The John-Henry Westen Show - Silent Genocide ｜ The Truth About Gaza’s Christian Crisis

00:00:00.000 We're evacuating pregnant Christian women and pregnant Muslim women from Gaza and people are 1.00

00:00:06.080 attacking me for this. Hey my friends, we're at Bringing America Back to Life, one of the greatest

00:00:13.180 pro-life conferences in America. It happens every year here in Cleveland and Ohio and we're with,

00:00:20.400 I just heard a talk by Jason Jones. Stunning. Jason's been a long time friend and I'm sure

00:00:27.740 most of you know him very well. He tends always to bring up the most controversial things. I guess

00:00:34.820 not that he wants to, but he does. And so we're going to talk about the controversial things.

00:00:40.500 We're going to talk about Gaza. We're going to talk about what's going on in the Catholic response

00:00:46.820 to Gaza and how this is really fomenting a thing. Even in the United States where things seem to be

00:00:54.440 improving on so many levels doesn't seem like there. We're going to get into it with Jason

00:00:58.820 Jones. Stay tuned. Jason Jones. John Henry, good to see you. So let's begin first of all,

00:01:04.460 as we always do with the Son of the Cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

00:01:08.900 Ghost. Amen. So good to see you here, my brother. We're at Bringing America Back to Life, one of the

00:01:14.760 best, in fact, the best American pro-life conference that happens annually that exists, I think.

00:01:20.540 I think so too. I mean, it's the best. I don't buy best. I mean, it's the most fun. I don't know

00:01:24.980 what best means, but it is definitely lively. The people are wonderful. And this is my third time

00:01:30.260 here. And every time I've come, I'm always here as a speaker. I'm like, I have to come when I'm not

00:01:34.720 a speaker and bring my family because it's that type of event. You, my friend, are always

00:01:38.960 controversial. No, I don't mean to. By the way, I don't ever want to be. My whole goal in life is how

00:01:44.360 can I say this without being controversial? I feel compelled to say this, but I don't,

00:01:52.000 I want to keep all my friends, you know? How do I do it? And it's, I haven't figured that out yet.

00:01:57.280 So right now, one of the most controversial things, especially since President Trump

00:02:01.920 seems to be going, I mean, the Ukraine thing got sorted pretty quickly, actually. But the Gaza thing 0.96

00:02:09.940 is terrible. And what's going on is terrible. When Trump made his announcement about making it

00:02:16.280 Trumpville over in Gaza, we actually interviewed Bishop Shamali. And he said, this is horrible.

00:02:21.580 We can't kick people out of their own homelands. Unpack this a little bit for us. What are you

00:02:27.940 doing? What's going on there right now?

00:02:29.360 You know, I just came back from there and I'm looking forward to spend most of the year in Gaza

00:02:32.660 and the West Bank. And, you know, in the work that I do, you know, we're at this pro-life

00:02:38.660 event and I started as a, you know, anti-abortion activist, pro-life activist at 17 going door to

00:02:44.580 door, talking to people about abortion when it wasn't popular, founded the pro-life student

00:02:48.860 union at the University of Hawaii when it was challenging. And so with my organization,

00:02:52.980 the Vulnerable People Project, sort of the gesture line to use a film term of our work is to stand with

00:02:58.840 those where there's a social cost, to stand with those where others aren't willing to stand with

00:03:04.440 them. And I thought that's something I can bring as a Catholic man who wants to serve the vulnerable,

00:03:10.180 who came up in the pro-life movement, standing with these vulnerable communities. And it's funny,

00:03:14.120 people always say with our work in Afghanistan or Congo or Sudan, they'll say, oh, this is from your

00:03:19.280 military experience, right? That's where you learn how to do this. It's not, absolutely not.

00:03:23.120 This is from being a young man who wanted to defend the child in the womb. And it was very challenging

00:03:28.780 and very controversial. And I wanted to do it in a way that was useful and fruitful. From the very

00:03:34.660 beginning, I was also very outspoken for communities facing ethnic cleansing and genocide. But as the

00:03:39.160 pro-life movement really began to grow into what it's become in the past two decades, the largest,

00:03:46.580 most powerful social movement in the United States, I believe, I realized I wanted to push even further

00:03:52.220 into the deep and defend communities facing ethnic cleansing and genocide. And that can be

00:03:56.220 very controversial, especially when you stand up to the interests of great powers with lots of money

00:04:01.240 and influence. And so in doing this work, I thought, if I can't do it in a way that's not

00:04:05.740 controversial, I want to never dissemble. I want to say what I really think is simply as possible.

00:04:13.120 And so what is happening in Gaza is plainly an ethnic cleansing. I mean, it's very plainly an ethnic 0.87

00:04:19.180 cleansing. And what's sorrowful about this is we're seeing the oldest Christian community in the world 1.00

00:04:25.440 being wiped from the face of the earth, definitely being swept. 10% of the Christians in Gaza have

00:04:31.000 died. 90% of their homes have been destroyed. Both churches have been bombed. A 2,000-pound bomb

00:04:36.780 fell on the oldest continually used church in the world, St. Porpheus, an Orthodox church.

00:04:42.960 And we saw silence from the church in the West. And this shouldn't be surprising, but it is surprising

00:04:47.740 because these are the descendants of the apostles' families. These are the descendants of the folks that

00:04:53.080 were in the upper room in the book of Acts. Like literally, these are their descendants. Their

00:04:56.800 families have been there since then. They've been Christians for 2,000 years and were silent.

00:05:00.780 But we were silent when the Christians were being eradicated in Iraq. We were silent when they're 1.00

00:05:04.780 being eradicated in Syria. A priest was killed on Ash Wednesday in Nigeria, but this is something that

00:05:10.260 happens all of the time and we're not really paying attention. In India, something we've talked 0.99

00:05:15.080 about a lot, we see the rise of Hindu ethno-nationalism and the brutalization of the Christian 1.00

00:05:19.700 communities. In one state alone, almost 300 churches were destroyed and there's only 340

00:05:24.300 churches in the state. And no, you won't hear this outside of LifeSite News. And we've talked

00:05:28.700 about this a lot. I said, you're our best partner, but don't let it get to your head. You're our only

00:05:32.500 partner. You know, you're like the one place that consistently and courageously stands with these

00:05:38.220 vulnerable communities. And as I started doing this work, I was always startled to see how you were

00:05:42.180 right there with us. There was no communication between us. And I think you two have the same line of

00:05:46.660 gesture. We're apostolates, you know, trying to communicate what the church teaches about the

00:05:52.860 truth of the human person and our responsibilities to each other. And so I don't mean to be controversial,

00:05:58.860 but we, you know, I'm so grateful that we've been serving thousands and thousands of hot meals

00:06:02.960 since the ceasefire into Gaza, not only to the Christian communities, but also to the orphans.

00:06:08.120 We're preparing to begin providing the diesel for the churches. And we're going to be carving out

00:06:14.660 these sort of like humane and habitable spaces where we can have schools and medical centers and

00:06:21.500 sanitation for the families we can deal with. This is going to sound strange, but almost every child

00:06:26.860 in Gaza, they have bedwetting problems. They can't control themselves because of massive trauma,

00:06:33.660 hair loss. These are broken people. It looks like Dresden. Really, it's President Trump himself

00:06:39.820 said this. So going to President Trump's comments in Gaza, you know, it looked like Ukraine was going

00:06:44.840 to be settled, but it's become very murky, you know. But the one thing that I think has been

00:06:50.540 consistent to Trump, even if in the midst of these complex issues, those of us who work there are kind

00:06:56.960 of startled, especially in Gaza, especially that AI video that was shared. It's a bit startling,

00:07:02.220 but I will say this, and this is not me pandering. And I'm not above pandering to serve vulnerable

00:07:08.980 communities to power if I have to. I'm never going to turn my back on the vulnerable to power,

00:07:14.180 but I will tap dance for power. But this is not me doing that. I really do believe Donald Trump hates

00:07:19.600 war. You know, when you saw in the controversial press conference with Zelensky, a man who said,

00:07:25.820 I hate war. Stop these wars. And when he said Gaza is ours, that was striking. But I felt he was 0.98

00:07:34.380 saying to Netanyahu, you won't be bombing this. It's ours. And he kind of signals in every direction

00:07:39.020 and is heartbreaking and confusing to the people in Gaza. It's bewildering and horrifying, actually,

00:07:46.080 all of this different communication. But we would have never had the ceasefire if Donald Trump didn't

00:07:51.060 win. I believe that's a fact. And we know that because who was the senator that the president

00:07:56.360 called out? Pocahontas. Pocahontas. He said that you want this war in Ukraine to go on another two

00:08:03.600 years. And she nodded yes. There have been a million casualties. And she nodded yes, shamelessly with a

00:08:09.300 smile. I've been to the hospitals in Ukraine. I've been in room after room after room after room of boys

00:08:15.180 with no arms, no legs. I saw a young man with no arms and no legs. And his baby was placed on him.

00:08:21.900 He couldn't hug his own child. And you want another two years of this? They want this. You see Europe,

00:08:27.920 Macron, saying D.C. will not decide when this war ends. Well, we know when General Milley said we want

00:08:34.380 to bleed Russia, this is not about Ukraine. This is about bleeding Russia. And in fact, it'll go further. 0.82

00:08:39.020 The deep state used Ukraine to bleed Russia. Now they're attempting to use Ukraine to weaken the

00:08:46.260 Trump administration. They've pushed Ukraine into a two-front war. They're actually trying to push

00:08:50.780 Trump into a two-front war. But after the recent massive assault on Ukraine by Russia, Trump tweeted,

00:08:57.220 enough is enough, Russia. I will tank your economy if you don't end the war. And so he wants to end the 0.85

00:09:03.780 war. So this is what gives me hope. There are very powerful interests that want both of these wars to

00:09:08.620 continue. But as I said at this conference, the president that gave us the overturning of Roe

00:09:14.060 versus Wade is repulsed by war. The previous administration loved abortion and loved war.

00:09:21.820 You know, they abandoned their allies in Afghanistan to their deaths while they were shoving Ukraine into 1.00

00:09:27.600 a war that they knew they couldn't win to use Ukraine as an instrument to achieve our interests when

00:09:32.740 we're already the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world. One thing that always strikes me about

00:09:37.880 what's going on in Gaza is that the Catholics and the Christians don't know that their fellow

00:09:48.480 co-religionists, especially for Catholics, the bishops have been speaking up, begging the Catholics

00:09:55.220 and the Orthodox in the West to hear them. And they should never do. Cardinal Pizzabala, 0.98

00:10:01.980 Bishop Shemali, who we've interviewed twice now at LifeSite,

00:10:04.860 they're explaining in plain English, in English, that their own people are being shot. Bishop Shemali

00:10:12.680 talking about that poor mother who was shot and the daughter came out to help and she was shot as

00:10:16.340 well. By Israeli snipers, by IDF. Exactly. In the Catholic compound. Yeah. This is insane. And

00:10:24.000 they're begging us to hear and we're refusing to hear. And our own leadership, our own Catholic

00:10:29.340 bishops aren't echoing their brothers. So nobody knows. It's like nobody knows anything. Every time,

00:10:37.320 you talk to a lot by people, good people. Oh, you're not a Zionist. What's wrong? What do you

00:10:44.800 respond? You know what I love about being Catholic? Our church is the universal church. So we have no

00:10:49.440 other. It's just, you know, first of all, no, of course I can't be a Zionist. I'm a Catholic. And so

00:10:55.640 we understand that Abraham, the fulfillment of all the promises to Abraham, Jesus Christ is that

00:11:00.700 fulfillment. And so I look to political Zionism as one of these virulent ideologies that was birthed 1.00

00:11:07.940 in the 19th century that caused a lot of human suffering in the 20th. It's really like the last

00:11:12.060 one. We've seen a lot of them that caused a lot of damage. There was recently an anti-Semitic

00:11:16.520 conference of Catholicism against anti-Semitism. And I think this is very good. We should be vigilant 0.87

00:11:21.800 and we don't want to see the rise of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred, but we, we really actually have an

00:11:27.320 epidemic of anti-Arab hate. We've had American politicians go sign bombs. They went to a foreign

00:11:34.300 country and sign their bombs that were being dropped on civilians. Israel itself. So what is it? 300 to

00:11:40.960 one, 300 civilians to every member of Hamas. So when you're signing that bomb, you understand most 0.99

00:11:47.760 likely this bomb is going to kill civilians. You hear politicians say things like flat in Gaza and

00:11:54.960 most reprehensible of all, you see evangelical Christian leaders. They will say the Palestinians 1.00

00:12:00.420 are Philistines. They're Amalekites. They're a plague. They were a curse on Israel and Israel will 1.00

00:12:05.600 never be blessed until they kill them. This is said in mainstream Protestant media. And they mean 1.00

00:12:11.580 women and children as well. They mean everybody. So when we talk about it, no one's saying this,

00:12:16.120 no one's saying this about Jews. No one's advocating this in Israel, but actually mainstream American

00:12:22.900 politicians, mainstream New York time, bestselling authors, evangelical Christians are saying this.

00:12:29.480 And so many Catholics for so long have been consuming Protestant media that they inherit this. 0.61

00:12:35.880 They often think it's self-evident. Many times I think their Zionism is a more strongly held belief 0.92

00:12:41.220 than their belief in a Trinity, for example. They definitely talk about it more.

00:12:45.340 I was just at a very big, it was a conference of very influential evangelicals. And I noticed in

00:12:51.680 the conference, they never once mentioned the name Jesus. It was always Father God. And I asked them

00:12:57.240 why they did that. And they said, well, not to be offensive to our Jewish brothers and sisters.

00:13:00.720 I said, you're afraid to say the name Jesus. So this heresy, I believe actually it's Zionism's an 0.99

00:13:07.480 apostasy. Because if you deny the Jesus, take away the cleansing and the brutality. But if you deny the

00:13:15.240 Jesus at the fulfillment of all the promises of Abraham, I don't see how you're a Christian. 1.00

00:13:19.240 But if you use that, and I'll be a gentleman and call it just a heresy, not an apostasy. If you take

00:13:28.220 that heresy and you use it to undermine the dignity of an ethnic community, there were Arab Jews that 0.98

00:13:34.820 accepted our Lord in the first century. There were Arab tribes that entered the church in the second

00:13:39.680 century. Some of my ancestors and with my ethnicities didn't enter the church just a thousand years ago.

00:13:45.280 You know, 900 years, actually a thousand years after the first Arab converts. Yet, the first 0.99

00:13:51.220 councils of the church, one could say were Arab councils. And you, I've had a prominent

00:13:56.560 journalist, a Catholic journalist say to me, I don't know why you fight so hard for the Christians in

00:14:01.280 Gaza. They're not really Catholic. They have been Arabized. You know, there were Arabs in the

00:14:07.060 upper room. There were Arab tribes that have been converts since the second century. To say that they

00:14:14.220 have been Arabized is strange. More likely we have been Europeanized. You know, it's a very strange

00:14:20.160 thing, but this is a hardcore bigotry. And what I love about growing up in the pro-life movement

00:14:26.760 was I don't need to be liked. I'm not afraid to advocate for people that, and advocating for them

00:14:34.780 means people are going to smear me or slander me. I remember the nineties, it was a real strange thing

00:14:38.620 in college. First of all, my kids are mixed race and I was a dad at 18. So I was a father in college,

00:14:44.860 but I had professors try to smear me as a racist because I was anti-abortion. It never made sense

00:14:51.540 to me. It was very strange. Well, people will try to smear you because you're delivering food. We're

00:14:58.060 delivering food into starving Christians. We're evacuating pregnant Christian women and pregnant 1.00

00:15:04.160 Muslim women from Gaza. And I'm, people are attacking me for this. And it's, it seems strange,

00:15:11.300 but they're like, oh, well, they attacked me as a young college student for advocating for the child

00:15:16.900 in the womb. So those of us who are pro-life have a very special responsibility to stand up when it's

00:15:22.460 challenging. We can't expect anyone else to do it. For U.S. residents, creating Will has never been

00:15:28.800 easier. Thanks to My Legacy Will, an online platform free of charge, you can now create your

00:15:34.940 own will and choose to include LifeSite News in it. Specify where your funeral will take place,

00:15:40.680 the number of masses to be offered for your soul, and how your estate will be distributed. We would be

00:15:46.160 deeply grateful if you remembered LifeSite News in your will. Visit mylegacywill.com

00:15:52.460 slash LifeSite News. Thank you for your support and may God bless you.

00:15:57.500 Tell us about some of the projects you're on, because some of them are truly fascinating.

00:16:00.720 What's, what's this thing with the barges of your life, say?

00:16:02.820 Yeah, well, this is your fault, John Henry. Like you caused me a lot of problems. Your readers,

00:16:07.180 your readers cause us problems because they know of our work. So thank you for sharing our work.

00:16:12.060 And no, we're actually very grateful. Actually, one of your readers reached out to us,

00:16:16.620 actually thanks to Michael Hichborn, and asked us about a year and a half ago to evacuate these

00:16:21.340 nuns from Khartoum in the middle of the war. It was very challenging. And actually,

00:16:25.640 one of the young men on our team lost his life. They were able to evacuate these nuns and several 1.00

00:16:30.720 hundred Christians. Well, the same reader, knowing of our work, through her generous support to

00:16:38.140 religious orders in Africa, discovered that there's a, there's a refugee camp in Sudan. I don't

00:16:43.200 want to say where this camp is, but food hadn't been delivered in 45 days. They're starving to

00:16:48.160 death. So there's the, the quote unquote government there and the militia there, the military there

00:16:54.480 does not allow Western organizations. So we're in the middle of negotiating entry. We're actually

00:17:00.460 going to bring barges on a river to these camps. And for me, this is a great privilege. And this

00:17:07.220 when I say LifeSite is always there for us, you know, I will say we have to do a lot of, you know,

00:17:11.800 your, your people find us and say, can you rescue these Afghans or can you, but you raise so much

00:17:16.220 money for us through LifeFunder that it has been foundational to our work in Afghanistan, our work

00:17:20.880 in Ukraine, when we evacuated the orphans from the war to the West, our work in Sudan, when it was,

00:17:27.220 it was fundamental to our work, it gave us the funds to be able to evacuate the nuns and the other 0.99

00:17:33.380 Christians. And we hope to do a LifeFunder on this project because this is going to be, you know, 1.00

00:17:38.260 we're, we're feeding thousands of people in the middle of Sudan in a war zone. We're bringing them

00:17:41.840 down barges. And I have to confess when I hear of these challenges, when, when this reader of yours

00:17:47.480 reached out to us, it seems impossible, but I like that. I like, okay, Lord, you know, let's do this.

00:17:53.720 Cause then I know it's just God, you know, I, this is just, this is not an Uber Eats operation.

00:17:58.680 This is God, you know, and we're also, we'll have a LifeFunder on this. We're creating these

00:18:04.700 communities of hope where we'll have schools and, you know, showers and, you know, facilities for

00:18:13.140 hygiene. And we're going to put in sod and parks and we're going to treat. And this is in Gaza. 0.80

00:18:18.800 In Gaza. And as I had mentioned before, we want to help with the trauma. These kids are brutalized

00:18:24.200 and traumatized. And these are really the descendants of the apostles' families. I was

00:18:29.580 just in the West Bank and I got to meet the beautiful Christians in the West Bank and the

00:18:33.480 Catholics in the West Bank. And it was quite the privilege. And they let me on our meeting Christmas

00:18:38.560 go into the very place where our Lord and Savior was born underneath the church of the Nativity.

00:18:44.860 And they said, stay there as long as you want. So for two hours, I just sat there and I had my hands

00:18:49.320 where our Lord was born with Our Lady. And I was just seeing St. Joseph and Our Lady and Our Lord.

00:18:54.860 And I thought, what an honor. And as I was there for two hours praying by myself, above me were the

00:18:59.440 Armenian Christians, Armenian Catholics celebrating their Christmas mass, Armenian Orthodox, celebrating

00:19:05.380 their Christmas. And I was underneath them as the Eucharist was above me and they were having this.

00:19:10.400 And I just said, what is this? And when you meet, we have been told Palestinians,

00:19:14.880 the same way they undermine the dignity of the child in the womb or other communities they want 1.00

00:19:19.200 to destroy, they tell us Palestinians are stupid. You hear this? I've heard famous conservative 1.00

00:19:24.940 influencers on their programs say they're dirty, they're stupid. They're the most educated people 1.00

00:19:30.460 in the world. They are the kindest. I didn't find radicalism. They're the gentlest of the most

00:19:35.680 forgiving. People laugh at me. I got trolled on social media for saying this. I'll say it again,

00:19:41.040 troll me. You know, with the work I do, you have little things have to give you joy. And one of the

00:19:44.800 little things that gives me joy is food. They have the best French fries in Bethlehem. I will tell

00:19:49.160 you what, you go to the West Bank. I'm telling you, I travel the world and I eat. I wanted to tell you

00:19:53.780 they had some kind of exotic dish that was the best. And I had said, yeah, yeah, we know that. We know

00:19:58.820 that about ourselves. But, and they're just the kindest, gentlest, holiest community. And I thought

00:20:03.940 about it and I realized grace builds upon our nature. They've been Christian. So, you know, I was

00:20:11.080 baptized and confirmed and receiving the sacraments since I was 30. And so I've been having this grace

00:20:15.740 building upon my nature. It builds upon the nature of families and political communities.

00:20:20.640 For 2000 years, grace has been building on the nature of these families. And so when you meet

00:20:25.100 the Palestinian Christians, and I would really recommend everyone to do a trip to the Holy Land,

00:20:30.020 go to the West Bank, but use Palestinian guides. One of the things that they'll do is they'll foment fear 1.00

00:20:35.220 as if West Bank is so dangerous. I had a young woman who works with me and she's in Juarez, Mexico,

00:20:41.620 which is actually very dangerous. And she was having nightmares, she said, and praying for me.

00:20:46.880 She was so afraid. And I'm thinking, there's nothing to fear. This community is like, it's so,

00:20:51.520 it's safer than my neighborhood. But this, this, this, this idea that they create, and it's so dangerous.

00:20:58.060 And it was not, I mean, it's, it's really, really laughable, but the tour guides from Israel will, 0.95

00:21:03.640 will try to scare, you know, get on the bus, go into the church, get on the bus and leave.

00:21:07.640 No, go to Bethlehem and stay a week, go to the West Bank and stay. I'm actually going to rent a

00:21:12.520 house there when I'm working in the, in Gaza. I just want to bring my family to Gaza, not because

00:21:16.780 I'm afraid of the people. I'm fearful of the IDF, but more so the pollution, the contaminants.

00:21:22.500 Think of 9-11 syndrome from two, three buildings collapsing. You have 90% of the buildings in Gaza 1.00

00:21:29.880 destroyed. So the air, this is something that Trump said that upset a lot of Palestinians,

00:21:36.020 but I understand exactly where he's coming from. You know, it's a very dangerous place. I'm sure

00:21:41.340 there's going to be cancers, leukemia, things like this, you know, strange illnesses for the children

00:21:46.620 because of this. I don't want my family living there. Even when I was in Lahaina, which you helped

00:21:50.640 us rebuild the Catholic school in Lahaina, Life Under did, just for a couple of weeks in Lahaina after the

00:21:55.520 fire, my ears burned, my eyes burned, my nose ran like a faucet. And that's in as devastating

00:22:01.660 as Lahaina was. I mean, compared to Gaza, it's Gaza is more comparable to Stalingrad or Dresden. 0.79

00:22:08.920 So I'm going to put my family in West Bank. I'll be in Gaza and I'll be, I mean, it's more comfortable 1.00

00:22:15.140 leaving in the West Bank than would be leaving in my neighborhood. And I live in a wonderful

00:22:18.500 neighborhood, but I just, I love the Palestinian community. Two million Arabs have died in the past

00:22:24.240 civilians in the past two decades, wars. That region has just been devastated. And now we know

00:22:30.940 through the USAID revelations, USAID has been the ones funding Hamas, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram.

00:22:40.720 USAID funded Boko Haram. They're the ones that my organization, VPP, provides security guards and

00:22:47.980 cameras for churches to protect them from. Meanwhile, my little Catholic apostolate that has to rely on our

00:22:53.840 donor base and life funder is battling the U.S. government, pouring cash into terror organizations.

00:23:00.760 And people think of the Middle East as a very violent place. It is not. It's like they're sleepy

00:23:05.260 hollows knit together. Violence, 120 ISIS soldiers took the massive city of Mosul because there was no,

00:23:13.320 they didn't, they lacked, they don't own guns. They don't have a military culture in Mosul. They

00:23:17.300 couldn't defend themselves from ISIS. ISIS couldn't take my cul-de-sac in Texas. I can promise you,

00:23:21.860 they will not take my cul-de-sac. They could probably not take my house. One of my sons,

00:23:26.480 I think in his, his safe has like, you know, several ARs and AKs and sniper rifles. You know,

00:23:35.400 you're just not taking my house. You're not taking my cul-de-sac. This is, they're very gentle

00:23:40.500 communities. Under the Ottoman Empire for 750 years, there were enthusiasms of religious violence. 0.65

00:23:46.700 The reason there were enthusiasms of religious violence is there were over 80 distinct religious

00:23:50.980 communities that existed for those, for those 750 years. But under the British and the American

00:23:57.420 hegemony, we've seen the almost complete eradication of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities.

00:24:03.320 So we have to be more thoughtful and we have to ask ourselves, are the narratives we're being sold

00:24:07.960 true? This picture we paint that they're just violent religious extremists. You know, I told my 0.99

00:24:14.680 Palestinian friends, they would laugh so hard, they would cry. I'm like, the average American

00:24:17.240 thinks they're going to come here. Your kids are going to wake up every morning, marching with

00:24:21.300 headbands, chanting death to Christians, death to Jews. And they go, they start laughing so hard, 1.00

00:24:25.740 they're crying. They go, Americans don't think that. I'm like, did we think this? You know, but the truth

00:24:30.120 is my 11 year old, we homeschool. He wakes up. I'm not kidding you. He does his homeschooling. He

00:24:36.500 finishes as soon as he can. He puts camo on his face. He puts on his BDUs and his rucksack and he

00:24:42.960 grabs his airsoft and he runs to the woods with the other homeschool kids in the neighborhood.

00:24:47.500 Could you imagine if some propagandists wanted to shoot some video of my kids and see how militant

00:24:51.920 we are? But you're going to go to, you're going to go there and you're going to see kids with balloons,

00:24:56.660 kids with kites, kids with little toys, nothing. You think these kids want to talk about war and

00:25:02.360 violence? You think so? This is the last thing these kids, they're not playing army. They're living army.

00:25:07.860 Yeah. And so we as Catholics have to tell the truth because we have Arab Catholics. This is the 0.69

00:25:15.600 mystical body of Christ is there. They're suffering. And so we should really, really feel it. But what's

00:25:22.060 exciting is, especially young people, because of social media, the narratives that are being sold

00:25:27.960 through the mainstream media are breaking through through social media. And you'll hear all these

00:25:34.300 young kids are being indoctrinated by TikTok and Instagram. Actually, what they're seeing

00:25:39.280 on Instagram is what I saw with my own eyes in person. They're seeing children that are being

00:25:45.900 slaughtered, women that are being brutalized. You know, as Trump said himself, it's a wasteland.

00:25:53.260 You don't have a wasteland from a just war.

00:25:55.740 You're doing work that all the Catholics should do. And God calls people to do it. He's called you. 0.79

00:26:05.060 We're just proud, humbled. And you're such a great guy. We have lots of fun, too. So love working with you.

00:26:13.340 I agree. Ditto, brother. Well, I will say, you know, we've known each other for over two decades. Being at this

00:26:17.860 event for me, especially after the overturning of Roe versus Wade, it's I just I don't think I'm that old.

00:26:22.900 I'm 53, but I'm feeling like an old guy. Like, I just want to reminisce. And I think of all the years together,

00:26:27.660 like, you know, each other since the 90s. And and when LifeSide News was just being birthed, I wasn't even Catholic.

00:26:32.740 And I was the atheist working at Human Life International. I used to say I'm not a Catholic, but I play one on TV 1.00

00:26:38.480 because I would do TV shows for for HLI, but I wasn't Catholic. And just all the battles and the world has just gone

00:26:46.140 in very strange places. And, you know, I hope that I have another two decades. I, you know, three or

00:26:52.840 four. I just want to order the rest of my life to leave my children, a culture of life and a

00:26:57.620 civilization of love. And we are at a very key point in time in history right now. We are all the most

00:27:02.880 powerful. We're the wealthiest, most powerful, influential Christians in the world. And maybe

00:27:07.260 I'm going to end, as I said to you, I like to say controversial things. I don't want to. I want to

00:27:13.020 say maybe what I've been a little, this idea of Christian nationalism. I'm not a Christian

00:27:17.460 nationalist. I'm a Christian. I'm a Catholic. And I hear so many times people say, why are you

00:27:22.760 working in Gaza? Why are you working in Afghanistan? You know, why aren't you working in your neighborhood?

00:27:28.620 Well, first of all, I've been on the board of my pregnancy center for three decades. I'm very

00:27:32.000 involved in serving my local homeless community. I do prison ministry when I can. But my apostolate

00:27:38.480 is to work with, to, with, and through the mystical body of Christ to serve the most vulnerable people

00:27:45.940 in the world. That's the responsibility of the church. And so when I have Catholics tell me that I 1.00

00:27:51.860 shouldn't deliver food to Catholics who are starving in Gaza, I get this a lot. No, this is dangerous.

00:27:59.380 This is very dangerous. Then I'll point them to Fulton Sheen. And they go, oh yeah, all the money that

00:28:05.160 Fulton Sheen raised through all of his media went to serve church missions around the world.

00:28:11.720 All of it. He had his rosary. Remember his rosary where around you pray for around the world. I think

00:28:16.660 most of our problems are from our decadence. Most of our problems are from, you know, our materialism

00:28:23.020 and our thoughtlessness. We are in, we are in a place where we can serve the persecuted church.

00:28:28.880 If the richest Christians in the richest country in the history of the world can't serve the 1.00

00:28:36.740 persecuted church around the world, then who could have ever? Who could have ever? And so this is,

00:28:43.960 this is our responsibility. And I wish, you know, that these larger NGOs with bigger budgets

00:28:50.640 would push out into the deep and serve these communities. And sometimes it can be very lonely.

00:28:56.200 And LifeSide News has been like our foundational partner and everything that people have recognized

00:29:02.680 us doing over the past couple of years in Afghanistan and Ukraine and Sudan and Nigeria

00:29:07.840 and Hawaii, rebuilding the Catholic school after the fire. All of that, a substantial part of those

00:29:14.760 budgets was life under and it was front loaded. So you gave us the ability to get our, find our base

00:29:20.980 and then begin to grow and find the funds. So you are there with us every single step of the way.

00:29:27.420 Everything we have ever done, LifeSide News was a key partner. And I go, going back to, and I've said

00:29:33.920 this before, going back to my first film, Bella, when we were in Toronto, you gave us our volunteers to

00:29:39.540 help us promote our film. We won the Toronto International Film Festival. We didn't win that. There's no other movies.

00:29:44.540 So you've always been my partner. When I was at HLI, 25 years ago, you were our partner.

00:29:50.860 So your work blesses all these apostles. That's just mine. And so, yeah, I just want to thank you

00:29:56.160 and thank your supporters and your readers. God bless you, my friend.

00:29:59.020 Thanks, brother.

00:30:00.080 That's everything. We'll see you next time. God bless you.

00:30:02.660 God bless you all.

The John-Henry Westen Show - April 02, 2025

Silent Genocide ｜ The Truth About Gaza’s Christian Crisis

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