The Groom’s still waiting at the altar

In the Summer of 1980 Bob Dylan wrote one of his greatest songs ever, according to Rolling Stone magazine. ‘The Groom’s still waiting at the altar’ has biblical and apocalyptic language and, like his classic ‘Neighborhood Bully,’ leaves a trail of bread crumbs which leads the listener through the mists to come face-to-face with the Jewish homeland of Israel:

Israel’s location is certainly west of the Jordan River and east of the Rock of Gibraltar. And the ongoing prophetic return of the Jewish people to their Promised Land is a wake-up call to the world – a turning of the page of history, and a curtain rising on a new age, one where Messiah Yeshua will reign over the entire planet from Jerusalem:

The River Jordan we know, and the Rock of Gibraltar we know. The turning of the page and the coming in of the new Davidic age we also somewhat grasp. But who is the Groom, and why is He still waiting at the altar?

Isaiah’s double entendre

Dylan has always dappled his songwriting with biblical allusions, from the folk-anthem ‘Blowing in the Wind’ to the Grammy-winning ‘Gotta Serve Somebody.’ He is eminently comfortable guiding a biblical phrase or parable onto unexpected and surprising paths.

The Scriptures refer to the ‘groom’ in two interesting ways:

One is described by Yohanan the Immerser (known worldwide as John the Baptist) who declared: “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’ He who has the bride is the Groom. But the friend of the Groom, who stands and listens to Him, rejoices greatly because of the Groom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:28-30). John describes himself as the friend of Yeshua the Messianic Bridegroom. John rejoiced to see Yeshua’s First Coming, knowing all the while that John’s own ministry would diminish and ultimately fade away as Yeshua stepped into His prophesied calling.

The second reference is in Isaiah 62, where the Jewish people are described as the bridegroom who will marry – be re-united to – the Land of Israel in a Last Days prophetic consummation. There they will return to their own Promised Land and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, will ‘re-marry’ that Land. This biblical passage adds another facet to the prophetic diamond: It describes YHVH the God of Jacob as Israel’s Groom who will remarry the Jewish people – whom He calls His own precious Wife:

The demonic matchmaking of the nations

The holiness of marriage – the exhilarating union of man and woman – reflects the craftsmanship and passion of the Original Matchmaker.

The wonder of marriage invites us to take a deeper look. It points us to more fully perceive God’s passion to be intimate with His Jewish people. It also applies (in another context) to the relationship between all believers and Yeshua. Let’s look at some conclusions here:

All attempts to divide the Jewish people from their Land of inheritance by ‘re-marrying the Land’ to the enemies of the Jewish people – these bring the judgment of God on these evil actors. They might be the PLO/PA, Hamas, Iran, the US State Department, the British Foreign Ministry or the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. They might even be the preachers and teachers of false teachings espoused by Replacement Theology in all of its forms – whether Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Evangelical or Charismatic Christianity, or even Islamist triumphalism (the most recent champion of Replacement theology). Whatever the origin and whoever the instigator, it should be remembered: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).

Let’s sum up some conclusions here:

Men who understood the times

The rock group Chicago’s lead singer Robert Lamm once asked: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” This question can certainly be posed to all who follow Messiah Yeshua today.

The Jewish tribe of Issachar was given a special gift by the God of Jacob:  “The sons of Issachar [were] men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). Issachar was given unusual discernment so that they could guide the Jewish people in the military, governmental and spiritual challenges they faced. What are the challenges facing the Jewish people today, and are Christians and Jews who follow Messiah Yeshua aware of the challenges yet to be faced?

Many dear people are tone-deaf to the fast-paced changes sweeping across Planet Earth. Many are pre-occupied with the pursuit of things that will never satisfy, which will never connect us to eternal realities, as C.S. Lewis once put it:

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin

I talk of love – a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek –

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin (from the poem ‘As the Ruin Falls’)

All around us, events are picking up speed. Whereas in times past, earth-shaking events happened once a decade, it seems that they are now happening twice a week. The sound of rushing and roaring surrounds us, as Isaiah prophesied: “Oh, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rumbling of nations who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!” (Isaiah 17:12).

There is a temptation for some to envision Middle Eastern events concerning Israel as simply being moves on a divine chessboard, and to view the Jewish people as merely an ivory chess piece in God’s strategic gambit. Some are teaching that the horrific Hamas jihadi rapes, murders, tortures and kidnappings of October 7 should primarily be interpreted as a prophetic fulfilment of Last Days prophecies like Psalm 83 – ‘something which needed to be accomplished so that Jesus can return.’

Certainly, Psalm 83 is highly important and highly relevant in our day – though not all the protagonists in that Psalm are yet in place. But disasters befalling the Jewish people are not to be looked at through dispassionate theological spectacles. What is needed is something more human: Unless we are interceding with tears for the Jewish people, unless we understand how precious they are to God, unless we clearly grasp how YHVH will use the Jewish people to judge the nations of the world, and how the God of Jacob will restore Israel to their biblical and priority calling – there is a clear and present danger that we will dehumanize Israel’s divine calling. The result could then be that we will become callous in our own hearts and in the clarity of our perceptions as well.

“But where I live, the game to play is compromise solution”

Mick Jagger’s famous line from the Rolling Stones’ 1968 hit ‘Street Fighting Man’ aptly sums up current superpower politics in the Middle East. Of course, superpowers tend to disregard the word of God regarding His irrevocable gifts and calling on the Jewish people. They try to solve ‘the Middle East problem’ based on compromise solution and realpolitik. The end result of such conniving is bound to lead to no good. As Zechariah the prophet wryly noted, “It will come about on that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will injure themselves severely. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it” (Zechariah 12:3).

According to Joshua 15:1,47, Gaza is part of the Land that the God of Jacob swore by His own name to give to the sons and daughters of Israel. From YHVH’s perspective, Gaza is as much a part of the Promised Land as is Givatayim in Greater Tel Aviv. Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip is just as much a part of the Promised Land as is Kfar Saba, just north of Tel Aviv. Whether it is due to blindness, to ignorance or even to spiritual hubris, the nations of the world are currently gathering – USA, UK, Germany, France, etc. – to decide how they will divide up the Land of Israel. Current headlines trumpet the flowering of the process.

At a State Department Press Briefing on January 3, 2024. Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller stated:

A January 28, 2024 report in the Times of Israel reveals that the USA has turned to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey, calling them ‘regional stakeholders’ who will enable the PLO/Palestinian Authority to transition into governing Gaza and the West Bank, thus creating a pathway to a Palestinian state. As mentioned in our previous newsletters, this international scheme empowers and establishes the Palestinian Authority (an organization neck-deep in terror and jihad) to become joint-owners of the Land of Israel.

Let’s look at this short list of six Middle Eastern nations:

And these are the ‘regional stakeholders’ that the US administration has chosen to work with in order to establish a Palestinian terror state in Gaza and the West Bank?

These superpower moves are not only aiding and abetting Israel’s enemies in their move toward achieving genocidal goals. They are increasing the likelihood of empowering a repeat of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror pogroms (which involved mass murder, mass rape, torture and kidnapping of Israeli civilians). The attempt to establish a PLO state (which would quickly be overthrown by Hamas, as happened in Gaza in 2006-2007) reveals that an inherent spiritual schizophrenia has wrapped its demonic roots around US and European policies. If left unchecked, these moves constitute a clear and present danger to Israel’s survival. In the words of Bob Dylan, “Can you imagine the darkness that will fall from on high” when the God of Israel will bring His righteous judgment on those nations who violate His clear commandments concerning these issues?

The world has been slow to learn many lessons of history: not taking Hitler’s Holocaust prophecies seriously; the danger of signing ‘peace deals’ with the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacres and the instigators of the First and Second Intifadas; and quite recently, standing with a stopwatch in hand, threatening Israel with a banana-republic putsch to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu if the IDF continues to pursue its goal of totally removing the jihadi terror group Hamas from Gaza. How can Western superpowers blow the referee’s whistle and call a time-out, before these murderers, rapists, torturers and kidnappers have been eliminated and justice has been done?

Gaza – never to be part of the Promised Land but forever to be part of a Palestinian state

According to the US State Department, Israel must never be allowed to return to Gaza. The leaders of the US, the UK and the EU avow that the Jewish state should not even be considered a stakeholder in determining what happens with Gaza or the West Bank. At the same State Department briefing mentioned above, Matthew Miller declared: “We have raised with [the Israeli Government] the issue of the establishment of a buffer zone [in Gaza, to prevent jihadi terror attacks against Israeli citizens] . . . We are opposed to any reduction in the size of the territory of Gaza. And what [the Israelis] have said to us is that they do not intend to occupy Gaza; they do not intend to leave forces there. And we’re going to continue to engage with them on this question.”

The insistent focus by the US, the UK, Germany and France on what the plan will be for ‘the day after’ is actually an exercise in dissimulation. From a military perspective, the battle against Hamas must first be won before any ‘spoils of war’ can be divided. But how can that happen when the West incessantly hobbles Israel from decisively defeating their mortal enemies? The ‘Western stakeholders’ continue to stress ‘the day after,’ but what this term actually means is that these superpowers want to make sure that a Jewish community will never be resurrected in Gaza, but that only a Palestinian entity (terrorist in its essential nature) will arise to control the heartland of Israel. The inevitable result of this scheme will be more October 7 attacks – but now this time originating from the West Bank as well, easily reaching out to terrorize the core of Israel’s civilian population.

On January 29, 2024, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron unveiled strategic insight on how the US and the UK are squeezing Israel on these matters:

Praying for the Groom at the altar, the people and the Land

Isaiah calls us to pray fervently and continually – until the God of Jacob makes good on His prophetic promises to the Jewish people and to the Promised Land of Israel:

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

The Caesarea Syndrome

“My God, my God! May these things never end – the sand and the sea, the rustling of the waves, the lightning in the sky, the prayer of a man…” This poem – titled ‘A walk to Caesarea’ – was written by Hannah Szenes, a Jewish poet and partisan. Born in Budapest, she moved to Israel in 1939, joining Kibbutz Sdot Yam (next to the ancient ruins of Caesarea) in 1941. At that time she wrote this poem, which today is considered one of Israel's unofficial anthems and is the most-commonly played song on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). In 1943 Szenes was recruited into the Special Operations Executive, and on March 14, 1944 she parachuted into Yugoslavia along with three colleagues as part of a Jewish commando unit within the British Army.  Upon entering Hungary in early June 1944, she was captured, interrogated by the Hungarian security services, tortured in Budapest, tried for treason by the fascist Arrow Cross court on October 28, 1944, and then executed by firing squad on November 7, 1944. She was 23 years old at her death.

Caesarea is mentioned in Acts 10 where Peter had significant experiences with Cornelius and his household, and in Acts chapters 23-26 where Paul spoke with Felix, Festus and Herod Agrippa II. Today Caesarea is known for Israel’s wealthiest real estate holdings. It is the home of politicians, oligarchs, artists and diplomats. Prime Minister Netanyahu has a house there as well, and often travels down from Jerusalem to spend his weekend beside the rustling of the waves, the sand and the sea.

The Stockholm Syndrome revisited

In August 1973 a branch of the Swedish Kreditbanken in Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm was robbed. The robbers held the bank employees hostage for 6 days, during which time the victims became emotionally attached to their captors. After they were released, the victims continued to defend the motives and actions of the bank robbers, and at least one woman got engaged to her former captor. Swedish criminologist and psychologist Nils Bejerot coined the term ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ to describe this puzzling phenomenon, where the hostage actually buys in to the oppressor’s or captor’s perspective, and then finds her own soul overwhelmed by her captor’s lies.

Certain conditions can trigger this syndrome, including a perceived threat to one’s personal survival; the perceived inability to escape; isolation from perspectives other than that of the captor; and small acts of kindness from the captor within a context of terror. The Stockholm Syndrome should be understood first and foremost as a survival mechanism for cornered victims.

Typical behavior of those suffering from this syndrome includes:

The Stockholm Syndrome has specific significance for Israelis in the Middle East. After nearly a hundred years of Islamic Arab war against the Jews and their state, the ongoing hostilities and unremitting terrorism have triggered Stockholm Syndrome attitudes within many Israeli hearts. Some of us Israelis have begun to defend our enemies, to ignore their murderous goals and to blame ourselves for their hateful attacks. The world has encouraged this syndrome through slanted media as well as through political and economic pressure.

As a result, many in Israel have bought into an attitude of ‘accepting the necessity’ of –

Two of Israel’s three main political parties have platforms that mandate retreating from and surrendering our land to our mortal enemies as the best chance for peace.

Eyeless in Gaza

In August 2005 Israel’s then-PM Ariel Sharon responded to global pressure (which included veiled threats of economic and political boycott) by enacting and overseeing a unilateral retreat from Gaza (known as the ‘Disengagement’). In our day, PM Netanyahu is coming under huge international pressure to retreat from portions of the mountains of Israel in the West Bank (see Ezekiel 34:13-14; 36:1-8; 37:22; 38:8; 39:17). America’s realpolitik involves getting Israel’s government to fulfil one of global jihad’s wildest dreams – the Jewish people handing over huge swaths of our own territory to our mortal enemies on a silver platter (see Psalm 83; Ezekiel 35; Ezekiel 36).

How is that working out for us so far? After the August 2005 Gaza ‘disengagement,’ the vacuum left by the IDF was instantly filled by Islamist jihadi forces. Within a short time, advanced Iranian and Syrian weapons and millions of greenbacks flooded into the Gaza Strip. Soon after, Islamist terror groups were openly firing deadly rockets onto Jewish kibbutzim, towns and cities. Hamas gleefully declared that Israel’s retreats from Lebanon (2000) and Gaza (2005) were the result of their unceasing jihadi terror attacks. Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and Hamas’ Haniyeh constantly proclaim that Israel is now on the retreat, and that continued Islamist steadfastness will lead to total victory – a Palestinian Islamist state with a Muslim-dominated Jerusalem as its capital.

 An excellent analysis of these Stockholm Syndrome dynamics is found in Kenneth Levin’s ‘The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.’

The Battered Child Syndrome

How was it possible that Israel could still support the Oslo Accords process, when PLO arch-terrorist Arafat spoke glowingly about peace before English audiences while simultaneously (when addressing Arabic-speaking audiences) called those same Oslo Accords a springboard for the destruction of Israel? After murderous terror attacks dramatically increased soon after the signing of the Oslo Accords, why is it that many Israelis continued to believe in its false vision?

Kenneth Levin compares these phenomena to victims of ‘Battered Child Syndrome,’ who blame themselves for the abuse they suffer, and are convinced that if they would only behave better, their parents would cease to beat them. The truth – that they will continue to be beaten anyway because it is their parents who have a problem and not the children – is too frightening for most to deal with.

This syndrome has afflicted the Jewish people since the early years of the Exile and continues to do so right up to the present. The Battered Child Syndrome has insinuated itself into Jewish consciousness over hundreds of years.

The Jewish people have been living under a state of siege for centuries, forced to confront unrelenting hatred directed at their people, merely because we exist. Some individuals are able to cope with this pressure, while others cannot. Those who do not find the necessary inner strength to confront and triumph over this anti-Semitism, try to solve the problem by identifying, to varying degrees, with their persecutors. Today this trend is most visible among Jews who choose the path of assimilation, who wish to find favor in the eyes of the nations whatever the cost.

A further step in this ‘Battered Child’ process involves Jews blaming each other for anti-Semitism. The step after that is for Jews to blame Israeli Jews for evils (specifically Islamist anti-Semitism) for which the Jewish people are entirely blameless.

Moving the goalposts at midnight

The strategies and tactics adopted in the 1990’s by Israel’s ruling Labor Party to carry out the Oslo withdrawals merit a closer look. Israel’s intellectual elite, the architects of the Oslo process, systematically misrepresented the substance of their negotiations to the Israeli public (and even to PM Rabin) throughout the process. Then Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin sought to create ‘faits accomplis’ (secretly signed agreements) which flew in the face of public opinion and also violated established Labor Party platforms.  The Israeli crafters of Oslo publicly denied any deceptive intentions, while secretly compromising and backtracking on issues which had been long-standing governmental red lines. The strategies of Beilin and of his boss Shimon Peres (later PM) were essentially non-democratic in nature. This is the way they saw it: since most Israelis could not yet understand that peace with the PLO could be attained if only antiquated concepts (like defensible borders, security issues, threats from neighboring countries, etc.) were thrown out the window (according to Beilin, Peres and Nimrod Novik), it was the obligation of Israel’s leaders to create conditions suitable to ushering in this new coming peace, and to turn Israel’s concessions into established facts on the ground – despite the public's resistance.  Shimon Peres stated in November 1995: “A leader must be like a bus driver . . . He cannot turn his head all the time to see how the passengers feel.”

The now-ratified Oslo Accords have become the touchstone for ‘politically correct’ governmental leaders and world bodies like the UN in dealing with Israel. The international consensus is that Israel has no moral right to hold on to the biblical borders of the Promised Land, and thus it should be forced to withdraw from the lion’s share of those territories. A glaring example of this dangerous reality comes from just a few days ago:

Sons of thunder, sons of lightning

A ‘clash of the titans’ power struggle has been taking place in Israel since 1977 (see my newsletter of February 22, 2023: https://davidstent.org/establish-justice-in-the-gate-amos-515/). That was the year when the Labor Party, socialist holder of the Zionist reins since before 1948, lost its traditional majority to Menahem Begin’s Likud right-wing coalition. The domination of Ashkenazi Jews (from Eastern European origins) was broken, and now Jews from Arab and Middle Eastern countries (as well as fiscal conservatives and liberals) would eat and drink at the Knesset table of honor. Diehard Laborites were not pleased, especially as their percentage of the vote dwindled nearly to the point of political extinction. The last hold-out and flag-waver of these Labor Party positions is Ehud Barak. For an in-depth background of Barak and his role as ‘éminence grise’ – the Rasputin-like power behind the throne – see the following newsletters:

‘Barak’ in Hebrew means ‘lightning.’ The most decorated soldier in Israel’s history and one of the IDF’s top generals, once head of Israel’s Sayeret Matkal (equivalent to the US Delta Force). head of AMAN (Israel’s Military Intelligence), Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense, Prime Minister – Barak has done it all. Yet he lost the Prime-Ministership to Bibi Netanyahu (at one time a sergeant under his direct command) – something which seems to have caused a poisonous root of bitterness to spring up within Barak’s heart over time. 

Over the years, Barak has spearheaded a vitriolic campaign to bring down PM Netanyahu, no matter what the cost to the nation. This has involved ‘lawfare’ (using the courts as a weapon to attack and remove Netanyahu from office); stirring up public sentiment with repeated and lurid charges of fascism, treason and incarnate evil against Bibi; spearheading civil unrest and massive quasi-violent demonstrations attempting to block Bibi’s governance and remove him from office (the ‘Kaplan riots’);  calling for soldiers and pilots to go AWOL in efforts to bring down the government; and, since October 7, hijacking the cause of those Israelis kidnapped by Hamas and transforming that movement by catalyzing it into further attacks on Bibi as PM, focusing on strident calls for new elections. In pursuit of these goals, Barak has been quoted often in Israel’s media, threatening blood in the streets and civil war, as well as calling for a putsch against the PM, etc.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me

The world has gone through a shift in recent days. Whereas evil dictators like Hitler and Stalin hid their nefarious deeds though ‘nacht und nebel’ (‘night and fog’) or through KGB secretive arrests and murders, in our day entities like the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Yemeni Houthis, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas make no secret of their power-hungry plans. Barak and his coterie, in a similar way, are outspoken about both their agenda and their unbridled hatred of Bibi Netanyahu and his government. Here are some selected quotes of some of Barak’s statements over the past seven years.

A Hebrew Zoom clip from July 23, 2020 (an excerpt with English sub-titles available here) is of a private meeting Barak held with retired Israel Air Force pilots and navigators (‘Forum 555’) who all supported him in his desire to remove Bibi from office. The meeting included Shikma Bressler and Moshe Redman, present leaders of the 2023 ‘Kaplan’ protest demonstrations. In that meeting Ehud Barak stated that Bibi is heading up “an attempted governmental coup.”  A civil uprising is needed, he added, but it must be presented to the public as an uprising “for the sake of democracy,” rather than an attempt to unseat Netanyahu.

In the Zoom video Barak discusses strategies for a civilian revolt, including the use of slogans, civil disobedience, and both general and ultimate goals of the protest movement. He stated that he will raise the necessary funds to cover all logistics for the project, including flags, banners and PA systems. He continued, stating that the more there are streets clashes with the government, the stronger would the opposition’s resistance become. This would inevitably lead to the government needing to use force against the demonstrators, which would again bolster the protest movement. In Barak’s own words, when an army shoots into a crowd, the government is bound to fall. Barak also declared on that Zoom clip a snippet of revealing information about his own self-awareness: “Objectively speaking, I am the most suitable person in the state to take control of the steering wheel.”

In recent public statements over the past eight years, Barak has declared:

Barak’s attempt to adulterate the hostage-release movement

Here are three short quotes from a longer recording on December 3, 2023 between former Prime Minister/Chief of Staff Ehud Barak and retired helicopter pilot Guy Poran, founder of Forum 555 and the ‘pilots’ protest’ inciter/organizer [well-publicized calls for IAF pilots to go AWOL in order to bring down the government]. In that recording Barak lays out his plan to depose Netanyahu using the two Trojan horses, ex-Generals Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, and to expel Members of Knesset Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from the government – in order to facilitate the IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza which would be turned over to a “responsible entity,” namely the Palestinian Authority.

It is sobering but nonetheless true, that Barak’s end game involves a putsch against Bibi and the establishment of a PLO/PA/Hamas terror state in the Jewish heartland.

 

The hostage-release movement is a genuine Israeli grass-roots movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the condition of the up-to-136 Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas and held in terrible conditions, daily subjected to torture, rape, starvation, etc.  This is a bona fide national outpouring of prayer and agony for the release of these Jewish and Israeli victims. It is worthy of support and prayer.

Yet at the same time, Barak and his back-door cronies are, like vampires, cynically manipulating this movement of grieving families in an attempt to stir up anger and hatred against the legal government of Israel. These shadowy puppet masters are paying for posters, billboards, T-shirts, buses for demonstrators, etc. – just as they did for the ‘spontaneous’ Kaplan demonstrators of 2023. They are even using the same PR firms and graphics. Most Israelis are not aware of the fact that this exceedingly popular movement has been somewhat tainted and is being manipulated behind the scenes.

Scholars, politicians and political analysts have noted that the leaders of Hamas have been carefully studying Israeli politics and politicians, and had come to the conclusion that the civil unrest, quasi-violent demonstrations and calls for AWOL behavior throughout 2023 – all had served to weaken the IDF’s and the nation’s combat readiness. They also concluded that these events had downgraded Israel’s fighting spirit. These were some of the factors that influenced Hamas in choosing the date of October 7, 2023 as the time of their jihadi terror attack.

The Stockholm Syndrome – Hamas version

As Barak and his fellow-travelers have set their hand to massaging the public persona and message of the hostage-release movement, a new narrative is now being distributed to the Israeli and world media. It is classic Stockholm Syndrome. According to this narrative, Bibi Netanyahu must be publicly attacked, vilified, held guilty and removed from office because Hamas is still holding Israeli hostages in cruel captivity. “Bring them home NOW!” is one of the buzzwords associated with this spin, and its posters use the same graphics as did both the Kaplan demonstrators and fascist Germany of the 1930’s: stark black background, bold red text and white trim. Mass demonstrations are now held at Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Interchange but, as Barak commanded, the faces of the leadership have been ‘changed’; nevertheless, the song remains the same: “Throw out Bibi! New elections now! The Right wing is evil!”

On the road to Caesarea

On Friday, January 19, 2024, the ‘Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’ held a demonstration outside of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, shouting slogans like “For 105 days we begged you and now we demand: stop the executions of the hostages!” and “Their time has passed - we must make a deal now!” The Families Forum is demanding an immediate convening of an international conference composed of Qatar (Hamas’ main bankroller and asylum-granter), Egypt (which permits Hamas to re-arm through its Rafah border tunnels), the US (which has its main Middle East air base in Qatar) and Israel. Of course, neither Iran nor Hamas would attend such a conference; these two entities don’t care in the slightest about such gatherings.

In 1988, a Gazan terrorist associated with Hamas named Yahya Sinwar (Yaḥyá al-Sanwār) orchestrated the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians considered to be collaborators. Two of these Palestinians he strangled, one he killed during a violent interrogation, and the fourth he accidentally shot during an attempted abduction. Sinwar was captured by Israel and sentenced to four life sentences in 1989. In 2008 while in prison, he was operated on by Israeli doctors who removed a brain tumor and saved his life.  Sinwar served 22 years of his sentence, and in 2011 he was one of 1,027 Palestinian terrorists freed in a prisoner exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for five years.

In February 2017 internal elections, Hamas elected Sinwar as its political chief in the Gaza Strip, replacing deputy Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Sinwar is a founding member of the forerunner of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He also founded Hamas’ al-Majd internal security service (targeting alleged collaborators with Israel), which operates under the oversight of Mohammed Deif’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades terror group. Sinwar was re-elected Hamas’ Gazan political leader on March 10, 2021. Sinwar opposes any power sharing with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and rejects any reconciliation with Israel. He has called on Hamas operatives to capture Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips for prisoner exchanges. He is the highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza and Gaza's de facto ruler, as well as the second most powerful member of Hamas after Haniyeh.

When Sinwar was imprisoned in Israel more than a decade ago, he explained to Yuval Bitton (then head of the Israel Prison’s Intelligence Division) his analysis of one of Israel’s major strengths – which is also one its major weaknesses. Sinwar said that what Israel considers its strength – that most Israelis serve in the army, and that soldiers hold a special status in society – is at the same time a weakness that can be exploited by Hamas, said Yuval Bitton. His observation proved prescient in 2011, when Sinwar was one of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners freed for a single Israeli soldier.  Now, Sinwar is holding hostage 136 Israelis, including soldiers. The Hamas leader is betting he can force the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners and also maintain Hamas’ iron grip on Gaza. He’s relying on his judgment of Israeli society after two decades of Israeli jail time – where he learned Hebrew, watched local news and deciphered the Israeli psyche.  Bitton concludes that Sinwar “understands that Israel will pay a heavy price. He understands this is our weak spot.”

Sinwar and 1,026 Palestinian terrorists were released in 2011 for one IDF soldier (Gilad Shalit) who had been captured by Hamas on June 25, 2006. On May 7, 2014 SHABAK (Israel’s FBI) detained Hamas terrorist Ziad Awad from the town of Idna near Hebron, who had also been released as part of the Shalit prisoner exchange. Awad had just murdered Israeli police intelligence agent Baruch Mizrahi (also a lieutenant colonel in the IDF reserves, who served in the ‘8200’ SIGINT of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate AMAN) on April 14, 2014 (the Eve of Passover) on Route 35 near the Tarkumiya checkpoint. Awad was aided in these preparations by his son Izz ad-Din Awad, age 18. These preparations included the purchase of a motorcycle and an AK-47 assault rifle for his father. Izz ad-Din also scouted out the best area for the ambush-attack.

In 2013 , two years after the 2011 prisoner exchange, Israeli security forces thwarted more than 40 terror attacks planned by Hamas operatives released in the Shalit deal. As of July 2015, six Israelis had been killed by Hamas terrorists released in the Shalit deal (see Shelly Aviv Yeini’s penetrating article in the Minnesota Journal of International Law, titled “Weighing Lives: Israel’s Prisoner-Exchange Policy and the Right to Life”; 2018). Certainly, Yahya Sinwar’s release has led to the murder of over 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, as well as to the rape, torture and kidnapping of hundreds more.

Whose blood is redder?

The weighing of a decision to release terrorist murderers with blood on their hands, in exchange for innocent civilians – babies, children, teenagers, parents, pensioners – presents a terrible ethical quandary, and it leads to appalling moral choices.

In Tractate Sanhedrin 74a, an illustrative story is told about “a certain person who approached Rabba with the following question: ‘The ruler of my village came to me and said “Go kill such-and-such a person, and if you do not, then I will kill you.” Can I follow his order so that I will be able to save myself?’ Rabba responded: ‘Allow yourself to be killed, but you may not kill another. Who says that your blood is redder than his? Perhaps his blood is redder than yours?’ Who is sufficient to be able to weigh the lives of these hostages against the possibility of future Israeli lives snuffed out by possible future jihadi atrocities?

Here is a quote from Chen Shalita, whose article of October 10, 2023 bears reading: “The Dilemma around the Israeli Hostages Casts Doubts About National Priorities and Solidarity from Decision-Makers:”

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

The Princess Bride – a study in diplomacy

One striking scene in the 1987 movie ‘The Princess Bride,’ Count Rugen is about to haul Westley off to be tortured to death. But first Rugen must deceive the heroine Buttercup by pretending to help Westley on his way to a ship leaving the realm. Rugen declares: “Come, Sir, we must get you to your ship!” But Westley smiles wryly and says: “We are men of Action. Lies do not become us.” The Count gives a tiny smile and responds: “Well spoken, Sir.” Rugen’s smooth diplomatic speech concealed wicked intent.

These sobering words help in anchoring a balanced consideration of recent Middle East events.

“Unnamed diplomatic sources say …”

Diplomacy today often leaks quotes from ‘unattributed sources’ to world media. These anonymous quotes, though depersonalized in nature, truly represent government policy and soon-coming actions. Yet they are floated as if they are only ‘hints about future possibilities.’ After all, these policies might need to be withdrawn if there is too much public outcry.  Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Russia Thomas Pickering stated it this way: “In archeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known.”

Over the past three months of war – triggered by the October 7, 2023 jihadi terrorist group Hamas’ demonic attacks and atrocities on Israeli citizens living next to the Gaza Strip – Western governments were at first sympathetic and supportive regarding Israel’s suffering. They even showed a measure of understanding for the Jewish state’s determination to seek and destroy those jihadi forces responsible.

But very quickly, hobbling conditions and limitations were first ‘floated’ by the West – first as ‘concerns’ but within a month or two they were then declared as state policy:

In the same way as former POTUS Barak Obama did not realistically discern the Iranian threat (to the Middle East, to Israel and to the world) but instead opened up the financial sluice gates and allowed for a slippery path to nuclear weaponization, today other hands and leaders are repeating existential errors in breathing power and political energy into jihadi monsters.

 

Israel – the new banana republic

In a recent newsletter (https://davidstent.org/you-dont-have-too-many-friends-here-buddy/ ; November 2, 2023) I pointed out how ‘unnamed U.S. sources’ were raising hints that ‘it would be a shame if something happened to Israel’s wonderful democratically elected government’ and that, just in case something might happen to the Netanyahu government, “Biden aides already are engaging an array of other Israeli politicians – some in power, some not – on the war effort. According to the two [unnamed] senior administration officials as well as the current and former [unnamed] U.S. official, those talks have also provided a way to gauge the thinking of various Israelis who might take the helm of the country. While Biden administration officials have offered public declarations of solidarity with the Israeli government during the current crisis, aides are also trying to get ahead of what Netanyahu’s downfall could mean for the future Israeli-U.S. relationship . . . Netanyahu hasn’t been a favorite of the Biden team. His increasingly hardline positions over the years have upset Biden aides who still support creating a Palestinian state.  With an eye toward the future, [unnamed] U.S. officials are talking to Benny Gantz, a member of the current unity government; Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister; and Yair Lapid, an opposition leader and former prime minister, among other Israeli figures, the former [unnamed] official said.”

“Even the best-case scenario for Israel in this war would not likely keep Netanyahu in power,” said Hagar Chemali, a former National Security Council and Treasury Department official in the Obama administration. “I still believe Netanyahu is on his way out because Israelis are already publicly questioning whether he is really the right person, not just to win this specific battle against Hamas, but the broader war for a peaceful and secure Israel.” Bibi has been elected and re-elected as PM in Israeli elections; he has served longer than any other Prime Minister, even longer than Ben-Gurion. Yet U.S. State Department officials, speaking anonymously, seem to have greater insight and discernment about what Israelis think, than do Israelis themselves.

Treating the Jewish state in such a manner is often described as treating it like a banana republic. The term ‘banana republic’ was first found in print in 1904, describing Central America social and political realities. This term can be a pejorative word used to describe a weak country that aids and supports a stronger power (or superpower) in exchange for certain kickbacks or perks. America’s realpolitik toward Central American banana-producing countries has often been characterized by this term.

History shows us that, when Israel attempts to reclaim its God-promised land and its biblical borders, or when the Jewish state’s IDF attempts to decisively crush its enemies, it is then that various superpowers step in to reign in Israel from achieving those goals. It may have been Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in 1956 and 1973, or American orders to Israel to stand down or retreat in 1991, 2006 and 2021.

In 2021 POTUS Biden made many calls to PM Netanyahu during May’s Operation Guardian of the Walls. During their fourth phone call, on May 19, 2021, Biden was unhappy that Israel was insisting on completing the administering of a death-blow to Hamas. “Hey, man, we are out of runway here. It’s over!” said Biden. The ‘Times of Israel’ reports: “Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire two days later. The longtime Likud leader was replaced one month later by a short-lived unity government headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.”

The game of thrones

A January 18, 2024 article in ynetnews.com draws back the current veil somewhat, showing that there is now some baring of teeth in the pressure being applied to Israel. The US administration is threatening to do what it did before in 2021 – to work behind the scenes against Israel’s democratically elected government in order to set up a new government, one more quick to bow to American directives vis-à-vis establishing a Palestinian state. This state (falsely called ‘the two-state solution’) would be run by terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank. Here is clear evidence of these Machiavellian machinations:’

US State Department Matthew Miller indicated that the Israeli Prime Minister had rebuffed a US push for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Miller stated that Israel “faces some very difficult choices in the months ahead . . .  The conflict in Gaza is going to end. It will end, and at the end of that conflict, someone is going to have to rebuild Gaza, someone is going to have to govern Gaza, someone is going to have to provide security in Gaza . . . For the first time in its history, you see the countries in the region who are ready to step up and further integrate with Israel, and provide real security assurance to Israel, and the US is ready to play its part, but they all have to have a willing partner on the other side . . . There is no way to solve their long-term challenges, and there is no way to solve the short-term challenges [facing Palestinians and Israelis] without the establishment of a Palestinian state. We had direct conversations with [Netanyahu], and now we are having a public conversation with him as well, but it’s going to be a process,”

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke this week at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressing the same point as a strong U.S. pressure point:

Part of this concerted pressure can be seen in Israeli media obediently towing the US administration’s line and political talking points. Today’s January 19, 2024 Jerusalem Post on-line highlights three articles all of which sound like they have been authored beside the Potomac. Here are the titles: “Netanyahu, Israel's war cabinet cannot delay calls on Gaza any longer;” “Israel's emergency government close to collapse as Gaza war continues;” “The Benjamin Netanyahu era is over, sources in Likud say.”

The day after the day after

One of the main talking points of the US administration revolves around the term ‘the day after;’ what are Israel’s plans (hint, hint – a Palestinian state) after the IDF defeats Hamas. Of course, as the US and the West attempt to hobble Israel from decisively defeating Hamas (just as has happened 15 times over the past two decades), it is not a foregone conclusion that there will be a ‘day after Hamas.’ So over the past few days, ‘unnamed U.S. sources’ have switched terms and are now stressing a new concept – ‘the day after Bibi Netanyahu.’ In other words, since Netanyahu will not bow to our directives to establish a Palestinian state, we will establish a different Israeli government to replace Bibi, and then we will establish a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s immediate response to these leaks was direct: “Those who speak of the day after Netanyahu are talking about the creation of a Palestinian state led by the Palestinian Authority.” He added:

There is wisdom in the sharp retort that Ahab King of Israel made to Ben Hadad, the king of Aram/Syria regarding assuming victory in battle without YHVH’s counsel: “Then the king of Israel replied, ‘Tell [Ben Hadad], “He who straps on his weapons had better not boast like one who takes them off.”’” 

What will ‘the day after’ be for all these nations who are pushing Israel to submit to a drawing and quartering of the Promised Land, surrendering its heartland to jihadi murderers (many who are descendants of Edom; see Ezekiel 25:12-14; Ezekiel 36:1-15)? This is what ‘the day after’ is all about. This concerted push is bringing the judgment of the God of Jacob down upon the nations who set their hand to such a cursed endeavor (Joel 3:1-2; Genesis 12:3).

Solving the conflict without a peace process

Here are four quotes to round off this newsletter. Each one is worth chewing on:

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

The pirates of jihad

The year 2023 has been one of tension and crisis for Israel, each earth-shaking event followed by another one incrementally more traumatic. The Hebrew prophets wryly comment about such times: “As when a man flees from a lion and a bear confronts him, or he goes home, leans with his hand against the wall, and a snake bites him” (Amos 5:19)

Over this past year the nation of Israel has witnessed heated street demonstrations and riots; public discourse teetering on the brink of civil war; savage atrocities and genocidal war crimes committed by Hamas jihadi gangs under the tutelage and support of the Islamic Republic of Iran, resulting in over 120,000 Jewish refugees in the south of Israel; a nuclear explosion of worldwide anti-Semitism; daily rockets and drone attacks from Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, causing over 80,000 Israelis close to the northern border to flee, becoming refugees within their own country; and recently, drone and missile attacks against Israel coming from another Iranian proxy – the Houthi Shi’ite dictatorship in a divided Yemen. The Middle Eastern cauldron is about to boil over.

Ham in the Middle East

After the Great Flood, Noah’s sons moved to different parts of the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin, raising families and founding nations: “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the Flood . . . The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan” (Genesis 10:1, 6-7).

The descendants of Ham (the Hamitic peoples) included Cush (Sudan and Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Put (Libya) and Canaan (Lebanese Phoenicians), as well as the warrior kings like Nimrod who established Babel, Erech, Akkad, Calneh and Nineveh. Ham’s line has the dubious honor of siring three of Israel’s major enemies in the Bible — Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. In the Bible these three are not considered Semitic countries.

For those who are curious about some recent teachings on the ‘Highway of Isaiah 19,’ it is worth noting that according to the Bible, neither Egypt nor Lebanon are Semitic or Abrahamic countries but actually Hamitic ones (see also Psalm 78:51; Psalm 105:23; Psalm 105:27; Psalm 106:22). The families descended from Ham through his son Canaan (according to Genesis 10:15-19) included Sidon, Heth (the Hittites), the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, with their borders extended “as far as Gaza; and going toward Sodom and Gomorrah . . .”  Ham’s son Canaan fathered Sidon of the Phoenicians (Lebanese coast), the Jebusites (ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem) and the Amorites (parts of today’s Israel and Jordan). The descendants of Ham were the native populations of Libya, Egypt, Canaan, Lebanon, Yemen, significant parts of Arabia and some areas of Jordan. From the Bible’s perspective the Middle East has a solid Hamitic (and not Ishmaelite) stamp.

Ham and Yemen

Ham’s sons Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca, and Raamah’s sons Sheba and Dedan, relocated to an area just south of the Hejaz, known today as the west coast of Saudi Arabia. They settled in what is now modern Yemen bordering Oman. According to Genesis 10, the majority of Yemen’s population has Hamitic roots – not Semitic and not Abrahamic origins.

Shem had five sons who are mentioned in Scripture. None of these are descendants of Abraham:

Shem’s third son was Arphaxad, who sired Salah. Salah fathered Eber who in turn fathered Joktan (known in Arab history as Qahtan or Ḳaḥṭan) whose family moved to that same Arabian desert. Joktan’s thirteen sons are mentioned in Genesis 10:21-29. Four of these sons have regions, cities or oases named after them: Hazarmavet (later morphed into Hadramawt), Hadoram, Sheba and Havilah.

Hazarmavet/Hadramawt is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, western Oman and southern Saudi Arabia. It was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ, Maʿīn, Himyar, Qataban and Awsān. The name is retained in the name of the Yemeni Governorate of Hadhramaut. The people of Hadhramaut are today called Hadarem, (based on the biblical name Hadoram) and comprise 1,300 distinct tribes totaling two million inhabitants.

Havilah was the second son of Cush. The area wherein he settled was known in the days of Moses for its gold deposits of high quality: “Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium [bdolach] and the onyx stone [even shoham] are there as well” (Genesis 2:10-12). Havilah’s probable location (see 1 Samuel 15:7) is near Khawlān al-ṭiyāl, south-east of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a.

Ham and the Queen of Sheba

Sheba (southwestern Arabia/Yemen) and Dedan (northern Arabia) are mentioned in many places in the Bible. These descendants of Ham were known for their dual livelihoods:

Here are eight biblical passage spanning a thousand years which reflect these desert realities in the Land of Sheba:

There is a long history of the inhabitants of Sheba (modern Yemen) attacking trading routes. In Bible days it was camel caravans; today it is world shipping lanes. Based on the Last Days focus in Joel 3:8 (quoted just above), it seems that Yemenite piracy is a reality in our day as well.

Gog. Magog and Sheba

The prophet Ezekiel was once given a prophetic word concerning a great battle at the End of Days between Gog/Magog and the Jewish state:  “This is what ADONAI YHVH says: ‘Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?’” (Ezekiel 38:17).

Ezekiel reaches through the fog of history future and mentions some of the enemies who will attack Israel on that day. Their motive will be to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to capture great spoils.” YHVH addresses Gog and Magog, as well as two of these terror-creating robbers (Sheba and Dedan) participating in that apocalyptic axis of evil:

Yemen’s present and future attacks on Israel are rooted in the heart and spirit of this Last Days passage.

Mocha in the Garden of Aden

Yemen is world-famous for its coffee. Mokha (al-Mukhā), also spelled Mocha, or Mukha, is a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. Until Aden and al-Hudaydah eclipsed it in the 19th century, Mokha was the principal port for Yemen's capital, Sana’a. From the 16th century through the 19th century, the city was famous for Mocha coffee. The coffee was not grown in Mocha, but was transported from Ethiopia and inland Yemen to the port in Mocha, from where it was shipped abroad. Even today, Mocha beans (also called Mocha Sanani beans, meaning from Sana’a) continue to be prized for their distinctive flavor.

After the jihadi armies of Muhammad hacked their way into the Promised Land (632-640 A.D.), they imported Muslims from Arabia and Yemen to Islamize the land. This jihadi war crime is one of the origins of today’s Palestinian dynamics. The Muslim leaders imported to the Banu Kalb tribe from Yemen, and settled them in Tiberias and the Bet Guvrin area. The Banu Lakhm and Banu Judham/Jurham tribes – previously Christian Arabs but now Muslims – were transferred from Yemen and settled to the south of Jerusalem.

Rule Britannia and Egyptian gas attacks

In modern times, Yemen was a backwater ruled by an iron-handed Turkish Caliphate.  But in November 1839 Britain stretched forth its royal scepter, capturing the town of Aden (part of Yemen) and establishing it as a British anti-piracy station (shades of coming Houthi attacks . . . ). Commanding the southern entrance to the Red Sea, Aden was an important strategic British air and naval base (and, from 1869 a coal depot) guarding the route to India. It was also crucial for safeguarding access to Middle Eastern oil supplies. During November 1839, 5,000 Yemini tribesmen tried to retake the town, but were repulsed and 200 were killed. In 1937 Aden became a British Crown Colony. In February 1959 Britain granted independence to the Federation of South Arabia (formed from the Aden colony and the surrounding protectorates), in an attempt to suppress unrest fueled by Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism. Most of this stemmed from the socialist and pan-Arabist doctrines of Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser. But in 1967 the British were forced to withdraw from Aden, and their dominance of the Middle East gave way to Russians and Americans seizing the geopolitical helm.

In the early 1960’s Nasser was busy spreading socialist revolution throughout the Middle East, as well as building up his forces to annihilate Israel. He had very destructive plans for Yemen. On June 8, 1963 the Egyptian army targeted Kawma, a northern Yemeni village of 100 inhabitants with a halogenous poison gas – either phosgene, mustard gas, chlorine or cyanogen bromide, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. On December 11, 1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5, 1967, the biggest Egyptian gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, including 140 fatalities. Estimates of total casualties caused by Egyptian poison gas attacks in the Yemen war were approximately 1,500 fatalities and 1,500 injuries.

The 60 year clash (1962-2022) between the Royalist Yemeni rulers (supported by Saudi Arabia, Britain, Jordan and covertly by Israel) and the Nasserite Yemenis (supported by Egypt and Russia) eventually exploded into the splitting of Yemen into two different belligerent countries: the Republic of Yemen and the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council. As well, there are two smaller enclaves which are again divided: the first enclave has three competing groups – Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS), and Ansar al-Sharia (Yemen). The second enclave is the Southern Transitional Council backed by the United Arab Emirates. The Yemeni Civil War continues at present.

Persia encircling the Middle East

The Houthi movement al-Ḥūthīyūn, officially known as ‘Anṣār Allāh’ [‘the supporters of Allah]), is a Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaydi Shiites, and their support comes largely from the Yemeni Houthi tribe. Starting in 1994 their first leader Hussein al-Houthi led an opposition movement to Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they accused of corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. In 2003, influenced by the Lebanese Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah (who are in turn under Iranian tutelage and control), the Houthis adopted their official slogan: “Allah is the greater! Death to America! Death to Israel! A Curse Upon the Jews! Victory to Islam!” (‘Allāhu ʾakbar, al-mawt li-ʾAmrīkā, al-mawt li-ʾIsrāʾīl, al-laʿnah ʿalā ʾl-Yahūd, an-naṣr lil-ʾIslām’).

Saudi Arabia is involved in a behind-the-scenes life and death struggle with Shi’ite Iran, who wants to destroy the Royal House of Saud, crush the Sunni majority of Islam (80% of the total), and establish Iranian control over Mecca and Medina. Iran has been using the Houthis as a proxy, attacking Saudi oil fields, military bases and ports, and recently firing missiles and armed suicide drones against Israel.

Iran and Yemen have a Last Days role to play in attacking Israel, as Ezekiel 38:1-13 clearly states:

The nefarious strategies of the Persian puppet master are coming front and center in world news, though most do not discern the Scriptural roots and outcome.

Isaiah 19 and Abraham Accords – not quite yet

It is popular in some circles to proclaim that peace is breaking out in the Middle East – that the highway mentioned in Isaiah 19 is soon to find blessed fulfilment in a network of prayer houses and hiding places for the Jewish people throughout Egypt. This perspective is optimistic, but it is not exegetically based. For background here, see my newsletter: https://davidstent.org/the-isaiah-19-highway-prophecies-amidst-the-potholes/ . War is actually in progress in the Middle East, and it is not about to stop dead in its tracks. The Abraham Accords are also not destined to last. For background here, see my newsletter: https://davidstent.org/strange-bedfellows-in-the-middle-east/. These Accords were signed between the Jewish state (descendants of Abraham) and the United Arab Emirates (descendants of Shem but not of Abraham).

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of the sons of Israel . . . Come, let us deal shrewdly with them’ . . . So they appointed taskmasters over them to oppress them” (Exodus 1:8-14) . . .  “And the sons of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out. And their cry for help . . . ascended to God. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them” (Exodus 2:23-25).

Isaiah gives us a benchmark test on how to weigh the assertions of leaders both secular and spiritual. Are their pronouncements and perceptions of truth and reality grounded in the Bible, or are they simply political talking heads “doing what is right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25)?  The prophet boldly declares “To the Teaching [the Torah] and to the testimony [referring to the documents of Scripture]!  If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20).

The leaders of the world’s superpowers – from Biden and Blinken to Blair – barely know the Bible, and certainly do not base their realpolitik on God’s guidelines. This sobering ignorance of God’s word has had a trickle-down effect, numbing the masses to YHVH’s perspectives and strategies. This blindness to who Israel is in God’s sight manifests itself in recent anti-Semitic (that is, racist) mass demonstrations across the globe which angrily support Hamas’ jihadi rape, torture and murder of Jewish Israeli civilians. These roiling riots have included calls for the gassing of Jews, accompanied by threatening chants of ‘Free Palestine’ (a jihadi euphemism for the destruction of the state of Israel and its replacement by murderous Islamist terror groups).

A generation that does not know Joseph

Recent polls in the USA show a sobering shift by younger American voters toward adopting anti-Israel jihadi perspectives and supporting Hamas’ terror campaign against the Jews. In the December 2023 monthly Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 51% in the 18-24 age group replied in the affirmative when asked if Israel should be “ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians.” In that same 18-24 age group, 66% of respondents think that Hamas’s October 7 massacre constituted genocide; yet at the same time, 60% think that the attacks were justified by Palestinian grievances, indicating that they believe that genocide of Israelis is justified. The polls revealed that 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds favor an unconditional deal that would leave things as they are (no release of Israeli hostages and Hamas still in power). According to the poll, 53% of the 18-24 age group think that students should be free to call for Jewish genocide on campus without punishment, though 70% also added that such calls constitute hate speech. These polls also reveal that anti-Israel positions of the youngest age group are significantly higher among Democrats than among Republican voters.

Anti-Semitism – the return of Haman

Leon Wieseltier has pointed out: “It is the essence of anti-Semitism, as it is the essence of all prejudice, to call its object its cause. But if you explain anti-Semitism as a response to Jews . . . then you have not understood it. You have reproduced it” (Leon Wieseltier, “Israel, Palestine and the Return of the Bi-National Fantasy” The New Republic, Oct 24 2003).

Daniel Pipes, author of ‘Militant Islam Reaches America,’ states: “In its attitudes toward Jews, the Muslim world today resembles Germany of the 1930s – a time when insults, caricatures, conspiracy theories and sporadic violence prepared Germans for the mass murder that followed.” Jewish Holocaust survivors declare that today’s events parallel exactly what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Anti-Jewish attacks in America and Europe are at their highest point since Hitler’s rule. Though many felt that anti-Semitism would never again rise in the Western world after Auschwitz, it turns out that this spiritual sickness has only been in partial remission.

Gradually developing radical Islamic strategies targeting the West for the most part have not been identified, unmasked and eliminated. Using an old proverb mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain, Peter Senge notes: “Like the frog that will sit in a pot of water and let itself be slowly boiled to death, we are very good at reacting to immediate danger to our survival, but we are very poor at recognizing gradual threats.” (Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Currency and Doubleday, New York, 1990).

Pharaoh in his day forgot the blessing that Joseph and his people had brought to Egypt, and in the end the Egyptian king triggered the curse of the Ten Plagues on his own land.  Nazi anti-Semitism directed murderous hatred against their own Jewish community who had greatly contributed to the blessing of Germany, bringing great devastation to the entire Fatherland. The United States and the West are turning swiftly away from their previous philosemitic heritage, with American youth leading the pack in this ultimately genocidal anti-Semitic charge.

Don’t worry, be happy! We can handle it!

The Jewish people are eye-witnesses to the blossoming of some ‘flowers of evil’ in our day. The determination of world powers to shrink the borders of the Jewish state (expressed so succinctly by Kissinger in 1975 and by Condoleezza Rice in 2005) and to establish a terrorist jihadi state in the heartland of the Land promised by the God of Jacob to Jacob’s children, is the nuclear core which has powered US realpolitik for the past 75 years. The tightening of American diplomatic thumbscrews on Israeli fingers over the years has caused nearly two handfuls of Israeli Prime Ministers to cry ‘Uncle’ to Uncle Sam, forcing them under superpower duress to consent to the dividing up of the Land of Israel: Begin, Rabin, Peres, Barak, Sharon, Olmert, Bennett/Lapid, and Bibi. This dangerously flawed conception (‘konseptzia’ in Hebrew) has led to strategically suicidal withdrawals from the Sinai (the Camp David Accords), the West Bank (the Oslo Accords), Gaza (Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement) and current pressures by the Biden administration to ram through an Israeli withdrawal and ceasefire – leaving Hamas still the master of Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority jihadi terror group getting a new lease on life under the protection of the US ‘Godfather.’

The government of Israel finds itself in nearly total dependence on US arms, whether it be tank and artillery shells, bunker-buster bombs or F-35 stealth fighter jets.  American displeasure has tremendous influence over IDF policies and battle strategies. This has been seen in how the Israeli government has swallowed hard many times and obeyed US diktats regarding how it is prosecuting its war on Hamas (specifically on such issues as increasing humanitarian aid without achieving the complete release of Israeli hostages, and where most of that aid ends up in Hamas hands; the supply of oil, gas, water and electricity to Hamas control, which allows Hamas’ war machine to keep firing rockets at Israeli civilians and to keep attacking IDF ground troops (causing over 100,000 Israeli civilians in the communities beside Gaza to flee their homes and become refugees in their own homeland); holding back on a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah (Iran’s proxy in Lebanon) which has been attacking Israeli civilians in the North of the country, causing 80,000 Israelis living near the Lebanese border to abandon their homes and become refugees in their own land. This gives a combined total of at least 200,000 Israeli refugees within Israel as a result of Hamas and Hezbollah jihadi attacks.

Though President Biden initially vowed that Hamas would not be allowed to steal humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza (as a result of American pressure on Israel), and though he declared vociferously that UNRWA is a kosher humanitarian organization not involved in terror activities, there are now literally hundreds of video clips available on social media proving how both organizations are brazenly and routinely violating President Biden’s Middle Eastern mistaken vision.

The combined political and military stick-and-carrot approach by successive US administrations has decisively influenced the IDF top brass, resulting in policy decisions to shrink the IDF’s available inventory, reserves training times, and length of regular military service.  As a result, the IDF is not fully prepared to wage and win war a war on seven fronts simultaneously. As well, the US Secretaries of State and Defense have joined with the POTUS in micro-managing Israel’s present prosecution of the war, rebuking the IDF publicly and even threatening the Jewish state when the IDF does not respond quickly enough to American ‘suggestions.’ 

There is a term used by Israelis to describe our ever-buoyant faith that we will somehow always muddle through as a nation: ‘Isra-bluff.’ Somehow, we will be able to bluff our way through every challenge, even if it is a life-and-death situation. Perhaps that is a sign of great faith or even trust in God (or perhaps in our own ability to pull our own irons out of the fire). But sometimes this rose-colored scenario is less than accurate. Sometimes we cannot simply pull off a ‘new and improved Entebbe rescue.’ It is becoming increasingly clear to some in Israel that we have consented to allowing this existential threat to our survival to come about. We have submitted to the pressures of not-totally-reliable allies, allowing a Trojan Horse of incremental evil and Machiavellian pressure into our courts and war rooms.

One of the upcoming challenges confronting Israel concerns international ‘lawfare’ (warfare by means of legal attack) coming from South Africa, which is charging Israel with genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The irony of South Africa trying to charge the nation-state of the Jewish people with genocide – who recently witnessed six million of their own family murdered by Hitler’s stormtroopers – is breathtaking in its effrontery and hutzpah.  Would South Africa also want to call such luminaries as Jacob, Joshua, Moses and David before the witness stand and charge them with genocide for following the God of Jacob’s commands in the Hebrew Scriptures to conquer the Land of Canaan and remove the Jewish people’s enemies from their midst?

A sober word about the Israeli hostages

As hard facts come out day after day regarding the pogroms, torturing, burning alive of victims, mass rapes/murders and kidnapping atrocities committed by Hamas jihadi terrorists on October 7, 2023, the accurate number of Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity is becoming clearer. The official number is that 136 hostages are held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad – subject to starvation, beating, rape and torture (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). What is not widely understood is that the IDF has come to the conclusion (based on witness testimony and forensics) that Hamas has murdered at least 35 of those 139, and is holding onto many Israeli corpses to be used as bargaining chips in days to come. Probably less than 105 Israeli hostages are still alive, many of them women, retirees, teens and young babies. The International Red Cross has refused to get involved in visiting these captives, in ascertaining their medical conditions and needs, or in lobbying for their rescue.

It is tragic that some Israeli political personalities bitterly opposed to the present Israeli government have latched on to the hostage release issue, turning it into a tool in their attempt to launch another putsch against Israel’s current administration. Using the same PR firms, the same graphics and the same screaming accusations which they used in the highly orchestrated anti-government ‘Kaplan’ demonstrations throughout much of 2023, they are trying to create a repeat of the civil hatred and division that shook Israel to its foundations at that time. Video clips are readily available on social media of these former leaders discussing how to keep the fires of hatred and division burning among Israel’s populace so as to mobilize the bringing down the current government, even during this time of war. Many Israelis are not aware that the ‘Bring them home now’ campaign has some sinister and hidden elements mixed in with the heart-longing of a people suffering enormous and ongoing stress. The likely result of such an anti-Bibi ‘putsch’ leading to a more leftist government would probably result in dividing the Land and the establishing of a terror-controlled Palestinian state – since most current contenders to the ‘throne’ of Israel’s government are still caught in the conceptual spider’s web of the Oslo ‘konseptzia’ – the 1993 Accords to establish two states in one Promised Land.

A never-ending battle

At the very end of Steven Spielberg’s classic film ‘Hook,’ Captain Hook insists that he and Peter Pan must fight ‘to the death’ – until one of them is destroyed. Though Peter wants to call it quits and step away from such a drastic solution, Hook’s response is to threaten Peter with an ongoing spiritual curse on him and his family, stretching into eternity: “Peter! Where are you going? Come back here and fight me! I'll find you wherever you are! . . . Wherever you go, wherever you are . . . I vow there will always be daggers bearing notes signed ‘James Hook.’ They will be flung at the doors of your children’s children’s children! Do you hear me?”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and IRGC Major-General Hossein Salami speak the same language as Captain Hook. At the recent funeral of Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards adviser killed on December 25, 2023 outside of Damascus in what Iran said was an Israeli air strike, Khamenei paid tribute “to this martyr's tireless struggle and called for his companionship with the guardians of God.” Major-General Hossein Salami, chief commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, added: “Our revenge for the martyrdom of Sayyed Razi [Mousavi] will be nothing less than the eradication of the Zionist regime.”

The nature of this ‘never-ending battle’ is also revealed in an LBC TV (Lebanon) interview with Hamas Politburo member Ghazi Hamad on October 24, 2023 regarding the jihadi atrocities of October 7, 2023:

This breathing out of threats of slaughter (see a similar though contextually different historical dynamic in Acts 9:1) is part of the ongoing nature of Islamic jihadi belief and behavior toward the Jewish people and their regathered state of Israel. It is a sickness with spiritual roots, and it will only be solved either through true repentance on the part of the mujāhidīn (the jihad warriors’ army) or by physically eliminating the mujāhidīn from ever again causing a threat to life and limb.

A piece of prophetic advice

These sobering and world-shaking events call for intercessory tears and identificational repentance on the part of Messiah Yeshua’s followers.  They also call the defense forces of those countries attacked to exercise their swords as “servant[s] of God, [as] avenger[s] who bring wrath on the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:4). The mature and heart-felt prophetic perspective about such events is to avoid the narcissistic temptation to declare that one or another prophetic personality ‘got the date right by revelation, in declaring when the Hamas pogrom would take place.’ It seems more fitting for those who see themselves as prophetic or apostolic, to communicate God’s grieving heart as He weeps over His slaughtered people: “In all their affliction He was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). Paul pleads with us to “weep with those who weep . . .  [and] do not be wise in your own estimation” (Romans 12:15-16).

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

A sword for the Lord and for Gideon

Israel is pursuing its war aims against jihadi terror gangs before a watching world. Through this process, God is instructing those who have eyes to see concerning His own nature and character as YHVH, Lord of the armies of Israel.

King David proclaimed this truth: “But David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a saber, but I come to you in the name of YHVH of armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied!’” (1 Samuel 17:45).

The writers of Scriptures were inspired by the Spirit of God (see 2 Peter 1:2) as they penned the Holy Scrolls. They wrote of a divine connection between Israel’s battles (‘the sword of the Lord’) and the heart-purposes of Jacob’s God:

There is widespread fear in our day that we will suffer the bloody ramifications of war. Many people have responded to that fear by adopting a passive and pacifistic response to the demonic evils of dictatorship and jihad. Ironically and at the same time, anger and street violence seem to be socially acceptable when directed against those armies (such as the IDF) which attempt to bring down the forces of atrocity and annihilation. 

But it bears remembering that the Bible has a perspective on war, and that the Scriptural viewpoint was not born in Woodstock or in Rishiskesh. As Moses proclaimed on the shores of the Sea, standing in front of the dead bodies of the Egyptian charioteers: “YHVH is a warrior; YHVH is His name!” (Exodus 15:3).

A sword by any other name

The name of the current IDF war against Hamas’ jihadi terrorism is aptly titled ‘Haravot Barzel’ – ‘Swords of Iron.’

The Bible has over 400 references to swords. The Scriptures refer to swords in many different contexts. The sword of YHVH can refer to His defense of His people Israel or His bringing of judgment on the Jewish people’s national enemies. The sword of the Lord can also describe God’s weapon of choice – the entire nation of Israel acting as the army of God (see Ezekiel 37:10). The sword of the Lord can also refer to the God of Jacob’s judgments coming down upon His own Jewish people when they sin or rebel against His kingship.

The first reference to a sword in the Bible is found in Genesis, when God stations angels with flaming swords, blocking Adam and Eve’s access to the Garden of Eden: “So He drove Adam out. And at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). That sword was God’s severe mercy to mankind: only in that separation from our Creator would we be forced to seek His face and His presence. “From there you will seek YHVH your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).

The Promised Land was obtained by Israel through the sword of the Lord

The first reference to a Patriarch conquering portions of the Promised Land was pronounced in the Land of Egypt, when Jacob declared to his son Joseph: “And I give you one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow” (Genesis 48:22).

The next reference about conquering the Land of Israel by the sword concerns Joshua’s military victory over Amalek: “And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword” (Exodus 17:13).

God promised the Jewish people that He would give them victories over their enemies which would be disproportionate in measure: “Instead, you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand. And your enemies will fall before you by the sword” (Leviticus 26:7-8).

The nation of Israel (also known as the ‘armies of the Living God’ and as YHVH’s ‘exceedingly great army’) are divine ‘Special Operations Forces’ who are simultaneously anointed to be powerful worshippers of the God of Jacob:  “The high praises of God shall be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands!” (Psalm 149:6). This army is feted in the Book of Hebrews as those who “quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Hebrews 11:34).

Other stirring examples of the sword of the Lord in the God-commissioned hands of Israel can be found in the following passages: Numbers 21:24; Numbers 31:8; Deuteronomy 13:15; Deuteronomy 20:13; Deuteronomy 33:29; Joshua 6:21; Joshua 8:18; Joshua 8:24; Joshua 8:26; Joshua 10:11; Joshua 10:28; Joshua 10:30; Joshua 10:32; Joshua 10:35; Joshua 10:37; Joshua 10:39; Joshua 11:10-14; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 19:47; Judges 1:8; Judges 1:25; Judges 3:21-22; Judges 4:15-16; Judges 7:14; Judges 7:20-22; Judges 20:2; 1 Samuel 15:8; 1 Samuel 17:51; 1 Samuel 18:4; 2 Samuel 1:22; 2 Samuel 23:10; 2 Samuel 24:9; 1 Kings 19:17; 2 Kings 11:20; 1 Chronicles 5:18; 1 Chronicles 21:5; Nehemiah 4:13; Psalm 144:10; Song of Solomon 3:8.

The sword of the Lord against Israel’s anti-Semitic enemies

Many biblical passages describe the decisive work of YHVH’s sword as it brings judgment to YHVH’s anti-Semitic enemies. Here are a few such passages of many in the Scriptures:

    

Trusting in the Lord who wields the sword

The Scriptures continually emphasize that, alongside of the fact that YHVH is a warrior and that He calls Israel ‘the army of the Living God,’ the God of Jacob wants the Jewish people and all of humanity to clearly comprehend that all victory comes from the God of Israel alone. It is not cutting-edge weapons or bold strategy by themselves which ultimately win the day; it is the powerful arm of God and His covenant faithfulness to the Jewish people which is the secret weapon:

When the righteous sword of the Lord judges Israel’s sin

God is an honest and a righteous Judge. He must judge His people when they violate the covenant and serve pagan idols. The proof of the covenant’s validity is not only in YHVH’s blessing, but also in His discipline of His people:

Moses tells us that there can even come times when YHVH calls the righteous remnant in Israel to blot out sin and rebellion from among His people: “And he said to them, ‘This is what YHVH, the God of Israel says: “Every man of you put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor” (Exodus 32:27).

Even when the righteous remnant is active in teaching and ministry, sometimes the situation can get so desperate that God must judge His people by means of the sword and Exile: “And those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many. Yet they will fall by sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder for many days” (Daniel 11:33).

When the Lord removes the sword from Israel

The God of Jacob promises to gather His people back to their Promised Land. He addresses the Jewish nation who is scattered in Exile across the face of the earth, reminding them that they have survived the judgment of the sword, and calling them to repent and return to YHVH their God. At that point they will return to the Land of Israel in full physical and spiritual restoration: “You who have escaped the sword, Go! Do not stay! Remember YHVH from far away, and let Jerusalem come to your mind” (Jeremiah 51:50).

Summing up the sword of the Lord

The God of Jacob has commissioned His people to represent Him on earth, and to be His mighty and holy army. This is part of His irrevocable gifts and calling on Israel (see Romans 11:29). This calling requires the Jewish people to be courageous and steadfast. Though there will eventually be peace in Zion, and no more war will be targeted against the Jewish state, that time is not yet here.

Much of the history of Israel has entailed the sword, whether wielded by the Jewish people against their enemies, or wielded by their enemies against them. Ezekiel 37:1-14 reveals to us that a Last Days Jewish army (comprising the entire nation) will judge the enemies of God and destroy them from off the face of the earth (see also Zechariah 12:1-9, et al.). In that day, all the promises that YHVH made concerning Jewish settlement of the Promised Land (and its biblical borders) will be manifested for all the world to see and to rejoice in.

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

I have set watchmen on your walls

Three thousand years ago, Solomon the son of David proclaimed, “Unless YHVH builds a house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless YHVH guards a city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psalm 127:1).  The Hebrew word for watchmen used in this context is shomrim (singular shomer), meaning ‘one who guards over something or someone.’

The God of Jacob speaks of the nation of Israel as a prophetic watchman: “Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet” (Hosea 9:8). The Jewish people are called to be a nation who is to speak forth the oracles and counsel of God to a watching world: “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much in every way: chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3 :1-2).

God calls a prophetic company of watchmen and intercessors from both the Jewish people and all who follow the God of Israel, to watch regarding the dangers coming against Zion, and to call out to YHVH, entreating Him to fulfill His good word – His prophetic promises and calling – over the sons and daughters of Jacob: “On your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen. All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who profess YHVH, take no rest for yourselves, and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem an object of praise on the earth!” (Isaiah 62:6-7).

A military watcher on a high tower

On October 7, a central part of the jihadi attack by the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group Hamas involved the blinding of the tatzpitanaiyot, the ‘tower watchwomen.’ Terrorists floated in silently on para-gliders, manually dropping small bombs on the IDF guard towers in a synchronized attack ‘all along the watchtower’ line of defenses.  With the Israeli military’s eyes blinded, the murderous wave of jihadi rapists, torturers, murderers and kidnappers faced no resistance as they broke into Jewish kibbutzim and towns on their Islamist pogrom. Most of the valiant young women of the IDF tatzpitanaiyot were brutally massacred or kidnapped in short order that October 7. Some are still captives of Hamas in Gaza, praying for deliverance.

Ezekiel refers to the tzofeh (the same Hebrew root as used in tatzpitanaiyot above), a military watchman or watchwoman – the prophetic seer who beholds the threat to Israel’s security, comprehends from God what it means and how it is to be blocked:

What can be learned from this divine calling to be watchmen and watchwomen?

Who sees the sword coming upon the Land?

The criminal justice editor of the New York Post, an award-winning investigative journalist named Murray Weiss, penned a sobering book ‘The Man Who Warned America,’ about John O’Neill, an FBI counter-terrorism expert who pursued Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qa’eda jihadi terrorist threats to America starting in 1995. He functioned as an unappreciated and ignored watchman, as described in the ‘Frontline’ documentary. He died at the World Trade Center on 9/11, rescuing victims caught in the collapse of the Twin Towers. O’Neill saw the sword coming but his watchman-like warning was dismissed and disregarded.

Other watchmen and watchwomen have been stridently warning all who would hear regarding threats to the Jewish people’s security and survival. They include:

John Loftus – former prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting unit. His classic on current geopolitical Western threats to Israel and the Jewish people is a must-read in understanding the ‘behind-the-scenes’ regarding Israel today: ‘The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People’ (co-authored with Mark Aarons, an Australian award-winning investigative reporter).

Colonel Richard Kemp – former British commander in NATO in both Afghan, European and Northern Irish theaters of battle. His no-nonsense professional analyses of Middle East events and the military and propagandistic challenges from Islamist groups can be found on Google and in world media on a regular basis.

General Moshe Ya’alon – former commander of Sayeret Matkal, former IDF OC of AMAN and Chief of General Staff and Minister of Defense, has in the past been a watchman concerning the long-term threat of radical jihadi Islam.

Lt.-Colonel Dr. Mordechai Kedar –  (Ph.D. Bar-Ilan University) served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence (AMAN) specializing in Syria, Arab political discourse and mass media, Islamic groups, and Israeli Arabs. He is a world-recognized expert on Palestinians, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. His analyses and warnings regarding jihadi, Palestinian and Iranian agendas have been prescient and prophetic over the years.

MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute, founded by former IDF intelligence AMAN expert Yigal Carmon. Source documents from the Arabic and Persian-speaking worlds are presented by them, casting needful light on the dark corners of jihadi realities, including Palestinian doublespeak. As well, MEMERI provides up-to-the-minute access to current Muslim and Arab perspectives.

Caroline Glick –  Israeli-American conservative journalist and author. Named the most prominent woman in a 2003 Maariv poll, Glick is a prolific analyst of fast-breaking Middle Eastern developments, presenting cutting-edge perspectives and background on developing threats to the Jewish state.

These are some voices of watchmen and women whose goals dovetail with those who intercede for the Jewish people and who desire to defend and rescue the sons and daughters of Jacob from harm and malevolence. They are a helpful resource for those who are looking for perspective and nuance here.

Who will win the 1948, 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars?

The battles waged against Israel in these three above-listed wars have not ended. They are continuing on through the Islamic world’s relentless pressure on the Jewish state – through military, terrorist and political attacks. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s secretly stated US policy to shrink Israel into a weak Middle Eastern pushover state fits in well with this continuing Arab jihad against the Jews. The PLO and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards Corps out of Tehran – all press forward in jihadi preparation and activity, anxiously looking for the day when they will be able to slaughter and exterminate the Jewish state and its people, in accordance with classic Islamist teaching, as found in the Hamas Charter, article #7, quoting from the Islamic Hadith: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

Two closing thoughts: The US administration just secretly signed a new ten-year agreement with Qatar (the main bankroller of Hamas and Islamic Jihad) to continue its military connections and support, with emphasis on maintaining its largest air base in the Middle East al-Udeid, located in Qatar.

Hamas’ number two terrorist Saleh al-Arouri was assassinated on Tuesday, January 4, 2024 in the center of Hezbollah’s Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh, presumably by Israel.  Al-Arouri had recently traveled to Doha, Qatar, to Istanbul, Turkey and to Cairo, Egypt with impunity. He met his end in Lebanon, in an area controlled by the Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah (which is itself under Iranian patronage and control). 

These two salient points underscore the pressing need for watchmen and watchwomen to consider how the threat to Jews and Israelis is openly tolerated and barely concealed, even by POTUS Joseph Biden who has designated “the State of Qatar as a major Non-NATO Ally of the United States.”

Also, FATAH (the main contingent of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority) issued a public condemnation of al-Arouri’s assassination in its WAFA news services, calling him “a patriotic Palestinian . . .  a fighter, a prisoner, a liberator and a martyr . . .  The martyrdom of Sheikh al-Arouri touched the feelings of every Palestinian wherever he may be . . . The ‘Fatah’ movement considered that Wednesday [January 3] is a day of a general and comprehensive strike for all aspects of life to denounce the crime and mourn the souls of the martyrs of the assassination.”

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

Prophets in a time of war

The Hebrew prophets spoke God’s heart and perspective to those in power. But it was a dangerous livelihood; being a faithful messenger for the God of Jacob might cost one’s life. Such was the case when Michah-Yah (Micaiah) brought a divine warning to Ahaz king of Israel :

The nitty-gritty of the prophetic ministry was often played out in the courts of power as the word of the Lord was spoken to kings and generals. God used His prophetic messengers to demote and promote Israel’s leaders. This is one reason why the prophet Samuel exercised secrecy and plausible deniability when anointing David as heir apparent while Saul still reigned:

Another example of how prophets needed to walk with discretion and discernment is revealed in how Ahi-Yah (Ahijah) the prophet from Shiloh confronted King Solomon’s aide-de-camp Jeroboam alone in a deserted field, announcing to him that YHVH was raising him up in due time to replace Solomon as king over the Jewish people:

YHVH is actively involved in politics

Though it may be hard for some to believe, the God of Jacob is actively involved in the world of politics. From Hannah (the mother of Samuel) to Asaph (David’s seer), and from Miriam (Mary, the earthly mother of Messiah Yeshua) to Daniel (the diplomatic prophet in Babylon and Persia), the Scriptures take us behind the scenes to reveal how God is pulling strings, bringing down dictators and establishing new rulers (who are sometimes also dictators in their own right). YHVH is sovereign, and He uses many ways to fulfil His good promises to the sons and daughters of Jacob:

The prophetic virgin and power politics

God has been known to speak directly into the geo-political world, alternately counseling and exhorting, rebuking and pronouncing blessing or judgment to national leaders.

The world-famous prophecy regarding the birth of Messiah Son of David to a young virgin Jewish woman is found in the Scroll of Isaiah: “Therefore YHVH Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him ‘Immanuel’” (Isaiah 7:14). There is military and geo-political background to this prophetic word; it brings both helpful context and proper understanding of current events at that time.

Ahaz (the young king of Judah) was facing threatening military maneuvers from the ten northern tribes of Israel, as well as from the Arameans [modern Syria]:

Ahaz was tempted to turn to super-power Assyria, asking them to attack Syria/Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel, thus relieving Judah of the military threat. Isaiah was given a cutting-edge prophetic message to Ahaz, promising him and his people divine protection if they trusted in the God of Jacob and not in a Gentile super-power:

The background to this Messianic prophecy was an explosive military threat from Syria and from the northern kingdom of Israel against the people of Judah and the House of David. Isaiah warned Ahaz king of Judah that if he did not trust the God of his father David but turned for military protection to Assyria, that super-power would eventually cause great damage also to Ahaz’s own kingdom:

The Assyrian super-power would exile Israel to northern Iraq and even threaten the survival of Jerusalem. Such was the blowback from Ahaz’s royal hutzpah, his spurning of the prophetic word of YHVH:

In the same way as King Ahaz ignored God’s prophetic promises regarding His will and strategies for the Jewish people, so in our day both Israeli leaders and leaders of super-powers are ignoring YHVH’s clear promises regarding the restoration of Israel to her biblical borders. This ‘politically correct’ world consensus is also hutzpah – hubris, spitting in the face of the God of Jacob – and He will settle accounts with these leaders b’agala u’bizman kariv, as it is said in Aramaic – speedily and soon.

The role of the prophetic in today’s Middle East

There is a lesson for us all to learn today from all of this. The blowback from ancient Middle Eastern battles and toxic political alliances with unfriendly super-powers resulted in the strong presence of non-Jewish enemies in Samaria. These enemies were later given the name ‘Samaritans.’ Today the West Bank still remains the home of enemies of the Jewish people, though today these enemies are called ‘Palestinians.’ Most of these are descended from the Edomites (see Ezekiel 25:12-14 et al. and my book ‘Jews, Arabs and the Middle East: A Messianic Perspective’), who claim these territories for themselves, scorning the prophetic promises of YHVH to the Jewish people. Here is a short ‘take-away’ of some prophetic lessons here:

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

Hip-deep in the river

The prophet Ezekiel was taken up by the Spirit of YHVH and transported into the future, where he gazed upon the Messianic Temple (also known in theological terms as ‘the Fourth Temple’). The God of Jacob revealed to Ezekiel that one day this House will stand on what is today called the Temple Mount, though at present the Muslim shrines of the ‘Dome of the Rock’ and the al-Aqṣā Mosque are situated there. In Ezekiel’s prophetic vision, a Millennial river will flow out from under the threshold of this Temple during the Days of Messiah:

This amazing experience was highly positive for Ezekiel. But for many people in our day, this prophetic vision of a restored Jewish people and a restored Jewish Temple is disconcerting. Truth be told, the ramifications of YHVH bringing His Jewish people back to their own land (see Ezekiel 37:12-14) and to Jerusalem make some Jews, Christians and world leaders feel distinctly ill-at-ease. Why is this so?

The God of history past is also the God of history present and future

Charles Dickens’ famous novel ‘A Christmas Carol’ revolves around spiritual beings bringing revelation to Ebenezer Scrooge about his past, his present and that which is ‘yet to come.’ Dickens describes how past events in our lives shape our present beliefs and behavior – and a sobering danger exists that the deceptive stamp of sin may well color our eternal destiny.

The prophet Zechariah describes a similar dynamic in chapters seven and eight of his book, recounting Israel’s sinful disobedience to YHVH’s commands, followed by a prophetic reminder that these attitudes and actions triggered the Exile of the Jewish people from their Promised Land. The God of Jacob then calls out to the returning remnant of His people, urging them to repent, to build the Second Temple, and to “speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace at your gates. Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury” (Zechariah 8:16-17).

Both God’s severe judgment of Exile on Israel, and His restoration of them to their Land in covenant faithfulness and love, speak volumes to us about what YHVH is doing in our own day – and what He is soon to do as His restoration process reaches a climax:

The restoration of the Jewish people to Jerusalem is an ongoing process happening in our day. The Return to Zion has not ended with the Jewish people being brought back just to Tel Aviv or Haifa, or to Tiberias and Beersheva. The God of Jacob prophetically promises that He is bringing us back to the fullness of the biblical borders – to all of Judea and Samaria (the ‘West Bank’); to all of Gaza; to what is now northern Jordan; to the Golan Heights including what is presently Syrian-controlled territory up to the Euphrates River; to southern Lebanon; to far-eastern parts of Egypt which presently border on Gaza; and to full control of all of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

Let’s get the full prophetic picture

God’s strategy involves a total return to the whole Promised Land. Here are 18 biblical passages fleshing out that prophetic vision:

 These prophetic promises stir up our faith: the restoration of the Jewish people to the entirety of the Land of Israel is a future reality, one that we are walking into in our day – and one we can depend on.

The reality of restoring the kingdom to Israel

The God of Israel prophesied about a time when the Gentiles would be in the ascendancy. “For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds, declares YHVH, because they have called you an outcast, saying: ‘It is Zion; no one cares for her’” (Jeremiah 30:17). Messiah Yeshua referred to those days, which are now drawing to a close: “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).

During these times, the nations of the Christian world for the most part neither expected nor encouraged the Return of the Jewish people to their prophesied homeland. Their attitude toward the restoration of Israel was one of unbelief and scoffing. Typical of such attitudes were the words of a British op-ed in the 1861 magazine ‘Littell’s Living Age’ titled ‘The Restoration of the Jews:’

Both Catholic and Protestant theologians had buttressed these anti-Semitic theological foundations – the denial of Jewish restoration to their homeland – in spite of the overwhelming testimony of the Hebrew prophets to this sure future reality. John Calvin sums up this mindset in his commentary on Acts 1:6 (“So, when they had come together, they began asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’”):

The pernicious influence of Replacement Theology has extended its gnarled hand to some in our day, who deny the present Jewish Return to Zion as a benign work of God and see it only as a divine set-up for the slaughter of Israel.

Step right up and get your divine hernia à la Zechariah 12:3!

Nearly all the nations on this planet are actively supporting the dividing of the Land of Israel and the City of Jerusalem, known today as ‘the two-state solution.’ The clear edges of God’s prophecies regarding the biblical borders of the Promised Land have been obscured by the influence of Replacement Theology in both Christianity and Islam. They have also been ardently opposed by leftist and ‘woke’ political movements. Even former Israeli Prime Ministers, Generals and Heads of Security Services like Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Ami Ayalon, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon, Yuval Diskin, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak have come out in favor of dividing the Land of Israel and the City of Jerusalem. The current Hamas War against Israel has also seen the U.S. State Department amp up its official positions, calling for a Palestinian state confederacy led by the ‘reformed’ terrorist forces of the Palestinian Authority (with ‘plastic surgery’ probably done on some Hamas leaders as well).

 

Here is a brief reminder of the divine perspective on these matters:

How should we then pray?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 

Good cop, bad cop

When a suspect is brought into a police station, a team of interrogators often questions the person, seeing if he can be persuaded to confess to the crime. Sometimes two different interrogators will question the suspect, each one adapting a different approach: one will threaten the suspect (the 'bad cop' approach), while the second interrogator will be kind and helpful (the 'good cop' approach), explaining how much he would like to help the arrested individual and 'rescue' him from the clutches of the 'bad cop.' Often the intimidated prisoner will respond more quickly and warmly to the good cop than to the bad cop.

The famous Italian Renaissance political philosopher Machiavelli once stated that diplomacy is war by other means. Most countries look at diplomacy this way, even today, and this even applies to relationships with their 'official allies.' Dr. Henry Kissinger once commented that "nations do not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”

Assyria played 'bad cop' and 'good cop' simultaneously

King Hezekiah son of Ahaz was faced with a clear and present danger in his day -- the world's strongest superpower Assyria was threatening the Jewish state. Only a few years earlier, King Shalmaneser had conquered the ten northern tribes of Israel, exiling them to what is today called northern Iraq. It sure looked like the kingdom of Judah would be next to face the sword of Nineveh.

· Now in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, . . . Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it. And at the end of three years they captured it . . . Then the king of Assyria led Israel into exile in Assyria . . . This happened because they did not obey the voice of YHVH, their God, but violated His covenant . . . They would neither listen nor do it. Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria marched against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them (2 Kings 18:9-13)

An Assyrian military officer with the rank of 'Rabshakeh' addressed King Hezekiah and the Jewish people -- first as the bad cop, and then as the good cop:

· Then the king of Assyria sent . . . Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem . . . Then they called to the king, and Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the secretary, went out to them. And Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says: “What is this confidence that you have? You say -- but they are only empty words -- ‘I have a plan and strength for the war.’ Now on whom have you relied, that you have revolted against me? Now behold, you have relied on the support of this broken reed, on Egypt; on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. That is how Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who rely on him. However, if you say to me, ‘We have trusted in YHVH our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’? Now then, come make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders on them! How then can you drive back even one official of the least of my master’s servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Have I now come up without YHVH’s approval against this place to destroy it? YHVH said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it’” (2 Kings 18:17-25)

That was Assyria's 'bad cop' approach. Now came the 'good cop' approach:

· Then Rabshakeh stood up saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to save you from my hand. And do not let Hezekiah lead you to trust in YHVH by saying, “YHVH will certainly save us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: “Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat, each one, from his vine and each from his fig tree, and drink, each one, the waters of his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees producing oil, and of honey, so that you will live and not die.” But do not listen to Hezekiah, because he misleads you by saying, “YHVH will save us.” Has any of the gods of the nations actually saved his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? (2 Kings 18:26-33)

It is important to note that both the bad cop and the good cop approach used by Assyria in this diplomatic-military confrontation did not grapple seriously with the God of Jacob's covenant promises to the Jewish people.  YHVH's ability to rescue His people and His loving commitment to make good on His prophetic oaths to them were not discussed by that superpower. Not only that -- the Assyrian envoy falsely claimed to be speaking in the name of YHVH, the God of the Bible (see  2 Kings 18:25)!

This passage contains some timeless principles, some golden biblical nuggets. They apply to present-day diplomatic jousting between Israel and her allies, as the developing war between the Jewish state and the jihadi terrorist armies of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah rumbles forward in the Middle East.

We're totally on your side!

A sharp memory is required in order to keep track of all the different declarations being made in the current political dialogue, to decipher the strategies behind the scenes. Statements are often made for public consumption, but the actual policies and the realpolitik are quite different. Political leaders craft their appeals to certain segments of the population -- whether left, right or center; whether anti-Israel, pro-Israel or isolationist -- their statements are shaped with these constituencies in mind. We the listeners need to do the sleuthing, the detective work, in order to unpack the declarations or policies which often sound ambivalent or which seem to be at cross purposes with each other. Our recent newsletters have presented many such examples.

Here are two such examples:

One one hand, the US sanctions Iran, declares its commitment to standing with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and even (though infrequently) attacks the terrorist forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraq and Syria.

On the other hand, the US removed the oil trading embargo on Iran, allowing untold billions to flow into Iran's terrorism machine; released six billion dollars previously held as sanctions against Iran for its support of terror attacks; keeps its CENTCOM offices, air bases and connections in Qatar, which is the world's biggest supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. These pro-Iranian moves are of great concern to Saudi Arabia and of course to Israel, and they are Machiavellian to the extreme, They are a modern example of the principle 'divide and conquer.'

Britain used similar strategies in the early 1920's, when Whitehall made promises to both the ibn Saud armies and to the Hashemite dynasty regarding who would be allowed to control Mecca. Ultimately the ibn Saud tribes defeated the Hashemites, and that is why that land today is called Saudi Arabia and not the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia. The British gave a consolation prize to the Hashemites -- the newly created countries of Iraq and Jordan. Iraq was soon overthrown by socialist revolutionaries of the Ba'ath movement. King Abdullah and later his son King Hussein functioned as a British quasi-colony in the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, until it came under the geostrategic influence of America.

America's Machiavellian approach in the Middle East explains something about events behind the current war between Israel and Hamas.

Another example: after the brutal murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2, 2018 at the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul, the US gave the Saudis a cold shoulder on 'ethical grounds.' But recently those grounds have melted away in the stark light of realpolitik -- the need to get all available Middle Eastern players back into the American orbit.

We totally back you up but . . .

In Franklin Foer's recent book 'The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,'   he explains President Biden's strategy in dealing with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. During the May 2021 clash between Hamas and Israel, Biden told his advisors that he was going to "hug Bibi tight" rather than publicly express censure, knowing from experience that criticism would push Netanyahu away. "Smother Netanyahu with love!" was his 'secret strategy' and it remains so today -- even though Biden has leaked this 'secret strategy' to world media.

In May 2021, President Biden pressed the Israeli leader to swiftly agree to a ceasefire in order to end the May 2021 Gaza hostilities with Hamas: “Bibi, I gotta tell you, I’m coming under a lot of pressure back here . . .  I’m getting squeezed here to put an end to this as soon as possible.”

History shows us that, when Israel attempts to reclaim its God-promised land and its biblical borders, or when the Jewish state’s IDF attempts to decisively crush its enemies, various superpowers quickly step up to reign in Israel from achieving those goals. Russia used the threat of nuclear weapons in 1956 and 1973. America ordered Israel to stand down or retreat in 1991, 2006 and 2021. In 2021 POTUS Biden made many calls to PM Netanyahu during May’s 'Operation Guardian of the Walls.' During their fourth phone call, on May 19, 2021, Biden was unhappy that Israel was insisting on administering its death-blow to Hamas. “Hey, man, we are out of runway here. It’s over!” said Biden. Times of Israel reports: “Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire two days later. The longtime Likud leader was replaced one month later by a short-lived unity government headed by Naftali Bennett and Ya'ir Lapid.”

US State Department and Presidential statements over the past two months reveal something striking: positive declarations and actions in support of Israel have been immediately nuanced or walked back by both POTUS and the State Department. This modus operandi in the past two decades is the basic reason why the 15 previous military clashes with Hamas had inconclusive results, with Israel pressured into retreating from decisively destroying Hamas. The same dynamics were brought to bear during the 2016 war with Lebanon, and in the Kissinger shuttles in 1973-74 after the Yom Kippur War.

Those who have not been aware of the existence of this good cop-bad cop dynamic, are puzzled or even shocked to grasp that America is supporting two sides of a conflict in order to increase its own clout and influence as a world power. Yet Assyria and Egypt used exactly the same tactics over 2,500 years ago, and the Bible does not flinch from letting us know about these political machinations. This is how the nations of the world "take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against YHVH and His Anointed" (Psalm 2:2).  As it was then, so it is today: "Those who hate You have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against you people, and conspire together against Your treasured ones. They have said, 'Come and let us wipe them out as a nation that the name of Israel be remembered no more.' For they have conspired together with one mind; against You they make a covenant" (Psalm 83:2-5).

Brass tacks and double-speak

Some clarifying examples of these principles might help here. Here are a few salient points:

· Hamas is firing rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza -- which is an area not under Israeli control, and which has one border facing Egypt. In order to interdict Hamas rocket fire, Israel must remove the rocket squads and rocket launchers and weapons storehouses. Hamas has positioned these right in the middle of Gaza's civilian population, making some civilian casualties unavoidable. If Egypt were willing to work with Israel to pressure Hamas, the situation could be solved with much less loss of life. But that is not happening. Not only that -- the UN, the US and the EU all insist that the Gazan population must remain as sitting ducks and hostages of Hamas during this war. In any other such situation (Syria, Jordan, Libya, Eritrea and Somalia, etc.,) the local population would be helped to move away from the battlefield while being housed and fed as long term refugees in other neighboring countries. Both Egypt, Jordan, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Yemenite Houthis declare that such a moving of refugees would be for them tantamount to a casus belli -- a cause for war.

· In order for Hamas to be forced to stop firing rockets and sending jihadi terrorist gangs into Israel, it would need to be totally destroyed. Hamas' commitment to jihad is unto death, as per its Islamist Charter.  As long as Hamas soldiers or irregulars remain in Gaza, the conflict will go on and Israelis will continue to be murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped. Israelis have sanely decided that this option is not a feasible one. But to clean out the Hamas rat's nest in Gaza requires intensive non-stop military action lasting for months. Were Egypt to allow Gazans into Egypt as refugees, there would be greatly reduced casualties. But that does not fit in well with Hamas' war strategies, which call for a captive Gazan civilian human shield. Rather than pressuring Egypt to take in refugees, the US is pressuring Israel to step back (once again) from decisively defeating Hamas. VP Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have both repeatedly declared that it is an American red line -- Gazans are not to flee the battlefield but must remain as cannon fodder and human shields to benefit Hamas; Israel cannot remain in Gaza for too long, maybe not even for the time it takes to destroy Hamas; Israel will very soon be punished by world opinion and censured for its bombings of Hamas bases and terrorist infrastructure; the wildly inaccurate casualty rates fed by Hamas to the world media are to be used as a guideline of accuracy, even though Hamas does not allow independent collaboration of its figures, and even though it does not admit that most casualties are actually Hamas terror operatives.

Why are the nations taking counsel together?

The United Nations General Assembly has voted in a non-binding resolution (153 to 10, with 23 abstentions), calling for an immediate unconditional ceasefire, allowing Hamas to remain in charge and weaponized in Gaza. No mention was made in the UN Resolution of the jihadi pogroms of October 7, 2023 with the over 1,200 murders of Israelis, the mass rapes (many of which simultaneously included savage torture and murder), other torture of civilians, over 240 kidnappings, etc.  The UN Security Council also voted for a similar ceasefire, which was vetoed by the US as part of its 'founding member' prerogatives. It is only a matter of time before such measures will pass in world forums. Only a resolute stand by the US and any other pro-Jewish nations could succeed in blocking such moves, and only a steel backbone would keep such countries standing with and supporting the Jewish State in the face of a tsunami of world anti-Semitism.

The continuing public rebukes from the US administration directed at Israel and the IDF, focusing on reducing Gazan civilian casualties, are another example of the 'good cop, bad cop' syndrome. The IDF is the most praiseworthy army in the world in avoiding enemy civilian casualties, and is significantly better in this regard than the US military, according to a recent 'good cop' statement by US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. The strategy behind these criticisms of Israel (see POTUS Biden's December 13, 2023 accusation that Israel is guilty of "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza) is the desire to also play the 'bad cop,' thereby currying favor with the Islamic world and anti-Israel forces elsewhere. The ratcheting up of pressure on Israel to give in and allow a Palestinian terror state-consortium to be established simultaneously in Gaza and the West Bank, led by Palestinian terrorists from both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority -- this has long been the diplomatic-military 'end game' here. It is being prosecuted with renewed passion by the West in general and the US administration in particular, even before the blood of 1,200 Israeli victims has dried on the ground; even while Israeli kidnap victims are being subject on a daily basis to rape, torture, starvation and murder; even while Hamas rockets are being fired at Israeli kibbutzim, farms and cities; even as scores of dead Israelis are being held as bargaining tools by demonized Islamist jihadis.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 135 Israelis (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO.  Hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Hamas is holding onto many corpses as well for bargaining power.

Pray for Hamas’ cruel terror dictatorship in Gaza to be finally shattered and all chains broken off the Palestinians living there

Pray for jihadi deception, dissimulation and anti-Semitism to be understood and rejected by world leaders

Pray for justice, clarity, moral courage, discernment and divine strategies for Israel’s leadership in utterly destroying the jihadi threat in all of its aspects

Pray for minimal loss of life on Israel’s side and for those Gazans who are truly innocent

Pray that the outstretched arm of YHVH will not return before it brings justice to God’s enemies

Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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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