Painting the roses red – politically correct lies

In Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice discovers three gardeners busily working on a large rose bush, painting red paint onto white roses. In response to her curious question, one of the gardeners explains, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes…” (chapter 8).

‘Painting the roses red’ has become a metaphor for putting a spin on the truth, for covering up unpleasant realities. Today’s media look at the Jewish state of Israel through ‘rose-red’ colored glasses, explaining away threats and redefining unpleasant realities. The result is that many people do not have a clear, in-focus biblical understanding of Middle East events.

This newsletter will try to gently sandblast some layers of paint off of these Middle Eastern petals, and restore needed clarity and contrast to several spiritual issues of burning importance.

Painting terrorists as ‘militants’

A quick glance at the world’s top newspapers reveals that over the past decade the term ‘terrorist’ has been replaced by the word ‘militant.’  Palestinian gunmen or Islamic suicide bombers who attack, murder and maim civilians are now blithely described as militants.

One hundred years ago the term ‘militant’ had a totally different meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as meaning “aggressively active, especially in support of a (usually political) cause.” Striking teachers would have been described as ‘militant about workers’ rights.’ Teresa Billington Grieg’s 1911 book about the “votes for women” movement was called the “Militant Suffrage Movement,” while suffragette Annie Kenney’s 1924 autobiography was titled “Memories of a Militant.”

How has this change come about? Why is it now politically incorrect to call Islamic terrorists by their proper name?

The foundation for this change is directly connected with the collapse of the West’s Bible-based ethical and religious underpinnings. European thinkers have led the way in this endeavor over the past three centuries. Those who initiated this process (by jettisoning belief in the accuracy of Biblical revelation) also intensified the direction by eventually abandoning the religious and moral authority of the Ten Commandments and of the gospel (as Dr. Francis Schaeffer continually warned).

Once liberal theologians discarded the bedrock of Biblical faith, how could they claim that Islamic beliefs and practices are wrong – even when Islamic teachings fundamentally oppose both Torah and gospel? Once Western faith had been gutted, its spokesmen had become gutless.

To a post-Christian world, it has become offensive to describe the faith-based actions of Islamic jihadis as terrorism. In the same way, liberal Christians and Jews had difficulty calling Marxist terror by its proper name. ‘Revolutionary activity on the part of freedom fighters’ sounded a lot better, and even gave the illusion of holding the moral high ground. The German Rote Armee Fraktion (or Baader-Meinhof terror cells) saw themselves as freedom fighters, even as they kidnapped, selected and murdered Jews in the 1976 Entebbe operation.

Gerald Seymour (in his 1975 novel Harry’s Game) coined the proverb, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The fact remains that one man’s terrorist – is still a terrorist.

Painting jihadi Islam as ‘a religion of peace’

The terror attacks of 9/11 presented a unique and pressing challenge for many Western leaders – how to hold together their shaky and morally bankrupt partnership with oil-rich Islamic dictatorships while papering over the fast-spreading cracks in the international wallpaper.

The strategic response was not long in coming – it involved getting Western audiences to believe that ‘real Islam’ was peaceful, and that the Islamic faith of the 19 Al Qa’eda terrorists was a perversion of Islam. This (it was hoped) would afford a small fig leaf of modesty for Saudi Arabia – fifteen of whose citizens were hijackers, and where the lion’s share of funding comes for jihadi terror.

President George W. Bush declared on 9/17 in Washington’s Islamic Center: “…(A)cts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that … The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace” (https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/faq-what.html).

U.S. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer added on the same day, “This attack had nothing to do with Islam. This attack was a perversion of Islam” (www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=47565#axzz1WcENB9eB).

The unpainted facts are much less perverted: jihad as violent military attack is a central tenet and commandment of Islam, and was taught and practiced by Mohammed (see “A perspective on Islam”; https://davidstent.org/Images/a_perspective_on_islam.pdf). Though Islam teaches many things and some are good, its jihadi commandments and future vision involve world conquest and dictatorship achieved by force of arms.

The Islamic terrorists of 9/11 believed that they were very much obedient to a Koranic perspective. The majority of Muslims in the Middle East see them as heroes. Therefore it is a perversion of truth to call such an Islamic perspective ‘a religion of peace.’ Please note the fresh red paint on the roses.

Painting Islamic revolt as an ‘Arab Spring’

TV screens have been gorged with pictures of Islamic countries shaken by street riots and revolt. Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya – each has had or is having far more than its fifteen minutes of fame, to paraphrase Andy Warhol. All the major 24-hour news channels have ‘spun’ the story, declaring that the spontaneous uprisings are leading the Muslim world into a 21st century version of the French Revolution. Soon liberty, equality and fraternity will reign supreme in Luxor, in Hama, in Jerba and in Sana’a!

The bouquets of red roses lovingly FedExed by Western media groupies are nevertheless masking the fact that the Islamist movement (also known as the Muslim Brotherhood; see https://davidstent.com/words/, February 2006, “Hurtling Through The Fog of War: A Messianic Perspective On The New Hamastan”) in each country is the strongest and most organized political force waiting in the wings. Even as Hamas (a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate) controls Gaza and oversees rocket attacks on Israel, so Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen are all tottering on the cusp of Islamist disaster and dictatorship.

The unvarnished white color of the roses, in this case, foretells an Islamist winter and not a promising Arab Spring.

How winning a war became ‘an obstacle to peace’

Before Israel again became a recognized sovereign country in May 1948, the Arab and Islamic world was prophesying its destruction, and preparing its armies for invasion and slaughter. The Arab nation would complete the genocidal task that Hitler had not finished. In 1943 the Mufti of Jerusalem declared on Nazi radio, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This is pleasing to Allah.”

On May 15 1948 the Secretary General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha, speaking in Cairo, declared a jihad against the Jews (reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948): “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades” (https://tech.mit.edu/V123/N12/kraus12.12c.html).

President Gamel Abd al-Nasser of Egypt declared on September 27 1961 at the UN General Assembly (when the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem were all in Islamic hands), that “the only solution to Palestine…is ... the annulment of Israel’s existence.”

On May 28 1967, prior to the Six-Day War, Nasser added that “we will not accept any…coexistence with Israel … Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948.”

On 1 September 1960, Nasser clearly pointed out that any return of Arab refugees to the state of Israel would destroy Israel as an independent country: “If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”

On April 23, 1964 Nasser declared in a speech in Sana’a, Yemen, “… (T)here is no room for Israel within the Arab nation.”

Were one to add the PLO’s “plan of stages” (first the return of territory, then the final battle of annihilation), or Iran’s President Ahmedinejad’s call for the violent destruction of Israel, or Hamas’ ongoing declaration that Israel will be destroyed by the armies of Islam, it becomes crystal clear –

Mass media declare that Israel’s holding on to its biblical inheritance is one of the major (if not the major) obstacles to peace. But the real obstacle is Islamic war-mongering. Any other explanation is simply painting the roses red.

How dividing Jerusalem became a world consensus

Though many Bible-believers have not thought a lot about it, Israel’s birth as a sovereign nation came about as a result of the nations of the world advocating the partitioning of the land of Israel and the re-division of Jerusalem.

The UN Partition Plan adopted on November 29, 1947 was passed by a majority of 33 in favor, 13 against, 10 abstentions and one absent. Since that day, though those who love the Scriptures rejoice in the decision to recognize a Jewish state, it is important to remember that world consensus went on record as dividing up the land of Israel.

All potential peace discussions, conferences and treaties take this division of the land of Israel as a given. All political parties in Israel accept this 1947 division as a fait accompli. When the nations get together to discuss ‘peace,’ the question they really are asking is simply, how much will the borders of the land of Israel be tightened, shortened and shaved.

This above perspective is bolstered when one examines the private declarations of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Paris to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Sa’dun Hammadi on December 17 1975: “We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions … (ed., to the point where) it will be like Lebanon, struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world … If the issue is the existence of Israel, we can’t cooperate. But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate” (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/iraq04.pdf).

What does God think about painting the roses

The God of the Bible is also the God of Israel. The land of Israel belongs to Him (Leviticus 25:23; Ezekiel 36:5) and He is very sensitive about how the nations treat either the Jewish people (Zech.2:8) or the land of the Jews (Zechariah 12:2-3).

The two most detailed descriptions of Messiah Yeshua’s return to Planet Earth involve Him bringing judgment on the nations who invade, divide up and despoil the Jewish people and their land (Zechariah 14:1-4; Joel 3:1-2). All the red dye in the world will not parry God’s x-ray vision. He sees exactly what nefarious plans are concealed under a thin coating of politicized paint.

After the Lord touches down in Jerusalem, the Scriptures tell us that He will roar (Joel 3:12-17) in judgment as He chastens the nations (Zechariah 14:12-13). To paraphrase Bobby Bare’s Christian country waltz, the God of Israel will drop-kick the rebellious among the nations through the goalposts of divine judgment – those who have painted over God’s truth and heart regarding the land and the people of Israel: “For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness …” (Romans 1:18).

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

How to deal with Mid-East terror – prophetic wisdom from Jephthah

The past 60 hours have seen over 90 rockets rain down on Israeli cities, including Beersheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Lehavim, Gedera, Kiryat Malachi and Beer Tuvya. All of these cities are within striking range from Gazan terror missiles. One 38-year old man has been murdered by a direct hit; one youg woman is fighting for her life. Scores have been wounded, and many have suffered shock.

The background of this explosion

During the month of August a group of possibly up to one hundred jihadi terrorists gathered in Egypt close to the Israeli border. They had smuggled themselves out of the Gaza Strip tunnels one at a time under Hamas’ watchful eye, and had gathered in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. There they trained for a mass terror attack, the goal of which was to kill Israeli citizens, as well as to kidnap some who could be used as bargaining chips to free jihadi prisoners in Israeli jails. Working with Sinai Bedouin, al-Qa’eda affiliated jihadi forces, and weaponry smuggled in by Iran, they gathered next to the Israeli border in the southern Negev close to the Red Sea port/resort of Eilat.

By Thursday August 18 their spearhead force of twenty men had dug tunnels under an Egyptian military border post, from which they emerged (some in Egyptian army uniforms) at 12:25 pm, crossing the international border under the eyes of Egyptian border patrol. They spread out over a thousand foot radius and began firing into a passing civilian Egged bus  number 392 filled with Israelis returning to Eilat for the weekend, as well as soldiers on leave. One of our son’s friends was on the bus and was wounded. The driver of the bus hit the gas and tore off down the road, rescuing his passengers from certain death. Seven were moderately wounded and evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva.

Using military tactics borrowed from Hezbollah (Lebanese Shiite jihadi terror group) and indicating Iranian logistical support, they activated Claymore mines, fired mortars from the Egyptian side, and shot RPGs at a civilian car and at a helicopter (both missed the target). Three terrorists attacked a private car of Israeli tourists out on a weekend vacation, machine gunning two sisters and their husbands, and then confirming the kills at close range. They murdered the driver of another civilian car, whose wife pretended to be dead and so saved her life. A suicide bomber then blew himself up next to a civilian bus passing by (without passengers) killing himself and the driver.

Israeli Golani recon forces (Sayeret Golani) and the Eilat-based SWAT team (YAMAM LOTAR) stormed the terrorists, killing six at close range. A 22-year old Golani soldier, Moshe Naftali, was shot and killed as he stepped out of his jeep. After a temporary lull in the fighting, people dressed in Egyptian army uniforms on the Egyptian side of the border shot and killed Pascal Avrahami, the 49-year old legendary YAMAM sniper. As Israeli helicopters followed in hot pursuit of other terrorists, four to six Egyptian soldiers were caught in the crossfire between the helicopter and the terrorists, causing the death of some of the Egyptians.

There is still concern that an undetermined number of jihadi terrorists are concealing themselves in the Israeli desert close by. Another attack site was uncovered at 6pm with IEDs ready, while a search of the dead terrorists revealed that they had plastic handcuffs with them, which would have been used to immobilize kidnapping victims.

Arab Spring or jihadi chaos?

The tumultuous events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have not lead to an Arab Spring but to a jihadi Summer. Total chaos is the rule in Egyptian-held Sinai. Al Qa’eda and other jihadi forces have recently attacked the Egyptian police station in El Arish with 200 armed men, and are attempting (aided by their 6,000-strong armed militias) to establish Shari’a-led dictatorships in enclaves throughout the area. Egypt’s Supreme Military Council has come under verbal fire by retired Egyptians generals in the past week, being accused of having allowed Salafist and jihadi forces a free hand in the Sinai.

Five attacks by these forces have put the natural gas pipelines (which carry Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan) totally out of commission. The Camp David peace accords initiated by President Jimmy Carter guaranteed a continuing flow of this energy source to Israel. Its stoppage indicates a major breakdown of peaceful and cooperative relations between Egypt and Israel, and a harbinger of more serious problems to come.

For sovereign Egypt to allow its soil to be used to host and facilitate a major terror attack on Israel is a serious event that bears careful consideration. But rather than learning and applying the fateful lessons here, the Egyptian government has gone into attack mode, demanding an Israeli apology for the deaths of its soldiers and witholding from its own people the facts that terrorists were able to infiltrate Egypt, and stage a massive attack from Egyptian soil while hiding behind Egyptian military posts and while dressed in Egyptian army uniforms.

On Friday and Saturday Egyptian police have permitted violent attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo to go on without disruption – shades of what Iran orchestrated on November 4 1979 at the US Embassy in Teheran.

Hitting the target

Within five hours of the initial attack, IAF targeted and eliminated the head of the PRC (Popular Resistence Committee) military wing and five of his top leaders – the group that had spearheaded the multi-pronged terror attack – in the southern end of the Gaza Strip. Within 24 hours another senior commander was neutralized as he maneuvered through northern Gaza’s alleys on a speed bike. Israel focused its initial fury on the PRC leadership, but also destroyed smuggling tunnels, weapons workshops and rocket squads firing Qassam rockets. Though the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas jihadi organization initially washed its hands of responsibility or awareness of PRC’s preparations, it too began to fire rockets into Israel on Friday.

Over the past three days air raid sirens reminiscent of WWII movies have been going off with sickening repetition, often in the middle of the night. Beersheva residents have 60 seconds to make it to the one room in their house which is built to withstand missile attack. After that (usually within 25 to 60 seconds) one hears the crrrumppp of a missile smashing into the ground, or being blown up in the skies above by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries.

What is happening now is strikingly similar to the opening stages of the war in late December 2008 known as Operation Cast Lead. After over 12,000 rockets and mortars had been fired from Gaza at Israeli cities, villages, kibbutzim and farms, Israeli forces entered the Gaza Strip in order to end the rocket fire, to destroy the rocket infrastructure, and “to reduce the ability of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza to perpetrate future attacks against the civilian population in Israel” (www.mfa.gov.il/gazafacts).

Jephthah and the peace process

Over 3,100 years ago Jephthah son of Gilead was chosen by the elders of Israel to defend Israel from Arab attacks coming from Ammon (present-day Jordan). Jephthah sent ambassadors to the Ammonites asking the straightforward question, “What do you have against me, that you have come against me to fight against my land?” (Judges 11:12). The king of Ammon then accused Israel of having stolen land which had belonged to Ammon. “Now therefore restore these land peaceably!” he demanded (verse 13).

Jephthah responded by giving the king of Ammon a history lesson. He explained that YHVH had never allowed the Jewish people to claim land that belonged to Moab or Ammon, people distantly related to Abraham through Lot’s daughters. He agreed that Israel had followed God’s orders on the matter to the tee. However, YHVH had allowed Israel to conquer Amorite territory (a different people, led by King Sihon) – land which had never belonged to Ammon. The territory in question was Amorite and not Ammonite territory, and therefore was a valid Israeli possession. It had even been in Israeli hands for over 300 years at that point (verse 26).

Jephthah broke off the diplomatic process with the warning, “I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May YHVH the Judge render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon” (verse 27).

Praying the prayer of Jehoshaphat

What was true in Jephthah’s case is even more true in the case of Gaza. Whereas God told Israel not to invade or conquer Ammon and Moab, He definitely promised the entire land of Canaan (which borders include Gaza – see Genesis 10:19; Joshua 10:41; 11:22; 15:47; Judges 1:18; 1 Kings 4:24) to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

King Jehoshaphat was confronted with a similar situation in his day – Arab invasions from Ammon, Moab and Edom – and he, like Jephthah, reminded God in prayer of the same covenantal promises to Abraham.

“But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir,
 whose territory You would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt;
so they turned away from them and did not destroy them.
See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession
You gave us as an inheritance.
Our God, will You not judge them?
For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (2 Chronicles 20:10-12)

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

“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!” (Numbers 24:5)

The hot Summer months of July and August 2011 have witnessed an unusual phenomenon in Israel – large street demonstrations and the springing up of “tent cities” protests. The demonstrators were not the urban poor in this case – the protestors were middle class folk, post-IDF students and young married couples. For the most part they had adequate housing, were equipped with cell phones and brought along spare tents. Long-haired young people with acoustic guitars and nargilahs (tobacco water pipes) strummed folk songs at 2 am in public parks amidst clusters of silver painted pup tents, while Israeli rock and pop stars serenaded the protestors with live mini-concerts and pep talks.

These demonstrations caught many by surprise, in that Israel’s overall financial situation is considered rather good, and its credit ratings and economic stability are the envy of many a European country.

Yet the fiscal pressure on most Israelis is heavy. The cost of consumer goods is very high (often due to monopolistic price gouging and cartel price fixing). The cost of housing (both rental and mortgage) has literally gone through the roof, making it prohibitively expensive to rent or buy. Most Israelis find it hard to finish the month without a bank overdraft. For many decades and for the most part, Israelis have accepted rising prices with a battle-weary stoicism – until this Summer. What has changed consumer passivity so radically?

A storm in a teacup of cottage cheese

The straw that broke the camel’s back in this case was made of cottage cheese. A consumer protest in June focused on the exorbitant rise of the price of an Israeli breakfast staple – small tubs of cottage cheese. Strident consumer rights advocates filled TV screens calling on patriotic citizens to refrain from purchasing this product until national food conglomerates lowered prices. Prices did eventually go down, and the media was quick to declare a rousing consumer victory. Within a few weeks, however, cottage cheese prices rose again (albeit more slowly).

Cartels and catalyzers

Economists and sociologists have long pointed out a disturbing trend in Israeli society. Approximately sixteen mega-wealthy oligarchic Israeli family consortiums own between 25% and 45% of Israeli industry, including the majority of the newspapers and television stations. Whereas in the majority of Western countries such influence and control over the media is exercised with a greater degree of subtlety, here in Israel the boxing gloves are off.

PM Ariel Sharon was treated with kid gloves until after the withdrawal from Gaza (Summer 2005). PM Olmert was the media’s darling until after the Lebanon war (Summer 2006). But since the election of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the major TV stations have actively campaigned against him while advocating a left-of-center political agenda, threatening that unless Israel withdraws from Judea and Samaria she will be sanctioned and destroyed.

Israel’s largest newspapers actively and daily pummel the democratically elected Prime Minister, accusing him of all manners of corruption, character weakness, treason and falsehood. Sarcasm, mocking, false allegations and treasonous accusations have become the mainstay of much of Israeli political reportage. Verbum sapientiae sufficens, for those who have the courage to draw parallels with levels of political debate in other countries ...

Socialist roots and populist shoots

The modern restoration of the Jewish people to their biblical Promised Land was initiated by many East European Jews whose eschatological vision was built on socialist promises of a world revolution, the zeal to right economic wrongs, and the hope of an egalitarian state not controlled by political or religious anti-Semites. The initial pioneers of the kibbutz movement strongly advocated a socialist state, and the political foundations of the modern state of Israel were built on the underpinnings of the socialist trade union movement (in Hebrew, the Histadrut). The first thirty years of Israeli majority government were resoundingly led by the Labor Party, and Israel’s leading Labor politicians regularly made the rounds of the Socialist International meetings in Europe.

The near collapse of the Jewish state in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 and Labor’s sluggish protectionist economy led Menahem Begin’s right of center political coalition to seize the helm in 1977. As a result, a greater measure of democratic give-and-take functioned in the political and economic spheres.

Yet although their political influence rapidly faded in the polls, the socialist leaders of the Labor party continued to present themselves as the champions of the underprivileged and the poor in Israel. Some industrialist magnates (having hitched their political and economic futures to the socialist wagon, similar to the Italian model of Gianni Agnelli and FIAT) continued to throw their weight behind Labor, pushing for a strong social welfare state based on Greek, French and Eastern European models.

“They grumbled in their tents “ (Psalm 106:25)

Over the past two months, Israeli media has been whipping up and manipulating popular economic dissatisfaction, shaping and channeling discontent into brazen and ill-concealed attempts to bring down the democratically elected government of Israel. Their main goal seems to be to bring to power political parties which will acquiesce in withdrawing from large portions of the land promised to the Jewish people, and thereby (they hope) reduce international pressure on the State of Israel.

It is both grievous and shocking to watch how TV and newspapers began to call a small group of demonstrators “a huge popular movement” when only handfuls showed up. Blazing front page headlines and sensational editorials followed, calling this movement a “slave uprising.”  Wildly inaccurate figures flew in all directions, affirming that there were 100,000 (or perhaps 300,000) demonstrators at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.

The same media have mocked Orthodox Jews and settlers as ‘beyond the pale’ in this movement, describing them as enemies of the protestors and of peace. Television’s ‘talking heads’ have moved from reporting news to attacking politicians on prime time, while presenting their own opinions and editorial slants as expert ‘news analysis.’  Normal journalistic balance and professional conduct have for the most part been jettisoned.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows

Over the past weeks the media have bent over backwards in insisting that the demonstrations are only apolitical expressions of popular frustration, and that there are no Rasputin-like powers behind the scenes pulling the strings. Nevertheless, the leaders of Kadima and Labor are egging the protests on, while leftist political activists are at the helm of the protest leadership. A recent op-ed by Zalman Shoval (former Israeli Ambassador to the US – www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=233900) points out that clearly left-wing local and foreign groups have been organizing and bankrolling the protest events. In a recent news article, one famous pop star is approvingly quoted as saying that the social protests are and always have been deeply political in nature.

What is morally ironic (though political astute) is that the magnates and cartels who deeply influence the direction of Israel’s economy have taken it upon themselves to direct popular frustration through media propaganda and the activation of leftist leaders. Their goals include the setting up a government which will better serve their own economic interests – while simultaneously bowing the knee to world pressure regarding the upcoming Palestinian strategies at the United Nations. These underhanded methods are not good for Israel’s territorial integrity, but they are good for business – or at least for the magnates’ own short-term business interests.

“I will make you live in tents again” (Hosea 12:9)

The prophet Hosea addressed wealthy though ungodly men in his day, who were more concerned about profit than prophet, who cared more about wealth gained unjustly (12.1, 7-9) than about a relationship with God anchored in justice and covenant faithfulness (12: 3-4, 6). He declared that unless the Jewish people – rich and poor alike – in both Northern and Southern kingdoms returned to God with heartfelt repentance, they would all go into nomadic exile, dwelling again in tents as in the days of Moses and the Sinai wanderings.

Rapacious greed is a dishonor to any nation, and the Hebrew prophets lambasted ungodly materialism when it raised its head among some of Israel’s leaders of days gone by. The economic pressure and financial anguish that many Israelis feel today is all too real. Yet the spiritual priority that Hosea, Amos and Isaiah home in on is the necessity for repentance and getting right with God as the key to an economic and political transformation.

Though some in Israel have chosen to temporarily move out of their apartments and into pup tents in the park, what is ultimately needed in Israel is not a change of government or even cheaper housing (though the latter would be nice)! What is needed is a radical turning to God, to His heart, to His just ways and His guidelines for godly living.

“O YHVH, who will dwell in Your tent?” (Psalm 15:1)

David the shepherd-king once wrote a poem which became part of Israel’s spiritual heritage. His question was slightly different than that asked by many in Israel today. He was not calling “every man in Israel to his own tents” (as in 2 Chronicles 10:16) but rather, he was asking if there is anyone in Israel – rich or poor, young or old, blind or lame – who would actually want to live in God’s tents. Is there a remnant in Israel who desires more than anything else to live in the favor and under the protective glory of the God of Israel?

Here are David’s words:

O YHVH, who may abide in Your tent?

Who may dwell on Your holy hill?

He who walks with integrity, and does what is righteous, who speaks truth from his heart.

He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor,

nor does he cast a slur against his friend;

He despises a vile person, but honors those who fear YHVH.

He keeps his promise even when it causes him damage, and does not change his word.

He does not lend out his money at interest, nor does he accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be shaken.  (Psalm 15)

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

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