Paul Calvert spoke with Rabbi Dov Lipman

Rabbi Lipman: We do, especially with the advent of the social network. On the one hand the social network and the internet can be a source of spiritual inspiration and there is no doubt the Jewish and the Christian faith ministries around the world use it in that way, but boy is it used as a vehicle of hate. When you see Facebook pages about Hitler raises from the dead and millions of people are getting involved in this, it is scary to see it. There is hate and I have absolutely no doubt that it relates to spirituality, because what do we bring to the world? We bring into the world a message of honesty, morality, decency and certain values that people would rather forget about and not have to be beholden to. There is no doubt that somewhere deep inside that's what brings out this hatred both for Jews and towards Christians. That is why we have to view ourselves as being in a joint battle, not just for our physical existence, but also for our spiritual existence. It's our job to work together to bring that spirituality into the world and fight all that evil and fight all that anti-spirituality with even more spirituality and with even more positive messages and that's what hopefully we will continue to do.

Paul: One of the biggest threats of anti-Semitism today is Iran and Iran are producing nuclear material. Do you see them as a big threat and why isn't the world doing anything about it?

Rabbi Lipman: Let's think about this for a moment. There is a country that stood up and said that their stated goal is to annihilate the State of Israel and to annihilate the Jewish people and they are attempting to get nuclear weapons and the world is somehow buying into their face of, "We'll make a deal and we'll make an agreement. Trust us." How do you trust them? I believe that Christians around the world and Jews need to pressure their Heads of State and pressure their Members of Parliament to do anything possible to stop that deal from happening, because let's make no mistake about it, this is not just a threat to the State of Israel, it's a threat to the whole Free World. Iran is a country, you know when we had the Cold War in the United States with Russia, there was something called MAD. MAD stood for mutually assured destruction. There was a theory that Russia would never send nuclear weapons to the US because the US would send nuclear weapons back and destroy Russia, so why would they risk destroying themselves? With Iran that is not the case. They are fundamental Islam Jihadists and they have no problem losing 10, 20, or 30 million of their people if it means they have accomplished their goals of killing Jews and killing Christians and fighting against the Free World. It is time for the world to wake up. We in Israel are certainly doing whatever we can to stop the development. It's something we have to pray for, but also take action and there should be religious people around the world, spiritual people around the world rising up and saying we won't tolerate this.

Paul: Israel has probably one of the best armies in the world. Is ISIS a threat to the nation of Israel?

Rabbi Lipman: It will be. There is no doubt that they have their sights set on Israel as well, but as I said before, Israel is very confident in its ability to fight whatever battles it has to fight. We are not over confident, we're confident, because we know we will fight the war and God will help us win the war and we will be ok. We are watching it very carefully and like I said before, we are concerned for the world. It's not just what we see, innocent people suffering, especially Christians due to this phenomenon and the brutality, the way that they kill people in the most inhumane, animistic manner possible. We would like to do nothing but join the world's effort to fight against it. As you can understand because there are Arab countries involved they want Israel to take a seat on the side, but believe me Israel will do anything it can do to help and as it comes closer to our borders we will become more pro-active as well.

Paul: What is your prayer for the nation of Israel?

Rabbi Lipman: My prayer is first of all that our leaders should be guided to make the right decision and all the difficult decisions that face us on a daily basis. That is number one. I pray that all Jews around the world will realise that this is their home and they will come home. There is no reason to be living all around the world in places that are somewhat foreign to us even if they are friendly. We need to strengthen the Jewish State by coming and living here and I pray Israel will become a place where people of faith from around the world feel at home and feel a spiritual connection and recognise that when it is all said and done, all people of faith are brothers and sisters and lets use the State of Israel as the platform to be a true light unto the nations.