Conflict: At the Intersection of Israel-support & Terrorism Pt 1

Part 1 Conflict:
At the Intersection of Israel-support & Terrorism

by Donna Diorio

I have followed and studied Islamist fundamentalist terrorism since the 1980's because I support Israel and Islamist terrorism is the number one enemy Israel has faced. I watched how Yassar Arafat played at political jihad, acting as if his stripes had changed from being a PLO terrorist to being an international diplomat and political leader of the Palestinian people.

His was always a carrot and stick approach: the carrot was not real but merely a political front. Why? To give the nations a reason to tell Israel they had to give more and more concessions because Arafat was the only "peace partner" they had. The stick, of course, was Arafat giving "the green light" to release the jackals of his terrorist troops against Israel whenever he decided Israelis needed to be terrified to soften up the Israeli leadership into giving into him.

Then in the early 1990's I was also watching when several organizations popped up on the scene that translated what the Palestinians were saying to their people versus what they were telling the Western world. Really dramatic documentary evidence of how they just told the West what everyone wanted to hear from them, but to their own people it was just the opposite: continual incitement to hatred and bloody murder against Jews.

Political Islam is the art of war using deception; that's not me saying it, that was FBI caught them saying in wiretaps that were entered into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trials. Political Islam is just about getting as many concessions as possible while hoodwinking everyone that the end goal is not really total fundamentalist Islamic domination. It is about convincing everyone that Islamists are the "victims," the underdogs, and not the aggressors that they in fact are. Political Islam is the literal wolf in sheep's clothing.

Now what used to only plague Israel has spilled out across the Western world. It had to come to that according to the principle of sowing and reaping. International leaders were willing to play dumb about the true jihad intentions of 'political Islam' against Israel. The leaders knew better but shared the pretense that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was just a spat between two rivals instead of what it was: a jihad terrorist commitment to wipe Israel off the map.

Even when terrorism began taking place in Europe, against non-Jewish targets, international leaders were so married to their idea of closing a blind eye to terrorism against Israel in order to protect themselves, they continued to say terrorism against Israel was "different" than terrorism against their people and nations! Slow learners or just completely deceived? 

Just in the past week it has come out that French Secret Service agreed after Paris massacre in which six people were murdered and 22 injured at a kosher restaurant in 1982, not to target the Palestinian terrorists in exchange for a halt from carrying out further attacks on French soil.  It would not surprise me if other nations cut the same deal, because the Western nations have never done the right thing by Israel. They instead have allowed lies about Israel to be foisted on the world. The hope of protecting themselves is now beginning to evaporate into thin air, but it has not caused them to repent of their false dealing with Israel.

Of course weakness does not work with bloodthirsty Islamists, so here we are in 2019 with most of the European nations overwhelmed with the Islamist takeover in their nations. The USA also sees (not quite yet fully sees) how we are up to our necks in the takeover too. For brazen Islamists like Tlaib and Omar to be sitting in American Congress driving their anti-Israel, anti-Jew propaganda across the United States is a sign of just how far gone we actually are.

Let's not forget Linda Sarsour, face of American Feminism, of all things! That has got to be the ultimate deception. What is more oppressive of women than fundamentalist Islam?  But that is how Islamists have created "intersectionality" with godless Leftist political activist groups. Not that American Jews or many Israeli Jews can see it, but President Trump has been a containment factor sent from Heaven over all these enemies of God and His people. 

If America does not wake up to the predicament we are sitting in, then our future is going to look more and more like what has engulfed the UK and Europe. No-Go Zones that were vehemently denied by nations and news media only a few years ago are now acknowledged, at least by the nations who are desperate to turn the hostile takeover around. The USA has our own regional (almost) No-Go Zones. These are the districts that elected Tlaib & Omar. Areas where the police will arrest Christian street evangelists because Islam does not allow freedom of speech in their districts. In some New York City boroughs there are already city-funded 'Sharia patrols'. 

Some might accuse me of being an "Islamophobe," but I'm not; and this is not about your good Muslim friend. There are MANY good Muslims out there, they came to America to live free of the oppression of Islamists in their homelands. But the fundamentalist Muslims also dominate the good Muslims in the same way they dominate everyone else, through deception, lies, coercion and threat.

The news media do not give much platform to the spokespeople of good Islam, but rather they give it to the political jihadists like CAIR and anti-American, anti-Jew and anti-Israel congress people like Tlaib and Omar. Meanwhile, from the American campuses into our political mainstream, radical Islamist representatives like Rashida Tlaib have learned the lessons of forming alliances with other protest activist groups in the United States and the tactics these groups use have become interchangeable — just like how they share each other's enemies. Islamists hate Jews, so Black Lives Matter back them up, Feminists back them up, Antifa backs them up.

It's been the Islamist strategy for gaining support in the American public. For example, this was discussed in the strategy sessions of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood affiliates who met in 1993 to lay out a road map to overthrow the Oslo Peace agreement with Israel. These strategy sessions covered a lot of ground on the future operations of Islamists in North America including how to misrepresent Hamas to the American people ("War is deception"), and generally how to win Americans to their side of the conflict with Israel. How to present a deceptive case to the Americans. In that meeting the leaders actually discussed campus alignment with grievance-activist groups even mentioning the "no justice, no peace" slogan! This is documented in the trial evidence of the Holy Land Foundation 5.

We didn't elect Tlaib and Omar but their districts did; Omar's little Somalia and Tlaib's Detroit district that includes Dearborn. There were many warnings going out over a decade ago about not allowing Muslim nations to import radical Islamist doctrine in the US by building the mega-mosques in areas that did not have the Muslim populations to support a massive mosque. The mosque is a hub, a magnet to draw certain sects of Islam to an area. How do you think No-Go-Zones are created? It is always around a hub-mosque teaching radical Islam.

This is why US officials were foolish to allow foreign interests to build mega mosques in areas with no Muslim population to support it, because these mosques are intended to create hub-cities where clusters of radical Islamists are drawn to live. This was the beginning stages of US "no go zones" and still today, most of America has no idea how we got here much less how do we get out of this tightening python stranglehold.

Why have I spent so much time on such an un-spiritual topic as terrorism? Because Islamist terrorism is a Book of Revelation-level "Beast" enemy. It is part of the end times war we are in, at least that is my firm belief, and we better be able to tell the difference between the facts and the deceptions that are being presented to the public. It is important to be aware how much deception is involved in terrorism tactics so we can fight the good fight of faith against it.

NEXT: Myth-busting with Fact Checking  

Part 2 Conflict at the Intersection of Israel-support & Terrorism

Learning Curve: 18th Anniversary | Arrows from Zion 8/14/2019

If I ever get around to writing my book on the believers in Israel, I think it is going to have to be titled, Learning Curve. Just looking at the photo file of my first visit to Israel in 2003, two years after starting the Israelprayer mailing list highlighted to me the early stages of that learning curve. It's a learning curve that awaits the international church to transition through. In God's due time, of course which I believe is now.

Coming alongside the believers in Israel is not only a sign of the final maturing of the church, but it will cause even greater maturing of the whole body of the LORD in the earth as it begins to unfold as God has planned in "one new man".

18th Anniversary Issue: Learning Curve
Several years ago I wrote: Israel Prayer ministry was born only month before the Islamist attack on America on 9/11. The Spring and Summer of 2001 I was working with Zola Levitt on a project to urge the Dallas Morning News not to back off of their investigative probing into the Hamas charity, the Holy Land Foundation, because of the intimidation of CAIR and local Islamist groups accusing the newspaper of religious bias.

If it had not been for my long time 'Israel watching' I wouldn't have had a clue how Middle Eastern terror groups used charities to gain support and to boost their street credibility. But I did know how Palestinian terror groups operated, and the discovery of their operation in my backyard - or even in my nation - was nothing that I could ever be silent on again.

When the attacks on America took place that Tuesday in September, Israel was in the middle of the Second Intifada. We came together with a strong sense of God's calling to learn how to pray in faith even under a constant barrage of real bombs and bullets threatening those you know and love.

We came together aware that because America chose to allow several Islamist terror groups to network in the United States, to raise "charity" funds to aid terrorism against Israel, that America would surely have to ultimately deal with terrorism against her own citizens. Appeasement never works. Only rising to the challenge of the fight before us works.

My personal stand is with Israel against the enemy of radical Islam and even though the United States has often made bad choices regarding how it attempts to juggle its own interests against radical Islam and Israel, I'm also fully dedicated to our own struggle in the war on terror.

September 11th will always be about Israel Prayer to me. It is as if history has entwined us together forever. 9/11 will always be about the call of God to war for Israel and America against a devious and treacherous foe - radical Islam.

Learning Curve #1

The Priority is not Primarily Defensive Prayers, but Advancing the Kingdom Prayers  

We spent the first three years or so, from 2001 to 2003 praying defensive prayers for Israel and for the Israeli Ministries, and we did see many miraculous times God protected believers in the Second Intifada. When I went to Israel for the first time in 2003, we made a point of going to the sites of recent suicide bomb attacks, a way of saying we would not be scared off by terrorism. That's why we went to the Sabarro Pizza that was suicide bombed in August 2001 with 15 civilians killed including 7 children and a pregnant woman. 130 were wounded in the attack.

We went to several such terror attack sites including the Café Hillel that had been bombed only a few weeks prior to our trip. 50 were injured in that attack and 7 killed including an ER doctor who had treated many terrorism victims. We met a young man who lived in that German Colony neighborhood who said he was still very shaken up by the terror attack. We told him we were Christians who love Israel. He responded that mostly what he encountered were Christians who loved the Palestinians and not the Israelis, but that he was comforted by our love for Israelis.

I still believe we are to be aware of the battle for ourselves and for Israel regarding the dangerous foe of radical Islam, but this was one of the earliest transitions that the Lord led me in my learning curve of praying for Israel: We are to pray for defense of Israel against enemies, but God's first priority for us is to pray for the believers in Israel who are advancing the kingdom of our LORD one salvation at a time. 

We didn't only visit terror attack sites in my first Israel visit. The major goal was to meet with as many of the Israeli ministries we could. This was the first time I met Eddie and Jackie Santoro, also Howard Bass. We went to the Mizrachi's Dugit Ministries outreach and there we met a Palestinian Christian "by chance" who we had prayed for as he was imprisoned the in last city that Israeli soldiers liberated from jail where prisoners of faith were being held, some killed and many tortured in 2002. The prayer requests for those Christian prisoners in Palestinian jails came from Jewish pastors in Ariel. We visited Eitan Shishkoff at Tents of Mercy in their new building, bigger and better than their facility which was firebombed by religious opposition.

We made the Beit Immanuel hotel in Jaffa our hub entering and departing Israel, getting to attend the services then led by David and Michaella Lazarus.

We made Netanya another hub where we met many of the ministries at a TJC2 meeting in the Beit Asaph congregation led by Evan Thomas. 

Later, in the north we went to the annual fellowship picnic for the Jewish and Christian Arab believers in the Lavi Forest outside Tiberias. I got goosebumps even in the Israeli heat as we walked into that campground. It was like prophetic history to me.

Being able to connect with ministries and meeting so many of the ministry leaders on that first trip moved me to the next level of focus for this prayer list. This is why I so encourage every Christian who goes to Israel not to just sightsee, but go to meet a few of the ministries there. If you can, lend a hand in helping them in what they are doing.

In 1948 there were only 29 documented Jews believers in Yeshua in Israel. Today the estimated number is more like 20,000 and growing day by day. Even in the past eighteen years of Israel prayer, mighty changes are everywhere. We see reports more and more about positive media coverage of Messianics in Israel and new openness among Israelis to learn more about the faith than ever before. That is why this prayer list focuses primarily on communicating the prayer needs of the Israeli ministries who are reaching the Israeli people with the Gospel.

That was a lesson we began to learn about three years into the prayer list, to shift the focus from defensive prayers to advancing the kingdom prayers. For example the following was written at the 3rd anniversary of the weekly summary:

     "We have learned many lessons over the past three years of weekly praying in agreement with the ministries in Israel.  By staying within that container of agreement with those on the front lines of the battle, the Lord has taught us much about how to intercede even for an embattled remnant within the most embattled nation in the world.

     "He imparts dreams and visions to His ministry leaders in Israel, they translate their visions to the congregations and to the intercessors, and together we labor for what God wills to release for His people.  (While we began thinking we would be praying primarily over the politics and the terrorists, we have found that God has a much longer list of priorities to speak to than just those things!)

     "Those on the battlefront have considerably more pertinent input than those with less invested who are viewing the war from faraway places.

     "The important thing is not things, it is people. What makes for a decrease in the ability to share the gospel is not what God asks us to pray for. We pray for the things that make sharing the gospel more possible.

     "Terrorists do not scare God. They scare people, but not God who over the past three years has demonstrated to us ten times over how able He is to answer our prayers for Israel's protection against enemies.  (When you have weekly contact with the Israeli ministries, you have a steady stream of praise reports of answered prayers of protection against terrorists.)"

I think we can apply that last statement to religious persecutors too. We pray from the place of trusting God, just like we prayed from that place during the Second Intifada.

It looks like I really do need to write Learning Curve because there is no way to share in one short article about all we have learned in the past 18 years of reading the week-in, week-out ministry letters from the Israeli ministries.

This is one thing I know: God's will for the international Church is to pray for and materially support the BELIEVERS of Israel who are advancing the Kingdom of our Lord among Israelis until "all Israel is saved." Like all of God's mandates for us, doing it will multiply blessing back to the international church beyond what we imagine. 

— Donna Diorio

Lashon Hara: Slander

Ron Cantor of Messiah's Mandate wrote, "Over the past few days, a video in Hebrew has been circulating about the evils of spiritual manifestations in the life of the believers. The video condemns 24-hour prayer movements, as well as much of what we see and read about in the book of Acts. The creator of this video took some of the more bizarre videos out there and made it seems as if those strange manifestations were the norm in charismatic congregations. Any normal charismatic believer would look at a video of a person barking like a dog and think it abnormal. The sad thing is that it is causing division in our small body of believers here in Israel. Please pray over this situation."

Back Story | Here's My 2¢ 

Lashon Hara: Slander 

Isn't it ironic. The Charismatic church for the most part has little interest in what God is doing among the Israeli believers, yet the Israeli ministries who operate in the gifts of the Spirit are under an unprecedented attack for connection to Christian charismatics. And not only that, but they are being slandered by an extremely small ministry in Israel as being related somehow to some of the flakiest of the charismatic flakes we've seen in recent decades. These men under attack in Israel have nothing to do with all that craziness.

It is a disgrace what one self-righteous man has taken upon himself to stir great opposition to a group of Israeli ministries. I stand by his targets 100%. They are producing fruit unto salvation, Michael N. is producing slander and great division among the brethren in Israel with his articles and videos.

I am watching his video production right now and I am appalled that the leaders in the body in Israel have brought my friends up for examination based on these accusations, yet they see no problem with allowing this type of slander and accusation to go unchecked. No repercussions for slandering brothers in the LORD, but doubts from false accusations are free to spew out against my friends.

I ask all my subscribers and followers to bring this injustice before the LORD. That God would arise and show who is right and who is wrong. That no weapon formed against my friends shall prosper.

If anyone needs to be exposed for bad acts within the Israeli ministries, it is those who slander their fellow brethren in the LORD who are ministers of good standing and reputation among the Body of Christ worldwide. The division being brought to the body in Israel is not one lick different than the attacks of the ultra-Orthodox against the faith. This is a stain on the whole body that such accusations are being allowed to stir trouble for going on three years now.

No, I cannot keep silent. May God grant repentance to those involved in this slandering of some of the finest ministers I know in Israel.

I must add that I do not back any of the extremes of charismatic Christian ministry shown as examples in this video. Also I have never seen my Israeli ministry friends participate in such excessive displays either. I have long distanced myself from charismatic excesses believing them to be fleshly. I have seen powerful operation of the Spirit in the meetings of Eitan, Dan, Asher and Ron - but I've never seen excess, fleshly indulgences at all.

IN FACT, let me go further: I BELIEVE that the Israeli charismatic ministries are to bring greater BIBLICAL balance and accountability to bear among international Christian charismatics. I believe this is what the apostolic-prophetic Israeli ministries are meant by God to bring to the table as the unity of Jew and Gentile believers - One New Man - continues to manifest.

The Israeli ministries who are being slandered for their associations with some Christian charismatic leaders do not practice the excesses shown in that video. If anything will bring more balance into the Christian apostolic and prophetic circles, it will be their association with these Jewish brothers that challenges them to greater accountability and much less shows of flesh when the Spirit of God is truly moving among us. 

It is flat out bogus to claim these ministries have anything to do with the excesses portrayed in this video, nor do any of them believe as falsely accused that "It's not obligatory to believe." All of them know and teach that it is necessary to come to faith in Yeshua, no matter who you are. For the accusation that they enter into covenant relationships with Christian ministry leaders is a "covenant with death" as this video producer claims is a twisted misuse of scripture. 

The brethren who have been accused, whom I have known personally for years, I stand by their integrity, moral character and fidelity to the LORD Yeshua without hesitation. 

What is most appalling to me is for Dan, Asher, Eitan & Ron to be under a microscope of inspection by elders because of such false accusations, but lying brothers are free to slander and defame to their heart's content. It is lashon hara: slander.

"There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community."  Proverbs 6:16-19  

My Israeli ministry friends fit in NONE of those categories.

That's my 2¢ -Donna Diorio

Re-Claiming Young Christians for Israel

Worshiping the Lord together in Israel:
Jews, Arabs & Internationals at an Elav conference

How are we ever going to re-claim the younger generations of Christians support of God's ultimate plans for Israel? Is it even possible seeing the overwhelming deceptions in the world?
by Donna Diorio

Many young adult Christians have rejected their Christian parents support of Israel, instead believing the propaganda of their social just peers that Palestinians are a poor people oppressed by the evil might of Israel. It is a false narrative that the world leaders have indulged for decades but it is an especially alarming thing that young adult Christians have also been snared in the deception.

There must be a concerted effort on our part to break this deception off of Christian young people & adults, one by making it a constant priority prayer to God. There are other things, like continually declaring the truth and countering the false narrative.

Over the past week I have had a thought about how such a vast amount of elder Christians who support Israel throw all of the resources and support behind UNSAVED Israel. They give their donations, time and attention to the unsaved rabbis, government leaders and good works organizations and all they give the believers in Jesus in Israel is the cold shoulder.

I have been pondering how the sins of the Christian Israel supporters who do this are being passed down to their sons and daughters who manifest the same sin by backing Palestinian false narratives rather than Israel.

You know that the sins of the fathers get passed down and not every generation manifests it in the same way, but it is the same basic sin. In this case it is the sin of being deceived by false narratives concerning Israel.

For the elder Christians the false narrative is that God wants them to court unsaved Israel and not worry about what is going on in the remnant of faith in Israel. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God's PERFECT plan is for the Christians who support Israel to stand and support the believers in Israel FIRST & FOREMOST. They are the ones who will win Israelis to faith, not you - or at least not you anywhere compared to how effectively they do.

For the younger adult Christians who value the false narrative of Palestinians as David and Israel as Goliath, their generation sin of being deceived by false narratives is also a rebellion from seeing that their Christian parents have veered off the path of God regarding Israel. Maybe they can't put their finger on it exactly, but they know your obsessions with helping to rebuilt the Temple Mount, of funding and following the un-redeemed Israelis only, that these are ALSO not of God.

If the Christian parents repent, will the curse be broken off the young Christian adults who believe the false narratives about Israel? We must find the answers to breaking this curse of Christians following the paths that resist the very work and plan of God in Israel. Christian young adults must be activated to stand with the body of FAITH in JESUS in Israel.

Who knows what could happen if Christians who support Israel but ignore the soul-winning Israeli Messianic ministries, began to speak of spiritual salvation in Israel rather than talking about the latest effort to build the Third Temple, who knows if the younger generation of Christians might find that way more exciting. Rebuilding a stone temple versus a Living Temple. To me it is a no-brainer. 

For the Israeli believer ministries, there is great focus placed on overcoming the political walls with the spiritual bonds of peace that we have only in Jesus. That means the both adult believers and youth believers participate in conferences and worship events for that purpose of making from two, one in the Messiah. Who knows what would happen if Israel supporting elder Christians focused on those things rather than the Israel-issues that they prioritize now.

Every individual is responsible for their own sins, even the generational sins that are passed down because of the sins of the fathers. Another reason I see for the deception among the social justice Christian generation is their departure from God's Word establishing the standard for ALL social justice. Those who dismiss the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures as done away with and irrelevant, will never that a true north on their moral compass. God's Word establishes the parameters of justice according to our Creator. Unfortunately, the strongest feature I see in social justice circles, Christian or non-Christian, is that they have made their own opinions of justice higher than God's. It is a sure-fire path to injustice.

Pray for deception to cease, and speak the truth in love. Some will see and hear. Many will break from the path that resists God's plan for all the nations in Israel.

My 2¢ | Christian Israel-Supporters Treating Israeli Messianic Ministries Lo-Priority

People have always complained that I express myself too strongly, too adamantly.
So in recognition of the need for humility of opinions & interpretations, here's

My  2¢ 

Christian Israel-Supporters Treating Israeli Messianic Ministries as Low-Priority
Christians whose hearts are stirred by God toward Israel can be so vulnerable to be led astray from Jews of faith in Jesus, to Jewish unbelievers who have set leading Christians AWAY from Jews of faith in Jesus, to a simple fascination with Judaism.

Why would I want to sit at the feet of an unbeliever Israeli Jew, even if he were a rabbi? I wouldn't. That person has nothing to offer me but to dazzle me with Jewish lore. I want only what has been given to an Israeli person of faith, downloaded from God in Heaven into the redeemed spirit of a Jewish disciple of Jesus! But some think they are bridging the gap between Jews and Christians. How can that be when they ignore the Messianic Jews of faith and latch on to the hem of the garment of some Israeli Jew who behind their back spits at the name of Jesus?

I know a lot of Christians ignore Jews of faith because they say, 'We don't need to go to them, they've already been saved. We need to make the ones who haven't been saved "jealous" of our faith by befriending them (and showing them how sweet we are).' Uh-no. That is not working for you because they are not going to be impressed with how you are willing to throw Messianic Jews under the bus in order to be friends with them.

Why should they be jealous of the faith of Christians who treat Jews who believe in Jesus as it they are insignificant and less important than the Christian being able to befriend unsaved Jews?

Others seek out unbeliever Jews for teachings. They like to financially support unbeliever Jewish Israel- projects rather financially supporting the Israeli Messianic believers carrying the Gospel in Israel. Why? Why is it so hard to get Israel-supporting Christians to see that supporting the Gospel to Israel is greater than all the other endeavors together? Why do Christians make Israel the ONLY exception to that understanding in a lost world?

I am not against being friendly to unsaved Jews, quite the opposite. But I am not going to financially support ANY projects in Israel that are led by unbeliever Jews, and I am sure not going to go to them for spiritual enlightenment. Wake up. This is so wrong, how can you honestly be fooled by such situations?

It would be the same thing as Christians flocking to the Sanhedrin in the book of Acts, as the Sanhedrin was actively seeking to persecute, jail and put to death the Apostles and the followers of Yeshua in the first century of faith. Absolutely the same thing, same situation today with Christians falling all over themselves to make Israel jealous of our faith when it is the Israeli Messianics who are winning souls and making disciples. 

If you want to make Israel jealous of our faith, you will support Israeli Messianic ministries ONLY. You will get spiritual understanding from those Israeli Jews who are actually filled with the Spirit of Jesus, not from those who are trying to drive all those believer Jews out of Israel. Again, I say: Wake up! It doesn't mean you can't reach out to unsaved Jews, but if you don't have inclination to the Israeli community of faith high in your priorities, I question if you really get God's plan for Israel. 

That's my 2¢ —Donna Diorio

Photo: Ashdod pastor Israel Pochtar standing in front of anti-Messianic posters targeting him and his ministry staff at Voice of Judah.

Son Flowers in God's Garden

A sunflower field in between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem

Over the past several years we have marked the passing of a great many of the spiritual giants in Messianic faith and in the leadership of the Israeli body of faith specifically, like David Davis, Marc Chopinsky, Eddie Santoro and now Elihu Ben Haim.

In my near two decades of doing Israel prayer summaries I also remember we have buried faithful servants of the Lord like Katya Morrison, Esther Ridings Moore, Tom Bender, Antony Simon and Brookie Escott. Before I started Israel prayer there was the beloved uniter, Ilan Zamir and soon after I began the prayer letter was a pioneer of the faith in Israel, Albert Nessim. The youngest among them was Shai Kushnir a Messianic IDF soldier who lost his life in the 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza.

From the youngest, Shai, to the eldest Albert, we are always shocked when the lives in our community are cut off. Being in the roughly the same age group as the leaders first mentioned, I think we of that age group also probably consider them as lives that have been cut off prematurely. As Jackie Santoro wrote last week, "We are in a great end time battle and sadly as in any battle, there are casualties. But we have confidence that nothing is in vain and we as the Body of Messiah are going forward in greater strength each and every day."

We are like Son flowers in God's garden. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on the Revive Israel picture of the sunflower field that it would be the cover for Arrows this week. I didn't know how, but suddenly as I am writing this opening on Tuesday I see exactly why. I knew it was because even though we have buried many dearly beloved friends, servants of God, we are not like those in the world who have no hope. We know they are at the Father's side, with Yeshua in heavenly places. We also know that they are not the end of what they and we have set ourselves to do in our service to the King of Glory.

Sunflowers thrive in Texas like they do in Israel and one thing I know about sunflowers is they grow very tall and are profuse. When they die having lived out their life under a scorching sun, they leave such an abundance of seeds that are harvested for eating, and with many others falling into the ground and producing a profusion of new plants in the next growing season.

The Son Flowers of God's Garden are like that too. As I was looking through all the ministry letters that have come in over the past week, I was noticing how many new, young faces are represented today in Israel prayer. These are the seeds that have been produced by the leaders who have passed into eternity, and by all of those who remain - whom we pray live long, long lives for years to come.

Yeshua said in John 12:24, "Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit."

Eddie Santoro had faith for healing - not only his own, but he prayed for everyone he could through the whole time he was being treated and monitored for cancer. That he eventually died does not cause me to doubt that healing is the children's bread. It is for us and it is for us now. There is great spiritual resistance to the signs and wonders of the kingdom manifesting in Israel, and bringing in a harvest of souls just like it does everywhere else in the world when the power of God begins to manifest our inheritance in Yeshua.

This week, Jonathan Moore who is one of the young leaders in Ahavat Yeshua in Jerusalem wrote in Facebook, "Here's my prediction: Within 2 years we will be seeing lots of miraculous healings and salvations...in Jerusalem."

I believe Jonathan is right on the spiritual mark of the scripture I was getting all the past week. For like the natural sunflowers, the deaths of two of the Son's flowers in God's garden in Israel this month, two who were sowing mentoring of young leaders, evangelism, healing, teaching the nations of Israel's destiny, and intercession are sure to reproduce multi-fold even in the coming year.                                                                                                                                     — Donna Diorio 

The Jewish Mystique

This article was originally published in Arrows from Zion 5/29/2019

The Jewish Mystique

by Donna Diorio

When I was about twenty-one I read a book called, The Jewish Mystique. I had a job with a success guru who put on seminars for chiropractors six times as year. It was there I first became fascinated by all the Jews I was meeting, most of them from the East Coast.

Recently I remembered this book so I searched it out online. One review referred to "the Jewish Question" several times and I was almost embarrassed that I had read the book. Then I saw that Dennis Prager names it as one of the books that most influenced him, so I guess I am safe in saying it was the foundation of my first attempts to understand the Jews. It would be another ten years before I began to really being to understand the Jews as the Bible became my sole guide for understanding.

It has taken thirty-six years of going through all the learning curves, and finally being strategically focused in observing the Israeli Messianic Jewish ministries for the past eighteen years, but I am no longer fascinated by all things Jewish. Fascination drew me to discovery of the Messianic movement, but fascination matured into an earnest desire to see God's plan for the Jews and all the nations to be fulfilled. Without the increase of the faith of Yeshua in Israel, God's plan is in a holding pattern.

Just as surely as God puts a stirring in our hearts for the Jewish people, a fascination, if you will, it is a phase that Christians drawn to the Messianic movement need to mature out of. Don't be shocked, but we need to move from our of our fascination with "all things Jewish" and let our hearts be captured by God's ultimate plan in drawing us to them. It is for His return to the Jewish people with salvation through Yeshua - the gospel that is preached by the Israeli Jewish ministries in the way that only they can.

There has always been a remnant of Jewish faith in Yeshua, but today God has begun to restore His Jewish people in Israel, and not just physically, but spiritually. Not just the restoration of their homeland Israel, but to the faith that He promised He would one day open their eyes to. It is a restoration of faith that is going on worldwide, but the restoration of Messianic faith in Israel is God's epicenter of what He is doing in our day.

If we remain fascinated by Jewish things more than by God's plan for faith to arise in Israel, that we will easily downplay or dismiss entirely the great mantle of Israel's salvation that is upon the shoulders of the Israeli believers and the ministries who are leading and discipling them. 

Most often I hear the idea that the Christians from the nations have the mantle from God to win the Jews because they are "to make Israel jealous". If we want to make Israel jealous of our faith, we can't do it by disregarding the Israeli Messianic Jews who are of "like precious faith". Will any unsaved Jew have respect or jealousy for our faith if we are so easily convinced to treat Jews who believe in Jesus as "traitors" to the Jewish people, and to be avoided by any Christian who wants to have a relationship with organizations helping Israelis? Lots of Christians need to think this point through!

To make Jews jealous of our faith, Christians must not only have hearts to help Israelis, but we also have to respect, love and support the Israeli believers who are as "living letters" to their countrymen of the faith in Israel's Messiah. As Isaiah 8:18 declared: "Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion."

We will never make Israel jealous with this support become complete. It is time for Israel-supporting Christians to put off the spiritually childish fascination with Jewish things and grew into the mature focus of God's plan for the salvation of "all Israel". The hour has come.