Not even the professionals inside the New York Knicks press conference room could contain themselves as the clock neared 1 a.m. Thursday morning. Some clapped when Knicks head coach Mike Brown hailed reserve guard Jose Alvarado’s performance—8 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists, all in the fourth quarter—during the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, which put the Knicks one win away from their first title since 1973.

“I know a lot of you guys can’t (clap) because you’re in the media, and you have to stay neutral,” Brown said, before doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. “I’m going to f—king clap for Jose,” he said. “Sorry, mom.”

It was that kind of night. None of this—erasing a 29-point deficit, these Knicks being one game away from hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy—was supposed to happen.

A few yards from the pressers, some of the world’s biggest celebrities partied in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, denying gentle requests to climb into the private cars waiting to whisk them away.

JERUSALEM: The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) convened an emergency summit this week amid growing concern over the global rise in antisemitism following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in 2023.

The three-day conference in the Israeli capital comes at a time when social media influencers are consistently pushing antisemitic hate to their millions of followers.

“Attacking the Jews means attacking the very roots of one’s own faith. It means fighting against the people who gave us the Bible. Jesus was Jewish,” ICEJ President Dr. Jürgen Bühler told Fox News Digital.

CANADA’S CARNEY PLEDGES ACTION ON ANTISEMITISM AMID BACKLASH OVER NEW ANTI-HATE COUNCIL MEMBERS

“If you don’t fight antisemitism, you are sawing off the branch you sit on. For the church to survive, we need to connect to our roots, fighting antisemitism needs to be at the forefront of every pastor and every leader around the world,” he added.

One of the central themes of the conference is Replacement Theology, a doctrine that holds the Church has replaced the Jewish people in God’s plan.

“The Bible is full of God’s eternal plan which includes the Jewish people. Paul’s statement in Romans 11 that ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ relates to Israel. This is a doctrine that goes contrary to what the New and Old Testament are teaching and that’s why we need to have this conference,” Bühler said.

“One cannot deny the Jewishness of the Bible. The most frequent word in the Bible is the name of God and the second most used name is Israel. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he died in Jerusalem, resurrected in Jerusalem, rose to heaven from Jerusalem and he is coming back to Jerusalem. If you read the Bible it is so easy to see the connection to Israel,” he added.

HUCKABEE CONDEMNS EFFORTS TO ERASE JEWISH HISTORY TO THE HOLY LAND AS ‘ABSURD’

Israel’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Christian world, George Deek, addressed the meeting on Wednesday, while Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee are scheduled to attend the summit’s closing event on Thursday at the foreign ministry as keynote speakers.

In a recorded message broadcast at the summit, Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked Christian leaders for mobilizing against antisemitism.

“We are witnessing a very disturbing surge of antisemitism all over the world. This is a major challenge for humanity. This is the age-old, perhaps the oldest plague in humanity, and we have to stand up together — thought leaders and religious leaders — and say, ‘No more,’ and teach people about the sources of this evil and how to counter antisemitism,” Herzog said.

“I believe that countering antisemitism requires a combination of three major elements: law enforcement, adjudication and education,” he said.

“You, dear leaders, have a huge capability of fighting back, and I bless you. Truly, I bless you as the president of Israel for coming here and fighting back, for coming here and discussing how to fight back,” Herzog concluded.

Dr. Andrew J. Nolte, who launched Regent University’s Israel Institute in 2024, said students often repeat antisemitic claims, including the accusation that Jews killed Jesus.

“The answer from a Christian theological perspective is that we all killed Jesus, he died for our sins. There is a theological understanding of the guilt we bear for Jesus’s blood,” Nolte told Fox News Digital.

ISRAEL LOOKING FOR ‘SOLUTIONS’ TO OPEN CHRISTIAN SITES AFTER BARRING CHURCH LEADER ON PALM SUNDAY DUE TO WAR

While Israel has faced recent criticism over treatment of Christians – mostly at the hands of a few extremists – the country is seen as a beacon of freedom of religion in the Middle East.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, as of December 2025, Israel’s Christian population stood at approximately 184,200 people, representing 1.9% of the country’s total population. The community grew by 0.7% over the previous year.

Arab Christians account for 78.7% of Israel’s Christian population and comprise 6.8% of the country’s overall Arab population.

Most Arab Christians reside in northern Israel. Among non-Arab Christians, 42% live in the Tel Aviv and Central districts, compared to 33.9% in the Northern and Haifa districts.

Nolte said that Christians in Israel hold prominent positions, noting that the provost of the University of Haifa is a Maronite Christian and that Christian communities in the country report relatively high income levels. He also said that, in most cases involving civil rights and religious freedom brought by Christians in Israel, the outcomes have been decided in their favor.

“If you are comparing Israel to any Muslim country in the Middle East, the status of Christians is much higher. As a Christian, you are better off here than anywhere else in the region,” he added.

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: THE POLITICAL RIGHT AND THE ANTISEMITIC INFLUENCER PROBLEM

Christopher Kuehl, founder of Present Witness and co-host of the One New Man podcast, emphasized that biblical illiteracy among younger generations is fueling confusion about Israel.

He opened his remarks at the conference by citing a recent U.S. study on Gen Z’s alignment with biblical teachings and how closely their worldview corresponds with scripture, noting that only about 5% demonstrated strong adherence.

“Israel gets thrown into that ignorance, that biblical ignorance. Social media is what teaches children and Gen Z; they spend eight hours a day on it and go to church once a week for 20 minutes. How does one create a message in 20 minutes that will overcome spending eight hours on social media every day?” Kuehl told Fox News Digital.

FAITH UNDER FIRE: NETANYAHU CALLS OUT EFFORTS TO DIVIDE CHRISTIANS AND ISRAEL IN US

Pastor Matthew Earls joined the summit as part of Eagles’ Wings Ministries’ Israel Christian Nexus program, which focuses on young Christian leaders and gives them the opportunity to experience Israel early in their careers and build a well-rounded perspective.

“We want to teach biblical truth so that the church does not look completely different in the next generation,” Earls told Fox News Digital. “The greater mission is one of solidarity with the people of Israel, and of equipping people with talking points in the hope that dialogue can take place and lead to greater understanding, or at least mutual respect for one another’s positions,” he said.

Sacha Roytman, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told Fox News Digital that Christians and Jews face many of the same challenges in defending their faith, history, and future, adding that those who reject Jews and Zionism also reject the Christian worldview because the two are aligned.

“I’m here to share this message with Christian leaders who go back to their communities empowered with more knowledge, more energy, and different tools to fight this battle,” Roytman said.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

As part of its research, CAM has examined how social media algorithms amplify antisemitic content and conspiracy theories. “We discovered that the algorithms are trained to deliver engaging content that upsets people and keeps them hooked. Often, it is anti-establishment content and conspiracy theories that fuel antisemitism,” Roytman said.

More than 200 theologians, pastors and ministry leaders from over 30 countries are attending in person, alongside approximately 3,000 online participants.

United States President Donald Trump has said the US will be hitting Iran “very hard tonight”, adding the military will be “taking Kharg Island” and other Iranian “oil infrastructure points in the not too distant future”.

The threats, made in a Truth Social post on Thursday, come after the US and Iran traded two days of strikes, threatening to derail ongoing negotiations for a lasting ceasefire.

While the statements indicate US willingness to return to a full-scale war, Trump has repeatedly alternated between bellicose threats and diplomatic overtures in recent weeks.

For example, he pledged that “a whole civilisation will die” just hours before a pause in fighting was agreed to, beginning on April 8.

“The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump wrote on Thursday.

“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,” Trump wrote, before referencing the US military action against Venezuela.

That included the abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, has overseen an opening of the country’s state-controlled oil industry to foreign investors, under heavy US pressure.

Kharg Island, known as the “Forbidden Island” due to its strict military control, processes 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports.

In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Trump said taking Kharg Island has always been his “preference”.

“I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest,” he added, saying he was still averse to deploying boots on the ground in Iran.

Trump’s statements came shortly after Iran’s foreign ministry said the latest round of US strikes rendered the ongoing pause in fighting “practically meaningless”.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, described the latest US attacks on Iran as “a widespread and utter nullification of the ceasefire”.

Recent US strikes have targeted the port city of Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, and the southern towns of Sirik, Minab and Karaj west of Tehran, according to Iranian media.

Iran, meanwhile, has attacked US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Trump has also accused Iran of downing a US helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

Following the latest round of US strikes, Iran announced the full closure of the strait, the arterial waterway that has emerged as Tehran’s key point of leverage in the conflict.

US officials have for weeks been signalling that a deal is close, but have offered few specifics on impasses over the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, future control of the Strait of Hormuz, or the release of frozen Iranian funds.

Analysts have said the Trump administration is constrained by the political imperative of reaching a deal with better terms than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw Tehran curtail its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and has, since taking office last year, twice struck Iran amid ongoing talks on its nuclear programme.

On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed that any damage Iran “inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted” from Iran’s frozen assets, which are estimated to total about $100bn globally.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Trump appears to be using military pressure and inflammatory language to try to push Iran towards a deal.

“So what’s clear is that the US president is continuing with this Truth Social post to mix public threats with what he believes is still possible, and that is diplomacy at the barrel of a gun,” Halkett said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, said the Trump administration “wants to escalate in order to create leverage at the negotiating table to pressure Tehran to make concessions that they did not in the past”.

Tehran, meanwhile, is concerned with “restoring deterrence against additional attacks on the country”.

“And for Iran, this is also important because the previous response to the US attack was not enough to ensure that they will not attack Iran again,” Aslani said. “That is why they might be escalating to de-escalate [the situation].”

On Thursday, US CENTCOM also announced that the military had disabled three oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman amid its ongoing blockade of Iranian ports.

India has called on the US to cease attacks on Thursday, saying three Indian crew members were killed in one US strike on a vessel.