Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's a WallBuilduilder show. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and special guests in studio. This is a first time for us. We're always getting Omer all the way over at Israel, but he is with us in studio, Omer Eshel with us. Omer, thanks for joining us today, man. 

Omer Eshel [00:00:28] Thank you so much for having me. 

Rick Green [00:00:29] Well, and it's a, it's a foundations of freedom Thursday. So we can hear all of our foundations of freedom Thursday questions to you. So now, you know, normally I get to punt the tough questions to David and Tim. And I have a feeling today, David and Tim are going to be the ones punting the questions to So this ought to be fun. 

David Barton [00:00:45] Hey, I've got a bunch of questions. I mean, I'm just been watching the news feed in the last 24 hours coming across our desk and it looked like we thought things appeared to be simmering down over in the Mideast regarding America, but it looks like it's cranking up. And I know, Omer, you get this stuff all, all the time, but here in America, we don't necessarily get that kind of involvement, but I don't know, Rick, it looks a lot of stuff is starting to happen. So I think we'll all have a bunch. Of questions for Omer today. 

Rick Green [00:01:12] Well, and for any of our new listeners, you know, we have Omer on every few months that may not have heard one of our interviews with him. You guys talk about the long-term relationship, the things you guys get to do with him and you go to Israel and why we have him on so often. 

Tim Barton [00:01:25] Yeah, Omer is one of our very good friends from Israel. We have been taking trips to Israel now for eight or 10 years. I'm guessing, I don't really know when we first started going. And Omer was one of the guides we met early on. There were a couple of trips we went with that were large groups and there was enough busses that there were different guides on different busses. And I think Omer was brought in to fill in on one of these busses. He has his own organization. He has been not only a archeologist, part of the Israeli government, he has his own tour guide and touring agency where they do a lot of stuff, but for whatever reason he was on one of these busses. And when we heard him talking about Israel and telling the stories the way that we cared about where he was saying, okay, so the Bible says you know, whatever passage in Deuteronomy or Joshua or whatever it was, Genesis through John or Matthew, whatever, he said, the Bible says this, and he said see that spot right over there, see those rocks? That's where it happened. And he would talk about archeologically what they discovered. There's more than 37,000 archeological sites in Israel. I think more than 5,000 pertain to the Bible that they have yet to discover anything archeologically that would Contradict what the Bible says? They found a lot of things outside what the Bible says, where the Bible didn't mention every single town, every single village, every single person that lived in Israel. But everything they've discovered that is where the Bible talked about being in certain places, that they found it in those places. And for us, as people that care so much about history, that care about the original source documentation to make sure that we're presenting an honest take of history, Omer was the exact kind of guy that we thought you are the person we're looking for to teach us the history of Israel. Someone that actually knows God, that knows the Bible, that loves God and loves the Bible and that cares about telling the truth and showing it what archeology confirms and what the Bible has confirmed, where those two things meet, we now have done, I don't know, 10, 12, something trips with Omer we... Have been trying for a while to finally get back over to Israel, things heated up, now they're settling back down, although it looks like they might heat up again. We were looking at taking some trips back to Israel in 2026, and then we realized, oh yeah, America's got this birthday thing happening, the 250th anniversary, and I was joking with Omer earlier, you know, in America, 250 years is a really long time. Apparently, in Israeli terms, it's got to be a couple thousand years old to be very special. 

Rick Green [00:03:59] Omer probably said, that's so cute. That's probably what Omer said. Yeah, that is so cute. 250 years. Nice little start you guys. 

David Barton [00:04:05] I've got, I've gotta add to that. I was in the U S Capitol and you know, we do tourists, the Capitol all the time, congressmen, senators have us come in, do tours. And I was there and they have these tour guides that they wear red coats. And so we call them red coats is kind of like the Americans against the red coats again. But these tour guys think they know everything. And so I was, I was pointing to a statue of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg and I was touching that statue and touching his foot and say, Hey, this, this guy right here, this is what he did in 1775. And going through the whole story. And all those tour guys, don't touch that. That's a statue. That's really delicate. It's a really old statue. And yeah, it's, it was probably 110 years old. I get the Israel and you know, there's 3,500 year old stuff there in, in temples and whatever. And I'm gonna say, so yeah, crawl up on it and enjoy yourself. And it's like, What we've got is like a kindergarten, I don't know, toddler, and they've got all this stuff over there that is so, so much different. And, and we know so much less about archeology than they do. And our attitude is so crazy over here about it. 

Tim Barton [00:05:11] Well with that being said, we are already planning on trips for 2027. So after the 250th birthday of America, we're going to do that. And by the way, my church actually is going in 2026. So there are some groups actually going in 2026, but we are at WallBuilders looking at taking some groups in 2027, finally getting back over there, helping to reintroduce people to some of the incredible heritage and history for so many Christians. One of the things that we are navigating now, and maybe this is certainly true for American Christians, is trying to decipher what is true. We are now recognizing more and more how the government's lied to us, how the medical profession has lied to us how there's just so much distrust. And one of the incredible things, especially as a person of faith going to Israel, is when you see the actual archeology, when you see the actual synagogues, when you see the actual west wall when you see some of these locations. And, archeologically confirmed, like, this is whatever said location might be from however many thousands of years ago, it's something that is so affirming and bolstering for people of faith to know that even though faith is involved, right, it takes a measure of faith in everything in life, there's a measure faith required. It took faith, I'm sitting on a chair, it took faith when I sat down on the chair to think the chair is going to hold me up, right. Everything takes a measure of faith but to realize that for Christians, for people that believe in the Bible, there's actually really good evidence to support our faith that it's not a blind faith that we have archeology history is on the side of what the Bible actually teaches and and there's nobody we found in Israel It does a better job than Omer Eshel his organization is the Bible Comes to Life, and if for anybody ever interested in going to Israel, we would encourage you and by the way this is not to disparage other groups because churches go and they take their groups I'm just telling you of all the groups we've gone with and we've got with a lot, we have not found a guide that we like better that that teaches it the way that we're interested in learning where does archeology in the Bible overlap? Why do we know the Bible's true? What does archeologists show us and by the way, as we have worked with a lot of pastors over the years, I don't know that I've found a pastor, maybe a couple, I'll caveat. There are very few pastors I know that know the Bible better than our friend Omer, which is also super fun. Because it's not just someone that knows archeology, it's someone that knows the Bible. And I have learned so many things from the Bible in interactions with Omer and Israel, and then just being his friend as well. So he is someone that is actually in town hanging out with us, and I said, Omer, we're about to record radio. Will you come hang out with in the studio? And it just was very convenient that there's a lot of things happening right now with Iran. Obviously there's still things going on with Israel, with what's happening with Gaza. There's protests in America, the Palestinian stuff, that there is so much going on. And we thought, man, this would be a great time to have Omer in to pick his brain for a little bit to get some some expertise from someone that's been on the ground and someone who's part of the IDF, someone who has some understanding of the Israeli perspective, what he can and can't tell us about the Israeli military. I don't know what they might or might not do. He might know something he doesn't tell us. I don't know, but we thought it would definitely be great to at least ask him some of these questions. 

David Barton [00:08:23] Hey, I've got to add one more little commercial thing for Omer that one of the things and Tim, you and I went to Israel back in 2014 with Glenn Beck and that massive thing where we got 72 nations to come stand with Israel. And so we got connected way back then 14 years ago, but one of the things I've always loved that Omer is while I've been on other groups, other tours, and you see three or four sites a day with Omer, we're going to see seven, eight, nine, 10 sites a And with other groups, it's the tourist sites. With Omer, it is only the A sites. And A sites are those that we absolutely, positively, 100% know that this event happened right here at this spot. This is what the Bible says, archeology confirms the history. And it's not one of the spots where I wonder if it happened here. Well, historically, people believe it happened. No, this is stuff we know. And so that's what makes that tour so cool is you have a foundation for your faith. And so we get to see probably two to three times as much as everybody else. And ours are not just tourist place there they're places of historical and biblical significance. So that's the other thing I really love about what Omer does. But yeah, indeed Omer, I mean, it was not, what was it, Omer? Six months ago you recalled the military because of what was going on with Gaza. I mean it wasn't that long ago you were having, you were leading the military and you're part of Israel up in the Golan. So I mean you're still an active soldier even though you're not active soldier. Everybody in Israel is an active soldier right now. So you got a lot of stuff going on. So we got a lotta questions for you today, bro. 

Rick Green [00:09:51] Well, my first question is, where do you take Omer when he comes here, right? Like he shows y'all the coolest stuff in history. What do you do? Do you go to the Alamo? Do you, do you go like, I don't know, the Dr. Pepper factory in Waco? What, what, what do you to entertain Omer? Where are they taking you this week? 

Omer Eshel [00:10:08] Well, I got to tell you, I'm from the Golan Heights and the Golan Heights. This is our version of Texas. So we go horseback riding and shooting guns. That's what we do that same with the Golan Heights. 

Rick Green [00:10:19] Oh, I love it. That's great. 

Rick Green [00:10:22] Now I gotta ask, Omer, had you ever been to Texas version of Masada? The Alamo? 

Omer Eshel [00:10:27] I've never been there, no. 

David Barton [00:10:29] Yeah, we're gonna have to get you to Alamo. That's our version of Israel's Masada, for sure. 

Rick Green [00:10:33] Now that would be a fun show for us to film, actually. You guys taking Omer down to Gonzalez where the first shot was fired and taking him over to the Alamo. Hey, that'd be fun. Well, so, so let's catch up on some of it before we go to break. Let's kind of get, I guess, you know, David, you were talking about things were heating up again. Omer, what do you know? What would be just your kind of update on the state of affairs? You know, kind of a short 30,000 feet view of where we are right now. 

Omer Eshel [00:10:58] Well, funny enough, the headlines in Israel actually don't speak so much about Iran. They speak about the political crisis that we have with Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran only finds the second headline, which is very interesting. But there was something quite interesting in the news today is that everybody is saying if Israel is going to attack again in Iran to destroy the nuclear capabilities, we need to remember that Iran is a local superpower. That's how they see themselves. That holds missiles that can reach all the way to the heart of Europe. So if this is a peaceful nation that will only want to have nuclear powerful peace purposes why are you holding arsenal that can hit the capitals of the western world? So today there was a very interesting article actually not not that long ago that they said you cannot really threaten us by saying we're gonna send missiles at us you already did twice. They already fired 500 missiles at us. None of them caused any damage our retaliation was a complete destruction of their air defenses so it's kind of hard for them to threaten us at this point 

Rick Green [00:12:02] And since you referred to it, just give us a summary, I guess, of the Netanyahu political situation. Why, why are they still obsessed with that? 

Tim Barton [00:12:09] And Omer too, so the context is, I think for a lot of Americans, we look at Netanyahu and go, well, this is finally someone with some backbone, some courage, someone who's willing to tell the bad guy his note. Obviously, we recognize he's a diplomat and a politician because he was working really hard to try to be friends with the Biden administration. He has a much better position with the Trump administration. So from a lot American perspective, we see him in a very high regard. Because he's a very good politician and diplomat, and he's had some courage and backbone to stand up against some of the nations that would threaten Israel. So what is the different dynamic inside the nation that maybe the nation sees him differently than we see him on the outside? 

Omer Eshel [00:12:51] I'm going to use Benjamin Netanyahu BiBi with an analysis or comparison to a figure in the Bible because we spoke about the Bible. BiBi is a Solomon. He started really, really well. I mean, he was one of the best prime ministers we had. And I'm speaking that as a proud right-winger. He was very good to the economy. He was an excellent prime minister, but he became corrupt. And the same the way that Solomon ended up with a wimp. He started with a triumph call and he ended up not so good. Same thing goes to Bibi Benjamin Netanyahu today, I think should step down. 

Rick Green [00:13:27] So, Omer, with the stuff, you just mentioned that Israel is not scared of Iran at all. They've sent 500 rockets at you. They come multiple times. They didn't hit. You guys wiped out their nuclear capabilities. Is there something you think that's about to happen or that might happen with Iran is because we're getting all this American news. You know, it looks like Israel and America are going to join together and go whack Iran. Is that just kind of media show stuff to maybe scare Iran a bit? Or is that something that really happened is going to really I mean, militarily, you live there. What do you think is going happen with this? 

Omer Eshel [00:14:03] I think that now we are playing the chicken game. That's what I think. And I think both the U.S. and Israel are threatening Iran to see who's going to steer the wheel first. Iran, they have a big problem, and this audience needs to understand. Their regime is corrupt to the core and is hated by the people. They are very much afraid of their own people. So they want to have the nuclear capabilities, not just against Israel and against the U. S. And against Europe. But even to be used against their own people saying, we are crazy, don't mess up with that. That's basically what it is. And I think that after all the attempts of trying to reach some kind of an agreement with Iran, we are starting to see their true faces. If you ask me what can be an attack by Iran, it can be against American bases. And it can also be against the allies of the United States, not Israel, such as UAE, Bahrain, Qatar. Those those nations that our listeners need to understand if Iran will attack those nations we're going to see a major crisis in energy because they are one of the largest oil producers of the world. 

Rick Green [00:15:13] I guess, Hey, we're going to take a quick break and as we're going to break, I was going to read one of our questions that we got stuck. Cause it's not a question. It's just, someone that was thankful that we answered their question, their question last week. So Rick Biglin from North Carolina said, it's not a questions, but a compliment. Thank you, Rick, David, and Tim for getting my question on the air last Thursday. I sent your response from the Atlantic ocean all the way to Arizona. It got great reviews. I'm almost 67 years old and used a few terms in there that David caught tongue in cheek. Y'all did a great job and I can't wait to listen next week. Keep up the great work. Rick, thank you so much for sending in your question. Thanks for following up with it. We sure appreciate it. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:59] To the WallBuilders Show, thanks for staying with us. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, a special Foundations for Freedom Thursday because we got Omer Eshel with us in studio. First time ever, had him on the program for years. David and Tim, we're talking about all the different times they've had a chance to be with him in Israel and do the tour. And he's here in Texas. So great to have you in with us, Omer. David, Tim, next questions. Since you guys get to be the audience today. 

Tim Barton [00:17:21] Well, and I'm grateful to be the audience for this one, and actually, I'm going to ask a question that we've already been talking about some, but I think it's really great to give some context and perspective for everybody listening, because we've seen in the news the last day, maybe day plus, where Iran has come out very strongly against America, where initially President Trump has taken a very strong position against war in general, where he says, look, we need to stop killing each other. We need to learn to live together. I know that Israel has had a very similar position for a long time where you guys don't want war. You want to learn to live together. It's not that you don't wanna live together as the Israeli people or an Israeli nation. It's that other nations don't to live with you guys, which is very different context, but President Trump has seemingly, from our perspective, kind of told Israel to tap the brakes a little bit when it comes to some of what's been going on with Iran, maybe some surrounding, complications or, some, some pressure that was bubbling up. He said, look, there needs to be a different way than you guys just go in and responding in war. But now that Iran has come out and said, hey, any American in Iran, in the middle East, like their fair game, their targets, we might need to kill these guys, get rid of them. And president Trump came out and he said, well, we're going to have to rethink our position. We, we, we might do something different. So a lot of Americans are seeing that. We know that Iran, what we're reading from America, what we're hearing is that Iran is continuing to build their nuclear program. Now they might say, we don't have nuclear weapons, we're just building our nuclear program, okay, what does it really mean? Probably they're building nuclear weapons. And Israel has always been really good at taking moves to defend herself. And it would seem that not only is this a time that Israel might need to take a move to defend herself, but now- that America might even be supportive of that move since Iran has said, not only do we want to get rid of Israel, now we're totally against America and any American we see in Iran or the Middle East, we might just kill those people. What, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? Again, we're just getting kind of, you know, some of these news reports from an outside perspective. What do you think this is really happening in Iran? What do these means ultimately for Americans in the Middle East and then. What do you think this means for Israel? Does this, in your mind, does this maybe give the Israeli people, the military over in Israel, the opportunity to go resolve some of this outstanding long-term issue? It's been a problem for a long time. What are your thoughts? 

Omer Eshel [00:19:53] When you look at what Iran has been saying since since the revolution in 1978 1979 they kept on calling the US the big Satan you guys are the big satan we are the little satan that's by the way what the Houthis are saying also in their logo they say death to America those guys were in Yemen that never seen an American in their lives by the by the never seen in Israeli in their lives as well but still they vouched to kill us. I think that you know that Israel will and I want to take our listeners back to 2007. In 2007, Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear reactor. There was a Syrian nuclear reactor that Syria tried to build a bomb. Israel bomped it, destroyed it. We were completely condemned by the UN, completely condemned by the Security Council. Imagine if we did not bomb that nuclear reactor, four years later, you have the Syrian civil war with massacre in each other. What would happen if ISIS would have held that nuclear react? Now another thing that people need to understand the fact that you have a country that can produce nuclear warhead it doesn't mean you need to use missiles you can move that warhead into a suitcase and then you can send your terrorist to central locations like New York like Chicago like San Francisco and blow them there.

Tim Barton [00:21:09] Now, Omer, the problem would be how in the world could they get those nuclear weapons in? It's not like we had an open southern border in the United States. If people were just like walking across, like that would never happen. So how, you know, when I'm saying it tongue in cheek, because one of the things that our own intelligence has told us is there are known terrorists on the watch list that not only got across the southern border, but that are loose now somewhere in the United States As you're pointing out if this is a nuclear warheads or something that can be transported, they don't just have to go on the top the front of a missile if they can be transported you can have like these dirty kind of bombs going off in large populous areas, there's a reason for greater concern and a reason why it makes sense that Israel or other nations might be interested in stopping this program 

Omer Eshel [00:21:55] The problem that we have today and then, you know, we keep on thinking on terms of second world war armies against armies, borders against borders. This is not how the world looked today. I mean, if we just saw what happened just a week and a half ago in Boulder, Colorado, this Egyptian guy who burned down and attacked the Jewish demonstration that was there. He was an Egyptian that stayed in this country, stayed your hospitality illegally and your old regime, your old government gave him money to stay here. Now, the problem is that you have this guy and multiply that by tens of thousands of people who burn American flags on American soil, which means they don't like you guys. They live here, they exploit your freedom, but they don t like you. 

Tim Barton [00:22:41] Do you think it's likely that Israel and I'm not asking you to give away any kind of intelligence, any kind of secrets or mysteries. I think it super likely that if America's not encouraging Israel to restrain herself, that Israel is going to do what's best for Israel. And it seems that what's for Israel is to remove Iran's nuclear capabilities. It seems like that is by far the best thing for Israel and if  y'all are already in a situation where because of what happened after October 7th, when Israel rightfully responded in a just cause to go and say, we're going to recover the people that were kidnapped. We're going, the people who are alive or their bodies, if they have just been murdered, right? If they've already died. And in the midst of it, we're gonna go ahead and say no more terrorists are allowed in Gaza. We're cleaning this thing out. There's already people that are upset at Israel because of this. So it seems like if there's already people upset with you, you might as well just go ahead and finish out this thing. For the safety and security of Israel. Now, I'm saying that maybe naively. What would your perspective be on this? 

Omer Eshel [00:23:45] I completely agree with you. I mean, we are now at a point that Jews are a target all over the world. You hear countries allowing, calling for a full genocide, Jewish genocide from the river to the sea. You don't hear Israelis saying, killing all the Palestinians, but you do hear it from the other side. And it's in the Western capitals. It's in Sydney, Australia. So the question is, will Israel defend itself? Yes. If the U.S. Will say, you're not allowed, at the end of the day, Israel will defend itself. Even if our greatest ally and our wonderful friend the US says no, at the end of the day, we need to defend our people. 

Tim Barton [00:24:18] And one of the things too, Omer, I've heard you say a lot, and we've heard this from more than just you because it does seem to be a fairly common sentiment in Israel, but as a great example, when the Bible comes alive, you have social media and you do often daily updates on what's going on in Israel because you've led so many tour groups, there's thousands, tens of thousands of people that have gone on tours with you and they're concerned, they've been praying for you. And so you've been doing these updates on Facebook. And my pastor recently was just commenting on how how it struck him that so often at the end of of these videos you're doing when you say a prayer you lead a prayer but you don't just pray for the peace of Israel a peace of Jerusalem. You're praying also For all of the children in Gaza that that have been impacted that their lives have been devastated that lost loved ones and he said, you know, it's interesting we often when we we see the updates we don't think about the people of Isreal having a heart for the the people that the families the children of Gaza But it does remind me of, of an adage that you'll have to remind me who said it, but something about the Palestinians loving their children more than they hate Israel. 

Omer Eshel [00:25:25] Golda Meir said that in the 70s, the day we're going to have peace is the day when the Palestinians or the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. And I gotta tell this to you, 99% of the Israelis, I'm going too far, 90% of Israelis want this war to be over, want to pray for the children of Gaza. I know you guys don't hear it here on the news, but we do. We are praying for the Children of Gaza because they are also victims. And you know what? We share the same biblical values. We serve a God, the God who loves life and not death. And the fact that we will be able to give a better future for those children, my children will have a better feature, but that's a Western way of understanding. And exactly as you said, I never heard the other side praying for the children of Israel. 

Rick Green [00:26:14] It really does tell you the difference. You know, and, it's the same as was it, was it also go to my or the said, if, if we lay down our arms, they'll destroy us. If they lay down their arms, we'll have peace. I mean, it really is that stark of a contrast. 

Omer Eshel [00:26:26] Golda Meir yeah. 

Rick Green [00:26:28] Ben Omer, thanks for joining us today, man. We really appreciate you being here. God bless you. And you make these guys take you down to the Alamo and maybe I'll just meet y'all down there. Alright folks,. 

Omer Eshel [00:26:39] Thank you so much. Thank you. 

Rick Green [00:26:41] You bet. Well, thanks for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.