Riots on the Highway to Egypt

The land of Egypt is going through convulsions. The Middle East’s most populous country and the cultural center of the Arab world is experiencing riots in the streets. Media spin is trying to describe these events as a domino effect due to Tunisia’s recent “jasmine revolution” – when President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali succumbed to 29 days of popular demonstration and uprising against harsh economic conditions in Tunisia, fleeing to Saudi Arabia for asylum (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405084.html).

Though the world’s media is trying to prognosticate patterns in these different outbreaks of rioting, most commentators tend to mumble when it gets to the spiritual aspects of modern events. Middle Eastern analysts usually sidestep the perspectives of biblical prophecy as well as the anti-biblical aspects of jihadi Islam. As a result, their investigative reporting lacks the cutting edge that only the word of the Lord can bring.

What is transpiring in the street riots of Tunisia. Jordan, Yemen and Egypt? What is weighing in the balance from a spiritual perspective? How will this influence the Jewish state, and can the Scriptures shed any light on these events?

Smoldering volcanoes

Europe and the Americas have had centuries to stumble into democratic political frameworks, but the Middle East has never truly assimilated these values. Strong secular dictatorships (often led by military generals) rule most of the Arab world, while in a significant amount of countries Islamist tyrants rule with shari’a’s (Islamic law) iron hand.

Syria presents a good example of the former. Its Alawi Islamic leadership (considered a heretical form of Islam) has honeycombed the country with a cruel and ruthless secret police network (mukhabarat), throwing poets and political opposition into fetid torture chambers and prisons. President Bashar Assad came to lead the country by a plebiscite in which there were no other candidates, while his father Hafez came to the presidency through a military coup. Assad’s Ba’ath party regularly wins stunning election victories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Syria), since opposition parties are routinely jailed and tortured, but in any case are not allowed to win more than 30% of the legislature.

The strongest opposition in Syria is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), an Islamist underground organization dedicated to re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate world empire and shari’a law through jihadi revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood; also see https://davidstent.com/words/, February 2006). Out of the hothouse of the MB came such streams as the PLO, Hamas and al-Qa’eda. One of the MB’s main centers is as an underground movement in Egypt.

In February 1982 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad directed his military to destroy large portions of the city of Hama with artillery, tank fire and chemical warfare, in order to crush a small band of MB rebels holed up in Hama. Between 17,000 and 40,000 civilians were killed as a result of this military operation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre). Since then Syria has continued a crackdown on MB adherents, for whom the death sentence is legally applicable in Syria.

Democratic oppositions

Though in the Western world democratic opposition parties are the norm, one can better understand the Arab world’s perspective on such matters by recalling the former USSR’s approach. Prior to the collapse of the Communist Party’s hegemony in the Soviet Union, a one-party Marxist state was the only option. In totalitarian regimes (like former Nazi Germany, present-day China, North Korea etc) legal opposition parties do not exist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-party_state).

Whereas Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Jordan officially hold elections, no opposition group can ever come to power through the ballot box. This is a simple fact of life for nearly every Middle Eastern country except Israel. The largest organized opposition within Egypt today is the underground Muslim Brotherhood movement, biding its time during these riots while waiting expectantly in the wings.

The economic frustration in Egypt (where the average salary is less than $2 USD per day) is great. Due to corruption in government and business on the one hand, and a third world infrastructure on the other hand, no immediate improvement in conditions is foreseeable in the near future. These pent-up frustrations in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Algeria etc., have nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinian issue – yet they are like the bubbles and smoke portending an imminent explosion of a volcano – one which can set the whole Middle East on fire.

Democracy – the graft that didn’t take

Western countries tend to approach Middle Eastern politics with a naiveté that borders on being criminally foolish. Ignoring the fact that democracy has never flourished in Arab Islamic countries, the West has been urging dictatorships to hold free elections. One recent example involved strong American pressure on Israel (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372.html) to allow transparent elections in the Gaza Strip.

The result of that pressure was seen on January 26, 2006 when the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist party known as Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiyya, or ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’) swept to power. In a few short months it orchestrated a violent putsch, kneecapping Palestinian Authority loyalist and throwing key PA people off five-story high buildings.

The Islamist principle here is often described as “one man, one vote, one time.” American attempts at foisting democracy on Gaza resulted in the establishment of a jihadi state on the border of Israel, the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (still held in an Islamist prison in Gaza), Hamas rocket (1,571) and mortar (1,531) attacks on Israeli cities, towns and farms up to December 26 2008 (and thousands more after that time) and the resulting Israeli military Operation Cast Lead (www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=52&x_article=1581) which began on December 27, 2008.

So far Western efforts at catalyzing democratic elections in the Middle East have backfired, and instead have brought about the rise of Islamist dictatorships.

Choosing between terrible options

The Middle East seems to be caught between military dictatorship and Islamist despotism. One striking example (which still smarts in the West) involves the country of Iran. Once a pillar of American and Israeli strategic planning, this loyal ally of the West was also a despotic secular-leaning dictatorship propped up by a vicious secret police organ known as SAVAK. Secular street riots of students and businessmen in August and September 1978 led to the hasty departure of the Shah, but six months of anarchy eventually led to the establishment not of a democracy but to the rise of the nearly unimaginable cruelty of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic dictatorship.

Street riots have never led to the establishment of democratic government in the Middle East. They have led either to new dictatorship or to radical Islamist tyranny.

If a Muslim Brotherhood-oriented state gets established in Egypt, this could lead to major military tensions between Egypt and Israel, as well as a phenomenal growth and spiritual energizing of jihadi Islam throughout the Middle East.

Pray for the country of Egypt – that the Muslim Brotherhood will not rise to power through this present anarchy; that God would establish peace and righteousness in that country with a minimum of bloodshed (1 Timothy 2:1-4); and that Egypt would not become an adversary and a curse to the Jewish state of Israel (Genesis 12:3).

Highway under construction

One of the clearest passages concerning Egypt’s role in the last days is found in Isaiah 19. The phrase “in that day” is used six times (verses 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24) to describe an end-of-days scenario involving (among other subjects):

military clash between Egypt and a victorious Israel
a spiritual revival among some Egyptians
an intercessory cry to YHVH on the part of Egyptians and His saving response
a warm future attitude on the part of Egypt to both the Hebrew language and the land of Israel
a highway of peace connecting Egypt, Israel and northern Iraq

As we prayerfully ask God for intercessory strategies concerning the present trembling in Egypt, let us ask God for His mercy on the nation that He calls “Egypt My people” (Isaiah 19:25a), especially as they recognize and bless “Israel My inheritance” (Isaiah 19:25b).

“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the earth. YHVH or armies will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance” (Isaiah 19:23-25).

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do!

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal) through: www.davidstent.org

Revival of the Hitler spirit

The prophet Daniel had no idea what forces would be unleashed when he interceded to God about the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. Major spiritual warfare exploded, with the Archangel Michael and Gabriel wrestling with demonic forces known as the “princes of Persia and Greece” (Daniel 9-10). After the dust settled, Daniel was given revelation of end-time strategies and battles surrounding the sons of Jacob, including one of the clearest prophecies concerning the coming of Messiah, His atoning death and the resurrection of the dead.

The angel Gabriel explained to Daniel that powerful demonic princes control and influence superpowers. The world-shaking empires of Persia (modern Iran) and Greece were not simply mighty kingdoms; they were superpowers “under control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Demonic princes actively influenced Haman’s Persia and Antiochus IV’s Greece. They also influence modern superpowers today.

We need to keep reminding ourselves: the spirits behind Stalin’s atrocities, Hitler’s genocide and jihadi Islam’s terror are not dead. They are very much alive. And they are actively influencing modern superpowers, attempting to turn them against Israel and the Jewish people.

Out of touch with Middle Eastern realities

“East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in the 1890’s. Kipling spoke with authority. He had spent 12 years in India and had a good grasp of both British and Indian cultures.

On the other hand, most Westerners do not have anything close to a realistic grasp of Middle Eastern culture, worldview and logic. One striking example of this – post-Christian secular Westerners find it hard to believe that hatred and violence directed at Israel and the West could be due to spiritual reasons or religious beliefs.

The usual explanations given in the secular media is that poverty, unemployment, lack of “progress” on the Palestinian front – these are the supposed reasons for jihadi violence and anti-Western actions. Since many Westerners have abandoned belief in the personal God of the Scriptures, it is nearly impossible for them to imagine that Middle Easterners could really be motivated by jihadi teachings and worldview.

The Bible and the Iron Lady

A recent release of official papers by the British National Archives reveals a 1980 conversation that British PM Margaret Thatcher had shared with French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing regarding biblical perspectives on Israel’s borders (https://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britaindiplomacyisraelunrestnuclearweapons).

The Iron Lady had told Israeli PM Menahem Begin that his policies on Jewish people repopulating the West Bank through building settlements were “unrealistic” and “absurd.” Thatcher told Giscard d’Estaing that Begin’s “response was that Judea and Samaria had been Jewish in biblical times and that they should therefore be so today.” She then added that she “had never had a more difficult man to deal with.”

The same sentiments expressed by Thatcher could well be spoken by many Western world leaders today. When a society casually dismisses biblical promises as unrealistic and absurd, it is no wonder that superpower leaders simply pooh-pooh Islamist threats of unending jihad and mass murder against the Jewish people and their state.

Looking through a glass darkly

Western media tend to respond with secular disbelief when confronted with Quranic teachings on jihad and genocide. Islamic leaders who issue those calls are dismissed as “radical,” “extremist,” “militant” and “primitive.” In the West there is a stubborn unwillingness to be intellectually honest, and to grapple with this uncompromising and unappetizing message found in the source texts of Islam.

Western intellectuals often create a false dichotomy involving “good” and “bad” Islamic streams. “Fundamentalist” Islam (perhaps like secular views on “fundamentalist Christianity”?) is labeled reactionary and bad, while a virtual reality called “progressive Islam” is pushed as the antidote to all the West’s problems. The truth here is that this Unitarian-like form of “progressive Islam” is purely a Western creation, and not at all an accurate reflection of the Quran and the Hadith (Islam’s two central sources of law and theology).

In these times, when the Middle East is trembling on the precipice of an Islamist-energized world war, to behave like a Western secular ostrich is a modern form of “fiddling while Rome burns.”

A picture tells a thousand words

We would like to make you aware of the following 23 minute on-line video (https://vimeo.com/16779150), called “New Trends in Arab Anti-Semitism” and published by MEMRI (https://www.memri.org/), the Middle East Media Research Institute. MEMRI translates Arabic language media (print, TV, film etc.) and makes the fruit of their research available in real time to governments, think tanks and even the UN.

This video was presented to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland on September 28 2010. It is a collage of clips taken from Arab TV stations in Egypt, Hamas-controlled Gaza, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries in the Middle East. Islamic religious teachers, preachers and media commentators openly communicate their perspectives on jihad and genocide against the Jewish people.

No holds are barred. Even rare Nazi film footage of torture and murder of Jews is presented approvingly by top Islamic clerics. This video will help you to understand better what the spiritual forces opposing the Jewish people and their state are actually propagating. Caution should be used for young or sensitive viewers regarding this video.

The spirit of Hitler is on the move

This astounding video presentation reveals that the anti-Semitic propaganda and murderous call for mass murder of the Jews used by the Nazis in the 1930’s are commonplace in modern Middle Eastern media. Hitler would feel right at home watching Egyptian, Saudi or Gaza TV programs.

During WWII the famous intercessor Rees Howell led a small band of praying people. This intercessory community prayed for the Allies’ military success on a battle by battle basis. They interceded for the protection of the Jewish people from Hitler’s murderous hands, and for the restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land of Israel.

Were Rees Howell alive today, he would be mobilizing world prayer –

for the protection of the Jewish people from jihadi Islam’s murderous hands
for the restoration of the Jewish people to Israel
for the full salvation of the Jewish people through Yeshua the Messiah.

Pray with us in this new year of 2011 for these same burdens which are on God’s heart (Romans 9:2)!