God’s Children Are Not for Sale: What I Saw in Israel

 1.⁠ ⁠I did not go to Israel for politics. I did not go to add my voice to the noise of pundits and spin. Nobody—not Israel or anybody else—offered to pay me anything; nor would I ever consider such an exchange. I went for one reason: to see if God’s children could be saved from violent jihadist militants.

 2.⁠ ⁠I needed to see with my own eyes. I needed to hear with my own ears. Because when the world cannot agree on the truth, the only way forward is to stand where the suffering is, to hold their words in your hands, and to look into the eyes of God’s little ones.

 3.⁠ ⁠Let me first say what must be said. Were there atrocities from both sides in the Gaza conflict with Israel? Yes. There always are in war, and it is never excusable. Is Israel perfect? No. It never has been, from Old Testament days to New Testament days, until now. Has Israeli intelligence been involved in unsavory activities? Almost certainly. But does America not have skeletons just as dark, or perhaps darker? Of course. But I still wear the American flag as a hope for the ideal-a hope for what ultimately, some day, will be.

 4.⁠ ⁠And the big question: Did Israel go too far in its response to the October 7 Jihadist attacks? The Western media is convinced it did, and are writing the whole thing off as “Genocide”. Period.

 5.⁠ ⁠But what if it was YOUR daughter that was kidnapped and being beaten and gang raped, over and over, in hidden Gazan bunkers and tunnels? What if it was YOUR wife? As a matter of demographic comparison, what Hamas did to Isreal would be akin to, say, the Nicaraguan army crossing our southern borders and, after killing over 44,000 of our citizens, kidnapping, beating, raping, and holding hostage close to 10,000 of our daughters, sons, nieces and nephews. Imagine this. How bad would you want your people free? At what point would you tweet out, or yell at your president, that it is time to consign your daughter or mother to a life of sex slavery in Nicaragua, because you can no longer stomach the destruction inside Managua?

 6.⁠ ⁠Do you really want to stand 3,000 miles away from all of this, and then judge how far is too far?

 7.⁠ ⁠Many are understandably horrified by the destruction in Gaza, but they don’t consider how Hamas had built an extensive terror tunnel network beneath homes and public buildings, longer than the NYC subway system. The idea is for Hamas soldiers to hide in these tunnels, along with Israeli hostages, knowing that all the cities above, and the people living there, automatically become human shields. And if Isreal dares counter-strike the militants in the tunnels, in an effort to get their people back and deter further attacks, they will be killing innocent people above. And that’s exactly the point. Hamas then cries foul and “genocide” to the Western media, who they know don’t have the time or inclination to figure out this whole tunnel scheme. So Western society simply parrots the media and also cry “Genocide.” And, as per Hamas’ plan, Israel is the international villain, and a new state of terror, like Iran, will perhaps be born of it.

 8.⁠ ⁠To ensure these tunnels can never again be used to harm or exploit Israeli and Gazan children, Israel destroyed all the structures above them—a harsh reality that's hard to grasp for those who refuse to see it for themselves.

 9.⁠ ⁠Notwithstanding, some have even gone so far as to compare the destruction in Gaza to Harry Truman’s 1945 decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is that crazy? No, it’s human. I have studied Truman’s decision until I’ve been blue in the face. Yes, there was a consensus in the United States that it was the only option to end World War II once and for all, and end it for everyone.

10.⁠ ⁠There was also an even stronger consensus amongst millions of Japanese mothers and children who, very understandably, believed that only the devil himself could have ordered such indiscriminate death and destruction upon the innocent. I try to understand both sides of the argument, and I have determined that I wil never be settled with it. And I hope to God I never will be.

11.⁠ ⁠But Im also not alone. A deep study of Truman will conclude that he himself went to his grave unsettled with it. Because he, like most of us, was, in fact, a descent human being. In fact, as American presidents go, he was actually one of the most decent presidents America has ever known. War is hell. And hell is hopelessly incomprehensible.

12.⁠ ⁠Another applicable, thought-provoking question, that may directly apply to October 7 and the Gaza destruction. With decades now separating us from Truman’s fateful decision, consider now who you think those Japanese mother’s would blame more for the vast destruction of their homeland. Emperor Hirohito, who ordered the unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941–thus “awaken[ing] the sleeping giant”?, as Japanese Admiral Yamamoto reportedly feared?; or Harry Truman, for responding?

13.⁠ ⁠Another parallel should be considered when thinking upon the overwhelming Israeli response to October 7. What was America’s response to the 9-11 attacks? Whoever was ultimately responsible for those attacks, was the U.S. response not totally over the top? How much death and destruction did America bring to innocent Afghanis and Iraqis? Thousands of Americans killed on 9-11; hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern civilians killed in response. Is America also Genocidal maniacs? Why do the same anti-Israeli podcasters splash American flags all over their marketing?; why do they still honor America’s brave soldiers who fought in these “forever-wars”?

14.⁠ ⁠Yet they would just as soon don a swastika on their hats as they would a Star of David; and just as soon interview a member of the Gestapo, as they would share the same air with an Israeli IDF- soldier.

15.⁠ ⁠I’m not justifying either of these actions against innocents. I’m just asking for perspective. And I’m hoping that perhaps future Israeli-Palestine history will provide more clarity on this almost impossible situation.

16.⁠ ⁠In the meantime, let’s do what we can now for all the children involved. And to do so, we must accept this reality: Hamas is desecrating God’s children.

17.⁠ ⁠I met families who told me how those who tried to flee, after Isreal publically warned them that they were commencing their counter-offensive, were gunned down — not by Israel, but by Hamas. Mothers told me how Israeli-gifted food for their children was seized by their terrorist leaders, Hamas, and sold on the black market. Gazan women described how their little ones were forced to the front lines, used as human shields for militants.

18.⁠ ⁠Even though Western media don’t want you to know about this oppression by Hamas of their own people; they must turn a blind eye to Hamas leaders who openly brag about it. On January 17, 2017, Hamas leader, Ismael Haniyeh, an architect of the October 7 slaughter, declared: “Children are tools to be used against Israel. We will sacrifice them for the political support of the world.” Then, immediately after the October 7 attack, Haniyeh again bragged, this time on a television interview, saying, “We need the blood of women, children, and the elderly of Gaza—so it awakens our revolutionary spirit.”

19.⁠ ⁠This is not liberation. This is not defense. This is the desecration of God’s children. And let me be clear: God’s children are not for sale. They are not pawns for profit, for power, or for propaganda.

20.⁠ ⁠I made entry into Syria’s war-zone in the midst of the October-7th-like terror being viciously hurled upon Druze and Christian villages. I witnessed volunteer Israeli IDF soldiers and physicians already forward deployed, bravely providing rescue and recovery services for both Druze and Christian sufferers. I watched an 8-year-old girl , named Cristina, die two feet in front of me. I, for one, DID think of my own daughters.

21.⁠ ⁠I heard the voices of clergy in Syria, like Father Tony Boutros of As-Suwayda, who pleaded with the world from his burned church: “We Christians, along with our Druze brothers, have always lived together in safety and security… but now our churches and homes have been burned. What happened to us is an inhumane act, and the world must look at us.”

22.⁠ ⁠His words confirm what I have witnessed: faith communities under fire, children in danger, lies spreading faster than truth. And yet, there is hope. I have seen Druze and Christian families stand against this same darkness. Unlike in Gaza, their faith almost immediately exposed the lies—exposed the jihadist’s dark and deceptive strategy. The truth about politicized Islam was getting out, notwithstanding the Western media’s near silence over the death of these massacred little ones.

23.⁠ ⁠Which begs another question. Why? Why has the Western media been virtually silent about the massacres of Christian and Druze? And yet, they have been caught, not only screaming uncontrollably about casualties in Gaza, but even fabricating numbers in order to paint Israel as the genocidal monsters they clearly want them to be. The Free Press, among others, have well documented this Western media fabrication. Everyone from the the New York Times to CNN have been complicit; showing pictures of sick Gazan children, with pre-existing health issues, but pretending their ailments were due to an Israeli forced-famine. Not only is it an immoral smear on Israel, it’s exploitative to these Gazan children. It’s putting politics over children and it’s truly disgusting .

24.⁠ ⁠And what of the true Gazan casualty numbers? Media whistleblowers and watch-dog groups have successfully unmasked the truth: the casualty numbers are only being reported by Hamas propagandists, to the point that, even the UN, had to almost half the number of Gazan casualties from their original reporting.

25.⁠ ⁠And yet, while Western media lie about the casualties in Gaza, they say nothing about the truth that’s happening to Christian and Druze just up the road.

26.⁠ ⁠But the Christian and Druze have bravely been able to speak for themselves. They are regularly sending videos out of massacred and bloodied women and children, as jihadist bullets and bombs come crashing down on all of them. Even as I write this report, I am working daily, hourly, with brave Druze and Christian journalists inside the war-zones, who send me constant reports and raw videos, risking their lives to do the job the New York Times refuses to do. Indeed, Western media is too busy fabricating reports against Israel, and instead turn their noses up to beaten, raped, and bloodied Christian and Druze babies.

27.⁠ ⁠I do not mean to offend my Druze and Christian sisters and brothers by comparing them to Gazans, who they rightfully see as their enemy—an enemy who has spilt the blood of their children. I’m only holding out hope that the Gazan people, like the Druze and Christians, are recognizing who their closest, most direct, enemy actually is. Some say I’m crazy for holding out this hope. After all, Hamas and its surrogates shamelessly force Gazan children to chant “death to Isreal, Death to America.” They are raised to hate and kill innocent people.

28.⁠ ⁠But they also said Ronald Reagan was crazy for believing that the people of the Soviet Union, as a whole, were not necessarily responsible for the estimated 20 million deaths under Stalinist ideology. The Soviet people were also supposed to have been too far gone—too brainwashed. And yet, Reagan, sensitive to God’s love and mercy to every individual, identified what he called “the underground church” which was being directed by what he called “the Divine Plan.” And in the end, when the impossible happened, even as the Berlin Wall fell, Reagan was at least mostly vindicated.

29.⁠ ⁠Critics will inevitably say I can’t compare these two. And they will provide multiple good reasons. We will debate this issue further.

30.⁠ ⁠But the social and spiritual revolution that happened in the dying days of the Soviet Union was, nevertheless, impossible. And I will always believe in the impossible, especially in the furtherance of the liberation of all God’s children.

31.⁠ ⁠I choose to have the hope of Reagan, even at the risk he took of being called ignorant and nieve. My world-vision is one seen principally through the eyes of children—all children, regardless of political ideology. Children do not belong to any political ideology. And that’s why I do not, either. And I have observed that when the well-being of children is the first and last question one considers when devising policy, the impossible often comes to pass. Heaven knows, nobody deserves it more. Yes I, like Reagan, am a firm believer in “divine plans.”

32.⁠ ⁠And so, yes, I do hold out hope. And I hope that the voices of Gazan mothers and their children can, like that of the Druze and Christians, find their way out, through the complicit and deceptive voices of the Western media, so true and lasting liberation may be an option for them as well. Some groups, such as the Center for Peace Communications, have already been successful in getting these otherwise silenced Gazan voices out to the world.

33.⁠ ⁠Perhaps these voices can stir a revolution. Perhaps these voices can lead the innocent children to some sort of relocation, to some other land free from terrorist rule. We shall see.

34.⁠ ⁠In the meantime, the inkhorn is being filled. Every betrayal, every child raped, every baby starved, every church burned, every reporter’s misleading pen, every podcaster’s uninformed voice, every mother’s silenced plea— it is all being written down. History and heaven will remember who defended God’s children, and who betrayed them.

35.⁠ ⁠I went to Israel not to argue, but to testify. I saw it. I heard it. I believe it. And I will not be silent.

35.⁠ ⁠Because God’s children are not for sale.

~ By Tim Ballard