Israel, U.S., Greece Prepare for Possible Energy War

Israeli, Greek and U.S. forces are in the midst of a drill in preparation for a possible war over Israel’s huge off-shore gas discoveries, which also may contain commercializable oil. Lebanon and Hizbullah have claimed the fields are in Lebanese territory and that they will “defend” the area against drilling by Israel.

The week-long drill is simulating air-to-air combat and anti-submarine warfare and is taking place off the coast of Turkey, possibly signaling it not to interfere with Israeli energy operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The “enemy” forces will be similar to those of the Turkish air force, according to the Defencenet.gr website.

Joint exercises also will take place off the coast of Cyprus and at the port in Haifa, with the participation of the famed U.S. Sixth Fleet.

The United States and Israel also are preparing for a massive “Austere Challenge” exercise this summer involving thousands of soldiers from both countries.

Last week, a one-day drill included Israeli soldiers operating the Arrow, the Patriot, Hawk, Stinger, and Iron Dome batteries defense systems, according to DefenseProfessionals.com.

“The ability of the formation to bring together all the defense systems is amazing”, said U.S. Army Col. Stephen Richmond, head of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. “I’m very impressed with the capabilities presented here,” he was quoted as saying.  

Russia is keeping a wary eye on the American-Israeli exercises and is staging its own war drill in a Syrian port, according to DEBKAfile. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned this week against a pre-emptive strike, which he said would violate international law.

A Russian guided missile destroyer reportedly sailed to the Syrian port of Tartus for an exercise with what DEBKAfile said is three-fold message for the United States that Moscow is supplying Syrian President Bashar Assad with defense systems, that the Russian and Iranian support of Assad will continue and that the deployment of the warship illustrates Moscow’s ability for a rapid response to foreign maneuvers.



Iran Believes Striking Israel Fulfills End of Days

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman - FrontPageMagazine.com

With the IAEA discussing a dramatic new report from its nuclear inspectors in Iran, are some – such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – exaggerating the imminence of a nuclear-armed Iran? Or is the U.S. government hopelessly misleading us that the threat is manageable through sanctions and tough talk?

A series of extraordinary leaks in the Israeli press last week revealed an internal debate within Israel’s inner security cabinet over the need to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons sites.

According to these reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak favored the strikes; Vice prime minister and strategic affairs minister Moshe “Bogey” Ya’alon reportedly was opposed. The leaks came on the heels of the third test-launch of a Jericho 3 nuclear-capable strategic missile, and what Israel claimed were long-planned air force exercises over Sardinia to simulate an attack on Iran.

According to former CIA case officer turned novelist Chet Nagle​, the Jericho 3 test may have been designed by Israel to send quite a different message than the one being played up in the press.

Any Israeli attack on Iran is sure to make of Israel an international pariah, Nagle argues. Plus, the likelihood of success – that is, in destroying or disabling all of Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities so they have nothing to launch on the morning after the attack – is low.

“If you’re going to go to all that trouble and be a pariah, why not take one of those Jericho missiles, and detonate it 300 miles above the surface and deliver an EMP strike on Iran?” Nagel says. “That would stop their clock – if it’s electric – as well as all those centrifuges and everything else. Then the Greens can take over the country and we can go back in and rebuild the grid.”

Nagel was speaking with me and other analysts last week at a briefing organized by EMPact America for Congressional staff. His comments, while purely suggestive in nature, hint at a much larger strategic truth: if Israel is going to attack Iran, they have to make sure they totally disable Iran’s ability to launch a nuclear weapon.

How better to achieve that goal than a nuclear electro-magnetic pulse strike that would take down Iran’s power grid – and with it, even secret nuclear weapons plants Israel might fail to hit otherwise?

EMP or not, Israel was certainly making a show of force in an effort to convince Iran to back off its nuclear plans. On that score, from what we see in public at least, Israel had little success.

According to Iranian press reports cited on Sunday by the Debkafile, top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps​ (IRGC) commanders in Iran were shaking their fists.

In one unsigned editorial from the IRGC’s Fars news agency, the Guards threatened to utterly destroy Israel with just four missiles if Israel dared to launch any kind of attack on Iran.

Which brings us to the question, what if Iran already had the bomb?

Former IRGC officer and undercover CIA spy, Reza Kahlili, believes Iran acquired nuclear warheads from a former Soviet republic at the end of the Cold War​, and has designed its own nuclear warhead with the help of Ukrainian scientists.

As I reported in my 2005 book, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, IRGC commander Gen. Mohsen Rezai traveled to North Korea in January 1993, seeking assistance in arming those warheads. My informant, a top advisor to Gen. Rezai who later defected (and who spoke with me), said the North Koreans agreed to provide that help.

From that day forward, Iran believed it had a nuclear deterrent – not a strike force, but at least a deterrent – and its behavior changed. The IRGC believed they could carry out aggressive acts against the United States, including a terror alliance with Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, and the U.S. would never strike back with any consequence, and certainly would not strike the Iranian homeland.

This week’s IAEA report is only the latest in a series of revelations from the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna that has documented Iran’s long march toward nuclear weapons.

Despite these reports, nuclear skeptics continue to claim that Iran is hopelessly disorganized, incompetent, incapable, and lacking the will to defy the international community and deploy nuclear weapons.

Just three weeks ago, the same nuclear analyst quoted this week by the Washington Post to sound the alarm about the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear weapons progress, David Albright​, was telling folks how the Stuxnet virus had crippled Iran’s ability to enrich uranium.

As they say, what a difference a week makes.

We’ve had Indicators and Warnings of Iran’s nuclear weapons intentions going back twenty-five years.

In late 1986, the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency publicly announced it was signing a “consulting” agreement with a Pakistani metallurgist named AQ Khan​. I wrote about this agreement at the time – and continued writing about these Indicators and Warnings as they became known.

In 1992, the Simon Wiesenthal Center asked me to compile this information into a monograph called Weapons of Mass Destruction: the cases Iran, Syria, and Libya. At that time, I was looking at patterns emerging from Iran’s procurement of certain dual-use technologies that were needed for a centrifuge enrichment program.

It was clear to me then, as it was to many others, that Iran had a uranium enrichment program. But the U.S. intelligence community failed to connect the dots. Even in 2005 when I wrote a narrative version of Iran’s nuclear weapons development program in Countdown to Crisis, noteworthy scholars dismissed my information as “sensational” and based on “faulty sources.”

This week’s IAEA report shows beyond a doubt that Iran has cold-tested all the components of a workable nuclear weapon design, as I reported in June. It also shows Iran had significant assistance from a Russian nuclear weapons scientists, who for five years helped Iran to design a nuclear weapons trigger.

Rather than a haphazard effort, Iran’s nuclear weapons research was “managed through a program structure, assisted by advisory bodies, and that, owing to the importance of these efforts, senior Iranian figures featured within this command structure,” the IAEA report found.

The program was run out of a “Scientific Committee” under the auspices of the Defense Ministry’s Education Research Institute, the IAEA found.

The IAEA report also shoots down – yet again – the National Intelligence Council’s fatally flawed 2007 National Intelligence on Iran, which stated at the outset that Iran had stopped nuclear weapons research in 2003. The IAEA found that the research continued, underground and unreported.

And yet, in a recent talk to intelligence community retirees and other guests, the Director of National Intelligence, Lt. Gen. James Clapper​, said his fingerprints were “all over” the 2007 NIE and that he stood by it one hundred percent.

How much more information do we need to understand that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and threatening to use them against Israel and the United States? How many more dots do we need before our intelligence community and our political leaders connect them to read the words IMMINENT THREAT spelled out just like that, in capital letters?

Iran’s leaders believe the “end of days” is come, and that by annhiliating Israel with a nuclear weapon they can “hasten the return” of the 12th imam, the Imam Mahdi of Shiite Muslim eschatology.

But in response to Iran’s latest efforts, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the State Department would open a “virtual embassy” to Iran, and gave an interview to the BBC Persian service where she claimed the Obama Administration failed to respond to the June 2009 protests in Iran because their Iran advisors counseled them against it.

Here’s a novel thought: if our intelligence analysts, including those right at the top, fail to connect the dots, why don’t we just fire them?

Stay tuned.



Hizbullah Prepares for War

Hizbullah has canceled leaves and is preparing for war, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper As-Seyassah.

“Hizbullah cancelled the vacations of all its militants, summoned thousands of its members and gave orders to its prominent officials to remain unseen in case a war broke out,” the daily said.

It added that the terrorist army and political party put its combat units, including missile units, on extreme alert. The newspaper also reported that the IDF is aware of Hizbullah’s preparations and has increased reconnaissance flights over southern Lebanon.

Hizbullah’s general mobilization also includes orders for senior officials to find a place to hide in the event that war breaks out.

Although similar alerts occur often, sources told that the new preparations follow a televised speech, via a video link, by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. He warned that a war against Iran and Syria would spread to the entire Middle East, but he added that an Israeli attack on Lebanon is unlikely in the near future.

The reports of a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may be behind Hizbullah’ alert.

The current routine but large-scale military training in the Golan Heights may also be a cause. It includes preparing ground troops for urban warfare.

“On a tactical level we’ll see an attempt to wear us down with urban warfare, which is characteristic of the fronts we face today. There will be a close battle between ground forces,” IDF ground forces commander Maj. Gen. Sami Turjeman told UPI.

Nasrallah last month threatened that Hizbullah missiles would strike metropolitan Tel Aviv in the next war, if and when it comes. He also said that ground forces would force their way into northern Israel for the first time since the War of Independence in 1948.

“The next war will be completely different,”  former Northern Command Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, told UPI. “Hizbullah will be better prepared. So will we.”

The Arab Spring and Christian Persecution

By Joseph Puder
Frontpage Magazine

While the Western media and governments have been preoccupied with the so called “Arab Spring,” little if any attention has been paid to the increased persecution of Christians in the Muslim Middle East.

Throughout the region, Christians have been targeted by Muslim mobs killing innocent bystanders, burning churches, and destroying Christian properties. Interviewed by The National on June 19, 2011, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared that the Arab Spring is posing a threat to Christian minorities throughout the Middle East. He added that “extremists were filling vacuums left by ousting of autocratic regimes,” and “leading to Copts being targeted in Egypt.” In Syria, Archbishop Williams warned, “tensions between Christian communities and Muslim majorities were reaching breaking point.” And, he added that Christians in northern Iraq had been subjected to a form of “ethnic cleansing.” The archbishop made his comments in an interview with BBC radio on August 30, during which he said that even in Bethlehem, Christ’s birthplace, the once-majority Christian population had now become a “marginalized minority.”

The Voice of Russia radio interviewed Egyptian Human Rights activist, Waukee Yakub, and when asked what happened between the Salafi Muslim groups and the Coptic-Christians he replied: “After the revolution of January 25th Salafis came to power. And the only side with which they conflict a lot with is the Coptic Orthodox Christians. They know we are peaceful people and we don’t hurt anyone and they started attacking churches, stop attacking even other Muslim people — the Sufi Muslims that they don’t like. What’s happening now is that it seems like the Military Council that rules the country right now is totally involved with them and constantly agrees them. We have videos and lots of pictures that prove that they do nothing when it comes to attacks on Christians.”

As the interview with the Voice of Russia continued, Yakub added: “The problem is with Salafi fanatics who have al-Qaeda-styled thinking. It’s exactly al-Qaeda thinking: ‘We are rejecting others; we want to kill the Christians; and, we want to make the Christians leave the country.’ I have witnessed an incident in Imbaba, when a house was burning, and furniture was thrown out of the windows, while water quenching vehicles and the police stood there doing nothing. It was happening right in front of them. I’ve seen my own church set on fire and burning like hell and nothing was done. No one was arrested, though we have videos that show faces of the people, who are very well-known.”

The American Coptic Association reported on August 30, 2011 that during an annual meeting in Rimini, Italy, also known as “Meeting for Friendships Among People,” Cardinal Antonios Naguib, patriarch of the Catholic Church in Alexandria, said he was concerned about minorities’ rights after the 25 January, 2011 Egyptian revolution. “Islamists will have great representation in the next parliament, which is normal. We should recognize its political force…but some fear they will assume power and impose an Islamic State.”

A brief regional survey of recent cases of religious persecution of Christians reveals a clear pattern which neither the U.N. nor the European Union has responded to. In Iran, a 32-year old convert to Christianity named Youcef Nadarkhani was sentenced to hang for abandoning Islam for Christianity – a State crime. Nadarkhani has been in jail since October 2010 and has, so far, refused to recant his Christian faith. If he is hung, he would become the first Iranian to be put to death for apostasy since 1990.

Saudi Arabia, an alleged ally of the U.S., forbids any kind of non-Muslim religious ceremony — public or private. If caught with a Bible, violators are sent to prison and then deported. A story in the Washington Times (11/14/05) underscored the religious intolerance of Saudi Arabia when stating that: “A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for “mocking religion” after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.”

In Iskenderun, Turkey, the personal driver of Bishop Luigi Padovese, head of the Catholic Church in Turkey, was a Muslim named Murat Altun, who repeatedly stabbed and decapitated the Bishop and then proceeded to shout “I killed the great Satan. Allahu Akhbar.” The brutal murder of Bishop Luigi Padovese, on June 3, 2010, shocked the small and hard pressed Christian community in Turkey. The 62 year-old bishop had been spearheading the Vatican’s efforts to improve Muslim-Christian relations in Turkey.

Muslim violence against Christians in Iraq reached a new height in 2010 following the fire-bombing of churches in Baghdad and elsewhere throughout the country. It resulted in the flight of more than two-thirds of the ancient Iraqi Christian community. The Iraqi Christian leaders called off Christmas celebrations in 2010. A December 23, 2010 news item in The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that “Christiansacross Iraq have been living in fear since the assault on Our Lady of Salvation Church on Oct. 31 as members of this Catholic congregation were celebrating Sunday Mass. Sixty-eight people were killed. Days later, Islamic insurgents bombed Christian homes and neighborhoods across the capital. Later, al-Qaida insurgents threatened more attacks on Iraq’s Christians, many of whom have fled their homes or the country since the church attack. A council representing Christian denominations across Iraq advised followers to cancel public celebrations of Christmas out of concern for their lives and to mourn the victims. Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq summed up the situation, “Nobody can ignore the threats of al-Qaida against Iraqi Christians. We cannot find a single source of joy that makes us celebrate. The situation of the Christians is bleak.”

Historically there were Christian dominated enclaves in countries throughout the Middle East, such as in Lebanon. Today, the remaining 1.5 million Christians represent merely a third of the population and are threatened. Likewise in Bethlehem, where the Palestinian Authority now controls the city – the birthplace of Jesus — the Christians have been pushed out through intimidation and murder, resulting in a diminution from a majority to less than 15% of the city’s population. In an ironic twist, the Muslim Palestinian Authority has banned the sale of souvenir crosses to tourists…

The Washington based Christian Post headlined its December 24, 2007 issue with “Gaza Christians observe somber Christmas after murder” and the Financial Times (FT) of April 22, 2011 reported that in a square in Nazareth, right below the Basilica of the Annunciation, a Koranic verse warns that “whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.” Yet, it is the spectre of losing in the here-and-now that most haunts the dwindling number of adherents to Christianity in the land of his birthplace…

Throughout the Middle East today, Christians have become endangered species. They are under threat from radical Islamists who have seized the opportunity, with mayhem in the Arab world, to settle the score with their Christian countrymen. With limited opportunities available to them in the Arab world, Christians now seek new lives elsewhere in Europe, as well as in North and South America. Those remaining are accused by Muslims of “complicity in the schemes of foreign predators.” The FT conclusion is that “The wave of revolution ripping through the region would uncover the submerged hard-wiring of sectarianism.”

The fate of Christians in the Middle East may not be the same as that of the Jews in Europe on the eve of World War II; they do have the option to leave while the Jews did not. However, what is rather similar is the abandonment of the Middle East Christians by the liberal/mainline Protestant churches, which have been putting their energies into divestment from Israel campaigns rather than using their resources to support their persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East. The lack of solidarity in the West by the churches, governments, and media to the plight of the Christian minorities is abominable.

The Arab Spring is becoming a nightmare for Christians in the Arab-Muslim world, but that is obviously not the focus of our secularized and, at times, anti-Christian mainstream western media.

Goodbye Egypt, Hello Iran

By Stephen Brown
/Frontpage Magazine

While the elections meant to turn Egypt into a democracy are yet to be held, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is already turning the country towards an Iranian-like theocracy. The MB announced recently that it wants government officials to adopt stricter regulations, mainly targeting tourists, regarding bikinis and alcohol consumption in public. In a sharia law-ruled state, which the MB hopes to introduce in Egypt, alcohol and certain women’s clothing deemed too revealing would be banned outright. The MB’s proposed alcohol and bikini restrictions probably represent the first step in making this ban a reality.

“Beach tourism must take the values and norms of our society into account,” Muhammad Saad Al-Katany, secretary-general of the Freedom and Justice Party, told Egyptian tourism officials in late August. “We must place regulations on tourists wishing to visit Egypt, which we will announce in advance.”

The Freedom and Justice Party is the political wing of the MB. It will contest elections, scheduled for this November, against 17 other political parties and stands a good chance of becoming the strongest faction in Egypt’s new parliament. But many Egyptians fear that a triumphant Freedom and Justice Party will radicalise Egyptian society, turning it into a strict, religious theocracy like Iran’s.

“This is how things began in Iran,” said Hani Henry, a psychology professor at Cairo’s American University. “The moderate youth wanted to implement changes, but the mullahs hijacked the revolution. The same thing is happening now here in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

Al-Katany says his party will investigate the alcohol and bikini issue and will amend legislation accordingly after the elections. The Freedom and Justice youth director, Ali Khafagy, said the answer to this issue his party finds so offensive may lie in having tourists wear modest swimwear and separate beaches for men and women.

“Bathing suits and mixing on the beaches go against our traditions,” said Khafagy. “It’s not just a matter of religion. When I go to the beach, I don’t want to see nudity.”

But a hardcore Egyptian Salafist group, called Dawa, really stirred fears in Egypt’s tourist industry when one of its representatives, Abd Al-Minim A-Shahhat, told a London-based Arab newspaper that the tourist-attracting treasures of Egyptian antiquity, like the sphinx, pyramids and pharaonic statues should be covered up. Comparing them to idols in Mecca in pre-Islamic times, he called them un-Islamic.

“The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture,” A-Shahhat told the paper, adding the statues’ faces “should be covered with wax, since they are religiously forbidden.”

The idea that Egypt’s world-famous archaeological riches could be in danger is not so far-fetched. In Afghanistan, the sixth-century Bamiyan Buddhas, a United Nations World Heritage site, were victims of similar fanatical Islamist thinking in 2001. The Taliban, declaring the Buddhas also “un-Islamic,” destroyed the centuries-old architectural gems with explosives. Defacing ancient statues of Egypt’s pharaohs with wax is not many steps away from a repetition of the Bamiyan Buddhas’ fate.

The MB’s plan to restrict alcohol consumption and bikini-wearing tourists comes at a very inopportune time. The Egyptian tourism industry, one of the country’s main foreign currency earners, was hard hit by the Arab Spring. Earning about $13 billion annually prior to last January, the number of tourists visiting Egypt declined so much due to the political unrest since late January that tourism is expected to take in only $10 billion in revenue over the next year, starting last July. The industry has been losing $862 a month in addition to the $1.16 million it lost in the month following the uprising last January 28.

More than two million Egyptians make a living from the tourism industry. It accounts for 13 percent of all Egyptian jobs. Tourism is so important to the Egyptian economy that Islamic terrorists targeted tourists in the 1990s and killed dozens in an attempt to overthrow the Mubarak government. The worst attack occurred at a temple in Luxor in 1997, in which about 60 Western tourists were murdered by six terrorists. But this strategy backfired, as it deprived ordinary Egyptians dependent on the tourism trade of their livelihood when the tourists stopped coming. These people then turned against the radical Islamists.

As reported in a German newspaper, an Egyptian statistics office stated in July that tourist businesses were operating at only 30 percent of their normal level. At one popular tourist resort on the Red Sea, for example, all the hotels last week were closed except two. But encouragingly, the statistics office said reservations for fall and winter indicate a doubling of business for the industry. However, more violence and unrest after the November elections could see this fragile recovery disappear and new investments in the Egyptian tourism industry stalled.

Considering the importance of tourism to the Egyptian economy, there are those who believe the MB’s attempt to “Islamise” the industry will fail. One resort hotel owner told the same German newspaper that MB members are “intelligent, capitalistic people” who cannot dispense with tourism if they want to obtain and hold power. Millions of people also would take to the streets again, like last January, if their source of livelihood was endangered.

But this assessment does not take the power of ideology into account, and the willingness of ideologues to ruin countries and economies to realise their dogmatic beliefs. Iran is a good example. Even better examples are communist states, both current and former, that starved millions of their own people to death to set up their secular utopias. Rational, pragmatic thinking, as expressed by the hotel owner, plays no role among true believers, such as exist among the MB.

And neither does any feeling of humanitarianism. Like in Iran and in communist countries, it will be the ordinary people in Egypt who will go hungry and not the unfeeling religious good-thinkers and their families. The fact the proposed restrictions on tourism will affect the foreign currency supply that is used to buy wheat on world markets to feed Egypt’s poor is a strong indication of this lack of concern. The wheat price has doubled in the last year and Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world, is already facing a large hunger problem without Islamist interference in one of its major foreign revenue generators.

One observer writes that “Islamists have never been enamoured of foreign tourism.” So it is not surprising that this area is one of the first, in which the MB publicly showed its true Islamist colors after last January’s revolution. Confrontation, even war, with Israel and the persecution and possible expulsion from Egypt of millions of Christians and moderate Muslims will also most likely follow. As for Egypt’s struggling tourism industry, if the MB does attain political power in November, which appears most likely, it can at least help out by opening burqa-renting businesses on resort beaches.

The Mother of All Messes

With reports from ArutzSheva.com

Bibi Netanyahu has the mother of all messes of biblical proportions on his hands. He is literally facing the whole world, much of it hostile, as he strives to hang onto Jerusalem and as much of the West Bank as he can. And largely, because the Palestinians have nothing, the world doesn’t think Israel should hang onto all of Jerusalem or any part of Judea and Samaria. These people clearly don’t know or they disregard the notion that God gave this land and much more to Israel. These people clearly do not put any stock in the notion of divine intervention which permitted Israel to take the land that it did in the Six Day War.

Nor do these people seem to care about a prophecy uttered by Jesus, that “Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Many prophecy experts believe that the end of the time of the Gentiles occurred when Israel retook Jerusalem (a miracle after 1,897 years) in 1967. Many of these experts believe that in June of 1967 the generation alive at that time would see the appearance of Messiah.

I don’t have the precise source handy, but in reading about the Six Day War I read about an Israeli leader who said, when Israel took Jerusalem, he “could hear the footsteps of Messiah.” The Six Day War impressed me greatly because of the religious teachers in my youth who assured me that Israel’s retaking of Jerusalem was a fulfillment of prophecy. I remember how exited they were at the prospect of the appearance of Messiah. I am excited too. I was then when I was 14 and I am now. But there are wars which must be fought before Messiah comes.

How much of the West Bank will the Palestinians ever be willing to give up, though they now own none of it? In short, nothing. They want it all, reportedly with no Jews within a new Palestine’s borders. So what is there to negotiate? These talks will be over before they get started.

What then, if the PA refuses to have Jews in its hoped-for new borders, will happen to all of the 300,000 Jewish settlers? Will Israel annex the settlement blocs in the West Bank? Will they be moved by force as the settlers in Gaza were? Surely not by Israel, not as long as Netanyahu is the prime minister. So then by whom? The rest of the world in the form of United Nations troops, which would be a combined international force? And will war come of all of this?

The Quartet and those who support them are naive to believe that peace can ever be achieved in the mother of all messes, which has Biblical proportions and implications. (A unique story is unfolding, like none in history.) But they have a good idea. They want Israel and the PA to meet in a month and then present proposals dealing with land and security issues, with a deal to be reached in a year. What happens when a deal isn’t reached?

What on earth will Netanyahu put in his proposal?

As long as the average person in the world is ignorant of history and all the complicated issues which factor into this conflict over disputed and not occupied land, Israel, the good guy, will be seen as the bad guy. Though Israel is without fault, having only meant to defend herself, she is being given all of the blame for the ongoing conflict over control of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. If that is not a circumstance of biblical proportions, I don’t know what would be.

Will Israel annex the settlements? Will Israel want the Jordan Valley mountains in the easternmost portion of the West Bank, which would effectively close in the Palestinian state, with Israel all around it? Netanyahu has often spoken about the mere nine-mile stretch of land Israel would be left with if there is a return to 1967 borders. Also, Israel will want to maintain routes of transportation through parts of the West Bank to the north from the south. How is this matter likely to be handled? How will transport continue if the Palestinians take all of the West Bank and refuses to have Jews within their borders?

What will be in Netanyahu’s proposal? In a recent speech, he presented five conditions to be part of any negotiations:

These are:

1. The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish nation’s state. 
2. The treaty must be an end to the conflict.
3. The Arab refugee problem must be solved outside of Israel’s borders.
4. A Palestinian state will have to be demilitarized and a peace treaty must safeguard Israel’s security.
5. The settlement blocs will remain within the state of Israel and Jerusalem will remain its united capital.

Will Netanyahu lay down these conditions before PA President Mahmoud Abbas when and if the two sides ever agree to meet? If he does, the talks will be over before they start.

The place where this speech was delivered adds significancce to Bibi’s words. The venue was a Herzl Day address before the Knesset plenum. Fearing that the prime minister intended to announce concessions in Washington, MKs within Likud had demanded that Netanyahu address Israelis before he went to the U.S. and spoke before Congress.

Has Bibi ever discussed these conditions with President Obama? If he has, Obama must secretly feel there is no chance and there will probably be a war.

By and large, the speech does not depart from the one he delivered at Bar Ilan University in June 2009. In that speech as in the latest one, Netanyahu said that a PA state would be demilitarized, and that Israel would require security arrangements in a peace treaty. He also said that Jerusalem would remain united as Israel’s capital and that Arab refugees would be resettled outside Israel.   

The condition added by Netanyahu in this speech is Israel’s retention of the large settlement blocs. In the Bar Ilan speech, Netanyahu said that the territorial issues would be determined in negotiations and that until then, Israel would not be building new settlements or expropriating land in Judea and Samaria. 

Will the PA ever accept these conditions? No. And that can only mean the whole world will apply pressure on Israel to cave in, which Netanyahu will never do. Does he then risk a war with the Arabs in the mother of all messes?

Remaking the World in Six Days

From Greyfriars.org.nz

Today, Israel is internationally criticised for its ‘occupation’ of Arab land. But its critics wilfully ignore two circumstances which brought about this situation: that Israel fought a defensive war to avert annihilation, and that the Arabs have persistently refused Israel’s offers to exchange occupied land for peace. Assessing both the biblical and contemporary significance of the Six Day War, Rob Yule gave this message at Greyfriars Classical Service on 10 June 2007, forty years after Israel’s spectacular victory.

It was one of the most stunning military victories of all time — reminiscent of David and Goliath. In six days of intense fighting, beginning on June 5, 1967, Israeli forces saved their country from threat of annihilation, defeated three major Arab armies, and confounded the world’s superpowers.

The Israel air force, outnumbered 3-1, destroyed the Egyptian air force in the first 45 minutes of the war, ensuring complete air superiority and victory over the Egyptian army in Sinai. Jordan entered the war despite Israel’s repeated calls for it to stay out. As a result Jordan lost the West Bank and — after heavy fighting between Israeli paratroopers and the Jordanian Arab Legion — the old city of Jerusalem.

Israeli flags flew on the banks of the Suez Canal, over the Golan Heights and above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism and the world’s most contested piece of real estate — accomplishing the dream expressed in Jewish daily prayers throughout nearly 2,000 years of exile.

It was such a great victory that many Israelis thought it would be their last war and that they could trade their gains for recognition of their state and permanent peace.

It wasn’t to be. Today, apart from peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, the prospects for peace in the region seem more distant than ever. The euphoria that followed Israel’s unexpected victory in 1967 has given way to despair. Many Israelis now wonder whether it was a Pyrrhic victory that has led only to international criticism, more wars with the Arab world, prolonged occupation of Palestinian land, and a campaign of terror from hate-filled Arab nationalists and radical Islamists.

Its political context

To understand how miraculous Israel’s victory was, we need to go back to the situation at the beginning of June 1967. Israel was surrounded by hostile Arab states bent on its destruction, completely isolated and outgunned. Egypt alone had five times as many soldiers as Israel, and ten times the number of tanks.

The Soviet Union was encouraging and arming the military forces of Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Other major powers, like China and India, were hostile to Israel. The United States, though friendly, refused to sell weapons to Israel. France, till then Israel’s only major weapons supplier, had suddenly switched sides to curry favour with the Arab oil-producing states, imposing a total arms embargo on Israel.

Egypt menacingly deployed its army in the Sinai Peninsula, and forced the United Nations peace-keeping forces to precipitately withdraw, leaving Israel’s southern frontier in critical danger. Egypt’s President Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran, at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, blocking Israel’s only southern access, and on 26 May declared that Egypt’s objective was ‘to destroy Israel.’ Massive Syrian troop manoeuvres were taking place on the Golan Heights to Israel’s northeast.

On 4 June 1967, Israel looked destined for annihilation: Holocaust 2.

Its positive consequences

All that changed within a week. Israel began the conflict with Arab guns pointed at all of its cities. It finished the war with its troops in artillery range of every neighboring Arab capital. This turnaround convinced the leaders of these states that Israel could not be destroyed by military means — which lead ultimately to peace treaties with Egypt (in 1979) and Jordan (in 1994).

With hindsight, we can see that the Six Day War marked the beginning of the collapse of Communism. The victory over Soviet arms severely dented the Kremlin’s influence in the Middle East and impressed the Indians and the Chinese, who later established diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel’s stunning victory inspired the Prague Spring popular uprising in Czechoslovakia, and the beginning of the campaign for human rights and Jewish emigration in the Soviet Union.

Above all, Israel’s victory in the Six Day War brought a worldwide surge in Jewish self-confidence. It hugely lifted Israel’s standing with Jewish communities abroad. Many more Jews began to make aliya to Israel. The Messianic Jewish movement — the movement of Jews who believe in Jesus as Messiah but wish to retain their Jewish identity rather than join Gentile churches — began its amazing emergence after the Six Day War. There are now more Messianic believers and communities in Israel than at any time since the days of the New Testament.

In the United States, the youth revival known as the Jesus People Movement began as a direct result of the euphoria that followed the Six Day War. The greatest revival of Christianity in Western culture in our generation, involving many Jewish young people, it led to an explosion of Jewish music and Jewish songs, and widespread interest in community living among Christians inspired by the Israeli kibbutz movement. All this has transformed the face of contemporary Christianity.

Jews and Christians were inspired by the reunification of the state of Israel with the biblical Land of Israel — especially with the old city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, site of the temple in the days of Solomon and Jesus. There has been a surge in biblical archaeology — hardly a week goes past without some exciting find confirming the historical veracity of the Bible. Tourism brings Christians from all over the world to Israel, to learn about the historical and geographical sources of their faith. Since 1967 Christian evangelicals in their millions have become Israel’s firm friends — a remarkable change from the shameful anti-Semitism that so often marred Jewish-Christian relations down the centuries.

Its perplexing collateral

Today, Israel gets a bad press for its ‘occupation’ of Palestinian land and firm response to Palestinian terrorism. What people don’t understand is that most of the negative consequences of the Six Day War are the result of persistent Arab rejection of peace. As Golda Meir once observed, ‘The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’

Following the Six Day War the United Nations passed Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from ‘occupied territories’. But when the Israeli cabinet offered (on 19 June 1967) to return Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, the Arab League, meeting in Khartoum, Sudan later that year, responded with its infamous ‘Three Noes’: ‘no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.’

As recently as 2001 Israel offered to return more than 95% of the West Bank for a Palestinian state, to dismantle all 163 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and to make Jerusalem the joint-capital of a Palestinian state as well as Israel. Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat’s answer to this magnanimous offer was to renew the armed intifada — the bloody terror campaign against ordinary Israeli citizens. As the psalmist lamented long ago (Psalm 120:6-7):

‘Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace;
But when I speak, they are for war.’

Its prophetic connotations

From a biblical point of view the most important aspect of the Six Day War is its prophetic significance. In his famous prophecy about the signs of the end of the age, Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Jerusalem of his day, and the scattering of the Jewish people among the nations. This happened in AD 70-73, when the Roman legions under Titus suppressed the Jewish Revolt, destroyed the Temple, killed 600,000 Jews in Judea, and took 90,000 Jews captive to Rome as slaves — as commemorated on the Arch of Titus in Rome. Believers remembered Jesus’ prophecy and fled across the Jordan to Pella — escaping with their lives.

In this prophecy Jesus not only foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the resultant diaspora (scattering) of the Jews. He indicated that their diaspora would be for a defined period, which he called ‘the times of the Gentiles’. ‘They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’ (Luke 21:24).

Jerusalem’s remarkable capture in the Six Day War marks the fulfilment of this prophecy. Israeli soldiers wept as they touched the great stones of the Western Wall — the foundation of the temple in Jesus’ day. Rabbi Shlomo Goren — chaplain to the Israel Defence Forces — blew the shofar and said, ‘Today we hear the footsteps of the coming of Messiah.’

The coming of the old city of Jerusalem into Jewish control for the first time in nearly 2,000 years signifies that the times of the Gentiles are coming to an end, and that the venue is being prepared for the return of Jesus.

When Jesus ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives, the angels said that he ‘will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’ (Acts 1:11). This echoes the words of the prophet Zechariah, that ‘his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem’ (Zechariah 12:4).

Jesus will return to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is in east Jerusalem — part of the territory captured by the Jews in the Six Day War. In our time God is preparing the place where Jesus will return to, to reign in justice and peace over all the earth.

A century ago Jerusalem was a squalid village that nobody cared about. Now that the Jews have it back, everyone seems to want a piece of it, and the United Nations seeks to internationalise it. Why is there such hostility to the Jewish presence in Jerusalem? Psalm 2 explains:

‘Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers gather together
Against the LORD
And against his Anointed One [his mashiach or Messiah].
‘The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
The Lord scoffs at them.
Then he rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
“I have installed my King
on Zion, my holy hill.” ’

Zion, Jerusalem, is where the Messiah will return to. We live in momentous days. Jesus chided his contemporaries for not reading the signs of the times. Like them, we could miss the time of God’s visitation. ‘Keep watch,’ Jesus warned, ‘because you do not know on what day the Lord will come.’ (Matthew 24:42).



Mother of Four Terrorists Chosen to Help Launch PA Bid for Statehood

The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of four terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to kill twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

The official PA daily reported that she launched the UN campaign last week, and noted that she is the “mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Hmeid.” However, the paper did not mention that four of her imprisoned sons are murderers.

Palestinian Media Watch reported last year that Abu Hmeid then had four sons in Israeli prisons who were each serving between two and seven life sentences, a total of 18 life sentences. At that time she was in the news because the PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, decided to honor her with an award, “the Plaque of Resoluteness and Giving … inscribed with the names of her four sons who are imprisoned.”

The PA minister explained then why the mother of four murderers of Israelis deserves such honor:
“It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves that we bow to her in salute and in honor.”
 
The four sons are serving a total of 18 life sentences for the following crimes:

Nasser Abu Hmeid — 7 life sentences + 50 years — commander in Fatah’s military wing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Ramallah. Convicted of killing seven Israeli civilians and 12 attempted murders.

Nasr Abu Hmeid — 5 life sentences - Member of terror faction of Fatah, Tanzim, and convicted of involvement in two terror attacks and arms dealing.

Sharif Abu Hmeid — 4 life sentences — a member in one of the brothers’ units carrying out terror attacks against civilians and soldiers. Accompanied a suicide bomber to his attack in March 2002.

Muhammad Abu Hmeid — 2 life sentences + 30 years — involvement in terror attacks.

A fifth son, Abd Al-Mun’im Muhammad Yusuf Naji Abu Hmeid, the one referred to as “Martyr,” was a member of the military wing of Hamas, Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, and planned and carried out the ambush and murder of an Israeli intelligence officer.

Palestinian Media Watch has not been able to determine for which crimes the rest of the sons are imprisoned.

The following are the reports about the mother of the terrorists launching the PA statehood campaign:

PA TV News interviews Abd Al-Mun’im Wahdan, a member of the “Palestine - the 194th state” national campaign:

Wahdan: “We of the ‘Palestine — the 194th state’ national campaign [calling for] a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the territory of Palestine, send a delegation from institutions, organizations, and popular factions. This delegation was headed by Um Nasser Abu Hmeid - this fighter woman, who is the mother of seven prisoners and the mother of the heroic Shahid (Martyr) from the [military wing of Hamas] Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. This campaign included a letter in which the people demand that the UN recognize Palestine as a state with full sovereignty, like the other countries.” [PA TV (Fatah), Sept. 8, 2011]
 
“The ‘Palestine — the 194th State’ campaign has embarked on its national activities in support of realization [of the appeal to the UN] in September and obtaining UN membership for the State of Palestine, by conveying a letter to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, via his representative in Ramallah. The campaign started out opposite the UN building in Ramallah, with the participation of a number of heads of factions and national forces, representatives of official and popular institutions, independent personalities, and members of trade unions. Hajja Latifa Abu Hmeid, mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Hmeid, handed the letter to the representative of the UN Secretary General in Ramallah.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 9, 2011]

“[In a procession which set off] yesterday from opposite the Cultural Auditorium in Ramallah in the direction of the UN representative office in Ramallah, the ‘Palestine — the 194th State’ national campaign was inaugurated … when Latifa Abu Hmeid, known as the ‘mother of the prisoners’, handed over a letter addressed to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, via his representative in Ramallah… She was chosen [for this] because she is a symbol of Palestinian suffering as a result of the occupation’s (i.e., Israel’s) policy… She is the mother of prisoners Muhammad Abu Hmeid and his brothers Nasr, Nasser, Sharif, Basel, Islam and Jihad. She is prevented from seeing her sons who are sitting in the occupation’s prisons.” [Al-Ayyam, Sept. 9, 2011]



The Plan is the Thing

The plan is the thing. It is the plan that must be considered in our attempt to draw faith from our present circumstances in the world. We need faith. We need to know that God is in control and that there will be a life with him when we die. The plan helps us to know this. The plan reveals itself to be divine.

Isn’t it interesting that the two major religions of the world (excluding Islam) have a Jewish foundation? Isn’t it interesting that at this time tiny Israel finds herself between a rock and a hard place over the “disputed” land of Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank? And it looks as if the whole world, with the exception of the United States and several other nations, will soon vote to put the big squeeze on Israel, that is, grant the Palestinians statehood or an improved member status at the UN without any further negotiations with Israel. The whole world against Israel, when she has done nothing wrong. Who does that sound like? Who else with connections to Israel has died for wrongs he did not commit? The plan is the thing. And it is even more varied and amazing than just what is on face value. There is the matter of the sons of Esau, the sons of Edom, i.e. the Palestinians, being found in scripture near messianic passages in Obadiah. The sons of Esau, also the Edomites, will not prevail, according to the scriptures, but will be utterly destroyed. Perhaps as they come against Israel, as they will believe they have the right to do with all of the many settlements on “their property.”

The plan shows us how God intends to work to save Israel. The plan gives us a reason for our faith.

Israel Minister: PA Statehood Bid Meant to Perpetuate Conflict

from Haaretz.com

The Palestinians want to achieve independence in order to perpetuate their conflict with Israel, not to end it, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Thursday, adding that the Palestinian Authority repeatedly refused peace negations in the past.

Sa’ar’s comments come amid an effort spearheaded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to downplay an upcoming Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations next week.

Netanyahu said earlier Thursday that his speech at the UN would stress that negotiations are the only road to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, adding in talks with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that Israel would agree to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s status at the United Nations as long as it is not declared a state.

Speaking in a Rosh Hashanah event, Sa’ar severely criticized the Palestinians’ UN bid, calling the Palestinian Authority “serial peace refusers. From 1947 they always knew to say ‘no’ to negotiations.”

“They don’t want to end the conflict by founding a state. They want a Palestinian state that would serve as a basis for the continued conflict between us and them,” the education minister added.

Speaking of what he saw as proof of the Palestinians’ unwillingness to achieve peace, Sa’ar referred to peace talks between former prime minister and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former PA President Yasser Arafat, saying that the PA even refused a state within 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The education minister also spoke of Netanyahu’s upcoming speech at the UN, saying that Israel was “in the midst of an ongoing diplomatic battle, and there’s no one better to present our stance in the international arena than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu is scheduled to speak next Friday at 2 A.M. Israel time, a few hours after PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

U.S. President Barack Obama is to be in New York at the same time Netanyahu is there, but no meeting has been scheduled between the two.

Netanyahu continued his talks with U.S. envoys Dennis Ross and David Hale on Thursday, as well as Ashton and Quartet envoy Tony Blair, in an attempt to reach a compromise that would prevent an Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the UN. But no breakthrough was made, and the PA’s appeal to the United Nations next week is regarded as inevitable.

Netanyahu told his interlocutors that granting the PA the status of a state would allow the Palestinians to go to the International Criminal Court in The Hague over issues like settlement construction. “But as long as it is less than a state, I’m ready to talk about it,” a source familiar with the conversation quoted him as saying.



Egyptians Planning "Million Man" Anti-Israel Protests

from Arutz Sheva 7

Egyptian daily al-Youm al-Saba’a reported Wednesday that Egyptian protest organizers are calling for “a million-man protest” outside Israel’s embassy in Cairo on Friday.

The protesters, using Facebook and other social media venues, say the focus of the demonstration will be the demand to have the Israeli ambassador expelled from Egypt and Israel’s embassy in the capital closed. Recalling an ambassador is considered a step towards the cessation of peaceful relations between countries in diplomatic circles.

Meanwhile, protesters continue to demonstrate outside the embassy for the fifth day in a row, calling out, “Expell the ambassador immediately.”  Others gathered outside the ambassador’s Cairo residence and called fellow citizens to join them in order to “force the ambassador to leave Egypt.”

Anti-Israel protests erupted in Cairo last weekend following reports that at least three Egyptian security officers were inadvertantly killed during a firefight between IDF forces and the terrorists who perpetrated the deadly terror attack near Eilat that left eight Israeli civilians dead last Thursday.

The protesters burnt Israeli flags and threw fire crackers at the embassy building in hopes of igniting the Israeli flag at the embassy. An Egyptian youth later climbed the building and took the Israeli flag down.

The border-fire incident has stirred a diplomatic crisis between Jerusalem and Cairo. Egypt’s cabinet said Sunday an Israeli statement expressing regret for the border deaths was not enough, but it stopped short of recalling its Tel Aviv envoy. Israel has determined at least three of the terrorists involved in last Thursday’s attacks originated in the Sinai, contrary to previous Egyptian claims Sinai terrorists were not involved in the incident.

The protesters are demanding that the peace treaty with Israel be altered, especially with regards to military presence in Sinai, or completely abolished. The re-militarization of Sinai by Egypt would be a death knell for the 1979 Camp David Accords, which could potentially result in open armed conflict between the two nations.

Egypt’s caretaker junta on Wednesday said it planned to develop the Sinai near the Israeli border, while IDFchief of staff Benny Gantz has said he plans to bolster Israel’s military strength along the boundary due to last week’s attacks.



China Joins Russia In Blasting U.S. Borrowing

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Has the U.S. taken democracy and prosperity and run it finally into the ground? Is there something to be made of this … prophetically? Has the United States Congress, with its madcap approach to raising the nation’s debt limit, permanently damaged the credibility of the United States? And will America’s enemies take advantage of that? America and Israel may turn out to be the most hated nations on earth.  I’ve often wondered if there is any truth to the interpretation of some, who make out the U.S. to be the Great Babylon of the book of Revelation. You’ll recall that the fate of the Great Babyon is not good and it falls. Will God first let the United States destroy itself before he sends the Messiah … to set up an eternal superpower government? Does any of this prophetic stuff seem too farfetched ever to happen? I struggle with this all the time … though I have been visited by the Cloud and know better than to discount God’s physical involvement in my world and everyone else’s world. But will our times truly become as the days of Noah, ancient bibilical times, when miracles happened? — rcg)

From Bloomberg.com

China, the largest foreign investor in U.S. government securities, joined Russia in criticizing American policy makers for failing to ensure borrowing is reined in after a stopgap deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.

People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said China’s central bank will monitor U.S. efforts to tackle its debt, and state-run Xinhua News Agency blasted what it called the “madcap” brinksmanship of American lawmakers. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said two days ago that the U.S. is in a way “leeching on the world economy.”

The comments reflect concern that the U.S. may lose its AAA sovereign rating after President Barack Obama and Congress put off decisions on spending cuts and tax increases to assure enactment of a boost in borrowing authority. China and Russia, holding a total $1.28 trillion of Treasuries, have lost nothing so far in the wake of a rally in the securities this year.

“It’s probably frustration more than anything else for China,” said Brian Jackson, a senior strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. While the nation has concerns, “they realize there’s not a lot of options for them out there and so they need to keep buying Treasuries.”

China held $1.16 trillion of Treasuries as of May, U.S. Treasury Department data show. The nation has accumulated the holdings as a by-product of holding down the value of its currency, a policy U.S. officials have said gives China an unfair advantage in trade.

Treasuries Gain

Expressions of concern about the fiscal health of the U.S. and the impasse among lawmakers have failed to dent global demand for the securities, with yields on 10-year notes declining to the lowest levels since November. Two-year yields fell to a record low in Tokyo trading today.

Investors in Treasuries earned 3.12 percent in the three months ending July 31, based on Bank of America Merrill Lynch data. That means a $10 million holding earned $312,000 in the period.

China’s central bank welcomes this week’s legislation that raised the U.S. debt limit, preventing a default, and will “closely observe” the implementation, Zhou said in a statement on the central bank’s website today. Xinhua said the move “failed to defuse Washington’s debt bomb for good,” in a commentary dated yesterday.

Standard & Poor’s indicated last week that anything less than $4 trillion in deficit cuts would jeopardize its AAA rating for the U.S. The measure enacted by Obama yesterday threatens automatic spending cuts to enforce $2.4 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years.

‘First Step’

Obama said yesterday the debt measure was a “first step” on a path that must also include increasing revenue. The $14.3 trillion debt ceiling will be raised by at least $2.1 trillion.

“They are living beyond their means and transferring part of the problems onto the world economy,” Putin told a youth camp at Lake Seliger outside Moscow Aug. 1. “In a way, they are leeching on the world economy.”

Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings say their AAA credit ratings for the U.S. may be downgraded if lawmakers fail to enact deficit-reduction measures and the economy weakens. China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. today cut its grade for the U.S. to A from A+ with a negative outlook.

“China hopes the U.S. administration and the Congress would take responsible policy measures to handle its debt issue,” Zhou said. He highlighted the global role of U.S. Treasuries, saying that any “large fluctuations and uncertainties” in the market for the securities would undermine financial stability and hinder the world economic recovery.

‘Madcap Farce’

The Xinhua commentary said that the higher debt ceiling and plans to reduce spending were not enough to make any sizable dent in the nation’s fiscal burden. It referred to a “madcap farce of brinksmanship” before the agreement was reached.

A previous Xinhua commentary on clashes between Republicans and Democrats said that “the ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight,” referring to the symbols often used for the Democratic and Republican parties.

Obama signed the debt-limit compromise yesterday. The measure raises the ceiling until 2013.

In his statement, Zhou also commented on China’s foreign- exchange reserves, which are the world’s largest at more than $3 trillion.

The Asian nation will continue to “seek diversification in the management of reserve assets, strengthen risk management, and minimize the negative impacts of the fluctuations in the international financial market on the Chinese economy,” Zhou said. China will also take “effective measures to maintain relatively rapid growth to safeguard economic and financial stability,” he added.

—Zheng Lifei. With assistance from Anton Doroshev and Jack Jordan in Moscow and Wes Goodman in Singapore. Editors: Chris Anstey, Ken McCallum

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7560 or lzheng32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net



Dear Subscribers ...

I have often wondered about the identity of the people who subscribe to TANATA’s feed. I would love to know who each of you are and what you care about. You can write to me at rcartergray@yahoo.com. Please write, even if you are not a subscriber. I could use some suggestions on TANATA’s content.

Palestinians Plan Mass Demonstrations in September

(EDITOR’S NOTE: I recently heard a radio interview featuring a journalist who was on the phone in his home in Jerusalem. The man looked out his window and reported seeing a group of Arab youths, in a mostly Jewish neighborhood, dancing and singing. “They’re getting ready for something,” the man said. “They’re dancing and celebrating.” The man, sympathetic to Israel and the Jews, guessed that these Arab youths were looking ahead to better days for the Palestinians and new difficulties for Israel. On September 20 the Palestinians intend to declare statehood at the UN based on pre-1967 borders, which would include all of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and east Jerusalem. Were these youths celebrating the prospects for an improved UN status for the Palestinians … or the prospects for war?

How can the Palestinians ever expect to take control of the West Bank (with 250,000 Jewish settlers) and east Jerusalem without a war? Considering all of the support the Palestinians enjoy in the General Assembly, there will presumably be at least some international support eventually to send “peacekeeping” forces to oversee the Israelis ouster from the West Bank. Either that, or the Palestinians will be content to coexist with Jews living inside the borders of a newly declared Palestine. Does anyone really believe that Palestine, if it ever comes to pass, will simply ignore the Jewish settlements in the West Bank?

The following article from the Associated Press tells of plans for mass demonstrations on the eve of the September 21 vote at the UN, protests which could spark incidents of violence, protests which may make the Arab spring protests in streets throughout the Middle East look like child’s play.)

By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH/Associated Press 

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian officials said Monday they plan to begin mass marches against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank on Sept. 20, the eve of a largely symbolic U.N. vote expected to recognize their independence.

Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said leaders hope to attract millions, and the protest will be the first of a prolonged effort. He said the campaign would be called “Palestine 194,” since the Palestinians hope to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

“The appeal to the U.N. is a battle for all Palestinians, and in order to succeed, it needs millions to pour into streets,” he said.

With peace talks stalled, the Palestinians have decided to ask the U.N. to endorse their independence. They plan to ask the powerful Security Council, whose decisions are legally binding, for approval as a full member of the world body.

The U.S. opposes the Palestinian initiative and has signaled it will use its veto power in the council to defeat the measure.

That would force the Palestinians to turn to the much larger General Assembly, where they enjoy widespread support. While a vote there would be symbolic, the Palestinians believe any international endorsement will isolate Israel and improve their position if negotiations resume.

Israeli-Palestinian talks have been stalled for nearly three years, and the Palestinians refuse to resume negotiations unless Israel halts settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the U.N. move and says all issues, including settlements and the borders of a future Palestinian state, must be solved through negotiations. U.S. mediators have been unable to find a formula to restart talks.

While Abed Rabbo said all Palestinian demonstrations would be nonviolent, Israeli security officials have repeatedly expressed concern that mass unrest could quickly turn violent.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, warned a parliamentary committee this week that “there is potential for a confrontation in September.” He said the military expects “many thousands of people to conduct a quiet and nonviolent protest” that would move toward Israeli settlements or Israel proper. “The military will not be able to place the settlements at risk in such cases,” he was quoted as saying.

Gantz’s comments were relayed by a participant in Sunday’s meeting. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the testimony was in a closed session.

Israeli leaders have appealed to the Palestinians to drop their U.N. initiative. Abed Rabbo said Monday that Netanyahu scuttled a secret meeting last week meant to head off the looming diplomatic showdown. He said Israeli President Shimon Peres called his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, and asked to meet, promising to bring some creative ideas for defusing the crisis.

Abed Rabbo said Abbas traveled to neighboring Jordan for the secret meeting last Thursday, but at the last minute, Peres called to cancel, saying that Netanyahu opposed his ideas.

Both Peres’ and Netanyahu’s offices declined comment.

Will a Declared Palestinian State Mean War?

We’ve been told by some observers that Russia and radical Islamists will one day (perhaps soon) invade Israel and head for Jerusalem. However, before Russia and its Islamic allies get to their destination, we’ve been told, God will supernaturally defeat these invading armies. Some people believe this based on the prophecy found in Ezekiel 38 and 39, which tells us about the war of Gog and Magog. 

What would prompt Russia to join forces with radical Islamists and invade Israel? Russia, as it is now, presumably, would never think of doing such a thing. Something big has got to happen before Russia is going to be prompted to invade Israel and head for Jerusalem, if this prophecy is ever to come to pass.

The Palestinians expect the U.S. to veto any efforts this September by the Palestinians to declare unilaterally a Palestinian state. But the PA will not go away from the UN empty handed. The most the PA can hope for is elevating its status to “non-member state,” which would allow the PA to have access to UN agencies. And then we can imagine that it will only be a matter of time before the PA has used this new status to good advantage. It will only be a matter of time before the world really begins to put pressure on the United States and Israel. It will only be a matter of time before there are calls within the UN for Israel to fully move its people out of Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank. (It bears pointing out that a place named Palestine has never existed, though Judea and Samaria, which is disputed land never formally claimed by Jordan, have been identified, along with East Jerusalem, as the land which the Palestinians intend to use for their state.)

Will Russia and radical Islamists, and perhaps Israel’s Arab neighbors, invade Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem for the purpose of ridding these lands of the Jews? Is that what the war of Gog and Magog will be about?

Without a peace negotiation, the Palestinians are going to be in a position to identify what lands are theirs, even though they have never owned them as an entity. And much of the world is giong to go along with this. Without any negotiations, however, Israel will not be able to weigh in and participate in the process. That probably means conflict in some form. But an invasion … to remove the Jewish settlers by force?

This is an ancient problem. Israel has been fighting to maintain the land God gave to her since the time it was given. And now it has come to this. But we’re left to wonder if the dispute over this land will trigger the war of Gog and Magog, a war involving God before the final battle between God and his enemies, otherwise known as Armageddon.

Acquitted murderer Casey Anthony in a letter written to a fellow inmate in an Orlando jail indicated that she believed these were “the end of days.” Someone might be willing to come to that conclusion in recognition of the fact that in our times mothers apparently entirely abandon or kill their tiny children to go party with friends. Anthony is not alone in her surprising assessment of the times. Everybody is calling these days the end of days — but they do so without regard for Israel and what she represents, what she has been promised, what she is presently facing, which may be war. The days will only end when Israel and the Jews are facing the whole world, and that may be about to happen.

Is statehood for the Palestinians the matter that will signal the unmistakable end of days?

Truth About the West Bank

A video Palestinians don’t want you to see.

Churches Against Israel

Reprinted from Ynetnews.com.

A few days ago UK researchers announced that 17 skeletons belonged to Jews were found at the bottom of a medieval well in Norwich, England. The Jews were murdered in a pogrom or had been forced to commit suicide rather than submit to demands for conversion to Christianity.

The bodies date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries, at a time when Jewish people faced killings, banishment and persecution throughout all Europe. Those 17 Jews were killed because of “replacement theology,” the most ancient Christian calumny arguing that because of their denial of the divinity of Christ, the Jews have forfeited God’s promises to them which have been transferred to the Church.

Some 10 centuries later, global Christian forums are reviving this theological demonology against the heirs of those 17 Jews: the Jews of the State of Israel. The World Council of Churches, an ecumenical Christian body based in Genève and boasting 590 million worshipers, just ended a four-day conference in the Greek city of Volos. Not a single word of criticism was uttered there against the Islamists who are persecuting Arabs who believe Jesus.

Lutherans arrived to Volos from the United States, Catholics and Protestants from Bethlehem and Nazareth, Orthodox Christians from Greece and Russia, lecturers from Beirut and Copts from Egypt. The conference declared the Jewish State “a sin” and “occupying power,” accused Israelis of “dehumanizing” the Palestinians, theologically dismantled the “choseness” of the Jewish people and called for “resistance” as a Christian duty.

The conference denied 3,000 years of Jewish life in the land stretching between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, took sides against the very presence of Israel, likened the defensive barrier that has blocked terrorism to “apartheid,” attacked Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria invoking the name of God and conceptually dismissed the Jewish state, imagining it to be a mixture – Islamic, Christian and perhaps a bit Jewish. It even legitimized terrorism when it talked about the “thousands of prisoners who languish in Israeli jails,” proclaiming that “resistance to the evil of occupation is a Christian’s right and duty.”

In the last few months we have seen a radical and dangerous increase of attacks on Israel by the Protestant and Catholic churches. While the US is home to many Christian supporters of Israel, the groups more closely linked to global public opinion, European bureaucracy, the media industry, the United Nations and various legal forums are all violently anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. They are paving the way for a new Jewish bloodbath by the theological exclusion of Israel’s Jews from the family of nations.

The patriarch of the Antioch Church, the Catholic Melkite Gregory III Laham, proclaimed that there is a “Zionist conspiracy against Islam,” reviving old conspiracy theories that led to infamous pogroms. In Antwerp, once called “the Belgian Jerusalem,” a highly respected and government-funded Catholic school, the College of the Sacred Heart, just hosted a “Palestine Day” replete with anti-Semitic references and activities for youngsters. One stall at the event was titled “Throw the soldiers into the sea,” allowing children to throw replicas of Jewish and Israeli soldiers into two large tanks.

The most influential international Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi, just promoted a boycott of Israel’s goods “in the name of love.” The most hated Israeli product includes Ahava, the famous Israeli cosmetics company, whose shop in Covent Garden, London, has just been closed by the company after years of demonstrations. Strangely, Ahava body lotion tubes have been chosen as a satanic symbol of Jewish colonialism.

Today, most of the divestment campaign against Israel is driven by Christian groups such as the Dutch Interchurch Organization and the Irish Catholic group Troicaré, both funded by the EU. The United Church of Canada, a very popular and mainstream Christian denomination, just voted to boycott six companies (Caterpillar, Motorola, Ahava, Veolia, Elbit Systems and Chapters/Indigo) and South African bishop Desmond Tutu convinced the University of Johannesburg to severe all its links with Israeli fellows.

Last year the Methodist Church of Britain voted to boycott Israeli-produced goods and services from Judea and Samaria. The catholic Pax Christi is also leading the campaign glorifying Mordechai Vanunu, Israel’s nuclear whistleblower who had converted to Christianity. La Civiltà Cattolica, the Vatican magazine reviewed by the Holy See secretary of state before publication, in January opened with a shocking editorial on Palestinian refugees. Adopting the Islamist propagandist word “Nakba,” just recently invoked by Arab mobs to breach Israel’s borders, the paper declared that the refugees are a consequence of “ethnic cleansing” by Israel and that “the Zionists were cleverly able to exploit the Western sense of guilt for the Shoah to lay the foundations of their own state.” Indeed, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is alarmingly similar.

Israel’s relationship with the Vatican is different from Jerusalem’s relationship with Albania or Luxembourg for example, because the Catholic Church has more than one billion adherents and a global moral authority. At the Rome synod, Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, a cleric chosen by Pope Ratzinger to draft the synod’s 44 final propositions, denied the Jewish people’s biblical right to the Promised Land. “We Christians cannot speak about the Promised Land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people”, Bustros said, reviving the “replacement theology.”

Edmond Farhat, a Maronite Apostolic Nuncio, who is a sort of Vatican’s ambassador, described Israel’s place in the Middle East in terms of a rejected “foreign implant” that which has no specialists “capable of healing it.” Elsewhere, the current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, named by Pope Ratzinger to represent the Catholic community in Israel and the West Bank, is sponsoring an appeal against the “Judaization of Jerusalem.” Indeed, at this time, new anti-Israel policies by the most powerful Christian groups are breathing new life into Medieval doctrine that demonized Jews for hundreds of years.

The latest excavations in England suggest the Jews were thrown down the well together, head first, the kids after the parents. Five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family. Some 10 centuries later, five Jews from the same Israeli family, the Fogels of Itamar, were slaughtered in their own beds. A famous Italian priest, Mario Cornioli, wrote immediately after the massacre in a subliminal justification of the killings: “What is Itamar? An illegal Israeli colony built on stolen land.”The replacement calumny has changed its language, yet it still marks a death sentence for the Jewish people: Israelis, like Lucifer, were God’s chosen but were cast out for their rebellious and evil ways, and now deserve to be obliterated from the so-called “Holy Land,” the argument goes. From Norwich to Itamar, the Jewish martyrs are an everlasting and heroic stain in this horrible, theological blood libel.

Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book, A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism.



Audio Worth Hearing

TANATA recommends these two MP3 interviews conducted by Jimmy Deyoung. The first audio clip features David Dolan, a journalist based in Jerusalem for the past 25 years. With numerous Arab states in turmoil and with Iran’s nuclear program going underground, Dolan says this could be the year that Israel strikes Iran to prevent that country from having nuclear missiles capable of striking Israel. Meanwhile a new survey of Palestinians reveals that 66 percent of Palestinians do not want peace with Israel or a two-state solution.

The second interview focuses on “replacement theology,” which is a protestant and Catholic movement to discredit Israel’s special covenant with God and to deny Israel’s right to live on the land it now occupies.

You won’t be sorry you took the time to listen to these brief informative audio segments. — rcg

http://media.prophecytoday.com/interviews/dolan-7-16-11.mp3

http://media.prophecytoday.com/interviews/showers-7-16-11.mp3

U.N. Professor Calls For Elite "Green" Warriors To Rule Eco-Dictatorship

Prominent United Nations scientist says new green religion should replace traditional faiths as part of shift towards authoritarian tyranny

 
from Prisonplanet.com via Grant Jeffrey (see link below)

An influential professor who worked as an assessor for the United Nations IPCC has called for democracy to be replaced with an eco-dictatorship where enslaved masses are ruled over by an “elite warrior leadership” and forced to adhere to a new green religion, in yet another shocking example of how prominent global warming alarmists are revealing themselves as dangerous eco-fascists.

Professor David Shearman, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Adelaide, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and Law School. Shearman was an Assessor for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report and the Fourth Assessment Report. In his writings, Shearman, who labels humanity a “malignant eco-tumour” and an “ecological cancer,” says that “authoritarianism is the natural state of humanity” and that in order to save the planet from man-made climate change, an “elite warrior leadership” needs to be formed that will “battle for the future of the earth”.

Part of this battle involves replacing traditional religions like Christianity and Islam with a new green religion that would fit better with an authoritarian government.

“It is not impossible that from the green movement and aspects of the new age movement a religious alternative to Christianity and Islam will emerge,” writes Spearman. “And it is not too difficult to imagine what shape this new religion could take.

“One would require a transcendent God who could punish and reward – because humans seem to need a carrot and a stick.”
 
Spearman’s “transcendent God” is the God of the state, punishing the enslaved citizen for every eco-infraction under this new green totalitarianism. He openly advocates the contrived manufacturing of a new God and a new religion so that the masses of enslaved citizens under his envisaged eco-autocracy would be to coerced to comply as part of some hideous global brainwashing program. This obviously has its roots in ancient pagan beliefs of barbaric sacrifices being necessary to appease mother earth, which at one stage in history involved mothers killing their own babies for the greater good.

Even more chillingly, Shearman advocates the set up of specialized re-education centers where eco-zombies are trained to become part of a green army of enforcers.

“Chapter 9 will describe in more detail how we might begin the process of constructing such real universities to train the ecowarriors to do battle against the enemies of life. We must accomplish this education with the same dedication used to train its warriors. As in Sparta, these natural elites will be especially trained from childhood to meet the challenging problems of our times,” writes Spearman.

Spearman outlines his vision of a dictatorial global government comprised of the elite ruling over the planet on page 134 of his book, The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy.

“Government in the future will be based upon … a supreme office of the biosphere. The office will comprise specially trained philosopher/ecologists. These guardians will either rule themselves or advise an authoritarian government of policies based on their ecological training and philosophical sensitivities. These guardians will be specially trained for the task.”
 
“Posted on a blog somewhere, such a plan would probably elicit a visit from the anti-terrorist division of the police,” writes Haunting The Library blog. “But the fact that it comes from a professor at a major university, who works for the IPCC and was written at the behest of a serious academic institute, founded by Act of Congress, means that the author need not be afraid. But we should be.”

“I could go on quoting from the book, but I’m sure you’ve already got the gist of what’s being proposed here: Global warming presents such a massive and immediate danger that democracy no longer cuts it, and an authoritarian ecological government of ‘natural elites’ will have to be found to replace it, as well as a new green religion to help provide ‘social glue for the masses’.”

As we have documented, Shearman is not alone in his brazen call for freedom to be abolished and replaced by an authoritarian green tyranny. Indeed, this is a common cause embraced by a multitude of influential climate change activists and scientists.

Finnish environmentalist guru and global warming alarmist Pentti Linkola has publicly called for climate change deniers to be “re-educated” in eco-gulags and that the vast majority of humans be killed with the rest enslaved and controlled by a green police state, with people forcibly sterilized, cars confiscated and travel restricted to members of the elite.

Linkola wants the last 100 years of human progress to be “destroyed”.

James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, told the Guardian last year that “democracy must be put on hold” to combat global warming and that “a few people with authority” should be allowed to run the planet.

This sentiment was echoed by author and environmentalist Keith Farnish, who in a recent book called for acts of sabotage and environmental terrorism in blowing up dams and demolishing cities in order to return the planet to the agrarian age. Prominent NASA global warming alarmist and Al Gore ally Dr. James Hansen endorsed Farnish’s book.

The current White House science czar John P. Holdren also advocates the most obscenely dictatorial, eco-fascist, and inhumane practices in the name of environmentalism. In his 1977 Ecoscience textbook, Holdren calls for a “planetary regime” to carry out forced abortions and mandatory sterilization procedures, as well as drugging the water supply, in an effort to cull the human surplus. Another prominent figure in the climate change debate who exemplifies the violent and death-obsessed belief system of the movement is Dr. Eric R. Pianka, an American biologist based at the University of Texas in Austin. During a speech to the Texas Academy of Science in March 2006, Pianka advocated the need to exterminate 90 percent of the world’s population through the airborne ebola virus.

If you want to get a taste of what it would be like to live under Shearman’s eco-dictatorship, you can take a look (http://www.prisonplanet.com/ipcc-professor-calls-for-elite-warrior-leadership-to-rule-over-eco-dictatorship.html) at the following video which, as we explored at length yesterday, promotes the imposition of literal hi-tech prison cities where populations have their food and travel rationed by an all-powerful state that regulates every aspect their existence and incarcerates refusniks inside squalid ghettos. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: We just found this story on Grant Jeffrey’s excellent website (if you like people who go way out on a limb) and couldn’t wait to post it. Whether we want to admit it or not there are some pretty crazy and faithless elite movers and shakers in the world, and it may only take a handful of really crazy powerful people one day to say to the world, “Implement these kinds of changes or else.” Like everything else, we’ll wait and see … and also see what else Jeffrey has up his sleeve. In the meantime, this stuff is at least good grist for the mill and a new screenplay. — rcg

Will Russia Invade Israel?

EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no shortage of people online and in books calling the days in which we live “the last days.” But are these the last days? Do we stand on the precipice which overlooks all of human history when the final prophetic events described in the Bible will take place? Is the so-called “Arab spring” (now summer) a harbinger of events which could lead to the fulfillment of a very significant prophecy, i.e. the ruinously unsuccessful war against Israel by Gog of Magog, which is described in Ezekiel 38 and 39?

It has always been my personal hope that I would live to see the end, which will culminate with the appearance of Messiah, who will do battle with the enemies of God. That prospect emerged for me first in June of 1967 when Israel in the Six-day War retook Jerusalem, which for some was the most significant prophetic event to occur since the birth of Israel as a nation in 1948. Israel needed once again to possess all of Jerusalem for the stage to be set for the battles which are foretold in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation, namely the wars of Gog of Magog and Armageddon, which are distinct and which will occur separately we’re told, with the war of Gog of Magog occurring first.

In his book The Next World War Bible researcher Grant Jeffrey asserts that the Gog, Magog war will be brought against Israel by Russia and radical Islamic states existing in a confederation. When Jeffrey wrote his book and published it in 2004, the Arab spring of course had not yet occurred. I have wondered recently what Jeffrey has to say about the Arab spring and if it is indeed the precursor which will bring about a confederation of Islamic states bent on destroying Israel. Of course the states involved in the Arab spring, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria, are not Islamic theocracies — or at least they haven’t been up to the present. But that could change. If Egypt is the bellwether in all of this revolutionary turmoil, the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt could change that. At present the Muslim Brotherhood is aiding the Egyptian military in putting down any additional protests, which are recurring as pro-democracy forces once again take to the streets to demand the democratic reforms they have been fighting for. Will Egypt become an Islamic state? Will any of the Arab states involved in the Arab spring make that transition? Will Grant Jeffrey and a lot of other people looking ahead to the war of Gog of Magog be proved right?

I recently read the following piece by Jeffrey, which appears on his website. I am running it here without his permission, which I can’t imagine would be a problem for him, as any additional publicity can only be good for him and his ministry. He makes a good case for Russia being the northern force which will lead the Gog, Magog war against Israel. Most interesting for me are the final three paragraphs of this article, which reference a passage in the book of Haggai (2:18), which appears to set a date for the deliverance of Israel from the threat of war and the beginning of God’s blessed restoration of that nation. The date which the prophet Haggai gives is “the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month,” which is the Hebrew month of Chislev. In other words, Haggai is saying that the wars will end and Israel’s blessing will commence on the eve of Hanukkah, as this festival is traditionally observed. How cool is that? Of course when Haggai was writing, Hanukkah was centuries from becoming instituted with the end of Antiochus Epiphanes’ rule and the miraculous eight-night lighting of the cleansed temple. How interesting it is that Haggai predicted Israel’s deliverance would come on the day before the Festival of Lights.

What makes this observation by Jeffrey significant is what Hanukkah represents literally and symbolically. Literally Hanukkah is a minor festival (for children) which significantly commemorates the cleansing and rededication of the temple following the Jewish revolt and the demise of the cruel persecutor of Jews Antiochus, whose reign of terror against the Jews lasted from 171 BC to 165/4 BC. (This reign of terror is incredibly foretold in the eighth chapter of Daniel, which I contend was written not at the approximate time of Antiochus, as some liberal scholars assert, but in the sixth century BC, making Daniel legitimately divine and prophetic. See right column for “Is Daniel Divine”) Interestingly, this passage (Daniel 8:8-14) looks ahead to the far distant future — perhaps our times — when another persecutor of the Jews will arise and do what Antiochus IV did for six and a half to seven years.

Here’s the part which fascinates me: when Antiochus’ forces were driven out of the temple there was a celebration among the Jews which gave rise to Hanukkah. Haggai is telling us that it will be on the eve of Hanukkah that the Lord delivers and begins to bless and restore Israel. That would appear to mean that Hanukkah will in some future day be messianic in nature, giving new meaning to the idea of a single ninth servant or shamash (messianic) candle lighting the other eight. Hanukkah, which is the least of all of the holy days observed by Jews, may become the most significant festival of all!

Here is Jeffrey’s very interesting and in-depth article on Russia and the Gog, Magog war as described in Ezekiel:

“And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: and I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” (Ezekiel 38:1­6)

God is in control of history. As the earlier chapters of this book demonstrate, some of God’s appointments with destiny for Israel and the nations have already occurred. Several additional appointments remain to be fulfilled in the future. Russia and her allies (the former republics of the USSR, Eastern Europe, and the Arabs) still await their appointment with destiny.

The Lord gave the prophet Ezekiel a prophetic warning directed to the nations of the “far north.” Ezekiel was raised near the Temple in Jerusalem and had studied to be a priest. He was among those Jewish captives from Jerusalem who were taken to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel. It was he who wrote “among the captives by the river of Chebar, … the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1). These prophecies written in Babylon from about 593 b.c. to 570 b.c. were directed to Ezekiel’s fellow captives and to those Jews still living in Jerusalem, as well as to the generations that would follow.

Ezekiel was given an astonishingly accurate prophetic vision about the rebirth of the nation of Israel that would occur in the spring of 1948, as detailed in chapter 3. He foretold that Israel would arise miraculously from the graveyard of the nations, where she was buried with the ruins of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 by the Roman army led by Titus. Incredibly, God promised that the Jews, after almost two thousand years of exile, would return to the Promised Land. The ancient prophets also foretold that the Jewish exiles would become “a mighty army” in her ancient homeland. In 1948, Israel triumphed against an invasion by six well-armed Arab armies. Israel’s military forces consisted of a small, voluntary citizen army composed of unskilled farmers and scholars who were equipped with inadequate weapons, a few jeeps, and two small airplanes. Israel’s armored force consisted of several vehicles captured from her enemies, including trucks with improvised steel plates.

Yet, like David’s miraculous victory over Goliath, God supernaturally intervened to allow a weak Israel to survive and prosper, defeating her Arab enemies against incredible odds.

Ezekiel’s amazing vision depicted the Jewish people as a “valley which was full of dry bones.” This certainly described the fate of Israel after it’s destruction by Rome in 70 a.d. and the centuries of persecution that followed. Israel was buried in the graveyard of the ancient nations. Anyone who has seen the sickening scenes of the huge pits full of emaciated, skeletal remains of victims from Nazi death camps can imagine that this might have formed part of the vision that the prophet saw twenty-five centuries ago. The Lord asked him, “‘Can these bones live?’ and I answered, ‘O Lord God, thou knowest”’ (Ezekiel 37:3). Yet God told Ezekiel to watch a miraculous resurrection of these “dry bones.” “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army” (Ezekiel 37:10). Today, Israel has the world’s third most powerful air force and possesses more tanks than any other nation except the United States and Russia. The Israeli Defense Forces have rewritten the military manuals of the world with their audacious and brilliant tactics. Today (according to many military analysts), the small nation of Israel has the fourth most powerful armed forces on earth after America, Russia, and China.

Geographically, Israel occupies an area of land smaller than the state of New Jersey - only one-half the size of tiny Switzerland. Yet, despite its insignificant size and a population of only five million, Israel has attained a position of prime importance in the global struggle between nations. For the last several years, almost half of all of the resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations have concerned Israel. Newspapers throughout the world carry front-page stories about Israel several times a week. This astonishing fact can be explained only by prophecy and the deep hatred for Israel expressed by Russia, the former republics of the USSR, Iran, the Arab nations, and many Third World nations.

The prophet Zechariah prophesied twenty-five hundred years ago, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:2­3). Ironically, the first nation to formally recognize the state of Israel was Russia. In 1948, Joseph Stalin hoped that Israel would become a socialist nation and help offset the growing influence that the Western powers exercised in the Middle East. However, as Stalin soon came to realize, Israel would not become a Russian pawn, so Russia quickly turned to the Arabs and encouraged their hatred toward the Jewish state.

More than twenty-five hundred years ago, Ezekiel prophesied about an invasion by Russia (called “Magog”) and her allies that would occur during the last days, “after many days.” He said that after Israel was reborn as a nation, Russia and her allies would attack her in a violent attempt to completely annihilate the Jewish state. Naturally, Ezekiel did not describe the present nations of Russia, Germany, Syria, and Iraq by their modern names. Rather, he referred to them by the names of the ancient tribes that occupied the geographical territories of the present nations at the time of his writing. The prophecies found in Ezekiel, chapter 38 and 39, describe this massive, future Russian-Arab invasion of Israel and the spectacular defeat of the enemies of the Jews by the supernatural act of God.

The Lord warned the leader of Russia in these words addressed to Gog, the ruler of Magog (Russia):

Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. (Ezekiel 38:7­9)

Many of the tribal names in Ezekiel 38 are recorded in the book of Genesis. Following the Flood, Noah’s sons and grandsons dispersed to various parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. Genesis 10 records the ancient genealogy of the nations, naming the tribes descended from Noah’s children, later referred to by Ezekiel.

Ancient historians, including Herodotus and Flavius Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, tell us where most of these tribes ultimately settled.

The Identification of “Gog and Magog” as Russia
The names “Gog and Magog” are famous in biblical prophetic literature and in Jewish rabbinical writings because of their future role in the great War of Gog and Magog predicted by the prophet Ezekiel (chap. 38 and 39). The book of Revelation (chap. 20) also records that an army of millions will once again join with the nations represented by “Gog and Magog” in a final attack, led by Satan, against the “beloved city” and the “camp of the saints” at the end of the Millennium. This final war will be the last battle in human history.

Biblical prophecies indicate that three enormous wars will convulse the planet during the apocalyptic period known as “the last days.”

The first war, as described by Ezekiel, is the War of Gog and Magog (a Russian-Arab invasion against Israel), the subject of this chapter. The second war, known as the Battle of Armageddon, will occur a minimum of seven years later. Armageddon is described in the prophecies of Joel, Zechariah, and especially the book of Revelation (16:16). This cataclysmic conflict will involve nations across the entire world as the significant armies of the East battle against the armies of the West under the Antichrist. These titanic armies will be pitted against each other and Israel. During the conclusion of this struggle, Jesus Christ will descend from heaven with His army of angels and heavenly saints (the resurrected Church). Both armies will then turn their fury against Jesus and His saints. The returning King of Kings will utterly defeat them and inaugurate the Millennium of peace under the Kingdom of God. Finally, Revelation 20:8 tells us about a third war, the final battle in human history. This will occur one thousand years after Armageddon, at the end of the Millennium.

Millions of people born during the Millennium to those who survive the tribulation period will choose to join Satan in his attack against the future City of God. The prophet John foretold that his army would include the nations of “Gog and Magog,” referring to Russia and other nations to the extreme north of the Holy Land.

The question of the proper identification of the nation of “Magog” is of great interest to serious Bible students who wish to clearly understand these great biblical prophecies. “Magog” is a real nation occupying a territory that was known to Ezekiel and his Jewish readers in the fifth century before Christ. I believe the evidence supports the conclusion that Magog refers to the territory that is currently occupied by the present nation of Russia, including several of the southern republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States (formerly the USSR). The majority of prophecy teachers agree with this conclusion. However, a number of biblical scholars have challenged this identification of Magog with the Russian nation. Some scholars suggest that Magog was connected with some small tribal groups in ancient Mesopotamia in the area presently occupied by Iran.

Others suggest Magog is connected with the tribes led by an ancient king known as Gyges in the area of ancient Lydia (present-day Turkey) to the south of Russia. The ancient historian Pliny claimed the Syrians thought the name Gog was the same as Gyges, a king of Lydia whose country was named from him - Gygea, or Gog’s land. King Gyges was the grandfather of King Croesus (Natural History l. 5.c.23).

In 1986 my wife, Kaye, and I were standing with our guide on the Great Wall of China. He told us that enemy armies from Mongolia and Siberia have attacked China at that very spot numerous times throughout Chinese history. The Chinese guide pointed out that due to the geography of this rugged terrain, this location would be the logical place for the next Russian-Mongol attack on China. Arab writers confirm that in the Arabic language their name for the Great Wall of China is called “the wall of Al Magog” because the Great Wall was built to keep out the invading armies from Magog (Russia).

Many liberal scholars reject Ezekiel’s literal interpretation of prophecy, including the identification of Russia.

These academics often interpret his prophecy merely as a symbol of the apocalyptic war between good and evil. However, precise descriptions in this prophecy of specific nations, weapons, places, and actions during the war strongly suggest that this is not a symbolic war. If we want to understand this prophetic message of Ezekiel, we must examine its literal implications and determine the correct identification of Gog and Magog. A summary of the research material I have collected on the identification of Magog follows.
 
Jewish Scholarship and Magog
The passages in Ezekiel 38 and 39 were studied in minute detail for thousands of years by Jewish sages. Consequently, the conclusions drawn by these scholars should illuminate the true meaning of the Hebrew words “Gog and Magog.” Genesis 10 lists Magog as a literal grandson of Noah who ultimately gave birth to a nation. This name, “Magog,” was well known to every Jew who studied this Genesis passage every year as part of the annual Sabbath reading of the Torah. In his prophecy about the future war, the prophet Ezekiel named “Magog,” along with other specific nations such as Libya, Persia, and Ethiopia. This strongly suggests that Ezekiel expected the name “Magog” would be understood by his Jewish readers as a real nation, not as an abstract symbol of evil.

A recent commentary on Genesis, Bereishis Genesis: A New Translation With a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic, and Rabbinic Sources, includes this commentary on Genesis 10:2. “Magog is mentioned several times in Scripture, e.g. Ezekiel 38:2; 39:6 as the name of the land of Gog. Kesses HaSofer identified them with the Mongols who lived near China, for in fact the very name Mongol is a corruption of Magog.” The commentary also cites Arab writers who refer to the Great Wall of China as the wall of Al Magog.

A 1961 biblical commentary by Dr. J. H. Hertz, the late chief rabbi of the British Empire, called The Pentateuch and Haftorahs identifies the Magog of the famous Genesis 10 passage: “Magog - The Scythians, whose territory lay on the borders of the Caucasus.” The Jewish-Christian scholar Dr. Alfred Edersheim in his book, Bible History, Old Testament, also identifies Magog as the Scythians.

A fascinating 1980 Jewish commentary, Daniel, published by The ArtScroll Tanach Series, makes the following comments on the identity of Magog:

The various traditions concerning the identity of Magog, who in Genesis 10:2 is listed among the sons of Noah’s son Japheth, tend to place the land of Magog in what today is southwest Russia­The Caucasian region, which lies between the Black and Caspian Seas … This is in agreement with Yerushalmi Megillah 3:9 which renders Magog as “the Goths,” a group of nomadic tribes who destroyed the Scythians and made their homes in Scythian territory… . Our identification of Magog as Caucasia, which was at one time inhabited by the Goths, is based on the assumption that the land of Magog is named after Japheth’s son… .

Rabbi Chisdai Ibn Shaprut wrote to the king of Khazaria (a Caucasian kingdom in southern Russia which converted to Judaism in the eighth century after Christ) in which he addresses the king as ‘prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal.’ This salutation, drawn from our verse, indicates that the Gaonim had a tradition that these countries were indeed located in Russia.

This acclaimed commentary concludes this section with a fascinating comment:

In this light one may understand an oral tradition passed down from the Vilna Gaon (see Chevlei Mashaiach BiZemaneinu, p. 134), that when the Russian navy passes through the Bosporus it will be time to put on Sabbath clothes (in anticipation of the coming Mashiach.)

The Bosporus is the narrow strait in Turkey that links the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea through the Dardanelles strait. The Jewish sages warned that the generation who witnessed the Russian preparation to invade Israel should prepare their hearts because the coming of the Messiah was at hand. The famous Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who lived at the time of Saint Paul, wrote a definitive history of the Jewish people called the Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus identified Magog as follows. “Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians” (pp. 30­31).
 
Christian Scholarship Identifying Magog as Russia
The section of Dr. R. Young’s book, Young’s Analytical Concordance of the Holy Bible, dealing with Magog speaks of ancient Scythia or Tartary, a name used to describe southern Russia in past centuries. Professor Young said that the name “Gog” was derived from a phrase that meant a “high mountain” and that the name “Gog” in Ezekiel 38 referred to “A prince of Rosh, Mesheck, Tubal, and Tiras, in ancient Scythia or Tartary.”

Young also refers to “the descendents of Magog and their land, called Scythia, in the N. of Asia and Europe.” The authoritative 1973 reference work, Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible, came to the same conclusion, “Magog, Meshech, Tubal and Gomer were all sons of Japheth (Noah’s son). They gave their names to Indo-European peoples living in the Black Sea/Caucasus region, on the northern fringe of the then-known world.”

The Comprehensive Commentary of the Holy Bible, edited by Dr. William Jenks, provides some fascinating information regarding the identity of Magog.

Magog was the son of Japheth (Genesis 10:2), from whence the Scythians are generally supposed to be derived. The Mogul Tartars, a people of the Scythian race, are still called so by the Arabian writers … the Jews of his day thought ‘Magog to be the Scythian nations, vast and innumerable, who are beyond Mount Caucasus and the Palus Mæotis, and near the Caspian Sea, stretching even to India.

The same commentary, quoting Professor William Bochart, gives the following information:

The Koran, and a Christian poet of Syria (Ephraem the Syrian - see chapter 9) before the Koran was published, both allude to a fable of Alexander’s shutting up the barbarous and troublesome nations, Gog and Magog, near the N. Pole by an iron and brasen wall. The mountain Scythians extended hence (from the river Araxes) to the Caucasus, and those of the plain to the Don, the sea of Azof, and the N. Ocean. It is credible, that from the Rosh and Meshech nations dwelling about the Araxes, are descended the Russians and Moscovites.

Dr. Dwight C. Pentecost is the author of an excellent study of the major themes of Bible prophecy entitled Things to Come. During the last few years I have discussed a number of prophetic issues with him and have a great appreciation for his superb book. Dr. Pentecost quotes Professor Bauman on the identification of Magog as follows:

Magog’s land was located in, what is called today, the Caucasus and the adjoining steppes. And the three, Rosh, Meshech and Tubal were called by the ancients, Scythians. They roamed as nomads in the country around and north of the Black and the Caspian Seas, and were known as the wildest barbarians.

One of the most important scholarly tools employed in the exegesis of Scripture is Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon. Numerous scholars utilize this book as an authority on the precise meaning of Hebrew and Chaldee words found in the original languages of the Old Testament. In the section of his definitive work dealing with this identification, Gesenius wrote the following:

Magog - PR. N. of a son of Japheth, Genesis 10:2; also of a region, and a great and powerful people of the same name, inhabiting the recesses of the north, who are at some time to invade the Holy Land Ezekiel 38, 39. We are to understand just the same nations as the Greeks comprised, under the name of Scythian (Josephus Antiquites of the Jews 1.6.1.)

It is important to note that Professor Gesenius referred to “Magog” as a real nation that will invade the Holy Land in the future. Gesenius’ concluded that “Gog” was a prince of the land of Magog … also of Rossi, Moschi, and Tibareni, who are to come with great forces from the extreme north (38:15; 39:2), after the Exile (38:8,12) to invade the holy land, and to perish there, as prophesied by Ezekiel.

In addition, Gesenius described the Revelation 20:8 passage as a reference to a final war involving “Gog and Magog” at the end of the Millennium. However, he correctly concludes this final war will be a totally separate event: “Gog and Magog in the Apocalypse belong to a different time to those spoken of in Ezekiel, so it is in vain to point out a discrepancy.”

The literal interpretation of “Magog” by Gesenius and other biblical scholars stands in marked contrast to the allegorical interpretation of many modern scholars who treat Ezekiel 38­39 as “apocalyptic literature” (referring only to a symbolic war between good and evil). Gesenius identified Magog as a real country, which exists to the extreme north of the Holy Land that will invade Israel in the future. He also identified Magog with the “same nations as the Greeks comprised under the name of Scythians.” In light of the many scholastic sources that identify Magog with Scythia, we must answer a critical question: Who were the Scythians and what geographical area did they occupy?
 
The Scythians
Professor G. Rawlinson wrote a definitive study of the ancient tribes and empires that ruled the Middle East called Five Great Monarchies. Chapter 9 of that work, dealing with Assyria, includes the following footnote:

“The Scythians proper of Herodotus and Hippocrates extended from the Danube and the Carpathians on the one side, to the Tanais or Don upon the other.” The geographic territories described by Professor G. Rawlinson that were ruled by the Scythians are clearly located in the south of Russia and include the Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia (see figure 3 for the location of the Scythians).

In Ezekiel 38:7 the prophet foretells that in this future conflict Russia (Magog) will also be the arm’s supplier for all of these nations. God says, “Be thou a guard unto them.” It is fascinating to observe that the armories of these nations (as listed by Ezekiel), without exception, are filled with Russian AK-47 assault rifles, SAM missiles, RPG7 anti-tank weapons and various other Russian-manufactured arms, exactly as the Bible foretold thousands of years ago. The prophet described an invasion that would come without warning in which the enemy invaded like a “storm” or “cloud to cover the land.” It is possible that the prophet saw in vision an airborne invasion force, like D day, and used the best language he had available to describe such an event.
 
The Coming Russian-Arab Invasion of Israel
Bible prophecy also provides some insight into the ongoing peace negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Thousands of years ago the prophet Ezekiel (chaps. 38­39) predicted that a huge confederacy of Arab nations under Russian leadership would join together to attack Israel in the generation after the Jewish exiles returned to their homeland. Despite massive changes in Russia, the hard-liners in the KGB, the army, and military-industrial complex maintain their solid grip on the levers of power. A recent study of the role of the military in Russia revealed that President Boris Yeltsin secretly appointed over 14,000 senior military generals to assume command of every single department of the Russian government in the spring of 1996.

These departments included the health, agricultural, transportation, and mining ministries. Until the recent political changes in Russia, no men could rise above the rank of major in Russia’s army unless they were an approved member of the Russian Communist Party. Therefore, the military officers controlling the “democratic” government of Russia are virtually all Communists. By this action Yeltsin has allowed the Communist Party and their military allies to secretly assume control over all major decisions in his government. Although Yeltsin won the June 1996 elections, the Communists hold a clear majority in the Duma (Parliament). Despite all the media hype about Russian democracy, the real leadership of Russia remains firmly in the hands of the resurrected Communist Party, the renamed KGB (now called the Foreign Intelligence Service), and the powerful army generals.

Twenty-six centuries ago the prophet Ezekiel prophesied that a military leader would arise in the land of Magog to lead a Russian-Arab alliance of nations to attack Israel. Ezekiel predicted that this leader would say, “I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (Ezekiel 38:11). It is interesting to note that, during the lifetime of Ezekiel and throughout history up until 1900, virtually all of the villages and cities in the Middle East had strong walls for defense. Ezekiel had never seen a village or city without defensive walls. Yet, in our day, Israel is truly a “land of unwalled villages” for the simple reason that modern techniques of warfare (bombs, tanks, and missiles) make city walls irrelevant for defense. This is one more indication that his prophecy refers to our modern generation.

Since 1948 Israel has been forced to live as an armed camp while surrounded by twenty-one nations with two hundred million Arabs that are publicly committed to her destruction. The Jewish state has not been able to “dwell safely.” This threatening situation compels Israel to spend more of its budget on defense than any other country in the world. However, the present peace negotiations between the PLO and Israel may create a false sense of security during the next few years. The Jewish state will relax its defenses as a result of the misconception that she can “dwell safely.” This present peace process may set the stage for the fulfillment of the great War of Gog and Magog prophesied by the prophet Ezekiel.

When this Russian-Arab alliance attacks Israel, the prophet declared that God will intervene with supernatural earthquakes, hail, and pestilence to defeat the combined forces of Russian and Arab armies. This miraculous deliverance by the hand of God may set the stage for Israel to build the Third Temple as described in Daniel 9:24­27. These awesome prophetic events concerning the defeat of Russia will prepare the way for the fulfillment of the prophecies of the rise of Antichrist to rule the earth and his seven-year treaty with Israel.

This treaty with the Antichrist will commence a seven-year countdown to the return of the Messiah at the Battle of Armageddon to establish His eternal Kingdom on earth.

These critical developments in the Middle East encourage believers to live in constant expectation of the glorious return of our Messiah. Jesus said, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh”(Luke 21:28). Yet we, as Christians, must live in a spiritual balance during these last days. Although our Messiah may return soon, He may also delay His return for a generation or more because our Lord “is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”(2 Peter 3:9). We must live each day watching for His return. We must faithfully witness to those around us as though His return will occur immediately. Yet we must also plan and work as though we still have a hundred years. Our Lord commanded, “Occupy till I come”(Luke 19:13).
 
The Strategic Importance of the West Bank and the Golan Heights
If Israel’s present government under Prime Minister Netanyahu continues the disastrous policies of former prime ministers Rabin and Peres and surrenders the vital strategic territory in the West Bank and the Golan Heights in its “Land for Peace” negotiations with the PLO and its Arab neighbours, Israel will face military disaster in the next war. The tragic four-thousand-year history of the Middle East indicates clearly that another Arab-Israeli war will occur. It is only a question of timing. Israel requires military control of the land on the Golan Heights, Gaza, and the West Bank in order to provide the strategic depth to defend itself against the overwhelming military force of twenty-one enemy Arab nations. The Arab nations possess territory that is five hundred times the size of tiny Israel. Why do the Arabs need the small strategic territory of the Golan Heights and the West Bank? The real reason that the Arabs need this territory is so they can destroy the Jewish state of Israel. Every single European or American military study in the last thirty years has concluded that Israel cannot be defended by conventional weapons if it surrenders military control over these vital strategic territories. The 1992 study by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that Israel can not surrender the Golan, Gaza, or the West Bank and expect to survive the next Arab invasion.

History shows that victorious nations have never returned land captured from their enemies following a defensive war in which they were forced to defend themselves against their attackers. The Golan Heights represents less than 1 percent of the territory of the large nation of Syria. The Golan Heights was only controlled by Syria for a few decades after World War I. They lost it to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. The only reason Syria needs this small territory is to use it to attack Israel. However, Israel desperately needs the Golan Heights to resist Syria’s tanks. Moreover, 30 percent of Israel’s water comes from the Golan Heights. If they surrender control of the West Bank territory, Israel will be less than nine miles wide at its center near Tel Aviv, where almost 80 percent of its population lives. In a future conflict Arab armies could easily cut Israel in two by attacking from the PLO-controlled high ground of Judea and Samaria (West Bank). The Jewish state could then be overrun in a matter of days. Unlike other conflicts in which defeat leads to a loss of territory and political freedom, an Arab conquest of Israel would lead to a massive slaughter of the Jewish population.

In a future war Israel may be quickly forced to resort to nuclear weapons when they find their small diminished territory about to be overcome by Arab armies. The Israeli army describes this desperate scenario as “the Samson Option” because it would lead to the destruction of the whole Middle East; Samson, too, brought down the temple on his enemies and on himself. Despite this grim reality, the Israeli government has agreed to relinquish much of the strategic area of the West Bank and all of Gaza while continuing negotiations with Syria about the Golan Heights. Military and intelligence sources have informed me that if this “Oslo II” peace process continues, for the first time since its creation in 1948, Israel’s conventional army and air force will soon be unable to successfully defend its vital territory and population from an overwhelming Arab armed invasion.

The Lord commands all believers to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Psalms 122:6). However, the current peace process between the PLO and Israel may set the stage for the fulfillment of these tremendous prophecies about the War of Gog and Magog and how they lead to the Messiah’s return in our generation. While we long for true peace in the Middle East, we must recognize that the ancient prophets warned that a false peace in the last days would precede the final conflict that would conclude with the Battle of Armageddon. The prophet Jeremiah warned that in the last days men would say, “Peace, peace! When there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). Our world will not know true peace until Jesus the Messiah, the Prince of Peace returns. Scriptures reveal that real peace will only come to the Middle East when the Arabs and the Jews finally dwell as brothers in true peace under the rule of their Messiah, who alone can heal the ancient hatred between them.
 
The Proposal That Israel Surrender Land for Peace
For fifty years, the United Nations and the Arab states have continually demanded that the tiny nation of Israel surrender its vital land to “buy” peace with its Arab neighbours. However, we should consider some questions. How large is Israel compared to her Islamic neighbours? The state of Israel is less than one-tenth of 1 percent as large as the thirty-five Islamic states surrounding her throughout the Middle East. These thirty-five Islamic states possess 8,879,548 square miles of territory and a combined population of 804,500,000. To put this in perspective, the tiny nation of Israel is only 8,020 square miles in size with a population of less than five million people. This means that the surrounding Islamic nations are 1,107 times larger than the Jewish state of Israel. The state of Texas alone is over thirty-two times the size of Israel. The Islamic state of Saudi Arabia is over one hundred and seven times the size of Israel. Islam is the major religion in thirty-five nations, or 22 percent of the 159 member-states of the United Nations. Judaism is the major religion in only one nation on earth, the state of Israel.

In addition, these Arab and Islamic nations are incredibly wealthy as a result of their oil resources. They are also naturally related to the Arab Palestinians by both race and religion. In addition, most of the Palestinian Arabs were born in Arab states surrounding Israel. Why should Israel surrender its incredibly small and strategically vital territory to her Arab enemies when the Islamic states have more than a thousand times the land and their vast oil wealth that can be utilized to absorb the Palestinian Arabs?
 
Israel’s Covenant with Death
The world was astonished to witness the leader of Israel and its deadly enemy, the Arab PLO, sign an agreement on September 13, 1993, promising to end the brutal warfare that has characterized the Middle East for the last fifty years. PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin took the first tentative steps towards a possible peace treaty in the Middle East. Does this mean true peace is at hand? Or, will a false peace set the stage for the War of Gog and Magog prophesied by the ancient prophets of Israel?

The Arab governments and the PLO now claim that they are offering Israel “peace for land.” But what kind of “peace” are they offering? There are two concepts or terms for “peace” in the Arab language. One represents true peace such as the peace between Canada and the United States, where we genuinely wish our neighbours well. The other refers to something more like “an armed truce.” During the Crusades, the leader of the defeated Muslim armies, Saladin, offered the English general, Richard the Lion Heart, a peace treaty.

However, two years later, after rebuilding his Arab armies, Saladin suddenly broke his agreement and defeated the English armies in Israel. In Yasser Arafat’s speeches to Arab audiences, he boasts that he will offer Israel “the peace of Saladin.” This proves that he is offering Israel “an armed truce” rather than “true peace.” The PLO have not relinquished their commitment to conquer all of the land of Israel, or to destroy the Jewish population. All Arab Palestinian groups use emblems, flags, letterhead symbols, and maps that deny acknowledgement of the existence of the Jewish state.

The PLO have repeatedly declared to Arab audiences that their long-term strategy is to eliminate Israel in a plan called “Liberation in Phases.” Since 1974 Yasser Arafat decreed that during the first phase of his “Liberation in Phases” plan, the PLO would seek to establish a beachhead in Gaza and the West Bank. In the second phase their armies will take over Jerusalem. In the final phase, they will build up their strength in Gaza and the West Bank to join their Arab-nation allies in an invasion to finally conquer all of Israel. On September 1, 1993, Arafat confirmed to an Arab audience that his peace accord was part of his previous “Phases” plan. During interviews, many Arab leaders, as well as individual Palestinians, have declared that they would never be content until they recovered the entire land of Israel from the Jews. In 1980 Yasser Arafat clearly stated, “Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.” One of the problems for Israel is that the Koran teaches that if a land was ever occupied in the past by Muslims, then it must be recovered by Jihad, or holy war. Although Yasser Arafat has pledged to eliminate the references in the PLO Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization that call for the destruction of Israel and the Jews, he has consistently refused to fulfill this pledge. Furthermore, most of his Arab allies refuse to relinquish their goals to destroy the Jewish state. The Arab states continue to arm for war against Israel.
 
The PLO Charter
Excerpts from the PLO Charter, including the revisions made in 1968 and 1974, still include the following language calling for the destruction of Israel. Article 1 declares that “Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland, and the people of Palestine is a part of the Arab Nation.” Significantly Article 2 of the Charter affirms that “Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British Mandate is an integral regional unit.” This means that the PLO not only claims the West Bank and Gaza plus Jerusalem, but they still demand that the Jews surrender every single inch of Israel also. Article 3 declares, “The Palestinian Arab people possesses the legal right to its homeland, and when the liberation of its homeland is completed it will exercise self-determination solely according to its own will and choice.” This means that the Jews will have no rights, no will, and no choice if the Palestinians succeed. Articles 7, 8, and 9 confirm that “armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.” Lest anyone misunderstand their intent regarding the Jews who have lived in Israel all their lives, the PLO Charter declares the following in Article 15: “The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty to repulse the Zionist, imperialist invasion from the great Arab homeland and to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine … until the liberation of its homeland.” Finally, the Charter’s articles reflect the Arabs’ fundamental rejection of any truly peaceful cooperation with the Jewish people to share any portion of the Holy Land.

Article 19 states, “The establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void …” In case any reader still wonders if the PLO intends to live in peace with the Jews they should carefully consider the words of Article 22: “The liberation of Palestine will liquidate the Zionist and imperialist presence… .”

The prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East are remote. Even if Israel recklessly surrenders military control of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, this will still not satisfy the ultimate goals of the Arab nations nor the PLO. Since the Arab’s true stated goal as revealed in countless speeches and the PLO Charter is the annihilation of Israel, this preliminary surrender of land simply alters the strategic balance massively and irreversibly in favor of the Arabs. However, the implacable hatred of the Arabs is the true cause of the last four wars against Israel. The Arab nations tried to annihilate the Jewish state in three wars (1948, 1956, and 1967) long before the Jews had occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Obviously, Arab hatred against the Jews will never be satisfied by simply surrendering these territories to the PLO and Syria.

These surrenders will simply allow the Arabs to be in a much improved strategic position to launch a final annihilating war against Israel. Despite the current euphoria, Israel’s Arab neighbors will continue to harbor thoughts and plans of launching a future war against the Jewish people. Far from leading to a real peace, if Israel does surrender these vital territories, it will make a future war more certain.
 
Setting the Stage for a Seven-Year Treaty with Antichrist
The United Nations and the Arab states continue to demand the elimination of Israel’s nuclear weapons. The introduction of Iranian nuclear weapons and the growing possibility of Libya, Syria, and Iraq joining the nuclear club has seriously altered the strategic balance of the Middle East. It is difficult to see how a balance of nuclear terror could continue for very long between Israel and the Islamic states who remain dedicated to Israel’s destruction. United Nations’ resolutions to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East may tempt a future Israeli government to recklessly agree to relinquish their nuclear option. The present leaders of Israel realize that an unstable Arab regime, such as Iraq or Libya, might be tempted to use their nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads even though they know it would result in mutual destruction. In Islamic religious philosophy Muslims believe they will gain paradise if they die in a devastating war to cleanse the “infidels” from Jerusalem. In a few years following the War of Gog and Magog, the defeat of the Arab armies will pave the way for a European superpower to come forward to guarantee Israel’s security and borders. Several prophecies describe the revival of the Roman Empire in the end times to dominate Europe and the rest of the world, as it did thousands of years ago in the days of Christ. The rise of the European Union is creating an economic and political superpower that is increasing its involvement in the Middle East peace process. The prophet Daniel wrote that a future Antichrist would arise in the last days to take over the revived Roman Empire (Daniel 7). Daniel predicted that “He shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.” The word “many” means the Jews, and the word “week” is commonly used symbolically in Hebrew to refer to a period of seven years. This verse indicates that this future European dictator would confirm a treaty to defend Israel for seven years. The signing of this future treaty will start the final seven-year countdown to Armageddon, the climactic battle when Jesus Christ will defeat the armies of the world and establish His kingdom forever. This interim peace agreement between the PLO and Israel may set the stage for the fulfillment of these tremendous prophecies that lead to Christ’s return in our generation.

The prophet Isaiah also spoke of this final seven-year peace treaty based on Israel’s false confidence in the Antichrist: “You have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves’” (Isaiah 28:15). The leaders of Israel will cynically make this seven-year treaty with the powerful dictator of the European superstate believing that he will protect Israel from the overwhelming military force of her enemies during that terrible time. However, the treaty will fail to protect them. In Isaiah 28:18 the prophet reveals God’s judgment on Israel’s treaty with the Antichrist: “Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it.” After three and one half years the Antichrist will betray Israel and break the treaty. He will enter the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem and claim to be god.

When he demands that Israel worships him, most of the Jews will rebel against him. The book of Revelation describes the righteous Jews fleeing into the wilderness for 1260 days (three and one half years) after this betrayal.

When the “Gog and Magog” invasion occurs (see figure 4), it appears that the only response from the Western democracies will be a diplomatic protest. Ezekiel 38:13 says that “Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish” and “the young lions thereof, [probably the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Commonwealth nations] shall say unto thee, “Art thou come to take a spoil?” Tarshish, Sheba, and Dedan were ancient trading nations and are believed by many Bible scholars to refer to Spain or Britain and their former colonies (“the young lions thereof”). It will not be the Western democracies that respond to this attack. The superpower who intervenes to save Israel in its greatest hour of need will be their great defender, the God of Abraham.

God declares through His prophet Ezekiel that He will defeat Russia and its Arab allies in the greatest military disaster in history. According to Ezekiel 39:2, five-sixth’s of the Russian-Arab armies (85 percent) will be annihilated by God upon the mountains of Israel. The Lord will trigger the greatest earthquake experienced thus far in history, centered in the mountains of Israel, but affecting the cities around the globe. In addition, the supernatural destruction will be accompanied by God’s additional judgments, including “pestilence, overflowing rain, great hailstones, fire, brimstone” (38:22). The Lord will send such confusion and chaos upon the enemy that “every man’s sword shall be against his brother” (verse 21). The devastation and loss of human life will be so great that “seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them” (Ezekiel 39:12).

The captured weapons and fuel supplies will provide fuel for the towns and villages of Israel for seven years following the supernatural victory (verse 9).

In my research, I have found that some new Russian weapons have been produced. These weapons are manufactured using a new material known as lignostone. Prepared from compressed wood-product, this material was developed in Holland to be used as fuel. However, the Soviet weapons laboratories discovered that this unique substance, called lignostone, is as strong as steel, light, pliable, and almost invisible to radar.

These unique characteristics encouraged the Russian military to utilize this material in many military vehicles and weapons. One of the characteristics of lignostone is that it burns at very high temperatures and can be readily used as an alternative fuel. The use of lignostone, and the fact that mobile Russian military units can carry large amounts of fuel (in containers 100 yards across) for their tanks and helicopters, may explain the prophecy that the defeat of this army will provide ample fuel for Israel for a period of seven years.

The prophecy recorded in Ezekiel 38:21 and 39:21­22 indicates that God’s purpose in this extraordinary intervention in history is to glorify and sanctify His Holy Name in the sight of Israel and the Gentile nations.

The awesome destruction associated with this victory over the Russian-Arab armies will not be confined solely to the invading armies. God declared, “And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 39:6). Russia (Magog) will be devastated by the wrath of God, as well as those nations “dwelling carelessly in the isles” which may refer to Europe and America.

Russia has prepositioned enormous military supplies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt in preparation for the coming Russian-Arab invasion of Israel. It is both easier and more efficient for Russia to airlift huge numbers of lightly armed men into Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon to pick up previously positioned weapons, than to airlift the military supplies for them. Military equipment often weighs five to ten times the weight of the soldier who will use that equipment. The same logic motivates the United States military to preposition enormous amounts of military supplies in Europe to be available for American and Canadian troops who would be flown into France and Germany in the event of a Russian invasion of Western Europe. The PLO, Iraq, Jordan, Lybia, and Syria are themselves already so heavily armed that they have little practical use for this additional equipment.

God set an appointment more than twenty-five hundred years ago to destroy Gog and Magog on the mountains of Israel: “Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?” (Ezekiel 38:17).

As I mentioned earlier, it is fascinating to read the Jewish commentaries on Ezekiel 38 and 39 that describe an oral tradition recorded from the Vilna Gaon that advises Jews to observe carefully when the Russian fleet (Magog) passes from the Black Sea through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean. “It is now the time to put on your Sabbath clothes because the Messiah is coming.” For the first time in history, the Russian Navy has surpassed all other navies in the world in size. Russia has moved many of its ships from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean Sea opposite Israel to challenge the former U.S. naval supremacy in that strategic area.

Although Scripture does not indicate the year in which this future invasion and defeat of Russia will occur, the prophet Haggai gives us a strong indication of what the actual day may be. Haggai reveals that on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (Chislev) of the Jewish calendar, the day before Hanukkah, God will deliver Israel as He did twice before on this day: (1) the defeat of the Syrian army and recapture of the Temple in 165 b.c. and (2) the British capture of Jerusalem from the Turks in 1917 during the closing battles of WWI.

The prophet Haggai declares: “The Word of the Lord came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month [Chisleu], saying, Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth; and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother” (Haggai 2:20­22).

This description by Haggai, and the exact language of his prophecy, is uncannily like the language of Ezekiel 38 and 39 that describes Russia’s defeat. The interesting point is that Haggai names the exact day of the year on which this will occur. Since so many other prophecies have been so precisely fulfilled to the day, there is a strong probability that this prophetic event will also occur on its appointed anniversary date of the biblical calendar. “Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken” (Ezekiel 39:8). God’s appointment with Russia is set; it will not be postponed.