Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed intelligence during a press conference Monday evening indicating that Iran’s renegade nuclear program included a “nuclear weapons development site” at Abadeh, south of the major Iranian city of Isfahan. Addressing his words “to the tyrants of Tehran” he declared that “Israel knows what you are doing, Israel knows when you are doing it, Israel knows where you are doing it. We will continue to expose your lies. What you see is a consistent pattern of Iranian lies, deception and violations.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised address from an undisclosed location Monday to mark the Moslem festival of Ashura, saying among other things that the IDF is a “Hollywood Army” which he had plans to put to the test at some undetermined point in the future. “Any war on Iran will ignite the region and destroy countries and people,” he added. “It will be a war against the entire axis of resistance. We will not be neutral in the battle between right and wrong. This war will be the end of Israel and the American hegemony and presence in the region.”

Israel’s national baseball team had a successful weekend at the European Baseball Championship tournament in Bonn, Germany. The Blue and White squad defeated Czech Republic and Sweden, earning the right to face the British and German teams in coming days for a chance to enter the WBSC Olympic Qualifier Europe-Africa tournament in Parma, Italy, later this month.

In the latest defeat for the effort to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel, market data company PitchBook published a study over the weekend which showed that four of the Jewish State’s universities were among the top 50 worldwide in the category of producing entrepreneurs. In related news, the British government’s research and development agency – UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) announced recently that it is partnering with experts from Israel, as well as the US and China, to study infectious diseases and find ways to treat them.

Archeologist Eli Shukron announced on Monday that his team had unearthed a 2,600 year old seal while excavating near the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. The seal bears an inscription in Hebrew with the name of “Adenyahu Asher Al HaBayit,” meaning “Adenyahu by Appointment of the House,” which was an important title in the king’s court in the Kingdom of Judea and is mentioned in Biblical accounts of the reign of King Solomon.

Today many Christians, especially evangelicals, reject replacement theology and feel deep remorse for the antisemitism that the church has been guilty of. This remorse, plus the Protestant lack of ancient rituals and traditions, has caused many evangelicals to rediscover the vast richness of Judaism. The mistake that many make is that they think that the Judaism of today is equal or similar to the Judaism that was around during Jesus’ time, and they end up learning unbiblical or even anti-biblical things. In fact, a lot of the rabbinic literature probably started as opposed to Jesus’ teachings, or as a response to Christian teachings.

If Iran eventually is forced to suspend its efforts to hit Israel, the consequences of the current confrontation may be positive for Israel. Its decisive response may encourage Tehran’s realists to attempt to convince Khamenei that the hard-liners’ policy led nowhere, and that to save the Islamist regime he has to accept a new nuclear agreement that will really deny Iran the ability to have nuclear weapons.

There are countless pastors and preachers teaching today that God has finished His work with the Jewish people, that they no longer have a special calling and the Church has in fact replaced Israel. Romans 15 is an important passage for today because it squarely refutes this claim by stating that Jesus became a servant of the circumcision (the Jewish people) to confirm all the promises given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus did not come to annihilate those promises but to affirm them!