Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the
program designed for you
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and your interest
in religious liberty,
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because we're bound to present
discussions, information,
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and updates that bear on
religious liberty in the U.S
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and indeed around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
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22 years, editor
of Liberty magazine,
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and nearly as
long on this program.
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And my guest Ed Cooke,
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a doctorate in church
state studies from Baylor,
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Seventh-day
Adventist pastor, an author,
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book reviewer, what else?
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Where do we go? And lecturer.
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Yes, lecturer,
and you live in Texas,
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but, that could be a plus
or it could even be a negative.
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Sure. But
welcome to the program.
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Well, thank you.
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Ambassadors, I
want to talk a bit about
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embassies and ambassadors.
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And it puts me to
mind of my father dying
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about 14 years ago now.
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And as he was being wheeled
off for his final surgery,
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was they'd only given
him about 10 minutes notice.
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He said to the orderly
who turned up with the gurney.
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He says, do you know, he
says, "I'm an ambassador."
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The guy looks
at him, "What am I,
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how am I supposed to
treat this ambassador,
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this elevated person?"
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And he says, "I'm an
ambassador for heaven,"
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which we all are.
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Amen.
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So, at the end of the day,
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that's the ultimate
embassy and representation,
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isn't it for a
Christian or anyone of faith,
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but
particularly for a Christian.
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True.
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You know, as Paul says,
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turning back to
the Old Testament,
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they looked for a land.
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What is it,
whose builder or a city
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whose builder and maker was God,
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you know, it's not this,
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but, you know, some of
the religious conflicts
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of all the religious
conflicts, I think none is more
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insoluble apparently than
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what's happening in the
Middle East in Jerusalem.
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And let's talk about
something that happened.
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We were trying
to figure the year,
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wasn't about 2017?
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Correct. Yeah.
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President Trump,
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I can't say it was
a good or a bad thing,
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but it was a gutsy move.
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He recognized Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel.
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Yes. And moved
the US Embassy there.
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So again, like you're
mentioning whether good or bad
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that's not so much
the topic of discussion,
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but more so
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what are the
religious ramifications
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and how might that impact
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church state relations
aspects of national security
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from Israel's perspective.
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And, of course, the
US in relation to that.
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So, you know, one of the things
as I did a little bit more
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delving into and
looking at the topic,
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we do recognize
that from an evangelical
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Christian perspective,
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many evangelicals
that adopt the viewpoint
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of prophecy being fulfilled
from portions of Daniel
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and some of the Book
of Revelation as well.
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They look at that kind of a move
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on behalf of
Israel as something that
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is one of the necessary pieces
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for prophecy to
be fulfilled, i.e.
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the United
States supporting Israel
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by having Jerusalem recognized
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as the capital of the country
and US as a major world player,
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recognizing that
and giving support
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by moving our embassy there.
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However, the
other little details
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that as I fine-tuned it, like
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doing a little
bit more research,
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the eastern part of Jerusalem
is where all of the holy sites
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related to Bible
prophecy are located,
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and the US
Embassy was actually moved
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to the western part of Jerusalem
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more like more modern Jerusalem.
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It's a more grow,
outgrowth of the modern era.
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So technically it's not
actually recognizing the...
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The old city.
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Correct. So that is one thing.
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Very symbolic though. Yes.
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Yeah, that much.
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And the other thing I was going
to mention along those lines,
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it's interesting how
that development took place
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is that once President Trump
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had been elected
and was in office,
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evangelicals began to
appeal to him and put pressure,
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but not from a
religious perspective.
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So in other words,
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it's almost like they recognized
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the principle of
separation of church and state.
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They didn't want to violate that
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and therefore
confound their plans.
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So what they did
is they focused on it
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from the
perspective of persuading Trump,
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to see that kind of
a move strategically
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to strengthen
US ties with Israel
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and for Israeli security.
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Basically they were
saying, Israel is one
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of our allies in the Middle,
only ally in the Middle East.
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And if we're wanting
to present a united front
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against Islamic terrorism,
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make the move and therefore
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it strengthens Israeli security,
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it strengthens the US's foothold
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in the Middle East.
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I'm sure they said
all of these things,
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whether they
are set, that is so.
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Correct.
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To be honest, I think
it's been relatively quiet.
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In fact, I think
as we are filming this
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with rockets
flying in the Middle East
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is the first big
bump involving Israel.
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I mean, obviously the
Syrian conflict has just been
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grinding on with loss of
life and refugees and so on.
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So it didn't have the
immediately inflammatory
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effect that I feared.
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But, you know, you can
spin it any way you want,
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the religious right
have a theological construct
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and a reason for
supporting Israel.
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That was everything
about why they pushed
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for the recognition of Israel.
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And, I was surprised
that Israel went along
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with it so easy
because in this construct,
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they're not so much
concerned with Israelis
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as their country.
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They are sort of pawns
to be swept away because,
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you know, then Israel
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is going to be
knee deep in blood
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and Armageddon
and then Christ comes.
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Yes.
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In a perverse way, I don't think
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the evangelical
view of the end times
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is much kinder to the
Jews than the Islamic view.
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The Islamic view is horrible.
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You know, that
Muhammad and Jesus,
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and the 12 imams all appear
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with the heavenly horde
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and they're
attacking the Antichrist
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and his minions who are Jews,
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and in Quranic or in
Islamic writings it says
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that the stones will cry out.
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There is a Jew hiding behind me,
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come and kill it.
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And the
evangelical view is not quite
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so bloodthirsty
to the Jewish nation,
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but they're not really
seen as the promised people,
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particularly, it's,
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they're just a way for us
to get where we want to be.
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Very sad.
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But I think that's when
they first started calling
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ex-president Trump, Cyrus.
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He was the promised one
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that was
delivering on all of that.
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And what I think
might be the next
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significant
development in the Middle East.
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And I'd be
interested in your comment.
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Do you think there's
going to be moves toward
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either rebuilding the
temple or effect simile
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with a red heifer and the whole
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reinstitution of
the sacrificial system,
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because that will bring
the zealots out of the carpet.
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Well, I think that
certainly is in the offing,
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in other words,
that's the next step.
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The reason I say that is
that again in the background
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and the research
I did on the topic,
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one of the things
that across the board,
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your conservative,
evangelical Christians
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like Pat Robertson and Hagin,
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Kenneth Hagin,
one of the Pentecostal
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evangelists that based in Texas.
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Very visible on television.
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Both of them have
made definitive statements.
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They said that the line
that we draw as far as we,
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whether we give
support, continued support
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to Israel or not is
whether they maintain
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the unitary nature of Jerusalem
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and recognize that as
part of an essential part
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of prophecy being fulfilled,
or if they want to start
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segregating it out
and dividing it, i.e.
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from a quick perspective,
Israel may say, okay,
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the US has moved
their embassy over here
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to Western Jerusalem.
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Eastern
Jerusalem is the location
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of the holy sites.
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And you do have Palestinians
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that are
claiming a portion of that
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just as there are Jews.
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There's The Church
of the Holy Sepulcher
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in Bethlehem is in
Palestinian territory still.
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Correct.
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So if Israel should say,
okay, to make a, some kind of a,
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basically
seeking a middle ground,
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we will work
with the Palestinians
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and basically
start carving it up.
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That's where the evangelical
conservative Christians
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in America said, we're
not negotiating on that.
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So if Israel
does that, we back out
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and we don't
support them anymore.
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So it's kind of
like drawing a line
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in the sand and ultimatum
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for Israel to fight
and work, to maintain
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that unitary part
of the holy sites.
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So, yes, to
answer your question,
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I see that based on
that the dynamic there,
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from the perspective
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of evangelical
conservative Christians,
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that's the next step.
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Yeah, I mean, on one level,
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we've all gotten used
to the reality of Israel
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and I fall victim very
often to retelling history,
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but people should remember
that the modern state of Israel
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only dates back to
the 50s and Zionism,
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not much before World War II
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and nor was it a
religious movement
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in essence, it was a
yearning of a people.
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And it's hard
to even say ethnic,
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you know, even
Hitler and other enemies of
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I think of truth
have sort of flip flop
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between a religious identity
and some sort of racial marker,
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you know, who were Jews.
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Even in the Old Testament,
it was anyone that came in
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and honored the
covenant, Rahab and others so.
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But still this
modern state of Israel
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was of a socialist nature.
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Remember they were combusted.
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They were, you know,
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the US muddy
socialism and communism.
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But I can tell
you, the socialism
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of the early state
of Israel was communist.
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I mean, not Eastern communism,
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but it was not
democracy in the classic sense.
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It's come a long way.
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I think we should have
great sympathy for them,
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the people wanting
self-determination,
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people defend,
descended in many cases
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from those who had
escaped the Holocaust.
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You know, it touches a
nerve with much of the world,
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but the sad reality is
that they went back to a land
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that had long since
been occupied by others.
00:10:59.55\00:11:03.93
And I don't know,
it's, I've thought many times
00:11:03.96\00:11:06.53
this is the modern day
equivalent of the Gordian
00:11:06.56\00:11:09.53
knot of Alexander's time.
00:11:09.56\00:11:11.27
And he sliced through it.
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And maybe Trump
in a perverse way
00:11:12.97\00:11:15.47
was the closest to
slicing through it.
00:11:15.50\00:11:18.41
It probably
needs something radical
00:11:18.44\00:11:21.28
to change the status
quo, but at the moment,
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you know, I've
visited there twice
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and it's very invigorating.
00:11:28.45\00:11:29.78
And yet, as I was
telling you in the break,
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I remember
standing in the shadow
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of the dividing
wall that snakes all
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through and around Jerusalem
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with young Israeli
soldiers peering out the slip
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with their sub machine guns.
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I remember standing there,
you know, five, ten foot away
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talking to a
Palestinian Christian
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and him telling me how
he was doubly ostracized,
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kept out by the wall by Israelis
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and victimized by
fellow Palestinian Muslims.
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There's just no winners in that
part of the world in my view.
00:12:00.62\00:12:03.22
Yeah.
00:12:03.25\00:12:04.59
Because, you
know, when you've got
00:12:04.62\00:12:06.32
at least in this situation,
00:12:06.35\00:12:08.09
you've got three
different major faiths,
00:12:08.12\00:12:10.06
world faiths, right?
00:12:10.09\00:12:11.43
Global faiths,
Christianity, Judaism,
00:12:11.46\00:12:13.66
and then also Islam,
00:12:13.70\00:12:15.20
each of them
contending for certain areas
00:12:15.23\00:12:17.30
that they consider to be sacred,
00:12:17.33\00:12:19.27
and in some
cases there's overlap
00:12:19.30\00:12:20.87
due to sacred
texts that trace back
00:12:20.90\00:12:23.27
and you show an overlap
of history and belief, right?
00:12:23.30\00:12:26.88
At the same time,
you've got governments
00:12:26.91\00:12:28.91
that are on the scene
interacting in all of that,
00:12:28.94\00:12:31.95
trying to work out
00:12:31.98\00:12:33.31
what's the best
kind of solution, right?
00:12:33.35\00:12:36.15
And then you've got
the United Nations as well,
00:12:36.18\00:12:38.15
getting involved in declaring
that as an international site
00:12:38.19\00:12:41.12
and not just a national,
like the nation of Israel site.
00:12:41.16\00:12:44.79
So yeah, it makes it
for a very complex dynamic.
00:12:44.83\00:12:46.70
Yeah.
00:12:46.73\00:12:48.30
I don't know on this program
we kind of have the solution,
00:12:48.33\00:12:50.10
but the solution has to be
00:12:50.13\00:12:53.77
along the lines of the charity
00:12:53.80\00:12:56.81
and love for fellow man
that the Bible encourages it.
00:12:56.84\00:12:59.57
Isn't going to be hard headed,
00:12:59.61\00:13:01.61
you know, clearing out
the enemy from his area
00:13:01.64\00:13:04.81
or who throws the most rockets
00:13:04.85\00:13:06.92
or who has the
biggest delegation in the UN.
00:13:06.95\00:13:11.35
This might be a good
time to take a break.
00:13:11.39\00:13:13.19
So we'll be back
after a short break
00:13:13.22\00:13:14.89
to continue this discussion.
00:13:14.92\00:13:17.59