The World and Everything in It: April 27, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Lauren Pierce. I live in Prudenville, Michigan, and I’m a stay-at-home mom to Johnathan and Katrian. My husband Phil and I are so blessed to serve the Lord at Camp Koviak in beautiful northern Michigan. I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! A Russian paramilitary group is in Sudan as fighting there escalates. Why and what’s it mean?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also are China and the US in a new cold war? Two experts weigh in.

Plus cochlear implants allow the deaf to hear, but not everyone’s on board. And World commentator Cal Thomas on Israel turning 75.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning! Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden-SoKo » President Biden has responded to North Korea’s nuclear chest-beating with a stark warning.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and would result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action.

His remarks from the White House came as Biden welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol who told reporters:

SUK YEOL: Our two leaders have decided to significantly strengthen extended deterrence of our two countries against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.

The leaders announced plans to dock U.S. nuclear-armed submarines in South Korea for the first time in more than 40 years to bolster training between the two countries, and to improve intelligence sharing.

Debt limit » Meantime, on Capitol Hill:

SOUND: [The yeas are 217. The nays are 215. The bill is passed.]

The House narrowly passed Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill… which aims to raise the U-S’s borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion while slashing government spending.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says it’s dead on arrival in his chamber.

CHUCK SCHUMER: The speaker should drop the brinksmanship, drop the hostage taking, come to the table with Democrats to pass a clean bill to avoid default. Time is running out.

President Biden says he’s happy to meet with Speaker McCarthy, but insists he will not agree to spending cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling.

FBI shooter report » A government report states that active shooter incidents killed or wounded more than 300 people in the U.S. last year. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The FBI says the death toll from active shooters in 2022 was 100 people, with more than 200 injured. That’s the most in five years.

The FBI defines an active shooter as someone actively engaged in trying to kill people in a populated area. Not all active shooter incidents involve fatalities.

The number of active shootings in 2022 dropped by almost 20 percent compared to the year before, but the casualty count spiked by nearly 30 percent.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Xi-Zelenskyy » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the phone on Wednesday for the first time since Russia invaded.

After the call, Zelenskyy appointed a new ambassador to Beijing to bolster diplomacy with China.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ulrainian]

Zelenskyy said China could use its political influence to restore peace and Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry says it will send an envoy to Ukraine to facilitate peace talks.

Xi Jinping says China will not sell weapons to Russia but has stopped short of denouncing Russia’s invasion.

Sudan » Two Americans have died amid fighting in Sudan. The two warring generals maintained a delicate cease-fire while people were evacuated.

National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby:

KIRBY- We urge both military factions to fully uphold this cease-fire and to further extend it.

The US government has evacuated and shut down its Embassy in Sudan, and Kirby says it will try to help any civilians that want to leave.

The violence in Sudan has reportedly killed nearly 300 civilians this far.

Disney sues DeSantis » Disney is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, claiming he’s violating the company’s free speech rights. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown explains.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Just over a year ago, Disney publicly opposed a parental rights law under pressure from LGBT activists. 

At the time, the company enjoyed unprecedented control over its own private government  with power to, among other things, approve its own construction permits.

It also received large subsidies. And DeSantis said that meant Florida taxpayers were essentially funding Disney’s political speech.

The governor and GOP lawmakers then replaced Disney’s private government with a state-appointed oversight board.

But at the 11th hour, the Disney-controlled board signed an agreement granting the company near-complete control for decades to come, rendering the incoming board powerless.

The new board called the agreement illegal self-dealing and voided the contract.

Disney filed a lawsuit minutes later, accusing DeSantis of a "targeted campaign of government retaliation."

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Rivals battle for control in Sudan. Plus, China’s attempts to be the new Middle East peacemaker.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 27th of April, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up: what’s behind the struggle in Sudan.

As you heard moments ago, fighting in the streets of Khartoum has escalated such that nations around the world are evacuating their citizens from Sudan. What sparked this conflict, and what’s at stake?

REICHARD: Joseph Siegle is a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Maryland. He says that two people are at the center of this fight.

JOSEPH SIEGLE: You have the head of the statutory forces, General Burhan, who has been the de facto head of state since he led a coup in October of 2021. And with him has been a paramilitary force led by General Hamdan Delgalo, commonly referred to as Hemedti, who has his own force. It's been operating more as a militia. But both are very well armed.

Well armed, and ambitious as it turns out.

Rama Yade is the former French Ambassador to UNESCO and now directs the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. She says that despite their collaboration to overthrow autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Burhan and Hemedti turned on each other.

RAMA YADE: instead of working together to organize the peace process, and the transition to democracy and elections, they have decided to fight each other, to see which of them, who among their troops would take would take the control on the army and on the economy and on the on the country. That's what it is about.

BROWN: According to Yade, military companies dominate the economy, and with the military in control, those companies don’t have to pay taxes. But if the country transitions to a civilian government, those companies would be forced to come under the ministry of finance. That’s something General Hemedti and his paramilitary forces don’t want.

REICHARD: So this is a conflict between rivals, but there’re also concerns about international involvement. Last week, CNN released an exclusive report that a joint operation by Hemedti’s forces and Libyan fighters is linked to a mercenary group affiliated with Russia. In this clip, you’ll hear Hemedti’s forces, the Rapid Support Forces, referred to as RSF.

CNN: CNN can reveal that the fight in Khartoum is being influenced by what was happening at that garrison. A Russian resupply campaign backed by a key regional player aimed at turning the tide in Sudan's war in favor of the RSF who have been a key recipient of Russian training and military aid.

Siegle says this key regional player, known as the Wagner Group, is not new to Sudan.

SIEGLE: Wagner, which is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has been operating in Sudan for the last several years. I think we could trace it back to 2017, where they had been assisting the previous government led by the longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir. And when he was ousted as a result of popular protest in 2019, Wagner shifted its alliances to the military government. And this has taken several forms, one has been helping train and advise the military government, encouraging them to use harsher tactics against protesters.

BROWN: Wagner and Hemedti deny their collaboration, but it appears that Wagner is supplying Hemedti’s militia forces with surface to air missiles in exchange for gold.

SIEGLE: There's significant gold deposits in parts of western and northern Sudan. And the Russians through Wagner have worked very closely with Hemedti in mining and trafficking that gold. So Russia has some very close and, you know, very direct interest in what's happening in Sudan.

But while the Russians may be putting a finger on the scales, they are not responsible for the underlying conflict.

The Wagner Group has been supplying Hemedti with weapons in exchange for access to Sudan’s gold. But Yade says Russia’s objective is not to push one side of the conflict over the finish line.

YADE: No matter what Wagner wants to do, or tries to take advantage of the of the local situation, Russia itself is trying to keep a balance between the two parties, because Russians need to be on the side of the winners.

But is this a winnable situation?

SIEGLE: Civilian leaders are ready to move forward. They're very organized, they have a platform, they have a plan for doing so. I think the real issue is, you know, how to de-escalate the political ambitions of the two generals and to reinforce to them that there just isn't an end game for them, that they're not going to be recognized as a leader, even if they were to prevail against their rival. And really, the United States with its allies, with regional partners, should be looking at ways of negotiating the exits of both General Burhan and General Hemedti, so that they can transition, they can move into exile in some third party country in the region. And therefore remove those political obstacles to what most Sudanese want, which is a transition to democracy.

REICHARD: For now, the conflict continues. Many Sudanese people are fleeing the country, and others are trying to survive with little to no access to food, medicine, or electricity. That transition to democracy looks a long way off.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next on The World and Everything in It, America’s relationship with China.

AUDIO: This game is going to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan set in 2027.

Last week, a group of lawmakers in the House conducted a war game exercise to consider how the U.S. would respond if China invaded Taiwan. The three-day session showed lawmakers that a Chinese invasion would be devastating.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Meanwhile, a recent poll found that over 90% of Americans have some level of doubt about President Biden’s ability to deal effectively with China. With Biden’s recent announcement that he will run for re-election in 2024, what’s it mean for US-China relations in the next few years?

Well, joining us now to talk about it is Michael Sobolik. He is a fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and previously worked as a Senate staffer writing foreign policy legislation. He’s kept a close eye on China for years.

REICHARD: Good morning, Michael.

MICHAEL SOBOLIK, GUEST: Good morning. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you, Mary.

REICHARD: Let me ask this first: what is Biden’s current record on China?

SOBOLIK: Biden's foreign policy with China is mixed. On part of it, many in his administration and to spread it, the President himself agrees that the People's Republic of China is a problematic actor in the world. It's a gross human or human rights violator, they're instigating an ongoing genocide against Uyghur Muslims right now inside of China, they persecute Christians, they persecute Tibetan Buddhists. And they are belligerent they threaten Taiwan daily, they eradicated freedoms in Hong Kong, and they're a dangerous neighbor to live next to and they have global aspirations. On the other hand, the Biden administration still has this undying optimism that the behavior of the worst actors in the world can be shaped and molded from the outside. Part of that is, I think, this liberal ideology, that views that believes deep down, there's always a win win solution to every single problem. But the President also has other priorities other than standing up to China, the President's top priority is climate change. And if you look at the Politics of Climate Change, China is the leader, the lead manufacturer of solar panels around the world, they are also the lead manufacturer of electric car batteries. So when you when the President talks about climate change, and green energy at home being his top priority, if he wants to do that, he needs to cooperate with China at some level. And he needs to have open trade with China at some level, to have a steady supply of solar panels and electric car batteries. So this is one of the biggest reasons why you've seen Biden pull back on China on a number of really important cases. And where a lot of China hawks in the policy community, including myself, have been very critical of this administration, because they care more about fixing global warming, and what I would think are maybe some quixotic ways than they do about standing for human rights. And I think that's a big problem. And unfortunately, it's continued under this administration.

REICHARD: If China invaded Taiwan, is there a Pacific equivalent of NATO that would give support? Maybe compare the situation of our allies in the Pacific with Ukraine’s situation in Europe?

SOBOLIK: Yeah, there is no equivalent of NATO in the Pacific. There's none. So in Europe, with NATO, that is an approach called collective security, at an attack on one is an attack on all, a lot of a lot of your listeners will probably remember, the one and only time that that article of NATO was ever invoked, was September 11, 2001. When we were attacked by al Qaeda, the NATO alliance was a huge aid and assistance for Americans. When we responded militarily, NATO was with us. And it functioned as it should. But the best example of NATO is during the Cold War, because the strength of that cohesive Alliance prevented a hot war of the Soviet Union from breaking out. That's collective security, you pull your interests together, you pull your military planning together, you act as one. The Pacific is nothing like that right now. You have a lot of small nations, from Vietnam, and Singapore, to Malaysia, and Indonesia, and countless others in between, that are had massive economic growth during the 90s. Their political institutions have improved over time. There are, of course, issues with corruption, but they're strong states, but they live in the shadow of China. They rely on the American military for protection from living in China’s shadow, but one of the biggest reasons they became wealthy to begin with was China's economy. So as I'm talking, what I hope you're starting to pick up in your mind is this tension in the Pacific where these small countries want the economic benefit of trade with China while at the same time having the military protection of America. My fundamental contention about this 21st century world that we're all living in is that we are getting into a time where you can't really have it all anymore.

REICHARD: Michael Sobolik is a fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. Thank you for joining us, Michael!

SOBOLIK: Hey it's been my pleasure, thanks so much for having me, Mary.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: While China signals aggression towards the West over Taiwan, Beijing is behaving differently with the rest of the world. Back in January, China’s Vice Premier Liu He said at the World Economic Forum that China is opening up to the rest of the world and making it better.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Just speechmaking? Maybe not. Last month, China brokered a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Two countries from rival branches of Islam that have been enemies for years.

And then last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said China is willing to facilitate talks between the Israelis and Palestinians amid a recent escalation of conflict there.

BROWN: So where is the U.S. in all of this? And what does China’s charm offensive mean for America’s foreign policy in the Middle East?

Well joining us now is WORLD Opinions contributor William Inboden. He was a member of the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and currently serves as associate professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

REICHARD: Good morning, Professor.

WILLIAM INBODEN: Thank you, Mary. Great to be with you.

REICHARD: Professor, what happened to America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, and how did the Saudi-Iran deal come to pass as China’s big win?

INBODEN: Yes, well, a lot there to unpack, Mary. So in short, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, he is trying to increase Saudi Arabia's influence and do that by playing off China and Russia and the United States against each other. So he, he wants constructive relations with each of those countries, including including our own. And when he feels like he's not getting what he wants from the United States, he is more than happy to deepen his ties with China and Russia. And so that's, I think, partly why he is playing along with China's the brokered reproach model between between Riyadh and Tehran, that that China that China did, and that's also why he's defying the United States on energy policy and other important equities that we that we have. So there's no love lost between him and President Biden.

REICHARD: What was China doing in the Middle East before the U.S. created this vacuum?

INBODEN: So China's interests in the Middle East are really threefold. The first and most important one is oil. You know, China doesn't have a name of its own oil and gas supplies, and for their growing economy and you know, still one of the world's largest populations, they are desperate to maintain secure oil supplies, and so China is the largest oil purchaser from both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Second Ghin. With its growing economy, China wants to maintain open shipping routes from Europe through the Middle East to to Asia, of course, the Suez Canal is key there and so China wants to have influence in exerting its own leverage over over the Suez Canal and other maritime shipping shipping routes. And third is China's very open about its desire to displace the United States as the main global power and most influential global power. And as they they see the Middle East as a key region to do that. So as the United States is partially stepping back, China is stepping in.

REICHARD: What could the U.S. do to reassert itself as peacemakers so that Middle Eastern countries would trust us over China?

INBODEN: So yeah, apparently in the Middle East, many Middle East countries are very frustrated. The United States, they just see us as in constant and vacillating. We're in we're out we're in route, right. So that's that's part of it. Not that we let them dictate our policy, but we need to be aware of how we are perceived there. Certainly, as we've significantly reduced our military presence, especially in Iraq and Syria, there may be some some good reasons for that. But that also leads to diminished political influence. And then second is a lot of the middle a lot of politics in the Middle East is about just showing up. But it's about keeping up those relationships, those dialogues with the key leaders in the region. Talking to them doesn't mean we liked them. There's a lot of things I find loathsome about MBS, the Saudi leader, but we need to keep those dialogue channels open, and at least hear their concerns and be responsive where we can.

REICHARD: Well, you've been thinking about these things for a long, long time. What else do you think our listeners need to know about us China relations going forward?

INBODEN: This is a truly global competition, I have reluctantly, but recently come to call this we are in a new cold war with China. And just as with the previous Cold War, which President Reagan course led us to a peaceful victory, and that after after 40 years, it is a global competition. So it's not just bilateral between the U.S. and China in the western Pacific, it is taking place on every continent. And we need to be aware of how our main adversary China sees that and we need to respond accordingly doesn't mean that we let them dictate all of our actions. There are some good reasons that we should at least dial back some of our precedents in the Middle East, but we need to be aware that there's going to be real real trade offs there. And we do not need we should not cede that entire very strategic region to our main adversary.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is the executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin and a Contributor to World Opinions. Thanks for joining us today.

INBODEN: Thanks, Mary. It's been great to be with you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Seagulls in the news again! This week seabird enthusiasts gathered in a village on the coast of Belgium.

SOUND: [Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the third annual European Gull Screeching!]

Dozens of humans showed off their best seagull imitations.

SOUND: [SEAGULL SQUAWKING MONTAGE]

A funny guy is behind all this…he wants to raise awareness of how important seagulls are to the ecosystem. A panel of judges scored squawkers on both their bird call and bird behavior.

Jarmo Slutter of the Netherlands won the adult category. He got into it, too…bird costume and everything.

SOUND: [SLUTTER’S CALL]

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: I’d say they all worked at beak-performance.

REICHARD: Oh, Myrna! It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 27th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: bridging the gap between people who can hear and people who can’t.

Just over 1 in 10 of all Americans are considered deaf. Some were born that way, others have lost their hearing along the way. A cochlear implant can help. It’s a small electrical device that bypasses damage in the ear. It works like a transmitter, sending auditory signals straight to the brain.

BROWN: Getting the device doesn’t make someone un-deaf, if I can say it that way. It’s just a tool for someone in the deaf world to navigate the hearing world. It often takes someone with a foot in both worlds to bridge the gap between them. Someone like Renee d’Offay in Australia. WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis has the story.

RENEE D'OFFAY: The hospital did introduce me to someone else that had been in a similar situation that was hearing and then that lost their hearing and had a Cochlear.

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: This is Renee d’Offay. D’Offay lost her hearing and her balance at age 18 after a bout of meningococcal meningitis. Her life—and her world—had suddenly changed. A few months later, she got her first cochlear implant, the one she calls Tiny. When doctors switched it on for the first time, she heard her father first.

D’OFFAY: And he sounded like Daffy Duck. It was really mechanical. And technical, I guess. But then everyone sounded the same, because I was looking at these people I’ve known all my life. And they didn’t sound like, you know, what I remembered.

It can take up to a year after cochlear surgery to re-learn how to hear. It’s like getting a new sense because of how different it is from the sound most people experience.

David Grayden works in medical bionics. That means he finds human-built solutions for nervous system issues like immobility, deafness, and blindness. He works at the University of Melbourne.

DAVID GRAYDEN: There are sort of around about 3000 different receptors in the cochlea and each of them picks up a slightly different frequency. And so ideally what we would want is 3000 different stimulators to replicate that. But at the moment, the, the Australian cochlear implant has 22 stimulators.

It’s kind of like a grainy picture where you can’t quite make out the details. A cochlear implant allows its user to speak and understand speech. But it’s a less-than-perfect replacement for hearing.

GRAYDEN: So just need to keep in mind that just because a person with an implant may be able to converse well with you. There are certain times or certain situations where they will struggle.

Renee d’Offay already had her cochlear implant when she first met the man who would become her husband. They soon faced a hurdle.

D’OFFAY: My batteries went flat, and I didn't have any others. And when I did replace my batteries, he's like, Oh, maybe I need to learn sign language. And that was it. Like he started learning the next term.

Some people see the implant as undermining the deaf culture: It adds sound to a community that relies solely on sight.

Colin and Eva Bevan celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. Eva is deaf.

COLIN BEVAN: Because hearing people rely on hearing and everything in our culture's. Nearly everything is on sound. Whereas in their culture, everything is on sight, There is not 1%, no percent of their culture is on sound.

Before d’Offay learned sign language herself, she knew she didn’t fit neatly into the deaf or the hearing worlds.

D’OFFAY: I kind of felt like I was on, like, outside of the hearing world. But I also didn't know anything about the Deaf world. And I always now picture it and feel like a Venn diagram. And being in the middle of that, whereas before, I felt like I just was like, you know, out of it, didn't know anything.

Australian Sign Language is often called Auslan. It uses two hands to form each letter for fingerspelling. That’s different from the single-handed American Sign Language—or ASL.

Colin Bevan signs for his 72-year-old wife Eva. Eva has been deaf since she was 6 weeks old. She knows nine different sign languages. And they’re all truly different.

BEVAN: There’s nothing’s the same. Almost nearly nothing's the same. ‘I love you’ is a fairly universal sign.

Renee d’Offay wants to bring the deaf and hearing worlds together. Sign language is one way to bridge the gap. And that’s why d’Offay spends her days teaching both hearing and deaf people how to sign. She’s leveraging her position in the middle of the Venn diagram to everyone’s advantage.

D’OFFAY: I also, like feel really passionate about bringing together the community that's there.

She organizes family fun days where people can get to know other families. They can share ideas, commiserate, and build community. Melissa Garrett and her family have been learning sign language with d’Offay for a year and a half. Garrett’s son Jimmy has a cochlear implant.

AMY: So why are you here today?

MELISSA GARRETT: Because we want to get more involved in the Deaf community. And luckily, we've been able to do that through Renee. Prior to that, we didn't know how to connect.

SOUND:  [Parents talking under noise of children about trying son’s hearing aids.]

GARRETT: Jimmy was diagnosed eight years ago. So it would have been wonderful to have gotten in earlier. If only I knew Renee earlier I would have grabbed on with both arms back then.

Eva Bevan notices that cliques form within the deaf community. They’re based on communication-preference. It grieves her even more to see the divide between hearing and deaf people. Her husband Colin interprets for her.

BEVAN: Why do we have to be separate? The deaf and the hearing? We can all learn and we can learn to be to come together. Yeah. We don't have to be separate groups. Yeah, for many years, I've seen that. She said.

But that’s not the end of the story. D’Offay’s own meeting with another cochlear recipient gave her confidence. She wants to provide the same support to others navigating their new position between two worlds.

SOUND: [Have you met Ty? Say hi to Ty. Rosa, she’s in there.]

Yasmin Nelson is the hearing mother of Tyrone, who is deaf. His situation has given her more than she expected a little red-headed boy ever could.

YASMIN NELSON: A new language. A new culture. A new extended family really, because we didn't have anything to do with hard of hearing people before, so and now we have a whole new world that’s opened up to us.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

BROWN: To read more about Renee d’Offay and the deaf community in Australia, look for the May 6th edition of WORLD Magazine.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Israel recently celebrated its Independence Day. Back in 1948, the U.S. was the first country to publicly recognize the modern state of Israel–just 11 minutes after its creation.

WORLD commentator Cal Thomas now with a look back at those early days and what might be ahead for Israel.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: The modern state of Israel has reached the 75th anniversary of its founding, and it endures with ever-increasing strength. This despite, or perhaps because of, the numerous attempts to eradicate it from the region and enemies who have tried without success to exterminate the Jewish people.

In a land of miracles, the survival and prosperity of the modern state of Israel may be among the most miraculous events of all.

In 1948, the land was anything but appealing from an ecological perspective. But as Jewish Zionists began a series of improvements, including the planting of Eucalyptus trees, they transformed this tiny place into what Scripture metaphorically calls a land of “milk and honey.”

What will happen in the next 75 years is anyone’s guess. The Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab states establishing diplomatic relations after many years was a miraculous development of its own. But Iran remains a major threat to Israel’s existence as its development of a deliverable nuclear weapon moves ever closer.

Appearing on “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—also known as “Bibi”—struck an optimistic tone: “…everybody sees things above the surface, they don’t see things below the surface. And the prime minister of Israel sees a lot of things below the surface. And I’m telling you now something that I said 10 years ago in the UN, I said, look, we’re going to move into things you haven’t seen in my lifetime. And that is Arab states will recognize that Israel is not their enemy, but their friend, even an indispensable friend…I think you’re going to be surprised and maybe sooner than you think.”

There is still a strong anti-Netanyahu coalition here, but that is nothing new. The Israeli left as well as Democratic administrations and liberal Jews in the U.S. have sought to depose “Bibi” during his two previous terms as prime minister. The latest effort includes charges of corruption he has denied.

While Israel’s survival is not dependent on Netanyahu’s political survival, his proclamation of the truth when it comes to the country’s adversaries has been and will continue to be essential for years to come.

In 1948, President Harry Truman became the first world leader to officially recognize modern Israel when he issued this statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.”

The return to the land has always been in the hearts of Jewish people everywhere. It is beautifully expressed in Psalm 137: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Happy Anniversary to America’s closest ally in the Middle East. May she long endure.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: WORLD Opinions Editor Andrew Walker joins us for Culture Friday.

And, another Christian movie punches above its weight. Collin Garbarino brings us a review.

Plus: your Listener Feedback. If you’ve got a critique, correction, comment or praise, send them to editor@wng.org. I’d encourage you to record your thoughts on your phone and then send us the digital file. We like to hear your voice. After all, this is radio! Instructions for that at wng.org/podcasts.

All that and more tomorrow.  I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. 

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” Romans chapter 8, verses 12 through 15.

Go now in grace and peace.

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