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Popular late night television host Conen O'Brien has been in Israel for the past week filming a segment of his documentary series "Conan Without Borders."
While there have been a lot of laughs, Conan's also made some very serious stops as he makes his way through the Holy Land.
One was to Ziv Medical Center in the Galilee city of Safed, where thousands of Syrians wounded in their nation's bloody civil war have been treated.
The fact that Israel and Syria remain officially at war was not lost on Conan.
"I am amazed and excited by what is being done here at Ziv for the sake of people from a neighboring country and an enemy," he told the Ziv medical personnel, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
Conan went on to state that if it were up to him, the Israeli doctors involved in this selfless, life-saving work "need to receive the Nobel Peace Prize."
Several thousand Syrians, on both sides of the conflict, have in recent years made their way to the border with Israel, desperate for help and medical attention.
And Israel has been there to answer the call.
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When people of faith find themselves in desperate situations, they look to God for a sign, a miracle or some word of comfort.
Sometimes miracles come in the form of a timely word of encouragement. Sometimes a certain verse of the Bible seems to leap off the page like communication dropping into our lives directly from heaven. God promises that His Word does not descend from heaven without accomplishing its purpose:
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Is. 55:10-11).
Once, during Israel's War of Independence, a Bible literally did drop from heaven containing a message of hope and encouragement for Jewish soldiers in a desperate situation.
In May of 1948, the British government gave control of the Galilean city of Safed (Tzfat) over to the Arabs. The city's small Jewish minority immediately came under siege. The Arabs began a relentless attack against the Jewish quarter. They promised to slaughter all the Jews in the city, and the Grand Mufti planned to make Safed his capital city.
Palmach commander Yigal Allon proposed a bold plan to rescue the city through a military operation the Haganah referred to as Operation Yiftach (named after the heroic biblical judge Jephthah and his exploits in Judg. 11). As his special forces launched Operation Yiftach against Arab strongholds in Safed, Allon received an urgent message from the nearby settlement of Ramot Naftali. Arab forces were attacking the small moshav and threatened to overrun the community's defenders. The Arab army had brought in a heavy piece of artillery, and they were using it to shell the settlement. The defenders said they could not hold out long. They needed assistance immediately.
Allon faced a difficult dilemma. He feared that, if he divided his forces to send help to the defenders at Ramot Naftali, he would not have sufficient numbers to mount the attack against the Arab forces holding Safed. A rescue mission to Ramot Naftali could derail the entire operation and jeopardize the besieged Jewish Quarter in Safed. Allon had a difficult decision to make: save the Jews of Safed or save the people of Ramot Naftali.
He told the people of Ramot Naftali to hold out as long as they could with whatever they had. He hoped that by pressing the attack against Safed, he might draw the Arabs away from them.
The men of Ramot Naftali were trained fighters, but they did not see how they could possibly hold their position, especially when the Arab army was employing such heavy artillery. They asked for permission to abandon the moshav, but Allon insisted that they stand their ground and fight on as long as they could. He knew that they might not survive, but he warned them that, if they abandoned their post, he would treat them as deserters.
Some of the settlers defending Ramot Naftali had previously served under Orde Charles Wingate, a famous British war hero, Bible-believing Zionist and leader of early Jewish forces in Israel. Wingate had been a devout Gentile Christian. He'd had a reputation for consulting his Bible for battle strategy. He had considered himself a modern-day Gideon and had been convinced that God was fulfilling Bible prophecy by bringing the Jewish people back to the land.
Before World War II, Wingate had helped the Jewish community in Palestine by training Jewish fighters to strike back against Arab insurgents and saboteurs. He had helped organize and train Jews into the first Jewish army since the Second Temple era. Those forces had evolved into the Haganah and the modern IDF. Even Yigal Allon himself had received his training under Wingate. Unfortunately, Wingate died in a plane crash in 1944. He was not there to assist the Jewish people when the War of Independence broke out.
Some of the men whom Wingate had trained in Palestine had helped establish the small outpost of Ramot Naftali. In May of 1948, those men faced almost certain death as they prepared to defend their position against overwhelming odds. Yigal Allon wanted to send them help, but he knew that doing so would jeopardize Operation Yiftach and the battle for Safed. He did consent, however, to send a few small planes to conduct air drops consisting of supplies, ammunition and weapons.
Orde Wingate's widow, Lorna, heard about the desperate situation her late husband's men faced at Ramot Naftali. She also heard that, except for a planned air drop, the men had been more or less abandoned. She decided to do what she could to help by participating in the air drop and joined the pilot of a Piper Cub plane dropping supplies. As they circled the settlement, she dropped a special parcel to the men who once served under her husband. The parcel contained her late husband's Bible.
The men of Ramot Naftali retrieved the parcel, opened it up and recognized the Bible. It was the same Bible they had seen their late commander so often consult before leading them into battle. They remembered how he had often read aloud to them from that very Bible and how he had formulated his battle strategies from the stories within it. The soldiers also found a personal letter of encouragement, faith and hope from Mrs. Wingate tucked inside the Bible. They took courage, and they held their ground against the attacking forces.
Meanwhile, the Palmach began their assault against the Arab forces of Safed. The first assault failed to take the city; the Arab forces were too well entrenched. Allon wondered if he had sacrificed the men of Ramot Naftali needlessly. As he scouted the area to plan another assault, he noticed the sound of Arab artillery shelling Safed had changed. Unlike the whistle of mortars that the Palmach forces had been hearing in Safed's Jewish Quarter up until then, this new sound was clearly made by the same artillery piece that had been hammering Ramot Naftali the day before.
Allon realized his plan had worked. By keeping his forces united and concentrated on the battle for Safed, he had drawn the Arabs away from Ramot Naftali and turned their attention to Safed. The men of Ramot Naftali were saved. Moreover, in the next assault, Allon's forces liberated Safed and saved the besieged Jews of the Jewish Quarter.
Wingate's men held on to their position at Ramot Naftali for the remainder of the War of Independence, and they held on to the Bible that had dropped to them from heaven. The story of the miraculous Bible from heaven did not involve anything supernatural, but to those who received that Bible, it seemed like a divine intervention.
Wingate's Bible is now on display in the Beith Shturman Museum at Kibbutz Ein Harod, a tangible reminder of the power of God's Word and the certainty of his promises regarding Israel.
Daniel Thomas Lancaster is a writer, teacher, and the Director of Education at the Messianic ministry of First Fruits of Zion (ffoz.org), an international ministry with offices in Israel, Canada, and USA, bringing Messianic Jewish teaching to Christians and Jews. He is the author of several books about the Jewish roots of Christianity, the Jewishness of the New Testament, and he is the author of the Torah Club Bible study program (torahclub.org). He also serves as the teaching pastor at Beth Immanuel (bethimmanuel.org), a Messianic Jewish synagogue in Hudson, Wisconsin. Daniel can be reached at outreach@ffoz.org
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Israel’s commitment to human life knows no bounds. When soldiers guarding the northern border with Syria last week were asked to permit entry to a seriously wounded Syrian man, they did not hesitate, despite the Ziv fact that the patient was a member of the Al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of Al Qaeda.
Israeli military doctors received the wounded man at the border, and after a security check to make sure he was not wired with explosives, transported the patient to Ziv Medical Center in the Galilee town of Tsefat (Safed).
A day earlier, the Israeli army had been asked by contacts on the Syrian side to open the gates to a pregnant woman in need of a caesarean section. Israel agreed, and sent army doctors and paramedics to await the woman at the border. But the woman ended up giving birth to a healthy baby on her way to meet the Israelis.
These are but a few of the more recent examples of Israel’s readiness to aid the the victims of Syria’s ongoing civil war, be they friend or foe.
A year ago, Israel Today interviewed Prof. Rafi Be’er, director of Rambam Hospital in Haifa, who said that at his hospital “we treat anyone who comes through the door. We check neither his nationality nor his religion. We have an obligation to save lives and to heal the sick.”
Later, Israel Today received permission from the army to speak to four Syrian terrorists being treated in Tsefat. In speaking to us, they had nothing but praise for the way they had been treated in Israel. When asked if Israelis would receive the same care in Syria, all four agreed: “That would be impossible. Muslims have no mercy, enemies remain enemies!”
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As the Children of Israel encamped in the desert, each tribe had a flag with unique insignia. Do you know the symbolism of the modern day flag of Israel? At the First Zionist Congress back in 1897, the organizers wanted an original flag, when one man said, "We have a flag — and it is blue and white. The Tallit (prayer shawl) with which we wrap ourselves when we pray: that is our symbol. Let us take this Tallit from its bag and unroll it before the eyes of Israel and the eyes of all nations." So he ordered a blue and white flag with the Shield of David painted upon it, and that is how the national flag came into being. Today, the insignia of Israel's national blood bank is known to all as providing life-saving blood to all Jews and non Jews in medical need.
Hear from an Israeli soldier whose life, almost extinguished by Hezbollah, was ultimately saved with 10 units of blood. Heart to Heart supplies 97% of Israel’s blood, and all of the blood of the Israel Defense Forces.
On Christmas day, Ayala, an 11-year old Jewish Israeli girl and her father were driving when their car was targeted, and took a direct hit, by a Molotov cocktail. Contrast that with Israel's life-saving treatment of every person in need, including a Palestinian baby last week.
Our Israel365 Calendar provides daily inspiration with fantastic scenic photos of Israel accompanied by meaningful verses. Last chance to get one, now $5 and FREE shipping.
Dear Rabbi Tuly, Your e-mails are quite inspiring. I look forward to the day when I too would be able to visit the Holy Land. Israel has been in my heart since the age of twelve years. I pray daily for the Holy Land, the peace of Jerusalem and the safety of the Jewish people. Once again thank you for your e-mails. Ursula, Benoni-South Africa
Just a small note to say thank you. You are awakening feelings of a Homeland that I dreamed of since I was a child.- Karen Willis
Last week, the city council of Lille, the fourth largest city in France, decided on a "temporary freeze" of its twin city agreement with Safed (Tsfat) in Israel’s northern Galilee region.
Safed was once home of some of the most revered Jewish sages, among them the father of contemporary Kabbalah, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, better known as the Holy Ari.
Green Party council member Marie-Pierre Bresson explained that the decision was born out of the European Parliament's call to freeze privileged agreements with Israel in order to pressure Jerusalem and accelerate the peace process. Lille's move to freeze its relationship with Safed came just days after the new Swedish prime minister infuriated Israel with his announced intention to make Sweden the first major EU country to officially recognize a "Palestinian state."
Whether or not the council of Lille is aware of it, this decision is more of the same biased European policy that verges on being anti-Semitic.
Lille’s ties with Nablus and Shanghai, two of her other sister cities, should have been frozen over far greater grievances than Israel's reluctance to accept Europe's benevolent invitation to capitulate to Palestinian demands. China's occupation of Tibet doesn't seem to bother Lille, nor do the views and positions of Hamas member and Nablus Mayor Adly Yaish. According to the inflamed reasoning of the leaders of Lille, however, Israel is solely to blame for one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
If the summer’s Gaza war taught us anything, it is that whenever a Palestinian-controlled region is given full independence, it’s first order of business is to turn all energy and resources toward fighting Israel, rather than improving the lives of the local Palestinian population.
Nevertheless, the Mayor of Lille, the Prime Minister of Sweden and hosts of other European leaders and intellectuals choose to turn a blind eye to the expressed Palestinian desire to dissolve Jewish control over the Holy Land. If they would have simply looked at the map of Israel as Palestinians envision it, they would have seen that not only the West Bank, but the whole of Israel is painted green.
The chilling breeze now blowing from the north reminds one of Jeremiah, who saw that days will come when "out of the north calamity shall break forth on all the inhabitants of the land … against all the cities of Judah."
Israel is increasingly concerned by these seemingly pro-peace policies that are aimed at coercing Israel into the unacceptable compromise of withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders without any reciprocal demand that the Palestinians renounce their dream of "returning" to Ashkelon, Haifa and Safed.
Whether or not Europe will bring calamity upon Israel is yet to be seen. It is up to them to decide whether or not they will once again give in to ideologies that mark the (Israelis) Jews as the world's scapegoat.
PHOTO: Town square in Lille, France.
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