Transcript [00:00] Welcome to the weekly update of Israel [00:02] and Christians today, the 7th of October [00:05] 2026. [00:07] And [snorts] 3 years ago today, the 7th [00:10] of October 2023, [00:13] thousands of terrorists led by Hamas, [00:16] joined by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and [00:19] other Jihadist factions from Gaza broke [00:22] through Israel's border and carried out [00:25] the deadliest [00:27] attack on the Jewish people since the [00:30] Holocaust. Around 1,200 people were [00:33] brutally murdered, most of them [00:35] civilians, and 251 were dragged into [00:38] Gaza as hostages. Families were burned [00:41] in their homes, women were gruesomely [00:43] raped and abused, and young people [00:46] hunted down at a music festival. [00:49] The attack on 7th of October opened a [00:52] new phase in the long-standing attempt [00:54] to destroy the Jewish state of Israel [00:57] physically, politically, and legally. [01:00] Hamas and other Islamic entities are a [01:03] pawn in the hands of Israel's enemies, [01:05] whose goal is to destroy and [01:08] delegitimize the state of Israel. Hamas [01:11] prepared its attack in close cooperation [01:13] with the Israeli [01:15] Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the [01:18] IRGC. [01:19] Hamas has the support of Qatar for many [01:22] years. The goal of the whole Islamic [01:25] world, the Ummah, [01:27] is to have the Jewish state of Israel [01:29] destroyed or removed from the United [01:31] Nations. But it's not only Islamic [01:34] countries, many non-Islamic nations, [01:36] political leaders, and influential media [01:39] personalities often motivated by [01:41] Marxist, humanist, or even {quote} [01:44] {close quote} mindsets agree with them. [01:48] They are all of one mind, Israel is the [01:50] obstacle to world peace, and must simply [01:53] disappear as a political and legal [01:56] phenomenon. The Jews must never have [01:58] their own sovereign nation. Palestine [02:01] must be liberated from the {quote} [02:03] Zionists {close quote}. [02:06] And in order to achieve this goal, these [02:08] enemies of Israel use many interlocking [02:10] strategies. This includes physical or [02:13] kinetic warfare, the media, diplomacy [02:16] and politics, and the international [02:18] legal system. [02:20] The immediate goal of the Hamas attack [02:23] on Israel was to induce Israel to react [02:26] violently [02:27] and thereby to enable Israel's enemies [02:29] to accuse and condemn Israel for [02:31] committing genocide. This strategy has [02:34] been extraordinarily successful. Over [02:37] the past 3 years, we have witnessed a [02:39] veritable tsunami of anti-Semitism [02:41] across the globe, mobilizing and [02:44] unifying people of all nationalities, [02:46] colors, creeds, and religions in deep [02:48] hatred of the Jewish people. [02:52] As a result, it has been Israel, not [02:54] Hamas, that has been isolated, vilified, [02:56] and condemned. It is as if the gates of [03:00] hell were opened on that sacred morning [03:02] of Simchat Torah 3 years ago. [03:06] Since then, open hatred and vilification [03:09] of Jews and the Jewish nation has become [03:11] mainstream. [03:13] Satan is no longer secret about his [03:16] endeavor to defeat the purposes of the [03:18] Lord, that is, bringing his people home [03:21] to the land in preparation for the [03:23] coming of Messiah and the Messianic [03:26] kingdom. As one Jewish writer put it, [03:28] our struggle is not against flesh and [03:30] blood, but against the rulers, against [03:32] the authorities, against the powers of [03:34] this dark world, and against the [03:36] spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly [03:39] realms. [03:41] We must understand that Satan is using [03:44] every resource at his disposal to [03:46] violently thwart the purposes of God. [03:50] Individuals, groups, and nations that [03:52] are committed to ideologies antithetical [03:55] to the God of the Hebrew scriptures, [03:57] whether it be Islam, Marxism, or secular [04:00] humanism, are all, whether they know it [04:02] or not, potentially weapons in Satan's [04:05] hands. [04:06] >> [snorts] [04:06] >> The events of the past 3 years are a [04:08] reminder [04:10] that we are living in the last days in [04:12] which evil and good are growing together [04:15] to their fullness. October the 7th, 2023 [04:18] was not just an attack, it was Satan's [04:21] declaration of war on the God of [04:24] Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all who [04:25] belong to him. [04:27] So, let's look in a little more detail [04:29] at the genocide inversion. The 7th of [04:33] October invasion of Israel was more than [04:35] terrorism. It was more than an act of [04:37] military aggression. It was [snorts] an [04:39] act of genocide. [04:42] Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, [04:45] genocide means killing with intent to [04:48] destroy in whole or in part a national, [04:51] ethnical, racial, or religious group. [04:54] October the 7th intent requires no [04:57] guesswork. It was a demonic attempt to [05:00] wipe Jews from the face of the earth. [05:03] And the planners of the attack, Hamas, [05:06] wrote it down. [05:07] Documents recovered from the attackers' [05:10] bodies, reported by NBC News, instructed [05:13] units heading for Kibbutz Kissufim to [05:16] target its elementary schools and youth [05:19] center and to quote kill as many people [05:21] as possible, close quote. One terrorist [05:24] rang his parents in Gaza from a murdered [05:26] woman's phone. Your son killed Jews, he [05:29] cried, boasting the that he had killed [05:32] 10 with his own hands, which led a [05:35] senior Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, [05:37] promoted the attack, [05:39] promised the attack would be repeated, [05:41] quote, again and again, close quote. [05:45] Hamas's founding charter in 1988 [05:48] opens with the declaration that {quote} [05:50] Israel will exist and will continue to [05:53] exist until Islam will obliterate it [05:56] {close quote}. It's article 7 quotes a [05:59] Hadith about the end of days when the [06:01] stones and trees will cry out "Oh [06:04] Muslims, oh Abdallah, there is a Jew [06:06] behind me, come and kill him." [06:08] >> [snorts] [06:09] >> The charter defines the whole land as an [06:12] Islamic trust Waqf that may never be [06:15] surrendered and declares that {quote} [06:17] there is no solution for the Palestinian [06:20] question except through Jihad {close [06:22] quote}. Hamas issued a softer sounding [06:25] policy document in 2017, [06:28] but October the 7th showed which texts [06:31] its fighters were following. Even the [06:34] name of the operation Al-Aqsa Flood cast [06:37] it as a holy war over a Muslim shrine. [06:41] In an essay in Sapir Journal, [06:44] it was said that for Hamas the conflict [06:47] is {quote} primarily religious and at [06:49] its heart it is the annihilationist [06:52] fantasy of ending the Jewish state [06:54] {close quote}. [06:56] In a December 2023 legal brief, Dr. [07:00] Sarah Brown concluded that the [07:01] house-to-house killing of families, [07:03] children, and the elderly, together with [07:06] the charter's explicit aims, bears the [07:09] marks of genocidal violence. [07:12] In 2025, 178 legal experts and [07:15] historians, including former Nazi war [07:19] criminal prosecutor, stated that Hamas [07:21] was the only party to the conflict to [07:24] legally meet the definition of genocide. [07:27] And yet, [07:29] within weeks the charge of genocide had [07:31] been turned around and was aimed at its [07:34] victims. [07:35] Camera UK's Adam Levick notes that The [07:38] Guardian published 11 pieces accusing [07:40] Israel of ethnic cleansing or genocide [07:43] in just 30 the 13 days after the [07:46] massacre of the 7th of October. Less [07:50] than 3 months later, South Africa took [07:52] Israel, not Hamas, to the International [07:54] Court of Justice, [07:56] >> [snorts] [07:56] >> accusing it of genocide. Amnesty [07:58] International followed with a genocidal [08:01] finding against Israel in December 2024. [08:05] In September 2025, the International [08:08] Association of Genocide Scholars voted [08:11] that Israel was committing genocide [08:13] while declining to apply that word to [08:15] Hamas. [08:16] Days later, a UN Commission of Inquiry [08:18] chaired by Navi Pillay reached the same [08:21] verdict against Israel. Hamas welcomed [08:24] the scholars' vote as a quote [08:26] prestigious scholarly stance, close [08:29] quote. [08:30] A group that announced its aim to [08:32] destroy the Jewish state and then set [08:34] out to kill as many Jews as it could [08:36] is treated as a party to a conflict, [08:40] but a state that warned civilians to [08:42] evacuate, opened humanitarian corridors, [08:44] and fought an enemy embedded beneath [08:46] homes and hospitals is treated as a [08:49] genocidal state. [08:51] As author Gerald Posner wrote this week, [08:54] the UN, Amnesty, B'Tselem, and the [08:56] genocide scholars all tested Israel [08:59] against the Genocide Convention, but [09:01] none have tested Hamas. [09:04] A legal standard is only worth the name, [09:07] he observes, if it is applied to every [09:10] party. [09:12] Every army's conduct in war may rightly [09:14] be scrutinized, and Gaza's suffering has [09:16] been real and terrible. [09:18] But when a word coined in the shadow of [09:20] the Holocaust is withheld from those who [09:23] openly sought to murder Jews [09:25] and handed instead to the Jewish state [09:28] that defended itself, something has gone [09:30] badly wrong. [09:33] Now, we move on to the international [09:35] legal scene. Islamic-influenced [09:37] countries coordinated by the [09:39] Organization of Islamic Cooperation are [09:42] bringing genocide cases to the [09:44] International Court of Justice in The [09:46] Hague. And their goal is to have Israel [09:48] condemned for genocide. [09:51] Once convicted of genocide, the crime of [09:53] crimes, the Jewish state of Israel will [09:55] no longer be eligible to participate in [09:58] the United Nations. [09:59] It will become a pariah state that must [10:02] at all costs be destroyed. That is why [10:05] the genocide claim against Israel is so [10:09] important. [10:10] Later this month, the International [10:12] Court of Justice is expected to hand [10:14] down its judgment in the case of The [10:16] Gambia against Myanmar, a case about the [10:20] Myanmar's [10:21] dealing of the Rohingya. The case [10:24] brought by The Gambia, a small Islamic [10:26] country with no involvement in or [10:29] connection with Myanmar, is sponsored by [10:31] the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. [10:35] The judgment of the court is likely to [10:37] quietly rewrite the genocide law with [10:39] Israel as the real target. [10:43] The Genocide Convention requires proof [10:45] of a specific intent to destroy a group. [10:48] This high standard of proof of intent is [10:51] unique to the crime of genocide and is [10:53] known as dolus specialis. The court has [10:56] long held that where intent is inferred [10:59] from conduct, it must be the only [11:01] reasonable inference that could possibly [11:04] be drawn from the facts. [11:07] Now, strangely, but perhaps not [11:09] unsurprisingly, the Islamic countries [11:13] are [11:14] arguing that this definition should be [11:16] changed, and they're being supported by [11:18] a group of Western states. [11:21] In a joint 2023 intervention submitted [11:25] to the ICJ in November [11:27] >> [snorts] [11:28] >> 2023 after the Hamas attack on Israel, [11:31] five Western states, the UK, France, [11:34] Germany, [11:36] Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada, that's [11:38] actually six Western states, urged the [11:41] court to adopt a holistic approach [11:43] instead. [11:45] What does this mean? It means that [11:46] inferring intent cumulatively [11:50] from patterns such as high death tolls, [11:53] child casualties, sexual and violence, [11:56] and civilian displacement, and giving [11:59] very special weight to UN fact-finding [12:02] reports. [12:04] Um in the words of a memorandum written [12:08] by The Hague Initiative for [12:09] International Cooperation, this [12:11] effectively lowers the threshold for [12:13] proving intent. The intervention is a [12:16] procedural stalking horse for South [12:18] Africa's case against Israel, with [12:20] Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, and [12:23] the Netherlands are pressing the same [12:25] approach. [12:27] A dilution of the standard of proving [12:31] genocidal intent will make it far easier [12:33] for the ICJ, the International Court of [12:36] Justice, to find that Israel is in [12:38] breach of its obligations under the [12:41] convention to prevent and punish [12:43] genocide, [12:45] and to accuse states that arm Israel of [12:47] complicity. It will reward terrorists [12:50] who hide among civilians, thus playing [12:52] into the hands of Islamic terror groups [12:54] like Hamas. The genocide cases against [12:57] Myanmar and Israel are thus part of a [13:00] broader Islamic strategy to completely [13:03] delegitimize the Jewish state of Israel. [13:07] It's notable that the genocide claim [13:09] brought by South Africa against Israel [13:11] was launched [13:13] by South Africa in close cooperation [13:16] with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. [13:19] So, where does all this leave us? Well, [13:21] on this third anniversary of the 7th of [13:23] October, Christians who love truth, [13:26] and who love the Jewish people should be [13:28] among the first to remember the victims [13:30] by their right name. They are not [13:32] casualties of a cycle of violence, but [13:35] targets of an attempted genocide. [13:38] More importantly, we must have our [13:40] spiritual eyes open to what is unfolding [13:42] before our eyes. We are literally living [13:45] in a time when truth is being inverted. [13:49] Jesus said in Matthew 24, "Take heed [13:52] that no one deceives you. Then many [13:54] false prophets will rise up and deceive [13:56] many. And because lawlessness [14:00] will abound, the love of many will grow [14:02] cold." [14:03] Jesus also warned that the bridegroom [14:05] would come at an unexpected hour, that [14:08] only the wise virgins, lamps trimmed and [14:10] oil in reserve, will be ready. [14:13] These are days to stay awake and sober, [14:17] praying always in line with 1 [14:20] Thessalonians 5:6, always with all [14:23] prayer and supplication with all [14:25] perseverance. See Ephesians 6:18. [14:29] God has set watchmen on Jerusalem's [14:31] walls who will give him no rest until he [14:34] makes her a praise in the earth. Isaiah [14:37] 62. [14:39] Israel remains beloved for the sake of [14:41] the fathers, for God's calling is [14:43] irrevocable. Romans 11. So, let us keep [14:47] our lamps burning, standing in the gap [14:49] for his covenant people, and praying for [14:52] the peace of Jerusalem. [14:54] So, let's conclude with some prayer [14:56] points. First of all, let us pray that [14:58] we would be like the wise virgins, awake [15:01] and ready, our lamps trimmed and our oil [15:04] in reserve, for we know neither the day [15:06] nor the hour of the bridegroom's coming. [15:10] Pray for a spirit of watchfulness in the [15:12] church, that we will not sleep as others [15:14] do, but stay alert and sober in these [15:17] last days. [15:19] Pray that we would persevere in [15:21] intercession, praying always with all [15:23] prayer and supplication in the spirit [15:26] and not growing weary. [15:28] Pray that God will raise up watchmen on [15:30] the walls of Jerusalem who will give him [15:32] no rest until he makes her a praise in [15:35] all the earth. [15:37] Pray that in these very difficult days [15:39] the Lord will comfort, strengthen, and [15:41] protect the Jewish people, God's [15:43] covenant people, beloved for the sake of [15:46] the fathers because his gifts and [15:48] calling are irrevocable. [15:50] And finally, pray for the peace of [15:52] Jerusalem, for the speedy coming of the [15:54] Messiah of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. [15:59] So, that brings us to the end of this [16:00] weekly update. We thank you for [16:02] listening. We wish you a very, very [16:04] blessed time. [16:07] And we wish especially all our Jewish [16:09] friends [16:10] and [16:12] um and colleagues in Israel and around [16:15] the world [16:16] uh uh shalom and every peace and [16:19] strength in this very, very difficult [16:21] time as we [16:23] uh reflect on and commemorate [16:26] the horrendous day of October the 7th [16:30] uh 2023. [16:33] This is not the end, and God is [16:36] faithful, and he will comfort and [16:38] strengthen and protect his people. [16:40] Thank you, and God bless.
