Mezuzot (Doorposts) 2

April 3, 2025

Mezuzot (The Doorposts) Part 2 of 2 

You see, glue rinses off; but superglue does not rinse off with a detergent or a solvent. It scrapes off; the polymer binds with the cornified epithelium of the epidermis.

In other words, when it does come off, some of you comes off with it, leaving a mark that should never have been there. In a marriage, that kind of bonding is one of the things God uses to preserve a marriage; it is good in that situation. Outside of matrimony, however, it is not a good thing. Did God forgive the sin? Yes. At the Resurrection or when Jesus comes will it still matter? No. But does it leave a mark now? Absolutely. There is a mutual vulnerability with this kind of bonding, which is what led Samson to become emotionally and to a degree spiritually susceptible to Delilah. 

Let us continue: Samson foolishly lets Delilah know that the source of his strength has something to do with his hair; he begins sharing the things of the Lord with someone who does not even believe in the Lord. "So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and she wove them into the web, and she fastened it with a pin. And she said to him the third time, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web." He thinks he has gotten away with it once more, not knowing how close he is to the abyss of his self-appointed doom.

Verse 15: "And she said to him," - check this out - "'How can you say, "I love you"?'"
"You don't love me! If you loved me you'd let me kill you. You don't really love me, otherwise you'd let me get you knocked off so I can get paid!" What a jerk Samson had to be! There is no question he acted like a moron. This guy is a real jerk. And I'm a real jerk. And you're a jerk. 'The sin that so easily besets'.

Understand something here: this took place under the Old Covenant. It was not then as it is now, where the Holy Spirit is for all who believe. Under the Old Covenant, only certain people at certain times for certain reasons had the Holy Spirit: high priests, prophets, kings, patriarchs, and judges. Samson may well have been the only person on the face of the earth at that time who had the Holy Spirit. He was someone who had been supernaturally conceived as a type of Jesus: the angel appeared to his parents to tell them he would be born, and he carried the thing he would die on, just as Christ did. So Samson is a type of Christ, as all of these Old Testament figures are in some way. This was a man who was called by God before his conception; this was a man whom God empowered. He had God's hand upon him for the glory of God's name and for the deliverance of God's people - this was the judge of Israel! Called by God, empowered by God, anointed by God, and used mightily by God. But he continually returned to that same stupid sin.

In the same way, you could be witnessing and leading people to Jesus, laying hands on people and seeing them be healed - God could have His hand on you, you could be filled with the Holy Spirit, and God could really be using you; yet you could still so easily fall back into that same old thing. That's Samson, that's me, and that's you - it's all of us. Do not ask me why God continues to put up with someone like Jacob Prasch - I don't know. Fortunately, I am not God; because if I was God, Jacob Prasch would be in big trouble. Thank God that He is He and I am me; because if I was He, me wouldn't be here.

What Samson says next to Delilah shows the power of sin to deceive, and the vulnerability that takes place in that kind of bonding that should be reserved only for wedlock. Let us look at verse 16: "It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death." Why does he put up with this kind of nagging? That would drive any man crazy - the book of Proverbs tells us that living with a contentious woman is like trying to sleep next to a dripping faucet. Samson could have had any wife he wanted, with his position as the Judge of Israel. But he had bonded with Delilah, "so he told her all that was in his heart, and said to her, 'A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak like any other man.' When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called for the Philistines, saying, 'Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart.' And the lords of the Philistines came to her, and brought the money in their hands." So Samson bought the whole bill of goods; he told her the truth, "and she made him sleep on her knees and called for a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him." Notice that Delilah began to afflict him before the Philistines did.

People are not initially judged for their sin; judgment for our sin is not the first thing that happens. Rather, what initially takes place is that we are judged by our sin. The sin itself turns against you; after that come the consequences for it.

"His strength left him. And she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' And he awoke from his sleep and said, 'I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him." His strength was gone, his God evicted, yet Samson did not know it. We grieve the Holy Spirit with our sin; He does not stay where He is not wanted. He will not leave us, but we are certainly good at evicting Him from our lives. A question many people ask me is at what point the Holy Spirit leaves an unrepentant backslider: that is just the point - you do not know, and you cannot know. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' - Saul didn't know when the Lord departed from him, and neither did Samson. But we do know what follows; let's read it in verse 21: "Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and they brought him to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains. He was a grinder in the prison." What happens when God's Spirit leaves? You lose your sight and you lose your might. You become spiritually blind, and you no longer have the strength to pick up your cross; now you no longer have a way out, because you have gone too far for too long.

God's Spirit left Samson; he lost his sight and he lost his might. That is what happened to him, and if we are not careful, that is exactly what can happen to us also. None of us is immune.

Let us continue, however, in verse 22: "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved off." Romans 11:29: "The gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance." God does not take away what He has given; but although we may lose our hair very quickly, it only grows back slowly. You may lose it overnight, but getting it back is not so easy. Only slowly does a backslider who has gone this far for this long recover; they are blind, without strength, and have made shipwrecks of their lives.

Verse 23: "Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god." Dagon was the fish-god of the ancient Philistines. The miter of the Roman Catholic bishops has its origin in Dagon-worship. "And they said, 'Our god has given our enemy, Samson, into our hands!'" In the mentality of the ancient Near East, the battles between armies were simply an extension of the battles between spiritual forces. We see this clearly in Daniel and in Revelation, and we have other messages that explain this. Therefore, in the minds of the Philistines, Samson's capture did not merely mean that they were stronger than he, but that their god was stronger than his God. But God will always vindicate His name - He will not give His glory to another.

Verse 24: "When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, 'our god has given our enemy into our hands, even the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us.'" So often, God blesses His people even when they are unfaithful for His own name's sake; we often fail to understand that. "It so happened that when they were in high spirits they said, 'Call Samson for us, that he may amuse us.'" Backsliders will always wind up in a state of humiliation - as Isaiah 31 says, 'woe to those who go down to Egypt, for the safety of Pharaoh will turn to your disgrace and humiliation.'

Continuing in Judges 16:25, "So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars." The word here for 'pillars' indicates the pillars of the city. They made a mistake: he could not go to the Cross, but they brought the Cross to him and didn't know it. "Samson said to the boy that was holding him, 'Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I might lean against them.' Now the house was filled with men and women, and the lords of the Philistines were there. About 3000 men and women were looking on while Samson amused them. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, 'Oh, Lord God, please remember me and strengthen me just this one time, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.' And Samson grabbed the two middle pillars on which the house rested, braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left" - he stretched out his hands - "and Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines,' and he bent with all his might, so that the house fell upon the lords and all who were within it. So the dead whom he killed in his death were more than those whom he had killed in his life." Once again, Samson is here a picture of Christ: he goes from a place of defeat by stretching out his hands to a place of unprecedented victory, when his enemy thought he had been completely defeated. Instead it was the chess gambit; you got my rook, but now your king is in check.

Verse 31: "Then his brothers and all his father's household came down, took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaole in the tomb of his father Manoah. Thus he judged Israel twenty years." Samson should have judged Israel sixty years; instead, it was only twenty. Do I believe in unconditional once-saved-always-saved? No. Calvinism is a perversion of Christianity. Neither do I believe, however, that God saves people in order to lose them. One does not need to understand the New Testament teaching about He who is able to keep you in terms of the Calvinistic misinterpretation and corruption of that truth; the gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance, as quoted earlier.

To understand this, we must go to the New Testament equivalent of this story: we always interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament revelation of Jesus - I Corinthians 5: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind that does not exist even among the Gentiles" - that is, the pagans - "that someone has his father's wife." The Greek scholars usually reckon that this was the man's stepmother. Be that as it may, there is an incestuous relationship going on, where a believer was sleeping with his father's wife. A believer! Paul says, remember, 'among you'. Paul called this so grotesque and ugly, so morally repugnant, that even the heathens would not do it. Even the pagans had more morals than to do such a thing. Paul goes on to rebuke them: "Yet you have become arrogant, and have not mourned, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst." Notice that the politically correct, compromised, half-backslidden contemporary church today says that the one who is arrogant is he or she who will stand against immorality. God says, on the contrary, that the one who will not stand against it is the arrogant one.

Ray MacCauley divorced a Christian woman in order to marry another woman who had been married to another man; yet if anyone speaks against it, that person is rebuked for daring to stand up for God's standard of righteousness. If anyone calls you arrogant for this type of action against immorality in the church, you may tell them from God's Word that it is rather they who are arrogant for refusing to speak against the immorality themselves. God calls it arrogant not to stand against obvious evil.

Paul goes on to say this in verse three: "For I on my part, though absent in body, yet present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul might be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus." This is not something anyone may do arbitrarily; it is similar to binding and loosing: both concepts come across more clearly in the Greek text, where the verb tense is present continuous active; you can only bind on earth what is being bound in Heaven, and you can only loose on earth what is being loosed in Heaven. (This actually has nothing to do with territorial spirits and the like.) In the same way, the Lord was leading Paul to hand this person over to Satan in the text of I Corinthians 5 that we read above.

Notice here that Paul was not Reformed; he was not a Calvinist. He did not say here, as a Calvinist would, that since this person was backslidden and sleeping with his father's wife that was in itself proof that he had never been saved to begin with. Neither, however, does Paul say anything to support a belief in unconditional eternal security (once-saved-always-saved). He never implies or leaves room to imply that this man still had the assurance of salvation while living in this backslidden state. Rather, he states directly that this man was in danger of going to Hell.

But once again, the Lord does not save people only to lose them. What Paul does say is this: If this man is going to sow to the flesh to this degree for this long, this habitually, and will not repent, the enemy will have him. We will let the enemy have him, that he might be driven in the end to fear God and repent, though he forfeits his life. I have heard many parents talk about how good and godly their children were until they went away to University; then a boy began living with his girlfriend, or a girl began living with her boyfriend, and they won't repent. (My children are at that age now, and I am praying that God keeps them from sin.) But then one day these wayward children come home and knock on the door. They say, "Mom, Dad, I'm HIV-positive. Will you pray with me?" or, "I've been diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma, and they tell me I will soon be dead; please pray with me." Terrible! Horrible! But better that than burning in Hell.

I prayed for the salvation of my children from their mother's womb; I actually prayed that my children - whom I love just as indescribably as you love your children - would die in their mother's womb rather than spend eternity apart from Yeshua their Messiah.

The life is destroyed, but the soul is saved. Samson should have had many more years, many more decades of fruitful service. Sin can kill. Please do not misunderstand me - I do not suggest that all illness is the result of some personal sin; it is only the result of sin in the sense that illness is a result of mankind's fallen state. Yet as Psalm 32 and the epistle of James tell us, sin can cause illness. In fact, by defiling the Lord's table with unconfessed sin we can eat and drink judgment to ourselves and die prematurely, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 11. It does say here 'fall asleep' rather than 'die' with reference to these believers who sin against the Lord's table, so we know that this does not mean they will go to Hell for it; believers fall asleep, unbelievers die. Similarly, even the New Testament says that if we neglect needy parents we reduce our own longevity. Sin can indeed kill; we see it in I Corinthians 5 and we see it in Samson's life. God forbid this should happen to any of us or to our children, but once more, better that it does than that we burn in Hell. God does not save in order to lose.

Samson could have had a nice godly wife, and many more years and decades of judging Israel. All of the blessings that God had in store for Samson he forfeited. He lost his calling, his sight, his might, his blessing, and even his earthly life; what a tragedy! Yet, as Hebrews 11 assures us, in the end his soul was saved. Samson was defeated by the sin that so easily besets; but even then, God's mercy stood.

The most difficult, painful book of the Bible is without doubt, in my view, the book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah. It recounts the consequences of stubborn, continual, unrepented sin and rebellion against God by a nation, its capital, its people, and its children. Yet right smack dead-center in the most painful, depressing book of the Bible, we read this: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning - great is Thy faithfulness" - see Lamentations 3:22-26. You may be right in the middle of your worst trial, but the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

Maybe even as a Christian, you do not love Jesus Christ as you should; but you cannot stop Him from loving you.

Certainly what happened to Samson was a tragedy, and what happened to this unnamed man in I Corinthians 5 was a tragedy, and what happens all too often today is a tragedy; it should never happen, yet it can and it does, because of that sin that so easily besets. If you are in that sin now, do not get comfortable in it - get out now, before it turns against you, for you can be sure that it will. There are a million ways into that quagmire; there are countless ways into that debacle; but there is only one way out: the Cross of Jesus Christ.

 

How AI is transforming defensive capabilities against drones

October 12, 2026
Written by - Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM Examples abound in history of how the responses to innovations in technology that disrupted and transformed the nature of warfare have taken a delayed time to be adapted. Chain mail and armour had to be altered and bolstered to repel arrows from the English Longbow in Medieval Europe, but this didn't occur in time to the dismay of the French at Agincourt. It took the Spanish decades to redesign their cumbersome Galleons that lay prey to the swifter English ships. Napoleonic era field tactics were still being employed during the American Civil War, with mass charges mowed down by the Gatling barrel machine gun. Trench warfare was only later embraced during WWI. With the cheap manufacture of drones and the advances in AI a new chapter has opened in how war is waged in our own time. The conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated how asymmetric warfare has become as much an economic calculation as a game of cat and mouse. Drones (and relatively cheaply manufactured ballistic missiles by Iran) are being shot down at great expense. AI which has been extensively deployed for target identification in Gaza is also proving to be a vital tool in hunting incoming drones. But as in the delayed development of military countermeasures historically, drones are ahead of AI in the battlefield. This is reflected in the enormity of Russian military casualties that have fallen victim to Ukrainian drones. AI is able to cut through the 'background noise' of distracting projectiles, birds and other debris to home in efforts to eliminate the actual drone target. The magic formula is speed and precision. Humans can detect and assess a threat, but AI can process radar, cameras and other sensors almost instantly, and with increasing accuracy predict where a drone intends to strike. When swamped with a wave drone attack, AI acts to identify and track the multiple threats. AI can also help decide how to respond. Depending on the system, the response could involve electronic warfare, an interceptor drone, a missile or a gun-based system. Ukraine has installed automated machine gun turrets instructed by AI to protect Kiev. In some cases, humans still make the final decision to engage, while AI handles the calculations and tracking required to make that decision quickly. More broadly, drone warfare is becoming a contest between autonomous systems. The challenge is no longer simply building a better missile or a better drone. It is building a system that can see the threat first, understand it quickly and respond before the drone reaches its target. In that sense, AI is becoming a critical part of air defence. The advantage may increasingly belong to whoever can make the fastest and most accurate decisions—not necessarily whoever manufactures the most expensive weapons. AI's pace of progress is exponential. It is beyond comprehension what capacity could be realized in even the next 2-3 years. The combination of drones, robotics and AI may render the traditional military hardware of tanks, frigates and fighter jets almost functionally obsolete. The development of AI's course of military application will be largely directed by the conflicts where it is deployed. In the pre-AI world of 1987, the black Friday market crash during the Reagan Administration saw a dangerous drop in the Dow, where computer analysis issued sell orders against a background of Reagan's massive budget deficits. Amidst Reagan's budget deficits this created an environment where social security was looted to fund defence spending. A supposed conservative President ran a fiscal policy with simultaneous increases in the Pentagon budget, coupled with tax cuts. The computer generated sell off was beyond the functional control of brokers and market makers, while the Soviets attempted to engineer market irregularities affecting the American economy which had further global ramifications due to massive American trade deficits with Japan under Reagan. The current Securities exchange environment is at best no less complex now. Given the spectre of what transpired in 1987 with computerised over control of stock exchange trading, and a shadow hanging over the bond market we are left to ponder could another such scenario be triggered in the age of AI? And even more illuminous prospect over shadows us now with the question can AI gain a decision-making operational capacity over command-and-control decisions. Certainly, for tactical weapons systems or even a doomsday scenario with Russia, China, India or Pakistan placing nuclear launch control in the hands of AI that could result in an exchange that either the US, Britain, France or Israel would be forced to react to. Without scaremongering it is necessary for strategic planners to prevent the nuclear powers that be from arriving at the precipice of such an abyss.

Interconnected Conflicts: The Risk of a New Thirty Years' War. By Rubin Rothler - LLB, MLB

September 21, 2026
The interlinked nature of third-party involvement in the ongoing conflicts in Iran and Ukraine has increasingly come to the fore in recent weeks. It emerged that China has not only been providing Iran with radar systems, navigation tools, and electronic warfare technology, but also high-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial data to direct its rockets. The same great-power relationships that are shaping the Middle East are affecting the conduct and constraints of the war in Ukraine. It is apparent that a reciprocation in kind is dictating Russia's conduct towards the US in Iran. Intelligence and targeting support mirror similar U.S. assistance to Ukraine. But this picture becomes murkier when considering the backroom accommodations Trump is willing to give Putin. Recently, Trump pressured Zelensky to stop targeting Russian diesel infrastructure, saying the attacks were causing a shortage of the fuel that is "hurting the world." The U.S. national average price for diesel, which is used by trucks, trains, ships, and farm equipment, rose above six dollars a gallon for the first time last Thursday. Such interventions demonstrate how developments on the battlefield in Ukraine can no longer be considered independently of wider economic and geopolitical calculations. China has been using tankers that are already at sea, when that runs out the American blockade will create shortage problems for the Chinese economy, as China no longer gets Venezuelan oil and is reliant on Iran and international spot market prices. The war with Iran is now spreading to Yemen, with the Houthis attempting to replicate the Iranian chokehold model perfected in the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic importance of controlling or threatening critical maritime chokepoints is central to the wider contest. What happens in the Gulf can therefore have consequences for shipping, energy markets, and military calculations far beyond the immediate theatre. So far, the US has declined Saudi requests to slow the Houthi advance. Neither Turkey nor Egypt seems inclined to come to Saudi Arabia's aid. This is despite the signing of a very recent mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan. More developments can happen in these conflicts on an average day than can be afforded mention, but they should be increasingly understood as interconnected parts of a wider geopolitical confrontation. Assistance in one theatre triggers reciprocal action in another. Consequently, these cease to be discrete, containable conflicts and are extending into prolonged multinational conflicts. There is a distinct possibility that these may become frozen conflicts over time. A more terrifying eventuality is something more akin to the Thirty Years' War, which was fought in the first half of the 17th century in Europe. It is important to remember that this calamity, which ravaged Europe, began as a localized rebellion that gradually drew in more and more powers. The initial religious nature of the fighting gave way to political struggles. The mechanism by which a localized conflict becomes a multinational struggle offers a historical warning worth considering. The danger today is that a collection of individually distinct conflicts could become sufficiently interconnected that containing any one of them becomes increasingly difficult. Iran, Ukraine, Russia, China, the United States, and the conflict involving the Houthis are already linked by military assistance, intelligence, energy, trade, and strategic competition. The question, therefore, is no longer simply how any one of these conflicts ends. It is whether they can remain separate conflicts at all.  (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Prayer Request

By David Passmore • September 12, 2026
Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for our sister in Jesus - Wendy Blomkamp, widow of Brother Fred Blomkamp (now with The Lord), the founder of Moriel South Africa Branch (not to be confused with Moriel's Ebyown Aids Children's Mission in South Africa founded by David Royle). Wendy, (an equestrian rider of all things) is originally from West Yorkshire, England but has lived most of her life in South Africa and is currently in retirement in the USA. Unfortunately, Wendy is diagnosed with inoperable pre terminal cancer with cardio pullmonary complications. The Lord will either intervene supernaturally or call her home. We request prayer for Wendy and her beloved family and wisdom for her physicians. In Christ, All at Moriel

What would happen to Israel if the House is controlled by Democrats, and if the Republicans lose control of the Senate?

By David Passmore • September 7, 2026
The US midterm elections are around the corner and the results could have profound effects on US foreign policy concerning Israel. Much has been said about this vote being a referendum on Trump's unpopular war with Iran. But it can equally be said to be about Trump's other foreign policy engagements that are viewed rather more favourably like the overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela and his replacement with a pro-American regime. With Israel the picture is less clear. It used to be a given that Israel enjoyed bipartisan support on the Hill. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of politicians opposed to supporting Israel - the occasional fringe Democrat representing a singular Michigan constituency with a high Arab origin demographic, or a rare odd ball Republican preaching strict isolationism. This dynamic has shifted quickly in the last decade. The Democrats have all but abandoned any inclination of a pro-Israel position. Even establishment figures like Chuck Schumer have been pressured to side with the Party's radical left wing. With 60-80% of Democrats now anti-Israel, Israel can no longer rely on Jewish Democrats to oppose anti-Zionism or antisemitism. The most outspoken Democratic member of the Senate advocating a pro-Israel position, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is being pressured to resign and leave the party even by Pennsylvania's Jewish Governor Shapiro and Soros sponsored Philadelphia Prosecutor Krasner. This is happening concurrently with mass endorsement from 170 leading Hollywood Jewish actors writing a letter of support for Mark Ruffallo - despite his antisemitic comments naming Jewish investors supporting a Hollywood studio mega merger as being associated with apartheid genocide. However most shocking, were the comments by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel who stood before an audience of Jewish Democrats last weekend telling them they may need to sacrifice the safety, and even the future, of their own people in exchange for saving the rest of humanity. Such rhetoric is contrary to basic human instincts of survival and self-preservation. If any other nation were suggested this course of action, I wonder what their response would be? On the Republican side the foreboding sense of an altering course towards Israel no longer seems so distant. The anti-Israel faction in the Republican party led by Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes are now being supported by Vice President Vance. Jewish kingpins in the Trump Administration such as Witkoff and Kushner have been tied to business dealings in N.Y. with the Muslim Brotherhood controlled Qatari government through its business holdings. Should Republicans lose control of the Senate while Democrats take the House, Israel could find itself having to drastically re-access its relationship with Washington. We wouldn't see an immediate break in ties. American military, intelligence, technological and strategic cooperation with Israel is too integrated into the core of US institutions and corporations that would take a protracted period to dismantle. However, the power of Congress is in no way feeble. Congress controls funding, foreign-assistance legislation, sanctions, arms-related legislation and, perhaps most importantly, the political milieu in which an administration operates. A Democratic House combined with a Senate no longer controlled by Republicans could place enormous pressure on Trump to alter his attitude towards Israel. Practically this could entail demanding further accountability from Israel over military operations in Gaza, and the West Bank Settlers causing civilian casualties and property damage. Military aid could face more conditions or restrictions, but an immediate cutoff is unlikely. Israel has historically depended upon the presumption that regardless of who was President, there would be a robust enough bipartisan coalition in Congress to prevent a major deterioration in the relationship. Now the opposite appears true. Israel is taking the gamble of solely relying on a friendly President like Trump getting elected to maintain cordial relations. With the erosion of even much of Jewish American support for Israel and the hijacking of the Democratic party by a pro Islamist socialist left seen in Mamdani and others, Israel is forced to confront the inescapable reality that the last strong bastion of support for it is the Republican Party's evangelical base. But even younger voters in this key demographic are beginning to question support for Israel. The hostility displayed by the Haredim in Jerusalem and elsewhere against Christians including evangelicals, is to say the least counter-productive to the national interest. To attack the one friend Israel has left with a proven track record of loyalty and is vital to pro-Zionism internationally, is particularly detrimental to the national interest. It is Iran with its Mahdiist interpretations of jihad and sharia as a religious ideology that drives its hatred of Israel and the USA, and The West, to the detriment of the interests of the majority of the Iranian populace who want non hostile co-existence.  Such religious fanaticism and ideologically fuelled hatred ought not be given place in Israeli Judaism. It too, will generate adverse consequences for the majority of Israelis, including religious moderates, who desire an ongoing friendship with Evangelical Christians whose theology is not one of anti Semitism, but of proven Philo-Semitism and pro Zionism.

Don't bit ethe hand that feeds you - Irish hypocrisy towards Israel

By David Passmore • August 21, 2026
Don't bite the hand that feeds you - Irish hypocrisy towards Israel Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM Amongst European nations, Ireland in recent years has gained the reputation as being the leading anti-Zionist country. The Irish Republic has never been favourably inclined to Israel. It only established an Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1996. In poll after poll the vast majority of the Irish public have indicated hostility towards Zionism and strong support for Palestinian Statehood. The curious aberration to this is that in British Ruled Northern Ireland support is demarcated along sectarian lines. Catholic Republican areas predictably tend to ardently support the Palestinian cause, while Protestant Unionist communities are overwhelmingly pro-Israel. Perhaps some credence can be given to sentiments of traditional Catholic antisemitism hardwired into the Irish psyche as contributing towards this disposition. It was certainly odd that the Irish government promptly sent a delegation to the Nazi German Ambassador in Dublin to convey condolences after news of Hitler's suicide broke at the end of WW2. But more concretely if you were to ask the average Irish protester on a pro-Palestine march the basis of their empathy for the Palestinian cause, they would point to the ostensible parallels between the Irish experience of fighting for independence from British colonial oppression to the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Further remonstrations on a diplomatic level concern the actions of the IDF interreacting with Irish Peace Keepers in Southern Lebanon that have caused the deaths of several Irish Peace Keepers over the decades in friendly fire incidents. Ireland has contributed the most peace keepers to this mission per capita and the government has condemned Israel for these deaths that they view as avoidable. This animosity towards Israel is unbalanced. There are reasons to consider that Ireland and Israel have a shared experience of national liberation. Both countries fought the British in the pursuit of independence. Both countries made great efforts to resurrect their ancient languages for modern wide scale use. Both the Irish and Jews form major diaspora communities in New York. Despite all this Ireland ranks as Israel's second largest export market after the US. The preponderance of Israeli exports to Ireland comprises electronic integrated circuits, micro-assemblies, and tech manufacturing components. American multinational colossal tech corporations like Intel are substantially engrossed in this trade through the chain of supply. Ireland and Israel are hubs for design and manufacture of high-tech hardware components for US corporations. So, due to the nature of the most prosperous and competitive sectors of their respective economies, Israel and Ireland are inextricably bound in bilateral trade ties. Resolutions from the Irish government to impose sanctions on West Bank originating produce is merely perfunctory rhetoric. Such actions amount to a drop in the bucket in terms of impact to overall trade. The stark reliance of Ireland on advanced Israeli aviation equipment recently caused a spectacle when Ireland's new government jet struggled to land in heavy fog due to it being ordered without an advanced Israeli made navigation system. This was directly due to a short-sighted government decision not to buy Israeli military technology. There is a marked disparity between the official position of the Irish government designed for domestic public consumption and the economic policies that it actually pursues towards Israel. The government is acutely aware that the US is massively invested in the Irish economy and they don't want to do anything to jeopardise this. Washington demands that their enterprises in Dublin are intertwined with operations in Israel. The Irish government dare not even prevent US military supply flights refuelling at Shannon Airport on their way to Tel Aviv. The Irish government knows that times change and now the gripping social issue is the anti-immigrant/anti-Islam popular street protests. Soon the anti-Israel protests could become a mere side show only really promoted by Sinn Fein given the pressing ramifications of mass migration. So, in the meantime certain politicians will rile against the occupation, purported genocide and pass paltry sanctions against insignificant produce from the West Bank. All the while making hand over fist in money with the Israelis where it really matters in tech.  (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

The tide has Changed

By David Passmore • July 31, 2026
The Tide Has Changed Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM The America that Netanyahu touched down on is a changed America. The death of Lindsey Graham represents a changing of the guard. Graham was a staunch Israeli ally who will most probably become an increasingly rare breed in Washington. Sixty percent of Americans now hold a unfavourable view of Israel which politicians are finding difficult to ignore. It was once unthinkable to believe that New York City with such a strong Jewish electoral base and influence on all sectors of economic and cultural life would have a mayor that is so hostile to Israel to such an extent that he is calling for the arrest of its Prime Minister. From all accounts Netanyahu was cordially welcomed at the White House. The official press release stated that the talks were constructive. What is more telling is what was left unsaid particularly concerning the proposed sale of F35's to Israel's new regional adversary -Turkey. Trump is keen to find a swift resolution to the Iran War, while Netanyahu is opposed to a premature departure. When the US and Israel initiated their attacks on Iran over five months ago, Trump and Netanyahu appeared united in the War's goals and purpose. But as the protracted conflict has staggered to topple the Iranian regime fractures have emerged. Much has been said about the imminent political realities both leaders face. The Republicans could take a big hit in the November midterm elections should the war continue and global energy markets be negatively impacted. Netanyahu is anxious to demonstrate a big win to the Israeli public with the upcoming October election. In Israel, the Iran War is not viewed in isolation, but rather as an extension of the response to the colossal disaster of the October 7th massacre. Netanyahu must rehabilitate his reputation as a competent steward of national security having had the greatest loss of civilian life in an attack happening under his watch. Aside from the Iran issue, Trump is being pressured by Erdogan to insist upon Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory pre-emptively seized by Israel following the toppling of Assad. Trump has also indicated disapproval of the extent of continuing Israeli measures against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, questioning the proportionality employed. Netanyahu is not in an envious position. Throughout his tenure and political career, he lauded his ability to engage successfully with the American public by zealously advocating Israel's position. Yet under his government Israel's reputation has plummeted in the US. Trump may be the last US President to extend such overwhelming bilateral support to Israel. The days of politicians like Lindsey Graham are fast ending. While John Fetteman and Marco Rubio appear to be remaining more solid, even some of the most warmly inclined leading Republican and Democrat voices like Donald Trump and Rahm Emanuel have nuanced their support for Israel. The tide has shifted and will at best level off if not continuing to shift further.  (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

The Saudi Nuclear Deal: An attempt to alter the Regional Balance of Power

By David Passmore • July 24, 2026
The Saudi Nuclear Deal: An attempt to alter the Regional Balance of Power Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM The initiative to develop a civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia with US assistance isn't new. There were concrete plans discussed towards these ends during the first Trump Administration. The recent announcement to actualize this deal follows the geo-political regional tumult in the wake of the Iran War. Several dimensions of motivation underlie the US decision. An overarching US strategic agenda is to keep the Saudis firmly in the American sphere of influence. Washington knows all too well that the Chinese and Russians are eager to offer their nuclear technical assistance to the Saudis in order to draw them closer to their camp. On a personal note, the nuclear agreement is a significant achievement for Bin Salaman. The Saudis have long had designs to diversify their energy supplies. Having a civilian nuclear program also adds prestige to Saudi Arabia as an emerging market economy. For the US, a monopoly on contracting companies for the requisite construction offers lucrative economic opportunities. Although the Civilian Nuclear deal does not allow the enrichment of Uranium, the Saudis will be in a position to do so if Washington gives the green light. This will act as a counterbalanced threat hanging over the Iranians. After the recent flare up of renewed fighting with Iran due to their lack of adherence to the moratorium of understanding, something had to budge in Trump's estimation. A reconfiguration of the power balance in the Gulf by introducing the potential of Saudi Arabia to be able to acquire nuclear weapons shifts the dynamic and places further pressure on Iran to strictly abstain from nuclear proliferation. Despite Israeli concerns about the agreement, Trump sought to assuage their alarm by making it contingent upon Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with them. Given the inherently unstable nature of an autocratic Saudi regime Israel views a diplomatic relationship with the Saudis as being on precarious footing in the long term. Israel is already forced to contend with the implications of one nuclear armed Muslim state - Pakistan and it will further weaken its own deterrent capability if another similarly capable hostile neighbour were to emerge in the future. The roles of Turkey and Qatar in all this foray are a wild card. Officially Turkey is served under the NATO nuclear umbrella for defence that is subject to US control. However, its civilian nuclear program remains in its infancy. Now with the Saudi deal, Erdogan may be inclined to exert pressure on the US to help accelerate his own nuclear program. Just as Erdogan's efforts to acquire F35 fighter jets from the US greatly disturbed Israeli military planners, a heightened Turkish nuclear ability will intensify this fear. Qatar views itself as pursuing its own independent foreign policy that has managed to remain rather neutral during the current war, thereby escaping the ire of Iran's strikes on US regional assets. Overall, the Qatari government has grown closer to the Turkish vision for the region and so likely isn't particularly amiable to the Saudi agreement. Ultimately the Saudi deal is a gamble. Many will see it as throwing more fuel on the fire which will further imperil the tinder box region and heighten tensions. But Trump finds himself at a continuing impasse with a stubborn regime in Tehran that is leveraging their geographic hold on the straits of Hormuz to inflict damage on the global energy markets. Iranian strikes upon US Arab regional allies have underscored the de facto alliance between Israel and the Arabs against Iran and its Shia proxies. The US hopes to use the Saudi nuclear deal as a means of making this alliance official by having Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as a pre-condition.  (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Circling the Wagons

By David Passmore • July 14, 2026
Circling the wagons Ruben Rothler LLB, LLM Israel is a society riddled with tension and division. It is sociologically, if not politically miraculous that a country drawing Jews from all over the world is able to exist at all. The army affords a degree of integration as a melting pot. But this is only a marginal source of national unity in the overall scheme of things. More so are the myriads of external threats that face this small country. In the former generation the Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent) - Sephardic (Jews of Oriental descent) divide was far more pronounced. The dominant Ashkenazi establishment held the reins of political and economic power which was resented by the Sephardim. However, due to a combination of inter-marriage and political accommodation much of the chasm that separated these distinct groups was forged. Menachem Begin (an Ashkenazi politician) in 1970 successfully ran on the Likud Party ticket with a campaign that brought Sephardic Jews under his conservative political umbrella. Later the immigration of Russian Jews following the end of Communism would add a whole new dimension to the Israeli demographic milieu. The younger generation of these immigrants tended to adapt well to Israeli society and contributed much to the economy. The wider division in Israeli society that crosses ethnic lines concerns that between religious and secular Jews. This can be further bifurcated to the clash between the secular and specifically ultra-orthodox Jews (Haredim) as distinguished from the national religious Jews (Dati Leumi). The Secular and the Religious generally part on what they envisage a Jewish State to entail. Religious Jews desire the State to strictly adhere to the stipulations of Jewish Law (Halacha), while at present Halakhic influence is largely limited to certain areas of Family Law concerning Jewish citizens. Wider considerations of promoting a socially conservative political agenda would also be forefront amongst the religious mindset broadly. Secular Jews view the imposition of such proposed measures as a serious infringement of their civil rights. With regard to the Haredim, the bone of contention looms larger, in that this group is fundamentally opposed to participating in society at large. This is acutely manifested in diminished contribution to the work force and a refusal to be conscripted into the army. The 2023 judicial reform protests posed a significant threat to social civil order. The nation appeared to be bitterly divided into two opposing camps. This split reflected broader divisions concerning visions of how the country should be governed. The judicial reforms would have weakened the Supreme Court's ability to render the Executive branch accountable. However, the Supreme Court was also accused of using its considerable powers to promote a socially liberal agenda. Left wing secular Israelis tended to oppose the proposed reforms while those on the right (which included the majority of Religious Jews) supported the reforms. Every weekend droves of protesters were brought onto the streets causing major disturbances to traffic. The polarising nature of this impasse threatened the future of Israeli democracy. It was the October 7th attack that brought a swift end to this public debate and civil strife. The nation instinctually united in response to this common existential threat. The judicial reforms were shelved for a future point when the urgent security threats subsided. However, as the war dragged on the enduring issue of Haredi refusal to conscript into the army became more pronounced. Mounting casualties combined with ever increasing manpower demands to field troops on the multiple theatres of action on which the IDF is engaged has depleted the ranks, and the army is now in much need of fresh conscripts. Haredi belligerent refusal to participate in the pressing national defence has escalated from being a political debate to a matter of very practical vital importance. Overall we can observe that the challenges to national unity in successive generations since the establishment of Israel has recurrently been ameliorated by the common necessity of defence towards outside threats. Most recently we can see this happening with regard to the global anti Semitism and anti-Zionism that has been raging since the October 7th atrocities. These hostile attitudes have paradoxically acted as a force which promotes nationalism and a sense of national cohesion in Israel that otherwise might not functionally exist.  (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

A Divided Nation

By David Passmore • July 8, 2026
A Divided Nation Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM The Haredi community has had a complicated, paradoxical relationship with the State since its founding. Rooted in a Talmudic precept that the Jews are forbidden to resettle the land of Israel en masse by force before the coming of the Messiah, the secular democratic State of Israel presents itself as blasphemous by its mere existence. Yet due to practical considerations such as the need to obtain funding for its religious academies the Haredi leadership reached a settlement with the State's founders that exempted Haredi men from being conscripted for military service. This was at a time when the Haredi population in Israel was relatively small. Over the past decades this demographic ballooned until the point that soon the majority of Jewish children in Israel will be born into Haredi families. Such a situation is clearly unsustainable. Recently the Knesset's (Parliament's) Haredi parties have pressured their coalition partners in government to codify Torah Study as part of the Country's Basic Laws. This was purposefully done to elevate the status of their institutions to be on parity with service in the IDF. Israel is yet to promulgate a written Constitution, so legislation classed as a Basic Law holds Constitutional status for all intents and purposes. These moves by the religious parties represent a back door power grab to enshrine in law very significant hurdles to prevent the enlistment of Haredi men. The burden of Israel's defence is comparatively massive for a country its size and it is vastly disproportionately shouldered by the secular population. Until now there have been political initiatives to conscript the Haredim. But given the huge manpower shortages emerging in the wake of near continual conflict on multiple fronts since the events of October 7th this matter has become urgent and not merely a theoretical discussion of what is fair and equitable. It is important to draw a distinction between the Haredim and national religious Jews (Dati Leumi). The Haredim adhere to a lifestyle entirely committed to observance of Jewish Law and Talmudic study. This is embraced to the exclusion of gainful employment and participation in wider society. They are either outrightly opposed to Zionism or consider themselves non-Zionist. Conversely, followers of the national religious movement in Israel although being observant of Jewish law and learning would alongside this pursue secular professions. Furthermore, they are ardently Zionist and disproportionately serve in IDF combat units. This is often done within the framework of a program called Hesder Yeshiva that combines religious learning with military service. Efforts to cater a similar model for accommodating Haredi participation in the IDF have so far failed to make substantial gains. Such measures designed to override Haredi objections to service based upon modesty concerns by strict segregation of the sexes in these specially formed units have failed to appease the Haredi leadership. For them, any form of military service is considered a dereliction of their duty to fully devote themselves to a Torah lifestyle. They argue that their Talmudic learning and prayers are in itself a form of national service and act to protect the Jewish people spiritually from enemy attack. It is as if two parallel societies exist within Israel. And the trajectory of separation between the two is only growing. The Haredim are cloistered away in their Yeshivas, immersed in lives devoted to adhering to the stipulations of Jewish law. While the particulars of actually running the State is left to the Secular. The Haredim desire all the benefits of subsidizing their lifestyle without contributing to society. What we really have going on here at source is two profoundly different and opposing ideological visions of what is important in life and what is the purpose of a Jewish State. At the State's founding these divergent perspectives were more manageable. Ben Gurion only had to contend with one religious party –the National Religious Party. Later in 1970 Begin aligned with the NRP to form a coalition government that also brought Sephardic Jews under the Likud umbrella which had the effect of bringing unity to the country by bridging the Ashkenazi-Sephardi divide. However, over time Israeli politics has seen a proliferation of religious parties, gaining further leverage as king brokers in forming governments due to the proportionate representation voting system which secular Israelis not uncommonly view as political blackmail. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Why Is It Always Israel? | Zechariah 12 Is Happening Before Our Eyes

By David Passmore • June 29, 2026