Remembering October 7th One Year Later

Remembering October 7th One Year Later

Oct. 7, 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 10/4/24. 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:   Well, I’m Isaac Crockett and I welcome you to this somber program today, the 7th of October. We’re at the beginning of Holy Days here in the Jewish calendar having just come off of Rosh Hashanah and getting ready for Yom Kippur. And obviously today though, recognizing the one year anniversary of the October 7th terror attacks on Israel, the reminder of the deep pain, the ongoing struggles and attacks faced by those living in Israel and for Jewish families all over the world, not just in Israel. And so on. Today’s program, we’re going to be joined again by Dr. Craig Hartman, whose family calls Israel Home. Dr. Hartman is Jewish and he’s a believer in Jesus and Yeshua as Messiah. He’s the founder and director of Shalom Ministries Incorporated. He will share his personal reflections, Lord willing, on how these attacks have affected his loved ones and his faith and just what he is seeing personally.

Isaac Crockett:   But we also are hoping to get into maybe offering some insight into larger things going on spiritual and political context for what’s happening all through the lens of a biblical worldview. So together we’ll discuss some of these ongoing implications, this tragic event, how God is using it, the spiritual significance of standing stand in the gap is the name of our program Standing with Israel and how the Christians Bible believers can respond in these critical times. So please stay with us for an insightful and heartfelt conversation about faith, family, and the call to pray for peace in the holy land. So Dr. Hartman, again, thank you for taking time. I know you have a busy itinerary you’re traveling with. Thank you for taking time to be with us on this special program.

Craig Hartman:  It’s my pleasure, Isaac. It’s always great to be with you folks and we appreciate the stand that you take and the support that you’ve been giving.

Isaac Crockett:   Well, Dr. Hartman, I want you to be able to just open up to us with whatever’s on your heart and to talk to us. We want to look at some of the big picture things and maybe we’ll get into some nuances of understanding some of these things. But first and foremost, I just want to talk to you in a very personal way. Your family has been through this and just have you open up about what it was like for you and in your house, your home October 7th, some of the connections with your wife being over there and your children and grandchildren around that time. During that time, what it was like. You have a very unique perspective because of your background having the fact that you have children and grandchildren in Israel. You’re Jewish, you’re a believer in Jesus as Messiah, your lawyer, pastor, teacher, you host tours in Israel. You spend a lot of time every year in Israel. So just please feel free to open up and whatever you would feel led to talk to us about, but how this felt on October 7th when the news came to you in your home.

Craig Hartman:  Sure. Actually, it’s sort of bittersweet because my wife, I was not able to join her on this trip, but my wife had gone out to Israel because our son and his wife were expecting their fifth child. And she was born on September 29th and my wife got there, I believe it was on September 23rd that she arrived. And the flight that we had arranged for her to return on was to leave Tel Aviv on October 6th at midnight Israel time. And we actually thought about extending her time there, but she took the flight that was scheduled. And so she was halfway home when war broke out. And the next day, October 7th was supposed to be a birthday party for our eldest grandchild. And when my wife landed in New York after waking me up because it was four 30 in the morning and I didn’t even know what was going on, she woke me up to get ready to come and get her at the airport.

Craig Hartman:  And she called my son to see how the birthday party went and he told her that they were at war. And then one by one, each of the cell phones of the people in the plane and just getting off the plane started going off because the pilots said nothing during the flight and suddenly there was wailing and crying and very intense situation. And then of course we followed what was going on and ultimately everything was fine for our family personally, but we know people who were directly affected and everybody’s really been affected. And when I think about that juxtaposition of war and what was supposed to be a birthday party, but in the context of the birth of a baby and the excitement of that, it’s kind of the reason that Shala Ham, which was his pseudonym, the writer, a Fiddler on the Roof, this is the kind of thing that he had in mind when he wrote, when he decided on the title.

Craig Hartman:  The title really is indicative of Jewish Life through the ages. Of course, he didn’t envision this kind of barbarity, but the idea of trying to make sweet music in a very unstable environment. So here we have a baby coming in and a birthday party being celebrated, and all of this happened. And then of course, as I said earlier, I don’t compare us to people that were affected absolutely directly and physically, but everybody, every Jewish person on the planet and certainly everybody in Israel was affected because everybody knows somebody. And it’s been just awful, just awful ever since then.

Isaac Crockett:   It is unimaginable. I try to put myself in your shoes and in different ones, but it’s just something I can only try to imagine. And I have so many things I want to ask you about, but what would you want to say? What would you want our listeners to know and remember about that date, about October 7th?

Craig Hartman:  Well, I guess first of all, this is nothing new. There’s been a desire on the part of the adversary and his henchman, if I could put it that way, to harm Israel. I mean, antisemitism has been around for a long time. It’s a horrible thing, but it’s satanical induced in this case. It’s interesting because Israel was not the aggressor at all. And the people that were attacked, the people that were the targets were civilians mean it was the intended targets were civilians and civilians that in many of which, especially those that lived in the kibbutz team along the border of Gaza are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. So everything about this is just outrageous and disgusting and wrong and vile, but it’s a picture of things to come, isn’t it? We see the sin of man displayed, but we also see the fact that there’s coming a day when there’s going to be a worse attack on Israel, worse than any before and any after that. That will happen of course in the 70th week of Daniel. And I think it’s important that we acknowledge the things that happen in the real world that give us a picture of what is to come, that it might motivate us as believers to action. You know what I’m saying? Because this was horrible and it was the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, but there’s more coming according to the prophecies,

Isaac Crockett:   And that makes such a difference when we look at what has happened and what is going to happen through the lens of what the Bible says, how this has been going on, why it’s going on. And I want to get into that and even talk to you more about that and kind of Jux suppose the difference between a Bible believing Judeo Christian worldview and that of the worldview of the Palestinians and many others who almost embrace a death style. Sometimes I think it’s been called, but we have a lot more to talk about. We’re going to take a brief time out to hear from some of our partners and we want to come back talking with Dr. Hartman of Shalom Ministries about the anniversary of the October 7th attack, about the significance of what happened, what is happening that and so much more after this brief time timeout.

Isaac Crockett:   We’ll be right back on Standing the gap today. Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I am talking with Dr. Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministries about the somber event here that we are recognizing today that the first anniversary of October 7th, Dr. Hartman is an author, a speaker, a lawyer, a pastor, many, many things, but he is Jewish and a believer in Jesus Christ as Messiah. He has family over in Israel. And Dr. Hartman, you’ve been on our program radio and TV before, but can you just talk to us about the challenge that is going on in Israel right now, especially with October 7th, with what’s going on against in Gaza against Hamas and the difference in worldview really between that of a Judeo-Christian worldview and that of the Palestinians, and I speak of them, not just their leaders, although definitely this is the case of their leaders, but it seems to be many, and some might even say most of the Palestinian people, they do not want to see peace with Israel. In fact, they don’t want to see anything except for the annihilation of Israel and Jewish people. It would appear from what they’ve said. But maybe you could speak to that and talk about the challenge that presents in this case.

Craig Hartman:  Sure. I mean, you’re touching on something that’s really important and unfortunately, far too many people refuse really to accept it and believe it, but it’s a fact. And the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians do not want peace, and they don’t see Israel as a true peace partner. There are many people that have sort of done polls and studies over the years, and each year a smaller and smaller percentage of Palestinians see Israel as a potential peace partner. If we had been talking 20 or 30 years ago, we might’ve been at 50% or something like that, 60%, but now nearly over 90% do not see Israel as a viable peace partner. So there’s this constant, I might even call it an industry that’s built around bringing peace to the Middle East through negotiations to a creation of a two state solution and all these things.

Craig Hartman:  But the fact of the matter is they don’t want peace. They want no Israel, they want no Jews, no Israel in the area. And just to prove it simply, I mean we could talk for the next 10 hours about the proofs, but just one simple proof. Look at the flag. Look at the flag of Palestine. It’s a flag not of the West Bank, nor is it a flag that includes the West Bank and Gaza. It’s a flag that includes Palestine as described by the entire land area of what is today, Israel. This is what the children are taught in their school books. A good friend of mine it, Amar Marcus runs an organization called Palestinian Media Watch, and there are other organizations, but his is great and they do great work and they track all this stuff year after year and they present it to parliaments throughout the world so that people understand where their money is going and how it’s being used.

Craig Hartman:  But this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest hurdles and obstacles to true peace over there. And that in a diplomatic sense in that you do not have two partners that really, really want peace. And to the extent that Palestinians are participants, can I use that term properly, beyond the leadership and beyond the leadership of the Palestinians in general, beyond the fat leadership, the Hamas leadership, beyond all of these people, there’s a reckoning that needs to be dealt with respect to some of the friendly citizens. As we talked, I think in the last broadcast about that group of three men that were found when that young lady was found and rescued, they were in homes and those three men were in a home of a well-known doctor whose son is a journalist and has supposed ties to Al Jazeera. Now the doctor, I mean, this is upstanding citizens.

Craig Hartman:  When Jewish bodies were being dragged through the streets of Gaza, the streets were aligned with people cheering. Those are not all Hamas people. And don’t forget these people elected Hamas in right after the 2005 disengagement. And let’s also remember just a few weeks back when those six hostages were found, one of them was Hirsch Goldberg, Poland, the American, the dual citizen. They were found in a tunnel that was accessed through the bedroom of a child in the building above it. I mean, so almost, it’s amazing. You watch the news, you hear about the news, we get reports from Israel, we know people that are directly involved in various things and the Bible becomes very truthful. Isaiah chapter five in verse 20, woe went to them that call evil good and good evil. Everything seems like it’s upside down. And Israel has to deal with this with the whole world against it and guns pointed at it and being blamed or put on even footing with absolute barbaric behavior and wicked terrorists. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

Isaac Crockett:   That’s a great passage to aptly describe what’s going on. I also like that Palestinian media watch. If you haven’t looked up their information, I would encourage you to go their Palestinian media watch from a legal standpoint. I know again, you wear so many different hats, but from your lawyer side of things, legally, what does international law say about what Israel’s right to defend herself after such an attack? Because many people, and we’ll get into this if we have time, are accusing Israel of being the aggressors or something, but they were clearly attacked citizens, attacked from a legal standpoint, what are they allowed to do?

Craig Hartman:  I remember when I was a little kid, one of the popular shows on TV was the Twilight Zone, and I feel like every time the news comes on and these pundits are talking about this stuff, I feel like I’m back. I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Israel’s right to defend itself is absolute even under international law, even under the Geneva conventions, even under the additional protocols. Okay, take it all. Any angle you want to take, remember under, and again, we’re not going to get into the detail in chapter and verse and all that. I don’t want to bore your listeners or put them to sleep, but according to international laws of war, citizens are never to be the target. And in this case, citizens were the only targets they went after citizens if they came across military people along the way, well, they became targets too.

Craig Hartman:  But going after those people at the music festival, going after the people in those villages, many of them children, I mean just the thought of it is nauseating. It’s unbelievable. Israel has a right to defend itself and Hamas committed war crimes the moment they came after those people. So Hamas has committed war crimes. The irony of all this is, I don’t know every single thing that happened in every single corner of this, and there may have been some Israeli soldiers that inappropriately conducted themselves, but from what we know, by and large, Israel is the only party in this whole mess that has not committed war crimes. Hamas is putting launchers near hospitals in people’s homes. That in and of itself brings those people’s lives into jeopardy. And if they become part of collateral damage, it’s considered proportional. So it’s absolutely shocking to see the world looking at all of this.

Craig Hartman:  Israel is following international law, nobody else is, and they’re being put on the equal footing as if the two sides need to have to negotiate and have a ceasefire. And who’s leading the negotiation? Qatar and what is Qatar? Qatar is a country that is housed hania until he was killed by Israel for years. So their housing, the leader of Hamas and their part of the integral part of negotiating if the world was right and if the world was not upside down, the world would say to Hamas, drop your weapons, return the hostages end of story. That’s the only proper response under international law and by conscience that is appropriate in this situation.

Isaac Crockett:   And real quickly, what have we seen as a global international response, especially just in the last few weeks we had the United Nations. What have we seen with the UN and how that’s impacted Israel and the leadership of Israel?

Craig Hartman:  Well, it’s been so outrageous that I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but Israel has announced that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Gut, he’s not permitted in Israel. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t take time to laugh, but that’s funny. It’s a way for the world to see that Israel is fed up. They’re tired of being blamed for stuff they didn’t do. They’re tired of being told they can’t defend themselves. They’re tired of being put on equal footing. It’s just outrageous. Evil is being called good and good is being called evil, and it’s wrong. But Israel’s going to defend itself. Israel has a right to defend itself. And after the recent additional barrage of rockets from Iran directly at Israel, Israel will respond in some way in the very near future I’m sure.

Isaac Crockett:   What role do you see Israel taking right now? Because they have taken on, and it wasn’t just October, it was multiple attacks on the 7th of October, but it’s been continual since then. What kind of position do you see that they are in right now as the world watches this, especially in light of the Iranian ballistic missile attack and all kinds of other things?

Craig Hartman:  Well, Israel’s on the brink. I mean, setting the Bible aside for a minute, just from a human perspective, it looks like Israel is basically teetering on the edge of annihilation. But we know better because we understand the scriptures and Israel, they’re prepared to fight alone. They are fighting alone. America has proven itself to not be supportive in any way except there’s been a few helps in military sense. But America is putting pressure on Israel that’s putting Israel in a tougher position. But we know that no matter what happens, Israel will not cease to be a nation before God even for all that they have done. And so no matter what happens, Israel will be fine. People may lose their lives, and that’s sad, of course, but Israel’s not going anywhere. And Jeremiah chapter 31 is one place is a place we can point to from the scriptures, but Israel’s on the brink in the geopolitical sense and it’s outrageous. And going back to what you said about the United Nations, let’s not forget, every so often we get more news reports revealing that the United Nations employees have been helping in some form or fashion, Hamas, in pulling all this off in the first place. It’s absolutely outrageous. And there are people not just accepting the truth and the reality of all of this,

Speaker 3:           But Israel is, they know how to defend themselves and it’s a very, very tense time. And certainly there could be a broadening of the conflict in the Middle East, which would not be good for any of us.

Isaac Crockett:   Very, very interesting times, important times to know the Bible to go back and study scripture. When we come back, we want to look at how Israel is moving forward since the October 7th attack, how they are focusing on a culture of life, even in the midst of horrific attacks and what’s happened in the last year. So we need to take another quick time out and we’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap today. Welcome back to the program on Pastor Isaac Crockett, talking with Dr. Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministries. If you’re just tuning into the program, I would highly encourage you to go to our Stand in the Gap app and download that. If you don’t already have it, go to stand in the gap media.org. Stand in the gap media.org. You can also get all of our archives. You could listen to the entire program, read the transcript, and I would encourage you to listen to the first half of this program.

Isaac Crockett:   We’re talking about the one-year anniversary of October 7th. I would also encourage you while you’re there, if you didn’t listen to Wednesday’s program of last week with Sam Rohrer and Dr. Carl Broggi to go back and listen to that one too, talking about the enemies of Israel and the global enemies of Israel, what’s going on with all of that? I would highly encourage, recommend you to listen to that program as well. But Dr. Hartman, you do a lot of traveling. You’re based out of New York City, but you’re not in New York City right now. You’re actually in the Midwest. You’re headed to do some speaking in my hometown area. I grew up in the Indianapolis, Indiana area and you have some special things going on with that. Would you be able to share just a little bit of that with our listening audience before we go on with more questions for you about this program?

Craig Hartman:  Sure. The Indiana Association of Christian Schools is celebrating a week of awareness for Israel, a week of support for Israel. Included within that is several rallies that they’re holding at some Christian schools, and I will have the privilege of speaking at two of those rallies rally on the 8th of October and the ninth. And I’m very thankful for the desire of this group to inform the youth and to take a stand where they should biblically with the apple of God’s eye, if you will, though imperfect the apple of God’s eye and the opportunity to participate. That is a privilege and I’m looking forward to it very much.

Isaac Crockett:   And it’s dear to my heart because of the Israel awareness part, but also I grew up in a Christian school in Indiana that was a part of that IACS, the Indiana Association of Christian Schools. My dad was a part of that as well. And our school, we used BJU Press curriculum, which is a partner of this program, and I was given a very good biblical worldview growing up. So highly encourage that. As we’ve been talking about the one year anniversary of the October 7th attacks, we’ve looked at several parts of it now, but I want to look at right now how life goes forward in Israel. And I just would like to get your introspection and thoughts on what you’re seeing when you’re over there and from your family that are over there. How are people in Israel coping here now a year since this original attack happened?

Craig Hartman:  Yeah, I guess the thing I would want to say and for people to consider is these events that we’re watching unfold on television are life Day-to-Day, minute by minute life for many people, and these people have to adjust to a life that was not the way it was before. And I personally don’t think Israel will ever be the same. We won’t know until the war is over exactly what that means, but certainly it was almost like an international gut punch on Jews all over the world. And the more people hear about or even know people directly affected, the more sad it becomes upon reflection. But everything is affected even in daily life. I mean, I have grandchildren as we’ve mentioned before, and again, I’m not comparing us to those that have been hurt physically because there’s no comparison, but even indirectly, even everybody else is indirectly affected.

Craig Hartman:  My grandchildren have to now, their innocence has been lost to a certain extent. The sound of sirens, the rushing into a bomb shelter in one of my grandchildren’s classes, they had to deal with the fact that the father of one of the students and their little kids, four or five years old, was killed in his military responsibility after the war started, he was called up and went down to Gaza and lost his life there. There’s all these things that these people, young and old are having to adjust to. Many neighbors have been lost. I can keep going down the list, and so it’s going to take some time. I mean, Israel is resilient people. The Jewish people are resilient people because as I said at the beginning, it’s nothing new under the sun. This isn’t the first time people have attacked, but it’s the time happening now, and that’s coupled with the display that it has had.

Craig Hartman:  Technology and videos have enabled a lot of this to be seen broadly. You read in the Bible of people being carried off to war, it’s a verse and you move on and your mind may wander there, but you have hours and hours of videos that are just bringing it to your living room. It’s just a very different thing. And so it’s a challenge to get back into it. As time goes on, you get a little bit more back into it, but it’s not over yet because then there’s a siren and then there’s more bombings, and then there’s a terror attack the other day in Jaffa. And every time you turn, there’s something else happening. Now we’ve got the bombs going back and forth and we’ve got displaced people. Don’t forget, 80,000 or so Israelis, they’re not in their homes. And what’s life for them? When the law first began, they would displace people staying in hotels.

Craig Hartman:  One particular hotel that we were staying in is run by a friend of mine and we interacted with some of these people. Those were displaced right from the villages just outside of Gaza. Now you’ve got those people have been resettled until their villages are rebuilt, but you’ve got people up in the north now because of Hezbollah and what they’ve been up to hoping to get back into their homes. So Israel as resilient people are slowly but surely getting back into regular life, whatever that is. But I am suggesting that whatever regular life is for Israelis, it’s going to be different going forward, and some of that still has yet to be worked out.

Isaac Crockett:   And as you’re talking about that, it just brings so many more questions to my mind. But in general, you living in New York City where there’s a large population of Jewish people, and you touched on this one of the last programs you were on with us, but this rise in antisemitism, to me, it seems like maybe it’s part of a spiritual battle going on, but I’m just curious your thoughts on this. October 7th happens, and again, Twilight Zone was a good analogy, I think, because you would think that everybody would come rally around Israel for this attack. Yet it seems to me, I don’t remember a time in my lifetime and I’m in my early forties where there’ve been so many public displays of antisemitism and seemingly accepted as part of our culture, which isn’t. What do you make of that? How does that fit in, I guess?

Craig Hartman:  Well, I think you’re raising an excellent point because I think people have been lulled into a sense that antisemitism is not so widespread anymore. We’re becoming more and more civilized, aren’t we? The fact of the matter is antisemitism before October 7th, so let’s go back to October 6th. On October 6th, antisemitism Worldwide has already reached, had already reached levels, proportional levels to what it was like right before World War ii, what October 7th has done and what the reaction of many of the countries, many of the people seem to be supportive of barbaric behavior and terrorists and torturing of children. What that has done is it’s allowed the curtain to be pulled back so that we can see the dirty underbelly of antisemitism and what it really is, and that it really is out there and nothing new under the sun. It’s always been the case, right? Like we talked about earlier, this is a satanic battle.

Craig Hartman:  God loves Israel for his own purpose, and Satan will therefore the adversary will therefore hate what God loves. And it’s been an illogical, irrational, but yet very believable and understandable war by the adversary against God and that which God loves. And so it’s crazy and it makes no sense, but then again, it makes perfect sense and I think it’s incumbent upon those that know better to take the right approach and understand it through that lens so that we’re not misled or that we fail to be supportive where we need to be supportive and praying where we need to be praying.

Isaac Crockett:   And I want to ask a real quick question here, right before the break, but business, I just can’t imagine how business has been affected in Israel. You’re someone who spends a lot of time there. You have contact with many industries in Israel. How has business in Israel changed?

Craig Hartman:  Well, Israel has been dramatically impacted economically. I mean, think about it, when a whole bunch of your men are off to war, then there’s less people to run the shops, et cetera. And so there’s been a tremendous impact. Some people have left the industries that they were in. Some businesses have folded, they may not be able to come back again. The government of Israel is doing what it can to be a help, and Israel will do what it can to rebuild and reestablish itself on the other side of this, if there becomes another side of it, if you know what I mean. But there’s no doubt that there has been a tremendous impact on Israel, and it’s going to be one of the challenges of Vivin Netanyahu when this settles down to the point that he can or the entire country can focus back again primarily on economic and domestic issues, they’re going to have their hands full in dealing with it.

Craig Hartman:  And then that may prove to be a challenge that he can’t overcome from a political perspective, even if he regains some of his stature on the international scene. So you’re asking something about the real life nuts and bolts day-to-Day paying the bills. I know people personally who have lost their jobs and they’re trying to do other jobs. They’re going back to school learning how to do new skills. It’s a real challenge and it’s a real part in day-to-day living that they’re going to have to deal with. They’re doing the best they can, they’re rallying together. People are helping each other, trying to help ’em get jobs, trying to give them work, letting them stay for free or giving them a break on different things. But it’s a major concern that’s going to be a part of the ultimate resolution from Israeli’s perspective

Speaker 3:           On everything that happens in putting the pieces back together again when the war is over

Isaac Crockett:   And so complicated there. And so many people, Jewish people, but also other Arab people. We talked in another program about the number of Arab people there, Palestinian people that can’t work right now because of many, many parts and pieces from that. Well, we’re going to take another quick time out. We’ll come back with our last segment of the program to wrap things up with Dr. Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministries. Please keep the radio on this station. We’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap today. Well welcome back to this program. If you’ve been listening to the entire program, we’re talking about this somber anniversary, first anniversary of October 7th. If you haven’t been able to hear all of it, I would encourage you to go back to stand in the gap media.org or download our Stand in the Gap app if you haven’t already, and listen to the entire program talking with Dr. Craig Hartman from Shalom Ministries and Dr. Hartman, just as we’re closing, as we’re wrapping things up, what do you think as you look at Israel, you look at what happened with this sneak attack, covert attack on October 7th, what has changed in this last year from October 7th, 2023 to October 7th, 2024?

Isaac Crockett:   Do you think that Israel is better prepared against these kinds of attacks a year later? And will Israel really ever be the same in regards to what has happened here?

Craig Hartman:  Well, that’s a really great question. Let me just pause for a minute before I answer that and just say one thing because as we were ending the last segment going into the break, you said something very important that I wanted to build off of speaking about Palestinians and the effect that they’ve even had the effect on them, even from the economic side of things. I’m not sure if people realize, but Israel has for years given work permits for people living in the West Bank. Let’s talk about that group of Palestinians who are peaceful. There are some bad guys over there, but there are also peaceful Palestinians and they want to work, and Israel has invited them to work in Israel, and they give them work permits and they go through checkpoints in the morning and go home at night, and they provide for their family.

Craig Hartman:  We have friends, some of these are friends of ours. When October 7th happened, Israel canceled all those work permits. You have a number of Palestinian people have been therefore out of work for this entire time, and that’s not good for anybody either. And it’s so sad. So many people are being impacted by this, not just the Jews in Israel, but everybody in Israel. And I appreciate you’re alluding to that in the way you ended the last segment. Oh, now for the question you just asked for this segment, this may sound strange the way I say it, but I would say this. I would say Israel is just as prepared today, but maybe more ready. I mean, I don’t think Israel has increased its capability to deal with these things in the last year, but somehow it happened and that story has not been told yet. How on earth did Israel with all of its high tech capability miss that this happened?

Craig Hartman:  So I know that some changes are being made to avoid the possibility of this ever happening, but it may turn out when the investigations are all done that some people blew it and were asleep at the switch or away from their desk or whatever it is. I mean, I don’t want to speculate at this time. I know that Israel is a country that does not hesitate to examine its own people and investigate in great detail when things like this happened. Erma ear was investigated very, very intensely after the Yom Kippur war. And I expect it’ll happen again when the war is over and we may learn of mistakes being made. We’re certainly going to learn about more interference by the United Nations and some of their workers and some of the people that work for some of their subsidiaries. That will certainly happen since it’s already happened.

Craig Hartman:  So that has yet to be seen. And I think because of what has been learned and what will be learned, Israel is more ready today. I don’t expect anything like this would happen again. But then again, that’s what you would’ve said probably a few days before October 7th anyway. But I think Israel’s just as prepared. Israel is a high tech marvel with tremendous capabilities, militarily, and we’ve seen it, I mean, beepers blowing up in people’s pockets, high value targets being assassinated in very amazing and unusual circumstances and on and on and on. But we’ll find out. But I do think they’re more ready now and still prepared. If that’s a fair answer,

Isaac Crockett:   That’s a very helpful answer. I want to look now at here in America our relationship to Israel, and just pick your brain, your personal feelings. Here. We have a presidential election about to take place. Both candidates are candidates that have a record with Israel. We have former president, president Donald Trump, and we have current vice president who took the mantle from President Joe Biden, but they are, she’s in an executive position right now. She has the job of a vice president based, not so much on maybe what they’re saying, but on their records. Both of these candidates. Do you have any thoughts on which one would have the best policies towards Israel?

Craig Hartman:  That’s a loaded question. I’m very temp a political discussion. I’ll few minutes after we can look. So I think yesterday or this morning, president Biden was asked what Israel’s response to the Iranian bomb should be. He said, which absolutely blew my mind, but I guess it shouldn’t blow mind, is that Israel should be careful response. And he said that I had to laugh even though it’s a sad situation because when he took office, he removed all the sanctions against, gave them the ability to be in this position. When Trump left without taking necessarily Trump, the fact was almost totally broke. There was rumbling among the revolutionaries there that this may be the opportune time to overthrow the ayatollah and get back to a normal country. And once Biden took office, and Harris, the last person in the room was in agreement with all this stuff, apparently by action, they removed all the sanctions.

Craig Hartman:  So Iran was able to recreate an economy to be able to fund all of this. Iran funded, to be perfectly frank, if I could be so blunt, Iran funded October 7th with money raised because America removed the sanctions against Iran. So if we’re talking about who is more likely to be positive toward Israel, or let’s put it a different way to make it less political for me, who do I think the Israeli people think is going to be more helpful to them in the next election? Well, it’s obvious it’s Donald Trump because he’s proven in the past that he will put sanctions on Iran and he will choke them to death through those sanctions. And the Biden administration created a vibrant Iran right now. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Just a side note, setting aside that I’m interested to see what happens going forward with the leadership in Iran, is Israel looking at them as possibly taking them out? And if they do, and I’m not saying they are, I’m just wondering out loud with you, if they do take out the leadership of Iran, does that mean then Iran becomes no longer run by the theocracy? These are all fascinating questions that I think come out of the current conflict, but to be frank, and to answer it from an Israeli perspective, there’s overwhelming support in Israel for Donald Trump. There’s less than overwhelming support in Israel for anybody else that might happen to be running for president right now.

Isaac Crockett:   Well, as we’re coming close to the end of our time here, just in the last minute or so that we have left, are there some prayer requests that you could share with us or praises that we could be praying for in regards to Israel at this time?

Craig Hartman:  Yeah, I would just say people, please pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for all people there. Pray for the Israeli leadership. Pray for Jewish people, pray for Arab people. Pray for better. When people pray for all the people in Israel, that the leaders would see the way that they should function and that many would be saved. And some of the Israelis who’ve been faced with death and horror that perhaps that will be a reason for them to turn to the things of God, but people should be rest assured. While I can’t say that all the hostage families are hearing the gospel, I can tell folks that, listen to your broadcast. The gospel message is getting to a number of these people and to a number of Israelis. And so pray that that gospel message, good soil to get developed there and grow and show fruit.

Isaac Crockett:   Amen. Well, that is great. We want to be praying that way. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us, even in the midst of all of your traveling and speaking engagements. For those of you listening, thank you for listening. Please pray for us here at Standing the Gap Media and all of the ministries of the American Pastors Network. And until next time, please stand in the gap for Truth today and pray for Israel.