Israel is a Problem

[00:00:00] Foreign attack on a Catholic church in Gaza by the Israeli military is just the latest atrocity committed by the state of Israel in recent years. Yet many Catholics continue to support support Israel. [00:00:27] What is the proper Catholic response to what's going on in the Middle East? That's what we're going to talk about today on Christ Point. Hello, I'm Eric Samuels, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what to do. Smash that like button. Subscribe to the channel, let other people know about what we're doing here. I really appreciate it. Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter at crisis. Just go crisismagazine.com put in your email address and we will send you our articles by email each morning, usually 9am Eastern time, usually two articles a day. Also, you can follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. [00:00:58] Okay, let's go ahead and get started here. So I know I've been around the block a few times. I know when you talk about Israel, it's going to be inflammatory. [00:01:09] Trying to have a rational discussion online about the state of Israel is basically impossible. There's a whole spectrum of spectrum of people out there from the super Zionist who basically believe Israel can do no wrong and is the fulfillment of Old Testament promises and all that, to the other side, the other extreme, which basically think the Jews are behind everything and they think that everything is a plot, a conspiracy by the Jews to take over the world to destroy Christianity, things like that. [00:01:43] Now I consider myself kind of in the middle of that and I've actually been criticized for that. I've been criticized by people who see kind of the Jews behind everything for being too friendly with Judaism, with Israel. I've been accused by the Zionists of being anti Semitic. I like to think that I'm at the right spot and hopefully I can help other people there. But I understand this is just inflammatory. It's also very inflammatory. I noticed this is by far the most inflammatory topic among Crisis the Crisis audience. And I've seen kind of a dichotomy between Crisis readers and Crisis viewers. That is those who read the magazine primarily and those who follow the podcast primarily. [00:02:29] Those who follow the read the online magazine. They're typically older and they're typically, they use Facebook and they're also very upset when, when any criticism Israel comes. That's where I'm going to get the accusations of being anti Semite comes from. Whereas I notice that most of the people who watch who, who follow the podcast primarily on YouTube or whatever, they're mostly X users, not F Facebook users. They are the most critical of Israel and they typically support when, when I criticize Israel more. And sometimes they think I'm too soft on that. In fact, fact. And so the truth is I'm not here to pacify the audience. [00:03:12] I know I'm just here to say tell the truth. Where I, you know, that's, that's my job is to try to tell the truth as I see it. [00:03:19] And I know it loses me followers sometimes when I talk about Israel, and that's fine. And I know I'll be called an anti Semite, and that's fine because honestly, there's nothing I can do about that. I know I'm not an anti Semite. I know nothing I say is anti Semitic. So if you want to call me that, fine. [00:03:35] Okay. So kind of the preliminaries aside, now let's talk about what's going on in Gaza, in Israel, in the Middle East. Last week, there was an attack on the only Catholic church in Gaza, Holy Family Catholic Church. Three people died from the attack. Now, the state of Israel says it was a mistake. [00:03:59] Cardinal Pizzabala, who's on the ground there, he's not so sure it was a mistake. [00:04:04] Pope Leo has condemned the attack and named the people, the three people who died and prayed for them publicly and on X. And so this has caused a great amount of response, indignation from law quarters, some people trying to justify kind of blaming, and we'll talk about them in a minute, kind of blaming the Catholics for being there, that they're obviously Hamas supporters. [00:04:33] But here's the thing that is just one event that's occurred over the past few years in Gaza. [00:04:41] Now, before I even go too much deeper, I just want to say, yes, I think Hamas is a terrorist organization and yes, I think it does evil things. Yes, I think the attacks of October 7, 2023 are evil. [00:04:55] It's almost like a performative thing these days. You have to state that because if you state one thing critical of Israel, then people all say, oh, well, you never said anything. We'll talk about that in a minute too. About so and so. Or you're just saying that Israel's the bad guy, not Hamas. [00:05:12] The truth is we're not required to state every evil in the world before we condemn a certain evil. [00:05:19] We can just condemn an evil when it happens. We can without being required to condemn every other evil that's ever happened in the history of the world. [00:05:28] And so here's the thing. I want to show you some headlines. Most of These, not all. Most of These come from Anti War.com from Dave, my friend Dave DeCamp who I've had on the program. [00:05:37] I just want to kind of go through. This is literally just from the last month. Some Headlines Israeli forces kill 130 Palestinians in Gaza over 24 hours Gaza's health Ministry said on Monday that Israeli forces killed 130 Palestinians and wounded 1,155 over the previous 24 hour period. As airstrikes and massacres of people seeking aid continue, the Health Ministry said that another four bodies will recover from the rubble. [00:06:02] A number of victims remain under the rubble and in the streets as ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them at this time, end quote the Ministry wrote on telegram. Among the dead were 99 Palestinians who were killed while seeking aid, most of whom were killed on Sunday while attempting to reach UN aid trucks that entered northern Gaza. The Ministry said that the number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid has risen to 1,021 and over 6,511 have been injured. Here's another story Gaza's Health Ministry reports spike in starvation deaths due to Israeli blockade this is from July 20th two days ago. Gaza's Health Ministry on Sunday reported a significant spike in starvation deaths due to the Israeli blockade, saying it recorded a total of 18 malnutrition related deaths within 24 hours. The health Ministry said in another post on Telegram that it has recorded a total of 86 deaths due to hunger malnutrition including 10 adults and 70 children. [00:06:58] This is a silent massacre and the Ministry of Health holds the occupation and the international community responsible, the ministry wrote. We demand the immediate opening of the crossings to allow the entry of food and medicine. Quote Another story British surgeon in Gaza reports quote, unprecedented, unprecedented malnutrition says IDF snipers targeting aid seekers Nick Maynard, a British surgeon currently working at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza, has told the Telegraph that Palestinians in besieged enclave are facing, quote, unprecedented malnutrition due to the Israeli blockade and that Israeli snipers are targeting people seeking food and near aid distribution sites. [00:07:40] Mayard said that the aid sites run by the US and Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian foundation were death traps and that IDS snipers are targeting, quote, certain body parts on different days such as the head, legs or genitals, end quote. Nearly 900 aid seekers have been killed by Israeli forces since the since the Gaza Humanitarian foundation began operating in Gaza. Next Story Israeli airstrike slaughters 10 children waiting for nutritional aid near medical clinic in Gaza on Thursday. US backed this is from July 10th on Thursday, U. S Backed Israeli airstrike hit near a medical clinic in central Gaza's Deir El Bala as civilians gather to receive nutritional aid killing 16 Palestinians including 10 children and three women. The clinic is run by Project Hope, an American aid group and the organization's regional director Natsya Dsarz confirmed that civilians were waiting to receive essential nutritional support at the time of the strike. [00:08:42] Another one just from today, from this morning, 15 more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza due to U. S Backed Israeli blockade. Gaza's health ministry report on Tuesday that 15 more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza over 24 hours due to the U. S Backed Israeli blockade on the besieged territory. [00:08:59] Among the dead were four children including six week old Yusuf Al Safadi. Babies are especially vulnerable since malnourished. Sorry, mothers cannot produce breast milk and Israeli is impeding the import of baby formula. Yousef's family told Reuters that he died due to. That he died due to the lack of baby formula. You can't get milk anywhere and if you do find any, it's $100 for a tub. Yousef's uncle Al Safadi said while looking at his dead nephew at the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Okay, those are just a few of the recent stories just in the last few weeks of what's coming out of Palestine. [00:09:43] Now I know what will happen. I know the first thing that will happen is defenders of Israel will say oh well, you can't believe those stories. This is all just propaganda. It's not really true, it's not really accurate. Well, here's an article from. [00:10:00] Hold on a second. Here's an article from an Israeli newsletter newspaper, the I might, I'll probably pronounce it wrong, Haraz rats. And it says 100,000 dead. What we know about Gaza's true death toll and then it says basically the death toll in Gaza is reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry understates the true scale of the crisis. Researchers say hunger, disease and Israeli gunfire at food distribution centers have made the war in the strip one of the bloodiest of the 21st century. [00:10:33] And in this article, basically this is Israeli. This is an Israeli newspaper magazine. It said Israeli spokespersons, journalists and influencers reject with knee jerk disgust at the data of the Palestinian Health Ministry claiming that it's inflated and exaggerated. But more and more international experts are stating that not only is this list with all the horror embodies reliable, but they may actually be very conservative in relation to reality. [00:11:02] Now I'm the first one to admit that in the fog of war details are often not always accurate. I get that. I'm not saying every single specific number is 100% true. [00:11:14] However, I just don't see how you can deny anymore what is going on in Palestine, what is going on in Gaza. And the fact is that it's the Israeli army that is inflicting all of this pain and suffering, and that's just what is happening. And my question is, like, you know, when you ask like, are these accurate, I wonder, do the defenders of Israel even care if they are accurate? Because on the one hand, they say they're not accurate, but then on the other, they will say, well, the Palestinians deserve it for supporting Hamas. [00:11:49] They don't really even seem to care whether or not it's accurate. And even when it's proven to be true, they'll just say, well, they deserved it because they're Hamas supporters. I mean, which is it? Is it accurate, or do they deserve it? [00:12:01] The truth is there's no reason to believe that they aren't at least somewhat, relatively accurate. And you can't simply say, well, Hamas, they use civilians as shields. I mean, that's just an old argument that simply does not reflect everything that's happening here. They're literally killing people at aid stations. [00:12:19] And we're supposed to just act like, well, that's Hamas's fault. [00:12:23] And now I know what will happen is the next thing that comes up, people will say, well, Hamas started this and Israel is just finishing it. [00:12:32] And that leads me to a question for the Israeli defenders. Is there any limit whatsoever of what Israeli, what the Israeli army, what Israel can do, Is there any point in which you would say, enough is enough? Yes, Israel crossed a line. If it's not shooting people at aid stations, women and children at aid stations, if it's not bombing accidentally or not a Catholic church and killing Catholics there, if it's not doing, you know, causing the starvation of all these Palestinians, and over 100,000 Palestinians are dead. If it's not that, what exactly is it? If Israel decided to nuke Gaza, nuke Palestine, make it a parking lot, and every single person was killed, and they literally committed genocide against every single Palestinian, would that be where you would draw the line? Say, okay, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. [00:13:28] I noticed that after the attack on the Catholic Church, we finally did see a few people who have been reluctant to criticize Israel speak up. Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire is the most notable example where he said, okay, you're losing me now, Israel, when you do this, and Remember, the Daily Wire, of course, is run by Ben Shapiro, who is a 100% committed defender of Israel and all things Israeli. [00:13:53] But the fact is there has to be some line. [00:13:56] For me, the line was crossed long ago. For me, the line was crossed long ago that, simply put, the response to the October 7th attacks has been disproportionate to what happened on October 7th. [00:14:12] I mean, that's just plain and simple. That's what I'm stating, and I think that's very clear, that what has happened in response to October 7th is unacceptable. It is disproportionate to what happened to Israel on October 7, 2023. [00:14:29] And the truth is, as Catholics and I, and I'm speaking to my Catholic audience here, if you're not Catholic, I hope you have at least the morality that the Catholic Church teaches. But even if you don't, the fact is that the Catholic Church teaches the principles of a just law, which I have hammered home time and time again because nobody seems to care anymore. And the fact is, the response you give to an attack also has to be proportionate to what has happened to you. [00:14:59] It doesn't justify anything. If, for example, after 9 11, a horrific attack in which Osama bin bin Laden and his lackeys, they basically plotted and they killed over 3,000Americans on 9 11, if America had nuked Iraq the next day or Afghanistan or Iran or whoever, it simply would not have been morally justifiable, period. End of story. Not by any Catholic or just natural law way of looking at things. [00:15:31] And so the fact is, as long ago Israel crossed that line, they crossed the line of a disproportionate and immoral response to what happened to them on October 7th. And I'm not even going to get into like October 7th the possibility that there just some funny business with what happened that day. Not the Hamas didn't attack, but how Israel wasn't, didn't let, didn't defend itself. I want to talk about the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has supported Hamas in the past because it helped divide international support for Palestine, a Palestinian state. But just if we take everything at face value, what happened on October 7, even then we simply cannot justify what Israel has been doing for the past year and a half. And what they're doing now is horrific. [00:16:19] Now the thing is, I've noticed is when somebody condemns something Israel does, like I saw this, it was almost like a bot had gone out or marching orders had gone out. You know how we know in the mainstream news that we found, we discovered that literally they will use the same language to say whatever the talking point is, that there's literally talking points that mainstream media is given. [00:16:44] And so they will just repeat it over, over and over again. Well, this is what seemed to happen after many Catholics condemned Israel for attacking Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. From Pope Leo on down, what happened was you saw the Israeli defenders all come out and say, yeah, but you didn't say anything when Christians were being killed in Syria by Muslims or in Nigeria, whatever. [00:17:11] And there's two, two huge problems with this. First of all, like I said, it seemed coordinated because literally they were all saying this. They were all saying the same thing, particularly about what's going on in Syria right now in which Muslims are killing Christians. [00:17:25] And it's like. But here's the problem. There's two major problems with this. [00:17:29] The first is it's a lie. [00:17:32] It's a lie. [00:17:34] Everybody was condemning Pope Leo for condemning the Israeli attack on Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. [00:17:41] And they were saying he never spoke up before, but the truth is he has. [00:17:45] He did speak out against Christians being killed in Syria. And they're saying Pope Francis did the same thing. He wouldn't speak out against it, but he did. He absolutely did. [00:17:55] So that's the first thing. It's a lie. They're literally lying about Pope Leo and others who spoke out against this attack on the Catholic Church. So that obviously the whole thing falls apart in that situation. [00:18:06] But the other thing is, even if it were true that Pope Leo and others had never spoken against it, that doesn't invalidate their point. [00:18:17] Like I just said, you can condemn an evil without being required to condemn every other evil that's ever happened. [00:18:26] It's simply not possible to keep up with all of it. [00:18:30] So even if it were true that Pope Leo and Pope Francis never condemned attacks on Christians by Muslims, I mean, my goodness, Pope Francis, add to the Roman Martyology the Coptic Christians who were beheaded by Muslims. [00:18:46] And I mean, both Pope Francis and Pope Leo have consistently condemned all violence against Christians. I mean, all violence. And so it's just, It's. It's just ridiculous. But even if they had not, it still doesn't mean their condemnations were not true. [00:19:00] The other thing is, here's the crazy part about the bringing the whataboutism about the. In Syria, what's happening in Syria, Literally, the people who are saying that are the people who were calling for the overthrow of the government in Syria back in, I think it was December, when people like me Were saying, no, you're going to cause a lot more problems if you overthrow the government in Syria. [00:19:24] I mean, we're on record saying don't support the overthrow of the current government in Syria because you know what's going to happen. [00:19:31] The terrorists will come in and it'll be far worse for the Christians in Syria. [00:19:36] Go back and look at what we said. [00:19:38] But people like Mark Levin were saying things back then like, oh, we have to topple Assad, we have to topple the government of Syria. [00:19:48] Now they're saying literally people like Mark Levin and Mark Levin are saying, oh, you never, you're not condemning when these Muslims in Syria are killing Christians. [00:19:57] But literally what you supported is the reason that's happening. And we were condemning it from the beginning. [00:20:04] It's just what it shows to me is they have no argument when you literally are just saying what about ism? You have no argument. [00:20:14] You're no longer defending having a moral high ground. You're just simply saying, oh, you need to condemn this as well as that. [00:20:22] It's just ludicrous. [00:20:24] And so what happens is, and the truth is what I found in the conservative world I'm talking about, it's much harder, it takes a lot more courage to condemn Israel when they do something evil than to condemn Muslims when they do something evil. I mean, we should condemn all evil, but we're not required to condemn every single act of evil. But we obviously shouldn't supporting evil. [00:20:46] But it's a lot harder to condemn Israel because you're going to get called an anti Semite in the conservative world if you can. You're going to be called liberal, whatever. If you condemn Muslims for something in a conservative world, you'll be praised. You'll be, you'll be on the talk shows and all that. Fox News will love you. [00:21:05] One example of how awful this has gotten among conservative among Christians is Joel Berry, who is the manager, editor, managing editor of Babylon Bee, which is a Christian satire site which is run by basically Zionist, Zionist Christians, Protestant Christians. He said, he wrote this is right after the attacks, literally like a day or two after the attack on the Holy Family Catholic Church. He wrote. This won't be easy for people to hear, but there are only about 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas. [00:21:38] I mean, we all know what he's saying here. It was justifiable that their Catholic, that people died, Catholics died because they obviously support Hamas. He then followed it up by saying true Christian faith still exists in Gaza, but it's all Underground. Anyone allowed by Hamas to practice openly is allowed to do so only because they aid and support the terror regime. [00:22:01] So those altar boys you see pictures of at Holy Family Catholic Church, they're terrorists. They're open season. The old ladies in the Catholic Church. Holy Family Catholic Church, open season. Kill them. No problem. Cardinal Pizzabala, who was one of the leading candidates to be the next Pope, he's just a Hamas who can be killed and we shouldn't have to worry about. He's not a real Christian. [00:22:25] It's obviously Joel Berry supports killing Catholics. [00:22:30] I mean, there's just no other way to read those. It's not like you're twisting. Just look again what he said. [00:22:36] There are only about 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas. He wrote this right after Catholics in Gaza were killed by Israel. [00:22:47] I mean, this is horrific. This is not a Christian view at all. [00:22:51] And the fact that, I mean, Protestant Christianity is so divorced from historic Christianity that they don't even understand that Christianity came from the Holy Land. [00:23:01] They don't understand that Christians have been in the Holy Land since the time of Christ. [00:23:06] This is why I get so frustrated when Catholics kind of get on board with this, because we should know better. Like the evangelical Christian who's whose concept of history dates back about two weeks ago. [00:23:19] I get that they don't understand that the Holy Land has been the home of Christians for literally 2000 years. [00:23:28] They don't get that. But as Catholics, we should know that these are heroic and faithful Catholics. And when he says there's only about 200 remaining, well, where did all the rest of them go? They were driven out partly by Muslims, but partly by Israel. And what it's doing. [00:23:43] You can't act like it's only because of the Muslims that there's no Catholics there. It's because of the Jews and they're running Israel just as much. [00:23:53] And also when he says they support Hamas, this shows a deep ignorance of the situation. [00:24:00] It's almost like, I think that some of these Evangelical Zionists and Catholic Zionists, sadly, it's almost like they think that there's elections every year. It's a democracy where they all vote for the Hamas candidates. Like there's two parties. There's the Hamas party and the not Hamas party. [00:24:16] And they all go to the polls and they all vote for the Hamas party and that's why Hamas is in charge. [00:24:22] There's no concept of the fact that Palestine has basically been an open air prison for decades. [00:24:30] It's basically been a Place where you could not leave. You had no control over your lives, no control over being able to leave or to better your lives or food and water, 100% dependent upon Israel. [00:24:43] And so yes, there is built up resentment the people in the idea that the people of Gaza, the Palestinians are somehow supposed to be supportive of Israel. I'm not saying they're supposed to support terrorists. What I am saying though is I'm not expecting them to support Israel. [00:24:59] That would be ludicrous to think that they would support Israel. It'd be just as ludicrous as asking Israel people in Israel to support Hamas or some Muslim organization against them or Iran or something like that. [00:25:15] They are simply there trying to survive. They are trying to survive. And yes, they are going to be generally anti Israel for good reason. They're anti Israel to act like they're supposed to be some American supporting Israel, supporting, you know, Christians. That's the only type of Christians that Protestant Christian Evangelical knows about. I mean literally Evangelical Protestant Christians in America, their whole concept of Christianity is like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz and for politics and people like that. [00:25:46] They don't have a historic and global idea of Christianity. And this is like, like I said, a big frustration of mine with Catholics. They should know better. We should know better than that. [00:25:57] So we're kind of getting to kind of dance around the point. [00:26:02] But how is it that we're supposed to support, I mean, I'm sorry, we're supposed to oppose Israel because here's the problem. [00:26:10] The second you do, you get called anti Semitic, which is frankly a lazy, brain dead argument. [00:26:16] I'm going to tell a story. I'm not going to name names, but I know somebody who's a well known Catholic and he basically has accused me of hating Jews. [00:26:28] Now the fact is, is that he had no proof of this. He didn't show like somewhere where I said something against Jews as like somehow like hating them. I love Jews. That's why I want them to all become Catholic. That's why I want them to stop in Israel, the Israeli ones at least stopping doing evil things because I love them. This idea though that I hate Jews is simply because I oppose the modern state of Israel. [00:26:55] And that's where we get to one of my major points is there are actually three Israels. When we talk about Israel. I titled this podcast Israel is a Problem. And I know that's, that's going to like, that's a little clickbaity. I'll say it right now. It's a little clickbaity. [00:27:10] But my point here is, I'm trying to say is there's actually three different Israels. One is Old Testament Israel. What we see when we read the Old Testament, the chosen people, those who receive divine revelation from God, from Yahweh, that's, that's the first Israel. The second Israel is the New Testament Israel, which is the Catholic Church. It's the fulfillment of all those promises God gave to the Old Testament Israel. [00:27:40] All get fulfilled in the New Testament Israel, which is the Catholic Church. So today when you speak about the modern Israel, they're actually, you know, the real modern Israel. The true Israel is the Catholic Church. [00:27:53] And so Catholics are the true Israelites because we are the inheritors of the fulfilled promises that all come from Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. [00:28:06] But then there's a third Israel, and that is the modern political state of Israel, which is why I've been talking about this, our podcast up till now. [00:28:16] That's what that is, the third Israel. These are not the same thing. Now, I will say they are interrelated. I'm not acting like there's no connection between the three of them. [00:28:25] Obviously the New Testament Israel does not exist. If not for the Old Testament Israel, like I said, it's the fulfillment of it. And likewise, the modern state of Israel does have a connection to the Old Testament Israel doesn't have a connection to the New Testament Israel in that this is the continuation of, on some level, the religion of the Old Testament. Now I would argue it's not a 100% continuation because the, the Old Testament religion ended with the coming of the Messiah of Jesus Christ, with the destruction of the temple. But at the same time, the people who founded the modern Israel consider themselves the inheritors of the old Israel. I would claim that the New Testament and all, I, hopefully all Christians would claim this. The New Testament Israel is really the inheritor of those promises. [00:29:14] But the thing is, it's like when I say Israel is a problem, I'm talking about the modern state of Israel. Old Testament Israel isn't a problem anymore. New Testament Israel isn't obviously. Obviously isn't a problem because that is God's chosen people today. [00:29:28] But yet the modern state of Israel is a problem. [00:29:31] We just simply cannot continue to justify the carnage that they are committing. [00:29:37] It just simply has to be stopped. Yes, we must oppose evil done by Muslims. [00:29:43] Just go back to anything I've said in the past. You'll see I have no love lost for Islam. It's a false religion. It's an evil religion. [00:29:52] It's done terrible evil in its history. And anybody who is Muslim needs to leave that false religion and become Catholic. I love Muslims like I love Jews. I want them to become Catholic too. I don't want them doing evil either. [00:30:06] Yet the problem is for Americans, American Christians, who everything is like just a few events define everything. So 911 defines almost everything. [00:30:19] And so while we acknowledge, well, I acknowledge that, yes, much evil has been done by Islam, by Muslim terrorists, jihadists, that doesn't mean evil has not been done by Israel. And the fact is we just see it day in and day out. We need to oppose the evil done by Hamas, by Islamic terrorists, and we need to oppose the evil done by Israel. [00:30:44] What we need to do is as Catholics, we need to support our brothers and sisters in Christ, those in Israel. [00:30:52] Cardinal Pizzabala, I think it was just this morning, maybe it was yesterday. He said Christ is not absent from Gaza. He is there, crucified in the wounded, buried under rubble, and yet present in every act of mercy, every candle in the darkness, every hand extended to the suffering. [00:31:12] Yeah, he said that just this morning. Christ is not absent from Gaza. When we see our brothers and sisters in Christ being killed in Gaza, that is Jesus Christ being persecuted. That's what I mean. That's what the Bible says. When Paul, when Jesus comes to Paul and says, why are you persecuting me? He says, who are you that I am persecuting? He says, I, I am Jesus Christ. I am Christ. Meaning when you persecute his followers, you persecute him. [00:31:35] And so, yes, Hamas, other Muslim groups, have persecuted Jesus Christ for years, but the city of Israel is persecuting Christ as well. And as Christians, we have to realize that. [00:31:48] I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a way that we can support our brothers and sisters, a very practical, concrete way. The Vulnerable People Project, run by Jason Jones, whom I had on this program before, they are actually raising money because in the attack on the Catholic Church, Holy Family, Catholic Church, a water tanker was destroyed and they desperately need water there because, I mean, malnutrition, everything happening there. And so they're trying to raise, I think it's $100,000, maybe $120,000 to raise money to build a new water tanker to help support these poor, suffering Christians. [00:32:25] And so I'll put a link to how you can do that. I also posted it on X for those who are on X, you can see it there. [00:32:33] We need to stand up and say, enough is enough. We've got to have a ceasefire, we need to join with Pope Leo and say enough is enough. No more killing Christians, no more persecution. No more killing Palestinians, even if they're not Christian. Just. We have to start, we have to stop. We have to stop the killing. Okay, I'm gonna. I don't have my assistant with me today because I changed the time of it without telling her. So I'm gonna look through some of these live chat myself and do, and do this. [00:33:05] Okay, so. [00:33:08] Okay, so here's like an example of what I said. Michael Paytak says the church is still standing. Of course it's a Facebook comment because like I said, my Facebook followers of Crisis are more pro Israel. My. My YouTuber, not as much. The church is still standing. Mass is still said there and the only damage to it is to the roof. Blame Hamas for propagating the idolatrous Muhammad worshiping religion of Islam. [00:33:29] Three people died, Michael. Are you saying those three people don't matter? [00:33:33] I mean, it's not like we're. Are we having a competition? Say, okay, well, only if the church is completely destroyed do we condemn it. But if people die but the church isn't completely destroyed, then it's okay. I mean, that's ridiculous, you know, Blame Hamas for propagating idolatrous Muhammad worshiping religion of Islam. Are you saying Israel is propagating a true religion? [00:33:54] If we're supposed to condemn Hamas for propagating a false religion of Islam, does Israel support and propagate Catholicism? Because that's the only true religion. [00:34:05] So if you're against Hamas for propagating a false religion, do you say about Israel. [00:34:12] Okay, you know, here's a good point I was trying to make. The dividing line is age. Practically everyone under 50 doesn't want the US seeing one dime to Israel. That's very true. I'm over 50, but I don't want it either, so. [00:34:24] Okay, so let me go ahead and keep going. [00:34:30] Sorry, I'm kind of doing this on my own. [00:34:36] Yeah, the ones enabling the bad behavior. American evangelicals, giving them money and cover to do it all. I don't get why. [00:34:44] I don't get why Catholics join in with evangelical Christians on this one. Okay, Nicola Le Costello says I will distinguish between anti Semitism and anti Zionism. I'm not a Christian Zionist. I'm a political Zionist for the fact that Jewish people, like any ethnic group, deserve their own homeland. Okay, this is. I'm glad. Nicola Nicolay. I think, I hope. Sorry if I mispronounce your name. That's a very Good point. [00:35:08] My major problem is with Christians, including Catholics, who have a religious Zionism, meaning they think there's some religious significance to the modern state of Israel. [00:35:21] I think that is a problem. [00:35:24] If somebody is a political Zionist, meaning they believe like, like Nicolet does, that Jewish people, like any ethnic group, deserve their own homeland. That is a political discussion, it's not a religious point. And so we can debate that. I would say, though, do the Palestinians not deserve their own homeland? They're an ethnic group. Why don't they deserve. Do they all. So are you a fan of the two state solution? If we're going to give the Jews a homeland, why not the Palestinians? [00:35:49] Okay, let me keep going there. [00:35:55] Okay, what does this one say? Philip Shaffer says, if you really want to know, to blame Jews in America, Canada and UK is like me blaming Germans who have been in the US since 1800 for the Holocaust. Actually, I don't even understand what that one is. [00:36:12] Okay. [00:36:13] Oh yes, we have a somebody who decided to spam the Facebook comments and who's obsessed with me. So I will block that user. That was easy enough. [00:36:26] Okay, what else we have here? [00:36:32] Okay, so Catholics are facing cognitive dissidents. That which we have always thought about Israel, we're finding out not to be true. It is inordinately difficult to alter one's known understanding and change. [00:36:43] This is cigar mode. Said this. That's a good point. That's a good point. Because this is something at my age I understand very much so. I grew up primarily in the 1980s. I think I've said this in the podcast before, maybe even last week. I can't remember now, but because I'm in my 50s, I don't always remember everything where I said things. But here's the fact. When I was growing up, the two worst things you could be were a racist and anti Semite. Nobody cared if you were homophobe. We said the F word all the time, growing, you know, as kids. Nobody cared if you're a misogynist or whatever. [00:37:14] But you could not be an anti Semite. That was considered the worst possible slur against somebody. And the fact is people didn't use it unless somebody really was kind of pushing the boundaries against Jews. And so it's in my DNA of how I grew up that being called an anti Semite. It does. [00:37:34] It does hurt, kind of. It does. It does kind of take a piece out. [00:37:39] But you. But the fact is you have to take the information on the ground, you have to take what you learn, and you have to adapt to it. I cannot allow how I was brought up to say that, you know, being called an anti Semite, not being one, but just being called one is the worst thing. [00:37:56] I'm going to be called an anti Semite. I have been called an anti Semite. [00:38:00] That's fine. I can't do anything about it. I cannot allow that to just keep me from speaking out against this awful thing that is going on over there in Palestine. [00:38:12] You know, it's just, it's awful. It has to be, it has to be called out against. So. Okay, so let me just see if there's any other comments I wanted to bring up. [00:38:20] Good, lively discussion by the way. I like it people that you, you. We didn't have our moderator today and I noticed that that did cause a little bit of a problem. So hopefully she will be back. It's my fault by the way. She's not here so we'll have to, we'll have to deal with that. So. Okay, so I will, I will stop it there. So I'm not going to bore you with going through all the comments here but like I said, if you want to support your brothers and sisters in Christ who are being persecuted in Gaza, I will put up a link in the show Notes to the Vulnerable, a Vulnerable People project which is trying to raise money to add a water tanker at Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. So okay, let's not succumb to those who will just call us name, call us anti Semites because we oppose evil being happened that is happening by Israel or evil that's happening by Islam. We will call it both out. We will be consistently Catholic, protect and defend our brothers and sisters in Christ. [00:39:18] Okay, I'll wrap it up there. Until next time everybody. God love you.