Rick Green: 0:09
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green. I'm here with David and Tim Barton, David's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Alright, David and Tim, we've got Rudy Atallah coming on in just a few minutes. Of course, I always love to hear from Rudy on what's going on, not just in the Middle East but around the world, all the good work that he's doing there at Nazarene Fund and obviously has a finger on the pulse of a lot of these moving parts with Hamas, hezbollah and everything else in the Middle East.

David Barton: 0:47
Hey, I just about bet you that when we talk to him about the Middle East, it's going to be around the world, because there's very few things that happen that are isolated from other aspects. And that's the thing about Rudy is, if we ask him about Israel, we're going to hear about all the Middle East and probably all the other bad actors that are supplying the Middle East with all the things that's going on there. And so he is so good on giving the 30,000 foot view of what's going on, whereas we get news stories and see what's happening and we talk to people in Israel and it's really on the front. He sees down the road a long way for what's coming and what may be in the next three months, six months, nine months or a year. So it's going to be really interesting to get Rudy's update on what he thinks about the Middle East right now.

Tim Barton: 1:28
Well, he's also still so connected because of his military background that we are on a text thread with him and some other military individuals and he will text us hey, something just happened to a US military base like Syria or whatever it was, and then, an hour or two later, Fox News will have a headline about what just happened. And so he really does have some remarkable intelligence and connections and such a good understanding of what's happening. And as we're looking at Israel and the decisions they're making, at times it seems like America is being pulled into what could be World War Three. It seems like maybe China and Russia would be favoring this position. Certainly, when Obama was president, he did not want America to be the leader of the free world. He suggested that America should be a leader, but like a co-leader, and so we should be equal with other nations, and he began the work to demote America from the top leadership position. It certainly seems like Biden is continuing on with that same mindset, and so, with so much happening, Rudy is definitely the guy who can give some insight to help us navigate and know how to pray. You know, really, from the outside, looking in, apart from waiting for the next election cycle to choose some different leaders, or maybe calling a congressman here and there. It might seem like we are limited with all we can do, but knowing obviously as Christians, people of faith, that we can obviously pray about some of these situations going on, he's definitely a guy that can give us a breakdown to know how to pray, maybe to know where to get involved, to know what kind of leaders we need, what kind of military leaders we need. Certainly, we've seen a lot of weakness from some of these American leaders, so I'm very excited to see what Rudy can inform us on based on his knowledge of what's going on right now.

Rick Green: 3:14
Stay with us, folks. Rudy Atallah, our special guest today on WallBuilders.

Rick Green:
Hey friends, if you've been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long and all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live. Once in a while we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines, that have made incredible sacrifices, have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people. One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You've heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live, from folks that were in the band of brothers to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived the indianapolis, to so many other great stories you've heard on WallBuilders Live. You have friends and family that also serve. If you have World War II veterans in your family that you would like to have their stories shared here on WallBuilders Live, please email us at radio@WallBuilders.com. Radio@WallBuilders.com. Give us a brief summary of the story and we'll set up an interview. Thanks so much for sharing here on WallBuilders Live.

Tim Barton: 4:28
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms, has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self-protection. Opponents argue that only the militia, the military and law enforcement are to have and use firearms. But those who wrote the Second Amendment strenuously disagreed, including founding father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the declaration, a president of the Continental Congress and one of those who actually framed the Second Amendment. He declared, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. For more information about Richard Henry Lee and the history of the Second Amendment, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 5:24
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Great to have Rudy Atallah back with us running the Nazarene Fund, just doing incredible work around the world. Rudy, thanks for coming on, man.

Rudy Atallah: 5:31
Oh thanks for having me, Love talking to you.

Rick Green: 5:35
Well, David and Tim and I were talking about. You know who can give us a good perspective on not just what's happening on the ground in Israel but how that affects the whole Middle East, and just you know what's going on with rescue missions and all the different things, and been too many months since we had you on, so it's a good time for a general update, but also just your thoughts on what's been happening in the last couple of weeks.

Rudy Atallah: 5:58
Yes, absolutely. Well, you know most of the people pay attention to the Middle East when you have a crisis, kind of like what's going on between Israel and Hamas, and if certainly it's divided the world and you can see that happening from the UN General Assembly going pro-Palestinian, and you know kids in school and then you also have, you know, the rest of the world that is pro-Israel. So it's just going on going debate. But remember this all this what's going on right now in the Middle East is also happening on top of or in addition to other crises. For example, there is a crisis right now where war is about to break out between Azerbaijan and Armenia. With the Nazarene Fund, we've been rescuing a lot of the persecuted Christians there. They're being beheaded. Two days ago, the Azaris from Azerbaijan took over three ancient Christian monasteries and converted them to mosques. So that war is teetering and it's going to happen anytime. Now, remember, back in February there were multiple earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria. We still, there's still 15.3 million people displaced and we're entering winter and you know ancient Christian cities like Antioch. You know, those cities were completely devastated. So you've got a lot of people that are displaced, that are facing hunger, there's sex trafficking and all the other things that come with you know displaced populations and you know organized criminal networks take advantage. So, in addition to what's going on in Israel, all this is happening regionally Inside Syria same persecution of Christians and an expansion of Iranian hegemony and control by all the various you know Shia groups, and then you have a resurgence of Sunni groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and whatnot. So all this is happening all in addition to Israel, and it makes the region very complex and extremely volatile.

Rick Green: 8:10
Yeah, there's so many different things happening. I mean for you guys, when you're choosing where to put the resources, you know, and obviously we want to encourage people to give Today and give you more resources to be able to do more of these rescue missions. But just kind of to get into your mindset and strategy, like how do you decide, I mean, with all of this going on, when something happens, you know, do you shift resources? I mean, I'm just curious how you there's so many things you've got to you got to some kind of priority on what the Lord opens up for opportunities to save folks.

Rudy Atallah: 8:42
Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's a lot of prayer that goes into it. We do shift resources and it's all based on the extreme persecution. For example, in Armenia we've got people being literally I mean Christians being pulled out of their homes, strung out and decapitated like animals. We focus on those immediate individuals that you know. If we can protect them from dying or families getting killed, then we're going to definitely put our resources and kind of take, put other things like Turkey and Syria on a back burner because they're looking for food aid and they're looking for... So we have to kind of balance out our thoughts and our calculus based on immediate need. And now we recently, with this war, we helped a lot of Israelis that were stuck victims of Gaza. We flew a plane out using friends of ours on the ground, shy fund, charmaine heading, so that was funded. And we flew a plane full of, you know, victims to the state of Tennessee. So that was really good and we're monitoring right now, we're looking at, you know, if a northern front happens opens up between, say, Hezbollah and Lebanon, who is also recruiting fighters from Syria, from all the various, you know, shia groups and extremist groups that are coming pouring into Lebanon. We've got little Christian villages on the border of southern Lebanon and northern Israel, like the town of Ramesh or the town of, you know, Ein, and those are towns that are Christian. They're small Christian enclaves and Hezbollah is moving weaponry in there to use them as human shields in case Israel, you know, has to respond to a Hezbollah attack. So these are the types of things that we have to constantly monitor and try to figure out how we can help people before something really bad takes place.

Rick Green: 10:52
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. What about just the overall pressure now on Israel? What do you see happening, you know, in the region, in addition to you know as they respond to Hamas and whether or not Hezbollah does anything you know? What can you tell us about, just how you know their decision making process and where you see dominoes that might fall based on their actions?

Rudy Atallah: 11:20
Yeah. So the hardest thing they're going to deal with right now is the, the hostage rescue. Remember and most people are not talking about it, but you know, when you look at the hostages, you're looking at Americans and French and all that. That's great. We need to help those people. But you also remember the Hamas targeted Israeli military camps and amongst the hostages are Israeli officers, to include a one star general, and so those are high priorities for Israel. You have to get those rescues affected. Once you do, then it's gloves off on Hamas, although it's still gloves off, but it would be a different fight. When you're trying to, you know the hostages are in tunnels and you're talking about, you know, hundreds of kilometers of tunnels everywhere. You've got to figure out how to fight that. Once you get the hostages out, then there are other techniques you can use to kill, you know, Hamas fighters by flooding the tunnels with water or septic systems, or you know flushing them out and that type of thing. But Israel is going to have to face a very difficult battle because it's very unconventional. It's unconventional warfare and we're talking about close to 40,000 Hamas fighters. So it's not going to be an easy battle. And remember IRGC, the Iranian Republican Guard is behind a lot of the tactics of this. So they've studied Israel for a long time. So Israel is going to have to be very smart about the way it affects everything. And remember, look at the social pressures on Israel. Globally, Everybody's chanting pro-Palestinian slogans when they don't understand that the Palestinians are the primary problem in the Middle East. I mean, I live through the Lebanese Civil War and I remember as far back as, the Civil War started in '75, as far back as 1976, Palestinians walked into a Christian village in a place called Damur in Lebanon, in southern Lebanon, and they literally did the exact same slaughter that happened in Israel. They murdered 586 Christians, they pulled pregnant women and cut them open. They decapitated people, they burned them alive, they destroyed an entire village. Just because they're Christians. They were the cause behind the Lebanese Civil War. In 1991, Kuwait expelled over 200,000 Palestinians because of their pro-Muslim brotherhood and pro-Saddam Hussein stance. The Arab world doesn't want them. They've caused problems everywhere they go. Now Israel has to gingerly treat the Palestinian people. This is war. This is a non-state actor against a state actor, Israel. And Hamas uses hospitals as their headquarters. They use schools to launch attacks. They use, and then the minute Israel responds they go look, Israel is killing Christians, Israel is killing innocent civilians and the world turns against Israel. So they have to be very calculating in the way they approach their next phase of operations.

Rick Green: 14:38
Man, 40,000. You mentioned 40,000. I think, man, my perception has been off for sure, thinking that it's just basically like a gang within Palestine. 40,000, that's a lot, man. That is an army.

Rudy Atallah: 14:54
Well, and then you add Hezbollah on top. In the north it's over 100,000. I mean, they're definitely bad. They have their work cut out for them. If the war begins, I can tell you it's going to probably last a year and Israel is going to finish Hamas, and it has to. Unfortunately, we've got a president who talks with a fork tongue. One minute it's like pro-Israel, but the other minute it's like oh no, slow down, Don't do anything in Gaza, Don't do this, Don't do that. We can't do. We got to let Israel do what Israel has to do in order to survive.

Rick Green: 15:28
Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that because I wanted to ask you that I've been just pontificating and totally guessing because I got no inside baseball. But it sure feels like, as I watch this, that exactly that that both Biden and Blinken are talking a good game, that they're standing with Israel, but that it feels like behind the scenes they're probably really undermining what they're trying to do and threatening them and preventing them from being able to go do what they need to do. And we need to just get out of the way. Support them, but just get out of the way. Aren't they equipped to handle this, if we aren't hamstringing them?

Rudy Atallah: 16:00
Yeah, they are equipped to handle it, for sure, but it's not going to be an easy battle because, again, out of all, look at 9-11. The minute it happened, the gloves were off. The United States walked in and we took care of business and we had a coalition behind us and nobody said, oh poor ISIS, oh poor Al Qaeda, or poor... Nobody said that. Hamas is a terror group and so. But Israel is put under a microscope and everybody's trying to slow Israel down. Why? Because the Palestinians and Iran have really messaged over the years that they are the victims and not Israelis, and Israel has, out of all the armies of the world, Israel is the one that really, really is extremely cautious on every single thing that they do. They're the only ones that roof knock on a building, before they knock it down, they say, hey, there's some bad guys in the building, we need all civilians out. They give people time. Who does that to their enemies? Israelis are the only ones that do that. We never roof knock, we just blow things up. You know what we've done in Afghanistan. Every war we go, nobody holds us back. Why should we hold Israel back? This is their 9-11 and most people don't realize that we lost 3,000 people in 9-11. The loss, if you put it in per capita numbers, Israel lost an equivalent of 50,000 people, what we lost in 9-11, it would be equivalent to 50,000 Americans being lost on that same day. That's what Israel lost with their 1,400 people. So they have every right to respond.

Rick Green: 17:50
Yeah, I know that's uh and that and that's. You see it. I mean, I I hate to use this as a measurement, but as I watch on social media I see it and I see this, this criticism of Israel, in a way that Just it makes no sense. But I think it goes back to what you said a few minutes ago that there's been a concentrated propaganda Campaign and machine through the universities in America that has raised up really two generations now that is soft on Palestine and tough on Israel and they've been convinced that this is apartheid and all these ridiculous reframing of what's actually happening. But they truly believe it. These kids at these universities are marching and doing this, standing with Palestine. They believe they're on the right side, they believe they're part of a righteous cause. They have no clue what's actually happening and that's decades of framing the minds of those of those young people. You know you're on the ground in the Middle East, so so I hate to ask this of you, but what do we do here in America to change the propaganda success that they, that the other side has had?

Rudy Atallah: 18:56
We need to educate the kids. We need to educate the kids. Dennis Prager, said something really interesting. He said if you look at Syria and and you ask the question, who is the greater threat to Syria today, is it Israel or is it ISIS? The answer is ISIS. Who's the greatest threat to Lebanon today? Is it Israel or is it Hezbollah? The answer is Hezbollah. Who is the greater threat to Egypt today? Is it Israel or is it the Muslim Brotherhood? It's the Muslim Brotherhood. The thing is is Israel is not a threat to its neighbors and it's never been a threat to the Palestinians. In fact, Israelis want peace more than anything, and but the thing is it's always been flipped. Hamas is charter, if you read it, it says no negotiations with Israel, but complete destruction. It is our call to duty to destroy Israel and annihilate it off the face of the planet. I mean, how do you, how do you negotiate with people like that? So our job is...

Rick Green: 19:57
Yeah, why can't we just teach people their words? I mean, just share their words, like you just did, and that should reframe the whole situation, I would think.

Rudy Atallah: 20:06
Absolutely. I mean, read the Hamas Charter. It's clear, it's black and white. There's no, there's no ambiguity. It says that this complete annihilation of Israel and Jews. How do you even negotiate with that? It's, it's, it's a mindset. But these kids today in these universities, the bulk of them, by the way are all on on visas from, from Middle Eastern countries studying in all these schools. I think we should revoke all their visas and ship them back where they came from. You know that this is just ridiculous. And adults today that have lived through you know the years of the, the '67 war in Israel, or the, you know the, the '73 war, who know the difference in why Israel, you know, fought for its existence and what happened in World War two, during the Holocaust, then we educate our kids and show them the truth. You know it's very important to teach them, because that's the problem is, we've had extremist, left-leaning professors teaching Fake information and fake history. The same way they're, these same professors have been trying to change American history. And then you have these youngsters going out and, you know, taking down statues of, you know, our forefathers who have founded this country and, and you know, calling us evil. I mean that that's where we're at today, unfortunately.

Rick Green: 21:26
Yeah, no, it's very, it's very, very similar in the way that it's been done. Rudy, I wish we had more time, brother. We got to get you back more often. Thank you so much, man. We love talking to you. We're so thankful for what you're doing. God bless your brother and thanks for the time today.

Rudy Atallah: 21:40
God bless you too. Thank you, brother.

Rick Green: 21:43
Stay with us folks, we'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton: 21:53
Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don't know much about American history, or even heroes of the faith, and I know often times for parents we're trying to find good content for our kids to read and if you remember, back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that, as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the Courageous Leaders Collection, and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers, and there's a second collection called Heroes of History, in this collection you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it's a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com that's www.WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 22:56
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us, thanks to Rudy Atallah for joining us as well, and guys, before we talk any more about the Middle East, can you just tell us real quick Nazarene Fund and you guys are, you know, obviously very involved in that with Rudy and others you know what can people do to help Nazarene Fund as well?

Tim Barton: 23:16
With the Nazarene Fund, I think we've talked about it several times on the program before. If anybody has not heard, it's worth knowing about it. It's an initiative that was started I guess, Dad, you and Glenn Beck years ago we're talking about this back under President Obama, when he was trying to minimize things in the military the US military and ISIS was coming up and he called ISIS, the JV team and said they're really not a concern, and just like we saw President Biden do in Afghanistan on just really debacle he created, on that terrible withdrawal that left so many Americans, so many SIVs and allies behind, when we saw President Obama doing similar things abandoning Americans, not helping US military forces. So the Nazarene Fund was started to try to help the individuals who were being targeted, specifically persecuted Christians, but religious minorities that because of their Christian faith they were being targeted, and this has been going on now for more than a decade. Rudy Atallah is now the guy who is helping lead the Nazarene Fund, helping lead and direct operations, connecting with other groups and organizations that are doing different ground operations, and so really the Nazarene Fund is at least one of the top, if not the top, organization on helping rescue Christians and persecuted religious minorities around the world, and so the Nazarene Fund is definitely somewhere that, if you give, you can know that every dollar you give is going to be used for helping rescue and free people and it's going to be sent downrange to make a difference.

David Barton: 24:50
And you know, Rudy was talking again about all the nations that are out there, just like we thought he would. But it's interesting. Nazarene Fund is working in Armenia right now. With all this going on there, we're working in other nations as well that he called, but it is significant. I think he made the point really well that Israel has to fight a different kind of war, when you have hostages as when you don't. And when you have both Hamas and Hezbollah trying to do hostages, as he said, they could flood the tunnels and get the terrorists out of there, but not when you've got hostages there. So it changes everything, changes what they're doing there makes a significant change in the way they go at it, and I don't think I knew that they had 100,000 Hezbollah fighters on the north border and 40,000 the southern one. That's a lot more than I thought there were down there, and with them being supplied with Russian arms and we saw Russian drones and Russian missiles etc, with that kind of outside supply coming in from the nations he talked about, this really is a lot more serious than what it might seem. We're concerned about Israel, for sure, but from a military standpoint I just kind of thought Israel was going to thump heads and that would be it, and it looks like it's not going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. Even though the Israeli military outmatches the other guys, those hostages really do change the whole complexion of how you fight a war.

Rick Green: 26:04
Well, it's a very, very delicate situation and of course, you know, we know, that we've got a commander in chief that's first of all, not all there, but not even competent when he is there. But remember, guys, when General Boykin told us that even in spite of the president, there are some good generals in there helping to call the shots behind the scenes. Let's just pray that there's a lot of that going on as well. So, folks, be sure and pray for our country, pray for all of our men and women in the military, especially over in the Middle East now, and just pray for wisdom. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.