, his name was Sirhan Sirhan, and he was rip roaring mad as he grew up with Israel, and he was extremely angry at any politician who took the side of Israel.
Craig Hartman: Well, in the campaign for the presidency in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was very supportive of Israel and Sirhan Sirhan even said in the early interviews, which he has since forgotten about, but in the early interviews, he made it very clear that he shot Bobby Kennedy because of his position on Israel. So the history of the United States of America was probably completely altered because of an act of murder by a Palestinian terrorist because of his anger toward not being happy about what was going in Israel. So I’m amazed, and that not more is said about this, but I find it interesting that his son is now being very vocal in defense of Israel having a right to defend itself. But yet he doesn’t say enough about that, and it’s probably because he’s done his own independent research and he doesn’t think the gun that had the bullet that killed his father was the one being shot by Sir Hansen.
Craig Hartman: We can set those conspiracy or non conspiracy theories aside, but I think it’s fascinating that now and Bobby Kennedy Jr. Is playing a prominent role now that he’s joined the Trump team. And if Trump wins and if he does what he says he’s going to do and start a commission to review assassinations, we may have a situation where Bobby Kennedy Jr. Is actually leading the charge to reveal all of the documents related to his own father’s murder, but it was at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist. And I just think that’s amazing in this year that we have a presidential election,
Isaac Crockett: Especially with the recent assassination attempt. Well, I have a lot of legal questions I’d love to get into about people are saying, well, Israel, it’s not been a proportional response to the October 7th, things like that. But before we do that, just this week Wednesday, so yesterday there were nine people killed. I’m looking at a USA today article by John Bacon from Wednesday, and it says there was a massive military operation, the occupied West Bank, killing at least nine people. Now, let me make it clear. Every media outlet I have seen has identified that all nine of those people killed by the IDF were terrorists. They were terrorists in that area. It says there was a string of fierce gun battles. It goes on and it says that foreign minister Israel cats on Wednesday called on Israel to consider temporarily relocating Palestinians as part of a major anti-terrorist rate in certain areas like that where there’s high intensity, and he’s accusing Iran of smuggling weapons through Jordan to there. And here’s what Katz says. He says, this is a war for everything and we must win it. They go on, they quote Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Ani a spokesperson for the military. He says, this terror threat in the West Bank is not new. It hasn’t started yesterday and it’s not going to end tomorrow. So Craig, just to get your view on some of the military strategy that’s going on, first of all with this relocating thing, have we seen in this conflict or prior conflicts that Jewish people had to be relocated because of terrorism?
Craig Hartman: Well, yeah. I mean right now, right now, 80,000, 85,000 Jews are not in their homes in the North having nothing to do with Gaza, but having everything to do with Gaza because Hezbollah, which is located in the North is acting up to put Israel in a tougher position to be able to fight in Gaza by having them to have to defend themselves on two fronts, and they’re getting more active as proxies of Iran because they are Shiites. It’s a little bit beyond the scope of what we’re discussing here today, but Iran are Shiite Muslims and Hezbollah are Shiite Muslims. Those are the true brothers. Now, Sunni Muslims are the other major sect of Islam, but Hamas are Sunnis and the Sunnis and the Shiites hate each other. So Iran slash Hezbollah is happy to use Hamas as their lackies, but they’re really tied together Hamas and Iran. So when you hear Hamas, sorry, sorry. Hezbollah and Iran, when you hear Hezbollah being active, that’s really Iran, but they don’t want to do it in their own name for whatever political reason. And there’s a lot of political gamesmanship going on right now, but yes, right now Jews are displaced because of the bombing that’s going on in the north.
Isaac Crockett: Let me ask you real quickly about the Iron Dome. Is it working well and is that helping defend Israel and keep peace in that area?
Craig Hartman: Sure. The Iron Dome is outstanding and they have other parallel systems that they’re using. The United States have been very helpful, and Israel and the United States has been good partners in developing these technologies. But the way that things are going and the way it’s set up in Gaza, and there’s no way around it, there has to be hand to hand, ground combat, but it’s also supplemented by high technology, a lot of intelligence. There’s a lot of people intelligence, human intelligence really helping and being a part of all of this, and all of this is working together to sort of be a full frontal assault, if you will. But Israel is using extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, which is very hard to do in the ground warfare with Hamas because Hamas doesn’t value anybody’s life and they will be happy to see Muslims killed, Muslim babies killed. They don’t care. And so Israel has to figure out a way to try to minimize civilian damage as much as possible. And yet it’s totally, it’s not completely avoidable. They do the best they can and the high technology helps with it, and the Iron Dome helps a lot because very few rockets get through, although some do. But this is the way, I mean, this is how they have to function.
Isaac Crockett: I think it’s so interesting, actually, I think it was RFK Jr who was mentioning this just recently. It might’ve been this week that the money that is given to Palestinians has seemingly gone to Hamas to make them richer and for them to buy weapons, the majority he was claiming of the money given to Israel has been to put into this iron dome for defense to be peaceful, which is an interesting thing. It goes back to what you just said, that Israel has a value for human life. They want to see the flourishing of life, whereas it seems that Hamas is exactly opposite there in Culture of death. So many more questions. When we come back, I want to talk to you a little bit more about some of this military strategy. Maybe we can touch maybe on some of the assassinations that have gone on, but I want to talk to you, Dr. Hartman, about ultimately the ultimate secret weapon that Israel has and will Israel ever be wiped off the face of the earth?
Isaac Crockett: We’re going to take a quick time out. We’ll be right back on Standing the gap today. Welcome back to the program again. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett talking to Dr. Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministry, NYC, and we were talking about some of the differences between Israel and Hamas. You were talking about Israel and how they are not an apartheid nation. In fact, they have incorporated Arabs into their government. If you go into even a school or a hospital, you’ll see Arab and Jewish together incorporated together in that. And I want to talk to you, we talked a little bit about some of the military strategy and you were talking about the iron dome, and you said that, again, that has saved a lot of life. And this kind of goes into this thread that you’re talking about. Israel has a belief in the sanctity of human life. They want to see human life flourishing, whereas Hamas has made it clear that they promote a culture of death. I’d be curious, just some of the military strategies that we’ve seen, everything from some very targeted assassinations to their willingness to trade prisoners for civilians, civilians that never should have been kidnapped. I’d love to hear you kind of connect some of that with the difference of worldview really between Israel and Hamas.
Craig Hartman: Sure. Well, as many know, it took decades in some cases, but Israel was in the long game from the start with respect to the attack, the terrorist attack on the Olympic athletes in Munich. And so Israel will do what they have to do in the short term, but they also set themselves for a long haul. I mean, think about all the time and years and effort they made to track down the guilty people from the Holocaust and the Nazis. And it’s also an example of the human intelligence that I mentioned earlier sometime ago, assuming it was Israel, wink, wink. They got a bomb into a place and left it there, and they waited for a high value target to get near it and boom. And in this case it happened to be Hania and he’s gone. What this also showed, just going back to a question you had asked earlier about Israel and the way they’re positioning themselves in Arab culture, hospitality is a big thing.
Craig Hartman: We even see it in the Bible with Abraham and lot and things of that nature. So when Hanah is over in Iran, Iran, he’s in their house and they’re in a sense protecting him. So this was a real, real offense to Iran and an embarrassment. And it’s interesting as we watch this play out something simple as ancient hospitality and the responsibility of the host is now going to inform in some way whether Iran responds or doesn’t respond, and the fact that they haven’t responded in light of that special embarrassment makes us think that perhaps they’re not as tough as they want everybody to think and they’re not prepared the way they have been before. But maybe we shouldn’t think that either and let our guard down. Just something for people to think about as far as civilians. Let’s remember when dead Israeli bodies were being dragged through the streets of Gaza.
Craig Hartman: The people lining the streets and cheering were not Hamas. These were civilians who remember back in 2005, well, right after 2005 when the Jews were removed from Gaza and they were given complete autonomy, they elected Hamas to be their leadership. And so which of the civilians are innocent and which are not? And let’s also remember in that regard that a couple of months ago, three men were rescued in one location and a young lady was wrecked, rescued from a second location. She is Noah Aga, who’s fairly well known because of the videos that have come out. Those three men were not in, none of these four people were in caves or tunnels. The men themselves were in the home of one of the most highly respected physicians, a civilian quote, whose son was a journalist and has some questionable ties to Al Jazeera now the doctor and his son, they’re gone, and some others who took up arms to fight against Israel, they didn’t just give up the soldier, the hostage. So all of these things work together and show why Israel has to be multifaceted and multi fronted and short and long-term viewing things in order to defend themselves and deal with what they have to.
Isaac Crockett: There are so many different cases just in the last few months since October 7th and even just since the summer where Iran or their proxies have done large scale attacks against Israel and then also kind of the preventative maintenance that Israel has been doing with putting things, getting targets ready and assassinating and things. It really is incredible from a human standpoint. But we were talking off air, actually, I think we were talking about the program yesterday and you brought up about the secret weapon that Israel has, and I think it’s a surprising secret weapon to some people listening and watching the news. But for those of us who have a biblical worldview, this should not be a surprise because you said there is a secret weapon and that you can guarantee that Israel will not be like some people are predicting they might be wiped off the face of the earth sometime soon, but you can guarantee that Israel will not be eliminated as long as life is still here as long as the sun is still in the sky. Can you talk to us a little bit about that secret weapon?
Craig Hartman: Sure. And as an illustration of that, the recent barrage of bombs not long ago from Iran, 300 or more bombs, and the only casualty was sadly a Bedouin girl, an Arab girl who got hit with shrapnel and has brain damage. And I’m not saying that the Jews are never hurt by these attacks, but disproportionately God protects Israel just the other day. There’s a lot of memes going on in the Arab world with the great, the massacre of chickens that there were rockets thrown in northern Israel and a bunch of chickens died in a chicken coop. That’s not to minimize the loss of Israeli life, but only to simply to say that when you look at the amount of attack and onslaught against the Jews over the years and compare that with the number of casualties, it’s very disproportionate because of the secret weapon. And though though there’s no promise that Jews will never die, there is a promise that Israel will never cease to be a nation before God.
Craig Hartman: Psalm 1 21, the keeper of Israel, neither slumbers or sleeps, and of course Jeremiah 31, that as long as the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and the stars at night, Israel will not cease to be a nation before God. The Jewish people will be a people before God, even for what they have done. It says in Jeremiah, they will not cease to be a nation. That’s the explanation for the existence of any Jews on the planet to this day when they’ve been persecuted so much. And I can say without any hesitation, no matter what happens, even if America is destroyed and removed from the face of the earth, Israel will not cease to be a nation before God because he said so. And that should be very encouraging to Christians because it’s an example of God being a promise keeping God.
Isaac Crockett: Well, thank you for that encouragement because as you say, for all Bible believers, this is something that helps us not get overwhelmed with anxiety and fear like we’re tempted to when we watch the news, but it helps us put our trust in the sovereign God, the keeper of promises, the creator of the world, the one who sent us redemption through Jesus Christ, and what a great way to really end this program is by pointing us back to God and to his promises and to his word. If you’ve enjoyed this program, you can listen to the whole program again by going to our website, but you can also go to shalom nyc.org, shalom nyc.org. That’s the Shalom Ministry’s website. You can find out more information of what Dr. Hartman has going on his itinerary of where he’ll be speaking, as well as finding out about Holy Land tours that are coming up. Lots of good information. Dr. Craig Hartman, thank you so much for being on the program with us today.
Craig Hartman: It’s been a pleasure be with you as always, and I’d just like to ask your listeners to please pray for the peace of Jerusalem, educate yourselves about truth, and don’t fall pray to propaganda and witness because the time is short.
Isaac Crockett: Amen. Our gracious, heavenly Father, we do thank you for what you are doing for your people. We pray that you would protect those in Israel who are standing for what is right and for truth. We pray that you would protect innocent life, but we pray for those believers even listening right now, Christians who know Christ Savior, that they might, as we just heard, be educated and take a stand, praying for Israel, and just praying for your will to be done and your kingdom to come. We pray all this through the power of your Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, our precious savior. We thank you, father. We love you, amen. Well, for those of you listening today, again, thank you so much for listening. I hope that you will be able to share this program with somebody who was not able to listen to it. You can do that through our app or through stand in gap media.org and please, please pray for our ministry. Please pray for Shalom Ministries as well, and we appreciate that you are listening to us and hope that you will listen regularly tuning in or listening on your favorite podcast and can also use our smartphone app. But until next time, my prayer is that you will stand in the gap for truth with courage for Christ every day. Thanks again and God bless.
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