Jonathan Bernis - The Israel-Hamas War: Fact v. Fiction
Jonathan Bernis: Shalom and welcome to Jewish Voice. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Jonathan Bernis, and I'm joined, once again, by my co-host, Ezra Benjamin. We know that many of you care about Israel and the Jewish people, but we've seen a worldwide rise in antisemitism especially following October 7th in Israel's war against Hamas. And even among Bible believing Christians like you, there's confusion on the underlying issues that have led to this war. Is Israel to blame? What is the truth? Today, Rabbi Jack Zimmerman, our staff evangelist here at Jewish Voice, has returned to help us to cut through the lies and misinformation that's spread on media outlets around the world about the war in Israel. Is Israel the bully in this war? Jack, it's great to have you back again.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Great to be back, Jonathan. Good to see you Ezra as well.
Ezra Benjamin: Thank you. You too, Jack.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Thanks.
Jonathan Bernis: Jack let's continue just sorting through fact and fiction about the war. Everybody wants peace. Israel wants peace. The protesters that are laying out on the 405 and stopping traffic want peace. And what's the solution? And here's the claim. "A two-state solution will bring peace". Right? "A state of Palestine along with the state of Israel". Talk about that. It's problematic, isn't it?
Rabbi Zimmerman: It's very problematic because nice idea, but, you know, we've actually put it into practice. This is not a new thing. I hear politicians all over the world saying, "A two-state solution. That will finally end this". And I'm thinking, "Does no one, no one learn the lessons of history"? We've tried this before, several times, and every time there's been a two-state solution that's proposed, three things have happened. Israel says, "Yes," the Arab said, "No," and number three, Israel gets attacked for even bringing up the idea.
Jonathan Bernis: Right. Sure.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Let's go back more than a hundred years ago to 1917.
Ezra Benjamin: Okay.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Where we go to the Middle East, we have something known as the Balfour Declaration.
Jonathan Bernis: Well, just so people understand, the British mandate is the result of the World War I and the turks being defeated. So, this land comes under the control, now, of Britain in cooperation with France, and they set out boundaries here. They actually mandate a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Rabbi Zimmerman: They did, 'cause, like, you know, this was kind of Britain's way of saying to the Jews and the Arabs, "Let's play. Let's make a deal. We need the ottoman turks kicked out. We can't do it alone. But if you Jews and Arabs help us kick them out, we'll give each one of you your own spot of land you can call it your own". So, that's exactly what happened. And so, you have the first two-states solution. Great Britain says to the Jews, "You've got your own land. Are you happy"? We say, "Fine. We're tickled pink. Everything is great. Small patch of land, but we love it". Great Britain says to the Arabs, they say, "Look, the Jews are happy. They get this little scratch of land. You Arabs should be thrilled. We're gonna give you three or four times as much as we gave them". And the Arab said, "No, we're not happy because we believe that land belongs to us. And if you're not gonna give it us in writing, we're gonna riot, and we're gonna protest, and we're gonna murder, and we will have to get it through violence". And so, not a short time after this decision through the Balfour Declaration, you have riots going on, not only in Jerusalem, horrible riots in places known as Hebron. And at that point, after these years of riots where the Jewish people basically kept pleading with Great Britain, "Do something. Do something. Do something". And Great Britain's response was to placate the Arabs and not allow Jewish people to come into Israel anymore from other countries and cut it off. At that point, Great Britain, in the mid-1940s said, "You know what? We're tired of babysitting both of you. We were just here because we were interested in the oil. We're out of it. But in our place, don't worry, there is another organization that's gonna come in. They'll pick up where we left off. They'll be able to bring peace between both of you. And trust me, they're great at this. You'll love them. They're called the United Nations". So, here we are 30 years later, after the Balfour Declaration of 1917, it's now 1947, and the UN essentially gives an ultimatum to the Jews in Israel and says, "Look, you got one of two choices. You can hold on to the land that you got through the Balfour Declaration 30 years earlier, but those Arabs are just gonna keep bombing you, and killing you, and blowing you up. Or, you could give them a little bit of your land. Just give them some more of your land that you got in that declaration, and everything will be fine. We know. You can trust us. We're the UN for crying out loud". Israel gives away more of its land to the Arab countries, and was there peace? Absolutely not.
Jonathan Bernis: There is a UN decision in Brooklyn, New York in a skating rink.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Yeah.
Jonathan Bernis: It's mandated for the state of Israel, and they declare statehood with a much smaller piece of land. So, move on to Gaza because this was, literally, giving a land to the Palestinians, an autonomous land along with parts of the west bank and Bethlehem included.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Right. And you have to wonder because history is supposed to be the best teacher, but there's also a saying that the definition of insanity is attempting the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Ezra Benjamin: Right.
Jonathan Bernis: So, a land for peace deal, what happens in 1917? Israel said, "Yes". The Arabs said, "No". The Arabs attack. The second land for peace deal, 1947, UN partition plan. Israel says, "Yes". The Arabs said, "No". The Arabs attack. Somewhere between 1947 and 2005 in the Gaza Strip, Israel forgot its history. I'm specifically referring to Israel's prime minister at that time in 2005, Ariel Sharon, who's under pressure from the cabinet, from the Knesset to say, "Look, we've got the intifada going on once again. We've got Arab terrorist coming in. They're blowing up buses. People are trying to sit and enjoy, you know, a cup of coffee at Cafe Ohel in Tel Aviv. They're getting blown up. You've gotta do something. We should, let's do something we've never tried before. Let's give up land for peace". And nobody remembered what happened and they all went with it and that's exactly what the Gaza Strip experiment was.
Jonathan Bernis: The picture that many have is that they were really imprisoned. The Palestinians were put into a prison, Gaza prison, just a wasteland. And this was given to them to isolate them, and it was kind of a barren wilderness that they've had to struggle. Give us the real picture of Gaza.
Rabbi Zimmerman: It's gorgeous. It's right along the Mediterranean sea. Come on in and build resort and hotels.
Jonathan Bernis: But they had developed it beautifully.
Rabbi Zimmerman: They did and...
Jonathan Bernis: Very prosperous area, agriculture, wonderful buildings, communities that were just left behind.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Including a massive greenhouse business. You got plants, and fruits, and crops growing from, this brought in a lot of revenue for this area. And when the decision was made for the Israelis to get out of there, the thought was, "Well, what do we do with the greenhouses? It's a lot of money for us. Do you we take it"? And they said, "You know what? Leave it here. Let's leave it for the Palestinians so that when they come in, they've got money coming in. They hit the ground running. Let's bless them with it".
Jonathan Bernis: They can build an economy. Actually, they're inheriting an economy, successful economy.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Right. So, the Palestinians come in, they see the greenhouse. And the very next day, the very next day, the tear down all the greenhouses, they chop up all the irrigation hoses.
Jonathan Bernis: Let's show this. What a contrast.
Rabbi Zimmerman: You bet. You bet. So, here is the next day. Absolutely everything, destroyed. And the media, at this point, is saying, "Okay. We've gotta find out why this is". And so, they asked the Palestinians, they say, "Israel just gave you a precious gift, not only the land, but also so these greenhouses, plenty of money. Why would you do this? This hurts you. We don't understand". And the Palestinians said, "Oh, we know why we did it. It's very easy. We'll give you three reasons". They said, "Number one, we don't want anything from those lousy Jews," and I'm using the nice word there. The one they used, obviously, was a lot more caustic. They said, "Number two, we don't care about money. Don't you understand? We're already hitting the ground running with money coming in from the oil rich Arab neighbor of ours. And the third reason is, look, you know, greenhouses, that's a nice business, but we have a different business in mind for that land, a business that will be more productive for us". And, of course, what is that business? It's the business of Hamas soldiers and rocket launchers setting up on the land where the greenhouses left there to bless the Palestinians used to be.
Ezra Benjamin: Because Hamas is not a pro-Palestinian or pro-Gaza and Arab people movement.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Right.
Ezra Benjamin: It's an anti-Zionist movement.
Rabbi Zimmerman: So, here is what else they say and why else a two-state solution can't work. Hamas says in its charter, "Palestine extends from the river Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west". From the river to the sea. You getting this? "From Lebanon in the north to Egypt in the south". There is a little bit of a problem having a Palestinian state there. There's another state in there right now, it's called Israel. And according to scripture, Israel is not going anywhere.
Jonathan Bernis: Is Israel guilty of genocide? All of us have a heart for innocent Palestinians that are perishing. It's just, it's so sad.
Rabbi Zimmerman: We do.
Jonathan Bernis: But again, the claim, "Is Israel guilty of genocide"?
Rabbi Zimmerman: Let me tell you one of the reasons why it's so rampant. Fifteen years ago, I was at a private function, and they had a guest speaker, a gentleman by the name of Moshe Ya'alon. And Moshe Ya'alon at that time was Israel's Defense minister. And after he spoke for a while, he was just speaking to some folks in the crowd and I said, "Mr. Ya'alon, I wonder if I might be able to spend just five minutes with you asking you some questions about Israel and her enemies"? He said, "No, you may not spend five minutes". He said, "If you wanna talk about Israel and her enemies, the two of us can sit down for half an hour". And I said, "Great". So, I've got an audience now with the defense minter and we're talking. And the last question that I asked him is, I said, "Mr. Ya'alon, who would you see or who do you see as Israel's three biggest threats"? He said, "I will give them to you on order from third, second, and first". He said, "Third," he said, "Iran". He said, "Second, the various terrorist groups that wanna eliminate Israel". He said, "You'll never, take a guess who number one is". He said, "You probably won't get it". I said, "Who"? He said, "The American college students. Because they listen to everything, because here you have their parents spending $70,000 a year to send them to places like Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, and they're either... one or two things is happening. They're either being taught by liberal college professors or they're cutting classes and they're getting their education from Tik-Tok". But here is the point about genocide and why it's so pervasive. If you go to Israel bar none every Israeli tour guide will tell you the same thing. They'll say, "Look, Israel is good at a lot of things. You know what we're not good at? Public relations. We're not good, we've never been good at getting the word out to the world to state our case". Have you noticed how much that's improved in the past months?
Jonathan Bernis: Yeah.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Have you noticed that when Israel is accused of bombing a school where supposedly there were school children, they say, "Okay, here is the actual video footage of this school in let's say in Khan Yunis. You see any kids there? They're all Hamas terrorists". Do you know why they're doing that now? They're making up for lost time. That's number two. But number three, generation z knows nothing of propaganda. We do, because we've been through wars. We know how this works.
Jonathan Bernis: But, Jack, in reality, innocents are dying and some of them are the result of bombings from Israel, and it's horrifying.
Rabbi Zimmerman: You bet.
Jonathan Bernis: But back to the question of genocide. So, why are innocent Palestinians, men, women, and children, seniors, dying at the hands of Israeli missiles and attacks against Hamas?
Rabbi Zimmerman: You bet. That's a great question. And it's actually a combination, Jonathan, of propaganda and logistics. Let me give you the logistics end first. The Gaza Strip, an area of land about 141 square miles. About the size of Las Vegas. So, land area is the same, but population is four times as dense as in Las Vegas. What does that mean? That means that you have Hamas militants and innocent Palestinian civilians living right up side by side next to one another. Israel said, "Look, here's what we gotta do. We know that Hamas has its stronghold in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, we've gotta get Hamas. We don't want innocent Palestinian civilians to be killed. So, what we're going to do, just like we did in 2014, is we will fly planes over the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and out of those planes we will send down hundreds of thousands of leaflets written in Arabic and addressed to the Palestinian civilians telling them, 'Look, you need to get out. Evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families. Distance yourself, get away from those Hamas terrorists. They're using you as human shields. And don't go back to your homes until further notice'". Even before we go on from this point, this begs the following question, if you're gonna make a statement saying that Israel is guilty of genocide, which means it intentionally wants to kill innocent Palestinian civilians, why then, you have to... You have an obligation to answer this question. Why then would Israel spend so much time and so much effort notifying those innocent Palestinian civilians how to get out of harm's way so you can't kill them?
Jonathan Bernis: Yeah.
Ezra Benjamin: We're going to do a military operation in this city, in this block, at this date and time, please leave.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Yes.
Ezra Benjamin: That's not genocide, that's protection.
Rabbi Zimmerman: But what happened? Israel does what it says, to go after Hamas, and then the next day the smoke clears, and all of these innocent Palestinian civilians are laying dead. Israel, how could you do such a thing? But wait a minute, Israel told them to get out, so why are they there? The vast majority of them said, "Okay, Israel said to get out, so we're getting out". And they get out of the apartment, and they get on the streets, and they see Hamas militants lined up in the streets with guns saying, "You get back in those buildings over there and sacrifice yourselves. You will die, and that way, because nobody knows we're here forcing you back in. That way, when the dead bodies of innocent civilians are there and people say, 'what happened'? 'well, an Israeli rocket came'. Israel will get the blame, and we, Hamas, will be spanking clean".
Jonathan Bernis: So, Hamas are telling their own people, "Go be martyrs".
Rabbi Zimmerman: Of course. And you know what? Hamas is happy to admit that. Let me give you an example. Two Hamas operatives, their names are Fathi Ahmad and Sami Abu Zuhri. They are Hamas' let's call them public relations team. Like, you need a pr department to kill innocent people. And they get on television constantly. They make a big deal out of this, and here's what they say to the world. "We, Hamas, have formed human shields of our women and children". Basically they say, "We're the ones sending them into harm's way. Hello, it's not Israel. We're doing it. We gleefully admit it. We call upon them to sacrifice themselves". Why? "Because we say to the Zionist enemy, 'your priority is for people to have life, our priority is for people to die. Don't you get it"? So, you have Hamas basically saying to the world, "We are committing genocide". And what happens? The world blames Israel.
Jonathan Bernis: It's a culture of death.
Rabbi Zimmerman: It is.
Ezra Benjamin: "As you desire life, we desire death". That's what that gentleman, the Hamas spokesperson finished by saying. "We desire death".
Rabbi Zimmerman: Example, there's a tape, we've got it, I've heard it. There's a tape of the building manager in Gaza. Israel, an IDF soldier called them up on the phone and they said, "Look, apartment 3e, we're coming to you 4:38 tomorrow afternoon so please get out". The building manager said, "Nope, I'm not going anywhere". The IDF soldier said, "But listen, wait a minute, you know, at least for the kids. You've got children in there. Get the kids out". You know what the building manager said? He said, "No, no, no, no, no". He said, "It's even more important for the children to stay because if you kill the children, that's a great propaganda win for us".
Ezra Benjamin: Because the ultimate goal is not the preservation of life or the lifting up of any people group, Palestinian, Arab, or otherwise, it's the destruction of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. If that's your key governing principle, everything else is just a means to an end.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Absolutely. Hospitals and schools is where Hamas has set up shop. When Hamas militants go into a particular hospital and they basically say to all the doctors, they say, "Okay, we're the doctors now. We're gonna dress up as doctors, and we're gonna dress up as medical staff so that way when the rockets come, the news will get out that, 'oh my gosh, Israel was attacking innocent people and patients". You've got Hamas militants laying in bed and their sole job, their sole responsibility is to act like a patient so that if they die, Israel is accused of killing innocent people.
Jonathan Bernis: Or using a public building as a missile silo, as a missile launch center, and Israel's forced to attack the missile launch area which happens to be a school. It happens to be a hospital, a public service building.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Exactly.
Jonathan Bernis: So, you have one up, you have people upstairs doing one thing, and you have downstairs missile silos. It's crazy.
Rabbi Zimmerman: It is. You know where one of the best...
Jonathan Bernis: It's inhumane.
Rabbi Zimmerman: It is inhumane. And one of the best places where you could see evidence of that, and this was would have been, I think, 2013, around 2013. France 24 news network published a photo where they had rocket launchers, active rocket launchers, and right there with those active rocket launchers, you've got four, five, six, seven year old kids playing, next to rocket launchers. And France 24 even said, they said, "Look, you wanna know what's going on? Here's what's going on. If you don't think that Hamas is putting innocent people in harm's way, what in the world are children doing around these rocket launchers"? It's easy because when the rocket comes and hits Israel and Israel says, "Okay, what is the source of that"? There's the rocket launcher, there's Hamas, blow up the rocket launcher. Kids, stay where you are. We need you to die so that Israel will be accused of killing innocent civilians. You know who really wrapped this up so well? What we're talking about right now, 'cause I know we're trying to summarize the statement. The gentleman's name is John Spencer, the head of military affairs for west point. And in the January 31st edition of news week, he wrote in an article, and he basically, in the article, addressed this. And he said...
Jonathan Bernis: I read it. It's very powerful.
Rabbi Zimmerman: It's powerful. He says, "I am outraged by the civilian casualties in Gaza, but it's crucial to direct that outrage at the right target, and that right target is solely Hamas". Listen to what he says. "Outrageous that Hamas spent decades and billions of dollars building," what? Helping out its infrastructure? Giving the kids better schools? Clean water? No. "Building tunnels under civilian homes for the sole purpose of using its own civilians as human shields. Outrageous. Outrageous that Hamas does not allow civilians to go in their tunnels, instead taking actions to create as many civilian deaths as possible. That Hamas fights in civilian clothes, intermixed within civilians, and launches rockets at Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas is outrageous. The sole reason for civilian deaths in Gaza is Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel has taken more care to prevent civilian deaths than any other army in human history". I can't add to that, it's great.
Jonathan Bernis: And this is a tactician. This is the chief of warfare studies at west point.
Rabbi Zimmerman: Exactly.
Jonathan Bernis: That's a serious evaluation. People, you need to understand now. This is very clear. Not a war against the Palestinians, a war against a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel. We'll include Hezbollah, Iran. This is a war against Hamas committed to the destruction of Israel, not a two-state solution. Israel is not committing genocide. Hamas is actually sacrificing their own people because it's a culture of death, not a culture of life. This is so important, and this is spiritual. This is a spiritual root that it is committed to the destruction, not only of Israel, but the Jewish people and God's people as a whole. Ultimately to keep God's plan of redemption from being fulfilled.
Jonathan Bernis: I hope what we've discussed today has helped you. I wanna say, if you have never received Jesus as your Messiah and Savior, today is the day of your salvation. Ezra.
Ezra Benjamin: Amen. Pray along with us at home. "Lord, we thank you that salvation belongs to you, and we thank you that today can be the day of salvation. Lord, I pray for those who don't know you, that they would encounter you today, that they would invite you into their hearts, that you would forgive them of their sins and make them, as your word promises, a new creation. Old things are gone, new things are here in Yeshua's name. And for those who do know you, Lord, we pray for a spirit of wisdom and Revelation that they would know the truth and that the truth would set them free, and along with that, Lord, we pray for provision and protection. And above all, as you're meeting their needs, large and small, shalom, a peace which surpasses understanding for each and every one, and for the family members and community members that they're praying for as well. We pray it all in Jesus' name, in Yeshua's name. Amen".
Jonathan Bernis: Amen, amen. We so appreciate you, we love you. If you want more information about our ministry, you can log on to our website jewishvoice.tv. You'll find many helpful resources there and you can send your prayer requests to us right on the website. I want you to know that we care about you, and more importantly, God cares about you, and we will be praying for you by name. As we close our program, I wanna remind you now more than ever, Israel needs our prayers. Jew and Arab alike, Israeli and Palestinian need our prayers. The ultimate plan of God is their salvation. So, Psalm 122:6, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, may they prosper who love thee". Thank you to Ezra and Jack for joining me today and until next time, this is Jonathan Bernis saying shalom and God bless you.