Why Christians Support Israel Part 4: Legal Reasons

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Well, in spite of what you may have heard, Israel's founding is legally sound, and it

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was done with the support of the United Nations and the major international players.

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So if you want the facts, stay tuned.

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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you.

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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural

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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the

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Bible to life in your everyday world.

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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

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Well, the enemies of Israel try to convince the world that Israel was founded illegally,

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that it was a colonialist enterprise whereby foreigners came in, took over land, and forced

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to state.

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The truth is Israel's founding has a firm basis in international law, and it's the

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same legal process behind every other country's founding in the Middle East.

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So if you want to question Israel's legality, you need to question countries like Jordan,

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Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, etc., etc.

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But I want to tell you what was that legal process.

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First I want to establish that Jews have maintained a continuous presence in the Holy

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Land since for over 3500 years or 3000 years.

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Jerusalem has been the Jewish people's capital for more than three millennia.

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The city is mentioned over 700 times in the Hebrew Bible, and for more than a hundred

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generations of dispersed Jews over the last exile, prayed three times a day to return

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to Jerusalem.

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So the Jews' historic connection to the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land is confirmed

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in both the Christian scriptures and the Muslim scriptures.

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However, under Roman rule, the entire city of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple were destroyed.

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Many Jews were killed, others were fled for their lives, and some were actually forced

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into exile.

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This was the beginning of the exile from the land of Israel that lasted over 1900 years.

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But Jews remained and had a presence there, even though the majority of their community

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lived throughout the nations.

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So the city of Jerusalem was rebuilt by the Romans and named Aaliyah Capitolina.

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It was built to be a pagan city, and the land of Israel, which had been known as Judea

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under the Roman Empire, was renamed Palestina.

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This was a very deliberate attempt to remove all Jewish connection to the land in punishment

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for the Jews' revolt against the Roman rule.

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So the goal was removing all connections with the Jewish people.

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For the next 500 years, the land of Israel named Palestina was a part of the Roman Empire,

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which eventually became Christian.

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But in the 7th century, the Islamic forces invaded and took over the territory.

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And for the next 1300 years, the land of Israel was in the very center of massive, huge Islamic

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empires.

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Successive empires ruled all the way from India in the east to Spain in the west.

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And here in the very center was this little bitty piece of land that actually none of

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those empires even cared about.

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So the last great Islamic empire is the Ottoman Empire, and they reigned that area from 1517

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until 1917.

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It was under the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s that the famous travel writer Mark Twain went

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to the Holy Land.

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And he documented in his book, The Innocence Abroad, the total barren and desolation of

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the land.

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He said, Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.

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It's a barren, desolate land.

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He noted it was lacking a population they could travel for almost days and only see

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maybe 10 people.

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It was neglected.

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It was barren and all due to Ottoman taxation and Ottoman neglect.

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So in World War I, all of this changed.

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The Ottoman Empire sided with the Germans against the Allies and lost.

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You might remember the movie Lawrence of Arabia, which highlighted or portrayed how that the

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Arabs of Arabia helped the British to defeat the Ottomans in the Middle East.

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So because they assisted the British troops and brought about this victory for the Allies,

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the Brits owed some gifts, some gratitude to the Arabs of Arabia.

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So the Ottoman Empire was divided up by the British and the French and somewhat with the

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Italians and somewhat with the involvement of the Russians.

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And borders were drawn throughout the Middle East, breaking it up into smaller, modern

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nation states.

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And the British moved in and took over areas.

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The French took areas.

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The Italians took areas.

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And the goal was to set those areas up for self-rule.

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But this has been a source of many problems in the Middle East because of the way they

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arbitrarily just drew borders on maps and didn't take into consideration the local people

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living in the territories.

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They also had to give some territories to the Hashemite family in Arabia as playback.

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We'll get to that in a minute.

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Now the British were given mandate over the area that included Palestine.

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So in 1917, it was the British government had what's called the Balfour Declaration

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in which they set forward their goal was to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

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That Balfour Declaration became ratified in 1920 at the San Remo Conference and became

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legally binding.

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It was a part of the British mandate for the area of Palestine.

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And in 1922 then, the mandate, including the Balfour Declaration, was formally voted

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upon by 52 nations in the brand new body called the League of Nations.

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So this setting aside of Palestine for a Jewish homeland was even approved by the premier

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Arab leader of the day, Amir Faisal.

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And he said he knew that the Zionists would actually bring prosperity to the Middle East.

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But he asked for something in return and that was that he would be given Syria as a state.

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And Syria was under the French control.

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The French did not allow this.

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And so in the end, Amir Faisal turned against the Zionist enterprise.

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But at the beginning, he applauded it and had been in favor of it.

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So now in 1922, the British then, they've now got Palestine under their mandate.

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It's all approved by the international bodies.

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And they go and they cut off 78% of the land and give it to the Arabs.

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They set it up as what was called the Transjordan and Faisal's brother, Abdullah, was moved

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from Arabia to be king over Transjordan.

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The Hashemite family of Abdullah still rules in Jordan today.

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The brother Faisal ended up being given Iraq and he served as king of Iraq.

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Now, whereas Transjordan was given to the Arabs, it was set up to be a Jew-free state.

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It was an Arab state.

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No Jews were going to live there.

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But the problem is that in the remaining 22% of Palestine, which was now going to be for

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Jewish sovereignty, there were both Jews and Arabs living there.

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And tensions began to develop.

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And then we have the very sad story of how the British actually betrayed their commitment

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to the Jews.

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They'd already betrayed it in a way by giving 78% of the land away.

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But now they actually limited Jewish immigration into the area while they allowed Arab immigration.

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And it all came to a terrible head in 1947 when a shipload of Jewish refugees fleeing

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Europe and had survived the death camps of Europe, making their way to the land, to the

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land of Israel, then Palestine.

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The British fired on that ship.

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And that is when the whole case got turned over to the brand new international body

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now called the United Nations.

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The United Nations saw that this was a bad situation.

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And so they voted for a partition of the remaining land that part of it would be for a Jewish

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state, part for another Arab state, the Jews accepted the plan, the Arabs rejected the

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plan.

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But in 1948 then, the Jewish state was declared.

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The Arabs just declared war on the Jewish state.

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But then in 1949, Israel was admitted into the United Nations with a majority vote.

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So these are the steps.

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This is the legal process going from the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the dividing

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up of the Middle East, the mandates given to the British and the French and the Italians,

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and then how eventually the United Nations had to step in.

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They said, we are in favor of Jewish state on this part of the land.

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And so the Jews declared a state.

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Now, what I want you to understand is that this whole process wasn't just about the Jewish

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state, it was about the entire Middle East.

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So the Ottoman Empire was divided up amongst the British, the French and the Italians to

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set the whole area up into small modern nation states that there would no longer and ever

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be another global Islamic empire like there had been.

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And so they drew lines on the map and they decided on all kinds of states, not just Israel,

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not just Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan,

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all these states were drawn on these maps and were eventually set up for self-rule.

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So every country existing in the Middle East today was founded since 1920 according to

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the same legal process.

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Therefore, in short, if anyone wants to question Israel's legality and her founding being

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legal or not, they've got to question the founding of every other state in the Middle

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East.

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So you can boldly support Israel whose founding was completely legal and formulated by the

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community of nations and ratified by the United Nations.

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Okay?

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I hope you enjoyed that little lesson in history, but it's a really important one.

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Next week we're going to talk about some biblical reasons for your support of Israel.

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Well hey, give me one more minute.

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I have two very special offers for you.

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First is all you ladies out there, we have scheduled a women's tour to Israel this November,

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November 2nd through the 12th.

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I invite you to go with me to the land of the Bible.

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Let's walk the land.

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Let's talk the Bible.

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Let's have our faith restored and ignited and strengthened for the days in which we

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live.

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To sign up, I want you to go down below into today's show notes and sign up for our tour

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interest list.

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We will send you all the information.

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Or if it's easier, just call our tour's department line at 866-393-5890.

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That's 866-393-5890.

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I want to travel Israel with you.

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Now my second offer is a free download that we have developed just for you called 10 Reasons

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for Christians to Support Israel.

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Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be talking about a lot of these reasons, but I want you

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to have this download so that you can be preparing yourself, that you can share it with your

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friends and colleagues, and invite them to listen in each week as I will be going over

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some of these reasons and going a little bit farther into depth.

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So in today's show notes, we link directly to this downloadable 10 reasons why Christians

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should support Israel.

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Or you can go to the Out of Zion Show dot com landing page, click on resources, and

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we should have a link there for you as well.

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So take advantage of this free download, and I will see you back here next week, fully

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informed, ready to learn some more.

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Until then, God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or

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wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.