"Commander: You saved lives!"

Last night was pretty amazing. I don’t want to bury the lead, so let me get right to it. Your gifts have saved lives! Over 100 soldiers and their wives gathered last night in Tel Aviv for a banquet you paid for. These guys have been on the front lines in the north for four months straight. Most of the world’s focus is on Gaza; people are not aware that we have another battlefront on the border of Lebanon with the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

I’ve told you about Dovev, who I thought was the commander of this unit. It turns out that he is second in command. With Hebrew being my second language, I’m always getting a few things wrong. I met the mem-peh (Israel is full of acronyms. A mem-peh is short for miphaked pluga—unit commander) last night, and he wanted me to thank you!

I don’t know if you remember, but about two months ago, this unit requested help purchasing new observation equipment. Hezbollah had successfully destroyed their ability to see the enemy. Soldiers were risking their lives with every attempt to observe Hezbollah. A group of 10 engineers and scientists worked around the clock to create a hack. Within a few days, they succeeded, but each new unit cost $5000.

Dovev was embarrassed to ask for the full amount. He kept saying, “Whatever you can give.” Through your gifts, we bought a full unit for them. The Mem-Peh (commander) told me last night, with a huge smile, that the observation unit that we bought them was a game-changer in their fight against Hezbollah! He told me, “Since then, every unit in the north has been purchasing them.” He said that the cameras you bought saved lives!



During the evening, they gave out different awards and gifts of appreciation to injured soldiers (fortunately, no one fell in battle), their commanders, and those who had helped the unit. At the end, they called up Elana and me to thank us. I had already told the commanders that it was not us but our amazing donors. So, even though they’re thanking us in the video, they are thanking you! 

They have to report back to duty soon and spend a month in Gaza. Please pray for them! Then, they will be off until August.

We invited a few of our Israeli friends, who are not believers, to come to the event. They know very well what we believe, and they were deeply moved by the evening. This is not a ministry in which we ever planned to be involved, but we are honored for the opportunity to step up during what has been the most difficult four months in the modern state of Israel’s 76-year history.

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Brazil Stands up!

Last week Brazil’s far-left president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, compared Israel to Nazis!

"What's happening in the Gaza Strip isn't a war. It's genocide. What's happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has almost never happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it happened only once, when Hitler decided to kill the Jews."

Over 1 million Brazilians expressed their support for Israel

over the weekend.

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There are huge differences between Israel’s battle with Gaza and the Holocaust. It is sad that I even have to state the differences.  



1.     The Holocaust was a systematic racist plot to murder all the Jews of Europe, over 9 million. The Gaza operation is simply to get our hostages back and eliminate Hamas so they can never do this again.

2.     There were no Jews, thanking Hitler. But many Palestinians are thanking the Israeli army for going after Hamas. There is much video testimony of this.

3.     Hamas says around 29,000 people have died in Gaza, and Israel claims around 12,000 to 13,000 of them are terrorists. This number has slowed dramatically over the last month after the initial wave of bombing. In Europe, six million Jews were systematically murdered.

4.     There’s nothing that Jewish people could’ve done to stop Hitler. Hamas could stop this war tomorrow by letting our hostages go free and laying down their weapons. The Jews of Europe did nothing to provoke Hitler. More than 3000 Hamas terrorists poured into Israel on October 7, committing unspeakable crimes. They murdered whole families in cold blood, 1200 people in all. They raped teenagers. They took 246 hostages.

5.     The Jews of Europe were like lambs led to the slaughter. Hamas is nothing like that but are leading their own people to destruction. In 18 years of being in power, they have done nothing to improve the condition of the Palestinian people—and have stolen their aid money to enrich themselves and build an underground terror city. They use women and children as human shields and then use them as propaganda when they die. They have zero concern for the lives of their own people.

6.     Hitler wanted to take over Europe and promote his master race. Jewish people have been trying to live in peace in their ancient homeland (because the Holocaust taught us that no other nation will protect us) for 76 years and have given up far more land than she has taken. (In 1979, Israel gave back the entire Sinai desert to Egypt in exchange for peace. In 2000, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon [a very dumb move] and invited Hezbollah to our northern border. In 2005, Israel completely left Gaza. Every Jew and every Israeli soldier were evacuated. We just want to live in peace.

7.     And ironically, most of the world appeased Hitler until they couldn’t anymore. With Israel, it didn’t take the world 24 hours before ‘the Zionists’ were condemned for Hamas’s actions: in Sydney, Australia, in London, England, on the campuses of Harvard and Columbia (among other universities), and all throughout the Middle East.

Fortunately, the people of Brazil weren’t too impressed with their president’s anti-Semitic rhetoric. Over 1 million Brazilians poured out into the streets over the weekend to express their support for Israel. I can’t wait to go to Brazil in June for several days of ministry at a conference in São Paulo!

Thank you, friends, for standing with Israel. We are not a perfect nation and I could list for you a lot of our problems. But the truth is, we simply want to live in peace. If we are not strong, we will be eliminated. It’s really that simple.