Amid Iran war, Israel’s 8th front is heating up as well: Who is winning the war facing Israel & the West?
Hostile forces lead campaign to 'destroy the Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilization'
The joint Israeli and U.S. campaign against the Iranian regime has shed more light on a war that had been raging behind the scenes but has now taken center stage – the so-called 8th front, a threat of delegitimization and demoralization, that is targeting Israel first but is aimed at the U.S. and all other nations of the West as well.
Last month, I was present when Zionists of various stripes gathered at the first Judeo-Christian Zionist Congress (JCZC) to shine a light on this threat, try to analyze its causes, and prepare themselves for combat.
Keynote speeches and diverse panels of leaders in the fields of politics, security, culture, and faith wrestled with the difficult questions of whether the war is being lost right now and what can be done to turn the tide.
Many attendants warned that the Zionist camp, Jews as well as Christians, had woken up late to what is, for now, a losing battle.
When organized, well-funded influence targets both Israel and the moral foundations of the West, we do not remain passive. This is why we gather.#JCZCongress #StandForTruth#JCZCongress #StandForTruth #JudeoChristian pic.twitter.com/ANsbWElZdD
— JCZC (@jczcongress) February 18, 2026
Brothers Calev and Simeon Myers served as co-hosts of the conference and tried to frame the challenges in their opening addresses.
Calev noted that the mere existence of the State of Israel is not in question at the moment. However, he stressed that there is a “powerful, organized, well-managed, highly motivated, state-backed campaign aimed not only at eradicating Israel but destroying the Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilization.”
Simeon warned, “The battle we face will not be easy. It will demand courage, it will demand humility, and it will demand cooperation that at times feels uncomfortable. Let's be honest. Sadly, we are losing the battle for truth right now, and yet, there's ample time to turn the tide in this battle.”
The battle for truth is here. This is our time to stand.#JCZCongress #StandForTruth #JudeoChristian pic.twitter.com/ETT39hRyeW
— JCZC (@jczcongress) February 18, 2026
Another key message echoed by many of the speakers at JCZC was that Israel is at the forefront of the ongoing conflict. With the West already in danger, the situation would turn much worse if the enemies ever managed to destroy the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that broke out two weeks later has afforded their enemies a perfect pretext to launch new attacks at both, lamenting ostensible violations of human rights and international law as the two countries fight a regime that has never even pretended to care about them.
This is a clear continuation of a phenomenon highlighted by many of the speakers, who noted that events following Oct. 7 had shone a revealing light on the efforts to delegitimize Israel while it is fighting a just war.
For nearly 80 years, Israel has been at war, not because of what it did, but because of what it is.
— JCZC (@jczcongress) February 18, 2026
Israel’s war is the war of the West.#JCZCongress #StandWithIsrael #WesternCivilization #JudeoChristian pic.twitter.com/kIJG0d7XbK
Dan Burmawi, a former Muslim and the founder of the Ideological Defense Institute, emphasized that the symptoms of what he characterized as a “disease” became clearly visible “on the streets of the West after October 7.”
“What we witnessed was not condemnation of Israel’s defensive war. It was anti-Western forces seizing the moment to advance their long-standing campaign, a calculated war of attrition against the moral and civilizational foundations of the West. These forces found in Palestine the perfect symbol to represent them,” he said.
“When they chant free Palestine, what they are actually saying is defund the police, take down the borders of the nation states, deconstruct the foundations of the West, destroy the family, get rid of the transcendent truth, kill the wealthy and the successful.”
This serves as a succinct definition of the aims of this campaign, but who are the forces behind it?
According to the JCZC's attendants, they are a motley crew, a diverse alliance of radical left-wing activists, right-wing radicals, and Islamists, who are confronting Jews and Christians across a variety of battlefields.
For Dr. Dan Diker, the President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, the 8th front “is manifested and defined by a word… which is Jihad.”
“Jihad is not only what happened in the invasion, rape, torture and kidnapping of 50 Americans on October 7. Jihad is [also] an academic jihad, which is exactly what BDS is,” he added, referring to the “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” movement.
He also mentioned that “economic jihad is what Mayor Mamdani did yesterday by ordering the closing of a company, that has an Israeli owner, for producing parts for drones… then there's political jihad at the UN, where the United Nations has become the friendliest repository of support for Hamas.”
Diker further highlighted the decades-long kinetic jihad by the Islamic Republic, noting that “Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the kidnapping of 53 Americans who were held in the dungeons of Tehran for 444 days,” adding this was “the same jihad that happened when hundreds and even several thousand Americans were killed in Lebanon and then in Iraq by Iranian IEDs.”
For Evangelicals, the most crucial battlefields of this war are their own churches, and many of those warning that the battle is being lost pointed to reports of declining support for Israel among young Evangelicals.
Author and podcast host Christopher Kuehl warned, “If I’m a strategist, I'm looking at where is the largest cohort of non-Jewish Zionists in the world. It's Christians – and we are massively, in the under-35 category, losing this battle.”
Young believers are being influenced by what Kuehl termed “old heresies in a new language,” referring to anti-Semitic, theologically tinged sentiments, “that are being kind of regurgitated… and I think a big part of that is because pastors refuse to talk about it.”
However, young Christians are bombarded by anti-Israel and anti-Western content on social media, regular media, and by friends, Kuehl warned. “If we refuse to touch this message, then [young people] are going to be catechized. They're going to be influenced by this kind of revival that's happening in this message.”
Dr. Susan Michaels, President of International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in the U.S., added that “it's a general weakening of the Christian church in America. It's not just about the Israel issue.”
She noted that the church is “not preparing our pastors to go into a post-Christian culture,” which is exacerbated by the lack of “accountable media anywhere… so just defining who’s speaking the truth and who’s speaking falsehood – our young people just don't know.”
Greg Denham, pastor of Christ Church in San Marcos, California, explained, “We have ideological viruses knocking on the door… We have a de-Judaizing of Jesus. This is a part of a global jihadist strategy. Jesus, all of a sudden, is a Palestinian freedom fighter against his own ancestral people.”
“In addition, there's a de-Christing of Jesus. Christ means anointed one. It refers, of course, to the Davidic King… Jesus was not the first Christian; he is the Davidic King. And you cannot separate Jesus from Israel, past, present and future.”
Worryingly, most attendants suggested that their side is currently losing the battle for the minds of young believers, often pointing to the online onslaught by radical left and right-wing activists, like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes’ so-called “Groypers.”
But one attendant stressed that battles are being won all the time, and that Christian and Jewish Zionists have good chances to win if they only decide to take on the fight.
Pastor Luke Moon argued that the appearance of a broad shift toward antisemitic, anti-Israeli positions might be only that, pointing to his successes in training young believers to win public discussions against antisemitic Groypers at the recent AmFest.
“Nick Fuentes on his show said,' MAGA lost, Groypers are ascendant,'” Moon told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.
“I'm like, okay, then I'm going to show up too, everywhere you're going to be – I’m gonna be. And we're going to win. The numbers are in our favor, and we can win this, but we gotta actually have some optimism in our message. We have to be the happy warriors. That's what's going to win the day.”
“People were just getting hammered by the Tucker, Candace [Owens] crowd, and they weren't responding. Now people are responding. There's a lot of people who are willing to call out Candace, Tucker, and Nick. That means we're winning.”
In a post on 𝕏 summing up the JCZC and NRB conferences, Moon reiterated, “My message was the same: We, who stand with Israel, are the majority and need to start acting like it. Every poll proves this fact. More specifically, a poll of attendees at AmFest showed only 13% of respondents believed Israel was our worst ally. When MAGA was polled on Trump's actions in Venezuela and Iran, only 12% were against him. We have a 12-13% problem on the Right. Certainly, left to fester, that can grow, but let's not let that happen.”
Whatever the exact state of the battle is, all attendants agreed that the stakes couldn’t be higher.
This is bigger than antisemitism. It is a test of whether Western civilization will survive, and whether Christians will stand as watchmen in their time.
— JCZC (@jczcongress) February 18, 2026
Our answer must be clear: We carry truth.#JCZCongress #StandForTruth #JudeoChristian #FaithAndFuture pic.twitter.com/cdf4C6Uj26
“This is bigger than antisemitism alone. It is a test of whether Western civilization will survive, whether the values that built the freest, most prosperous societies in human history will be handed to our children,” declared Pastor Johnnie Moore.
Christians should respond by being brave “bearers of truth,” and “the friends of the Jews when the world relapsed into its oldest hatred. And this time, in our generation, the hatred will not prevail,” he added.
Author Eric Metaxas closed his keynote speech by saying, “If you really want to know if somebody is truly a Christian – they will have a love of Israel and the Jewish people, it is inescapable.”
“So we are now in a spiritual war between good and evil, and it is because of the devil's hatred of those whom God loves that we're seeing the antisemitism now, so now that we know what it is – by the grace of God, we will pray and we will fight against it and God will, as he always does, prevail.”
Hanan Lischinsky has a Master’s degree in Middle East & Israel studies from Heidelberg University in Germany, where he spent part of his childhood and youth. He finished High School in Jerusalem and served in the IDF’s Intelligence Corps. Hanan and his wife live near Jerusalem, and he joined ALL ISRAEL NEWS in August 2023.
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