Recently I had the distinct honor of sitting down with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for his first official U.S. interview of 2020, which you can view in its entirety by clicking this link.
It’s meaningful that his only Western media interview after the U.S. eliminated Israel’s arch enemy, Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, could have gone to one of the major broadcast or cable news networks. However, he chose to grant this historic extended interview with TBN, a Christian network.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Netanyahu’s interview with the “Christian press” reverberated across America and the world, picked up by such outlets as ABC, Fox News, The Daily Wire, Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, The Guardian (U.K.) and many others.
There’s no secret as to the reason for the prime minister’s very intentional choice of sitting down with a Christian network like TBN. As you’ll see when you watch it, he made it perfectly clear when he emphatically stated that Israel “has no better friends in the world” than the U.S. Christian community that stands in prayer and unity with Israel and the Jewish people.
As just one example of that abiding friendship, over the past 46 years our own TBN has made blessing Israel a priority in just about all we do. It began with my parents, TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch, who met and personally prayed with nearly every Israeli prime minister, and who introduced thousands of individuals to the land of Israel through countless Holy Land tours they hosted over the years.
Today it extends not just to our annual partner tours, but to TBN’s state-of-the-art production facility in the heart of Jerusalem that is creating cutting-edge, Israel-centered and life-changing programming enjoyed by viewers around the world.
In my exclusive face-to-face interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was clear that he was speaking to friends as he shared with our TBN audience about Israel’s crucial role as the Middle East’s sole democracy; its commitment to defending itself against its enemies, both regional and international; and the important commitment of President Trump and America’s conservative and Christian community to stand in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people.
Addressing the issue of Israel’s most aggressive enemy, Iran, the prime minister called the surgical drone strike that killed Soleimani a “tremendous achievement,” and pointed out that the state terrorist’s goal was to conquer the entire Middle East and destroy Israel. He stated that Soleimani was “an engine of destruction,” and said that “his removal helps roll back the forces of tyranny in the Middle East.”
As Israel hosts the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp and the end of the Holocaust, Netanyahu recalled that throughout the horrific years of the Holocaust no nation or people took a stand to defend Europe’s helpless Jewish population. And while Israel has been a strong and independent nation for over 70 years, “the attempts to destroy the Jewish people have not disappeared,” he told me. “Iran openly declares every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.”
The prime minister went on to note that today Israel is prosperous and, despite its relatively small size geographically (roughly the same size as New Jersey), it is ranked the eighth most powerful nation in the world. Most importantly, Israel has both the capability and the will to defend itself, and, as Mr. Netanyahu said, “We will never, ever again be defenseless in the face of those who want to destroy us.”
Mr. Netanyahu also related startling news about how the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has launched an aggressive attack on the nation of Israel and its very right to exist. “They’ve decided to declare war on the Bible,” he said, and added that this international legal body has ruled that “if Jews live in the land of Judea, of Israel, we are committing a war crime. … The war crime charge applies only to Jews living in the Jewish land. This is so outrageous, and defiant of history and of the truth, and of our common values and traditions.”
As I sat and listened to Prime Minister Netanyahu, it occurred to me that the non-stop efforts by Iran and others to destroy Israel amount to nothing less than an attack against the biblical narrative concerning the Jewish people. I stated as much to him saying that those who are trying to change that narrative are not fighting against Israel; they are fighting against God. That is what we as Christians believe, and that is why it is so crucial that those of us who love and stand for Israel re-double our determination to bless this nation and people so dear to the heart of God.
As you take the time to click on the link and view this extraordinarily open and transparent interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu, please join Laurie and me in fervent prayer for the peace of Jerusalem and of Israel—for its safety, security and God-ordained future.
I’m sure you will agree that as believers in Yeshua and friends of Israel, we can do no less.
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