(Day 655) Swords of Iron – “Watch Out For Fake News”

Chaim starts by pointing out that there are many people in this world who just love to hate Israel, endlessly criticizing the Jewish State for anything, everything, and nothing in particular.

For instance, there are those who criticize Israel for setting up a buffer zone in southern Syria, even though there are marauding jihadist slaughtering minorities like the Alawites and Druze civilians in Syria, and Chaim says it’s obvious they’d like to come down into Israel and do the same thing here. So having a buffer zone manned by the IDF is actually a really good idea to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Chaim then gives some other examples of anti-Israel fake news and fairy tales that have gotten widely circulated on the internet and even traditional media outlets.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee travelled to the village of Taybe in Samaria to see if there was any damage to an old church there because of a fire that local residents say was started by “settlers” from a nearby Jewish community. He said there was no damage to the church, but somehow the story that came out of his visit is that the US Ambassador had condemned Israel for damaging the church.

Chaim then moves on to talking about a trip he took in a small airplane for his anniversary, and he got to fly the plane for a few moments. He flew into a cloud and all of a sudden, there was no visibility and he had to trust his instruments and what he knew from previous experiences. So he says this is an example of what we must all do when we’re in a situation where it’s hard to see what’s going on, we have to trust the instruments (a metaphor for the information that comes to us from sources which can see what we can’t, especially the Bible) and also what we know to be true from previous experiences.

If we do this, Chaim says, we won’t fall for lies about Israel attacking a church for no reason or other lies and false narratives that enemies of Israel are constantly putting out there.

Chaim then switches to talking about the casualties that the IDF continues to suffer from the fighting in Gaza. He says that he knows soldiers who say they’re tired of all this but they also know that there continues to be an enemy at the gates and they don’t want to stop now and let that enemy regroup, reorganize, rearm and get ready for another round in a few more years. These soldiers want to finish this so that their children won’t have to fight another war in the future.

Everyone knows about the pressure coming on Israel to end this war before the job is done, including a recent statement demanding that very thing and signed by the governments of over 25 countries including some of Israel’s best friends in Europe.

But Chaim says this is an example of putting pressure on the wrong place, telling Israel to quit instead of telling Hamas to quit, release the remaining hostages and surrender.

In this context, Chaim quotes Zecheriah 12:8; In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them.