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By Arlene Bridges Samuels 

The United Nations General Assembly is prepping for its annual meeting, which opens on September 5. Israel remains high on its agenda—expressly in meetings conducted by the Human Rights Council and their star pupil, the Commission of Inquiry. Although the UN purports to be fair, the Human Rights Council has exhibited a clear pattern of singling out and targeting the world’s only Jewish state.

Israel receives “special” treatment from the Human Rights Council, since it is the only nation where a human rights inquiry lasts forever! Now with 193 members, the United Nations has undergone an unwelcome transformation—distorting truth with artificial “facts”—ever since it voted favorably for the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. Six months later, this resolution resulted in votes for Israel’s modern statehood on May 14, 1948—which took place 75 years ago. History tells us that Israel’s leaders accepted the partition plan while Arab leaders rejected it. It is indeed unfortunate that Arabs rejected statehood for their population and instead chose hatred and war as a substitute. 

On the two dates mentioned above—November 29, 1947, and May 14, 1948—the United Nations played a critical role in helping to fulfill prophecy, voting to return their ancestral homeland to the Jews, its indigenous people. The UN had no idea that God in His sovereignty enlisted the Jewish people as vessels to enact Isaiah 66:8 NIV—“Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.” 

Let’s take a look at how the Commission of Inquiry (COI) was formed. On May 27, 2021, a Palestinian and Pakistani delegation requested a special session about “the Grave Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” The delegation represented a coalition of Islamic states—the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—with a membership of 57 countries on four continents. 

Heading up the COI is South African Judge Navi Pillay, who lugs her anti-Israel biases into Commission meetings. She has frequently slandered Israel, calling it an “apartheid state,” and lobbied governments to “sanction apartheid Israel.” One of Pillay’s most glaring actions occurred when she convened the 2009 Durban II conference in Geneva, Switzerland. She welcomed former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to spew his anti-Israel poison. Thankfully most democracies boycotted the Durban II. Ms. Pillay saw apartheid firsthand in her home country, which was itself cruelly apartheid. 

I do not know if Ms. Pillay has visited Israel. If so, has she met with any of the thousands of Ethiopian Jews airlifted to freedom by Israel? Has she met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations General Assembly to question his policy of establishing hate filled anti-Israel media? Has she visited factories in Israel’s Barkan Industrial Park to see thousands of Palestinians working alongside Jews, all who receive equal pay—and some holding management positions?

The COI’s latest report in a June 2023 session of the UN Human Rights Council reveals that not one Palestinian terrorist or terrorist organization was mentioned. Not one. Months later, after a contentious COI meeting in November, during an interview with Israel’s i24 News Ms. Pillay claimed, “I’m 81 years old and this is the first time I’ve been accused of anti-Semitism.” Her comment was aimed in part at Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who vigorously questioned her impartiality and accused Pillay and the COI of “Jew hatred,” blatant anti-Semitism, and being part of a “terror-supporting Commission.” 

In meetings, Pillay seemed shocked that Erdan and 18 member states spoke out in a debate describing the Commission of Inquiry as biased against Israel after a COI Report. It was the first time in decades that such bias was leveled—a much-needed change! The United States weighed in, stating that it remained “deeply concerned about the creation of the Commission of Inquiry … [and its] unwieldy scope. We also reaffirm our condemnation of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.” 

Hillel Neuer is executive director of UN Watch, a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to hold the United Nations accountable to its founding principles. Appearing before the U.S. Congress last June, Neuer highlighted proofs of anti-Semitism. During that appearance, he eloquently pointed out: “While dictators are honored, a democracy is scapegoated. The only country in the world with a standing agenda item at the Council is not China, which denies basic human rights to 1.5 billion people, nor is it Iran which beats, blinds, and poisons women and girls for protesting. It is Israel.”

UN Watch is a valuable news source for those who want to learn more about the UN’s outright bias against the world’s only Jewish state. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was established in 2006 and its anti-Israel record is statistically revealing. As examples, they have passed 14 resolutions on Iran, 16 on North Korea, 42 on Syria, and fewer resolutions on other countries. Yet they denounced Israel in 103 resolutions—more than Iran, North Korea, and Syria combined.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) defines the COI as “wanting to launch a global dragnet for the guardians, builders, and defenders of the Jewish state.” Now more than ever, Israel needs its evangelical guardians and defenders at the United Nations. 

With facts provided by UN Watch, Christians have an opportunity to advocate for Israel. Using this link, Sign up | CiviCRM (unwatch.org), you will know what is happening and can act by signing important petitions disseminated by UN Watch from time to time. We cannot underestimate the small steps when thousands of us are united to oppose the Jew hatred rampant in the United Nations! 

Ultimately, we are often assured in the Bible that Israel rests in the sovereign Hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Nevertheless, we honor Him by acting on behalf of Israel—a land and a people that He chose to transmit the Old and New Testaments and come to earth through Jewish lineage. Let us stand with Israel, our spiritual homeland, in prayer, facts, and actions.  

Our CBN Israel team welcomes you to join us this week to pray for Israel with hope by reading God’s promises in Ezekiel 37:21-22 (NIV): “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.” 

Prayer Points: 

• Pray for the current 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council, which includes China, Cuba, and Pakistan.  
• Pray for COI’s chairperson, Navi Pillay, to have a change of heart toward Israel. 
• Pray for Christians to actively pursue education on how to advocate for Israel, including UN Watch.  

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is a volunteer on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels 

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is one of Israel’s most important visitor destinations. Walking through the museum is a near-indescribable revelation, one that is displayed in heart-wrenching detail. Some might say “heart wrenching” because it is a walk-through hell—a hell that might be hard for non-Jews to fathom. Yet a visit to this place is fundamental to helping us understand the emotional DNA of the Jewish people. Millennia of Jew hatred manifested itself unspeakably in the Holocaust (Shoah)—and intensified Jews’ determination to live life to the fullest while guarding their ancestral homeland.

I visited Yad Vashem on nine separate occasions during the years I served as Southeast Regional Christian Outreach Director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC strengthens the mutually beneficial U.S.-Israel relationship with Congress on a bipartisan basis. Yad Vashem always appeared on AIPAC’s American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) Educational Seminar itinerary. At the end of each guided tour, I gathered our Christian leaders to walk a few steps over to the railing that looks out over the beautiful Jerusalem Forest. The serenity of this lovely view and the fresh air helped them deal with the shock of what they had seen, their voices silent, some with tears falling, as they attempted to process what they had just heard and seen. 

Gently drawing them into a circle, I quietly mentioned the familiar watch phrase “Never Again,” which they could now deeply understand. I encouraged them to adopt this profound declaration into their prayers and actions. One of the pastors offered a prayer that I had privately requested earlier. Each person felt free to speak their hearts or pray. In the nine different Christian leadership groups I staffed, I also invited our Jewish tour guide to join the circle. Afterward, the guides expressed to me their heartfelt reactions to the Christians’ comments.

I prepared my groups as best I could for their next steps, which led to the nearby Children’s Memorial. They entered the space in silence, feeling for the railing as they walked along in a deep darkness lit only by simulated candlelight. With each step, a recorded voice read out names of 1,500 Jewish children whom the Nazis murdered. Their names echo in our memories, never to be forgotten.

Part of a Yad Vashem visit includes strolling along the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hassidei Umot Haolam) honoring the courage, selflessness, and extraordinary risks of Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Located on 45 acres of forest and groves in the Jerusalem hills, Yad Vashem was dedicated on Holocaust Remembrance Day, May 1, 1962. Foreign Minister Golda Meir (who later served as Israel’s Prime Minister) spoke on that occasion. She poignantly described the non-Jews as “drops of love in an ocean of poison.” Among the now more than 28,000 Righteous Gentiles are three Christians I especially want to mention: Corrie ten Boom of the Netherlands, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, and the only American soldier recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in World War II, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds. 

Walking through Yad Vashem, I concluded early on that shock is a necessary wake-up call for Christians. At the least, an acquaintance with Holocaust history in a two- or three-hour tour of Yad Vashem is ample motivation to commit to proactive support for Jewish citizens both in Israel and worldwide—especially amid Jew hatred that is intensifying once again.

 Visiting Yad Vashem or learning about it online has enormous value; it is an essential resource for evangelicals to advocate for Israel. The Yad Vashem Law was officially passed by the Knesset in 1953, which voted “to collect, examine, and publish testimony of the disaster and the heroism it called forth.” For the heart of Yad Vashem’s name, ‘a name and a memorial,’ is drawn from Isaiah 56:5: “And to them will I give in My house and within My walls a memorial and a name … that shall not be cut off.”

The Yad Vashem Law was preceded by a horrific dream in 1942. Mordechai Shenhavi, a Zionist, had made Aliyah to pre-state Israel from Odessa on January 2, 1919. Although news about the Nazi deportation of Jews to death camps was scant during World War II, what little he knew kept Mordechai awake at night. In August 1942 he had a nightmare that made him determined to remember the names of those murdered in the Holocaust. In frequent meetings with various groups, he explained his vision with detailed ideas.

Four years later, Shenhavi recounted his dream to Vaad ha-Leumi at the National Council. “Fearing that my feelings might be mistaken, I saw all those millions in a dream. I didn’t know then that it was six million. Those millions walked toward Zion with monuments on their shoulders. Can you imagine the length of that chain, the faces of those people, carrying the flame of life? … They chose one place for themselves, lay down the monuments, and placed them there in an orderly or disorderly manner. The monument to their lives, the monument of testimony, was established.”

Shenhavi’s goal, “Remembrance of Our Suffering for Building Our Future,” finally led to the Yad Vashem Law in 1953. He lived to see his dream come true when the cornerstone of the Yad Vashem building was laid in western Jerusalem on July 29, 1954. Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek honored Shenhavi as a Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem. Shenhavi died in 1983 at his kibbutz, Mishmar ha-Emeq, at the age of 82. The new expanded museum that I often visited was dedicated on March 15, 2005.

Today, may we emulate the shining, brave examples of Mordechai Shenhavi’s persistence to envision Yad Vashem and the heroic stories of the righteous non-Jewish rescuers. Around one million people visit Yad Vashem annually, and millions more visit its website, www.YadVashem.org, with content available in eight languages in addition to Hebrew and English. With prayer and action, let us educate ourselves to stand up for the rights of the Jews in their ancient homeland and recognize the Jewishness of our Savior who has redeemed us with His sacrificial love. 

Please join CBN Israel this week in prayer: 

• Pray that Christian advocacy for Israel would grow and expand to new levels.  
• Pray for every Christian tour group to add Yad Vashem to its itinerary. 
• Pray for determined believers to spread facts about Israel through trusted news sources like CBN News and CBN Israel.
• Pray for Christians to deepen their education through valuable experiences and resources offered through Yad Vashem. 

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is a volunteer on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

A heat wave is hovering over many parts of the globe, and the words food insecurity are popping up like unwelcome weeds. Although we cannot control the weather, we can take sensible steps to protect the earth and help poor nations to survive. Israel pioneered survivor solutions even before God established its modern state in 1948. Jews began returning to their ancestral homeland in the 19th century—and when they stepped on the shores of their native land, they got underway with backbreaking work in the desolate, mostly arid region. The early Jewish pioneers faced daily battles with the adversaries of malaria, mosquitos, and minimal resources. 

Hanson Ely, a decorated World War I general, made a statement about military battles that also applies to Israel’s agricultural pioneering—and to all of life’s challenges: “Men must be trained that when they have been in battle for days and nights, when perhaps they have been badly handled by the enemy and have had heavy casualties, yet when the signal comes to go they will go again to the limit of their endurance. … It is the last five percent of the possible exertion that often wins the battle … not the first attack nor the second or the third, but it was that last straggling fourth attack. … Battles are won by remnants, remnants of units, remnants of material, remnants of morale, remnants of intellectual effort.” 

The Bible’s Old Testament frequently mentions the word and concepts of a remnant. Isaiah 37:31-32 predicted that, “Once more, a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” 

Against all odds, the early Jewish remnants of the Diaspora—the five percent, so to speak—resulted in Israel (despite its small size) creating outsized food and water innovations for its own population and providing food and water solutions worldwide. Today, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv rank an enviable fourth in the world for agriculture technology (AgTech) startups. 

The following examples show that Israel simultaneously makes its own land bloom and benefits other countries and businesses. Dganit Vered, CEO of Smart Agro Fund, explains that 350 Israeli ag-tech startups lead the world in precision irrigation, wastewater reuse, and seed breeding. The CEO’s name is fitting; dganit is a flower that grows near grain fields, and vered is a rose. 

CEO Vered cites PepsiCo, which uses N-Drip—an Israeli gravity-powered micro irrigation system in 60 countries to grow 25 different crops. Among other benefits, N-Drip improves the efficiency of water in PepsiCo’s seven million acres of farmland and gives jobs to more than 250,000 people in its agricultural supply chain. This applies both to farmers with one-acre plots and those with huge farms. 

Founded in 1965 and pioneered at Kibbutz Hatzerim, Netafim irrigation took hold across the world, with 5,000 employees in 110 countries. Its drip irrigation has been used in over 10 million hectares (nearly 25 million acres) of land. Before it was sold in 2017, Netafim had produced over 150 billion drippers. More than two million farmers benefitted across the globe, whether with potatoes in Italy, sugar cane in Mexico, tomatoes in Azerbaijan, melons in Vietnam, or corn in the United States. General estimates indicate that Israeli drip irrigation technology uses 70 percent less water and increases harvests by 150 percent over traditional irrigation methods.

Another innovation addresses the endangered bee population. Israeli beekeepers developed BeeHero, matching beekeeping with technology. Using year-round SmartHive sensors, it vastly improves pollination and thus naturally aids in the growth of trees and flowers. Estimates show that the SmartHives have pollinated more than six million trees and 90 billion flowers over 45,000 acres. As pollinators, bees are essential for the world’s food supply. 

Nuri Awel, an Ethiopian farmer, shares a superb story about Israel’s Fair Planet, a project that provides seeds, cutting-edge technology, and training to small farmers. The Ethiopian farmer at first hesitated to take advantage of the offered training, but after the seeds produced high-quality plants, the Israeli non-profit won a big fan! Nuri’s tomato crop doubled on his 1,000-square-meter plot (about a quarter of an acre). The increase and training enabled him to fix his home and send his son to college. He now buys his own seeds and has tripled the output of his crop. 

When pioneers first immigrated (made Aliyah) to pre-state Israel to farm the land, they populated it with agricultural communes (kibbutzim). Kibbutzim remain important today. Israel’s desert farmers have cultivated their land with peppers, flowers, olive trees, and more. Uri Yogev, at Kibbutz Revivim in the southern Negev, decided to use brackish water to grow olive trees, which usually grow in plentiful rain and rich soil. After five years, his olive grove is the biggest in Israel and the only one in the world that’s cultivated with salt water. It now yields 200 tons of olives annually. 

Israeli ingenuity is thriving in agricultural innovations both large and small. Their resourcefulness is proof of what Albert Einstein once said: “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” Israelis have used their “share” of 24/7 crisis and now lead the world in opportunities and innovation. It is my hope that Israel’s accusers and detractors will join the many communities and countries across the world that are grateful for Israeli agricultural and water innovations. 

Join our CBN Israel team this week by reflecting on Zephaniah 2:7 NIV, which affirms this fact: “That land will belong to the remnant of the people of Judah; there they will find pasture. In the evening they will lie down in the houses of Ashkelon. The LORD their God will care for them; he will restore their fortunes.” 

Prayer Points: 

• Pray with thanks for the Israeli example of using a crisis to create something good.
• Pray for leaders to use wise, productive ways to manage God’s beautiful earth.
• Pray especially for the world’s poor, who suffer the most from lack of food.   
• Pray that helpful agricultural techniques might be managed with integrity. 

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is a volunteer on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.