By David Lane
Striker Summary: Hatred for Jews has been motivating Muslims to work for their destruction for centuries. This demonic ideology must be defeated by something other than mere military armaments. The hearts of the Palestinian people have to be changed spiritually by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Secular regimes are not up to this task.
The column below brought to you courtesy of Striker Journal …
Sign up to receive email notifications of each new Striker Journal article! Click here: Scroll down to “Follow My Blog”, add your email address, subscribe.
by David Lane
Sheikh Hassan Yousef [born 1955] is a Palestinian West Bank leader and co-founder of Hamas. He represents the extremist faction Hamas and has spent 23 years in and out of Israeli prisons.
Mosab Hassan Yousef [born 1978] is the eldest of the sheik’s 6 sons and 3 daughters and was regarded as his father’s heir apparent. Mosab was first arrested and jailed when he was 10 years old during the First Palestine Intifada for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers.
Mosab was interviewed last week at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York 2024. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzbPwr6HXWI&t=6s
In 1999, Mosab met a British missionary who introduced him to Christianity, and in August 2008, he was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv. Israel’s daily newspaper, Ha’aretz 2011, featured a story on Mosab Yousef’s conversion to Christ.1
His father in prison broke down and cried when he heard the news, only to be consoled by Muslim leaders and Israeli guards. Yet, Sheikh Yousef refused to disown his son, knowing it would bring certain death from Hamas.
In his renunciation of Hamas and Arab leadership, Mosab placed himself in God’s hands and his family in Ramallah in harm’s way.
Mosab’s remarks at the conference in New York were most interesting. The slaughter of Jews at the hands of Muslims, he said, has been going on for 14 centuries, and the ideological dimension of the Gaza war cannot be ignored.
The Koran, he noted, encourages Muslims to kill and harm Jews, “Why is scripture inciting [violence] against the Jewish people? This is not only about Palestine; Palestine is non-existential; it’s just a device that the Muslims use as a weapon against Israelis and as a weapon against the Jewish people.
“Fundamentally, Muslims think that Allah hates the Jewish people, and how can they love the Jewish people if their god, whom they bow to 20 times a day, hates the Jewish people? In my opinion, Palestine, the Palestinian Authority [PLO], Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Muslim Brotherhood are inspired by the same death cult.
“Palestine depends on the destruction of Israel. If there is any definition of Palestine, it means the absence of Israel; this is what Palestine is now. They got legitimacy somehow, but we ask them what Palestine is. Is it an ethnic group? Is it a religion? Is it a distinct language? Do you have scripture? Are you a nation? Where is your country?
“So what is Palestine, and what is its purpose? We are dealing with an ideology. Palestine is not a country; it should not get more legitimacy because it’s only an ideology. This ideology needs to be countered; as long as the false narrative exists, it will keep rolling like a snowball, and we will have to deal with the consequences.
“You give them Jerusalem tomorrow, then they will say we want West Jerusalem. If you give them the 1967 [border], they will say, ‘I want the whole thing,’ and they will continue to be hostile, so now we are in trouble. It’s a big problem. Palestine will not solve the human condition in the West Bank.”
In America, Islamic propaganda has sought to refashion Israel as Hamas – from the point of view of virtue, legitimacy, diplomacy, and justice – and Hamas has been refashioned as Israel.2
The glee, energy, and enthusiasm for Hamas on college campuses is the canary in the coal mine of an ideology that has been embedded in the youth of America for over the last 50 years.
So let’s be clear, the false claim of genocide in Gaza is Islamic propaganda; Hamas initiated a war with Israel when its commandoes raped, tortured, and slaughtered 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, and then kidnapped an additional 250 men, women, elderly, and infants.
Hopefully, a few are still alive; we pray for their rescue. We have seen the footage of the Hamas body cam footage.
Yet, the sympathy on many college campuses in America since the October 7, 2023, has not been with the victims but with the perpetrators. Too many people mistake the victim for the oppressor, the underdog for the overdog – and those who fight terrorism with those who dream of it … and bring up their children to love it from the cradle.3
Forty years ago, President Ronald Reagan kicked around the conundrum of ideology and warfare and asked, “Can we destroy an ideology with bombs, bullets, and cruise missiles?”
He concluded that the only way to defeat the Soviet anti-god ideology was with the God Jehovah found in Scripture. It should be remembered that U.S. foreign policy for decades had attempted to keep the Soviet Union at bay through mutual assured destruction [MAD].
MAD was a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy that posited that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.
President Reagan began thinking outside the box regarding the struggle with the Soviet Union and thus originated a strategy to counter Lenin’s godless ideology with Biblical truth: Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Lord of Life.
Dr. Paul Kengor tells the story in his 2004 book God and Ronald Reagan, A Spiritual Life.
During a 1997 state visit to the Soviet Union, President Reagan ended his impromptu remarks at Spaso House with “Thank you and God bless you,” which was broadcast live on television nationwide.
For Reagan, every word he spoke to the Soviet people was an opportunity to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the equation.
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s [1931-2022] translator, Igor Korchilov, recorded in his notes that Reagan’s words that day rang like blasphemy, “The heretofore impregnable edifice of Communist atheism was being assaulted before their very eyes.”4
This brings us again to Palestine, not a country but an ideology. The collapse of Hamas, the impending defeat of Islamic Jihad, and the peaceful existence with Iran can only be brought about by something totally different from bombs, bullets, and cruise missiles.
Not only has God to be brought into the equation, but those living their lives in rebellion against God in the nation’s secular State are fully unequipped for the battle.
John N. Oswalt [born 1940], an American scholar and distinguished professor of the Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, correctly says, “History is not out of control nor in the hand of some demon who wishes to destroy Israel.”5
Gideons and Rahabs are entering America’s public square.
David Lane
American Renewal Project
2. Daniel Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a public diplomacy and research institute in Jerusalem, Israel.
3.www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jIKtlBYyzM
4. http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/october/ronald-reagans-mission-trip-to-moscow.html
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Striker Journal.
Image: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ; https://www.deviantart.com/muhammadibnabdullah/art/Palestine-will-live-209894089
Striker Journal 