The Eric Metaxas Show - Pesach Wolicki

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Rabbi Pesach Wolicki joins to help us further understand the crisis in Israel 

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to listen to a man of grace, sophistication, integrity, and whimsy? Well, so are we. But until such a man shows up, please welcome Eric Mattaxas. Folks, welcome to the program. It is Monday. Everyone is talking about Israel, and that says it should be. And we wanted to bring somebody in who could help us understand the situation better. We have highly recommended to us by many friends, Rabbi Pesach Wollicki. He is the director of Israel 365 Action.com, co-host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast. He's been a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel. Rabbi Pesach Wollicki, welcome.

Thank you very much, Eric. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. Tell me what's the first thing we should talk about. I got a report, I didn't want to forget, that I don't know if the Red Cross has gone woke or what, but my instinct would be never to give them a dime again, ever,

because of the way they've been behaving. Am I mistaken there? You're not mistaken at all. The Red Cross has never paid any attention positively, that is, to any casualties in Israel, anyone in danger in Israel, any hostages that have been held by our terrorist enemies, and it's not just in this war, but for many years, the Red Cross doesn't care one whit about Jews who are in danger, and they have stayed true to form in this war. that's shocking.

Most people don't know that. That's why I wanted to lead with that. Because when I understood this, I thought to myself, wow, okay. So the rot is everywhere. Legacy media, every college with the name you'd recognize, they've all gone to hell. They've all been infected with the woke mind virus. and they can be pretty much expected, guaranteed to come out on the wrong side of these things.

So now we know that the Red Cross, which we would think of as a good organization, as a neutral organization that just cares about human beings and suffering, that they are not, we should not be giving them our money. You should not be giving them a cent. Look, the Red Cross during all the, like I said, during the years that Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was held captive for many years by Hamas was being held, they did nothing about trying to find out how he was doing or to get information to his family. And that is their mandate by the international community. The mandate of the Red Cross is to look after hostages in time of war, to look after prisoners of war, to see how they're doing.

At the beginning of this conflict, they claimed that they weren't operating in the Gaza Strip and couldn't get access, which we knew was a lie. because we knew that they were operating there and they even put out other statements about what they were seeing on the ground, which showed that they were active in the Gaza Strip. They've been collaborating with their enemies for a long time. But that's no, look, that's nothing new. You mentioned about the college campuses, but what's going on on the left and in the progressive world, we're seeing something unique and new. A lot of people are comparing this to the Nazis, but it's something new, Eric. and that is this strange marriage between the progressive atheist left and Islamic fundamentalists,

which on the face of it looks kind of absurd, and we've all seen the memes like queers for Palestine and all that. But I think as people of faith, we have to have a clarity that there's something very fundamental that these two groups, again, that seem like they have nothing in common, atheists, progressives, and Muslim fundamentalists, but there's something very basic that they have in common. and that is an absolute hatred and loathing for the God of the Bible, the text of the Bible, and the beliefs of those people who believe in the Bible. They both share that. They possibly share it for different reasons,

but they've obviously unified around that shared hatred for biblical faith and biblical values in this conflict. I mean, look, we've been seeing this for quite some time that the radical left does not denounce the way radical Muslims treat women, for example, not one word on their, the way they treat gazed. In other words, they are the very definition, radical Muslims, of this caricature that the secular left has created of, you know, mostly serious Christian. in America, which is obviously untrue to anyone who knows Christians, but it is in fact true of the

radical Muslims. And we know this. I mean, we haven't talked about it much on this program, but we know that the left will not criticize them for stoning women, for the Taliban beating women, for causing women across the Middle East to dress as they force them to dress. I mean, it is it is out of the fevered nightmare of the left with regard to, you know, what they think of as evangelical Christians or right-wing Christians. They imagine it. They talk about the handmaids tale, all of this kind of stuff. But this is actually true. This is actually the reality for women throughout the Middle East

and the secular left clearly doesn't care about those women. Right. They don't only not care about women. They don't care about gays, all the things they claim to care about who are hated by the Muslim fundamentalists. But, you know, this, you raise an interesting point about the fact that this is who they're in bed with. They're in bed with each other. And again, I think the only explanation I have for it is that they share an enemy. and the enemy is Christians, the enemy is Jews.

Look, they spread this canard that there's, that Muslims in America need to be protected from discriminatory violence. Now, when has there ever been? Can someone please show me a headline? Someone please show me an event where Muslims were attacked by Christians in the United States of America. Any time that I could even think of it, I'm struggling to think of anything. And yet, when Joe Biden gave that beautiful speech on behalf of Israel, when he didn't even mention Iran once in the early days of the war. He, in that speech, I don't know, a lot of people didn't notice it.

He spoke out about how there's no room for hate, there's no room for acts of violence or hatred in America. And then he said, not against Muslims and not against Jews. And he didn't mention anything about Christians. There is a loathing of Christianity on the left that I think informs a lot of their behavior. And they're loathing of Christianity and their loathing of Judaism. and their loathing of the Jewish state, Jewish state, which is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, it recognizes the fact that the Jewish people today are the same Jewish people as the Jewish people of the Bible.

We have an unbroken chain of our heredity and tradition. We know exactly who we are. The idea that this nation would return from exile after thousands of years and be reconstituted as a nation in our land in fulfillment of biblical prophecy is something that they are terrible. terrified of because it testifies to the truth of God and the truth of the Bible. And if they accept that reality, they have a lot of explaining to do. Well, that's very well put. It is an amazing thing. I don't know if you're aware. I wrote a big biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastures. I'm well aware. Okay. Well, he spoke out against the Nazis and against anti-Semitism, and he spoke out for the Jews. And I was thinking recently that what the

I mean, we have to understand, and I want my audience to understand this, there are people who are genuinely confused. There are people, there were people in Germany when you told them about the death camps or what's being done to the Jews. They really believed this is Jewish propaganda. This is not true. They genuinely believed it was not true. And so Gebelz, of course, used this idea of its Jewish propaganda.

It's Jewish propaganda. It's Jewish propaganda. that's Jewish propaganda. Recently, we're seeing exactly the same thing. When you talk about the atrocities done by Hamas, when you talk about any of these things, they're saying it's Israeli propaganda. It's not true.

And I want to be clear, there are people on the left marching, you know, the pro-Palestinian marches stuff. We have to understand they actually believe that this is nonsense, which is what gives them the ability to tear down, posters, whatever, they think it's garbage. And I think we have to understand where they're coming from. They have bought the lie that this is propaganda. And if it were propaganda, nobody would care more about that than I would. In other words, I don't want to be, you know, played by anybody. And so this is part of the problem is knowing what is real and what is not real. When we come back,

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Welcome back. We're talking to Rabbi Pesach Wulicki, who is in the United States, but normally lives near Jerusalem. Is that right, Rabbi? That is right. I live in Bateshamesh. About a 10-minute drive from where David Gil Goliath. Wow. So you don't believe that's just a myth. You don't believe that's just Jewish propaganda. I think it's Jewish propaganda because Goliath was a Palestinian. He was a Palestinian just doing the best he can, you know, to support his people. And also he had no options, you know, the occupying Jews, they gave him no options. He had to act out.

We were talking about this issue of, at least I was bringing up the issue of how we have to understand, you know, I always try to understand why people say what they say. And it seems inconceivable to me that people who would would be familiar with the atrocities done by Hamas to innocence wouldn't care. So you have two categories of people. You have one category of people that actually doesn't care, that they're evil, sick people. But you also have many people that have been duped. I think you have many university students in America who are genuinely convinced this didn't happen. This is Jewish propaganda. I mean, that's kind of where we are today. Look, the ideology of the left is very simple. It's that the victim is always right. And everything is seen through the lens

of oppressor and oppressed, not through the lens of justice, not through the lens of truth. and when you live in a world also where I have my truth, you have your truth, truth is relative, then any statement is just viewed as something that is stated for political purposes, even if it's the statement of a fact. So my facts can argue with your facts, my truth can argue with your truth, and ultimately the only arbiter of what I should stand for, the only measuring stick of what I should stand for and what I should stand against has to do with who's the oppressor and who's the oppressed.

And somewhere along the way, the Jewish state, the people of the state of Israel had the gall to be successful. And we had the gall to build a successful economy and to build a thriving nation and to become stronger and more secure. And that is anathema to them. And the more successful and happy and uncomfortable we become, the more we are viewed through the lens of being an oppressor. And once we're viewed through the lens of being an oppressor, anything we say is by definition invalid and can be discounted. And anything that the supposed victims of our oppression say is automatically unassailable axiomatic truth. That's where we are. That's the Marxist ideology.

But Eric, I have to say that, you know, you talk about needing to understand them. We do, to some extent, have to understand those college students who are standing in the streets of Western cities or on their campuses with Kaffirs around their necks. waving PLO flags and cheering for Hamas. To a certain extent, we have to understand them. It's a dark place to go. But polling shows that the vast majority of Americans are with us. There's probably a lot of low information people who don't know whether they're with us or against us,

but have heard about the atrocities. And I think our number one task is not trying to understand or try to convince the other side. It's really to scoop up all the low-hanging fruit and really speak to the population and get all those good people to heed Bonhofer's call to stand up and speak because unfortunately our enemies our enemies have taken over the street. There's this perception that Western society is against Israel right now.

But that's really just media and the noisemakers. I think the majority of Americans are with Israel. Yeah, that's the actual propaganda is that the media. What you've just said is something that I've said many times. You're exactly correct. We get this impression from the media that, you know, oh, we're divided or, this or that on the transgender issue, on any of these issues. And the reality is, you know, what was once called the silent majority, most people know perfectly well that no man can

ever become a woman, that no woman can ever become a man. Everyone knows this, but it's sort of presented like, no, no, no, there's a real debate. There's not really a debate. It's a ginned up debate because there are aggressive voices pushing themselves into the public square, pretending that this is a thing, that now women can become men, men can become women. I mean, that's just one dramatic example. But what you're saying is true is that most Americans, this is not very complicated. If you know the basics of the situation, the basics of how the Israeli people return to their homeland. If you know the basics of that story, if you know the basics of how their enemies

want to exterminate them like bugs, just as Hitler did, if you know those things, this is not very complicated. But it's important to say what you just said, that it is presented in the media as though there are many people that are against Israel being able to examine. exist, that there are many people who are. The reality is, folks, that that's what the news reports on. This is my experience going around the country. I speak all over the country, and I meet people, and I realize that what these people believe that I'm meeting with, this is not reported on. This is, this is batted away because there's a secular humanist liberal narrative that dominates the culture. And we have to do everything we can to flip that

narrative because most actual people don't buy into that narrative, but that narrative has been in the ascendance for a long time, for our lifetimes. And so it is always a struggle for us to get the facts out. Eric, the importance of flipping that narrative is not only so that we have the truth. We have to understand something about this particular war because there's so much information warfare going on. And when it comes to Israel and for all the reasons that we've stayed, It's even more than many other political situations where the disinformation and just the propaganda, the anti-Israel slant on things is so pronounced. And all your listeners have to understand that, you know, I get so many people asking, what can we do to help? What can we do to help?

And of course, everyone has to pray. It's very important to pray. But we're in an information war. And the information war is not separate from the military war. on the battlefield. And I speak to you as someone. I have three children and a son-in-law, all in combat units who are all involved in the fighting there.

I'm living on a knife's edge, waiting every day for text messages, home saying that they're okay, that they're back at base for a few hours. That's the way we're living. So even as someone who has so much personal stake in the game, I tell you that the information war is just as important as the military battle. And all of your listeners should understand that they are a flank in this battle. How we do in the information war, how we do in the street will matter. The leadership of Israel does not always know what the temperature is of the American public.

They interact at the diplomatic level and they interact with major media. If there's a groundswell of support for Israel, if there's a groundswell of support pushing back against these calls from the Biden administration for a premature ceasefire, which is harming Israel, the Biden administration, unfortunately, has revealed itself to be not only, not helping Israel, but actually actively working towards our defeat. And it's a very big problem. We need the state of Israel needs to hear from the American public. There need to be rallies in public, not inside the church, but in the street. We need rallies in the street. We need public displays. We need people to call their congressmen and senators and say that you don't want to ceasefire until Hamas is destroyed because we have heard through our sources that on Capitol Hill, they're getting lots of calls for a ceasefire. We,

need the American voice to be heard so that the Israeli leadership recognizes that the American people are with us and that will give them a backbone and an ability to push back and make sure that we finish the job. Well, you just said that, you know, in this information war, everyone listening to this program is part of it. Folks, I've said this many times before. These videos, these, if you, we put everything on Rumble, but also if you sign up at Eric Metaxus.com. We will send you the videos. Share these videos on your social media. That's something you can do. Cut and paste, the link, whatever you need to do. But this information has to get out because we are in an information war. And we have to be very, very clear that some people are confused, but most people

understand that what happened in Israel on October 7th, the idea. of a ceasefire is preposterous. It's absolutely preposterous. They have, Hamas has hostages. They could get a ceasefire instantly. If they cared about, you know, releasing the hostages, they don't want to do that. They, they are, they have already said, the leader of Hamas, said things so incendiary very recently. It's pretty clear where they're coming from. Yeah, look, the talking points are important. for your listeners. You have to understand because ceasefire sounds like a nice thing. It sounds like a good thing. Yeah. Of course it does. Give a chance, man. Give piece a chance. Right. And people might look at the Israeli

military and Hamas and think that we're just lashing out in anger and that we're, you know, we just want to finish them off out of revenge. They have to understand that there's an existential threat to Israel if there's a ceasefire before Hamas is completely destroyed. And the reason for that is that Hamas's goal on October 7th. They didn't think that they were going to destroy the state of Israel that day. Their goal was to kill as many Jews as possible and to inflict as much damage, as much pain and as much terror on these really population. Excuse me, this is a cliffhanger. Going to a break. We'll be right back. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the

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The Hamas's goal that day was to kill as many Israelis as many Jews as possible. As is stated in their charter, their founding document does not call for Palestinian independence. Their founding document calls for the eradication of the state of Israel and the murder of all Jews in the world. That's what their own founding document calls for. This is who they are. They are genocidal by their own definition. And when they attacked us that day, their goal was to inflict damage. If they are not destroyed, the message it will send to the surrounding enemies of Israel, to Iran, to Chisbalah, to all the other nefarious actors around Israel, will be that you can get away with these things.

In the Middle East, what works is peace through strength. If you look at Israel's history from 1948 till today, the most peaceful times in Israel's history, the most peaceful short periods where there was the least amount of, of terrorism and Israel was at its most peaceful were after the Yom Kippur War, but before we started surrendering land at Camp David, that period from 1974 to 1979, and the Trump administration. When Donald Trump moved the embassy, which was a show of strength, the dog that didn't bark was that after years of the whole world telling us that if U.S. moved its embassy, there'd be riots and a war across the Middle East, there was silence. That paved the way for so many other things.

The Abraham Accords were a show of strength. Killing Soleimani and the Abraham Accords are inextricably linked. The Taylor Force Act, a law that Donald Trump signed that prohibited the U.S. government from giving funding to the Palestinian authorities so long as it pays terrorists who have murdered Israelis, that law once it went into effect, terrorism got to its lowest ever. And then as soon as the Biden administration came in, they immediately began violating that. And it's not an executive order. And it's not just a

policy from Trump. It's a law that the Biden administration is violating. Terrorism started rising. And Iran, of course, the coddling of Iran allowed for Hamas. So we have to understand that the only option is defeat of Hamas to eradicate them. They are a genocidal entity whose whole reason for being is to destroy Israel and murder Jews. And the only acceptable solution at the end of this is that there is no Hamas. I keep looking for the spiritual angle. Why everyone hates the Jews? I mean, it's obvious to me because the Jews are God's chosen. People, there's something inevitably, well, I should say that that seems clear to me. But it's interesting that growing up, you know, I always felt that.

because of the Holocaust, in a way, the left sided with the Jews while they were still victims, while they were being attacked. Once they become strong, it's almost like the left always, because of this Marxism, essentially, cultural Marxism, they always side with the victims. Anytime anybody is strong, they hate strength. They hate masculine strength. They hate success. It's very perverse. And I guess I'm wondering when it was that the left went from, you know, or liberal Jews even seem to be against the idea of the state of Israel. They're not really clear that Israel has a right to exist. I'm always just wondering, where was that tipping point?

When did we begin seeing that? I don't know if there's an answer to that. You know, I'm not sure what exactly the answer is. It could be that it started shifting after 1967 or after 1982 to the Lebanon War. That's an interesting question for sociologists and historians. We have to understand that Hamas and our enemies in the, you know, Hamas and Chisbala and Iran, they're not cultural Marxists. They're Islamic fundamentalists.

They're still fighting the same wars that were fought in the 15th century and in the 7th century. They're fighting those same wars. They want a complete eradication of biblical faith, Judeo-Christian civilization. Israel is, of course, a bone in their craw right there in what they view as their territory, establishing the state of Israel, and testifying to the truth of the God of Israel. The impossible prophetic significance of the return of the nation of Israel from a 2000-year exile to reconstitute ourselves as a nation. Just as Moses prophesied in Deuteronomy 30, that we're more numerous and more prosperous than our ancestors.

An unprecedented return from exile. No other nation has ever returned from a lengthy exile to reconstitute itself. That miracle itself testifies to the dominion of the God of Israel, and the Muslims can have none of it. They must eradicate us. They must wipe us out in order to not, accept the God of the Bible. And that's really what it's about from their end. From the Marxist and from the cultural Marxists who are enamored of victims, look, they, you know, they hate success

and I think they even hate peace. Because if you think about it, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu says it all the time. He's not the first one to say it, but he's popularized it. If our enemies put down their weapons tomorrow, it would be peace in the Middle East. Not only peace, there'd be prosperity. Could you imagine the economic powerhouse of all those surrounding nations that have so many problems with unemployment and have an underdeveloped nations that surround Israel? What Israel could do with them if we were all at peace with Israeli ingenuity and Israeli capital? Unbelievable what the prosperity would look like. And if Israel put down its weapons tomorrow, there would be a Holocaust. And if you doubt that, just look at October 7th. So, you know,

what the cultural Marxists have in mind, again, it's hard for me to get into their head. I've never been one. But I know that as people of biblical faith, we have to recognize that this is an inflection point. You brought up the secular Jews, the liberal Jews. They're a big problem. They've spent the last two decades educating their children, my brothers and sisters, cousins. They've educated them to be woke activists. I want to pick up on this because this is, it's important to us. in America. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, Eric here. Mike Lindell is always looking for ways to solve everyday problems. So have you ever picked up a towel set because it felt really soft in the store? But then when you go to use it, it's not very absorbent and doesn't actually dry you. Well, that's why My P pillow has developed the My Pillow towels.

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Just go to Mypillow.com. Click on the radio podcast specials and enter promo code Eric or call 800978-30578 3057. That's MyPillow.com promo code Eric. Mypillow.com promo code Eric or call 800-978 3057. I use these towels. They work. I promise you. Welcome back. We're talking to Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, who is the director of Israel365 Action.com, co-host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast. And we're talking about two things. First of all, we have the radical Muslims who hate the Jews.

And I think I don't want to leave that too quickly because it's an interesting thing to my mind that when we're talk about, oh, it's amazing that Israel is reconstituted after a 2,000-year exile. I'll tell you what's amazing, that any Jews existed to reconstitute into a nation. Where are the Amalekites? Where are the Hittites? In other words, every nation from 2000 years ago disappeared. What is it about the Jews? How strange of the Jews to maintain this identity? It seems almost supernatural because obviously it is supernatural. Their identity is, their identity, is unlike anything in the history of the world. And that is, I mean, you know, 400 years ago,

I can't remember who it was, who said, you know, evidence of God, the Jews. I mean, the idea that the Jews continue to exist through the millennia is crazy unless God's hand was on them. So they reconstitute. So we understand that the Muslims who want to take over the world, who want to caliphate, Their worst nightmare is right in the middle of it all.

Uh-oh. The Jews have come back and we've got to get rid of them. Um, okay, we get that. But talking about in America, secular liberal Jews, uh, the idea that they have allied with all of the crazy cultural Marxists, with the transgender crazies, uh, you know, to call for, you know, wiping out. Israel, that is just extraordinary. I mean, it's a phenomenon that that's, that's worth trying to understand. How can it be? I mean, uh, you were just going to talk about, uh, you know, quote

unquote liberal Jews in America who they, they seem to be anti-Israel. They seem to be concerned about Israel. They don't like it. Yeah. Look, the, those progressive Jews, and let's not use the word liberal anymore. It's, there's nothing liberal about them. Right. That's how they identify them. themselves, but these progressive Jews on the left who are anti-Israel, like the ones we saw at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago who went in there and were screaming for a ceasefire, although they are a small minority and the vast majority of Jews in America who identify as Democrats and as progressives are in this conflict on Israel's side, they're culpable.

They're culpable because although most Jews are kind of in this conflicted place where they're still view themselves as progressives and as Democrats are also pro-Israel and they're wringing their hands and they're feeling so uncomfortable about their children and grandchildren on college campuses who are wearing kaffias and cheering for Hamas. They caused this. They brought it on. Two or three generations of pushing progressive ideology in the name of Judaism, these liberal wings of Judaism, which make up well over, well over.

over 80% of American Jews with all of their, what's called the reform and conservative movements, the liberal wings of Judaism. And you have it in Christianity too. You have wings of Christianity that in the name of, in the name of Christianity will promote every progressive value. But in America, Judaism in America is overwhelmingly dominated by these forces.

They've been pushing a belief system, which basically has replaced Judaism with just liberal progressive politics. with a patina of verses from the Bible and Jewish culture, they don't long for the restoration of the temple. They don't long for the restoration of the nation of Israel to our homeland. They don't believe that the Bible is the word of God. They don't really believe that the stories in the Bible are true the way you and I do.

And they have created this generation of Jews who are progressive leftists, who are now turning against their own nation. And the only people who are steadfastly standing with Israel in America, today, unfortunately, but it's very clarifying is Christians who believe in the Bible and that segment of the Jewish community that believes in the Bible. So this is a clarifying moment. I think God knows what he's doing here and he's waking everyone up to the reality of the fact that those who believe in the God of the Bible and the values of the Bible have moral clarity and those who don't are, they're peeling away. And I think a lot of these progressive Jews who are still with Israel as the days and weeks move forward and there's more and more calls for Israel to back off, one by one, or group by group, they're going to start siding with our enemies as well. Part of what makes Israel stand out. We want to be clear is that it is a democracy.

We, of course, in America, we're a republic. But the point is that there are free people. They vote. The Knesset is, these people are elected. So they're very much like America. They are very, very western in the midst of theocracy, in the midst of nations that don't believe in freedom, that are as far from American style freedom and self-government as can possibly be. So Israel stands out for that reason. And of course, Israel has been a wild, success because when you have freedom, free market forces, it generally leads to prosperity rather than, you know, what we see in democratic states and cities in America, which leads to poverty and it leads to a government having to step in and government failing. That's basically what you have around Israel and Israel itself thriving, being innovative. Again, it couldn't be more dramatic a contrast.

Yeah, and we make a big mistake when we impose our own values or think that our own values are working in the minds of our enemies. And it's not only that those nations are totalitarian and their theocracies and that they're not prosperous, they don't even believe in prosperity, which sounds like a very strange thing to say, who doesn't want prosperity? I didn't say they don't want prosperity. They don't believe in prosperity.

They would, it's very hard for the Western mind to wrap its head around the fact that their ideology of destroying Israel is actually more important to them than their own prosperity. Consider this for a moment. Khamas is not only the duly elected government of Gaza. Remember, we call them terrorists, but that doesn't mean that there's some criminal rogue organization operating in the basement so that the authorities don't catch them. They are the government. They run the schools. They're elected. So you'd think if they're taking all the billions of dollars they've received in foreign aid and using it only to build a terrorist infrastructure, which is what they've done with it,

you'd think that their population wouldn't be happy with them. And it's a very nice fiction that we like to share, a talking point that the Palestinians, the Arabs in Gaza are oppressed by Hamas. But all the reliable polling up until July 2023 shows us that the, Gazan people are in full support of Hamas. When the Hamas terrorists came back, they were... Going to another break. Forgive me, we're going to be right back with this and other sentences.

Welcome back. We're talking to Rabbi Pesach Wolicki. You were just saying that the people... And this is... It's hard to hear, but we have to deal with this, folks, that most of the people in Gaza, the Palestinians, are pro-Hamas. I don't want to believe that. In fact, I'll tell you what. I know for a fact that some are and some aren't and that they are really not, they're not free in the sense that it is kind of a police state.

If they don't go along with what Hamas says, Hamas is not helping them. They don't have the ability to do it. So it's kind of a sick situation. Let's be clear. Yeah, listen, Eric, I don't know how many people there are supportive of Hamas or not. but here's a data point that's worth considering. The polling that was done by the Washington Institute in July of 2023 shows that 57% of Gazans have a favorable view of Hamas.

Now, you might say that maybe they're afraid to answer honestly, they're living under Hamas, the polling numbers of the exact same poll of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, who live freely under Israeli rule completely, and of Palestinians in Judean Samaria, known as the West Bank, who live under the Palestinian authority, who is the enemy of Hamas, the polling numbers on approval rating for Hamas are the same. Okay, that says it all of the Palestinian territories. That is disturbing. And what were the numbers again?

57%. 57%. Okay, so hang on. So let's be clear, folks. Do the math in your head, right? That means that what do we say, 57? So 33%. Sorry.

43, 43% of the Palestinians do not have a favorable impression of Hamas. So that's clear, right? But the point is, they're stuck because Hamas, let's be clear, Hamas is not in favor of those who disagree with them. They're perfectly happy to use those people as human shields, whatever it is. And what you said earlier, I think is important. We see the same thing with the race hustlers in America. They're kind of in love with racism because it's good for business.

They're kind of in love with being victims because it's good for business. Success is bad for business. They can't sell success. They can sell victimhood. And so basically, they're not in it to win it. They are in it ideologically. And that's what you're describing with Hamas. and with many Palestinians who are in favor of Hamas,

they love the victim mentality. And so it really isn't about winning. It's so sick in a way that they don't want prosperity. They want to kill Jews. Unfortunately, that's the reality. Look, Hamas, as I said, has controlled the education system there for almost two decades. You have people who are adults today who have been raised from the crib being educated, by Hamas and Hamas, let's make no mistake about it.

Hamas comes from the exact same roots, from the same mentors and the same teachings as al-Qaeda and ISIS. Abdallah Azam, the mentor of Osama bin Laden who helped him create al-Qaeda. His name is on the Hamas military academy in Gaza. It's called the Abdallah Azam Academy. It's the same jihadist ideology. But the difference is that where Al-Qaeda is a criminal terrorist organization, organization. Hamas is a government of cities and of a society that, so from kindergarten, from

first grade, on the TV stations, on the radio stations, it's Hamas ideology. It's ISIS ideology. We just have seconds left. How can people find you? The best way to follow me is the shoulder, is tune into the shoulder to shoulder podcast. It's available on all podcast platforms. I co-host it with a pastor. Talk about all issues that matter to people of faith. Since the war started, it's been all the war and Israel 365 news. Israel 365 news.com and Israel 365 action.com. Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, thank you.