Religious Terrorism, the Truth About Modern Israel, and Your Jewish Calls

Our cup runneth over today on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth.

That's 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I've got an amazing quote to share with you from a 16th-century rabbi about Zechariah chapter 12, verse. 10.

And they'll look to me whom they have pierced. going to talk to you about that on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday, and a whole lot more, a lot taking place in the world around us. Donald Trump delivering a speech, President Trump delivering a speech on the Holocaust Memorial Day earlier this week, and it has drawn the ire of alt-right anti-Semites. No, not everyone on the so-called alt-right is anti-Semitic, but some are. And his speech got them upset.

I'm glad to see that. I'm glad to see that his speech got them upset. Good for him making the speech, and good for them exposing the depth of their anti-Jewish hatred. I want to share that with you. Uh a case I'll get to in a little while.

from Australia. a real shocker. When you find out why this judge has not sentenced This young man to court for sexually assaulting a number of women in Australia. You will be shocked. And we've got some special interviews.

What's what's the difference between some Sector.

Some Buddhist sect or some other kind of spiritual sect in the Far East. and a gas attack by their leader. What's the difference between that chemical gas attack, the difference between that and say Islamic terrorism? And what's the real history? Of modern Israel.

So, all that coming your way today with some special guest interviews. And as always, If you have a Jewish-related question for me, Give me a call at 866-348-7884. If it relates to the Hebrew language, if it relates to Judaism, Jewish tradition. Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Jewish Roots of the New Testament.

If it's about modern Israel, glad to help you. Do my best to answer your questions. 866-348-7884. If you're a Jewish person and you differ with me about Jesus and want to explain why, maybe you've watched one of the online debates and want to interact with me about it. By all means, give me a call.

I wish I could interact with everyone that posts comments on YouTube or on our Ask Dr. Brown YouTube page or on our Ask Dr. Brown Facebook page or tweets us at Dr. Michael L. Brown, D.R.

Michael L. Brown on Twitter. I wish I could interact with everyone. Trust me. I I love constructive interaction.

And trust me, when I'm looking at comments on YouTube and someone has weighed in on, say, one of my debates with a rabbi, and they weigh in critically, and Brown is so foolish and wrong for this reason, that reason, and they list all of it, of course, unless the comment crosses certain lines, it gets posted. You can blaspheme and differ with me all the time as long as you you don't cross certain lines. But but in point of fact, in point of fact, uh I would love to respond to everyone. I would love to say okay, thanks for your comments. Here's where you're wrong.

I would like to do it first and foremost for the sake of truth. I don't like to see error presented without rebuttal, but we allow for free exchange of opinions. The same on my Ask Dr. Brown Facebook page, where we have over 530,000 people following us there.

So a lot of posts, a lot of opinions come in, and I don't see the majority of them, but some I see, and I think that is so outrageously wrong. That misrepresents what I believe, it misrepresents what the Bible says, it's inaccurate for this reason, that reason, historically, etc. It's got the language wrong, it's whatever it is, and I would love to interact first and foremost for the sake of truth. And secondly, just as a human being, all right, you just misrepresented me, I want to set the record straight. I'm not able to interact with everyone, but we do have our phone lines open.

So if your schedule permits it. Rather than just posting your criticism or your disagreement, be man enough or woman enough to give me a call so we can talk about it. Just you and me. With a whole bunch of people listening in. That's 866-34TRUTH.

We come back. Australia. Afghan young man, refugee there. Oh, you're gonna believe this story. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. A teenager who immigrated to Australia from Afghanistan has escaped jail for sex attacks on Surface Paradise Beach because he grew up in a different culture.

Yes, yes, we're going to talk about that in a moment. This is Michael Brown. Welcome to. Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Here's the number to call: 866-348-7884. Any Jewish-related question you have for me. A little while, we're going to bring on a special guest and we're going to talk about religious terrorism and what it actually is. And is it specifically something Islamic or not? Are we at war with radical Islam or is there just something more nebulous?

We're going to talk about that in a constructive way, but all through the broadcast, if you've got a Jewish-related question, I'm going to do my best to get to it. 866-348-7884. All right. In Australia A young man came over from Afghanistan, Muslim. sexually assaulted a number of women.

He's on two years probation. But the judge did not sentence him to jail. Was he guilty of sexually assaulting these women? Yes, that's not argued.

Well, how is it that he's escaping jail? One sexual assault enough. But a number of them, a half dozen of them or more, listen to what the judge had to say. He pleaded guilty to assaulting eight women and girls in January last year. The judge accepted that seeing girls in bikinis is very different to the environment in which the young man grew up.

He is on two years' probation with no conviction.

Okay, so he grows up in Afghanistan in a strict Muslim culture, which can be tremendously oppressive in many ways, and women literally cover it head to toe. In some cases, they have to wear gloves as well. There are even Islamic extremists that go so far as to say only one eye, you can only have a hole for one eye. And okay, so that's extremism the other way.

Now he comes over to a culture, Australia, which is a heavily beach culture as well. And he's there on the beach or wherever he is, and he sees all these women in bikinis.

Okay, different culture.

Okay, it's going to excite him to do all kinds of things, but. The idea that he's not going to go to jail because he comes from a different culture, this is completely outrageous. No, I'm not into the beach culture either, and I think people should cover up more. You can go to the beach and cover up more. You don't have to reveal 98% of your body for the rest of the world to see fine.

I agree. That's not my culture either. But you don't go sexually assaulting people because it's not your culture. Does he really think the women were asking for it? Did he really think he didn't know he was going to a beach?

He wasn't aware of that or wherever it was that the people were in bikinis. He wasn't aware of the social setting. He thought the women wanted to be sexually attacked. He thought, and the way they reacted, the way the first one reacted, he really thought, oh, they really want me to do this. They're excited about me doing this.

And the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth, and the seventh, and the eighth. Are you kidding me? What if he came from a culture where you cannibalize people? If you had a dispute with your neighbor you killed them and roasted them and ate them.

So now you have a dispute with your neighbor, so you kill them and roast them and eat them and That's just what we do in our culture. That's what I learned to do when I was a little boy. We would eat our neighbor that we had a conflict with, if they were from another tribe or something like that. What if you come from a culture where if you see somebody running, that means they did something wrong.

So you see one someone jogging down your street and you run and tackle them and you start beating them up and then what are you doing? What are you doing? And then you keep doing it six, seven, eight times. You gotta be kidding me. Oh, oh, wherever the court can show mercy.

Wherever the court can be constructive without violating justice, fine, but this is a complete outrage. It's not like this woman knocked on his door of his house and then walked in and tried to seduce him and then he gave way to it and then they blamed him. No, he sexually assaulted women in public places. He did what he knew they did not want him to do. They made it clear they did not want him to do it.

He pled guilty to doing it.

So, maybe you factor in just a little bit that it's a new culture in terms of the overall prison sentence. Maybe you do that. Although, I would say, in the midst of it, that is a very minor factor, a very minor factor when you recognize that guy knew he was a sexually assaulting woman.

Well, he comes from a culture where men can do what they want. I don't care. What if he came from a culture where if his sister looked at another guy inappropriately, that he and his brother could kill her? An honor killing because they didn't want to have a cell phone. And in her culture, she was not allowed to.

And she got a cell phone and was secretly texting somebody, and they could legitimately kill her. What if that happened in Australia?

Well, in our culture, when a woman, a young woman that's unmarried gets a cell phone, that's a disgrace to the family. And we kill that person. No, you can't just do that. I don't care the name of what religion or non-religion, you can't do it. This is an absolute trauma.

Travesty and nothing. Less. And what an insult to the women who were assaulted. All right, wanted to get that off my chest. 866 348 7884.

And I'm going to go to the phones shortly. There's an article.

Well, I'll tell you what. Tell it before before I do. before I do. Uh Yeah. There's A quote from Rabbi Moshe Al-Sheikh.

Now, I quoted this years ago in volume two of my series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. He was a 16th century Darsham, which is a preacher. He was not a biblical commentator. He was a homilist. He was a preacher.

And he has an extensive commentary on much of the Hebrew Bible, but it is a homiletical. commentary as opposed to more of an exegetical commentary. And then of course rabbinic commentaries can really go between different genres because they'll bring in different tradition and ancient homilies and things like that along with kind of explaining verse by verse or Hebrew nuances and things like that. But it's the verse, Zechariah 12, 10, And they'll look to me whom they have pierced.

Some translate it differently. They'll look to me because of those who were pierced as if it's not speaking about a single individual. To me, the most natural way to translate it is they'll look to me whom they pierced. You might say they looked at me because of the one they pierced, but either way, it's a singular person, singular individual that was pierced, uniquely related to the Lord, as I understand the text. And there's some ancient Jewish tradition, beginning with the Talmud.

in the Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 52a that says Zechariah 12, 10, they'll look to me when they pierced, refers to Messiah son of Joseph. This is a secondary messianic figure in Rabbinic Judaism, one who fights the wars of the Lord. In the end, some call him the war Messiah, and then he dies in battle ultimately for David, the Messiah son of David, to raise him from the dead and usher in the Messianic kingdom. But in much rabbinic tradition, Messiah son of Joseph exists, and there's some rabbinic tradition that says if Israel is righteous and worthy, then all of the trials and traumas associated with Messiah son of Joseph will be avoided, and we'll just have the reign of Messiah son of David. If Israel is not worthy, then they'll have these terrible traumas and wars, etc.

But throughout almost all of the literature, The dying of Messiah son of Joseph in rabbinic literature is just associated with dying in battle. without the notion of atonement. But listen to what Rabbi Moshe Alshech says. And I came across this again, or I should say I was looking at it again while preparing for a debate last month. Rabbi Alshech said this.

I will get to a third thing. and that is, They shall look unto me. For they shall lift up their eyes unto me in perfect repentance, when they see him whom they pierced. That is the Messiah. The son of Joseph.

For our rabbis of blessed memory, have said that he will take upon himself all the guilt of Israel. And then shall be slain in the war to make atonement in such manner that it shall be accounted as if Israel had pierced him. for on account of their sin he has died. And therefore, in order that it may be reckoned to them as a perfect atonement, they will repent and look to the Blessed One, saying that there is none beside him to forgive those that mourn on account of him who died for their sin. This is the meaning of they shall look unto me.

What's remarkable is that this is not a Christian theologian making the statement. What's remarkable is that This is not a Messianic Jewish teacher making this statement. What's remarkable that this is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. making this statement. And number one It speaks of Messiah, son of Joseph, dying.

For the sins. of Israel. Number two. It says that he will be slain in the Lord to make Atonement in such manner that it shall be accounted as if Israel had pierced him.

So Israel's sinned, Israel's guilty. Because of that, he has to die in war, so he's dying because of their sin. but also to make atonement for their sin. And notice It is said that it shall be reckoned to them as a perfect atonement. Why?

Because Judaism believes in the atoning power of the death. of the righteous. And the more righteous the individual, the more powerful the effect of their death, and if that is joined with repentance of the nation, The more powerful the atoning effects, Well, how about the perfectly righteous one? How about the Messiah, Jesus? Yeshua.

Give us strength to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Welcome, welcome to our thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. 866-348-7884 with your Jewish-related questions. And let's go to the phones. We'll go to Powhatan, Virginia.

Daryl, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Doctor Brown. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Got it.

Got a question about the Hebraic roots movement. been recently wit witnessing to a guy that is part of that movement. And it doesn't take long to see they're very much work-based, salvation oriented. And one of the primary reason I called was This guy, and I don't know if it's representative of everybody that's in that group, but they go to the point where They basically replaced words in the New Testament With words from the Old Testament. For example, in the beginning was the Torah, the Torah was with God, and the Torah was God.

You know Um, and just kind of wanted to get your thoughts on that and Sure thing. Maybe what direction you think might be effective in dealing with somebody that does not distinguish. Between Um, you know, the teaching of the or the revelation of the Old C Testament versus the New. Right.

So the the first thing I w I would do is I I wouldn't say versus. In other words, you don't want to put them in opposition. As if it's Old Testament versus the New Testament. You know, there's the old line that the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed and the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. And in John 1.17, the law was given by Moses.

Some would say, but grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah. The Greek doesn't have but. If you want, just put a semicolon. For the law of the Torah was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus. It's not one against the other, it's one building on the other.

Paul says in Romans 3 that faith establishes the law. And Jesus says in Matthew 5, he didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill. That being said, your reasons for concern are 100% valid.

So let me answer this on several different levels. Let me give a larger background and then specifically how I would approach this. Number one, we recognize that the first followers of Jesus were Jewish. that they never heard of Christmas or Easter, or Christianity or concepts like that, nor did they think they were following a new religion. For them, they were embracing the promised Messiah of Israel.

And the great revelation was this is for the Gentiles also, and Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to be part of this great company of believers.

So the church historically has strayed from its Jewish roots. And the idea that, say, for example, if Jewish believers said Saturday is still the Sabbath, why don't they observe the Saturday Sabbath? And they're happy to do it. And the church says, well, that's wrong, that's out of order, because Sunday is the Sabbath.

Well, no, God never said Sunday was the Sabbath.

So it's fine if Gentile believers say Sunday is their day of rest or whatever. But God never said. That Sunday was the new Sabbath.

So, in general, Uh over the the years believers across the world have recovered more of their Jewish roots. and have recognized, hey, it's not one thing against the other. It's not Christianity. versus the Old Testament. It's rather the true faith that's come into the world.

And that Passover, Easter, all part of the same larger complex and things like that. Then, more specifically, many Jewish believers have said, hey, we're still Jews. We're still Jews. Where did God ever tell us to abandon the biblical calendar? We don't do it for salvation.

But it's part of our life, it's part of our heritage.

Well, great, fine. We're not under the Sinai covenant, but God laid out certain principles and truths in it that we think are valuable. And okay, great.

So you have a Messianic congregation that meets on Saturday and incorporates the death and resurrection of the Messiah into its Passover celebration. Great, fine, perfect, no problem. The problem becomes. The problem becomes when you get over into what we call the Hebrew roots movement. It's very disparate.

It does not have one particular leader, Darryl, or one particular group.

Some of them are outright heretics.

Some of them are believers in serious error on the edge of outright heresy. And some of them are in that direction. All right, so I put that as separate from Christians just learning more about Jewish roots of the faith. I put that separate from Messianic Jews celebrating their Jewishness in Jesus the Messiah with him being separate, him being central. The Hebrew roots movement I put as something separate.

Now they're going to judge the rest of the church if you worship on a Sunday. They're going to judge you if you don't keep the dietary laws. They're going to judge you. for these various things, if you don't keep the biblical calendar, et cetera. And they tend to go to all kinds of extremes.

And for example, there's no basis whatsoever, John 1.1, for translating Lagos with Torah. It is word, it means word. It goes back to either a Jewish Greek concept of the word or an Aramaic concept of the word one logos, one memra in Aramaic. But it should not be translated Torah there in John 1:1. There's no linguistic or theological basis for it.

It is just a way to try to over-project. But what I would do is this, Darrell. I would emphasize.

So to get back to the simple part. I would emphasize the centrality of Yeshua. Because Jesus is not central in the Hebrew roots movement. Jewishness is, or Hebraic roots are. or life practice is.

But Jesus Yeshua is not central in the Hebrew roots movement.

So I would say everything points to him. Let's go to him, let's go to him, let's go to him, let's go to him. Everything points to him. That's number one. Number two, I would take them over and over.

to what Paul has written. about justification by faith. I would take them to his words because either they're going to deny Paul. Outright some of them will. They'll deny pull outright or They will have to twist what he had to say.

I would go to that over and over. I'd go to Acts 15. The words of Peter. that we're justified by the grace of the Lord Jesus. Acts 15, we are justified by the grace of the Lord Jesus.

And that we were not able to be justified by keeping the law, the last thing we're going to do is throw that. on the Gentiles.

Now they'll try to have a comeback later in the chapter.

Well, the Gentiles are going to live by the law. That's a whole separate debate and they're misinterpreting that verse in my view as well. But I'd go back to the gospel of grace, the gospel of grace. I'd say, hey, look, this is what Paul preached in Acts 20. He said he preached the gospel of grace.

And Peter said, it's by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we're saved. And Paul writes it in Romans 3: it is apart from the works. of the law.

So I would push that strongly. and say if if you want to and then go to Galatians 3. The law was a pedagogue to bring us to the Messiah. In that sense, the law is like scaffolding for the building.

So the building is standing now. It stands based on the scaffolding that was erected around it. In other words, that's the guidelines and guideposts and the way the thing was built. But now it stands on its own because the full revelation has come through the Messiah.

So point back to Jesus, point back to Jesus, point back to him, point back to grace, grace, grace. Emphasize those things. And if someone born again, forgiven, loving the Lord, says, hey, I still want to live by the dietary Lords, great. If they say, you know, I still feel Saturday's special, that's real Saturday, great. No argument there, that's fine.

But where they're going, you're absolutely right, Daryl. Very dangerous. Very dangerous. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown.

Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRU. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

Before I bring on a guest to talk about religious terrorism. Before I do that, let me just reflect a little bit more. on the concept of suffering Messiah. The concept of suffering messiah. Uh I've talked about this a bit more in recent months on Thurly Jewish Thursday as I was doing some research and writing on various topics relating to the Messiah and Jewish beliefs about the Messiah.

But you have to think. There there is something strongly found either in the Bible about its suffering Messiah, Or something that God has supernaturally planted in the hearts of Jewish people about a suffering Messiah. Or something about Jewish suffering in history that makes them more. amenable to the concept of a suffering messiah, one who identifies with them in their suffering. One of those three or all three of those points which seem to To be real, otherwise you can You would think that with the tremendous Christian emphasis on a suffering Messiah.

the tremendous Christian emphasis on On this one who suffers and dies for the sins of the world, this one who's hated, rejected, and despised. This one who triumphs not by coming with a mighty army, but who triumphs by giving his life up. for a sinful hostile world If If not for God planting this either in the word And or Supernaturally in Jewish hearts and minds, and/or joining this together with. Jewish suffering through the ages. It is very hard.

to imagine why. There would be Jewish teaching about a suffering Messiah. when it would seem to to give way to Christian theology. It would seem to open up the door for Messianic Jewish concepts that Jesus is the Messiah. In other words, when you want to resist this teaching, when you feel it is.

An unnecessary incursion or a threat or something that's going to lead people away. They're going to defect the traditional Jewish view. They're going to defect from Judaism into this apostate faith. faith, Christianity, or follow these Jews for Jesus, these people who were so deluded. And again, this is the way a traditional Jew might look at it.

then why have any teaching at all about a suffering Messiah?

Well, it's to compete with the Christian view. No, that's that's not the way Judaism would do it, in my understanding. To me, again. It's very, very clear. Number one.

There are strong scriptural passages that point to a suffering Messiah. And that is part of what has influenced Jewish tradition. Number two. God has supernaturally planted this concept. in Jewish tradition as well.

as a way to to draw Jewish people to himself as a bridge. It's help them to understand. the legitimate Jewishness and biblical grounding for this idea of a suffering Messiah. And number three, Jewish people in our suffering through the centuries. find it easy to relate to this concept of a suffering Messiah, one who joins us in our sufferings.

Just want to share those thoughts with you.

Okay, we come back. I'm going to have a fascinating discussion with Robert Hicks. He spent 32 years as a military chaplain and colonel in the United States Air Force. He's published more than 11 books, served as an instructor at several undergraduate and graduate institutions. He's an adjunct professor of history at Bellehaven University.

And he's written a book called Few College. Call it war. religious terrorism then and now. And he claims that America's problem is its refusal to admit how much religion is part of public life. For once, religion is part of a conflict, it must also be part of the solution.

We'll be right back with Robert Hicks. Stay here. Shameful. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast. We often on these Thursday broadcasts will branch out more widely. We'll look at the world of Islam as well, radical Islam.

And we're going to even branch out a little more broadly today and look at the Question of Religious Terrorism, the book, Few Call It War, Religious Terrorism Then and Now, the author Robert Michael Hicks. Mr. Hicks, thanks so much for joining us on the broadcast today. Oh, good to be with you. All right, so question for you.

A are you saying that that this is something that goes beyond Islam, are there other examples of religious terrorism in your mind? Oh yeah. Professor Rackla I Third of my book is really a history of religious violence in all the major religions, Eastern. Judaism, Christianity and of course Islam. And from that, I try to draw some common denominators, and that kind of sets the person up to think, well, then all religions are the same.

Well, no, they're not. That's the rest of the book. Yeah. the show but any uh good or leader that runs to justify Violence in the name of God or their deity. They always go back to history to quote some of the clerics or some of the clerks.

some of the history and they use that. authoritative justice. By what they do today.

So, without that history. Connection, I don't think we're in a position to really understand the violence we see in the world today in the name of. religion.

Alright, so before we focus on radical Islam. And before we get to that question, so all religions are alike and they're all equally guilty of violence, let's deal with what you focus on in the first third of the book, Few Call It War. Number one, can you give me examples of terrorism associated with Eastern religions, be it Buddhism or Hinduism or something like that? Is there such a thing as religious terrorism in those traditions? Oh yes.

it is. If you go back to World War Two, um They had deified their emperor in Japan and And the kamikaze pilots were basically the The martyrs of their day, for their, and it was in the name of their religion that they were doing. They had a complete religious ceremony before they got into the plains and. put dynamite in the back seat and drove them into American ships. And we forget that history, but even before that, you've got Buddhist priests and Shinto priests that are often holding the sword and the flag, leading the armies.

In Asian battles. And it's interesting to me as a War College graduate Who do we study as the classics of military warfare? Sun Tzu. is one of the classics still on understanding guerrilla warfare. And we forget that that connection even in the East, that yes, they're into meditation, they're generally pastic.

Very passive, but certainly there's been warfare in Eastern religions from a soon as they had a founder. And you're saying that there are texts that they would draw on or traditions that they would draw on? Oh, yeah. I mean, you look at the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, and it is filled with. The violence.

Kali was their god of destruction and violence, and you would make sacrifices to Kali. Yeah. uh to in order to gain Okay. with Kali and Yeah. successful in battle.

And you know, the parallel today is getting the the uh the priests or the chaplains out there to uh bless the B fifty two and uh its bombs uh before they take off. in a sense, we're asking God to put the bombs on the target.

So there's There's parallels in almost all the religions, and of course, uh our most recent one was the Am Shinriko in Japan, that was the early nineties. And we forget that here the first use of sarin gas in Syria recently. Yeah. But in a Tokyo subway done by a religious cult that none of of the intelligence agencies knew anything about. and had a complete weapon of mass destruction laboratory with dropout PhDs from university And we were just shocked when that.

happen. And that was the early nineties and we forgot about it because it got eclipsed with the Oklahoma City bombing and Oklahoma. And of course Americans really don't care. Yeah. would get their attention focused until it happens on our own soil.

So we forget about that event in Japan in recent history. And y you know, when you mention the Hindu religion and and violence and some of the traditions and the God Kali, I I guess what would get our attention when it comes up in an Indiana Jones movie, right? Right.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so it's extreme or crazy, the whole thing. You're pulling a guy's heart out while he's alive, and the priest of Kali, you're saying that these traditions exist.

Well, many would say, oh, okay, you may be right about that with Eastern religion, and maybe we didn't know about Hinduism and Buddhism and things like that, but surely not Christianity. Surely our tradition going back to Jesus dying on the cross, he didn't call for armies, he didn't let Peter fight with the sword. Certainly the New Testament teaches, love your enemies, bless those that curse you, overcome evil with good.

So how could someone commit a violent act in the name of Christianity and draw on some type of religious text to support it? Where would that come from?

Well I I think we have to go to the founders. Uh The question that everybody has today is there no Difference between a Muhammadan and Jesus. Jesus. I do this whole series and church. and elsewhere in the military on can Muhammad and Jesus be friends?

And we throw that out as a discussion. If you look at the teaching of our founder and Jesus, Jesus. Christ and Muhammad, it is night and day. And Early on, the early centuries of Christianity, Christians were were passive. They did not serve in the military.

They would refuse to use violence under the Roman authority, and they I would not swear allegiance to uh the Caesar as emperor because he was divine.

So the early history of Christianity followed the teaching of Jesus And up until really the time of Constantine, when Christianity became legal. For the first time, Christians began to serve in the military. And the early roots of just war theory come out of that, where at least as Christians, we must still fight and Um ethical and moral way. But what happens in the Crusades, and that's when it really gets confusing. Yeah.

Going to battle to kill the Muslims or to retake the Holy Land in the name of God. Uh with the pulse. you know issuing that you gain salvation if you die in battle. Uh I don't know anybody at that time That was a theologian. And uh, you know, from the the uh late ten hundreds.

to the eleventh century would believe that, that's the way you achieve salvation. Other par apart from the person of Christ. And I don't know anyone that believes that today.

So to me, the Crusades was really an aberration. and to say that salvation was based upon not on the work of Christ, But on dying in battle, that was just exactly the same doctrine that uh probably was borrowed from the Muslims because that's what they believe.

So as we're looking at that then, We're looking at something. that it's over a thousand years from the death of Jesus to the Crusades.

So the Crusade starting towards the end of the 11th century. And that's a long time. That's more than three times the history of America.

So obviously, it takes that long for that level of deviation to occur. But if we look, say, at the history of Islam. Islam gets violent under Muhammad. Sir, would you agree? with the the statement that Muhammad was first A spiritual teacher, then a political leader, then a military leader.

Is there truth to that?

Well, certainly the uh Quran itself you can divide into Two sections, and you've got the Meccan. revelations that Mohammed got and then the Medina revelations. Because when he got Kicked out of Mecca, they were not responsive to his words. He goes to Medina. But when he was using preaching and persuasion to try to convert people, that's the message of peace that he was giving in Mecca that got rejected.

So he goes to Medina, and there we get these further revelations and by the principle of abrogation, that later revelations Supersede earlier ones, he finally goes and takes up the sword and goes back and conquers Mecca. And that becomes the standard way that Islam will expand. And just to come back to the Crusades for a moment, we take the concept of holy war out of that time period. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

By the criteria of all just war theory, All of those territories that Mohammed conquered and his followers conquered were Christian lands from North Africa to Middle East to the Balkans. And my point as a historian, I look at that and I said, Why did the Christians wait so long? Yeah. Right, right.

So it's one thing to say, hey, there was an attack. by countries that professed to be Christian countries but were military like any other country, they had armies, et cetera. Why didn't they fight back earlier against Muslim incursions? That's one thing. When it now becomes a war where you're going to earn your salvation on the battlefield or extend the gospel by the cross.

Or give Jews the opportunity to convert or die, that's when it becomes a complete perversion. But fighting against Muslim incursions, different story, right? Is there a difference between Timothy McVeigh and ISIS? We'll be right back. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, Michael Brown here. with author Robert Michael Hicks, a fascinating book, Few Call It War, Religious Terrorism Then and Now. Robert, what I'll sometimes hear when I'm dealing with folks about radical Islam and the roots of radical Islam and the fact that radical Muslims can draw on traditions within the Quran, within the life of Muhammad, and within Islamic history, and they'll say, yeah, well, Timothy McVeigh, he was a Christian terrorist, so all religions have terrorist aspects. Again, in your book, If You Call It War, you do say, yes, religious terrorism has existed in all different religions, but there is something different about radical Islam.

So how do you respond to that equation, Timothy McVeigh proves that Christianity is just as violent as ISIS, radical Islam is connected?

Well, from the FBI sources and even his sister upbringing point of view, let's just compare them. Uh McVay was Okay. Loner. Family, parents divorced, and his. mother was uh as he says in his own book.

that he wrote she was quite a lady about the town. Yeah. You know, you can read into that whatever you want. And though he was raised parents were Catholics, his sister would say he never really had any affinity toward religion. never attended mass and so in a sense had no religious connections at all.

Yep. Everything that he uh believed he got mostly from things like the Turner Diaries, the right-wing militia. uh ideology of Christian identity, which is from neither an identity or Christian. and lived off the land with a bunch of old military buddies. Most was a conspiracy of three, probably more likely two.

It was a community college dropout. And I think in light of that, I define Timothy McVeigh. He's just a common criminal mass murderer. That's it. He's not a religious terrorist.

and should be and was tried and of course executed on the basis that just Criminal law. Uh not uh any kind of a religious connection.

So let's compare him to Bin Lad. or an owl bag daddy with the PhD in Islamic studies. Bin Laden was a faithful practicer of Wahhabi religion in Saudi Arabia. Um His organization that some have called the Holy War Inc. He had so many people and organization and Of course, he inherited millions from his father, and that's what helped finance everything that he did.

Um fighting against the West in Israel. He was a graduate of King Abdul Aziz University, one of the premier universities in Saudi Arabia. And yes, he was a mass murderer from nine eleven. But everything he did, he's quoting scriptures, he's quoting fatwas, he's uh reciting scripture for everything he does. And you mean Quranic scripture, right?

Yes, what did I say? No, you said scripture. Just want to make clear to our listeners, you mean from the Quran. A lot of other fought laws. Yeah.

Islamic clerics. And so to me, there's no comparison at all. There's no equal comparison at all between the two. Bin Laden is a true Islamic. religious terrorists.

and Nicolae is just a a mass murder and criminal. Yeah, and I'm 100% with you on the assessment, and you've articulated it very clearly. President Obama would not speak of radical Islamic terrorism. President Trump does. Why is it so important that we say those words and that we understand the ideology we're dealing with?

Why is it impossible to wage a successful war against radical Islamic terrorism if we don't rightly identify it? Yeah. There's a number of reasons I kind of outline in the book. Let me just pick a couple of them out. Uh Our State Department and what I would call Washington, D.C.

officialdom. uh religious thought has not really ever played that well in the public sector. add to that the ideology of progressive secularism That we have left no room for religion in this field of study. My experience in the war college, which is for the senior leadership of the Air Force and five hundred or about uh fifty international students all kernel and up. around the world, I took a course on terrorism.

taught by a PhD out of our university. And I was frustrated because I was seeing all kinds of religious connections to whether we were studying South America and liberation theology, of course, the Middle East and Omchenrico and Japan. And finally, I frustrated him, and he said, Chaplin, I know a lot about. religion.

of terrorism. I don't know anything about religion. Why don't you do your paper in this course on religious terrorism? And that was the beginning of the book, really. And that has been my entire career, always seeing that The Critical issues of our day have isolated religion and put it outside, marginalized it.

And an eye opening book I read was Madeleine Albright's book called The Mighty and the Almighty. It's her confession how nothing in her training, in her education or experience in the State Department trained her how to talk about religion. and deal with religion around the world. I read and I said that No wonder we've got such problems in DC. We got blinders on when it comes to religious, and so we have to justify not talking about it by calling it everything that except what it is, and that's the title of the book.

You look at the cover. Those are all the other terms that we've called what was going on, right wing fundamentalists, violent extremism, hate speech criminals, crazed gunmen, and we don't want to call them religious terrorists.

So, to me, it's a real blinders we have on at the highest level. And I won't mention a name here, but one of of Trump's uh cabinet member. Where is A general that I appreciate If he would just put a period at the end of his comment, He said, We're not at war against Islam. And he should have just stopped. But then he picks up the Obama line and says, because Islam is a religion of peace.

Uh And I fell off the couch. I said, Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I pray he is just ignorant.

Yeah, and if he says we're not at war with Islam and we recognize there are many peace loving Muslims, you can say that too, and you could debate whether they're legitimate Muslims or not. But we're not at war with Islam. And there are many peace loving Muslims and there are loyal Muslim citizens, but we are at war with radical Islam. And if you want to press the point, radical Islam has roots that go all the way back to Muhammad. Yes, these are important issues, and I love the way you're framing it.

And the larger questions involved.

So, again, friends, the book, Robert Michael Hicks, the author, few. Call it war. Religious terrorism, then, and now, hey, we'll have to get you back on to discuss these issues further, but much appreciated. Keep sounding the alarm, keep getting the message out. Oh my.

Good to be with you. All right, thank you. All right, friends. 866-348-7884. If you have a Jewish-related question for me, I'm going to have some time in the second hour.

You say, Oh, I'm I'm not able to listen to the second hour on the radio or Not a problem. You can still call. And I'll still take your call if we have time. 866-348-788. Four.

Have you visited askdrbrown.org in the last few days? Have you seen my latest articles, videos dealing with cutting edge issues? Let us inform you, equip you, and we've got a free e-book to send you when you sign up for our email right at askdrbrown.org. Our cup runneth over today on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. In a moment, I'm going to have a fascinating conversation with David Bragg, author of an important new book, Reclaiming Israel's history, roots, Rights. And the struggle for peace. We're going to have a fascinating conversation. I will get to some of your Jewish-related calls.

Any Jewish-related question you have for me, 866-348-7884. That's 866-34 TRUTH. Be my delight to take your calls on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday break. Broadcast. Before I get into any of that, I also want to talk about Donald Trump's speech, Holocaust Memorial speech, and Holocaust Memorial Day earlier this week.

Reaction from some extreme anti-Semites, some extreme right folks, very upset with Donald Trump. We'll talk about that on the show today. But before I get into any of that... When I was in Hungary Let's see, November 2014 and 2015. Had the privilege of preaching at Faith Church in Budapest.

or Budapest as we would say it, but Budapest in Hungary. I believe the largest megachurch in Europe with a membership of well over 70,000 people, and they are great lovers of Israel. What came up a couple of times in my conversations with Pastor Chandra Nemeth. was the subject of George Saros, or, as he would be known in Hungarian, Sharosch. George Sharosch, or Saros as we know him, billionaire.

Radical leftist funding some of the more extreme left-wing movements in America and in other parts of the world, and obviously, in his mind, standing up for the right causes. He's Jewish. and he escaped the Holocaust with his family. And there's actually a book. Uh by the father.

the father of George Sarris called Mascarado. It was recommended to me by Pastor Nammeth, And it was written in Hungarian originally and then translated into English. And I was able to get a copy very easily online. And I've only glanced at it. I've not read it.

It's sitting on a shelf with many other books that I'm eager to read. But I do hope to get into it and read it and better understand the background and what George Soros grew up with and the threat of Nazism in Hungary and how they had to make it for themselves and how that's ultimately, if I can read between the lines, how that's ultimately affected. his ideology. But it's fascinating that a Hungarian born Holocaust surviving Jew. is now one of the most influential men worldwide.

And in my view, Often on the very wrong side of issues. There's an article I was looking at today by Thomas Williams on Breitbart.com, Thomas Williams PhD. George Soros has ruined the lives of millions of Europeans. This is according to the Prime Minister of Hungary. He delivered a stinging speech, Viktor Urban.

In the European Parliament Wednesday, asserting Hungary's right to self-governance and defending its actions regarding immigration and against American financial speculator George Soros, originally, again, Hungarian. Quote: I know that the power size and weight of Hungary is much smaller than that of the financial speculator George Soros, who is now attacking Hungary.

So, one man. He says it's much bigger, stronger, Then uh then Hungary is a nation. Quote, despite ruining the lives of millions of European with Europeans with his financial speculations, being penalized in Hungary for speculations, and who is an openly admitted enemy of the Euro, he is so highly praised that he is received by the EU's top leaders. The Prime Minister's address built upon comments he made in an Easter interview with Major Edok, didn't pronounce that right, I'm sure, in which he stated the motives behind Hungary's diffidence towards George Soros, quote, there can be no special privileges and no one may stand above the law, not even George Soros' people. The battle between Hungary and Hungarian-born George Saros continues.

We'll be right back. It's fire we want, oh fire we Please stand the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. This is Michael Brown. Delighted to be with you.

A few years ago, I was invited to do a debate at the University of South Florida. On the subject, is Israel an evil occupier? And what happened was we couldn't find anyone willing to debate. We couldn't find any Palestinians, Muslims, professors, anyone willing to debate.

So I gave a lecture on the subject with the proviso that we would have Q ⁇ A at the end, which we did. And a Christian came back to me later on and said, well, how about just is Israel an occupier? Not even an evil occupier. Is Israel an occupier? Is Israel controlling land that doesn't belong to it?

Is Israel oppressing the Palestinians by occupying their territories? And joining me now on the line of fire is David Bragg. We've been on the air, I believe, once or twice before and then talked off the air. David is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He's the executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, was the founding executive director of Christians United for Israel, well known as KUFI, and he served as chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And on and on it goes with his own bio. His new book, And it's an important book. It's getting praise from people who've been around for many years and saying this book is really, really helpful. Reclaiming Israel's history, roots, rights, and the struggle for peace. David, welcome back to the line of fire.

Thanks for joining us. Hey Michael, great to be back. Thanks so much for having me. Sure thing. All right.

Why did you need to write this book? Aren't there enough books out there that lay out Israel's historic claim to the land? Why this book? What makes it important and unique?

Well, you know, you're the story you led with. Resonated with me because all my years with Christians United for Israel, I'd spent a lot of time with our KUFI on campus students. And These poor kids would come, they'd show up at our training, you know, at our events for them. Conflicted. because they were raised in Christian homes where they were taught to love Israel and to bless Israel.

But then they get to college and they'd be told these terrible, terrible things about Israel, and they they were just conflicted. They they wanted to be do what their parents wanted. They wanted to love Israel, in their hearts they did, but but their hearts conflicted with their heads now that their heads had been filled with lies.

So I found that once I you know, and this is the great relief, the great news, once I shared with them the truth about Israel. and it was able to debunk all the myths that had been told. They they left feeling like a weight had been lifted from them, supporting Israel with both head and heart. And they'd always come up to me at the end of the the speeches and say, hey, is there a book I can get that covers all the ground you covered? Because there's a lot of history there, a lot of dates.

And instead of being able to hand them a book, I always felt like I was giving them a homework assignment, because I'd give them the five or six or seven books that I had found helpful in developing my lectures.

So I said, you know what, that's not a good policy. Let me write a book. I can give them one book. that contains the information that they and others find most helpful in debunking the myths and knowing the truth. And I do it in an easy to read chronological history of Israel, which, as you know, is just uh it's one of the the most fascinating stories uh one can share.

Yeah, and you've got endorsements from ranging from Dennis Prager to Glenn Beck to Pastor John Hagee and on and on. It caught my attention. And David, I've been in the identical position where someone says, Well, what's the best book to read? I think, well, there's so much out there, but then you think, yeah, that's the problem. It's scattered in different places, and it's not necessarily addressing the audience that we want to address.

Let me just, in some random ways, play the devil's advocate here. David, surely you know there are Israeli academics. that differ with you. There there are influential Israeli thinkers who are ashamed of Israel and Israel's Zionism and oppressive policies. How how can you defend this and make it so black and white?

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's the great thing about Israel. It's a free society. And they have Israelis on the far left as well as Israelis on the far right and every every type. Uh much like there are academics uh in the United States who hate America wrongly.

who portray America as the source of the world's problems wrongly. Uh you'll find academics in Israel who do the same to their own country. Just because they're Israeli doesn't mean they're right. Just because America's critics are often American doesn't mean they're right. And unfortunately, like you know, There seems to be a meeting of the minds where far left academics from Israel get together with far left academics from America, and they enjoy bashing both Israel and America while they tend to ignore.

some of the real sources of evil in our world today. They they they they peddle very gently when it comes to radical Islam. They they come up with ways of ig just ignoring the massacre of Christians and the persecution of Christians throughout the Middle East. They insist because of their extreme ideology. In locating the source of evil in our world with America and Israel.

It's absurd on both counts. All right, let me play the devil's advocate once more. But surely you know there are Palestinian families that were living for generations in what is Israel today, and they were uprooted, and today they're in refugee camps. How can you possibly justify that? Um I'm so glad you asked, Mr.

Devil's Advocate. You know, this is perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Israel's history.

So two two two parts. I want to do this in two parts. Part one As people might have heard, after World War I, the Ottoman Empire. The the Ottoman Turks had ruled the the land of Israel. uh what the West called Palestine for centuries.

End of World War One, the British conquered it. And they got a mandate from the League of Nations to rule it.

So you have a period from World War I to World War II. where Britain is ruling the land of Israel. And they decided it was their mandate from the League of Nations to let Jews actually immigrate to their ancestral homeland. And so you see Jewish immigration increasing. And I think one of the claims against Israel is that Israel can only fit so many people, right?

It it just it's a fixed amount of people who can live there, so every Jew that was allowed to return home during the British Mandate. must have meant that an Arab was kicked out of their home, because you can only fit so many people in the country. There's no such thing as growth. And there are some points critical to note that according to British statistics, Not Israeli statistics, British statistics. During the peak years of Jewish immigration to Israel, to Palestine, during the British mandate for Palestine, from 1920 to 1937.

Peak years of Jewish immigration the Arab population did not shrink. In fact, it grew. And it grew by a rate that the British themselves called tremendous. And more than that, when they dug deeper and looked at those cities in Israel to which Jews were returning and those cities that were not getting the benefit of Jewish immigration, they saw the following. in cities to which Jews were not immigrating, like Hebron and like Nablus.

The Arab population grew, but at a far lower rate. Those cities to which Jews were going, like Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv Jaffa. The Arab population grew by tremendous rates. We're talking 120% growth because Arabs were immigrating to Israel to take advantage of these economic opportunities, and they were in migrating. from parts of Israel to which Jews were not returning, to those parts to which the Jews are returning.

And this is the final point I want to make. There was not one Palestinian Arab refugee. Not one Palestinian Arab refugee. Until The United Nations offered to divide the land to a Jewish state and an Arab state, 50-50 more or less. The Jews said yes and danced in the streets, and the Arabs of Palestine said no and launched a war against their Jewish neighbors the very next day.

It was that war of aggression that the Arabs of Palestine started and their Arab neighbors later joined. That led to the Palestinian refugee crisis. There was not one refugee until the Palestinians decided to try to destroy the Jewish state. or rather to live in peace with the Jewish State. War's a bad thing.

And that's why when the Palestinian Arabs started this war, so many Palestinian Arabs fled this war, like happens in almost every war. And isn't it true, as I'm no longer playing the devil's advocate, David, isn't it true that many Arabs moved into what was then Palestine as Jews were developing the land more, and it was now a good thing, there were job opportunities and there was a reason to move into the land so that Jewish presence actually opened the door for more Arab immigration? Without a doubt, there is no other way to explain the tremendous rates of Arab population growth. during the time when Jews were returning under the British mandate, the early nineteen hundreds. No other way to explain it other than the fact there's three factors involved, and demographers have looked at this.

Three factors involved. One, Arabs immigrated to Palestine. from surrounding Arab countries because of these economic opportunities. one. Number two, there's what's called in migration.

They left parts of the British mandate for Palestine. which had no juice, and moved to those parts that did have Jew. And then three, because of the Jewish immigration and Jewish health care, there was better medical care for everybody. Because of course the Jews open their clinics to everybody. And so there was longer lifespans and lower infant mortality.

There's no Debate, Michael, that Arab population grew tremendously because of these three factors. The only debate is is the relative weight of each of these bags. An author named Joan Peters came out with a book called From Time Immemorial back in the 80s. And she claimed the largest of these three factors was Arab immigration to Palestine. And you know, the academia said she wasn't right and she exaggerated.

Hey, I get to find a good study for the. wrong. E, it's one of three factors. No one denies that Arab immigration took place at a significant rate. Yeah.

Friends, you say, boy, this is so clear. I need this in written form. You have it. The book, Reclaiming Israel's History. We'll be right back with David Brog.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome to our Thurly Jewish Thursday broadcast.

Here I am a messianic Jewie Jewish believer in Jesus talking to David Brog. A Jewish man that does not believe in Jesus, working actively with Christians who stand together for Israel, there are certain things that we unite on. And one is that we legitimately, genuinely believe historically, socially, justice-wise, and biblically that Israel has a right to the land. We want the best interest of the Palestinians as well. And I'll see if David Bragg agrees with me.

But David, do you think that Palestinians living in the so-called West Bank in Gaza, that they would prosper the most, have the best education for their kids, best medical care and things like that, if they decided to stop trying to destroy Israel? Uh no. No devil. Yeah. No doubt about it.

The border between Israel and the West Bank. used to be open, more open than our our border with Canada. Uh-huh. Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands could strike. stroll across that border to jobs in Israel, jobs in Israel, which gave them a A standard of living Higher than any other Arabs in the world.

entire Arab world except for the Arab citizens of Israel. and some rich Gulf oil shakes. I mean the West Bank was prosperous. spring because of these jars. But just as workers could stroll across that open border to work in Israel, terrorists could stroll across the world.

across that open border to blow up Israeli restaurants, buses and cafes. After Israel offered the Palestinians a state of their own, Yet again for the fourth time. In two thousand. And Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians turned it down. They not only turned that offer of a state of their own down in words, they turned it down by launching the bloody Second Intesada.

A wave of suicide bombings that claimed over 1,000 Israeli lives. Jews, Arabs, and Muslims, by the way. Uh and and also maimed and mangled 3,000 more innocent people. That's when Israel did belatedly. too late.

What any other country would have done much sooner. They built a barrier separating Israel from the West. Bank. People have suffered because of that barrier. It's not as easy for Palestinians to work in Israel, although tens of thousands still do.

It's not as easy for Palestinians to get to Israeli hospitals, although they still do in every case that's necessary. But it's made life harder. What I don't get is, again, again, just like with the Palestinian refugees. Palestinian refugees were the result of Palestinian aggression. Trying to destroy Israel in 1948.

And also refusal to repatriate the refugees by the verdict of the Arab League in the 50s, so that it created a refugee crisis to make Israel bad, which is why you have Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria and even in the West. You still have refugee camps. in in Muslim countries. How can this be? That's right.

That's right, and they're they're barred. I mean, you talk about apartheid. Palestinian Arabs are barred from citizenship in many professions in in the Arab countries in which they live.

So you see the refugee crisis itself. Is the is is the result of a Palestinian Arab aggression trying to destroy Israel in 48. You see this separation fence. Causing hardship on both sides, the result of Palestinian terrorism, an effort to blow up Israelis. What I don't get, and this is where I think anti-Semitism enters at the end.

Picture. Why, when we see this suffering, when we see this hardship, do we automatically blame Israel for defending itself? Instead of blaming the Palestinian Arabs who choose to attack, destroy, and blow up Israelis. That's where the blame lies. And because of their terrorism, because of their violence.

People on both sides suffer. Yeah, and look when people ask about the security barrier, which is almost all fence and then in parts wall, it's to keep murderers out, and where there's a wall to keep snipers out. And yeah, again, who is responsible for the decrease of Christian population in Bethlehem? That's not due to Israeli policies, that's due to PA policies and radical Islam. The book, Reclaiming Israel's History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace by David Bragg.

David, I I think it's important, especially for the older generation that's listening. I'm 62, folks my age and older. When we came to faith in Jesus, it was just a default thing for us to stand with Israel, not just for me as a Jew, but now as a follower of Jesus, it was kind of a default saying we just believe that God had raised up Israel. There were people alive that remembered the horrors of the Holocaust and the miracle of the birth of Israel and the miracle of the six-day war.

So you've got a generation now that's being raised that's much more distant from that. You've got a lot of young people who have a great heart for justice and they stand with the underdog and the victim.

So the way they hear the narrative, it's big, bad, evil Israel and the poor Palestinians. Israel has become the Goliath and the Palestinians, the David. And then you have Israel apartheid week on campuses and things like that.

So David, just take these last couple of minutes, paint a picture on the college campuses, on the people you're talking to. How dire is it? What are they getting exposed to? on a regular basis.

Well, it's And it's important you point it out, Michael, because I'm not too far behind you. We were raised in environments that were pro-Israel and our support for Israel was rarely challenged. Our young people, both Jewish and Christian, are being are they're they're being taken advantage of. You know, people Israel's enemies are are don't have a problem blowing up innocent civilians. They also don't have a problem lying.

And so they understand the Christian values that young Christians hold dear. They understand the Jewish values that young Jews hold dear. And so they use those values to try to turn these young people against Israel, as you pointed out. They approach Christians and say, Hey, you know, Jesus He stood with uh the poor and the oppressed of the world. world.

Well in the Middle East The Palestinians are the oppressed and Israel's the oppressor. They share a similar narrative with young Jews. and not knowing better Not knowing the facts, being naive as young people often are, they buy these lies. And they come home, and I've seen it now in Jewish families and Christian families, they come home and say, Mom and dad. Because of my Christian values, because of my Jewish values, I must stand against Israel.

And it's disgusting because you see them turning young people against their their their their values and their families. This is where the only antidote we have is The truth. And thank God we have the truth on our side. We got to know this history, and we have to share this history. Otherwise, our young people in particular are vulnerable to these lies that they're going to hear.

from far left activists, from Islamic activists, and also from a lot of their college professors. And David, in your book, Reclaiming Israel's History, do you lay things out clearly enough that someone who's critical, skeptical, can kind of see for themselves? In other words, are you just blasting away polemically, or are you presenting things in a way to say, hey, look at this for yourself, see for yourself if I'm telling the truth? Yeah. Absolutely.

I appreciate your point. Mm-hmm. Michael, I approach this just from a purely objective historical fashion. It doesn't help me. as a person as a human being or or as an advocate.

to do what Israel's enemies do and try to lie or distort the truth, because in the long run that won't last. That's built on a on a flimsy foundation. The only way I can do this effectively is to tell the truth.

So I meticulously footnote. I know there are thousands of footnotes in this book. Thousands of I meticulously footnote every fact I include.

So anyone who reads this book and has an issue with anything I say, can find my source and challenge me. And I welcome everyone to do that. Uh it's only by having the truth on our side and sharing this truth. that I have said ultimately. uh the cause of Israel will prevail.

By the way, if the lies about Israel were true, if it's This this this A horrible entity. then my Jewish values would prevent me from supporting you. Exactly. Yeah, and we join together in that as well. Dennis Prager said: This is the book.

That I'll recommend when people want to know: okay, what is the book to read to understand the Middle East conflict?

So it's clearly written. You hear how clearly David communicates. It's clearly written, but it's meticulously footnoted to back it up. The book, Reclaiming Israel's History by David Brock. Hey, David, thanks for joining us.

One of these days we'll have a conversation about Jesus, too, all right? That would be very interesting, Michael. Really good to hear your voice. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.

All right, my joy. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRU.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to our thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Hey.

Listeners alert for everyone just tuning in now. We've had two fascinating interviews earlier in the broadcast and some interesting phone calls as well, some interesting news items we've shared.

So be sure to catch up with the entire broadcast later today. That's at thelineoffire.org. Just click on listen. A couple hours after this broadcast is done. Click on listen and you'll be able to catch the entire broadcast.

You can also subscribe by podcast while you're there. And while you're there, I've got a fascinating Jewish-related e-book to send you. Absolutely fine. free. All right, and here's how you get it.

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And I do want to talk to you in a moment about Donald Trump's speech on Holocaust Memorial. Day. In fact, let me do that right now. Glad he gave a speech on this day. Of course, many other presidents have.

But some of the extreme alt-right people, the so-called alt-right, some of the extreme right-wing folks that voted for Trump are militantly anti-Israel. and many of them blatant anti-Semites. And some of them, well, they would basically be white nationalists.

So there's an article on forward.com, which is a liberal Jewish publication. And there are angry reactions. Benjamin Garland at the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer said this: you can never appease the Jews. Give them an inch and they want a mile. The only way to deal with them is to ignore them and or tell them to shut their filthy mouths.

Again, the fact that this person voted for Trump means no more than if a radical Black Panther voted for Barack Obama. In other words, it does not mean Barack Obama agrees with the voter or that Donald Trump agrees with the voter. People from all backgrounds vote for different candidates. But this is some of the junk that's out there. And you have it on all sides, left, right, and middle.

You've got wackos and you've got junk. Garland bemoaned what he saw as a turnaround for Trump. Months ago he was a man who knew how the Jews operate, and is a man with enough self-respect to not be publicly humiliated by them by bowing to their every women demand. But Jews have their rat-like claws deep in them now. Oh, come on Come on.

Donald Trump's been the same Donald Trump in terms of Israel for years and years and years. His own daughter converted to Judaism. No, I wish she was a true follower of Jesus, but the fact is she converted to Judaism. And son-in-law Jared has been a key part of their family for years as a religious Jew or semi-religious Jew. That makes the grandkids Jewish.

And Donald Trump, I'm sure, has had business dealings with Jewish people and worked together for years and years and years and years.

So obviously they misread Trump. And Donald Trump kept saying he was going to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem if elected. Right.

He hasn't done that yet. I still hope he will. Maybe it's more complex than he realized, but I still hope he'll do the right thing and do that.

So obviously they misread Trump. They created a Trump in their own image. A former Ku Klux Klan head, David Duke, also railed against Trump in the hours after the speech and decried the fact that the Holocaust is remembered annually. Why is the so-called Holocaust the only atrocity to receive its very own remembrance proclamation? Jewish privilege.

That's what he wrote on Twitter. Do you not have any power? He writes to Donald Trump, why are you surrounding yourself with the enemies of the American people? Friends, this is what anti-Semitism looks like. and sounds like.

And as Donald Trump continues to stand for Israel and do the right thing with regard to the Jewish people, the anti-Semites will scream all the more loudly. Let them be exposed. As ugly as they are, let them be exposed. We'll be right back with your Jewish-related calls. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

Your Jewish-related calls are always welcome. 866-3666. Three four eight seven. 884 is the number to call. Hebrew-related.

Jewish tradition, Judaism-related, modern Israel-related, even Islam-related. We'll do our best to give you solid answers to your questions. 866-348-7-884. We go to the phone starting in New York City. Shalom, welcome to the line of fire.

Hi, Doctor Brown. How are you today? Doing very well, thank you. Um my question to you is very simply. We know we have a Torah that God gave us.

at Marthano and a public revolution. and a public event. The tour is very clear. how we should lead our lives.

So specific some Passages are repeated. multiple times and explain how Each individual time we learn out different things from it. The ma the main point is. That When you have a tour that's so clear, and someone that has a Jewish heart really deep down nose. The clarity of the Torah.

Why would a person like you, who has an amazing voice, And I'm obviously a very smart person. And when you have the ability to spread The truth. Yeah. Truth. Why would you go ahead?

And So a product. To millions of people. A product And it just makes people feel good. Production. Yeah.

There n there is nothing that you have to do. Just Just Sign up and you're in just by calling somebody a god. A human being, a god. The human being, the God, that God tells us in the Torah Specifically. That I am your God.

I took you out of Egypt. Nobody else. The master creator of the world. when you use the word God you're tricking people because A person cannot become God. doesn't make any sense.

It's not irrational. Christianity started by a very uh sad situation uh where a person had a relationship out of Wedlock. She has Aderson, which means she was already be betrothed. She didn't have an Associ yet. She didn't get married totally.

But under Jewish law, And by her having relationships, she's actually uh she would actually be put to death in the times of the rabbis. And she went ahead and turned that around and made it into from her came out such a situation, such a religion. All right, so just to be clear in the Just for the sake of our listeners, so. Uh our My caller Shalom is saying that Mary Miriam the mother of Jesus had him out of wedlock. and that this is part of the creation of of what he believes is a Christian myth which I'm propagating.

I I do want to very specifically respond to your question, sir. Doctor, you you said you would just explain to the audience.

So let me just finish. Is the council council called Mishoim Yitsi Desha? From evil comes out evil. From good comes out good. When we ha when Uh religions like Christianity, come out of such a situation.

you understand deeper how how much evil it really is.

So that's my question too. God, let me ask you this question. Why do you think I've given my life. 45 plus years to preaching this message. And have lost certain friendships and relationships and had to go against the grain.

And often Why do you think I've done it? Why do you think I do it? Very simple, Doctor. You have a tremendous neshama. You have a tremendous soul.

A soul That's a potentially an Ashama Kelelas, an Ashama that is greater than an average soul. such such a soul has the power. But the power comes together. It's also. There's always Hashem God create made Uh evil and he made good.

He made Tumah and he made Tyra. He made Uncleanliness and cleanliness. Everything has to me. has to be a balance. this balance, in order for us to achieve an ultimate reward, there has to be some sort of Counter.

to that reward.

So when a person like you, an hesama like you, who has uh Sotta elevated in Shambha, he also has this the the his Is toiling. is even greater than an average toiling.

So You have a choice in in life. You could ultimately choose to learn the truth. Not just Look at the truth. in order to further your further an agenda. And it's very easy to sell uh to sell pizzas for uh for free on the street on the street corners.

It's free. and it tastes good. People know what it tastes it tastes like. But it's harder to sell Uh uh Something that is is more difficult to keep.

So if you were to turn around and say, okay, I'm going to start. uh preaching uh true Judaism. tea teaching what the Torah says.

Now what people came afterwards and skewed what the Torah says. you might not have an audience because Simply There are Great men out there that are able to do that, you would be just Starting on the ladder with that approach. I I think you capitalize. On on something. People naturally, when they're down, when they're feeling downtrodden, anyone that gives them a hand, anyone that talks to them, And be in Down means depressed or going through a hardship.

Meet anyone on the street, snap anybody on the street from child To adults, they're going through some hardship in life.

So, so you think when, say, when I'm working in the Gentile world, And I'm encouraging Christians around the world to leave everything. Follow Jesus, and they're getting martyred. They're getting destroyed. Even secular reports that at least 90,000 Christians killed for their faith in the last years. In the last year alone, and this has been steady year after year after year, when we're telling them the complete surrender of every thought, every desire, every action given over to God to serve him day and night, and that's where we live, and that's where we breathe.

I'm giving them a convenient way out as they're being slaughtered for their faith rather than teaching Torah to Jews that that's a convenient way out, really? I don't understand how you went from people being slaughtered to talking on a radio show in the United States of America. to talking to people that could learn The true Master Creator of the World. and to know none other. You have well, I'll explain.

I've let you do almost all the talking, but you're calling for me to explain. The reason I explained was you 100% misrepresented, you 100% misrepresented what I believe. I will address your Torah question, but I wanted to get to the heart of it. You 100% misrepresent what I believe. It's like me saying, Why are you telling people that they can have free ice cream?

I'm telling people. Whoever you are, America, wherever you are, you must surrender the entirety of your life to God. You must surrender your thought life. You must surrender your body. You must surrender.

Who is God? Who is God? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Scripture.

Okay? But here's my point. I'm not giving people an easy way out. I'm not telling people, hey, just pray this little prayer. I'm telling them that here, even if, in your view, I'm telling them to follow a false God.

I'm not giving some convenience gospel, some convenience message that you get rich. I'm telling people: lay your life down for the gospel. Lay your life down to follow God, heart and soul, mind and strength, the rest of your life. Dietary laws is easy. Saying Saturday, Sabbath is easy.

When I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is I don't understand. What is gospel?

Okay, so let me help you explain this. Let me help you understand this. Is gospel something written after the Torah, after Talmud? What is gospel?

Is it the teachings of Who what is it? It is what's prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures. It's what God predicted, that God would take the sins of the world and put them on the Messiah. I want to tell you an idea. You're asking me a lot of questions, and you're not letting me answer any, all right?

So it is my radio show, and I want to be fair to you and others.

So please just hear me out, all right? First, the writings of the New Testament predate the final editing of the Talmud by about 600 years, 500, 600 years, but we'll put that aside. Everything that was spoken of in the Torah and the prophets, I believe. I'm not setting anything aside. I say you're setting a lot aside because of your tradition.

And I'll let you explain your view on the other side of the break. Everything I believe is based on what is written. and Tanakh in the Hebrew scriptures. And I believe that As written in Isaiah 53, 6, that all of us have gone astray. Each one has turned to his own way, and the Lord has put on him the Evadadoni, the servant of the Lord, Meshiach, Messiah.

The sin of us all. and if we will turn to him with true chuvant, And true Amunah, true repentance and faith and say, God, have mercy on me. I've sinned. I'm wicked in your sight. Forgive me.

Give me a new heart and a new life. He will now forgive us and now call us to live the rest of our lives in obedience to him.

Now does that mean Torah observance or not? That's a fair question. But it means that the Basorach, the gospel, the good news, is found in Tanakh. And when the Messiah came, He brought it to reality. That's the good news.

Now, from here, serious message, from here on, you live the rest of your life in the service of God. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today. On this Thirdly Jewish Thursday broadcast on the line of fire. I know the phone lines are jammed, but I want to give as much time to Shalom calling from New York, obviously a religious Jewish man. And, sir, I appreciate deeply your love for me as a fellow Jew and the kind words you've spoken to me as much as you believe I'm deceived and doing the wrong thing.

So I want to begin to respond to your question about Torah and then turn it back to you. When I look at Torah and I see that the vast majority of what God said we're to do throughout all generations, we can't do. Without a standing temple, without a functioning priesthood, without sovereignty in the land, and that's been through most of our history. I have one of three conclusions. One, We're under judgment, we're scattered, and God's angry with us.

And we That's that's a big problem. Yeah, temples destroyed, we're under judgment, we're scattered, but he's given us Jewish tradition, he's given us the rabbanim, he's given us the ways of the rabbis and tradition, and that's how we can continue to live as Jews, even though we can't do most of the things. that were forever commandments in the Torah. Or three, the Messiah has come on schedule. before the second temple was destroyed.

and has introduced the new and better covenant. and that we don't discard Torah, but now we live it out. in the the new life of the Spirit. That's what I personally believe.

So we just celebrated Pesach. Sir, according to the Torah, you're supposed to slaughter a lamb with your family.

So did you slaughter a lamb this year? Yeah. An issue here with this conversation, you put me on mute. And you just said a bunch of things. And it sounds to the audience that like I agree with what you're saying.

No, I put you on mute because you kept interrupting me. You asked me a series of questions. Every time I tried to respond, you interrupted me.

So, in fairness to the listening audience, because you can't listen to two people at once. I responded to you and now I'm putting back on.

So no deception there. I didn't hang up on you. I put you on hold so I could answer your questions without you interrupting. If you ask me questions, you got to let me answer, right? Otherwise, just say you want to, you got to spiel, you want to talk, I'll let you talk.

All right. But if you ask me a question, I want to answer. I have a simple question for you. If you ever learnt in a yeshiva and you learnt with the Chavrusa, you would realize the way to come to the truth. Is by two people giving each other, not giving each other the amount of time and then somebody else responding to that amount of time, you're not coming to any truth.

You're going around around in circle. You have to. Stop. Go back to the book. and learn Olive based, ABC, you gotta take the pussic, you gotta learn it from the basics.

Ultimately, you don't want to pass away from this world, and you're going to meet the master creator of the world. And God's going to say, You had such an inshamla, you had such an ability. To talk to millions of people and bring them closer to me. Why didn't you do that? Why don't you go ahead and follow a false God?

In our doctrine, sir, number one, you called my radio show and asked me questions. Did you not want me to answer you? Again, again, it's very simple like this. There's a concept afirabim lahat. Just can you answer me?

Real simple, real simple. You called my show. And you asked me a question. You asked me several questions. And then I let you keep talking to give your whole view on what I believe and why it's wrong, et cetera.

Okay.

So I'm trying to respond. By the way, I've sat with from rabbis as often as possible. And we've learned Gemara together. And several years back, I asked a number of yeshivas, would they, I said, hey, I want to understand my tradition more. I'm not going to proselytize or anything.

We reached out to several yeshivas in Brooklyn and then in another state as well. I said, hey, I'll gladly learn and not say a word and just learn. They all refused me just for your information. But did you call the show wanting me to answer or not? Doctor, I of course I want your an answer, but if within your answer you swallow things that when I answer you, I miss Answering those particular nuances, and there is no time in this conversation that we're going to have time to discuss everything.

The result is that you're not getting the truth. And I'm not hearing what you have to say. It's simply put: if you want to have a Charuzoshaf, you want to learn one with me on a daily basis, I promise you that with one session, one session of learning properly and getting close to the Master Creator of the world, you will see the Divine Providence in the Torah learning because you have a holy neshama. I tell you what, you got yourself a deal. You got yourself a deal.

Yeah. Doctor, I know, listen, you did not give yourself a chance. You always looked at the Torah in a way that it should make you with your personal agenda. No, you cannot go ahead and make debates in front of people.

So, all the rabbis, hang on, let me just respond to you. First, you have a deal. All right, so you are, right?

So, while listening on Instagram's, you're on hold right now, so you can hear me, but you can't interrupt me. All right, so he's not agreeing with me. Just want to be clear. Number one, Howard, who you spoke to on the phone, is gonna get your contact information. And God willing, within the next week or two, I'm gonna reach out to you and contact you.

And we will do our, we'll set aside an hour or two, right? I'm sure our schedules are busy. And we'll learn. You can be my teacher, all right? You whatever you wanna get into.

So Gladly.

So, you got to give me your contact info. Otherwise, I can't reach out to you. But we're going to do it, okay? You've made a claim within one session, it's going to revolutionize my understanding of things.

So, we're on, sir. All right, we're on. But you're telling me that all the other rabbis I've sat with and done this with. And learn Gamora with, or anything like that, that they don't have what you have, that you've got something special that's gonna totally change my perspective. Doctor, I'm not I'm not playing Some dramatic T V show for ratings.

This is the deal. You have to understand. It's unadulterated learning where you feel connected to God, the master created the world, his Torah, and learn without an agenda. Learn because you want to be close to the one that created you. That's what type of learning.

Not a learning the way you want to end up with a conversation and be able to answer. I didn't say that. You misjudge why I learn. Everything I do in my life is to walk with God and please God and know God and make him known to my last drop of blood and breath. That's what I'm here for.

And if anyone could show me that what I was believing was wrong, I'd abandon it in a heartbeat. I hope you can say the same. I hope you can say the same. Remember one thing. Remember one thing.

When you say God, it means the master creator of the world and nobody else. You cannot go ahead and say God to the audience. I think you should change your words. Either call uh Yeshua God Yeshua and God God. You cannot go ahead.

You cannot go ahead and use terms that Convolutes people's minds.

Well, tell you what, I've got to give account to the master creator for my words. You have to give account to the master creator for your words, okay? I'm standing before him, you're standing before him, so I'll give account for my words, you give account for yours. But here's the deal: if you're willing, if you're willing to do this, I have to have, I have, all right, sir, I've got one minute left. I didn't take any other calls because of you.

All right, so I apologize to other callers. If you can call back tomorrow, I'll put you at the top of the list. But sir. You've offered to learn with me.

So here's the deal. Give your info to Howard. He's going to ask for it. He's going to send it to me. Email.

or cell phone or both, whatever. God willing, within the next two weeks I'll be in touch with you. and will set up a time where I'm not gonna argue with you. My purpose is not going to be to use what you say for missionizing purposes. I'm going to take you up.

on your claim. That you are going to enlighten me to the real meaning of Torah and it will change my life as a Jew. All right, so the ball is in your court, sir. You can talk to Howard now. Friends, I love the truth.

And I love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I'm committed to living for him and living for that truth, whatever the cost or consequence, whether by life or by death.