transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] On Sunday, one of the weirdest images of recent times, and there are a lot of weird images, appeared on the internet. I'm gonna put it up on the screen. It appeared to show an Israeli soldier, an IDF soldier, using a sledgehammer to smash the face of a statue of Jesus. Now, when people first saw this, we don't have a poll on it or anything, but we can imagine very few thought it was real. For one thing, social media is famously full of manufactured images created for who knows what purpose, mostly political, using AI. They're not real. And this one seemed especially fake, because it was supposedly shot in Lebanon. And there was a war going on in Lebanon, and this is an Israeli soldier. Now, we know a couple of things. One, what's happening in Lebanon is critical to the security of the state of Israel. And we know that because Israel is also partnered with the United States in a war against Iran, which is critical to its national security. Of course, taking out the famed Iranian nuclear program is essential for the existence of the state of Israel. That's why the United States joined in this war. But in the middle of that, Israel had to take time out to invade southern Lebanon, not just invade, but according to its own defense minister, take over, settle, expel the people and create a permanent security zone in southern Lebanon below the river. Now, it had to have been pretty pressing for them to want to do something like this because they had a lot else going on. And it was pressing. Hezbollah, or as it is often known on American television, Hezbollah, kind of the Keeve of pronunciations, people who know what they're talking about call it Hezbollah. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror militia had been attacking Israel, northern Israel from southern Lebanon, and Israel just had no choice but to go in and kill the terrorists. So in the face of that kind of threat, you had to ask yourself, looking at this picture, how would an IDF soldier have the time to take a sledgehammer to smash the face of Jesus when he's defending his own country against terror? And so then you had to assume, well, obviously, he knows something that we don't know. This so-called statue of Jesus was probably some kind of terror weapon. It was the Hezbollah equivalent of an exploding pager. There were probably C4 charges inside the head of that Jesus statue. And the IDF soldier, a member of the world's most professional ethical army, was just defusing what could have been incredibly dangerous to the children of Israel. So this was basically yet another necessary step taken in defense of Israel's right to exist. But then you had to ask yourself, wait a second, why would a soldier smash a statue filled with explosives? That doesn't make any sense. Clearly, he didn't think the thing was going to explode, or he wouldn't be hitting with a sledgehammer, a sledgehammer that you paid for as an American taxpayer, wearing a uniform you paid for. In fact, everything that soldier has in his possession, you paid for because the entire IDF is paid for by the United States taxpayer. So then you think, well, this just can't be real. And of course, that's what they told you right off the bat. This is not real. This is just more terror propaganda. The state of Israel, its many agents in the United States, in our media, on our social media told you, don't believe it. That's fake. It's AI. But very quickly it emerged, no, this actually was real. And that raised a whole new set of questions, beginning with why would an Israeli soldier want to smash the face of Jesus? This is a country, we're often told, that is a safe haven for Christians in the region. In fact, it's the only country in the Middle East where Christians feel safe. Obviously, that's why there's so many happy Christians in Israel and in the territories Israel controls. Well, before any of those questions could be answered, the Israeli media jumped in with their concerns. Having confirmed it was real, here was the first response from Israeli media. Watch.

Speaker 2:
[04:32] This does not look good at all for the Israelis and it's going to be circulating online in the US as well. We know who will take advantage of this. IRGC accounts already talk about this, post it everywhere. Definitely Hezbollah affiliated accounts. And this is again, another incident that is going to make a lot of bad portraying of the IDF.

Speaker 1:
[05:00] Did you hear that? The problem with an IDF soldier smashing the face of Jesus is not that he smashed the face of Jesus. The problem is that he got caught on camera. And in fact, it turns out not only did the guy who did it get punished, punished, but so did the guy who filmed it. Because exposing what the IDF does to the rest of the world is the real crime. And you just heard the news presenter say that. This is already on Hezbollah controlled accounts. The IRGC is making a lot of this. What you don't hear is any examination of why it happened in the first place. Why would an Israeli soldier want to do this? What does it reflect of the attitudes of the Israeli military and of Israel itself toward Christianity? That's never addressed. All that matters is how the rest of the world perceives it, and specifically American evangelical Christians who were the last bulwark of support for Israel in the last country on the globe that supports Israel with money, which would be the United States. So the problem from the Israeli perspective is not that it happened. The problem is that American evangelicals might find out about it. But thank heaven, there is a major American evangelical news outlet completely devoted to the protection, support, and promotion of the state of Israel, and it's called CBN, Christian Broadcasting News. And here was their take on the smashing of the face of Jesus.

Speaker 3:
[06:21] This is not a good look, A. Let's start there. I mean, it's disturbing and it feeds into narratives that people have been creating around Israel that may not be accurate, right? And that's the problem. You have people saying things about Israel, and the way that Israelis and the government is allegedly treating Christians and other religious groups. And then you see an image like that and it's very easy to assume, oh, look, all of those people who are spewing conspiracy theories or other ideas, they may be telling the truth. But what we have to be careful of, and I think we've seen this a lot in American culture, in cancel culture, we've seen it in countless examples of assuming, particularly actually when you look at police officers in this country, right, that one act is somehow emblematic of how every police officer acts. It's the same thing here. One act that one soldier does is somehow emblematic in people's minds of what every IDF soldier is doing. Well, there's no evidence that that is the case, right? So we have to be really careful as Christians and as human beings, as human beings and then as Christians in particular, to not assume that there's a widespread problem simply because we're seeing one photo of it.

Speaker 1:
[07:35] Did you hear that? Okay. So that's the message to American evangelicals, carefully crafted, no question. And the message is this, not only does this not tell you anything about attitudes in Israel toward Christians or Christianity, assuming that it does, makes you a liberal engaged in cancel culture. It's a lot like attacking white cops after the George Floyd hoax. It means you're part of the problem. And as Christians, we need to be very careful not to jump to conclusions. You'll notice, however, that there's no effort to ask the most basic of all questions, which is, how did this happen? And what's going to happen to the guy who did it? If this happened in the United States or any other country, what would happen? If, for example, an American soldier broke into a synagogue in this or any other country and, say, burned the sacred Torah scrolls, would people be getting up on TV and say, let's not jump to conclusions here. Doesn't mean there's a problem. We don't have to ask why he did it. We're just going to let his commanding officer figure out some kind of punishment, and it's fine. And, by the way, you're engaging in cancel culture if you want to know more. Well, of course, that would not be the reaction. If an American soldier broke into a synagogue and burned a Torah scroll, he would be severely punished, severely and rightly punished. You can't desecrate other people's religious symbols. That is totally wrong, and people who do it should be punished. That would be the biggest story in the world. The administration's anti-Semitism task force would spend the next three years pushing Congress to pass new laws to protect terrified congregants from guys like that. But in this case, Christians whose Messiah was mocked, a statue of Jesus was just smashed with a sledgehammer they paid for, they are told, no, no, no, this means nothing and you're a bad person if you think it does. And by the way, that was probably enough for a lot of CBN viewers. It's not a problem. Don't think about it. Thinking about it, asking questions about it, that's the crime. And so viewers of whatever that just was, propaganda like that, can be forgiven for believing that that was an isolated incident, but it's the opposite of an isolated incident. In fact, it's a very common occurrence where the Israeli military desecrates Christian religious symbols and churches and kills Christians. These are not accidents. This adds up to, well, what the SPLC might call a troubling pattern. But in fact, more than a troubling pattern, it's very close to a policy. And we know that because of indisputable facts of behavior in recent years. So, for example, October 7th, 2023, Hamas launches an attack on southern Israel, famously, kills a bunch of civilians. It's bad. Everyone says it's bad. And almost immediately, the government of Israel moves in to level Gaza, from which these attacks came. Now, in Gaza is a small but long-standing Christian community, lived there since Jesus and they were killed too. Christian churches were bombed intentionally multiple times in Gaza. Christian parishioners were murdered by the IDF in Gaza. A mother and daughter were shot to death by an Israeli sniper in a churchyard in Gaza. And the reaction in the United States? Well, there wasn't any reaction in the United States. In every single case, Israel, in order, denied it happened. Then when confronted with proof that it happened because dead people are pretty easy to verify because they're dead, said, oh, it was an accident. We'll look into it. Who was punished? Nobody. In no case was anybody punished for blowing up churches and murdering Christians in Gaza. At one point, an Israeli tank fired an artillery shell into a cross on top of a Christian church in Gaza. As if it couldn't get clear what the point of this was. The point was to take down the cross because the cross is so offensive, apparently. That's the point at which Christians in the United States, again, who are paying for this, who are the last remaining supporters, the last remaining large group of supporters of the Israeli military in the United States and critical to continued funding for the state of Israel, should have asked themselves, could these all be accidents? The country with the most sophisticated munitions on the planet is accidentally bombing churches, and not just once, but again and again. Do snipers really make mistakes like that? Shooting a mother and a daughter in a churchyard, would that be a mistake? What's going on here? And of course, if they'd asked, nobody did. Those who did were immediately denounced as terror supporters. But anyone who asked would have found the truth, which is these are consistent with attitudes toward Christians in Israel, not by all Israelis, of course, not by every government minister in Israel, of course, but by a lot of them. The loathing of Christianity is absolutely real. How do we know that? Well, here's one example. That was 2024 in Lebanon. Yes, that was an Israeli tank going out of its way, taking a break from hunting down Hezbollah to bulldoze a Christian statue of St. George slaying the dragon in the country with the last remaining significant Christian population in the Middle East, Lebanon, a country with a Christian president, a historically Christian country. And so you roll into this country because Hezbollah, and the first thing you do is knock down Christian iconography, crush a statue. What was the statue doing wrong? Existing. How could this happen? Well, because for some Israelis, a significant number of Israelis, Christian iconography is considered deeply offensive. In fact, the most offensive, so offensive that in some Israeli religious schools, the plus sign is not used in math. The plus sign, you know, that connotes addition. Why? Because it looks like a cross. And that's considered too offensive for the eyes of school children, and so an inverted T is used. That's a fact. You can look it up. There's only one other instance we've seen of this in the world, and that's in ISIS-run Madrasas, where the cross was also considered offensive. Which is not true in any normal Muslim country. They use plus signs, but not in Israeli religious schools. So everybody is allowed to have their own religious views and to find other people's symbols repugnant, but it might be useful for Christians in the United States to know what they are funding and making excuses for. But of course, they don't know this, because this information somehow hasn't reached them. And if they're watching CBN, they're told, don't pay attention, you must be liberal if you're drawing conclusions. But that's not the only example. There are many examples of Israeli soldiers going out of their way to mock and desecrate Christian symbols and churches and to hurt individual Christians. And just keep in mind, within the context of the Middle East, Christians are non-aligned. You can't call a Christian an Islamist because they're not Islamic, they're Christians and they follow a religion that does not endorse war. Just the opposite. And so you would think that if you're the Israeli government, the last people you would ever want to bother, irritate are Christian Arabs because they could potentially be on your side. And yet, poll after poll of Christian Arabs shows the main threat that they perceive to themselves and their families is not the Arab Muslims who live next door to them, but the Israeli government and the settlers in the West Bank that the Israeli government protects. That's the threat to them. Now, if anyone in the United States and say a church or if Franklin Graham or some other American Christian leader were to just pick up the phone and call them and ask, what are your problems? How can we help? They would learn that and they might be able to help, by the way. This is one of those problems that Americans could actually solve. There are lots of problems around the world and it's hard to know what to do about them. But if you're an American evangelical leader and there is persecution of Christians underway by the Israeli government, that's actually something that you can fix. How? By calling your congressman. The only reason the United States on a partisan basis has sent billions and billions and billions of dollars to the Israeli government is because Christian Zionists support it. And not just their leaders, whatever is going on with them, but their congregants, normal, nice people who have no idea what the truth is. And they support Israel because they believe God commanded them to and they believe that Israel is on their side. So if they were to speak up, if they were to gather information about what is actually happening in this place they call the Holy Land and then call their member of Congress and say, I cannot support this. I am not going to stand by, as you send my tax dollars to a government that persecutes Christians, that might have an effect, like an immediate effect. Call Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House. He's a Christian. He'll tell you. Call Mike Johnson, ask Mike Johnson, why in the world would you ever appropriate money to a government that is murdering Christians? That might actually get us somewhere. That might actually relieve some of the harassment of Christians in Israel and the territories it controls. That harassment is real. There was a study last year by a Jewish-Israeli group, which God bless them, keeps track of assaults on Christians in Jerusalem. They found in 2025, there were 61 physical assaults against Christians, mostly against Christian clergy in Jerusalem. Physical assaults is so common for Christian priests to be spit on and roughed up to have their churches urinated on or defaced by radical religious Israelis that ask any Christian clergymen who is in Jerusalem. Some of them are afraid to go outside. That is a fact that Christians should understand. They should ask themselves, where is this hate coming from? And why has it been hidden from us? Here's another tape from Southern Lebanon, also from 2024. These are Israeli soldiers inside a church mocking Christian rights, holding a kind of black mass. This is real. Watch this. That's inside a church that not only did that, they filmed it and then posted it because they were proud of it because no one told them not to be. Try doing that in a synagogue. Don't do that in a synagogue. It would be completely immoral to do that in a synagogue, to desecrate someone else's sacred space. That is wrong. Christians believe that is wrong. But imagine what would happen to you if you did do that, if you tried to do that. How long would you be free? How long would it take before you were arrested, before you were the most famous person on planet Earth? Not very long. We don't know the names of any of those soldiers because no one was ever punished. Nobody cared in this country or in Israel. The only people who cared were the Arab Christians whose church was desecrated by soldiers. And no one came to their rescue and no one came to their defense. Think about that for a minute. Think about that. American Christians need to reassess their support for Israel. And they need to do it on a number of different grounds. But the very first one is the most obvious one. Can you support a country that allows that kind of behavior, that has a lot of people who hate what you believe in and hate you for believing it, and that's demonstrable, and that has used your tax dollars to blow up Christian churches and shoot Christian clergy, a country in which Christian clergy are spit on as they walk outside? And then once you start asking those questions, then it becomes really obvious that all of this, leaving aside the theology, is it theologically tenable? Does it make sense from a Christian perspective that Christians would have this commandment from God himself to form a political alliance with a totally secular government of another religion? Does that make sense? That's the second order of conversation, but the first order of conversation is, how could you ever support a government that mocks your values as aggressively as the government of Israel does? That provides free abortion on demand to the entire population using your tax dollars. Oh, they're not your tax dollars, right? The United States gives so much money to Israel that its basic needs are met, and so it can use the surplus on incredibly generous social programs we don't have here, and it can use some of it to provide abortion for anyone who wants one. But it can also spend a great deal of money promoting a pride parade, which they are now doing. Now, from a Christian perspective, pride is, of course, the first of the seven deadly sins. You're not allowed to have pride in Christianity. Again, it's number one on the sin list. But the government of Israel is promoting the largest pride event, they claim, in the history of the region this June in the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, very close to, by the way, Sodom and Gomorrah, weirdly. You wonder what Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher turned US. Ambassador to Israel, has to say about this? Nothing. You wonder what Mike Johnson, the Christian Speaker of the House, has to say about this? You can imagine that this event, whether you're forward or not, probably won't be consistent with Christian values or even Judeo-Christian values, whatever those are. Here are last Pride parades. What do you think of that, Mike Huckabee? Is that consistent with your values? Are you going to go to the Pride Parade? Look, countries are complicated, not everything that happens in a country, you're going to support even if you love the country, of course. But the PR effort that evangelicals leaders in the United States have made on behalf of Israel is so over the top, so totally uncompromising in its positive spin. Everything about Israel is great, any criticism of Israel is immoral, it's anti-Christian, it's of course anti-Semitic. That you have to wonder, is there anything, is there any humiliation, is there any middle finger that they wouldn't ignore? Is there any suffering of actual Christians in the region that they wouldn't downplay in order to continue telling a manufactured story about a country that bears no resemblance to their description of it, at all? A country of people, or some people anyway, who literally won't use the plus sign because it looks like a Christian cross. There's a pride parade in the middle of the Holy Land. They're totally fine with it. Apparently, they're so used to humiliation, American evangelical leaders, that they will even sit by and cheer as Mark Levin lectures them on the New Testament. Imagine sitting down with Mark Levin and saying, the one thing you don't understand, Mark Levin, is the Talmud. So be quiet as I tell you what your religion teaches. Well, of course not. No one could be that presumptuous, except Mark Levin, who is entirely comfortable using his platform on Fox News to lecture Christians about what the Christian Bible teaches about violence. And not only does he get it wrong, he grotesquely inverts it. Here he is, with no trace of shame whatsoever, lecturing Christians about why their God supports the warner on.

Speaker 4:
[26:53] Well, war isn't outlawed under certain circumstances. Peace is preferred, love is preferred, conciliation is preferred, right? Negotiations preferred, diplomacy is preferred. But there's evil. The Bible recognizes it. We recognize it. But there's also this. Revelation 19, 11 through 21 describes the second coming, the ultimate war, as has been written, as others have written. Jesus judges and makes war, quote, with justice. It's going to be bloody. I'm quoting. The birds will eat the flesh of all those who oppose him. He will conquer completely and consign to a, quote, fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Speaker 1:
[27:37] So there's Mark Levin telling you what Christianity is really about on Fox News. You have to wonder, do Fox executives know this is happening? But that takes some brass to say something like that. And of course, he's got it exactly wrong. He's describing the last book of the New Testament, a prophecy by St. John, in which he describes the end of history, the return of Jesus to earth to judge the living and the dead. So in Christianity, it is God who makes that judgment. It is God who punishes the wicked. Love and compassion and reconciliation are not, quote, preferred, as Mark Levin describes. They are mandatory. They are required. Every Christian must love. Reconciliation is a requirement of the religion, not something that you're encouraged to do if you can spare the time. You have to do it. So only God can judge. And Jesus is really clear about that. But there's Mark Levin telling you that Jesus himself wants you to support. Tearing the eyes out of your enemies. Bringing justice through violence. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. And yet there's not a single evangelical leader in the United States who has the bravery required to challenge Mark Levin as he desecrates the religion itself. One thing that might help, once again, is speaking to Christians who live under Israeli occupation, who actually live there, who live in East Jerusalem, who live in Gaza, who live in the West Bank, who live in Lebanon, and who live in Syria. And one thing we know about Israeli occupation, it does not improve the lives of the occupied. And that is one way to judge the decency of any person or any empire. If a father is a good father, his kids are probably happy and well cared for. If he's not, they're very screwed up. If an empire is a benevolent empire, its protectorates thrive, and if it's not, they wither. There is no place occupied by Israel currently that is thriving, and that would include the United States, not thriving. This is just an obvious observation. But it is incumbent on American Christian leaders to speak directly to their brothers and sisters in Christ who live under that occupation and to get their perspective. It is not enough to take an all-expenses paid vacation to Israel and spend three days in a conference center with preselected speakers elected by the government and Israeli officials and IDF officials and get your helicopter tour of the Negev desert and all the rest and then fly back to the United States and spew another government's propaganda to your parishioners. That is not enough. You got to take a minute to talk to Christians who were born there and still live there and ask them the obvious question, how are you doing? And one of the things you will find if you do that is that they're not doing well at all. And they've been leaving. They've been leaving ever since 1948, since the creation of Israel, when many thousands of them were expelled by the Israelis from their own homes. Those homes were taken. They were bulldozed or stolen. A lot of them moved to the United States and their descendants are still here. And they can tell you if you would ask, how are they treated by the Israeli government? Not well. And if you ask Christians who live there now, they will tell you not only they're well treated, but their religion is uniquely despised by the Israeli government. Uniquely. There's something about Christianity that's especially offensive to some Israeli cabinet ministers. Here is one Arab Christian from right around Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Church of the Nativity is one of the holiest churches in Christendom, falling apart thanks to the military occupation of Israel. But here's her description of the attitude of the Israeli government toward her and other Christians.

Speaker 5:
[32:08] What the settlers did, that you know, they hate the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. They have broken the statue of Virgin Mary that we had with Jesus when they came into. And we didn't have time to take it out. They have broken it and they literally hate Christians more than anything else in the world.

Speaker 1:
[32:40] That woman's name is Alice Kisiya. She is a lifelong resident of the West Bank again, right outside Bethlehem and has been engaged for two decades in a struggle to keep her family's farm and their restaurant. Her house was bulldozed, the restaurant was closed by the Israeli government. She's from there. They own the land. But they have been fighting a nonstop battle against the government of Israel, as many Christians have been in the West Bank, to keep what is theirs and to prevent being arrested or shot. She has been hassled on a regular basis, including physically, by Israeli settlers. There's a picture of one encounter she had. That's an Israeli settler on the left grabbing her. These are people from, in many cases, outside the region from the United States or Ukraine, she told us, who showed up and decided that the land of Christians belongs to them. Now, we spoke to her at some length a couple of hours ago. We're about to play you this interview. But probably the most striking thing that she told us when we asked, Well, what have American church leaders done to help you? What has Franklin Graham done to help you? People who raise hundreds of millions of dollars every single year to help Christians and to make the world more Christian, what have they done to help you? And she said, well, they've abetted, they've worked to effect to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of this area. They've come in and offered to help us move on behalf of the Israeli government to get the Arabs out, people who were born there, who are the indigenous population of the area. The Christians, Christian leaders in the United States have said, the solution to your problem is leave. We'll help you get a visa. The shame in that. That is a true moral crime. Starting anything new is hard. Starting a business is especially hard. Takes a ton of time and effort and you don't really know if it's going to work. Having a partner like Shopify makes things really simple. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses. That includes 10% of all e-commerce in this country, in America, ranging from big names like Heinz and Mattel to new companies just starting up. With hundreds of templates to help you build your online store, tools to help write your product descriptions, a bunch of valuable marketing features using Shopify is like having your own marketing team. Plus, you can use world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns, all with 24-7 award-winning support. So if you're thinking about, should I do this? Shopify can help you do it. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tucker. That's shopify.com/tucker. And there's more. So without further delay, here is Alice Kisiya from the West Bank. Alice, thank you very much for doing this. I think a lot of Americans, and particularly American Christians, were shocked to see the image of an IDF soldier smashing the face of Jesus with a sledgehammer. I don't think they knew that that could happen. I don't think they understand why it happened. Were you surprised by it?

Speaker 5:
[36:07] Actually, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a privilege. Second, no, because the settlers have been vandalizing our Christian symbols multiple times. They have been spitting on our priests and writing bad words on the churches. So I'm not surprised, and this is not the first time.

Speaker 1:
[36:33] Why do you think they're targeting churches and priests and Christian villages?

Speaker 5:
[36:43] They don't like Christians. They hate us. It's all propaganda because the population of the United States are mostly Christians and they want their side. So if the US. Christians know how the Christians, the indigenous Christians, from Jesus Blood learn how they live here, they would change their mind.

Speaker 1:
[37:07] It's a little bit surprising because in the United States, we're told that the enemies of the state of Israel are Muslims and that Israelis, and that would include the IDF and settlers, are allies with the Christians, have a lot in common with the Christians, and this is really a war against radical Islam, Islamists, jihadists. But you're saying that they hate Christians. Why do you think that is and how do you know that?

Speaker 5:
[37:38] Because in our land, I don't know if you're familiar with the Makhrour story, they have invaded our land in 2024, which is after more than 15 years of struggling with the civil administration and with the settlers and with settlers' companies trying to take over our land and demolishing our properties there. They took advantage of the war after the 7th of October and they invaded the land and they have broken the Statue of Virgin Mary, they have broken also the icon, the picture of Virgin Mary, they have vandalized the cross. I have also videos on my Instagram, on my social media, people can see that. I have been recording everything that they are doing. But they are doing this propaganda in order to raise Islamophobia in the Western countries, in order to take over the Palestinian lands and to annex the West Bank in the name of Islamophobia. But as a Christian, I was born in Palestine, in Bethlehem, and my neighbors, my cousins are Muslims, so I don't see that there is a really problem with Islam. It's the extremist people that are the problem. So in each religion, we have those extremist people. We cannot refer to some religion that is extreme or terun because of their extremist people. But I think it's all of it because they want to annex the West Bank.

Speaker 1:
[39:18] It's just interesting though, destroying images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, that's not protection from terrorism. I mean, why would a soldier or a settler destroy an image of Jesus or Mary? I don't understand.

Speaker 5:
[39:37] I have it here. I can show you also.

Speaker 1:
[39:40] Please do.

Speaker 5:
[39:41] A picture. I also posted this previously on my social media. This is the picture that they tried to cut off and to break it when they entered our land. They hate Christians because they know that Christianity is more like, you know, we are very peaceful. We fight in a different way, and especially Christians in Bethlehem and in the West Bank, we are less than 1 percent. And the amount of lands that Christian has is the second largest lands after Israel. So they want Christians to immigrate from the West Bank, from Palestine, in order to take over those lands.

Speaker 1:
[40:31] Well, I think that's shocking. Have churches in the United States or Christian leaders or American officials, are they aware of this? And have they done anything to help you?

Speaker 5:
[40:46] Actually, it's not only helping me, it's helping Christianity or what has left from Christianity in Bethlehem, because we are less than 1 percent, and at least 200 families have emigrated since 7th of October, which is a big number for less than 1 percent. So they are trying so hard to convince Christians to leave the country somehow by a Christian Zionist organization or people and give them support to travel, to offer them job opportunities. And this is a way of ethnic cleansing, a systematic ethnic cleansing. So it's not surprising. There are like some people, some priests, some religious people have, yes, they talked about this, but we didn't really see the actions.

Speaker 1:
[41:42] You mentioned Christian Zionists. What have they done to help?

Speaker 5:
[41:49] Nothing. They are Zionists. They only offer like, traveling to Spain, to Europe, to the US to get better job opportunities, better life in a way that this life is like life in Lafayette, Flaherm, or in the West Bank. It's not really stable, so they offer them to travel. So this is a systematic way for ethnic cleansing for Christians. And this is all because of the settlers' organizations, extremist settlers' organizations are trying to take over the orthodox Christian lands.

Speaker 1:
[42:31] So you think that Christian Zionists in the United States are helping to ethnically cleanse the West Bank? They're trying to get Christians out?

Speaker 5:
[42:41] Yes, they are helping them with their funds, with their taxpayers, with everything, with their support for them. We are being ethnic cleansing because of them, and they are not really aware that they are erasing the history of the creed of Jesus Christ. Because in our case, in Al Makhrour, like one of the settlers told me, like after we take over Al Makhrour, which is one of the last, also like Taipei, one of the last Christian villages, he said that we will come to Bethlehem and we will take over everything because Bethlehem is for us as Jews.

Speaker 1:
[43:21] It's also shocking. Well, you said 200 Christian families have left Bethlehem since October 7th. Why have they left?

Speaker 5:
[43:29] Because of the instability, because of the economics, because of the war, the occupation of the annexation of the West Bank, settlers' violence, the open air prison that we live in. We don't have like in each village, between each village and village and city, we have gates. We cannot move freely even in the West Bank. So, they did great.

Speaker 1:
[43:56] Would it be possible for you, well, let's just start at the beginning. Where were you born?

Speaker 5:
[44:02] I was born in Jerusalem, but it was like, it's called Yehuda and Samaria. I have an Israeli citizenship, so I'm also Palestinian with an Israeli citizenship. I'm also French, and that's why I managed to find them. If I was Palestinian, like within Palestinian ID, I couldn't do that. But because I have an Israeli citizenship, and I have the same rights as these settlers, but though I was treated with discrimination, he and my family, we had a very powerful will to fight back, and we stayed, and we managed to kick them out at the end.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 5:
[46:07] Because Palestinians could be easily detained for years, for nothing, and even not get a trial or even a court, just being postponed every time when they can't stay three, four years.

Speaker 1:
[46:26] Do you know people who've been detained?

Speaker 5:
[46:30] Yes, of course. I know also there is a Laya Nasser, she's a Christian Palestinian from Ramallah. She's now in jail. She was detained many times for nothing.

Speaker 1:
[46:46] Why is she, was she accused of violence?

Speaker 5:
[46:50] Somehow they say, yes, of violence, of I don't know. They claim whatever they want with detaining Palestinians.

Speaker 1:
[47:00] Has there been a trial?

Speaker 5:
[47:03] Every time they postpone and they change the dates and they, she went out and they took her again. So I think they can do whatever they want with Palestinians. And my father is Palestinian. He had permission to work in Jerusalem. And after the incidents in Al Makhrour, they stopped his permission because they wanted to cut off the sources of income for the family, for us not to be able to pay for the courts, for to pay for even if I got jailed because I was arrested multiple times for nothing also, because I was defending my land. And even I was calling the police to come to protect me from settlers and they were arresting me. So you can never guess.

Speaker 1:
[47:56] Tell us what happened to your land. Where is it and what happened?

Speaker 5:
[48:02] Okay, so Al Makhrour is in area C. Area C, we have A, B, C. A, it's fully with the Palestinians. B is with the Palestinians, but also, anyway, all of them, the Israeli can enter. C is with the Israeli, it's Palestinian territory, but under the Israeli arm. So Al Makhrour, it's area C, it's near Bay Jala, Bethlehem Governor. It's all Palestinians owned properties. They started demolitions from 2012. We had the restaurant and the house there. They demolished it four times, each time we rebuilt it. And with the fourth time, they demolished the house. And even the house was in the registration process in the civil administration. The civil administration is the institution where they controlled the 67 areas with the Israeli government. So they demolished it, and we stayed in tents for five years in that land in order to protect it, not letting the settlers take it. But after the 7th of October, they invaded the land along with the police and the army. Young settlers, I'm talking about also minors, protected by the army. They announced it as a closed military zone, and this closed military zone, it's not even for our area, it's for another area. But this is how it works. They use another military zone, and they stick it to your map, to your area, and they just tell you, this is a closed military zone, you should leave, and they keep the settlers inside. This is what happened. We stayed there for, we set up a solidarity tent for 40 days in the area, and we invited international activists, Israeli Jews, Palestinians, foreigners, religious people, so we can fight back non-violent resistance. We had a woman-led circles, we had interfaith events to prove that even in the hardest times in the war, we, the people, can live together, Arabs and Jews. And after a long battle, which is also we went to the ports, me and my brother, without a lawyer, because I will tell you now how they used the lawyers to manipulate those cases and steal those lands. We have managed to kick them out. So, how it works? Smutrich is funding those settlers' organizations. So, there is a guy also called Ohat Tal, he's always welcomed in the US. Ohat Tal sent his cousins, Lior Tal, to our land to take over it with Smutrich and the head of the settlements in Gush Atsyon, Yaron Rosenthal. It's a big web of corrupted people. They use, I don't know if you see it, but they use companies, those companies, private companies such as Heemanuta. Heemanuta is the subsidiary of the Jewish National Fund. It works in 67 areas because the Jewish National Fund cannot work or act in the 67 areas, so they established small companies, private companies to work and to steal lands in the 67 areas, in Palestine. How it works? It works with, for example, Heemanuta. It's a company that was founded in UK in 1938. It was registered in Jerusalem and it works in Jerusalem, but it cannot work in the 67 areas because according to the Jordanian law number 40, that they were trying to pass in Knesset, and they did pass it a few weeks ago, and it's not going to work anyway, they are trying to steal those lands by erasing this law, and this law is forbidding selling or buying lands by non-Arabs. So they made the legislative process in 71 by the army, the Israeli army to allow private companies, foreigners or Israeli companies to do development projects on those lands or to purchase those lands or only for commercial purposes. So those companies, in order to act in 67 areas, they have to be registered officially by the civil administration. So we got the list of companies that are allowed to do development projects in 67 areas. And this company is not even registered. It's a fake company. They do forge documents, how it works. For example, here I have the, it's a tax paying document from the civil administration in 2014 in the name of my father. So in order to get the land registry document, you need to pay this tax for the land. And they claim, Himanuta, which is the private company, claimed that they bought this land in 69. So after 67, when the Jordanians left and the Israelis came and took over the 67 areas, there is an archive that the Jordanians gave a copy for the Israelis. And this archive has all the agreements about the lands that has been done in the 67 areas at that time. So after 67, until 80, there is no agreements were done, because the archive itself, it says from 48 until 80, from 1948 until 80. So in 81, they established the civil administration. And according to this, they started to change the laws in 67 in order to try to get Israelis to buy and sell Palestinian lands through private companies. And what they did is that they went to the archive that is related to our area in Bethlehem. There is a 44 agreement that were officially registered in this archive. And it's out of 200 pages. They registered 44 pages and there's 156 pages are empty. So what this company was trying to do is that the 156 pages, they were filling them with their own agreements as if it's in the archive. So when you went to the archive, according to their claims, we found it empty. This is the empty pages. Because they said that the agreement was done here in this page and it's empty. So it's all forging documents in order to steal more and more Palestinian especially Christian lands because we have the largest amount of lands after Israel.

Speaker 1:
[55:28] May I ask, so is that why they tore your house down?

Speaker 5:
[55:35] Yeah, it's a way of pushing us to leave, displacement of Christians, of families. It's a way to push us, like, you know, they have many ways to force us to leave. They tried to spread rumors that we sold the land. So the community around us would hate us, would not even stand with us if they enter and if they take over the land. Second, they use the lawyers, the lawyers that we hired in order. They bribe them, they threat them, and they do deal exchanges with them in order to get the case to go the way that they want. And this is why we didn't use any lawyer the last time, because we know they can manipulate all the lawyers according to their own interests. So they also went to our neighbors, Palestinian neighbors, and convinced them that if you want to take your land registration, you have to come and sign up for a new map where you sign that your neighbor is not my father, it's the Jewish Himenotah Company, which is the Israeli Extremist Settlers Company. So they have multiple ways for pushing you out, even if you work in Jerusalem or somewhere, they send you some people to force you to leave the job, the work, not to make you able to pay for your own lawyers, for your own costs, for your daily life. So they have multiple ways to attack, physically, mentally, psychology, economy, like everything. It's not easy. 15 years of struggle since I was very young, I wasn't really aware of all of this until I grew up and I stood in the face of settlers, violence and land theft.

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Speaker 5:
[58:59] Not yet. It was gone in 2019, illegally, of course. We had a big restaurant there, and I'm sure that Smutrich and his friends were very interested in this area in order to connect south of Bethlehem settlements to Jerusalem. But as I said before, Smutrich had a dream which is connecting Gush Atsyon to Jerusalem. And we as a family, we smashed his dreams. We got the land back.

Speaker 1:
[59:33] Is the restaurant still open?

Speaker 5:
[59:36] No, it's demolished. We have nothing. Even they cut off 40 trees. They uprooted 40 trees from the land. They made it miserable.

Speaker 1:
[59:47] What kind of trees? Why would they cut down the trees?

Speaker 5:
[59:51] The settlers, they provoke. So each time, they destroy things, they uproot trees, anything to provoke Palestinians.

Speaker 1:
[60:05] So settlers can come onto your land and cut your trees down? And then what do you do?

Speaker 5:
[60:14] Like, it was one of the most annoying things, even more than demolition, because those trees grew up with me in the land. It's not only trees, like, I have memories with family, with friends, with like the business that we had. So they do anything to make you angry, to do one mistake, to put you in jail.

Speaker 1:
[60:42] Do they ever go to jail?

Speaker 5:
[60:44] They?

Speaker 1:
[60:46] The settlers.

Speaker 5:
[60:48] They attacked me, and once a settler, he tried to choke me in the car, and I called the police, and he also tried to attack my mom, and the police arrested both of us, and we slept in jail for nothing.

Speaker 1:
[61:02] Wait, a settler tried to choke you and your mother, you called the police, and the police arrested you and your mother?

Speaker 5:
[61:10] Yes, and I have videos on my Instagram.

Speaker 1:
[61:16] This is so evil, it's hard to digest it. Why did they arrest you?

Speaker 5:
[61:24] Because the police there in that area are most of them settlers, and working with the head of the settlements, Yerol Rosital, and working according to his instructions, because it's a big web of corrupted people. So they do whatever they want, because in that area, it's like area C. It's different than in Jerusalem or in 48. So they have settlers groups that are controlling those police stations.

Speaker 1:
[62:01] What about the United States Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee? He's a Christian, he's been to Bethlehem. He talks often about Christianity. Has he done anything to help you?

Speaker 5:
[62:14] Actually Mike Huckabee, he was in Christmas in the Nativity Church. And I was like sitting like really next to him, where he couldn't even hear Pizzaballa talking about peace or love or even the war that was in Gaza, or he couldn't stand it. And I saw this in his face, so he doesn't really care for Christians.

Speaker 1:
[62:41] Are there any churches in the United States who have helped you?

Speaker 5:
[62:47] I had many visitors from churches in the United States. I'm from UK and from around the world, but I don't remember actually the names. But yeah, some people just come to visit, but it's really hard to act like we saw. We saw how the Israeli government is doing, and it's really hard to act. No one can stop them. And even Netanyahu cannot stop Smotrich from lengthen settler's violence.

Speaker 1:
[63:21] Do you believe Smotrich is hostile to Christianity, dislikes Christianity?

Speaker 5:
[63:27] Of course he does. He doesn't like Christians. He's so racist. He sends his settlers. Let me tell you something. Even he doesn't like his own Jewish youth because he's sending miners to mountains without electricity, without water, just to take over those lands for his own profit. He uses miners for attacking Palestinians. The first victims of this, it's their Jewish youth, it's their Jewish kids because those kids have psychological problems. They come from orphans, well-fares, and they use them for their own political goals. That's why I call it, it's about the project land. It's not about the promised land because at the end, someone like Yaron Rosenthal is the head of the settlements. On every settlement, he confirms he gets a hundreds, thousands of money to his pocket. So at the end, he doesn't really care about Jews, or Christians, or Muslims. It's all about projects and money. Because after that, he's building projects on Palestinian lands, and promoting them for Jews around the world, for millions and millions of dollars. At the end, they don't really care for their own kids, because they will send them each time to different places to take over those lands, and he let Jews from around the world to come and buy those apartments or places. So he doesn't really care for his own kids. And he doesn't care for Christianity. There is no actions are taken for those settlers. It's just, it's crazy. I hope you come one day, like really to the west.

Speaker 1:
[65:13] I hope so too. I don't know if I'd be allowed to. How often do you see settlers?

Speaker 5:
[65:21] Every day.

Speaker 1:
[65:24] How close do they live to you?

Speaker 5:
[65:27] It's like, it's the same area. Like they have taken over. Like after we fought them and kicked them out of the Makhrour, and thank God we succeeded. They are settled like four kilometers away from us with caravans. So we see them daily. They also, they stole my dog, they ruined my place, they uprooted my place.

Speaker 1:
[65:59] I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What did you just say? They did what to your dog?

Speaker 5:
[66:04] They stole it, and I think maybe they killed them. I'm not sure, but he has no, I didn't see him anymore. Like I also went to the police and I filed a complaint about them. But at the end, after three days, they sent me, your case was closed because of lack of evidence. And we have videos.

Speaker 1:
[66:27] What does the video show?

Speaker 5:
[66:30] Like when they were getting into the land through the gate, and taking the dogs, the dog study. Every time we have many, many videos about them attacking, but the police has never did anything to stop them.

Speaker 1:
[66:52] They stole your dog, they choked you and your mother. Do they ever explain why they're doing this? Did you do anything to them?

Speaker 5:
[67:02] Because I'm fighting back for my own rights, and they hate me because I never left the land, and every time they were in my land, I was coming with a group of activists, opening the gate and staying in the land until the police and army come and kick us out. Every time for 40 days, I was annoying them. I made them go crazy, I exposed their forgery, and that's why they are crazy about it.

Speaker 1:
[67:34] Do you worry they might try and kill you?

Speaker 5:
[67:38] No, because they are too weak, too cowards to do that, because when I was confronting settlers and army, I knew from inside that they are too weak to do anything wrong to me. I'm stronger because I follow Jesus' teachings, and I embody Jesus and I would never be afraid of them, and I don't let this fear to control me. That's why I'm stronger than them. Even when I was in jail, I was even stronger than them.

Speaker 1:
[68:15] Do you plan to stay?

Speaker 5:
[68:16] Yeah, my mom first. Sorry?

Speaker 1:
[68:19] Do you plan to stay in the West Bank?

Speaker 5:
[68:22] Of course, I'm planning and I have established my organization Save Al Makhrour, which I will be helping more Palestinians to defend their lands and to take back their lands against settlers, land theft and violence and to protect them and also to do community development projects in order to prevent the Palestinians from immigrating. We want the Palestinians here because I believe in the two-state solution, and it's on the way. Even people cannot see that, but I see it. But there will be two-state solution and the settlers will not like it. They will go crazy.

Speaker 1:
[69:03] Where are the settlers from?

Speaker 5:
[69:07] Okay. Where are the settlers from? United States, Ukraine, East of Europe, even Europe, multiple places. But most of the settlers, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[69:22] Some are from Ukraine.

Speaker 5:
[69:24] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[69:27] Interesting.

Speaker 5:
[69:30] Around the world. But I'm talking about the settlers, the youth. They gather them also from around the world, from fosters. Most of the settlers, they don't have parents or they have problems with the family, so they take them and they offer them agricultural school, which is on other Palestinian land. And this agricultural school, they teach them how to hate Arabs, how to be so violent towards Arabs, and how to treat Palestinians. And this is how they brainwash them. They brainwash them with those agricultural schools, which those kids are or they have to volunteer hours in order to get paid each month. So you got me? How it works?

Speaker 1:
[70:21] Yeah. I mean, you're describing what we used to call a madrasa. And we would say that Islamic religious extremist shihadis trained in madrasas as children and were taught to hate people who weren't like them and taught violence. You're basically describing that.

Speaker 5:
[70:38] It's the same idea. It's the same. Terrorism has no religion. So when you teach kids to hate human beings, no matter who they are, no matter what differences there are between you and them, this is terrorism. And Smutrich is responsible for this terrorism. And we have been terrorized a lot as Christian family for many years, for 15 years without any actions taken against them.

Speaker 1:
[71:12] There's never been a settler punished for attacking you?

Speaker 5:
[71:17] No, never.

Speaker 1:
[71:21] Can you drive on their roads?

Speaker 5:
[71:25] Yes, because I have an Israeli citizenship.

Speaker 1:
[71:30] Can your neighbors drive on their roads?

Speaker 5:
[71:33] No. My father can't.

Speaker 1:
[71:41] I sure appreciate you're taking all this time to talk to us, Alice, and I hope that you will get support from Christians in the United States because you deserve it. Thank you.

Speaker 5:
[71:52] Thank you, Mr. Carlson. I just want to point out that we also have been working with American organizations like the DPP, the Vulnerable People Project, Save Waste Bag christians.com, Gaza Walks, like all of them, we're working together in order to help the vulnerable people and the minorities around the world.

Speaker 1:
[72:16] Godspeed. Thanks.

Speaker 5:
[72:18] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[72:19] Thanks a lot for watching tonight. See you next Wednesday.