Israel

Mike Huckabee to President Trump: ‘I Believe You will Hear from Heaven’

It’s not too often that the public is afforded an opportunity to see the private correspondence between the President of the United States and a senior administration official.

But that’s what happened earlier this week when President Trump shared a text he received from Mike Huckabee, who is currently serving as United States Ambassador to Israel.

Here was the text:

Mr President, God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century—maybe ever. The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts.
No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s. You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave.
I will not abandon this post. Our flag will NOT come down! You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU! It is my honor to serve you!”

It’s not clear how President Trump responded, but Ambassador Huckabee, who has been married to his wife, Janet, for 51 years, is known for his deep Christian faith. A former pastor of several churches in Arkansas, Governor Huckabee attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Coming under fire while running for president in 2016, Mr. Huckabee stated, “Life, marriage and family issues aren’t bargaining chips or political considerations. They are moral issues. I will never apologize for my faith in Jesus Christ, my convictions or my values. Period.”

As Christians, we’re commanded to pray for our leaders – and in doing so, we’re asking the Lord to influence and inform their leadership.

Writing to Timothy, the apostle Paul urged, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

We pray for our leaders because we’re commanded to do so – and because we all benefit when those leading us are divinely guided. We want our leaders to hear from heaven.

Of course, the Lord can communicate with anyone anyway He chooses to – but He most often seems to speak with us via His Holy Word, prayer, and also through the counsel of others.

It might be politically incorrect for a president to admit that he’s seeking God’s guidance, but there is plenty of precedent for doing so. We know George Washington prayed daily, as did John Adams.

After Abraham Lincoln died, John Hay, one of his secretaries, found this written in the 16th president’s own hand. It was dated September, 1862 – right in the middle of the Civil War:

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true — that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

Lincoln was praying earnestly to learn and follow God’s will.

A video surfaced on Twitter of a pastors’ gathering at the White House just yesterday. Those assembled were praising and worshipping the Lord. This is a very good thing.

Over 163 years later, we pray that President Trump and all our elected leaders will similarly and earnestly seek to hear from heaven in these fragile and consequential days.

Israel, Hamas Reach Ceasefire

Israel and Hamas brokered another ceasefire this week after more than a year of fighting. The three-phase deal will reportedly begin with a prisoner exchange. If successful, the deal could permanently end the war.

Hamas will release the remaining women, children, elderly and severely injured people in their custody — 33 hostages — back to Israel starting as early as Sunday. In return, Israel will release a corresponding number of Palestinian prisoners from custody.

Israeli authorities do not yet know how many of the 33, which reportedly include two Americans, a five-year-old and one-year-old, will return alive. Of the 98 people still held by Hamas, including five more Americans, at least thirty are thought to be dead.

Stages two and three — and the fate of the 65 men who will remain in custody — depend on the success of phase one. Though the ceasefire’s terms closely mirror those proposed in failed agreements, both sides softened on previously unconditional demands, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Specifically, Hamas will allow Israeli forces to remain in Gaza while hostages are exchanged and, in return, Israel will continue negotiations after the hostages are safe instead of exterminating Hamas.

The parties’ changing stances reflect a changing geopolitical landscape that increasingly favors Israel.

Hamas’ regional and military position has weakened considerably since October 7th, 2023, when they massacred 1,200 civilians and captured 250 hostages. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than half of Hamas’ estimated 30,000 soldiers, and it lost its political and military leaders to Israeli strikes.

Hamas’ ally to the north, Hezbollah, has been similarly hamstrung. The Lebanese-based terror group lost hundreds of soldiers to Israeli offensives including the infamous pager attack. The remaining fighters have been largely rudderless after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades.

Hamas and Hezbollah use Iran’s money and weapons to help the larger country destroy and isolate Israel. But Iran isn’t doing well either. The fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who allowed Iran to run weapons through Syria to Lebanon, leaves Iran geographically isolated from its proxies. Ongoing protests and civil unrest have made it harder to exert effective influence abroad.

The incoming Trump administration also heralds an increasingly unfavorable political and social climate for Hamas.

Hamas can’t defeat Israel in head-to-head combat, so it relies on international pressure to restrain Israel before it deals the death blow. In his book, Should Christians Support Israel?, Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries quotes NGO Monitor:

[For years] Hamas has systematically exploited the civilian population of Gaza as “human shields,” expecting that their presence will either deter Israeli attacks or result in large number of civilian casualties providing a PR victory and generating international pressure, condemnations and sanctions against Israel.

Hamas’ uncompromising demands and cruelty to hostages following the first ceasefire reflects its confidence in this strategy, Michael Oren speculates in The Free Press:

Surprised by Israel’s determination to resume fighting after the ceasefire and convinced that mounting international condemnation of the war’s conduct would soon force the Israelis to surrender, the terrorist group dug in its heels.

Hamas fed off the spread of antisemitism in the West last year. Such sentiments will likely lose political power under a pro-Israel presidency.

Israel, for its part, is in a much stronger position than it was in October 2023. It’s no longer hemmed-in by Iranian proxies. A recent survey from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found 60% of surveyed Israeli adults believe Israel met its military goals in Gaza. Perhaps most importantly, the American President-elect will likely shore up international support Israel has lost in recent years.

This renewed allyship could help explain why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire. The Free Press reports that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, helped convince the PM to make key compromises.

President-elect Trump’s specter probably accelerated Hamas’ ceasefire timeline, too. Last week, he promised “all hell [would] break out in the Middle East” if Hamas failed to release the hostages before his inauguration on January 20.

Please pray the ceasefire will secure the hostages safe return and the end of the Israel-Hamas war.

Additional Articles and Resources

Iran, Hezbollah and How They Effect the Israel-Hamas War

Praise God for Latest Israel News More Than 90 Hamas Hostages Released

The Syrian Genocide Should Embarrass Pro-Hamas Protesters

Six Lies Hamas Tells You, Debunked

Tragedy in Israel and the Gift of a Soft Heart

The Syrian Genocide Should Embarrass Pro-Hamas Protesters

The fall Assad regime in Syria has exposed what many in the international community suspected for years — deposed President Bashar al-Assad committed genocide against Syrian civilians.

Genocide is an international crime encompassing “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group,” including,

  • Killing or harming members of a group, or creating conditions designed to kill or harm them.
  • Creating conditions designed to reduce births within a group.
  • Forcibly placing one group’s children with another group.

“Genocide” has become an American buzzword in recent years, but few conflicts meet this grisly threshold — for good reason. It was coined to describe the Third Reich’s murder of millions of European Jews. But al-Assad’s treatment of Syrians since the 2011 outbreak of the nation’s civil war can only be described as genocide.

His regime used chemical weapons, indiscriminate bombing and arbitrary imprisonment to stifle civilian protests. People detained in Assad’s vast network of prison systems frequently disappeared. For decades, a few brave survivors claimed the regime was torturing and murdering detained Syrians by the thousands.

Prisons liberated last month validated these stories.

Rebels and desperate families uncovered squalid conditions and emaciated bodies. Groups like the Center for Peace Communications (CPC) captured footage of the crematoriums and industrial metal presses guards used to pulverize prisoner’s remains and hide evidence of torture. Still others have uncovered thousands of bodies, dumped nameless, in mass graves across the nation.

Of the 1.3 million people cycled through this system since 2011, Joseph Braude, the president and founder of CPC, claims at least 10% died there.

“That is a conservative estimate,” Braude told author and podcaster Dan Senor. “There is a strong case that it could have been as high as 20%.”

Properly used, “genocide” communicates the seriousness of atrocities defying description and explanation. But the power of this term has dwindled in the past year and a half with persistent and flippant misuse.

I’m referring, of course, to the assertion that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas and recover hostages after the Gaza-based terror group brutally massacred more than 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed or injured in the crossfire.

But, as the Daily Citizen has previously reported, nothing about Israel’s counterattack meets the criteria of a genocide.

Genocidal acts, by definition, stem from the intent to exterminate an entire people group. Israel’s offensive followed the largest and deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. It intends only to defend it’s citizens by rescuing Israeli hostages and decimating Hamas’ ability to wage war.

Far from wiping Gazans off the map, Israel has gone to great lengths to prevent civilian casualties, including facilitating humanitarian aid. Hamas purposely subverts this goal by using human shields and hiding in tunnels beneath densely populated areas, schools and hospitals.

Israel’s history with Palestinians is similarly devoid of genocidal aims. According to Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries,  twenty-times fewer Palestinians have died in wars with Israel since 1948 than al-Assad’s Syria between 2021 and 2023. Hamas, meanwhile, vows to commit genocide against Israel in its charter. It has refused every single two-stage solution proposed by Israel and international community and spent tens of millions of dollars of foreign aid on Israel’s destruction.

A distressing number of educated Americans either don’t know or willfully disregard these facts. College students and faculty have spent countless hours castigating institutions for “funding genocide.”

Syrian activists like Mazen al-Hamada spent years begging for the attention of activists like these. A former detainee, al-Hamada spent years encouraging governments to shun the Assad regime. Discouraged by the lack of international action, al-Hamada returned to Syria, where he believed he could make a bigger difference, in 2020.

Al-Hamada’s tortured body was one of 38 discovered last month in a military hospital outside Sednaya prison, the regime’s most infamous detention center. He was murdered shortly before Assad fled to Moscow.

Braude feels pro-Palestinian protests have “cheapened” the word “genocide”, telling Senor,

[What happened in Syria] is what a real genocide looks like. The actual definition of genocide includes genocidal intent. The intent is in evidence, the machinery, the massive scale, the victims themselves… The cheapening of the word genocide, particularly over the past year and a half or so, has made it a word with very little meaning. The meaning of the term needs to be restored because there really is genocide and, among other places, it happened in Syria.

Syrian affairs analyst and former detainee Ahed Al Hendi further argues that using genocide as a politically expedient buzzword makes people less likely to take it seriously. He recounts the change of heart some pro-regime Syrians have experienced following al-Assad’s ouster.

Even before 2011 and during the Arab Spring, when we as Syrians used to speak and be active against Assad, we were always blamed by fellow Palestinians who told us, “You are attacking a regime that is supporting resistance against Israel,” and that “Israel is the main enemy.”
And now, ironically, after they saw what happened in Sednaya, many of them called and apologized and said, “You were right. This is the real monster.”

Thousands of Americans spent last year campaigning for Palestine based on a flawed analysis of which groups were the “oppressor” and which were the “oppressed.” In doing so, they minimized and ignored Nazi-era genocidal oppression occurring in real time.

There’s probably a lesson in that.

Additional Articles and Resources

Six Lies Hamas Tells You, Debunked

A Year’s Slide into Antisemitism, Examined

Radical Feminists for Hamas?

Double Standard? Calls for Israeli Ceasefire Could Conceal Antisemitism

Antisemitism — What It Is and Its Connection to the Israel-Hamas War

Israel is Under Attack — Here’s Why Christians Should Support Its Defense

Women’s Rights Group Silent on Hamas Sexual Violence, Analysis Shows

More Antisemitism — Legacy Media Implies Israeli Rescue Mission is War Crime

Pro-Hamas Protests Will Never Be Peaceful

College Faculty Voice Support for Antisemitic Protests

INVESTIGATION: Who funds anti-Israel protests?