: Welcome to Aggressive Life with a bonus episode. It's one of those episodes I really wish that we weren't doing and didn't have to do. As we all know, the atrocities of war are back in our faces in news feeds with what's happening in Israel and Palestine. As of this recording, there is 1,300 people who are dead in Israel. That equates to 45,000 Americans. By comparison, 9-11 was 3,000 Americans and it rocked our entire nation. This is the equivalent in terms of population size, the 45,000 Americans for us. We all like soundbite answers, and there's just not a lot of soundbite answers, because even though I've been over to Israel 15 times, I would say I'm pretty well informed of all things Israel. It's still complex and confusing to me. And I know there's a portion of what I believe and think that is wrong. I don't know what it is, or I would change it. It's just complicated. So I'm in this place where a lot of us are. What do we do? This country or this city, Jerusalem, Psalm says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It is crazy that an area of the world stays at the center of relevancy in the world. for thousands and thousands of years. There hasn't been any country for thousands and thousands of years that's been relevant or at the center of discussions like Israel has, because there's something happening over there in the spiritual realm. To help us today to understand it, not so much the conflict with Hamas, we need to understand that. We also need to do something about it. By the way, the organization I lead is putting $100,000 into Convoy of Hope. That's going to be. taking care and relief to 20,000 Palestinian and Israelis that are inside the borders who are in the midst of this. They're going to be buying supplies in Israel. And then they're going to be distributing those supplies to help people. So we need to be engaged with this in a significant way. But we also need to better understand. A good friend of mine who is very involved in Israel, Kalev Myers, I had him on the podcast a while ago. And we're just going to replay that podcast. Because if you want to understand more about what's happening there holistically, you might get something from Calev. So here we go. Thanks for tuning in to Aggressive Life. We're going to talk about today the most important political issue in our time, the issue that just will not go away, the issue that is still at the center of geopolitical activities with all nations across the international spectrum, the issue that is the most ancient issue that of all in all of politics. What issue am I talking about? The issue that's charged with race, the issue that's charged with religion. The issue that's charged with making the aggressive life a half decent broadcast. We're talking about Israel. Yes, Israel and Palestine, the Palestinian crisis, the West Bank, East Bank, North Bank, South Bank, whatever the heck the bank, Wells Fargo Bank. I can't even keep all these banks straight in my mind. Seriously, folks, we just seemingly calmed down over in Israel with the latest brush up. It just keeps coming up again and again. And I thought we'd have a a level ahead of discussion about it. This is kind of my aggressive move because I know, I know, I know some of you, like, you already know what you think about this. And the reason why a person like me wouldn't do this is because you're going to email me that I didn't say this or I should have said that. And everyone's going to send me, everyone's going to send me some podcast. If you heard what this guy said, if you heard what this guy, no, I haven't heard what that guy said. Or maybe I have. It doesn't matter. I'm tired. I'm tired of everyone thinking you have the answer. And maybe I don't have the answer. Maybe my guest doesn't have the answer. But we're going to actually talk about it because it's an issue that affects all of us. Who is my guest today? My guest is an Israeli resident. His name is Kalev Myers. Kalev is a lawyer specializing in, among other things, immigration and civil rights law. He's an author and civil rights activist who has advocated for the rights of Palestinians before international government bodies, including the European Parliament. Kalev is founder of Alliance to Reinforce Israel's Security and Economy, also known as ARISE, whose work can be best summed up in their slogan Make Jobs, Not War. He strongly encourages economic collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians as the best hope for a peaceful existence. I've found Kalev's insights very, very helpful. I found him to be a personally invigorating friend. He's a manly man, a totally manly man. Jiu-Jitsu champion. Of course he would choose that sport. He's a Jiu-Jitsu champion. Kalev Myers, welcome to the Aggressive Life. Thank you. It's great to talk to you again, Brian. All right, Kalev, let's talk. Let's talk Israel. What is the problem with you people over there? Why, why, why can't you get your stuff, your, your stuff together? Well, well, well. Why the rest of the world have to look in on you guys and have your problems dictating our happiness? What is wrong with you people? Yeah, what's wrong with us is that we actually had the audacity after the horrible, you know, things that took place about a century ago, about 80 years ago in the 1930s and 1940s, you know, after systematic annihilation. in the concentration camps of the Holocaust, our leadership decided, like you said, to take an aggressive stance and to take our destiny into our own hands and not to play the victim card, but to actually come back to this land and build a country. And that is very offensive to other people who don't wanna see a Jewish state. in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. And that's really what it comes down to. We decided to take our lives and our destinies and our future under our own hands and actually build something that would be good for us and good for our neighbors and good for everybody else. Basic problem, Brian, is this doesn't fit in with basic Islamic eschatology. Like there's no... If you're talking about fundamental Islam, you know, it's really a religion of world domination. And there's no room for anything but a caliphate and, you know, an Islamic dictatorship, certainly in the Middle East and according to Hamas, anywhere in the world. So our existence is a big problem to them. So let's make this remedial here at this point, because, you know, a lot of folks have not dug into this and... A lot of us just don't remember anything about World War II because we weren't alive. You know, the basic thumbnail is Holocaust, wiped out, eliminated, 6 million Jews. And it was something that garnered world attention. There was this amazing level of empathy and compassion that went out from the world for what this awful thing had happened. And what do you know, the Truman administration, after World War II, along after some lobbying had happened, decided to throw their weight behind a Jewish state to create a Jewish state in an area where there was a bunch of disparate people groups. Like to think it's all Palestinians as one specific country that they inhabited. That was a bunch of disparate people groups. Since 1948, there has been Jews from around the world that are emigrating to that state. And you've got this hotbed of conflict now because people... who were there, they have claimed that they were there before 1948 and their ancestors and all that stuff. And they shouldn't be forced to live under Israeli rule. And this is the situation we have right now. Am I summing it up correctly? Yeah, in broad strokes, I think that's accurate. That's the basic gist of it. But just give us a better understanding of the term, the terminology. I mean, I've been to Israel 15 times. I've been in there, I've walked all these sites. I've been in every corner of the Holy Land multiple times. I've interacted with Arabs, with Jews, with just all different kind of people groups. And it's been a very, very enlightening experience for me every single time. And yet I still get confused. That's me, that's me. I know the average person, I bet nine out of 10 people, when they listen to the things in the news, they have no idea what people are talking about. So just like tell them, Gaza. West Bank, I mean, what, help us understand what these names mean and, and how that equates to tension within the Israel borders or near the Israel borders. Yeah, I know that this can be very confusing, but in general, if you look at the map of Israel, Brian, you usually see a chunk kind of carved out on the left-hand side and that, that would be the Gaza Strip. So it's just right on the Mediterranean ocean in the corner between Israel and Egypt. And then you see a chunk kind of cut out on the right hand side, which would be the West Bank. It's the West Bank of the Jordan River, actually. So it's between Israel and the Jordan River and actually the state of Jordan. So you have Gaza to the west and what we call the West Bank of the Jordan River to the east. In both of these areas after 1948, Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank was controlled by Jordan. Those countries are there. They never declared a Palestinian state. Nobody expected them to. Nobody asked them to. Because it was Arab Muslim rule over Arab Muslims and that was fine with everybody. But when we were attacked by six nations in 1967, what we refer now to the Six Day War, Israel in a defensive war took over both of those areas. The Gaza Strip, it took from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. And shortly after that, the PLO, or the Palestinian Liberation Organization run at that time by Yasser Arafat, said that they would do everything they could to create a Palestinian state. Actually, not only in those areas, but in the whole, what they call Palestine, which is a whole map of Israel. But basically, their claims have been reduced over the years to those two areas, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. in the Oslo Accords in 1994. I don't want to get too complicated, but an entity was created called the Palestinian Authority, which does, it's a type of governmental administration of the Palestinians in those two areas, but they haven't been recognized yet as a full state. So there is the tension. We've got so many things that are happening here. In modern day America, we don't like the consequences for any of our actions. That's what the passive weenie boys and weenie girls of America like, no consequences ever. Things should just go well with you. And we don't understand that when you start a fight and then you lose, there's consequences. You start a fight, you get punched in the nose, you get a broken nose, that's the way it is. And when these countries all set out to eliminate and wipe Israel from the map, everyone came in, this is just basic history, everyone came in to eliminate Israel. And miraculously, and people would argue divinely miraculously, Israel had no business winning that war. They did. Guess what? You beat up the bull, you get to keep his lunch. You get to keep his land. And especially when his land is a threat to you. Every single country that borders Israel has all gone the record saying, they all want to wipe out and eliminate the nation of Israel. Is that true? That is true. I mean, we have since that time a sign on peace accords, both with Egypt and Jordan. But it's true of all the other nations around us. But I want to say also that immediately after we took these territories over, Israel told the UN, we're willing to pull back and let a Palestinian state or Palestinian independence be creating these areas if we can find a solution that protects our security. And so if they stop attacking us and firing rockets at us and sending terrorists from these areas, and we're confident that whatever state is created there would live in peace and security with us, we will draw any kind of military occupation. And the other thing is that we took over Jerusalem at that time, and soldiers actually climbed up on top of the dome of the mountain and put an Israeli flag up there. Our chief of staff at that time, Moshe Dayan. immediately told them within minutes to take it down, that we're going to allow, we're going to respect Muslim holy sites along with all the other holy sites and we're going to provide free access for every religion, you know, to their holy sites in Jerusalem. And so Israel has really done everything it can, I think, to respect the rights and feelings of those minorities, both in East Jerusalem and also consistently said, we're willing. We're willing to withdraw and recognize the state if we actually have a partner that will withdraw its, its declarations of destroying us. Yeah, that's pretty ominous right there. I mean, imagine us as the United States, if Canada and Mexico, you know, they said, Hey, ultimately once you gone, that, that would, that would not bode well for us and there would be actions, but you've got all your neighbors, well, most of them anyway. who are saying that. And then on top of that, the complication is you've got all these splinter groups in and around your country, and I do mean in your country, that they can't be controlled anyway. Why, Hamas, who does Hamas answer to? Hamas doesn't answer to anybody. They're an organization that was created out of the Muslim Brotherhood. And the other difficult thing is that, so there were Palestinians that were displaced and there's a huge... Let's look at the crisis or the conflict through the lenses of refugee crisis. At that time around 1948, the post-World War II era, there was a huge population exchange. As we were fighting our war of independence and this violence was taking place, there were 350,000 Jews that were forcefully expelled from Arab nations and they came into Israel where you feel full citizenship, rights, work, everything else. There were about 720,000 Palestinians that went into Arab nations or even... both the West Bank and Gaza. And from that time until today, they're the only post-World War II group that still recognized as refugees. And so one of the problems is, they, you know, Gaza is completely controlled by Hamas, and 80% of its residents still see themselves as refugees. So they get all this money from the United States, Europe, the United Nations, which they're supposed to use to improve the life of the refugees, build infrastructure, and everything else. But instead of that, They're just stockpile weapons and then every few years, you know, we'll have a flare-up like this and then they'll fire thousands of rockets at Israel. By the way, in order to create the ceasefire, they received a commitment from Egypt to give them another $500 million, another $330 million from the United States, which is your tax money, which is going to Hamas and Gaza, you should be aware of that, as well as a $300 million from Qatar. So they walked away from... this violence with another billion dollars in their coffers. And the question is, is somebody actually going to make sure that this money is being used to improve the life of the Palestinians in Gaza, instead of just again, stockpiling weapons that again, in another four or five years, we're going to have another one of these flare ups. It's, you know, so it's, it's kind of the cycle of pimping poverty in a way in order to raise funds, uh, you know, and then instead of helping the people, they're actually, you know, attacking Israel. So here's my tension on this, Clev. I. I'm a guy who reads the Bible. Shocker. I'm a pastor. I actually read. Not only do I read it, I actually believe it. Not only do I believe it, I actually do it. At least I try to. So I read this and there are just a lot of verses in there that are just copy paste pro-Israel verses, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, you know, God's chosen remnant, just chalk through that. Now, of course, you can interpret. scriptures any way you choose to or any way you think is the right way. But there's just a lot in there. Okay. So anybody who reads the Bible seriously and diligently, I think is going to come away with a soft spot in their heart to any nation that's called Israel. Okay. Now, having said that, when I go to, for our listeners to know, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is in Palestinian occupied territory. It is. Still, it is part of Israel. It's under Israel's authority, but they basically carved out a section and said, okay, we're not going to flex our muscles inside of here, at least not too much. You can run your own society. Here's the thing, but we're going to make sure we have gates that you're not going to be able to send bombers over to blow us up. We're going to have ways for the, they're kind of, you just can't come over and do bad stuff. So you've got your thing under authority, but we're going to try to keep, keep you all contained. And I interact with, you know, one guy. over there who was a guide and he said, let me tell you what my life was like. I can't fly anywhere. So I can't get out to go to the airport in Israel. And if I want to go to any place, I got to go to Jordan. It's like a three day trip to go through all the checkpoints, everything. He said, I'm literally just, I'm locked inside of a cage. My heart goes out to him like, oh man, that's tough. That guy just got born there. That's all he did. He got born there and he's got to deal with that. And then another guy actually was a tour guide, believe it or not. tour guide that was taking us through Bethlehem. He said, let me ask you this, you Americans, when you have a revolution, when you decide that the nation of England is subverting your freedoms and you decide to overtake them, you are revolutionaries. But when we do the same, we are terrorists. Why is it that you get the name revolutionaries and we are called terrorists? And I went. I bet. Zero response. So that's my conundrum in this. What do you say to that? First of all, there's no question that the Palestinians are definitely suffering, and we have to recognize that. And you know, Bethlehem, these people you're speaking to, that is part of the West Bank. So it's, you know, under the Palestinian Authority administration, they're between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, Israel controls very carefully who it gives permission to come through the checkpoints and to work in Israel. By the way, between 150,000 to 200,000 Palestinians every day go through those checkpoints to work in Israel. And, you know, they put food on the table, on average, for about 10 people per salary, because there's, in the Palestinian Authority, you have intergenerational cohabitation, grandparents living with parents, living with children. So you have over a million Palestinians that their very livelihood and the bread on their tables is created by jobs in Israel, right? So But you are probably speaking to people that do not have permission to come in and work in Israel. Maybe it's not in the areas of industry or jobs that give permits. And so it's true. So if they want to travel internationally, they would have to go over to Jordan and fly out of Amman. And that creates an inconvenience. And so it's right. They're between a rock and a hard place because they can't enter into Israel freely, but then the Palestinian Authority is a dictatorial police state, which has people sitting in jail right now just for expressing political opinions. And sometimes those people are tortured and even killed. So it's not a night. Any of those Palestinians would give their left leg to have Israeli citizenship and all of the social benefits and the civil rights and everything that comes with it. on the other side of the border and the quality of my life. And they're very envious of that. And my heart goes out to them. They have a lot of pain and suffering. And it's really because of this unresolved political conflict, there's no question. So you work for an organization that's trying to bring justice for Jews and Palestinians. You are Jewish, so I would assume you're always going to lean towards the side of Israel versus the Muslim world or the Palestinians. I would, I'm always going to lean towards the side of America than I am those damn Canadians and Mexicans. That's for darn sure. But you know, I got, you lean towards Israel, but I also know that you're, you know, you're level headed guy and you do love all people and you've got organizations that are trying to help all people. What do we do? What, what's the aggressive move here? What, if we get Kalev Meyers elected prime minister of Israel, what's the play? I think it really comes down to... looking for solutions that improve the quality of life of both people on both sides of the conflict. And that's not always easy to do. You have to fight to do that. For instance, just a practical, you know, in this situation with Hamas, I talked about them, they're about to receive billions of dollars of aid now after the fighting and so on and so forth. Why don't the people who send the aid actually go in there and hire building contractors themselves to make sure that hospitals and schools and proper infrastructure is being built and not just shoveling money over to Hamas? to, you know, which will then use it for military purposes and terrorism. So there's a proper way to make sure if we're going to help in the situation. that we're actually improving the lives of people on the ground and not making it worse. And so, but the reason I come to that, let me talk for a second about the damn Canadians and damn Mexicans, okay? You know, the difference between you and I, Brian, is the same difference between you and the Mexicans or the Canadians. At the DNA level, every human being is 99.9% identical. So every difference between you and I, eye color, skin color, whatever, you know, our of our DNA. It's really, it's, you know, and so within human nature we have this tendency to attack everybody even though we're all made from the same material. You know, whether it's the Mexicans, the Canadians, the Palestinians, or anyone else, the difference between me and a Hamas terrorist at the DNA level is only 0.1%. Now does that mean I'm just gonna roll over and let them do whatever they want and not, you know, not implement my God-given right to self defense? Absolutely not. You know, we're going to do everything we can to protect our people, but we're also going to look for solutions that will bring down the flames of conflict and create a situation of more peace, more security and better life for both peoples. I think that's our God-given responsibility right there. Okay. But we're all the way over here in America. The thing that bothers us about this is we're tired of talking about it. I mean, we certainly don't like explosions in foreign countries. We don't. We don't like the tension that's there. A lot of us are just, it comes up here, it is again. Why should we care? Why should the average American care about this conflict or this problem? I think the average American should care about the problem for a few reasons. I think that, and you're right, this is the world all the way on the other side of the world and why does it make a difference to me and so on and so forth. Right now in the United States, there is more anti-Semitism, more anti-Semitic attacks than there's ever been. People are attacking Jews in the street in California, in New York, Los Angeles, and the Jews that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but you have radical people marching through the streets saying, you know, F the Jews and rape their daughters and terrible signs and, you know, and attacking, just over the last few years, people have actually firebombed synagogues in the United States. And I think when you see that kind of anti-Semitism and violence taking place where you live, I think it is the responsibility of American Christians to stand up and say, hey, not on my watch. And it's very important to do that. There's only about... 13 million Jews in the world and you know, they some of the celebrities, you know I don't know if I should mention names some of the celebrities that I just had put it blamed Anti-semitic material up on their pages. Yes, 30. Yes. Yes mention. It's it's aggressive life mention them well, I mean I can I can mention a guy like Roger what I waters right and So he has tens of millions of followers. The amount of followers he has on social network, on social media is more than all the Jews in the world, right? And so just by putting out one anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli comment, justifying boycotts and sanctions and let's attack Israel, is a horrible thing. And then you want to see your Christian friends. You know, I'm not saying I want every evangelical Christian to say we're going to support Israel and... and be against the Palestinians, quite the opposite. I want voices to stand up and say, wait a second, we shouldn't even be taking sides, or everybody's creating God's image. I can support Israel without hating the Palestinians. I can support the Palestinians without hating Israel. And this type of blatant hatred and anti-Semitism is unacceptable in my community and in my social network. And really, you know, standing up against this kind of nonsense that really shouldn't, you shouldn't be having that in the United States. Kalev, are you ready for the lightning round? I'm ready, yeah. All right. I ask you a question and you answer it like one to two sentences. Very simple questions like this. So what's the answer? That's how you could do it one answer. Well, you know, one sentence, right? Just what is the answer to the conflict? What do we do? Moral clarity. That's the answer. Okay. If Kalev Myers was prime minister of Israel, I would. I would, I would be unforgiving in my military response to every terrorist threat. But at the same time, I would aggressively pursue negotiations with the Palestinians to try to come up with, with a, with an agreed permanent solution to the issue. Should Palestinians be given citizenship to Israel? I think the Palestinians in the West Bank should be given citizenship in Israel. They would go from being about 20% to 30% in our society, which I think is acceptable. It would change dynamics in our political situation, but it wouldn't be a... The Jews would still be a minority, and so we wouldn't be... We wouldn't be threatened with becoming kind of the 24th Islamic dictatorship in the Middle East. I don't think Palestinians in Gaza should be given citizenship in Israel. You have two million Palestinians there. No Jews are living there, unlike the West Bank where you have both Jews and Palestinians living together. It's 100% Arab Muslims controlled by Hamas. I think that, you know, Egypt, it would be great if Egypt would take more responsibility for what's happening there, or the international community. I don't see... you know, granting them Israeli citizenship is something that should never happen. How you pray when it comes to this conflict or what you pray? I pray always, you know, we're instructed, everyone around the world's instructed to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. So I pray for a you know, a peace and a ceasefire as soon as possible that as many innocent lives would be saved. And I also pray, I think the greatest, this is what I pray every day, I'm a very simple guy, Ryan, but I believe the greatest prayer that any human being can pray is, God, make my life an answer to somebody else's prayer. And you have so many hurting people in the midst of these conflicts, and it's like, give me an opportunity. I can tell you stories, you know, every time. that happens, I get teary-eyed because, you know, and I was reaching out to some of my Arab Palestinian friends during this conflict, and they would just hug me and thank me, and being that guy that's just like, you know, and answered other people's prayer, where people feel like nobody's listening to them, and, you know, they're being abused by this violence, being that voice, being that light, that's what I want, that's what I want my life to be. Something you love about Israeli culture. Now remember, this is a lightning round. Something you love about Israeli culture. I love the directness of Israeli culture. You know, when you talk to an Israeli woman and say good morning, she doesn't think 20 times. What does he actually mean? You know what I mean? So there's, on one hand we lack politeness, but on the other hand, it's a refreshing directness. You always know everything's on the table. You know where we stand, and I like that. something you love about Palestinian culture? What I love about Palestinian culture is their manners, their politeness and their hospitality. I think we as Israelis can learn a lot. So if we're on the very direct side of the spectrum to the point of rudeness, Palestinians are on the very, very polite side of the spectrum. which can lead to duplicity, but I think there's a lot we can learn from them. It just had to be kinder and more respecting and honoring, whether it's our guests or our customers or anything else. How do you deal with the fear of living in a conflict zone? You know, I actually, maybe it's my personality, maybe it's because of faith. I don't live in a lot of fear, Brian. I was pumping my car about a week and a half ago, heard some explosions behind me. I looked on the other side of the highway and there's pillars of smoke going up. Everybody the gas stations running for cover. It was obvious. It was it was a rocket. It was a rocket landing, you know about Let's say in American terms 200 or 300 yards from where I was standing. I didn't feel any sense of fear whatsoever, I just thought, you know, thank God that didn't land on me. It might have been 200 yards or more, but in Gaza, that's a difference of maybe half a millimeter of where they're aiming the darn thing, you know. And so, you know, I got in my Jeep and drove back to my home and then just make sure my family was okay and, you know, everything was fine. But I wouldn't say I deal with a lot of fear. I don't do stupid things. But I trust God that, you know, if my life is, you know, in his will, he's got my back covered. What sets your mentality apart from some of the other responses? I think it really comes down to an issue of faith, Brian. Are we living within a bigger story within God's story or is God living within our little story? and if you don't have some kind of higher power that you believe is really in control of things and that you're not gonna die until Your time has come then there's a huge level of uncertainty and these kind of events can create terrible trauma because it's like Your life flashes before your eyes you think might be over and you know and that and it's very difficult to kind of live Under that cloud of fear and uncertainty it comes down to my faith in God Kalev, this has been great. Is there anything you want to leave with us? If someone wants to follow up with you or know what you're doing, just go ahead and give us an advertisement for yourself. Yeah, no problem. If you want to get in touch with me, you can go to ariseforisrael.com. Just those letters and those words, ariseforisrael.com. Reach out to us. If you want more information, updates, balance updates regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and and other cool stuff. You can sign up for a newsletter there, or you can email me. I'd love to stay connected. And thank you, Brian, for reaching out. And Crossroads, I should say, has been a faithful supporter of Arise, and I appreciate that. I wanna thank all the people in your community for standing up and trying to be a blessing for both Israelis and Palestinians to do the work that we do over here. So thank you for that. Well, I hope that was helpful for you. Psalm 122.6 says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We should be praying for peace in that area for all people who live within the borders. That means Palestinians and Israelis. If you're moved, you want to do something financially, you can support Clev and his work at ariseforisrael.com. That's ariseforisrael.com. Or if you want to deal with some basic relief supplies, like we're engaged with, you can go Convoyofhope.org, convoyofhope.org. We'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes and live events over at bryantome.com. My new books, a repackaged edition of The Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps get the show in front of new listeners. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram, at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.