Standing With Israel: Responding to University Protests

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to the Strang Report podcast. The surge of antisemitism in America, particularly on college campuses, has reached alarming levels, threatening the safety and well-being of Jewish students. Students at institutions like the University of Michigan and Columbia University and NYU reveal a disturbing increase in hostility, leaving mainly Jewish students feeling unsafe and targeted for their identity.

0:41 This alarming rise in antisemitism coincides with new waves of terror against Israel. For some insane reason, it has become vogue to stand with the terrorists like Hamas and Iran instead of standing with their victims, the people of Israel. Hamas and Iran's acts of terror and violence have resulted in significant displacement of Jewish families across Israel, including elderly Holocaust survivors who are now in dire need of support and protection. Here at Charisma, we're keeping up with these events. We have a long history of standing with Israel and over the years, we have raised several million dollars for humanitarian aid in Israel, including significant amounts for the Hamas-Israel War.

1:34 The campus unrest that we're seeing in the news reminds me of the anti-Vietnam War protests that I saw as the University of Florida student in the 1970s. I was never really a protestor, I was a student journalist, but I saw what was happening up close and personal, and at one protest, I was actually involved with tear gassing. They tear gas the entire crowd, and that included those of us who were journalists who were too close. The only time in my life I've ever experienced that. There were outside agitators then, as there are now. I read that the University of Texas in Austin, they arrested about 55 protesters, and half of them had nothing to do with the university.

2:21 There's reason to believe with reports that are trickling in because the mainstream media tends to play it down, that a lot of the unrest is actually by people who want to undermine our democracy and our republic here in the United States. They're using this tension, this anti-Semitic tension, this pro-Palestinian fervor that a lot of people believe that really is something that is unusual for here in America. I heard a report that some, on one campus, they were taking down American flags and putting up Palestinian flags. I mean, it's insane. In my opinion, it's one thing to disagree on politics or even to advocate for the downtrodden, which many of the people are saying the Palestinians are downtrodden, which is an exaggeration.

3:12 But this goes way beyond support for the Palestinians or their cause is actually hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel. Let's remember that it's Israel that's defending itself against the terrorism that's coming from Hamas and the Palestinians. It's very disturbing. Here's a report that I was sent recently from Jews for Jesus, which is one of the ministries that we support that's doing a lot of humanitarian work in Israel in addition to evangelism. And this clip will show you how bad things are in Israel, especially the anti-Semitism.

3:59 Our campuses are a hotbed for anti-Semitism. Over the last few days, we've seen campuses like NYU, Columbia, and Fashion Institute of Technology be taken over by people that hate Jewish people and hate the modern state of Israel. And they are not just standing up for Palestine. I'm here on the campus of NYU. And right behind me, there are people with all sorts of shirts and all sorts of slogans. This isn't just an issue about justice. This isn't an issue about hatred. And we need to stand against that. If you're Jewish and you're concerned, as I know I'm concerned, feel free to reach out to us.

4:40 We would love to connect with you and pray with you. If you're Christian, we need you to stand with us. We need you to pray for the Jewish people right now and pray for the state of Israel. Again, thank you so much and God bless. Now I believe in the freedom of speech, the freedom of the assembly. I believe in the First Amendment. It also gives us freedom of the press. But there's something very evil that's happening. And we as believers in Jesus need to understand, we need to discern the times, like the sons of Issachar, to understand what is really going on. And that's why I'm doing this podcast and that's why I'm showing some of these clips. In fact, a couple of days ago, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a friend of evangelicals and who has recognized that evangelical support of Israel as some of the most genuine and strongest support that Israel has.

5:36 Israel doesn't have many friends, but over the years they've come to understand that evangelicals who are those who believe the Bible, believe the Word of God is true, believe in salvation, those kinds of things, believe in living out their faith and following what the Bible has to say that there's some of the greatest supporters of Israel. So here's what prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to say. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. When you listen to them, it's also because they say not only death to Israel, death to the Jews, but death to America.

6:20 And this tells us that there's an anti-Semitic surge here that has terrible consequences. The purpose of this podcast is it's my way of urging the Christian community to support Israel. I know there are many voices supporting Israel. There have been a few protests in favor of Israel. They've been downplayed in the press. They're small by comparison, but there have been some. There are various ministries, including the ones that we support that are rallying the call. The support of Israel has been pretty mild and pretty low-key. And I believe that we need to speak up to support Israel.

7:02 And we do it not just for political reasons, although there are political reasons for America and for us Americans to support Israel. We know that Israel is our main democratic ally in the Middle East. And we have Iran as a common foe, and we have terrorism as a common foe. But why do we support Israel? It's not just for politics. It's not just because we wanted to support a small democratic country in the Middle East. No, it's because Israel has a special place in God's heart. The Jews are God's chosen people. The fact that Israel even exists is a fulfillment of prophecy that said Canaanation be born in a day.

7:48 And Israel was born in one day, May 14, 1948. And it's a miracle that Israel even exists, because as soon as they declared their statehood, they were attacked by seven Arab nations. They had no army, just a little militia. They didn't really have arms. In fact, the arms that the United States was able to give them as part of what helped them win. But more than that, it was a miracle that they even survived. And then a few years later, they survived the Six Day War. In fact, they won in six days, which was a miracle. A couple of years later, just barely 50 years ago, they won the Yom Kippur War, where again, they were attacked on Yom Kippur, the High Holy Day, when they were all in their homes fasting.

8:42 And it was a miracle that they survived. And then they survived, attack after attack after attack. But you know, this is drawn on now for more than six months. It's very serious. It's active terrorism. In October 7th, when this took place, they killed 1,200 men, women, and children. It was the most deaths of Jews in one day, of any day since the Holocaust. I had the opportunity when I was in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago, actually a couple of months ago, to go to the Israeli Embassy and kind of see a behind the scenes, off the record clips of actual footage of some of the carnage.

9:29 I mean, it was enough to just bring tears to your eyes and turn your stomach. And it was just horrible beyond horrible. And it let me see the deprivation. And then to see, and at first it seemed like the world was supporting Israel, like the world supported the United States when we went through 9-11. You know, people came to our aid. We lost 3,000 people, more or less, in that terrible attack. Israel lost 1,200, which percentage-wise is a much higher percentage. And Israel has gone in to protect itself. But it seems like things are shifting.

10:12 Protests at the Capitol, protests in different parts of the country, supporting the Palestinians. And you know what? This is way beyond a two-state argument over a two-state solution. It's terrorism trying to wipe Israel off the face of the map. In fact, they have a chant. I'm sure you've heard it. They say, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. And that's from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And if you look at the map, that is Israel. They want it just wiped off the map for it to all of it be Palestine. You know, I thought it was kind of funny, and I'll just inject this.

10:52 One of the interviewers, one of the conservative interviews, was interviewing some of these leftists on the street that were actually protesting in charge of Palestine. They didn't even know the name of the river or the name of the sea from that chant. They were just kind of going along mindlessly with this rioting or whatever is going on, these protests that are going on. Hopefully, people are starting to come to their senses. We've gotten, I mentioned the University of Texas. They cleaned up. They got a bunch of fraternity boys. They called them the frat boys to come in and just clean up these tent cities and the different things.

11:33 And as I mentioned earlier, they arrested some people, half of whom were not even affiliated with the university. At my own alma mater, the University of Florida, just this afternoon, I saw a report that they're cleaning up, they're starting to arrest people. They've been patient. They warned the protesters. They needed to leave. They knew the rules. They know the consequences. And they issued a release that said, these are not children. We're not going to treat them like children. They know the rules. They know what they've done, and they're going to have to face the consequences. Hopefully that will happen more and more. I want to encourage each of you to do what you can to be involved.

12:16 A lot of times we Christians don't know what to do. We don't have control of the news media. Thankfully, we do have alternative media with conservative media and also some Christian media like here at Charisma. We can use that. And it goes out to people like you. You can share the link to this podcast to help it go viral in a small way to get out the word of what's really going on, and you can also get involved by giving. The Bible says that where our treasure is, there our heart is. And God commands us, and God tells us that He will bless those who bless Israel.

12:56 So we're going to give you an opportunity to bless Israel. This is not new. We've done it through our nonprofit partner called Christian Life Missions. You can go to christianlifemissions.org and see what we've done. We do it under the name of Bless Israel because there's a lot of things we do to bless Israel that go well beyond the current conflict. I recently have gotten messages from the three ministries that we support. One is the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, the MJAA. They have a thing called the Joseph Project.

13:37 They're able to get truckloads of humanitarian aid in. Some of it comes from other countries, but they have to raise the money for the transportation, for the shipping, for the trucks. They have to organize the volunteers to give it out. Jews for Jesus is giving out meals all over Israel, especially to people who have been displaced by the war. And Vision for Israel, Barry and Bat Yasegal also have a vast network of humanitarian aid. We've been friends with all three of these ministries for many, many years. We take what comes in and split it among the three.

14:20 We give 100% of what comes in to these ministries. We take nothing out for administration or marketing costs or anything else. You can give with confidence. These are smaller ministries. There are some big ministries doing some big things, but there are a lot of needs that kind of fall between the cracks. That's why these ministries are able to meet a need in the way that some of the bigger ministries or the government isn't able to do. So I invite you to go online at christianlifemissions.org, exactly like it sound, Christian Life Missions is written as if it's one word, you'll be able to see very quickly what we do under Bless Israel.

15:03 What I'm saying to you is repeated there. There are stories, little clips of things that you can watch to see exactly what we're doing. I've given generously out of my own pocket for this and I encourage you to do the same. You know, we all have to do what the Lord puts in our hearts. And I just, my prayer, even before I did this podcast with them is that the Lord would encourage people to give generously. That's something that we can do to show our concern. Also, you can speak up. You can write letters to the editor. You can post things online that indicate that you side with Israel in spite of what these protesters are doing.

15:45 You can encourage the officials in your area to stand up against the protesters and enforce the laws that are on the books. People have a right to protest. They can march up and down peacefully with signs if they want to. It's their right to do it. But it's also our right to stand up for Israel and to stand strong. I'm proud to call myself a Christian Zionist. I'm a, in fact, I had a kind of a liberal Jewish friend joke with me one day and tell me I was more of a Zionist than he was. And he was probably right because I believe that we have to really stand strong with the Jewish people and with Israel. I'm not talking about the government.

16:26 The Israeli government is a secular government. They have problems like every other government. But I believe as a principle, we need to stand strong as Christians. There's a terrible, terrible history over the centuries of antisemitism, even among Christians. But in the last 50 or 70 years, that has really, really changed, especially by Christians who really believe the Word of God and who believe in standing on the Word of God and what God says to do. So you can give with confidence that your money is going to be rushed to where it's needed the most.

17:12 We promise you we've done this for years. We have a long history of doing this. And really a lot of the people that give through Christian life missions, because there are many ministries you can give to. Christians United for Israel is doing a fantastic job. I don't have time to list all the ministries. Sid Roth and his ministry up in Charlotte is doing a great job. But our ministry helps small ministries that are helping where things sometimes fall through the cracks. And so I'm asking you boldly to do what I've done, and that's to give, to help the people of Israel. Thank you for tuning into the Strang Report.

17:54 That's all I have to share today, except that I want to close by one more clip from Benjamin Netanyahu that I felt was important to share. And then after the clip, I'll come back and we're going to pray for Israel, and we're going to pray that sanity comes back to our university and college campuses where all these protests have been taking place. We have to stop anti-Semitism because anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine. It always precedes larger confligations than engulf the entire world. Thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for watching these clips. I hope that you learned something.

18:34 I hope I inspired you. Please share this on social media. Just take the link and put it on Facebook or on X or whatever social media you use. Of course, we send it out as well. There's sort of this feeling that there's not that much support for Israel, but there is a lot of support in the Jewish community and also in the Christian community. So now as we wrap up this podcast, I want to remind you to subscribe. My subscriptions are going up and hit the little bell so you know when we're on live on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m. Eastern time. And then would you pray with me?

19:14 And this is how I'm going to end the podcast. Father God, we come boldly before your throne asking you, Lord, to be with Israel during this very difficult time, be with their leaders. Lord, they have to make decisions on how to respond. I really didn't get into it, but when they were attacked by Iran, how did they respond? They responded very, very carefully. There's such a danger that this could escalate, but that's a subject for another day. But Lord, you know our hearts and you know that we want your will. We feel as if we're racing toward the end of time. We know that your will in terms of what's going to happen in the world is outlined in the Bible.

19:58 And it's almost like we're seeing it unfold before our very eyes. Lord, my prayer today was that you would give wisdom and boldness to the authorities at these different colleges and universities, how to deal with these protests. Lord, I pray that you open the eyes of the protesters to help them to see the error of their ways and how evil it is and how evil Hamas is and how this terrorism is wrong and how there needs to be peace. Lord, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We pray that peace will come to Israel. We thank you, Lord. We pray this in your mighty name. Amen.

20:40 Thank you for watching. God bless.