55 Between: Day 4 (Wednesday) | The War Over Israel's Legitimacy

4 Sivan 5786 AM | 1 AVE.

Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by Your Spirit and invited the nations to share in the richness of Your Word. We thank You for the people and state of Israel, including the Messiah, our First Fruits, through whom the harvest of life has begun.

Today is the forty-sixth day of the Omer according to the minority Sadducean count, which is 6 weeks and 4 days.

May the Spirit of Truth prepare my heart for the revelation of the 50th day.

Jonathan Writes:

Today's video is Why We're Losing the War Over Israel's Legitimacy.

From the show notes:

"Is it possible to win every battle and still lose where it matters? In this episode, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi confront what may be the most dangerous front Israel faces today — the narrative. They lay bare the forces converging against Israel’s legitimacy: the collapse of Western institutions and the global spread of antisemitism amplified by social media and a systematic anti-Zionist campaign decades in the making. They reflect on the way this has reframed every chapter of Israel's story — from founding to present — as settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide — and the psychological toll of this multi-front narrative war."

Is the narrative front the most dangerous front Israel faces? I am sure there are good reasons for pragmatists to think that military, economic, and ecological security on the ground is far more important over the short, medium and long term than what the world's most popular influencers (e.g., Tucker Carlson) are saying about Israel's legitimacy in general and the innocence of Netanyahu in particular. On the other hand, we need to care very much what the world's fairest legal minds think of the current cases against Israel and Netanyahu at The Hague, and beyond this, we need to be even more concerned about what we ourselves think - in the absolute interiority of our hearts under God - of the Zionist narrative.

Today is the thirty-second day (4 weeks and 4 days) of the Omer count according to the Essene system, taking Wednesday, 25 March 2026 as the Head of the Essene year, and Sunday, 19 April 2026 as the First Fruits of Barley. Pentecost according to this calendar will occur on Sunday, 7 June 2026. 

Shalom.