Upholding the Constitutional and Moral Compass in Chaotic Times for Israel- with Scott Faith

Rick Green

You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. It's WallBuilders and we're taking on those hot topics from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach and a former Texas legislator, and what a privilege and honor it is for me to be here with David and Tim Barton. These guys, I'm telling you, the Barton family folks, has done more to restore America's Constitution, our founding fathers' principles, the biblical foundation of this country, than maybe any other family in the country. I just I'm telling you it's phenomenal to see how much of their work over the last 30 years has made such a difference. And you know, even watching President Trump's speech last week about restoring these things and getting the Bible back into the culture, I mean those are the things that God put on David Barton's heart 30 years ago and that he started speaking about it. When he started bringing forward all these founding fathers' quotes and all this history of the founders, it really started making a difference in this national debate about what should be the intersection of faith and culture, what should be the role of faith, and so bringing back the founders and actually teaching what they said. You got to do that accurately. You have to do it with their original documents, not with what some professor says, that they said. So even when David Barton says something, or I say something, or Tim Barton says something, you want to know that we can document that, that we can back it up, and that's why all of our books, all of our programs always have so many resources that we're footnoting and showing you. That's why the vault is so important, that's why it's so important to have all of those documents available for you to look at and to hold. And so you know, going to one of the American Journey Experience events or setting up a tour of the WallBuilders Museum, I mean, those are things that I promise have a huge impact on you and it's so important for all of us to do that sort of thing.

So, anyway, I'm just thankful for these guys and thankful that WallBuilders has continued to be steadfast in this cultural challenge that we have to maintain our faith and maintain our foundations, that we have to maintain our faith and maintain our foundations. So David Barton, America's premier historian he's our founder here and then Tim Barton, national speaker, pastor and president of WallBuilders. Both guys may be the only two guys on the planet that travel more than I do. So God bless you guys. Let's jump in, all right, guys. A little later in the program, Scott Faith with us to talk about an article that he recently had. Really, it's all about language and it's how people are downplaying, or at least trying to reframe, the whole October 7th massacre and then Israel's response to that by using language that conjures up either images that are less bad for Hamas or worse for Israel, if that makes sense, and we've seen that, of course, in the media coverage ever since October 7th.

Tim Barton

Well, this is something that, unfortunately, we see a lot of liberal media do in America. It's not a new thing. But, for example, if they're covering right now what Israel is doing to try to eliminate terrorists and the headline reads that Israel injures several innocent Palestinians, they're not highlighting what's actually happening. They're trying to villainize Israel and they're saying that these Palestinians are being injured. Well, one of the things that I would point out probably most journalists don't know is of the casualty rates how many of them were supporters of Hamas or identified with Hamas and yes, we are part of the Hamas movement. They don't know, and Hamas doesn't wear uniforms. So some of this is very speculative in journalism and, unfortunately, we are in a time and era where there's not a lot of accountability for this. And we do know a lot of people over in Israel. We have a lot of friends very connected to the military and we actually get reports from some people on the ground periodically. And what the media is doing in America is so incredibly biased and it's not really surprising when you look at who controls the media and it's primarily Democrats. But really I mean we could talk about even sometimes on the Republican side it's very liberal people that control Fox News, among others, and they don't always give an honest coverage. And on the Democrat side, when you see how pro-Palestinian so many Democrats are, how anti-Israel many Democrats are, it's not surprising.

And now we have a rising generation, unfortunately even in the conservative movement, that is buying into this notion that we, as Americans, we really shouldn't be doing much to support Israel, we should keep all of our money here, there should be no foreign aid, et cetera.

And even though I understand and can appreciate some of the sentiment that we really should focus on solving American problems first, primarily number one, there's a lot of reason for our support of Israel historically. There's a lot of reason for our support of Israel morally, even as people of faith. A lot of the rising generation, even on the conservative, republican side, sometimes even on the Christian side, they don't understand the history, they don't understand the moral implications with Israel in the Middle East, the kind of nation Israel is, and they don't understand, even sometimes, what the Bible says about these issues. And so, whether it is that it's people on the far left who are very pro-Palestinian, it's people who are ignorant, or the news media who's so incredibly biased, and this is definitely the kind of narratives that we are hearing in the news today and we are seeing in America in general, and it certainly is not the reality of what's happening on the ground and it's not the position we should hold from a historic, a moral or even a biblical perspective.

David Barton

You know, it's really one of the things, too, that the more secular you are or the less biblical you are, the more anti-Israel and more pro-Hamas you are. It's just been real clear and the media certainly, we know, is secular They've been really anti-religious liberty in so many areas, attacking not just Jewish people but Christian people and so many other things, and so last week was one of the things that happened to Israel was they were talking about how that Israel's attacking hospitals. No, no, no time out. Israel went into hospitals and took out terrorists that were using the patients as human shields, and so the terrorists go into a hospital, they shoot at Israelis, they try to kill Israelis and, cowards that they are, they use innocent civilians as a shield. So it's not that Israel went into hospital, attacking hospitals. Israel went in and took out Hamas, and they have done an excellent job of having very few casualties, but what they're doing is they're taking out people that are murderers and they're killing others. And so this goes back to even after October 7, when Hamas hit and had the massacre of nearly 1,200 Jewish individuals. I mean, that's the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. It's the second in death to that in the modern era, and so one of the things that Israel committed to do is we're going to take out every terrorist there is. We're not going to have these guys festering under the ground and keep hitting us and hit and run kind of attacks.

And so what's happened is, as they go after the terrorists, the Biden administration more and more goes after Israel, goes after Netanyahu and others, and so Netanyahu just canceled a meeting that he had in the United States because they're now calling for a ceasefire. He didn't want a ceasefire. He wants to wipe out the bad guys. A ceasefire allows the terrorists to live and to reorganize and to come back after Israel. So he has promised to exterminate every terrorist. He's working his tail off to make sure the civilians are not being killed, and sometimes they are killed, certainly not as many as Hamas has been killing.

But this is where the perspective has been totally different, and so we saw Harvard and other major universities University of Pennsylvania, others take a real beating for the way that they were leaning toward Hamas.

We mentioned that there was about 1,100 anti-Israel events a year in America college campuses, and so what's happened is we saw an article in EpochTimes. We're really kind of focused on the way that Yale News was covering this issue and that Yale was using euphemistic language rather than using language that describes what was going on, they were changing that language so that it would make Israel look worse and wouldn't make the terrorists look as bad, and et cetera, and it's just. It's a really good lesson on the use of language and how the use of improper language gives a wrong tone to what's going on. And so Scott Faith, who was the author of the article, we thought it'd be really good to have him on to talk about that and talk about Yale as an example of what they're doing in their newspaper and show how that really parallels what's happening with the Biden administration, also happening in major media across the country.

Rick Green

All right, stay with us folks, We'll be right back Scott Faith, our guest, when we return here on WallBuilders

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastor's briefing in Washington and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th.

This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in. It's in Washington DC. On Tuesday night we do an after-hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them and, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.

Rick Green

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Scott, faith with us. Great article in the Epoch Times. A veteran asked why do you keep saying militant instead of terrorist and executed instead of murdered? Scott, thanks for coming on and thanks for your bold voice. 

Scott Faith

Thrilled to be here. Thank you so much, man. I you know there are times. Actually I said this right after October 7th. I was like there's  times where it's just so obvious where the good and evil line is and who the good guys and the bad guys are, and yet to the BBC and so many others, it's obviously not that obvious and it sounds like you were just fed up with it Rick, that was a shocking thing for me.

I've been to the many times, both in the military and as a private citizen, and it was shocking to me the reaction that so much of the world had, especially here right here in America, to the attack by Hamas against Israel. It did seem very clear to me who the good guys and the bad guys were here, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case across the board, 

Rick Green

Yeah, and you point this out, which was surprising to me that the State Department actually seems to get this one right. They don't always, but if they could get it right, why can't the major news outlets?

That was a great question. 

Scott Faith

Yeah, that was a shocker to me, and it hasn't just been this particular episode, but this one seems to be the most egregious of the words that we choose we being people in general, not just you and me that we choose to use to describe things, and describing people who are clearly terrorists as militants or fighters and calling wanton murder execution just doesn't seem right by me and I wonder why we're doing it.

Rick Green

Yeah, and militant to me sounds like I mean, that could be a freedom fighter, that could be a you know, and in fact you even say that One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So when you hear militant it depends on you know, your own experiences or whatever, but that conjures up that mind. But if you say terrorist, that's a different animal.

Scott Faith

That mind. But if you say, if you say terrorists, that's a different animal, um, that's absolutely right. A militant could be someone in who and heads below. You just like to carry a rifle in in marching the parades, but to me it was very clearly terrorism what Hamas did in October 

Rick Green

yeah, no, no doubt about it.

And uh, I, I think that you, you also point out the, the campus newspapers, uh, have been maybe the worst at this, and maybe that's just a reflection of what we've also seen in terms of the rallies and literally supporting a terrorist organization like Hamas. You know they're ginned up by these local, you know, just like the Yale Daily News.

Scott Faith

Right, and the reason I focused on YDN is because I went to school at Yale so I keep up with what's happening on campus and YDN I enjoy reading for a number of reasons, but I thought that the way that they handled the reporting on this and we talk about in the article, about how they refused to run references to the rapes that clearly occurred we knew that that happened and then they had to come back and say, well, actually that did happen and come back with a rather groveling apology. That was shocking to me because YDN and any number of other campus newspapers normally don't hesitate to make bold statements, especially in the op-ed pages, which is what they're there for, and it seemed like they were handling the situation with kid gloves because they were worried about the backlash. So that was a fascinating case study on the differences, the cleavages that result from situations like this.

Rick Green

Yeah, and what was it? They were basically. I mean, if I remember right from your article, they altered some articles that were basically pointing out the terrorism, and they altered the articles to use less, I guess, just like we're talking about words that were less inflammatory or whatever they might say, and then later had to apologize. Have I got that right or have I got that backwards?

Scott Faith

No, you got that completely right, rick, and not only were they less inflammatory, they were less accurate, yeah, and that's why they had to go back and retract it. The article in question was a young woman who happened to be a Yale student wrote an article condemning it and talking about the rapes and talking about terrorism and stuff like that, and then the YDN editors decided, without telling her, to stealth edit her article before publication. She made a fuss about it, as she should have, and eventually they came back and corrected the language when they couldn't hold out on it anymore. But yeah, I mean, I'm all about taking a taking a firm stand and making sure things are right, but I think, because we could see that the propaganda that the terrorists themselves were posting, that these things were actually happening. So I didn't think it was controversial at all to say what was actually happening, but the editors at YDN apparently, and fortunately, did.

Rick Green

Well, it's the only way I can contemplate how you end up with kids on college campuses literally supporting terrorism. I would think they have to be getting bad information. They can't possibly be supporting what we know is actually happening. They have to be supporting an illusion of what had the picture that's been painted for them that's very different from what's actually happening on the ground. Does that make sense?

Scott Faith

Yeah, I think that's very accurate. Also, I think the oppressor-oppressed narrative is so strong throughout the world, especially in our country, that the oppressed can do anything they want and they can't be held accountable for it, and the oppressors are responsible for everything that happens to them, and that was certainly the case here. The case that's being made that Israel provoked it. It's Israel's fault. A lot of victim blaming going on here. The irony of the situation is many of the Israelis and others because it wasn't all Israelis that got murdered on that day. The ones who died were actually ones that were more pro-Palestinian, that were happy to live in peace, that let folks from Gaza come across and work and get ahead, and then they were killed, and I think that's shocking, and part of the reason I think we're seeing this response is it's so overwhelming. Most people at least think of themselves as having a good heart and they can't contemplate the reality of the brutality that was inflicted on people on October 7th, so I think that's part of it as well.

Rick Green

Yeah, I think you're right and I appreciate what you're saying about the whole oppressed and oppressor thing that the cultural Marxist formula works. I mean, they get people to think of themselves in a category and think of other people in a category instead of thinking of them as an individual person. And so then it's, you know, depending on the color of your skin or your religion or your region you were born in that that's the determining factor on everything, rather than your actual behavior.

That's boy, that's a uh. That's a scary world I don't want to live in. I, I want to. I want to prevent that from happening. That's why your article is important, because it's making people pay attention to the words.

Scott Fatih

I hope so. It's hard to tell how these articles will be received. In preparation for this call, I went back and reread the article and I read the comments, which I normally don't do. The comment section is where good dialogue normally goes to die. That's a lot. It seems like a lot to me, but the commentary on people's perspectives, on what they think is important, what's going on in the situation? I mean, folks are giving a whole bunch of examples of other words that are using Orwellian doublespeak going on in here, and I don't think it's good for the country.

Rick Green

Yeah, yeah it is. That's a great description of it. Orwellian double speak, no doubt. Last thing, because the more I thought about your distinction, when I first read the distinction between executed and murdered, my initial thought was, well, the executed is pretty ugly too. And then I started thinking and obviously reading the article made me think about it is actually that almost sounds like you've had a trial, you've gone through that whole process and in their minds I guess, as an Israeli, you are guilty. The trial has already happened. In their mind, I guess the outgrowth of that cultural Marxism we're talking about, that idea that your category makes you guilty. So there already has been a trial, there already has been a jury. You will now be executed and I guess am I reading too much into that as well?

Scott Fatih

No, but you're right, and that's the further indicator of the rationalization that's often used by is Islamic extremists not exclusive to them, but another example of it. Bin laden famously held the American people in toto responsible for what the American military and politics are doing, even the justification for the 9-11 attacks the attacks on the coal embassies and everything.

So this was pretty commonplace to blame it on somebody else and hold a group accountability, and I hope that people are waking up to it. Anyone that's different than these types of terrorist organizations that are just confined to the Middle East, so they exist all over the world. They will kill anyone that they can get their hands on if they think it furthers their ends, and that's a shocking thing for a lot of Americans to wake up to, because we don't have to deal with that on a regular basis.

Rick Green

Yeah yeah, man, thanks for making us think, appreciate the article, Appreciate you coming on. We'll have a link to the article today at wallbuilders.com. Scott Faith. Appreciate it, man. Let's do it again. Thanks, rick, sounds good. Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.

It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an after hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them. And, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.

Rick Green

We're back on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Scott Faith for joining us as well. Back with David and Tim, and you know, guys, this is an ongoing battle on every issue, right? we need to learn how to use language better and also call out the you know nefarious use of reframing, like we've seen, and so thankful that Scott did this in the article.

David Barton

Yeah, and the reframing. But I'll tell you there was some real kind of me epiphany moments in there, and one is when you guys were talking about the Marxist narrative, and you know, we know that Marxists look at everything group, but I hadn't thought about that oppressors versus oppressed. And if you're the oppressor, you everything you do is wrong. If you're the oppressed, everything you do is right, even if it's not. And so if you're going to call Hamas being the oppressed, then they're the victim in everything. Even if they start this, even if they've murdered thousands of innocents, they're the oppressed group. And by being in that group, by virtue of that group.

And then you guys got into something I'd never thought of due process, you don't need due process. We've already processed the group and the oppressor group of Israel. They're guilty as they stand because they're the oppressor and so we don't need to look at whether they're doing the right or wrong thing. And I mean that Marxist narrative and the way they look at groups rather than individuals is so changes what is justice and what is not justice, and they get everything reversed and I was reminded of Isaiah 5:20, where it says woe to those who call evil good and good evil. And that's literally what's happening here. In the biblical narrative, every individual has to - you have to look at what every individual does. They have to be accountable for what they do. But in that Marxist narrative you look at the groups and you prejudge groups, and so Israel can never do anything right because they're the oppressor. Hamas can never do anything wrong because they're the oppressed. Man, that's a real important insight into the way that Marxist narrative works.

Rick Green

Yeah, I never thought about it as a group already being judged.

That was a very different perspective that helped me as well.

Tim Barton

And it's something that is so real for what we see on college campuses, because it really is mind-boggling when you see, shortly after October 7th and this atrocity, the evil that happened over in Israel, and you saw college kids saying Hamas have been oppressed. It's similar. Obviously it's different and I understand it's different, but it's similar when you hear people say that it's okay to be racist against white people because if you've been oppressed, right, if you don't have the power, it's a power structure issue and so it's. The anti-racism is that you become racist against the people that you think racist against you. And all that to say is it kind of goes back to this Marxist idea that if you have been oppressed, then if you rise up to overthrow the oppressor, anything you do in the attempt to stop those that have oppressed you is considered just, it's considered ethical, it's considered moral because you've been oppressed and you're just trying to stop the oppressor.

And therefore, even though you did this incredible atrocity and right, all these people you killed, all these people you kidnapped, and all the evil you did, if you were just fighting those who have oppressed you, you were justified in doing that because you were trying to stop the oppressor, it made so much more sense why college students, because there were many professors promoting these ideas and we saw this idea really in lots of places. I mentioned earlier that the Democrat Party, a lot of people in the Democrat Party that have been very pro-Palestinian, pro-hamas in this position, but it makes so much more sense in light and view of this Marxist ideology of the oppressed and the oppressor and therefore they're not guilty of doing evil because they've been oppressed and they were supposed to defend themselves. That was the just and moral thing to do, even though it was a great evil. It really did give a good perspective to understand where people have been so mixed up and where they're coming from.

David Barton

You know, I was thinking about that, even thinking about groups, think what that does to the American tradition. You do not have inalienable rights. Your rights come as a group, and so, even though I may have done nothing wrong, if they associate me with the wrong group, I lose all my rights. And so the whole concept that we've been built on is the right of the individual, and the individual has rights and every individual is equal to other individuals. And with that Marxist narrative you can't do that. And that is the narrative that not only dominates universities, it dominates education in general.

Right now we're seeing this all the way down into some of the things that you'll find revealed. That's being taught even in elementary school. It is some of this Marxist narrative of groups, and we have to put people into groups, whether it's gender groups or whether it's sexual orientation groups or anything else. It's driven by groups and your rights come with the group. And then with that, that just absolutely decimates our bill of rights. You might as well throw it out, because it no longer has any relevance, because that's for the individual. Our government is set up to protect the rights of the individual, and all of that is gone with this. And so what we're seeing with the coverage of Yale, what they're doing and the way they cover Hamas. That's just indicative of the fact that, if those people are able to take office and continue what they're doing, if we don't get school choice everywhere to get some competition, just don't expect the Bill of Rights to remain, don't expect the Constitution to remain, because that's based on individualism, which is something these guys absolutely oppose.

Rick Green

All right, folks, we're out of time for today. Make sure that you go to our website today, wallbuilders.com, where you can get more information about all of these things we've been talking about, and you yourself can be the catalyst for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles in your community. You can be the one bringing that truth, as we've been talking about. It's hard to find truth. Words matter. All of these things. You've got to be engaged in helping to push this thing the right direction. So be sure to check out wallbuilders.com today. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.