Hey man, Colossians chapter 3. So there's a lot of depth here in Colossians chapter 3. So it's going to take us a few weeks to get through Colossians chapter 3. As a matter of fact, tonight we're only going to get through the first six verses. Let me just say this before we start the sermon. When you're reading the Bible, the Bible is so deep that this is why reading the Bible, unlike any other book, reading the Bible several times or reading the Bible over and over and over again, you'll always find new things in the Bible. So it's an infinite book. There's just infinite wisdom in the Bible. You don't ever really want to read the Bible. I don't know if you all are like me, but sometimes if I'm reading through a book or I'm reading through the Bible especially, I almost have to catch myself at times because I can go through and I can read an entire chapter of the Bible and I wasn't paying attention. I don't know if that's ever happened to you or if you know what I'm talking about. This is why people watch TV, by the way, instead of reading because reading takes active thinking. You have to keep yourself engaged in what you're reading and the Bible is especially that way. So the next time you read the Bible, try doing this. Just try just grabbing a first few verses of a chapter and just reading those things again and again and seeing if you can find something in there. Other than just blasting through a chapter in the Bible, you'll always find more things that way and you'll always learn things that way and you're going to see that tonight. There's kind of an interesting concept and it's a super important concept that's laid out in these first six verses in Colossians chapter three and I want you to think tonight during this sermon. You should do this always during all sermons, by the way, but I want you to think because I know that you are affected by this somewhere in your life. I don't know where it is, but I know that every single one of you tonight is going to be affected by this concept that is laid out in these first six verses. Myself included, by the way. So look, let's look at Colossians chapter three and see what we can come up with this evening from the Word of God. Look at verse number one. The Bible says, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Okay, that makes sense. Seek things that are above. Now look at verse number two. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Okay, that's a pretty simple concept right there. And that concept is what governs the next few verses where we're going to get into some more detail. But basically the Bible here is saying, set your affections on heavenly things, on spiritual things, so to speak, and not on the physical things or the carnal things, as Paul would have said it, on the earth. Change what you're drawn towards is what he's saying. You know, set your affections on the right things. Spiritual versus physical is what the Bible is talking about here. Look at verse number three. He says, For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God.  And you can see that in the next verse. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye appear also with him in glory. Then ye would be glorified. Therefore, in verse number five, he says, Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. Remember, we're not supposed to be focused on things on the earth from the first couple of verses here. He says, Mortify, which means, you know, like subdue. Subdue your members. Subdue your body. You know, keep your body under control. Therefore, your members which are upon the earth. And then he gives some specific sins, some specific problems here. And he lists. He says, Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence. I can't say that word ever. And covetousness, which is idolatry. Cupiscence means lust.  You know, things that are wrong. So here we see fornication, uncleanness, this wrong affection, this evil lust, covetousness.  But then look at the last three words of this verse. He says, and covetousness, covetousness is wanting something that is not yours. It's wanting something that your neighbor has or that somebody else has. I mean, that could be anything. That could be people. That could be things. Anything. But he says, which is idolatry?  So here we see a new concept laid out in Colossians chapter three in verse number five. So really this is talking about, verse five is all talking about lusts of the flesh of all types. But then at the end, we see something different here. We see that covetousness or this lusting towards these things equals idolatry. Now go to Leviticus chapter 19 in verse number four. Excuse me. Go to Leviticus chapter 19 in verse number four. Now most people, when they read the Bible and they read the Old Testament and they read about the idolatry and they read about Solomon's wives and all the, you know, the high places and the altars to the false gods, they look at that and they're just like, oh man, I would never do that.  But look at Leviticus chapter 19 in verse number four. So Leviticus 19, four, you know, the Bible talks pretty strongly against idolatry. God says in Leviticus 19, four, turn ye not unto idols. Nor make yourselves molten gods, I am the Lord your God. Of course we know that God, our God, is a jealous God. God tells us that over and over. He's jealous. Look, jealousy in the Bible is always a good thing. Jealousy is wanting something. It's okay for me to be jealous over my wife because she's mine. It's okay for a wife to be jealous over her husband because you belong to each other. Now when you're jealous, when you have a feeling that you want something that somebody else has that doesn't belong to you, that would be in the category of envy or covetousness. Envy bad, jealousy good. We serve a jealous God, meaning we belong to the Lord. He bought us with the blood of his own son. So we belong to him. He's jealous over us. He does not want us turning to idols. He gets very, very angry about that. So anything, the Bible is telling us here, anything in verse number five that we lost after with our members, with our body, with our flesh, anything that we're coveting after, that we're wanting, the Bible is saying that is considered idolatry by God. Anything that takes your focus off of the spiritual things and puts it on the earthly things, that's idolatry. Now you're like, oh man, I'm an idolater. Now we have a problem. You know, when we read the Old Testament, we don't really equate ourselves to that sin. But the Bible here is saying is if you're covetousness, if you're covetous, if you're lost after things you shouldn't, these are idols. Anything that takes us towards the things on the earth. I mean, what could this be? What could idols be? First of all, it could be stuff. It could be things. It could be cars, houses. It could be a job. It could be just the idea of success. Just this idea that I must be successful in this never-ending drive to be more and more successful. That could be an idol to you. You could end up just throwing away your spiritual life for that. Turn to Matthew chapter 13. Turn to Matthew chapter 13. It could be anything of this world. Look at Matthew chapter 13. And look at verse number 22. This is the parable of the Sower. But he talks about one specific seed that is thrown among the thorns. And look at verse 22. He says he also, Matthew 13 and verse number 22, he also that received the seed among the thorns is he that here at the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he become unfruitful. First of all, it didn't say let's walk it backwards. It didn't say he was always unfruitful. It said he became that way because he got choked.  It doesn't say the things of the world. It doesn't say the stuff of the world. It says the care of the world.  Look, it's easy to see this one. It's easy to see this one. We care so much about the, you know, everything that is good comes from God. We get to the point where we care so much about the blessings from God that they actually become the prize to us. And that is when they become the idols. When the things of this world become the goal itself, that is when it becomes the idol. And it comes always at the expense of your spiritual life is what Colossians is telling us here. But look, here's another thing. Did you know that people could be idols in your life? You say how? People can draw you away from the Lord. People in your life, look, did you know, here's, let me get, let's do another one. People's children can be idols in their life. You say how? Well, let me just give you an example. Let's take a parent. Let's take a parent who raises a child that is just gone and, you know, is just a wicked child. And they're, you know, maybe they're in fornication, maybe they're just turned from the Lord, maybe they never loved the Lord.  I mean, this parent just raised a child that just went off the rails and it just didn't do it right.   Have you seen this before? I mean, you could argue that there's an entire generation that has done this, has raised a wicked younger generation and then as that wickedness grows up, they change. They think, oh, it's okay. Fornication is okay now. It's okay to live with your, everybody does that now. Look, and the irony of it is, is that the fact that they don't rebuke it when it comes to, you know, fruition when they're older is because they never rebuked it along the way. That's why, look, the refusal to correct is the cause, yet they sacrifice their spirituality and they just, they change. They change their beliefs at the expense of their spiritual life. That is an idol. That is an idol in someone's life. That is how a child can be an idol. Whenever you sacrifice the spiritual for the carnal, it's an idol. And you know, that, you know, that's, that's where the, that's what happened to the churches, by the way. That's what happened to the pastors, by the way. They just stopped rebuking. They just stopped, you know, they just, they changed. They changed. They didn't, they didn't rebuke. They changed, they sacrificed. The congregation became an idol. Everyone became an idol and they changed with the times. Any time something or someone in your life causes you to move away from what the Bible says, that is an idol. Is what we are learning tonight. Even children, even your family can be that. How about this one? How about friends? Turn to Proverbs chapter 27. Have you ever had a friend that leads you away spiritually? Have you ever had a friend? Look, that's not a friend. That's an idol. If you allow that to happen. Look at Proverbs chapter 27. People themselves can be idols, folks. Look at Proverbs chapter 27. Look at verse number 6. This is a friend, right here. The Bible says in Proverbs 27, 6, faithful are the wounds of a friend. But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Look, this is a true friend. Look, these wounds are faithful, but they hurt. This is a friend who is telling his brother or sister, you know, not what they just want to hear. They're telling them the truth, even if that truth hurts. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 12. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 12.  Look, those are not friends. Those can be idols if they drag you away from your spiritual life. Look at 1 Kings chapter 12 in verse number 9. Solomon's son, Rehoboam, is taking over the kingdom and instead of listening to the wise counsel of the men, the people have come to him and they said, hey, you know, how are you going to lead us? How are you going to lead us? Your father's yoke was very heavy on us. Your father was very hard on us. How are you going to be different? What are you going to do? And the wise men, the wise counsel of Solomon's, you know, advisors told him, hey, go light with the people. Tell them you'll be their servant. And then look at verse number 9. Look at verse number 9 of 1 Kings chapter 12. This is what his friends tell him. And he said unto them, what counsel give ye that we may answer this people who have spoken to me saying, make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter? And this is the young men. This is his friends. And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him saying, thus shall thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee saying, thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us, thus shall thou say unto them, my little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. And now, whereas my father did laid you with heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. And my father had chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. You know what these guys are doing to Ray Abome here? You know what they're telling him?  You will go and you tell those people how it is. He's like, you're the king. And they're just puffing him up. They're like, how dare those people, you know, talk to you that way.  And they're just puffing him up. He gets all welled up with pride. And then he goes and look, it cost him the kingdom. It cost him the actual kingdom. Look, friends that just tell you good news all the time and just tell you what you want to hear, those are not your friends. Those can be idols that can take you away from your spiritual life. Here's another one. How about this one? How can people be idols is what we're talking about. Look, people's approval can be an idol to you. You know, your need, or much more than this. Much more than this. How about this? Not wanting enemies can also be an idol. Just this idea, look, I don't necessarily want enemies in my life. It's not something I wake up in the morning and be like, I want enemies today. But look, it's just turn to Luke chapter 21. But this desire or this lust, this desire or this lust, and look, this is going to affect every single one of you at some point in your Christian life if you're doing the right thing. At some point in your life, this will affect you. I guarantee it. Look, this desire to please everyone can become an idol for you. Go to Luke chapter 21. And look, it can literally draw you away from the spiritual life. Look at Luke 21 in verse 17. The Bible says, He shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.  Look, here's the thing. When you're doing the right thing in the Christian life, when you're living the right, fruitful Christian life, there's just going to be people that don't like it. And look, there's going to be people that come after you for it. And I mean, Matthew 10, I mean, Luke 21, 17 and Matthew 10, 28, look, it's easy to read that. It's easy to read that and say, yep, I know that. But, you know, then when it happens, it's a little bit more difficult in our lives. But look, here's the thing. You don't have to like people being against you. I mean, you don't have to like that, but it's just the nature of being effective. It's just kind of what it is.   You know, we say these things all the time, but then when it happens, you know, we're surprised. You know, we're brought low. If somebody rails us, then that desire for approval is an idol in our lives. That's what you have to remember. You don't have to like it. Like, nobody likes that. I get it. I don't like it.   I don't like it, but it's the nature of being effective in the Christian life. It's just what's going to happen. So look, many things can be idols in our lives. We can be idolaters tomorrow if we're not careful on what we're doing. Go back to Colossians chapter 3. Look at verse number 6, but here's why we need to take this seriously. Actually, you go to Ezekiel chapter 6, and I'm going to read for you Colossians chapter 3 in verse number 6. You go to Ezekiel chapter 6. Here is why we need to take this seriously. We need to take seriously that our stuff. We've got a lot of stuff in this country. Okay? Even the poorest people in this country have a lot of stuff. We've got cars. We've got houses. We've got stuff. We've got Amazon.  You have all these things in your life. Then you have all these people in your life. But here's why we need to take it seriously. Let me read. You go to Ezekiel chapter 6 in verse number 3. I'm going to read you Colossians 3 in verse number 6. Look at the four which things. This is, he just mentioned idolatry. And he said, four which things, sake. He says, because of these things, because of this idolatry, he says, the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. Look, these things provoke God's wrath. This idolatry. Look at Ezekiel chapter 6 in verse number 3. We could read verse after verse after verse after verse in the Bible. I would just give you a few of how God feels about idolatry. Now that we know how idolatry, look, you don't have to make a little carving of something in your house and start worshiping it to be an idolatry is what I'm trying to get you to understand.  Is what I'm trying to get you to understand. And this is what God thinks about it. It provokes him to wrath. Verse number 3. And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills and to the rivers and to the valleys.  That's where the idols are. The high places.  I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. Can you get, can you get any more serious than that?    I'm going to scatter their bones all around the wreckage of everything. That's God's wrath. Go to Ezekiel chapter 30. Go to Ezekiel chapter 30. He's talking about in Ezekiel chapter 30 he's talking about judging Egypt, a pagan nation, a godless nation, not godless but a heathen nation. Look at Ezekiel chapter 30 in verse 13.  He's going to do this to the idols of a heathen nation. Remember, God is jealous. He's going to do this to the gods. Lowercase G, the idols of a heathen nation. How much more is he going to go after the idols of his own children, of his own people? What I'm trying to get you to understand when I'm explaining to you how you can be an idolater this evening with your things, with your people, with whatever, is that God will make war with your idols. He will break them up. So don't turn your blessings in your life into something that God is going to declare war on.  Think about that.  But now think about the people you've made idols. Things get scary in our hurry when you start thinking about it along those lines. God always must be first in your life.  Look at verse number seven. And he says, in which he also walks sometime when you lived in them. So look, we need to conclude this evening. We need to change our affection. We need to change our affection. Look, here's four steps to Christian destruction that just seem to repeat themselves over and over in people's lives.  They get obedient to the word of God. This is the cycle that Christians go through.  I don't want to learn things the hard way. Sometimes, you know, we all learn things the hard way. I get it. But I'd rather not learn things the hard way. I'd rather read the Bible, be obedient to the Bible, and just learn from other people's mistakes. And just learn from reading what the Bible says. But look, here's the first step. You get obedient. You get saved. You start following the word of God. Guess what? Blessings are going to come from that. I mean, just the mechanics of the Bible. Think about this for a second. If you just like, just the mechanics of the Bible work.  Remember that? I mean, I stumbled upon this apartment of all these Mormons. You know that Mormons, when they go on their mission, you know that, first of all, Mormons, like, have this really weird, like, there's a greater percentage of Mormons that are very successful in business than, like, a lot of other parts of society. You know why that is? Look, they're a wicked cult that believes in a false God and it has nothing to do with their beliefs as a religion. But here's the thing. You know, when they go on these missions, they do, like, six, 10-hour days for two years. When you see them pedaling around on their bikes, that's what they're doing. They're taught to work extremely hard in their lives. They live clean lives. They don't drink. They don't do drugs, things like this. Look, the point I'm trying to make is just being obedient to the word of God, just the mechanics of that is going to produce some positive results in your life. Just the mechanics of not getting all wrapped up in sin. Just the mechanics of working hard and being diligent and just not being lazy. All those things, they're going to produce positive results in your life. I mean, the Bible, just the book of Proverbs right there. Just doing those things, being obedient to the Bible, is going to produce positive results. And guess what? Blessings are going to come from that. You know, as you do that in your life, as a Christian, blessings will come from that. But then, here's what happens. Those blessings turn into covetousness. You know, we get blessed with some things, and then all of a sudden, you know, we want more things. And we want more things. And we want the things that that guy has. And then maybe we move into a better neighborhood, and then we're kind of looking over the fence at the next neighborhood. We're like, huh, where are we at then? We like to live over there. And pretty soon, it turns into covetousness. And you're keeping up with the Joneses. And this covetousness turns into idolatry.  Because guess what?  And then the cycle, hopefully you get right, and the cycle repeats itself. But why would you go through that if you didn't have to?  You need to always be, just like we're talking about Sunday morning, you need to always be taking an accounting of your spiritual life. You need to get sold out. You need to get in church. You need to stay in church. You need to be, look, there's a reason we're three to thrive. There's a reason that we're in church three times a week.   Look, I grew up as a Lutheran and it was like ripping the teeth out of my head to get me to go to church once a week.  I want to always have that reset through the week to just keep me focused on the things spiritually because guess what? I'm out there in the world, too.  And I want that spiritual accounting to just keep me closer to the Lord to measure myself. This is why we're in church. It has nothing to do with being forced to be here. It has to do with keeping ourselves right. We constantly have to be asking ourselves, does this friend bring me closer to the Lord? Does this job bring me closer to the Lord? Am I raising my children in a way that is bringing them closer to the Lord? Or am I sacrificing? Am I sacrificing the Lord for my relationship with this person? Or my relationship with my children? Or my relationship? I've seen people sacrifice their younger children's spirituality on the altar of their older children. It's the most horrible thing. I've seen people make idols of their children so many times in my life. But the point is we need to be always checking ourselves. Are we making idols of our family, our stuff, our friends, our children? Whatever it is. Look, it is possible to have a blessed life and still serve the Lord. It is possible. But you need to stay plugged in. You need to still serve the Lord. And look, those things that come from that service, those things we always have to remember. And look, it's going to be the three to thrive. The person that's sold out. The person that's soul winning. The person that sees those blessings and realizes they're not the prize. They're just there along the way. They're just bonuses along the way. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. You know, the Bible calls this thing a race that we're doing here several times. The Bible calls this thing a race. In Hebrews 12, I'll read it for you while you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Wherefore, seeing we're also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin was thus so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Seeing here is that lay aside every weight.  And the sin that knocks us out of the race. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 24. Know ye not that they which run a race run all, but one receiveeth the prize. So run that ye may obtain. Here he tells you.  He's like, but only one person wins.  He says, run the race that you may obtain. Acts 20, 24, I'll just read for you. But none of these things move me. Neither count on my life dear unto myself so that I may finish my course with joy. And the ministry which I have received to the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Turn to Psalm chapter 142. Here's what happens to us. We run a race. Think about it. I mean, you think about the analogy of a race that they're using here. Who would train for a race?  I mean, nobody would do that, but that's exactly what happens to us. Look, the devil is going to place all kinds of shiny objects in your path. That's exactly what happens. Look at Psalm 142 in verse number three. Look at Psalm 142 in verse number three. He says, when my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. Look, he's saying here, he's running this race right now. You know, the man of God, David, you, is running the race and he's just like, there's going to be times when you're running the race where your spirit is just overwhelmed or you just crushed. Read the rest of Psalm 142 when you get home. He's just, he's crushed. He's like, you know what? I'm not winning is what he's saying in Psalm 142. He says, in the way where I've walked, they have privily laid a snare for me. Think about it. You're going to be running this race and people are just going to keep putting things in your path. Here he's saying, they're putting snares in my path. And you know what they do? You know what you do when you're snaring an animal? When you want to get something to walk through a snare? You bait it. You put something nice to get them to move over and walk across the snare. And that's constantly what happens to us. The devil is going to throw things at you. The devil is going to, this is, when you think about the logic of it, it's shocking that people get tripped up by it. But you always, look, you always have to be thinking about it. I can't tell you how many Christians get caught with this one. Oh, some opportunity was given to me. Look, I've been busted by this one. Some opportunity was given to me, so I must take it. You must think, is this opportunity an idol? Or is this going to bring me closer to the Lord? Is this going to bring me closer? Is this going to bring my family closer to the Lord? Is this good spiritually or bad? You must weigh everything with that. Because it is just constant bait. Constant, shiny objects that's going to be put in your path to snare you. It says they've privately laid a snare. Look, and it's subtle. It's subtle. It's not obvious all the time. But you have to just be constantly weighing everything and everyone, folks, against this measuring stick. Is this going to focus me more on the heavenly things or more on the earthly things? That is the test right there. And that is what Paul, what the Bible is talking about in these first six verses. And it could be anything, even your own family. Don't be the reason.  Because look, here's the thing.  It's best that you destroy them before he has to. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


If Reality Check Radio enriches your day and life, support us to keep bringing you the content, voices, perspectives and dose of reality you won't get anywhere else. Visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate. I've had Ashley Church on before as well. Back then we talked about our faith journeys. Today though I wanted to touch base with Ashley regarding his article about the Israel-Hamas conflict. It's origins and busting some myths that the media perpetrate. He joins me on the line now. Welcome back to the crunch and the first crunch of the year Ashley Church. G'day Cam, nice to see you again. Welcome to 2024. I hope it started well for you. Yes, well you know it's a battle always but you know I'm looking forward to the first show and I'm looking forward to RCR for the year and you know we moved the dial last year with RCR with the election and all of that so it's been fantastic to grow about. One area that I keep getting criticism on is I haven't yet commented on RCR regarding the Israel-Hamas war that's been going since October 7 and I read your article that you wrote early on in that piece, a very reasoned article that showed both sides of the arguments and where you saw things lie and certainly I'd refer readers to your website for that which is at ashleychurch.com and if you search for Israel and Hamas the facts you'll find Ashley's article. Just want to touch on what you cover in that article Ashley. Yes, so basically where it came from was not long after this terrible attack took place on the 7th of October I looked around CAM for some Q&A material that I could use in social media posts that was really the genesis of it and there was various stuff out there but nothing that really covered the key data and also nothing which extrapolated from what had happened on 7 October and explained the history and why that had actually happened. So I wrote one myself and I wrote it as you say as a Q&A and I tried to keep it as simple as possible so it basically poses some questions that answers the questions and it doesn't go into a huge amount of detail in the answers themselves it gives just enough basically to answer the question but it's chock full of hyperlinks which means that where it answers in a three or four sentence answer there are also hyperlinks which enable you to go and find much more information of videos and other things for anybody who really wants to get down into the deep and dirty. So then I put it out there and it went mental it got picked up all around the world it got picked up by agencies in the states and Israel and other places and became almost a de facto sort of fact sheet on what was going on which was great. Yeah it's very good I mean I've referred lots of people to it because it doesn't have any emotion and there's no right or wrong these are just the facts I mean you even outline what Hamas is about and what they want which people seem to forget. And that's actually the starting point of it but pretty much the first question it asks is who is Hamas and Hamas so actually the first question it asks is what happened on 7th of October and it goes into a bit of detail about the attack that took place at 6.30 in the morning the fact that 1200 people were slaughtered some of them in their sleep they were people who in many cases had been in a music festival the night before babies would be headed woman rule raped it was a terrible terrible event and had it happened anywhere else on earth can it would have been the the cause of massive outpouring of grief around the world and there was a little bit of grief it lasted about five minutes and then it very very quickly turned into what we saw which was essentially blaming Israel for the fact that Hamas had attacked it anyway back to your question so the the attack was was was conducted by Hamas and they also took back into Israel about 240 hostages yeah yeah now it's at that point it's interesting to actually ask who Hamas are or who they are as an organization so Hamas has been around since the 1980s in fact 1988 at first emerged and it now rules the Gaza Strip it is effectively well if not effectively it is the the government of the Gaza Strip so just for those who don't understand the politics the Palestinian people on either side of Israel fall into two different territories on one side is Gaza which is the strip of land on the south east south west coast of Israel facing onto the Mediterranean and on the other side of Israel is another piece of land called the West Bank and that's ruled by a different organization called Fatah which is part of that's where the Palestinian liberation organization eventually became Fatah correct correct yeah and so Fatah is is a radical organization as well but it's nowhere near as radical as as Hamas so Hamas in 19 sorry in 2005 after a form of occupation over their territory by Israel Israel basically decided they would pull out of Gaza in its entirety they offered it back to Egypt didn't they offered it back to Egypt Egypt didn't want to borrow but Egypt's got a big wall up that nobody talks about huge bigger than israel's yeah and so they basically left them to it quite quickly the the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip had an election they elected Hamas to be their leadership and Hamas has both a political wing and a military wing although for all intents and purposes they are essentially the same thing one of the same yeah yeah and and and so determined were Israel to lead them to it that they actually forcibly removed 10 000 Jews had been living in Gaza forcibly removed them made them leave and removed the graves of Israelis who had been buried in the Gaza Strip so that they wouldn't be desecrated and left all the infrastructure in place that they built the infrastructure and basically left them to it so there was no occupation so when the term occupation comes up there was no occupation it was it was left to its own devices it was funded primarily from from on the large essence support of nations around the world of the UN and and it governed itself for for a period of almost 20 years and then they emerged as I say and and and to be fair I mean this didn't happen entirely in isolation they've been bombing Israel with with the monotonous regularity over that 20 year period but Israel has this thing called I am don't which is a very effective defense mechanism which shoots down most of those missiles as they can for many years they didn't have it though that's right and so it was it was damaging infrastructure in Israel anyway so Hamas have emerged and and carried out this attack you might say well why have they done so so it's important to understand who Hamas actually are what does Hamas mean for a start what is the word Hamas mean I'm not even going to attempt to give the Arab translation because like I can't pronounce it but it's an acronym which means Islamic resistance movement and Hebrew incidentally as a coincidence the word Hamas actually means violence which is which is interesting yeah and it's driven very much by and this is a key thing to understand it's driven by the same objectives which motivated ISIS and in fact according to a number of leading Muslim academics not not Western academics Muslim academics they actually say that it is ISIS so so for all intents and purposes it operates in exactly the same way it it's purpose as an organization is not the creation of the Palestinian state it's not to have peace with Israel it's not any of these things that the protest movements claim that it is its movement is the annihilation of the state of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and in fact if you go further than that it's it's a long term purpose and it's made no secret of this is as a permanent state of total war and the eventually the creation of a caliphate worldwide so it's very clear in its objectives not interested in peace not interested a state it is determined to completely remove Israelis which it seizes the blood on that band from that that area in its entirety now by the way that's not my opinion that comes from something called the Hamas Charter and the Hamas Charter is available online for anybody who wants to read it and it's very clear it goes through what its objectives are it goes through what its goals are and it goes through its very clear attitude with Jewish people and its desire for the elimination of Jews worldwide so when they when when green politicians and various other people march down Queen Street and chant from the river to the sea Palestine will be free what does that mean so the river so the river in question when from a Hamas perspective they're talking about the Jordan River on the eastern side so the Jordan River runs pretty much all the way up as a line between Jordan and Israel right up to the sea of Galilee and down to the dead sea and down to the dead sea here so so that's a that's a natural border on one side and the sea is is the Mediterranean so the only piece of land that exists between those two geographical features is Israel itself so what they're saying is from the river to the sea elimination of Israel in its entirety and that's completely consistent as I say camp with with the the Charter of the mass which that that's exactly what they say now the irony of it is the people who make who chant that phrase and and you know the people that protest and march in the streets that you just mentioned before around the the streets of the western world in most cases have absolutely no idea what the river and the sea actually are or what would have been comedic if it wasn't so serious but it is comedic somebody's put a video out on youtube asking protesters what's the river and and um no one can answer it uh i think i saw somebody say the Balkans was the the the sea was the Balkans for god's sake yeah all the all the sea was the um the Black Sea yeah yeah which of course which of course borders Ukraine Russia and uh and Turkey um nowhere near this area um same with the river they couldn't name what the river was either yeah completely right so so you know it's very easy to to to make these these chance and to you know to get up and talk about the river to the sea but when you actually analyze what they mean by that it is a horrific uh uh called a genocide of the of the of the Jewish people just to touch on that yeah how many Jews live in Gaza no not one yeah how many Jews live in Syria uh there'd be less than 50 how many Jews live in Lebanon probably a few more but again less less than a couple of hundred and Jordan uh again there might be someone doing business in Jordan because Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan but long-term residents might be four or five hundred certainly wouldn't be any more than that Saudi Arabia oh none and Egypt same as Jordan they have a peace treaty with with uh Egypt so so there would be probably a greater degree of commercial relationship between about a few hundred a few hundred maybe yet certainly not many certainly not talking thousands yeah so I named those countries on purpose they're the countries who have borders with Israel yep and so when they say from the river to the sea Palestine will be free what they really mean would be free of Jews correct absolutely just like it isn't all those countries around absolutely correct incidentally there's a there's a corollary to that question which is how many people of those various different ethnicities live in Israel yeah who might have who might have descendancy or ancestry in those various different nations how many Arab Israelis are there two million and growing living in Israel with the same rights as as Israeli citizens so so that then leads to the other claim that people make about Israel is that it's an apartheid state the nonsense and the only are there any laws that Israel has that prevents a non-Jewish person from I don't know being an MP or a judge or a chair no there is one law and one law only that differentiates between Jewish Israelis and all others and it's and it's actually a negative for Jews all Jews have to perform two years military service compulsory military service uh Jews of Israeli so they're not a Jewish descent or exempted from that big compulsory but there's plenty of Arab Israelis in the idea and they do that voluntarily but but in respect of the broad question that you asked in respect of every other aspect of life uh completely equal completely equal so so the rights are the same I think where this this uh suggestion of apartheid comes from camp firstly it comes from people who don't understand so they say this stuff without actually having clue of what they're talking about yeah secondly it comes from misunderstanding of the of the status of Gaza and the status of the west bank so Gaza as I said before has run as effectively as as an independent state for 20 years so its people are citizens of Gaza they're not citizens of Israel and I think if you if you postulate this claim that protesters do that it's been occupied by Israel and it's separated from Israel that's the only way if you stand on your head and put your hand behind your back you might be able to claim that there's some form for tartare but part but it simply isn't true it's completely separate but many many uh Arabs uh in Gaza actually worked in Israel didn't they they did and it's interesting because that's clearly not happening at the moment for obvious reasons and so uh Israel's currently uh bringing in uh tens of thousands of of Indian workers who who are very very thankful of the work that was previously being conducted by Gazans and the reasons Gazans did it was because the wages and the salaries that they were able to earn in Israel were substantially more than they could ever have earned in Gaza or they they were you know able to feed their families and look after themselves well that's all gone Hamas has destroyed that so what about the claims that this is a freedom movement that uh that there was a a brutal siege uh by Israel on Gaza that uh wouldn't permit any water or electricity or all of these sorts of things uh food stuffs going into Gaza yeah so that's not true that's simply not true in fact there was there there have been uh uh uh has been an enormous amount of humanitarian aid that's gone into Gaza uh since uh Israel has moved in there um after October 7th um but about 70% of that by by IDF estimates has been stolen by Hamas and has been used uh essentially to support their soldiers and the people that are fighting the Israeli so it's not getting to the people it's it's aimed at and so from Israel's perspective Israel is actually going above and beyond it's doing things that you simply wouldn't expect in wartime um of of of a of a party to that that conflict um and that's pretty typical of of Israel not just in respect of the provision of humanitarian aid but also in respectable sorts of other things when they have moved into an area to clear out Hamas they have made sure first they've let the citizens um of Gaza in that particular area know they've created clear paths protected by the IDF so that people could move move south when that was happening they've gone they've gone out of their way to protect the citizens of Gaza and done everything that they possibly could um to minimize any casualties of civilians and to make sure that they're focusing almost in their entirety uh on on the the combatants from Hamas itself which is in clear conflict to the nonsense hearing the media about how they're attacking indiscriminately that's simply not true I visited Israel in 2014 and um fantastic it reminded me a lot of New Zealand you know maybe 40 years ago this real can-do attitude but uh when I was in sterot um being rocketed by Hamas uh when I was there um at one point I think it was like 15 missiles in five minutes which is kind of frightening but those people lived there 900 yards from the from the uh Gaza border um with bomb shelters and all those but I said to uh the you know the people that were running the tour well how does Gaza get its power and its water and they said oh from us yes I said what do you mean you said well you know we've got a nuclear power station at Askelon another one at Ashtod um and we also um pump fresh water into there yep um and provide most of the services um the and I said oh do they pay for that uh no we do it for free yeah and uh at that point there was rockets being aimed at those nuclear power stations which provide the power power for Gaza I couldn't work it out I just could not work it out Brewery cam the the the lens to which Israel will go to to provide I guess what it sees is its humanitarian humanitarian responsibilities to people that it didn't create who were created by events that happened in 1948 but who it has taken on a an obligation to to play its part in looking after them and just interestingly too not just in regard to humanitarian aid but even you might have noticed over the last couple of days there's been some reports around some idea forces that that appear we don't know yet because it hasn't been investigated but it appeared to have killed somebody who who killed a Palestinian who for whom it wasn't apparent that they were combatant um in cold blood now the reason that's important because and I'm sure that we all sorts of media about how terrible that is and and how merciless is this the guy that had his hands up at yeah yeah yeah so that's being investigated at the moment but here's what's important about that that made that made the evening news it was the lead story in Israel it's being investigated by multiple agencies in Israel in other words the the apparatus of the state the apparatus of the military is turning itself on its head to find out who did it what the story behind it is and to take action if they find that it was actually done in a way that was malicious now that now compare that to Hamas who killed 1200 people in cold blood on the 7th of October and have shown no regard not just for the human life of Israelis but for the civilians in Gaza who it's actually used as human shields in order to protect itself from the from from the attempts by by um by the Israelis to eliminate it so the contrast between the western ethical values of Israel which which regards every life it's precious and and the the values of Hamas which are basically blood thirsty and will do whatever is necessary in order to achieve their their aims now it kind of moves on to their allegations that every time there's a conflict like this uh where Israel reacts to defend its citizens and this was a let's put it plainly it was it was an invasion by Hamas who was the sovereign government of Gaza so it was an act of war against Israel on December the 7th. Hamas broke the existing truce that was in place by doing it and Israel responded with immense firepower and overwhelming and now there's this call that the protesters make that the response should be proportionate now i'm a you know study military history i'm a member of anti-karm so i kind of know all of this sort of stuff in world war two you know when the the allies bombed Dresden and created a firestorm and killed tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of German citizens there were no calls for proportionate response then when no the allies bombed or the United States bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima uh there was no calls for a proportionate response to the Japanese tyranny that was uh you know so this concept of proportionality camp has no basis well i can't work it out because if you're conducting a war if you're proportionate you're never going to end that war it's going to be a stalemate it'll be like world war one where there was a proportionate response and is met with trenches and it became a four-year stalemate that killed millions of people so that's what happens isn't it if you have proportionate responses absolutely and so your example of the Germans is that is particularly prescient because there were far more and i haven't got the number in my head but there were far more Germans killed during world war two than there were um allied forces killed um and citizens and civilians as well far more German civilians killed yeah but the Germans were the aggressors it was the Germans who were attacking so so do we turn around should should Churchill have turned around and said well we you know we have to pull back we have to be proportionate in our response because we're killing too many Germans that would be a nonsense and i think any decent reasonable person sees that there's a logical fallacy in that sort of approach and yet that's exactly what's being argued here the other thing that's important to understand is that within that you know that that that glaciers concept of proportionality uh the only if it's targeting overwhelmingly it's targeting Hamas it's targeting Hamas combatants now we're hearing all sorts of figures at the moment coming from the uh Gaza health ministry of figures of sort of controlled by Hamas people it's which is controlled by Hamas it's exactly right that would be like listening to gobbles of the propaganda ministry during world war two giving us all our information about casualties during that conflict it's exactly the same thing so a we don't know if that number is correct and b equally importantly we don't know how that number is made up and it may well be that the vast majority in fact i suspect we'll find it is when this thing or when the smoke settles the vast majority of those people are actually Hamas combatants so and then people say well there's women and children um there are woman combatants and there are child combatants in fact Hamas has made a almost a a science of using children as as suicide bombers over the last 20 years so this idea that women and children are somehow exempt because they're you know they've got some sort of naivety and the whole process is not there's plenty of videos um out there of children in Unrah that's the the refugee organization created by the united nations from palestinians uh Unrah schools where they're dressed up as Hamas terrorists uh you know subjugating and israeli um you know it's treated like a dog on the ground or got guns to the heads or being stomped on there's plenty of videos of of school aged children being indoctrinated under the auspices of the united nations and can that's another thing and i know we're jumping around a bit but that's a really important topic so there's this whole issue at the moment around Unrah and and what's going on there in this discovery that um and at the moment they're only saying 12 they're talking about 12 when we're employing since more than that since it's more like 1200 exactly so so one was about 30 000 people of which about 90 percent are palestinians there's there's only a very small number of those people who aren't actually the rest are probably foreign foreign nationals from you know you're used to the UN yeah now what's important to understand and the idea that this has only just emerged and it's only something that's only happened and it's just a very very small problem that's rubbish isn't it they've been organizations for the last 15 years in fact an organization i belong to the israeli institute of new zealand along with david kuhman um we've been bringing this information to the new zealand government's attention for several years we we had a meeting with the ministry of foreign affairs and trade about four years ago where we outlined to them the fact that Unrah employees have produced schoolbooks which teach kids to hate Jews and violence is an honorable pursuit that have been that have been giving money to Hamas for the purchasing of property for the building it's worse than that though it is it's not just perpetrating violence it's teaching them the Shahid martyrdom is is an admirable goal for a child to aspire to absolutely so this idea that all we've got to do is just get rid of bad apples and reform under his complete nonsense it is rotten camp to the core it is rotten to the core it needs to be disbanded and if there's to be an agency of that kind it needs to be something completely different and in my view it shouldn't be run by the u.m because it's proved itself completely inept and incapable of doing that i i mean i've been looking um following um you know u.n watch for yeah probably 15 years where they've been raising these issues i understand it's more than 20 years that they've been raising these issues of uh of unrah's inappropriate funding of yeah terrorist ideology well those tunnels the the 500 uh almost 500 miles of tunnels that they're so far found in Gaza didn't make themselves they came from somewhere um but but it's it's just horrendous and it's and and this idea that uh as i said before this idea that it's just uh you know a few bad apples and it could be resolved is it's nonsense and New Zealand and every other nation that funds this organization need to cut funding completely and look for something completely new to to to produce that by the way unrah itself's interesting because unrah was created in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis of 1948 um when when the two Palestinian states or territories were created there there is another agency that handles refugee causes around the world it's the office of the united nations um human rights commissioner and it's so so unrah looks after Palestinian refugees and the uh office of the um uh refugee the other officer looks after every other refugee in the world now the interesting thing about um the uh unrah is it's got a very specific definition of of what what what is a refugee that's different to anywhere else on the planet and by that definition the 800 000 people who were originally refugees in 1948 have exploded out to five million so they now count there as being five million refugees 70 years on which is a complete nonsense that counts people that have hang on a second people that have moved to canada new zealand australia the united states moved on with their lives had kids they're still counted as refugees by that agency but but hang on a minute israel's charged with committing genocide i know where you're going but yeah the population of palestinians has increased what's that that's about 500 isn't it but yeah fivefold um it's a nonsense so and but even if that weren't the case just the international definition of genocide is clear and and there are a number of different moving parts to to what constitutes genocide one of them scale one of the big ones is scale the other one's intent um and the scale would have to be if you want to look for scale there've been conflicts in yemen um and and various other locations around the world over the last 20 years where you've seen millions of people slaughtered rwanda yeah those are scale that's scale the the 20 000 that we're talking who are who are most likely mostly combatants is not scale and the intent israel has been clear on its intent it's intent is to remove the mass from existence for many form of power that is not genocide it's gone out of its way to protect the the civilian citizens of that country sometimes under duress because those citizens don't always want to be protected um but israel has done everything it can it's done absolutely the opposite cam of of what the the um international definition of genocide tells us a genocidal nation would do if that was actually its intent yeah i found it interesting that these claims of genocide started almost immediately uh once israel pushed back yeah uh defending the country from an invasion yeah and i thought it rather strange if you were a genocidal country run by genocide heirs that um telling a civilian population that you're about to um is invade a particular city or an area and perhaps you'd like might like to move south would have been contrary to the goals of being um genocidal and telling them by uh dropping millions of flyers to tell them it's happening to ring every phone number of every cell phone number that they can give that that they have available to them from israel to actually ring them and speak to them in arabic and tell them the attacks coming um and and so various different other ways no army in the world does that no other army in the world goes to those sorts of measures to try and protect the people of the uh the nation where it's attacking in fact they created a corridor uh uh of tanks uh to facilitate the movement of those civilians yeah because humas were trying to kill them while they were shooting sure humas was shooting them if they if they tried to move south so so the israelis were doing their best to protect them from that it's yeah the use of language in this conflict is is stunning the the difference between the reality of what's happening on the ground and the language which has been used by the media and by the protest movement the disconnect between those two things is like i have never seen uh anything like it for i suspect if i went back to to the period during world war two when this was starting to happen to the jews then we'd probably talking about something that's on a similar scale to that the difference this time being that the the jews are in a position to actually do something about it they're not being uh uh attacked by an enemy who's completely overrun them well come back to the genocide in a minute because i want to touch on that the you know icj uh preliminary uh borders etc but i just wanted to focus on the population the palestinian population uh and and the key date that everybody talks about which is of course 1948 when israel declared independence formed the state of israel the palestinians call this nakba they don't uh that you know i think it translates to the tragedy or something like that yeah or the travesty or something the trauma or something the trauma yeah trauma and they say that that's the point at which they were dispossessed of something that they already owned that's not true though is it in 1948 there was no country of palestine well this is the funny thing that was controlled by um by arab palestinians yes so it's interesting because the the the um the narrative again from the previous movement is that that as you say that the israelis overran an existing nation and took the land and that you know that they that they should be forced to give it back and that's based on the idea that there was previously a palestinian state can there has never been a palestinian state in history and don't believe me go and have a look online do a search on great kings of palestine or great events in palestinian history you won't find anything you won't find anything because it doesn't exist the the land i mean i won't bore you going too far back except to say that the the israeli connection to that land goes back at least 3000 years and possibly longer and and uh sorry the jewish and jews were part of that country were were occupants of that country through a succession of conquerors right up in large numbers right up until about the sixth century ad and what changed was the with the muslim the success of muslim invasions and the the invasion of jerusalem as well as other parts of the middle east um by by about uh sort of 680 690 ad uh the muslims were really putting the heat on the jews and there was a mass exodus of them off to other parts of the world to europe and and to other parts of the middle east but they continued to have a connection there's an unbroken connection of jews to that land right up until 1948 now there were other people living there there were other arabes um and people we call palestinians today are ethnically most likely to be of jordanian descent or what we now call jordanian jordan didn't exist back then either so 1948 though it was a british protectorate protectorate yeah and palestine and how did it become a british protectorate and at what stage did it become a british protectorate yeah so between um between the 17th century uh sorry the 16th century and the beginning of the 20th century it was part of the ottoman empire which was a turkish state of turkey correct yep and uh obviously turkey was one of the um the powers that britain defeated at the end world war one and uh that was essentially the end of their hold on the middle east and that was taken control of by the french and the british and the uh the the british went about basically creating what they hoped would be democratic states in the middle east so they created the state of iraq um they created the state of uh they created lebanon they created syria uh egypt was obviously already there and they created jordan so they created the hashamite kingdom of jordan so we although that's a kingdom in other words it has a king um that that royal family was only created in 1947 in fact that was created and that was intended to be a palestinian state because the majority of the people who lived there were what we now call palestinians it was actually um originally called trans jordan wasn't it because it was both sides of the jordan river the west bank and the other side yep now the land that's now occupied by by the jews israel uh that was the remainder of what had originally been a proposal to to create a much larger state in fact the talk of that started in 1917 under the auspices of a guy called um belfort and uh belfort the belfort declaration was essentially the founding document upon which britain decided that it would go it would do what it could to actually establish a a a a jewish state in the middle east um but but over the following 30 years it was horse trading between the britain the um and the the arab's mostly around trade trade links and trade routes etc and they continually reduced that down to what was what was finally a very very small sliver of land and in 1948 probably driven by guilt of what had happened to the jews during the holocaust the relatively newly formed united nations voted on petitioning that the brits walked away from it they didn't want they didn't want a bar of that so they voted against the petition and then left and that newly uh created state was was um created in june 1948 um the following day oh and i should i shouldn't mention too when that happened uh in the weeks leading up to that because obviously the the the uh the jews were aware that this was all taking place at the u.m the jews put a call out to the um to the arabs that lived in israel at the time and said stay here and work with us and we will build a new country and some did and some did well the two million that are there now they are mainly the descendants of the people that decided to stay so so they became citizens of israel like any other citizen and have full rights such like any other israeli does the ones that the remaining states in the middle east um put the call out to those that live there and said no don't stay um basically escape to the leave escape to the borders because we're going to move it and we're going to clean out the jews and then you can go back and for those who left and went to syria and lebanon and and jordan and egypt what happened to them well they were treated terribly so so that's the other it's still in camps aren't they they are so there are there are palestinian refugees in in all of those countries as well as on the borders of israel but you don't hear about those others because that's not that that doesn't fit the narrative around but you know the terrible colonial uh israeli aggressors so there are palestinian refugees in all sorts of places but the ones that we we hear about today are the ones that went to both sides of israel to gaza the gaza strip we talked about before and to to the west bank which is bordered by um jordan on one side and israel on the other now here's what's interesting is the gaza strip was actually annexed by egypt uh up until 1967 so egypt actually controlled the gaza and palestinians for a long period of time after the war well it was part of part of egypt wasn't it that the gaza strip and the syni and then um in uh in uh 1966 yeah and here's the thing cam the egyptians found it unmanageable and they pulled out they don't want a bar of it and since then they've built a a massive great wall um which you never hear about in media because it doesn't fit the narrative um and and you know because in my view the best solution to the problem would be basically to let egypt annex it again and take it into egypt and make it part of egyptian territory but that will never happen egyptians so so in 1948 was the creation of the state of israel yeah right between 1917 and 1948 it was a british protectorate correct uh france obviously uh had a had a bit of to say in syria and uh lebanon yep uh for that period of time prior to 1917 uh it was uh part of the ottoman empire correct and from about 1566 if uh if my history serves me right uh that that area was controlled by the ottoman empire absolutely correct and before that uh a series a series of empires including the the uh seljuks uh and uh egyptian various different egyptian military uh dictatorships for several hundred years before that as well 10 in total 10 in total between about 632 in 1917 or 10 different uh yeah caliphates in charge of that territory all islamic yeah so none of none of which had a base in in uh the territory that we we now refer to as palestine they were all both else we are somewhere in egypt somewhere and of course the name palestine comes from the romans was a latinization of philistines correct so and biblically the philistines lived in gaza they did they lived in tyre and which is which is and and also dan and gaza and what's interesting about the philistines there is no absolutely no ethnic link between the philistines who disappeared from history and and the people we now refer to as the palestinians who we know where they've come from i've come from other parts of them at least so so they are you know it's one of the equations i could ask is what does that mean there's no palestinians well you of course there's palestinians the same way that New Zealanders and australians are our people that didn't exist three well it's like just like saying you know such thing is as you know cappadochians when in fact there were turks right because the ottoman empire encompassed all of that area and they all become turks it's it's it's it's okay to refer to them as palestinians isn't either wrong with that no but don't confuse that with the historical people that lived in that territory because they're not the same people they're completely different people so this idea that there's a link between them to somehow form this this imaginary um tie to the land that doesn't exist is historically an okay so that's given a little bit of history and everything so now we get to the main charge that is held at israel that they're committing genocide and we've just seen south africa take a case to the icj the international court of justice uh accusing israel of genocide but they didn't find that in there in their finding that ironically they announced the day before national holocaust remembrance day yeah international remembrance day um kind of rude of them to do that but anyway they did the only orders they made though in that and and it hasn't been reported in the media they made no orders of israel they said you've got to be careful and the israeli said thank you very much we will be careful but they only the only order they made was for hamas to release the hostages correct there's there's a slightly different slant on the orders so the orders were more in the nature of sards can somebody if they're still bashing their wife in that in that you know there's no possible answer to that because if you're not uh you know what do you say so basically they gave five orders which which had an influence that something bad was going on and israel should stop doing it but without any evidence that there was anything in israel basically came back as you say and said well we're happy to comply with those because we're not doing them um there was also an inference that there will be a subsequent and it's worth pointing out that the lowest threshold for proving a genocide was at this early stage because there is no evidence South africans didn't actually produce any evidence they produced headlines and quotes made by people that didn't actually produce any evidence of genocide there will be probably a more substantive report that will get two or three or four years time which will be completely meaningless but you absolutely correct cam and respect of what came out of that tribunal's finding a few weeks ago there was no finding of genocide now that's in contrast when you go online now social media you'll see people talking about how even the icj cj has found uh that israel is committing genocide it's not true people like people like martin bradbury and john linto and all the you know screaming skulls out there that um that hate israel and jews they're the ones who are all saying that but the only order that was given by the icj was for hamas to hand over the to the hostages absolutely correct and it was interesting because they almost gave those and this probably gives even more credence to it because when you watch that the the deliverance of that it was done through gritted teeth which means that that that tribunal would have bought if it could possibly have found anything that it could have i would have they would have uh because they certainly weren't partisan toward israel quite the opposite um but they they were unable to find any evidence of genocide why because there is a genocide going on therefore all the reasons that i explained before um so that was that was a kangaroo court it was jacked up by by that claim from south africa all the way it was given to south africa by the way it was interesting germany inserted itself as a party to those proceedings and and its reason for that and i thought it was actually pretty gutsy of germany to do it was because if any nation understood genocide it would be them well they wrote the manual didn't they they did and they they inserted themselves and on the side of israel and said well we want to be heard because this isn't genocide we'll tell you what genocide looks like so and that's given no weight yeah so did south africa do this out of the out of the um the great benevolence and they're concerned for the palestinian people there's some ulterior motive there yeah when it first happened the claim was that they were doing it because they understood apartheid and you know that they would all that's nonsense what we've learned since then is that the whole thing was funded by by run um who uh apparently had paid uh off uh a and c debt um so so this is this is basically a an incident of of one hand scratching the other so this was purely this was another ploy by Iran and we haven't talked about Iran yet this was another ploy by Iran to try and influence public opinion and world opinion on what's going on in Israel by using proxy so in this case how much were the how much was this debt is it you know like 50 000 or something i think oh no no we'd be i don't know what it is but we talk well i do i took the liberty of looking it up right it's 120 million rand so there you go so 30 pieces of silver yeah so um and also um that that's a debt that the a and c had and they were about to be um have a judgment lodged against them which means that the a and c would have ceased to exist as a political party and that would have been the end of the government in south africa and a few days after the 7th of october the minister of foreign affairs visited of south africa visited iran and then the government of south africa expressed solidarity with the palestinians to to you know 100 in a public display broadcast on television and then magically 120 million rand drops into the a and c's accounts and they've managed to pay off their debt but i'm told that the legal team that was assembled for this genocide case in the icj would have cost not less than 200 million to prepare and argue for the final trial and it'll be about 1.5 million billion rand for the whole thing yeah all right so this is iran uh meddling in world affairs to promulgate their uh terrorist beliefs actually and that's not new cam so iran's a known um majority contributor to to the mass in gaza has been for for a very long time but also funds another terrorist organization lebanon called hezbollah uh which is involved in similar sorts of activities in fact they've been at the same time this has been going on they've been firing missiles into northern israel exactly they'll be next um but also various other organizations around the world iran is is a massive player in funding terrorist activities around the world and this was just another part of that process now it's interesting because well you know two of us talked about this it sounds like conspiratorial old men go and check it out don't don't take my word for it don't take your word for it go and actually check out the various headlines even you know terms that are not uh particularly well favored toward israel like the new york times and the guardian in the uk um go and read the stuff in those publications because as much as they might be gritting their teeth when they say that they've all written about it so so it's it's not hard to understand follow the money the old saying follow the money it's not hard to understand where the stuff's coming from and why iran's made no secret over the last 20 or 30 years of its determination to eliminate the jewish state and this is just another part of that process i see in the news uh on wednesday morning um that israel is discovered in the tunnels vast quantities of cash uh and uh proof that iran has been funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars uh us and they've discovered this in the tunnel so the evidence is building now of of iran's malign influence in these conflict areas that if they hadn't funded amas and hezbollah and these other organizations that maybe we would actually have peace in the region yeah i don't know whether we'd have peace but we would have the whole thing would have would have played out differently uh because they wouldn't have had the resource amas and hezbollah wouldn't have had the resources um that they've had um and so so the result of the whole thing would have been different but it's it's it's a unique it's a unique period of history when you've got a terrorist organization running essentially a nation because that's what gaza is uh and world opinion um uh coming down heavily certainly for the first part of this conflict in favor of that terrorist organization i've never seen anything like it the one good thing about it is that you would have noticed this too over the last few months as more information has come out and as that information is tend to support the israeli position that the mood is slowly too slowly for my liking but the mood is changing the mood of the world is changing and you're not even seeing the same degree of activity from the protest groups that you were seeing in that first couple of months they've got a lot more quiet and you're hearing a lot more from nation states that are actually finding the outside of the other and supporting israel um so that's heartening but but it should have happened four months ago what i can't get over is the absolute denial of the atrocity that occurred on october the seventh now i was invited to to a briefing uh to see uh the the footage that was actually from hamas cameras of what went on it's the most harrowing 40 minutes i've ever seen and and you know being a student of war and uh understanding these things and and having you know relatives that served in gillipally and uh and in vietnam uh you know nothing could prepare me for those sights and sounds that i that i witnessed people asked me why did i watch that and um i gave the same answer that uh general eisenhower gave at the end of world war two when he was inspecting the death camps and uh he said get the media in here get the press in here record everything photograph it video it because and this is a quote some bastard somewhere down the track is going to deny this ever happened and that's why i i watched that and it was appalling yeah um you know people say that you know the beheading of babies didn't happen well no they in the videos that i saw that's exactly what happened yeah yeah and i i couldn't agree with you more um and it took me just to just put in perspective i'm a fairly tough sort of a guy right i could not speak for hours after that it was so shocking even um you know i mentioned before the new york times and they they're certainly not partial to what israel uh they did they did an investigation which i i honestly believe when they started they thought was going to find the opposite they were going to find that it had been exaggerated by the idea and they came out with an absolutely stunning indictment of a mass the sexual crimes that they'd committed the repeated rates what had happened during that time which and you know this is the new york times we're talking which moved the dial on that quite substantially about two months ago yeah and we'll see more of that i think is the history of this thing slowly plays out and we see more and more of what actually took place this will be albeit not on the same scale but this will be every bit as horrific as as some of the detail of what took place during the holocaust which which raises an interesting question cam because it is that this stuff keeps happening to the juice this stuff keeps happening and this is not new the holocaust wasn't the first time this stuff's been going on no there's been pogroms and all sorts ethnic cleansing yeah and it raises a question in my article actually like when i get to the end of the article i say why does this happen what's it because it's anti semitism where does it come from and for me and this is getting into every fairy stuff for some people you you simply can't justify this on rational grounds you can't you cannot find a logical cause for this you cannot argue logically why people would ignore the reality and the facts and hate the israelis and the jews and the way that they do right around the western world you have to look at it and say there is something else at play here that's not normal because otherwise why do people act this way that would jews in a way that they don't would any other nation in history and that for me and i suspect for you is one of the big reasons i'm so motivated to do what i can yeah i'm motivated by a number of reasons one is my core religious beliefs same yeah the second thing is is that i believe that the mainstream media are propagating lies about israel and lies about the conflict and lies about the integrity of the government of gaza in the form of amas and i see it as a responsibility to be the other side of the narrative to be the balance because the balance is missing in our new zealand media and indeed in worldwide media on these issues it's a terrible blindness that the media and western nations have when it comes to dealing with israel couldn't agree and so i see it as my responsibility to be the balance and not to get tied up in emotional arguments and and silly against this deal like we have today in a nice rational conversation dealing with facts verifiable facts independently verified facts that these things happened that these this is why this is happening and this is what the history is and this is the history of the area and all of those sorts of things because if you fail to understand history then you fail then you are doomed to repeat the errors of that history totally and so that's why i subjected myself to watching that video that's why i've been vocal in other media platforms but i wanted to take the heat out of this debate despite multiple calls you know for months on end for me to cover this on the show i wanted to do it in a calm and rational manner in keeping with you know my new my new persona so to speak nice cam right and so ashley i thank you for coming on the show today to rationally explain that without getting into any heated arguments or discussions that we're just dealing with facts and i and i implore people to go to your website it's easy to find do a search for ashleychurch.com and search for israel and hamas the facts you'll find a very good summation with huge numbers of links to this conflict and hopefully people will understand it a little bit better and and look on the on the news that they're getting from the mainstream media is as suspicious as to its origins thanks mate always enjoy our time and i look forward to our next chat on whatever topic it might be well you're welcome on the crunch at any time ashley thank you for coming thank you talk soon i really recommend you seek out ashley's article it is very very informative search for ashleychurch.com israel and hamas and you'll find it easily it's a difficult topic to discuss dispassionately but i reckon we gave it a good go let me know your thoughts on this topic good or bad by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057 thank you for tuning into rcr reality check radio if you like what you're listening to just like what you're listening to either way we want to hear from you get in touch with us now you can text us with your message to 2057 that's 2057 or email us at inbox at realitycheck.radio we would love to hear from you to connect with us today


All right guys, this is just a vlog today one of these quick and dirty boomer vlogs that I'm gonna do on my cell phone I'm not gonna do a proper video today cuz I just haven't had time to do you know One of my usual videos that I actually set up cameras and lights and do proper video editing and things like that You're not getting that today It's the last three days from the time I wake up in the morning to the time I go to bed in the last three days All I have done is worked on DTOS my X-mone ad post installation script So you install Arch Linux or any arch based distribution and then you can run my DTOS script and get my X-mone ad Desktop with doomy max and the alacrity terminal and the fish shell and all of that and It's been a fun experience But it's been a ton of work because obviously there's bugs people are reporting bugs and I've been trying to fix them and Adding new things to the script as well, although I haven't really pushed a whole lot of new features to the script yet because What's already in the script? There's enough bugs already in the script I want to fix the bugs before I start adding new stuff, you know creating more bugs But what I wanted to do Since I've only done DTOS in the last three days, and I'm kind of wore out and tired I'm on my third cup of coffee here. What I'm gonna do. I'm shutting it down for the day I'm gonna go home and relax May not do anything tomorrow may take tomorrow off. We'll see I feel like I need to recuperate a little bit But I'm glad we finally got an initial release of DTOS Completed but this this vlog today what I wanted to talk to you guys is About support requests, you know And if you have a bug of any kind not about DTOS But any kind of software or project and you have an issue and you want to raise that issue What's the proper way to file a bug or open an issue and where should you file that bug or or issue? You know, how should you talk to the developers of that project things like this? This is actually a video I've wanted to make for a while way before DTOS But I've talked a little bit about some of this stuff before I know I've done some hey DT videos where Mentioned the proper venues to open support requests But I wanted to revisit this again because now that I've done the DTOS script, you know I'm getting a ton of these support requests People are filing bugs opening issues in all kinds of places Obviously the most appropriate place to do this would be on my get lab the DTOS repository on get lab file an issue Just open an issue tell me what your problem is make sure you include relevant information One of the biggest problems especially to people that are not used to filing bug reports is Typically people don't give you any information other than I'm having a problem That's it. Hey, I tried to use your script. It ain't working No other information, right? I probably half of the people that have opened issues not on get lab But even on YouTube and reddit and email mastodon direct messages I've gotten support request about DTOS and all of those venues more than half of them They never tell me what operating system they're running as far as what Linux distribution They were actually trying to install the thing on so number one Tell me a little information what Linux distribution what version of that distribution where you're trying to install DTOS on You know, tell me the error message if you got an error message in the terminal Copy it and actually put that in your bug report because there's so much time wasted When you file a bug report and you give the developer no information Then his very first question is going to be you're gonna have to tell me some information Right, so he wasted his time having to tell you that and your time is wasted because now you have to post a second time To actually post the correct information that was needed to be in that first post anyway You know, just just think before you file a bug report give all the information that you can if it was a problem And you tried to solve the problem let the developer know hey, I got this bug I thought this would solve it. I tried this this didn't work And the reason you want to tell him that it's because so he doesn't tell you to go try that Solution that you've already tried right again, don't waste his time and also don't waste your own time So give people as much information and a bug report as you can if their project has any kind of Read me or anything and it actually tells you exactly what they expect to be in a bug report Read that and try to give them all of that information Again, it just takes a few seconds to read a little bit Maybe read some of the other issues people have opened on that github or that get lab or wherever it is You're filing this bug report bugzilla Wherever people file bugs these days and see what other people are putting in their bug reports You know, they're giving a lot of detailed information that will give you some clue as to what you need to put in your bug report Another thing to consider is are you actually filing your bug report in the correct forum? For example, I see a lot of people that Let's take our Linux base distributions right or our Linux operating systems I have some bug and you know, I'm running We'll just say arch Linux with the GNOME desktop environment and you know what? I have this bug that happens every time I open the GNOME Nautilus file manager or whatever and I'm not sure what the problem is I'm going to go to the arch forms and Open an issue there and you know, it'll be all about problems. I have in GNOME But do the arch devs have anything to do with GNOME as a project or the Nautilus file manager, which is GNOME's file manager I mean if unless you're sure that that bug has anything to do with the underlying Linux distribution in this case arch and going to the arch forms to post about that may not be the best place You know, there's GNOME support channels, right? IRC channels and probably mailing lists and support forms and things like that That's probably where I would start first now if they you know look at your issue and then tell you hey This really isn't our problem It's an issue with the underlying distribution in this case arch Linux and then go to the arch forms But a lot of times a lot of times people don't think you know They just figure I can open this issue and anybody's support form and they'll help me with that issue and a lot of people a lot of devs For one thing they don't have a lot of time So if you open an issue and they immediately know this issue has nothing to do with my software my project It's really somebody else's problem typically they're going to immediately tell you I'm not going to help you You need to go file this bug with these people They may even be rude about it and I don't want that to happen to you I'm not this way, you know I've gotten a lot of newbie kind of questions here in the last couple of days about DTOS But I understand that I mean I'm I'm a YouTube video content creator And I'm trying to convert a lot of people a lot of new to Linux users over to Linux So I expect a lot of new questions and I really You open anything on my get lab It may have nothing to do with the DTOS script and I've actually gotten several of those in the last few days Questions that have absolutely nothing to do with my script I've gotten several people that have opened issues about DTOS and the issue underlying issue That's really causing them the problem is they didn't know how to install Arch Linux correctly It has nothing to do with my script that several people that didn't know how to set up virtual machines correctly and they assumed The DTOS script after they ran it was causing issues in their virtual machine graphics drivers problems and the virtual machine It's just they didn't set up Virtual box correctly or whatever it was they were using you know again not an issue with DTOS But I'm a nice guy I helped them with their problems because if I know the answer I'm gonna help you with your problem anyway But a lot of people are not like this on the internet a lot of developers will just tell you go away and they may be rude about it and I Know that's a bad experience and it's gonna really put a sour taste on a lot of people's mouths because hey Maybe that was your very first bug report you ever filed and then somebody was mean to you You may never file a bug report again And I don't want that to happen to you that and the best way for this not to happen to you Is to actually think for a couple of minutes before you file that bug report did I give them the information? They needed all the all the relevant information everything I can think of and is this the proper place to actually post this bug report if it if you think it might not be Then again think before you you open that issue one other thing I want to talk about it's not just you guys opening issues in a wrong form as as far as hey This isn't my problem. This is the another projects problem. You should go open this issue there I'm talking about some people open issues on completely inappropriate places for example YouTube now I posted a video yesterday about DTOS the launch of DTOS and I know immediately people are trying to script some of these people are getting errors And they're gonna report those errors in the comment thread on YouTube. I know that and that's cool I'm not gonna tell them to go to GitLab to open the issue I'm gonna I spent all day yesterday monitoring the comments for that video and responding to all the support requests And I did the same thing today as well, but here's the thing. I'm not gonna do that tomorrow I'm not gonna do that next week right at some point. I'm not gonna go back to these old videos and Monitor comments for support kinds of questions.  It's not designed For that kind of task. So yes, you guys that ask questions the last couple of days you guys you got answers to your support Questions you're probably not gonna get it on that video going forward because again YouTube I can't support people through YouTube comments That's not it's just not the right venue because one of the things about YouTube as a content creator when I upload Almost all of the views that that video is gonna get are within the first 24 hours after that Nobody else is watching that video. That's not entirely true But the views go drastically down after that meaning if you opened a support request on that video today That I posted yesterday Very few people are watching that video today if you had done it yesterday You had a much better a much larger audience That have a chance to actually read your comment and maybe give you an answer today Not so much and the truth is most of the people that watch a video don't read the comments And the very few people that do watch a video and read the comments most of those people don't post comments You know most people watch YouTube to watch videos. They don't well go to YouTube to chat You know that that's not what most people do. It's just a bad form as far as a support form That's not don't post any kind of support questions on YouTube again. That's a video content creator I know that not everybody knows this and some people just have never been told this That's why I'm telling you guys today on video It's just a bad place to ask any kind of support question And one final thing I want to mention is wherever it is you open a bug or file an issue get hub get lab Anybody's forms it doesn't matter make sure that when your issue hasn't been resolved Mark that issue has having been resolved Maybe do one final post in that thread letting people know your issue was fixed and exactly what you did to fix it So many issues get opened and they never get resolved or they get resolved you fixed your problem But you know that issue that I filed on get hub or get lab I never go back and tell people how I fixed the problem So it just stays open which means down the road somebody else is gonna have that exact same problem They're gonna do a Google search. They're gonna find your thread on this bug reporting site And they're like well, I wonder if he fixed his problem if he fixed his problem. What did he do to fix his problem? Well You did nothing to help them because you didn't go back and actually report that if you take the time to follow A bug report, please see it all the way through and because most people that follow bug report They get their bugs resolved rather quickly and make sure you let everyone know exactly what you did to fix that problem again It's just paying it forward. It's gonna help the next guy. Anyway, that's all for today guys. Peace