Restless and plotting – Part One

“Why are the nations restless and the peoples plotting in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together against YHVH and against His Mashiach (Anointed), saying, ‘Let’s tear their shackles apart and throw their ropes away from us!’” (Psalm 2:1-3)

What was true in the time of King David – the anointed ruler of the nation of Israel – is true in our day as well: the machinations and conspiracies of the superpowers of this earth always end up focusing on the Jewish people, their land and their destiny. This fixated and twisted dynamic could be called the world’s ‘Magnificent Obsession.’

In the same way as YHVH chose the children of Jacob to be His irrevocable priority people, so the prince of darkness has chosen the Jewish people – but for totally opposite purposes. Satan has chosen the Israeli nation to be the particular focus of his murderous madness and heinous hatred. How is this playing out in our day?

Jihadi warfare

Every Muslim who ‘signs on the dotted line’ – the classic Islamist texts of Quran and Hadith (Islamic legal tradition) – is spiritually bound to obey the words of Mohammed regarding the obligation of jihad – described as ‘the sixth pillar of Islam.’ It refers to military attack on Christians, Jews and Hindus until these groups are either vanquished, forced to convert to Islam, or destroyed by the mujāhidīn (jihad warriors).

This is the highest calling a Muslim can engage in – armed jihad, according to the Hadith (authoritative Islamic book accompanying the Quran) “Muhammad once was asked: ‘What is the best deed for the Muslim next to believing in Allah and his messenger?’ His answer was: ‘To participate in jihad in Allah’s cause’” (Hadith, al-Bukhari 1:25).

“When you meet the unbelievers (in battle), strike off their heads. Then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives. Afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom (themselves) until the war terminates. Thus (you are commanded)” (Quran, Surah 47:4).

“The Prophet… said: ‘The Hour (the Day of Judgment) will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say, ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ – except for the gharqad [ed., box thorn], for it is one of the trees of the Jews” (Hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari 2926)

Blinded denial of jihadi warfare

The secular and post-Christian West is like unto a deer trapped in the headlights of an onrushing jihadi train – bent on ignoring the clear and present danger speeding toward them. They are intent on persuading themselves that:

Jihad “has nothing to do with Islam” (France’s President François Holland)

“We are at war with those who would commit terrorist attacks and who would corrupt the Islamic faith in the way that they do, to try to justify their terrorist actions” (U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder)

“These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that . . . The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world” (September 17, 2001, POTUS George W. Bush)

“Let’s be clear about ISIL – ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents . . . There has to be a clear rejection of these kind of nihilistic ideologies” (POTUS Barak Obama)

In a hard-hitting article “Hating Jews for Allah” (Jerusalem Report, February 9, 2015), Tibor Krausz points out:

“Commentators who subscribe to the common ‘root-causes’ argument often seem willing to consider any plausible cause – from poverty to Israeli brutality to US-meddling in the Middle East – for Muslim bigotry and Islamic terrorism, except one: a homegrown ideology of supremacism fueled by traditional Islamic beliefs.”

It’s hard for some to believe, but this deadly blindness also dominates the thinking of the majority of Israel’s military, intelligence and judicial top brass.

The green seven-headed Iranian jihadi dragon

The Arabic term ‘Wahdat al-Saha’at’ (unity of the arenas) lies behind the jihadi terror state of Iran’s effort to gather its allies and all armed Islamist forces arrayed against Israel under a single Persian umbrella. Psalm 83 sketches most of those countries for us – a prophetic roster indeed:

God, do not remain quiet! Do not be silent and, God, do not be still. For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, and those who hate You have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against Your people, and conspire together against Your treasured ones. They have said, “Come, and let’s wipe them out as a nation, so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered.” For they have conspired together with one mind! They make a covenant against You: the tents of Edom [southern Jordan] and the Ishmaelites [the Arabian peninsula], Moab [central Jordan] and the Hagrites [Egyptian Sinai]; Gebal [Lebanon], Ammon [northern Jordan], and Amalek [Sinai], Philistia [Gaza] with the inhabitants of Tyre [Lebanon]; Assyria [northern Iraq] also has joined them; They have become a help to the children of Lot [Jordan]. Selah (Psalm 83:1-8)

Apart from the Yemeni Houthis who are not mentioned in Psalm 83, six of the nations currently involved in this present jihadi attack on Israel are described in this passage: Gaza, West Bank. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran.

Woke violence

To hate Israel is to hate the God of Israel, as Asaph the worship-leader and Isaiah the prophet clearly declare:

For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, and those who hate You have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against Your people, and conspire together against Your treasured ones. They have said, “Come, and let’s wipe them out as a nation, so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered.” For they have conspired together with one mind. They make a covenant against You (Psalm 83:2-5)

“In all their [the Jewish people’s] affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them” (Isaiah 63:9)

The mass anti-Israel and anti-Jewish neo-Nazi demonstrations rocking both Europe and American college campuses in recent months are funded by Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Qatar. They have been fostered over years through pre-positioning – the establishing of Chairs of Islamist and Arab thought and culture in top universities; in the seeding of both continents with Islamist organizations and illegal immigrants who have set up grass-roots jihadi networks (consider the 9/11 Hamburg cell). For the past few years, these sleeper cells have catalyzed woke leaders to organize supposedly ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations calling for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and for the establishment of a judenrein (Nazi term for ‘Jew-free’) Islamist terror state called ‘Palestine.’ One day after October 7, 2023, when Hamas had led horrific rapes, murders, tortures and kidnappings of Israeli children, teens, pensioners and adults, this neo-Nazi Islamist network was prepared, and they swung into gear, organizing massive demonstrations throughout Europe and America, calling for an Islamist Palestine ‘free from the River to the Sea’ – or, to speak plainly and without artifice – free of Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

The short-term crescendo of these demonstrations was seen in the pogrom attack on 3,000 Israeli soccer/football fans on October 7 and 8, 2024 in Amsterdam. This was quickly followed by a decision at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, issuing arrests for Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister on the false accusation of war crimes and genocide – something that woke demonstrators have been baying for over the past few years.

Weaponized lawfare

Israel is no stranger to international hatred and scorn. The Mesopotamian Balaam spoke a prophetic word over Israel, summing up this dynamic: “How am I to put a curse on him upon whom God has not put a curse? And how am I to curse him whom YHVH has not cursed? For I see him from the top of the rocks, and I look at him from the hills: Behold, a people who dwells apart, and is not considered to be [just another nation] living among the nations!” (Numbers 23:8-9). The God of Israel adds a divine footnote here in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who dishonors you I will curse” (ESV).

The United Nations proves the prophetic truth of Balaam’s declaration on a daily basis. Since 1948, there have been 226 Security Council resolutions related to Israel. The US directly condemned Israel in six resolutions and abstained on 19. The UN’s fixation over Israel can be demonstrated by considering one year out of many – the year 2022, where the General Assembly approved 15 anti-Israel resolution, versus 13 resolutions criticizing all other nations. Between 2015 and 2022 the General Assembly adopted 140 anti-Israel resolutions, as compared to 68 resolutions against all other countries. Here is the read-out for 2024: https://unwatch.org/2024-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/. Indisputable proof of UN anti-Israel bias is freely available for those who are interested. This ancient hatred is quite at home on the banks of NYC’s East River, and has stretched it muscles there from the time of the inception of the State of Israel up to the present day.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established on July 1, 2002, after the Rome Statute of the ICC was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on July 17, 1998 as the court’s charter and governing document. As of October 2024 there are 125 ICC member states, 25 signatories who have not ratified the Rome Statute, and 41 states which have neither signed nor become parties to the Rome Statute. Four signatory states – Israel in 2002, the United States on May 6, 2002, Sudan on August 26, 2008, and Russia on November 30, 2016 – have informed the UN Secretary General that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, have no legal obligations arising from their signing of the Statute

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute ‘four core international crimes’ (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression) in situations where sovereign states are “unable” or “unwilling” to do so themselves. Even so, the jurisdiction of the court is stated as only being complementary to jurisdictions of domestic courts. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes only if they are committed in the territory of a state party (which Israel is not) or if they are committed by a national of a state party. An exception to this rule is that the ICC may also have jurisdiction over crimes if its jurisdiction is authorized by the United Nations Security Council. Based on this last point, the nations of the world can conspire with the ICC in invalidating and overthrowing the first of the two points stated above.

Changing the judge’s horses in mid-stream

According to the ICC’s founding mandate, Israel cannot be investigated or prosecuted for three simple reasons: one: Israel has a functioning judicial system and has a solid track record of investigating itself; two, the jurisdiction of Israeli domestic courts takes priority over the ICC; three: since the UN does not recognize Israeli control over Gaza, the ‘crimes’ in question were not committed in the territory of a state party.

However, in a published opinion in August 2014, the ICC Prosecutor said that, as a result of Palestine’s new status being granted to it unilaterally by the ICC, Palestine was qualified to join the Rome Statute. In December 2014, the assembly of state parties of the ICC recognized Palestine as a ‘State’ without prejudice to any legal or other decisions taken by the court or any other organization. Palestine (a state that does not exist on the ground) acceded to the Rome Statute on January 2, 2015, and was recognized as a State party by the ICC on April 1, 2015. The fictional State of Palestine could now catalyze international legal suits against the Jewish state of Israel, in what is known as ‘lawfare’ – using judicial means to further destructive military purposes.

This scenario was very much on Israel’s mind when it originally refused to become a partner to the Rome Statute in 2002. It declared at that time in a written and appended note:

“At the 1998 Rome Conference, Israel expressed its deep disappointment and regret at the insertion into the Statute of formulations tailored to meet the political agenda of certain states. Israel warned that such an unfortunate practice might reflect on the intent to abuse the Statute as a political tool. Today, in the same spirit, the Government of the State of Israel signs the Statute while rejecting any attempt to interpret provisions thereof in a politically motivated manner against Israel and its citizens. The Government of Israel hopes that Israel’s expressions of concern of any such attempt would be recorded in history as a warning against the risk of politicization, that might undermine the objectives of what is intended to become a central impartial body, benefiting mankind as a whole.”

Subsequent UN history has proved the validity of Israel’s sober concerns a thousand times over. The UN and the ICC are functioning as abusive bullies, stirring up international judgment and cursing of Israel (remember Genesis 12:3) even though Israel is not subject to the ICC’s authority or a party to their treaties. To add insult to injury, Israel has been highly exemplary in its prosecution of war against jihadis – who happen to also be enemies of the West. Hamas and its chief bankroller Qatar, on the other hand, have never come before the gnarled legal arm of the ICC.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander of UK military forces in Afghanistan (leading Operation Fingal in Afghanistan from July to November 2003), Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia. He served with NATO and the UN, and participated in the Gulf War in Iraq. He is a consultant on international terrorism for both COBRA and the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee, where he wrote the British forces doctrine on dealing with suicide bombings. Colonel Kemp recently addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, stating that “no army in the world acts with as much discretion and great care as the IDF in order to minimize damage. The US and the UK are careful, but not as much as Israel.”

A further bump in the road concerns the ICC chief prosecutor of nine years, Karim Khan, who is facing allegations of sexual nonconsensual behavior and coercion against a female aide over a period of 12 months. These matters raise concerns about conflicts of interest, as well as the independence and ethical foundation of both the inquiry and the inquirer.

An Arab media outlet bankrolled by Qatar, the Middle East Eye, does not mince words in describing the international end-game here – turning Israel into a pariah state, subject to the blows of international bullies: “In the long run, and in a more meaningful way, the ICC warrants cut Israel off from the international community in a very sharp way . . . The American reaction . . . cannot change the basic reality: Israel is swiftly becoming a pariah state. This isolation and de-legitimization of Israel can have practical and immediate effects such as encouraging military and other sanctions on Israel.” See also ‘ICC decision may mean European arms embargo on Israel’ (Globes, November 21, 2024).

Peace, peace – and there is no peace

The newspapers and cable TV stations of the world, as Isaiah says, “are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales . . . All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless” (Isaiah 40:15-17). While mainstream media (MSM) trumpet a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, the truth is far more interesting and less encouraging.

Lebanese Hezbollah began unilaterally shooting anti-tank weapons, rockets, drones and missiles into Israel on October 8, 2023. On that day Hezbollah declared that they were joining Hamas in jihad against Israel. Their targets were kibbutzim, moshavim and farms, towns and cities, civilian houses and shopping centers. An occasional army base was also targeted. But it should be remembered that there is some context here: Hezbollah has waged an Iran-sponsored war against Israel since 1982 – a total of 32 years. Iran’s Shi’ite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been the bankroller, trainer and arms supplier this entire time. At the beginning of the 32 year long war Hezbollah attacked U.S. Marine bases and Embassies, French paratrooper bases and Israeli military HQs in Lebanon, kidnapping and torturing U.S. diplomats and intelligence chiefs to death. But at this juncture, Hezbollah’s attacks are officially directed only against Israel.

The recent ‘cease-fire’ agreement between Israel and Lebanon, initialed and the spotlighted by world media, was actually not signed by Hezbollah; indeed, that organization is only mentioned once and in passing in the document’s Understanding #2: “From 04:00 hours (IST/EET), November 27, 2024 forward, the Government of Lebanon will prevent Hezbollah and all other armed groups in the territory of Lebanon from carrying out any operations against Israel.”

American diplomat Amos Hochstein has been functioned as POTUS Biden’s Special Envoy in this situation. He has declared that the current cessation of firing is actually a done deal: “We’re not going to stop; it’s not a temporary effort. It’s an enduring mechanism!” In this he echoed the words of POTUS Joe Biden: “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities!” But Israel’s perspective here is decidedly different. Prime Minister Netanyahu explained that this deal is not a peace treaty but is only a fragile cease-fire; it expires after 60 days; and Israel will immediately join battle again if Hezbollah violates this pending accord. The gaps between diplomatic doublespeak and behind-the-scenes negotiations are significant.

Israeli Channel 12 TV announced that US Special Envoy Hochstein made clear to Israel that there would be no deal if France were not a member of the international oversight body. Israel in turn insisted that France take back its threat to arrest Netanyahu if he set foot in France, based on the ICC warrants, and tone down its virulently anti-Israel words and actions.

Back in 2016, at the conclusion of the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shi’ite jihadi terror group also did not sign UN Security Council’s Resolution 1701. This Hezbollah sidestep led to the long-burning fuse which exploded on October 8, 2023 – one day after Hamas’ atrocities against Israel. The same side-stepping scenario is occurring again, this time with U.S. and French blessing.

Over the last four decades Hezbollah (an Iranian-controlled Shi’ite terror group) has gradually taken over control of most of Lebanon from its original Christian, Sunni and Druze inhabitants. Through its Islamist reign of terror, it boastfully and mendaciously speaks in the name of all Lebanon while cruelly twisting the arm of that country’s citizens. To state matters clearly: the State of Lebanon does not have control of its own territory. That role is in the hands of Iran. So any deal ‘signed’ between Lebanon and Israel avoids stating the obvious – the problem is actually jihadi Iran’s jihadi proxy Hezbollah. Peace will only come when one of two things happens: either Hezbollah is totally crushed; or Iran orders Hezbollah not to attack Israel. Neither option is likely in the near future.

Yet, in spite of the diplomatic fudging and linguistic fog hanging over this process, POTUS Biden announced at the White House: “Today, after many weeks of tireless diplomacy, Israel and Lebanon have accepted a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon.” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot declared: “Force must give way to dialogue and negotiation. This has now been achieved in Lebanon.”

In other recent news, the United Nations refused to renew the contract of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Under-Secretary-General and U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, due to her determination that Israel’s actions in Gaza could not be defined as ‘genocide.’ According to Nderitu, the term “genocide” encapsulates the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by the Hutus on the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Serbian attacks on Bosnian Muslims, and the killings being carried out in Sudan. But Nderitu has stated, according to the Wall Street Journal, that “as a legal matter, establishing a pattern of violence as a genocide requires demonstrating intent. Israel’s campaign of self-defense doesn’t qualify.”

“The prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem, and who see a vision of peace for her when there is no peace” (Ezekiel 13:16)

“They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace’ – but there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14)

“We waited for peace, but no good came – for a time of healing, but behold, terror!” (Jeremiah 8:15)

How should we then pray?

Pray for the annulling of jihadi and superpower strategies against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations and Western fellow-travelers

Pray for the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: https://davidstent.org/

Snowflakes and Santa Claus

In 1636 Harvard University was founded as a school to train Christian ministers. In 1646 the University adopted “Rules and precepts that are observed in the college.” Here are some of those foundational points:

2. Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisedome, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him (Prov. 2:3).

3. Every one shall so exercise himselfe in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in Theoreticall observations of Language and Logick, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his Tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130).

4. That they eshewing all profanation of God's name, Attributes, Word, Ordinances, and times of Worship, do studie with good conscience carefully to retaine God, and the love of his truth in their mindes, else let them know, that (notwithstanding their Learning) God may give them up to strong delusions, and in the end to a reprobate minde, 2Thes. 2:11, 12. Rom. 1:28.

6. None shall...frequent the company and society of such men as lead an unfit, and dissolute life . . .

8. If any Scholar shall be found to transgresse any of the Lawes of God, or the Schoole...he may bee admonished at the publick monethly Act

The motto of the University adopted in 1692 was ‘Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae’ (Latin for ‘Truth for Christ and the Church’). But as Harvard University increasingly abandoned Evangelical theology and embraced German Liberalism, its motto morphed into what is in use today – simply the word ‘VERITAS’ (Latin for ‘Truth’).

Neither Christ nor the Truth

Since then, Harvard has become a bastion of anti-Christian teaching; it has lost its once-legendary Ivy League backbone for defending Biblical truth. A recent October 2024 lecture at Harvard by anti-Hamas speaker Mosab Hassan Yousef (son of one of Hamas’ founders) was only granted official permission to go forward if a University-authored statement was read out, informing the audience that pro-Hamas protestors would be allowed up to ten minutes to disrupt the event before being removed. The statement noted that it would allow pro-Hamas demonstrators access to the public pulpit, because “speech is privileged in the University community.” At Harvard, so it seems, free speech for jihadis trumps the unimpeded right of God’s watchmen to call out a warning.

On the Harvard campus, just one day after Donald J. Trump’s presidential re-election victory on November 5, 2024, many anti-Trump students and faculty found themselves spiraling into depression:

Physics professor Jennifer E. Hoffman sent an email to physics students and faculty that her office would be “a space to process the election. Many in our community are sleep-deprived, again grieving for glass ceilings that weren’t shattered, fearful for the future, or embarrassed to face our international colleagues,” she wrote. “I stress-baked several pans of lemon bars to share.”

Student Rachele D. Chung declared: “I just couldn’t believe that Donald Trump won, because he is literally a felon, he’s a criminal, and he’s a racist. I just can’t believe America voted that way.”

Harvard student and College Democrats Co-President Tova L. Kaplan stated: “I’m very clear eyed about what this election means in terms of emboldening misogynistic, racist, hateful rhetoric.”

Harvard Economics lecturer Maxim Boycko wrote in a Wednesday email to students in Economics 1010a that the course’s in-class quizzes would be optional: “As we recover from the eventful election night and process the implications of Trump’s victory, please know that class will proceed as usual today, except that classroom quizzes will not be for credit. Feel free to take time off if needed.”

Harvard student Jack A. Kelly said he “was tempted to say ‘no’ to class today. I had some professors that have been like, ‘If you need to not come to class, that’s understandable.’ This definitely takes a toll on people’s mental wellbeing.”

On Wednesday morning, College Dean Rakesh Khurana told students at Harvard’s freshman dining hall to “let yourself feel a bunch of emotions about how this is going to impact us in the future, and listen to other people and how they feel about it too.”

One Harvard student told the Harvard Crimson student newspaper that she cried for an hour upon learning that VP Kamala Harris had lost the race.

Can snowflakes endure a marathon?

According to the Pew Research Center report of August 9, 2024, about six out of every ten American (62%) say that a major problem in the U.S. today is “people being too easily offended by things others say.” A February 2, 2017 article in USA TODAY describes such easily offended people as ‘snowflakes’ – a term referring to “young people who take offense [at] political comments.” The USA TODAY article says that this term can refer to people who are “as weak and vulnerable as a speck of snow.”

In an early morning tweet the day after the elections, Elon Musk made a thoughtful observation regarding Democratic shock at a Republican victory: “For anyone, whether in America or other countries, who finds this result shocking, they should reconsider where they get their information. This trend was obvious in X for months, but almost all the legacy mainstream media pushed a completely false reality. They lied to you.’

Fragility, brittleness and intolerance are commonplace among many today – even among some Evangelicals – regarding attitudes toward Israel or toward national leaders on the more conservative side of the political spectrum. When these traits are coupled with rising and virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, this is a double-indicator that a major tremor is coming – a devastating temblor – one which is about to catapult mankind into a ramped-up repeat of Hitlerian days.

Harvard snowflakes may get easily rattled by the presence of anti-Hamas and pro-Israel lecturers on sacred campus property; they may spin into deep depression from the careful exercise of the democratic process in America (even if it brings a Big Orange Man to the White House). But the truth is that there are actually real threats coming down the track for the Western world. Recent violent jihadi attacks in the Netherlands on Israeli soccer fans (on the night of November 7-8, 2024) present another strong wake-up call to a narcissistic generation – one that, even though it calls itself woke, it has actually fallen deep asleep.

Santa Claus is coming to town

Amsterdam has always been a magnet for tourists, offering picturesque canals, beautiful old buildings, cream cakes and well-prepared cuisine. For those who love the Christmas season, Santa Claus’ origins are often connected to this city. Santa is known in the Netherlands as Sint Nicolaas or Sinterklaas. In medieval times, the Feast Day in his honor was usually the occasion of mass public drunkenness. Though the origins of the red-suited white-bearded figure were originally from Greece, Santa has taken on a distinct Dutch hue over the years. Dutch settlers in Manhattan brought Mr. Claus’ toy-giving traditions over to New York City, and from America they have spread worldwide.

Another old tradition started not far from Greece, and it too has spread worldwide. Its founder also had a beard, though its color is a matter of dispute. That founder was Mohammed, and the tradition he started in the Hejaz region of Arabia is called ‘Islamic jihad.’ Based on the classic Islamist texts of the Quran and the Hadith, the zealous adherents of the tradition of jihad (jihad warriors or mujāhidīn) have spread their message from Mecca to Manhattan, and from Alexandria to Ankara – even to Amsterdam.

Time line of anti-Israel activities

The past few days have seen intensive pogrom-like attacks on over 3,000 Israelis in Amsterdam. Here is a time-line and explanation of those events.

Pro-Palestine anti-Israel protests were held on November 3, 2024 in front of the Queen’s Palace at Dam Square, Amsterdam.

On Monday, November 4, 2024, Spain’s AS newspaper reported that a pro-Palestinian Islamic group linked with the Communist Party, ‘Week 4 Palestine’, was planning to protest outside Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena, targeting the Israeli team and its fans. On Tuesday, it was reported that in addition to Football Club Maccabi’s regular security, Israeli Mossad agents would provide additional protection to the Israeli football team.

Leading up to the game, intense efforts were made by BDS organizations and ‘Week 4 Palestine’ to have the game canceled. Signs and banners appeared across the city reading, “Kick Israel out of the UEFA.”

On November 6, 2024, the Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema, the local police and the public prosecutor decided to ban the pro-Hamas group ‘Week 4 Palestine’ from demonstrating outside the main gate of the Arena, since “violent confrontations are a realistic project.” An alternate location for protest was offered at Anton de Komplein Square, a few hundred metres from the stadium.

‘Week 4 Palestine’ announced that they were expecting “a large number of Zionist football hooligans” at the Arena, and expressed concerned that, somehow, IDF soldiers would appear and “cause issues.” They encouraged anti-Israeli protesters to hide their keffiyeh headscarves and their Palestine symbols until the protests were under way.

Israeli fans who traveled to Amsterdam said that they were attacked by Turkish and Moroccan gangs also on the night of Wednesday November 6, 2024. “They waited for us outside the casino. Every Israeli who ordered a taxi got ambushed by eight Turks who beat them up. In the end, we walked with a police escort from the casino to Dam Square, with Turks carrying sticks and such passing by us the entire way. It was the scariest experience I’ve had in football.”

A November 6, 2024 eyewitness, Babak Taghvaee, posted on Twitter: “This shocking incident has taken place in Amsterdam, Netherlands last night. Dutch football fans all with Turkish and Moroccan roots used clubs and knives to attack Israeli tourists. They caused injuries to their victims by using their knives and then pushed them into the canals.”

‘Week 4 Palestine’ posted a video of a man who had been pushed into a canal, with the caption, “A Zionist got a free swimming lesson.” A voice can be heard saying in the video, “Say free Palestine and we go.” In another tweet, ‘Week 4 Palestine’ doxed a Maccabi fan, posting a photo of his stolen passport which showed him dressed in his Israeli Air Force uniform.

Stun grenades were thrown on Wednesday night at apartments/Air BnB’s where Israelis were staying.

Statements of world leaders

U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, wrote that she was “horrified by the attacks tonight in Amsterdam, which are terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom.”

Danny Danon, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, wrote that “we are receiving very disturbing reports of extreme violence against Israelis and Jews on the streets of Holland. There is a pogrom currently taking place in Europe in 2024.”

The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, told the President of Israel Isaac Herzog on November 8, 2024: “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.”

The Israeli Embassy in The Hague stated: “Horrific scenes from Amsterdam last night, echoing Europe’s darkest history. Hundreds of fans of Israel’s Maccabi TLV were ambushed and brutally attacked in Amsterdam last night after the match against Ajax. Mobs chanted anti-Israel slogans and proudly shared videos of their violent acts on social media – kicking, beating, even running over Israeli citizens. On the eve of Kristallnacht [November 8-9, 1938] – when Jews in Nazi Germany faced brutal attacks – it is horrifying to witness antisemitic violence on the streets of Europe once again.”

Geert Wilders, Dutch politician representing the largest party in the government, the Party for Freedom (PVV), tweeted: “A pogrom in the streets of #Amsterdam. We have become the Gaza of Europe. Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”

Wilders added: “Looks like a Jew hunt in the streets of Amsterdam. Arrest and deport the multicultural scum that attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in our streets. Ashamed that this can happen in The Netherlands. Totally unacceptable.”

What happened in Amsterdam?

On the evening of Thursday, November 7, 2024, Muslim gangs of Turkish and Moroccan origin began attacks which quickly intensified into pogroms. Their target was the 3,000 Israeli fans of soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv who had come to enjoy the November 7 UEFA Europa League soccer match between the Maccabi team and the local Amsterdam team Ajax at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena.

Crowds of Middle Eastern Turks and Moroccans were waiting outside the Arena for Israeli fans to come out after the game, prepared for a large-scale pogrom. Groups of Arabs dressed in black gathered in pre-arranged clusters of 5 to 10 in alleys and key exits from various train stations, especially around Amsterdam’s main Dam Square and also the streets near hotels where Israelis were staying. The gangs had precise intelligence where to wait and, as soon as they spotted Israelis, they attacked them in many locations across the city with bats, knives and other weapons, yelling “Free Palestine.” A 30 year-old Israeli Maccabi fan, who had recently finished four months of reserve duty in Gaza, stated: “We were ambushed.”

Israeli fans ran to hide in hotels, restaurants and businesses near the Arena. Video footage on social media shows fans being beaten, kicked, chased with knives, punched, run over by vehicles. One video shows a man been kicked to the ground, while he yells at them “I’m not Jewish.” An Israeli fan told a journalist how a group of Arabs ran over to him, pulling out knives. He declared, “The police here abandoned us. Every fourth person walking the street is a Muslim who has come to attack Jews.”

In the middle of the pogrom, one Israeli fan called his friend’s cell phone to check up on him; “A voice in Arabic answered,” he said. Another Israeli interviewed said: “We experience the very thing they told us in school would never happen [to Jews] again.” Arab crowds threw fireworks into hotels where Israelis were hiding. Israelis at the scene said that Amsterdam police left Maccabi fans unaccompanied after they exited the Johan Cruyff Arena, and provided no escort for them at all, from the moment they boarded the trains to their hotels.

Amsterdam’s Mayor Femke Halsema described the terror attacks as ‘hit and run.’ She added that Arab men on scooters were driving around the city, searching for Israelis to attack. One 24 year-old Israeli fan, Adi Reuben, told the BBC:

“Last night we got off the metro station and started walking towards the Mozart hotel where we were staying. More than 10 men who looked Arab or Turkish just came up to me and my friends and asked us ‘where are you from’. They shouted ‘Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF’. They started to mess with me and I realized I had to run, but it was dark and I didn't know where to go. I fell to the floor and ten people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Filasṭīn’ [Palestine]. They were kicking me on the floor for about a minute, then they walked off, they weren’t afraid of anything. I realized I had full blood on my nose and my nose was broken and it is very painful. I also couldn’t see well for about 30 minutes after it happened.” Adi added: “This was a specific attack that was organized beforehand.”

At least 62 rioters were arrested that night, Dutch police said, and at least five people were taken to hospital with injuries.

Former Harvard student Shabbos Kestenbaum posted a tweet dripping with dry sarcasm, which was accompanied by videos of Islamist violence: “I am deeply thankful that the Muslim refugees hunting for Jews with knives tonight in Amsterdam are only anti-Zionists and not in any way motivated by Jew-hate.”

I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out a warning

The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora and Battle Against Antisemitism (MDBAA) has been sending security intelligence briefs to Dutch authorities regarding Palestinian violence planned against Jewish and Israeli targets since 2022. These warnings culminated in the MDBAA issuing three hot warnings at 1900 hours on November 7, 2024 to Dutch authorities about upcoming attacks in Amsterdam planned by pro-Hamas groups targeting the Israel football club members and their fans, against locations popular among Israelis.

A warning regarding a violent demonstration to be led by pro-Palestinian activist APPA

A specific warning about a hit planned on a Border Patrol IDF soldier who was a Maccabi fan

A warning about an attack on the Leonardo Hotel where Israelis were staying, where the rioters would incite violence and attack specific individuals while broadcasting those attacks on social media.

These warnings had been passed on, first to SHABAK (Israeli FBI) and to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, who then passed them on to the local security forces of Holland – the party responsible for the soccer fans safety. The MDBAA noted that, on Wednesday night November 7, 2024, at 2100 they received an update that the Israeli soldier under threat was informed of the danger and was able to take precautionary measures. Also, the Israeli security contacts were informed by local Amsterdam police that they had received these updates and was responding accordingly.

Israeli Ministry of Diaspora and Battle Against Antisemitism released a statement on November 8, 2024 that, to their regret, the local Dutch forces failed in their task to defend the Israeli citizens soccer fans, and that by 0230 am Israeli time on November 8, 2024, events on the ground in Amsterdam got totally out of hand. Despite clear warnings from Israeli security intelligence, it turns out that the Dutch authorities reportedly ignored the warnings, allowing violent acts to proceed and later attempted to blame Israeli soccer fans for “provocative behavior.”

The Diaspora Affairs Ministry further stated on the morning of November 8, 2024: “As of 3:30 a.m., we have transmitted additional information from the networks which are assisting the security forces in compiling an up-to-date picture of the situation.”

Keeping up with the Joneses

There is an assertion that many Israelis respond with when asked about whether or not another Holocaust will ever happen again to the Jewish people. That declaration is: “Never again!” We Israelis for the most part believe (and hope) that our people will be able to live a normal life; will be able to fit in to the family of nations and live in peace and prosperity; will have our children grow up without the threat of terrorism and murderous neighbors. We hope and pray for the blessing of God on the work of our hands.

Yet the words of the prophet Ezekiel echo back at us and our whispered prayers: “And whatever comes into your mind certainly will not come about, when you say: ‘We will be like the nations, like the families of the lands, serving wood and stone’” (Ezekiel 20:32). God has chosen His Jewish people to be different, and He has given us a different destiny: “For I see him from the top of the rocks, and I look at him from the hills. Behold, a people that lives in isolation, and is not numbered among the nations” (Numbers 23:9). The hatred of the nations pushes us to ask the big questions: what does the chosenness of Israel mean? Why is God working things out this way? If we will never be able to fit in and be like everyone else, what does God want that we should do? What does He want that we should be? What is the destiny of Israel, God’s chosen people?

Holland in times past was perhaps the most friendly country of all to the Jewish people, and Amsterdam was one of the Jewish people’s favorite watering holes. But now it has become a city known for murderous pogroms. The country of Corrie ten Boom has morphed into a haven for jihadi monsters. The God of Jacob is calling His Jewish people home. According to the promise of the ‘Dry Bones Vision’ in Ezekiel 37:1-14, YHVH will fill us – the whole people of Israel – with His Spirit and transform us into “a mighty army, much much” (original Hebrew wording). This vision needs to be fixed before our eyes, and be the substance and focus of our prayers!

How should we then pray?

Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations

Pray for the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel

Pray for the annulling of Iranian war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of jihadi plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

The Lord humbles, He also exalts – He removes kings and appoints kings

The past few days have seen agony and ecstasy in both America and Israel. In America, Republican Donald J. Trump (previously the 45^th POTUS) won the 60^th quadrennial U.S. Presidential election, becoming the 47^th President of the United States (312 Electoral College votes, and nearly 73 million of the popular vote). Incumbent Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris was defeated in this same election (226 Electoral College votes, and just over 68 million of the popular vote).

In Israel Yoav Gallant, former Commander of Israel’s Shayetet 13 (Flotilla 13, equivalent to the US Navy Seals) in the 1990’s, and Minister of Defense (2022-2024), was informed on November 5, 2024 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “decided to end the defense minister’s tenure.” These changes have made some people very happy, and other people very sad.

Some careful observers have noted occasional parallels between political events in Israel and those in America. Similar events are often simultaneously mirrored in both countries: both countries have electorates sharply divided on both sides of the political spectrum; the media of both countries see their elections in intense and sometimes apocalyptic terms; and the majority of the mainstream media (MSM) in both countries are virulently opposed to the candidates representing the conservative wing.

This newsletter focuses on the background behind why PM Netanyahu ended Gallant’s tenure. Though this background information is available on Israeli open sources, nearly all media outlets (including Evangelical and Messianic streams) are not presenting a comprehensive picture – either because of lack of awareness of Hebrew sources, or because of political leanings skewing their perceptions of events on the ground.

Horses and thinkers

An Englishman circa 1175 A.D. once spoke a proverb, recorded in ‘Old English Homilies’: “Hwa is thet mei hors wettrien the him self nule drinken.” In modern English it is usually stated: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” This proverb needs to be tweaked only slightly for it to have special reference to today’s generation: “You can teach a person to read or even to watch the news, but that is not the same as teaching that person how to think, how to weigh matters or how to discern truth.”

Edward Bernays, born in 1891 to a Viennese Jewish family, was an American pioneer in the field of propaganda (which he renamed ‘public relations’). In his influential book Propaganda (published in 1928), Bernays sums it up:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

The Nazi Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary “The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it.”

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1952 defined ‘dezinformatsiya’ [Russian for ‘disinformation’] as the dissemination of “false information with the intention to deceive public opinion.”

We are facing a generation that has been nursed on propaganda – falsely called ‘News’ – that is being pumped out 24/7 on TV, on websites and in newspapers. People get their talking points, their opinions, their political judgments and their worldviews by what they watch on TV, read on their computer screen or glance at in newspaper headlines.

The growing realization (both in Israel and in America) that many politicians, governmental leaders, security and intelligence forces, medical professionals and corporate autocrats are not to be automatically trusted (or even trusted at all), is no longer considered a marginal or paranoid expression of ‘conspiracy theories.’ The world is dealing with a reality at the doorstep which seems prophetically close to George Orwell’s dystopic vision in ‘1984’ and Aldous Huxley’s drug-induced paradise in ‘Brave New World’.

In Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler stated, “The function of propaganda is . . . not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth . . . [but] to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.”

Drinking from the poison chalice

Most media organs in Israel (and probably in America too) are run by oligarchs and business tycoons. They attempt to influence political decisions in ways which will be advantageous to their own economic interests. Each major Israeli political party is financed and guided by the goals of these tycoons. These same oligarchs control media perspectives regarding both their favorites and their enemies – et voilà: ‘news’ morphs into propaganda. As US legal authority Alan Dershowitz notes: “These media companies will seek to influence the political discourse that affects their bottom line, as they simultaneously report on it.” For the past 15 years, 95% of Israel’s media has been spewing out hate-filled anti-Netanyahu propaganda, leveling seditious gossip, false accusations and championing legal attacks – each of these withering away and being annulled over time.

For those who are not tracking about this poisonous history – whether through lack of Hebrew language ability, lack of acquaintance with the Hebrew media, or due to an unwillingness to believe anything positive about Bibi based on a vindictive attitude toward Israel’s most repeatedly elected Prime minister – they are at a loss in dealing with how Israeli and world media are portraying the firing of Yoav Gallant. Many of these people have drunk the Kool-Aid – they have gulped down the ‘yellow journalism’ attacks against Prime Minister Netanyahu. They are unaware that these attacks are being leveled by the same anti-Bibi enemies who have blackballed him over the past two decades. They do not understand that Israel’s media mafia are simply using the firing of Gallant as another tool in their arsenal of PR weapons in order to remove Bibi from serving as Israel’s Prime Minister.

It is necessary to unpack the factual background regarding Gallant’s dismissal. The following are some significant and pertinent keys.

A Cabinet Minister is legally required to carry out cabinet decisions

A cabinet minister is an official of an elected government who has been appointed to carry out the will of that government. If he fundamentally disagrees with the will of the government as expressed in its policies, he can try to effect change in cabinet decisions but, if that does not work, he needs to resign. However, if that cabinet minister stays on and attempts to undermine government positions and actions, he is acting as a ‘fifth column’ and needs to be fired. PM Netanyahu’s November 5, 2024 statement gives needed background this:

In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust between the prime minister and the defense minister is required. Unfortunately, even though in the early months of the campaign there was such trust and very productive cooperation, in recent months, that trust has cracked. Between me and Defense Minister Gallant, significant gaps emerged regarding the management of the campaign, and these gaps were accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted government decisions and cabinet decisions . . . The crisis of faith between me and the defense minister became public knowledge, and this crisis now hinders the proper management of the campaign. It’s not just me saying this; the majority of the government and most of the cabinet members, almost all of them, share this feeling that this situation cannot continue.

Gallant’s leaks from the high-security cabinet discussions were many, have been extensively noted in the press, and also contributed to his firing. Here are a such few examples:

“Israel’s Netanyahu accuses Gallant of leaking information from closed security meetings” (April 22, 2024)

“Netanyahu accuses Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of pushing ‘false leaks’ amid hostage crisis” (April 23, 2024)

“Gallant in a leaked recording” (May 21, 2024)

“‘Gallant tells cabinet . . . in fresh leaked quotes from cabinet meeting” (August 30, 2024)

“Gallant’s leaked letter revealed urgent call for updated war goals” (October 27, 2024)

Cabinet Ministers cannot publicly oppose cabinet decisions

Throughout his term of office, Gallant contradicted government and cabinet decisions in public statements, leaked private statements and initiated actions. This was true in concerning his decisions and pronouncements about Justice Ministry matters (here and here). At that time, this led to Gallant being fired by Bibi on March 26, 2023, though the move was later rescinded due to street riots. His public opposition to government policies also touched on management of the military campaign, the hostage deal, the ceasefire deal, and the Philadelphia Corridor proposal.

Gallant frequently met with the heads of organizations subject to the Prime Minister without the Prime Minister’s presence or consent, in an attempt to influence or countermand government policies. The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed Gallant’s behavior in these cases as “extremely puzzling,” maintaining that “one compass” exists for the war – the goals set by the cabinet.

The IDF top brass is required to carry out cabinet decisions

It may come as a surprise to some non-Israelis, but at times the IDF’s top brass has been known to ignore, side-step or even disobey cabinet decisions. Former Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon was known to do so, and Gallant during his tenure has also acted as political rival and fierce critic of war policies while at same time functioning as a rubber stamp for the military and security establishment’s views – even when the Prime Minister and the cabinet have clearly stated the government’s war aims. Gallant occasionally declared that the government’s aims were neither achievable nor realistic. Gallant opposed opening up the Lebanese front, and publicly pushed for an agreement with Hezbollah – even though it turns out that Hezbollah has long been planning a major invasion of northern Israel à la October 7, 2023, and that their arsenals of drones, rockets, missiles and anti-tank shoulder-fired missiles were overflowing and ready for a deep attack on the Jewish state.

Former Minister of Defense and highly decorated soldier Ehud Barak has been calling for civil revolt and blood in the streets; a refusal by IDF soldiers to serve in the reserves; and a call for violent overthrow of PM Netanyahu’s government. Former Chiefs of Staff Eizenkot, Barak and Gallant all shied away from speaking against or taking legal steps against an anarchistic and revolutionary movement known as ‘Brothers in Arms,’ even as this group called for riots and civil disobedience. The IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Col. Herzi HaLevi warned the PM not to go through with an already approved cabinet decision regarding judicial reform, lest the refusal of some of these soldiers would spread and affect the IDF’s battle readiness. The IDF top brass was telling the government to back down in the face of revolt, rather than enforcing Israeli law here. In June 2024, in a ‘Twilight Zone’ moment, the ‘Brothers [and Sisters] in Arms’ received the ‘Presidential Award for Volunteerism’ from the President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog.

A Cabinet Minister cannot publicly side with a foreign government against his own cabinet’s decisions and policies

Throughout the 2023-24 war between Israel (on the one side) and Hamas, Hezbollah, Kata’eb Hezbollah in Iraq, the Houthis in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Revolutionary Corps (on the other), the American President Biden, the U.S. State Department and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all pressured and threatened the Israeli government many times concerning military strategies and objectives. The US warned Israel to stand down about an overwhelming popularly supported IDF incursion into Gaza, into Khan Younis, into Shifa Hospital, into Jabaliya, into Rafiah, into Lebanon, into bombing Hamas HQ in southern Beirut (Dahieh), etc. The U.S. tried to bully Israel into accepting pro-Hamas ceasefire conditions, and into establishing a jihadi government over Gaza and The West Bank composed of Hamas and PLO terrorists. The U.S. tried to force Israel to retreat from defensive military lines which could block Hamas’ re-entry into the rest of Gaza (the Philadelphia and Kissufim Corridors), etc.

In many of these cases, Defense Minister Gallant demanded that PM Netanyahu obey American diktats, even publicly opposing the PM and the cabinet’s absolute majority after the decision had been ratified. Gallant castigated Netanyahu in a leak he made public, declaring that Bibi was letting Israel slide toward long-term military rule in Gaza – a choice that Gallant said would be disastrous. Gallant opposed going ahead with the assassination of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah without US approval – and that approval would never have been forthcoming, as JCOS head Lloyd Austin revealed. Gallant repeatedly challenged Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages in Gaza – even though Hamas refused to negotiate anything less than total IDF surrender and withdrawal, in exchange for only some of the hostages (including dead ones as part of the deal). Gallant’s words: “We need to make painful compromises.”

The lack of popularity among average Israelis for Gallants’ spoiler role was seen in a July 4, 2024 Israeli poll which saw Gallant as the main danger to coalition unity.

Gallant’s opposition to Cabinet decisions were supported and praised by the Opposition

After Gallant’s removal from office on November 5, 2024 by PM Netanyahu, the four heads of the Israeli Opposition – Yair Golan, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz and Avigdor Liberman (all who are either leftist or center-left) – issued a press release affirming that they stand with Yoav Gallant in his opposition to the government. This public demonstration of support for Gallant by anti-government forces indicates that Bibi’s decision to remove the Minister was based on real political substance. The Likud party issued a statement in response to this above press release, reminding readers that “two months ago, Gantz stated that Gallant must resign.”

Gallant publicly mocked his leaders’ strategies and decisions

On Monday, August 12, 2024, Defense Minister Gallant mocked PM Netanyahu’s promises of “absolute victory” in the ongoing war, calling them “gibberish.” On Monday, September 9, 2024, Gallant declared that “Hamas as a military formation no longer exists . . . Israel should achieve an agreement…” Gallant advocated handing Gaza and the West Bank over to a Hamas/PLO consortium. His declaration that the IDF has achieved their goals in Gaza was soon echoed by an anonymous IDF commander on the northern front with Lebanon, who dittoed the same perspective about Lebanon. Meanwhile, rockets, drones and missiles continue to kill and terrorize Israelis in the north, while IDF soldiers are still clashing with Hamas in the south and suffering fatalities.

According to leaked accounts, Gallant said at one point in a government security cabinet meeting that “the Prime Minister can indeed make all the decisions, and he can also decide to kill all the hostages,” provoking rebukes from other ministers.

US pressure on Israeli government actions and internal politics

Back in 2012, POTUS Barak Obama exerted extreme pressure on Israel in order to get the IAF to cancel their intended strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Foreseeing similar pressures, in October 2024, PM Netanyahu cancelled Gallant’s trip to the U.S. – Gallant could no longer be trusted to represent his own government in negotiations with Uncle Sam.

Occasional articles in Israeli and U.S. media note that there is continued CIA and State Department pressure on the Israeli political and military scene to have Netanyahu’s government removed – whether by street riot, by political machinations, or by anti-government media leaks. There are ambitious and hungry former Israeli leaders who look longingly toward America, in hopes of returning to power – or at least in hopes of destroying their arch-nemesis.

Gallant publicly took credit for military decisions which he opposed

Most of the achievements Gallant took credit for in his Tuesday, November 5, 2024 speech, focus on the same decisions he opposed during his term of office, and which military actions Bibi pushed and promoted.

The Stockholm Syndrome (D.C. version) and its influence on Israeli leaders

Some influential Israeli politicians, intelligence mavens, military generals and judicial authorities are afraid. They are not trembling over jihadi rockets, missiles and drones. They are wilting over the possibility that a Dutch building – the Peace Palace situated in the Hague, Netherlands – will be the next and greatest threat to the Jewish state. In The Hague, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations lives and moves and has its judicial being. It is the International Court of Justice (ICJ). These Israelis are worried about ‘lawfare’ – the possibility that the nations of the world will boycott the Jewish state and declare it a pariah among the nations. They are worried that Israeli leaders, military personnel, diplomats and perhaps even Israeli rock musicians may be arrested and imprisoned by a United Nations-led anti-Jewish conspiracy. The worldwide rise of anti-Jewish riots in the light of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 pogroms has only attenuated these fears.

Every Israeli General, every Israel head of Intelligence, every Israeli politician – they all consider the ICJ’s gnarled fingers before they make any moves, be they military, judicial or diplomatic. The fear of ‘progressive’ lawfare – control and revenge by the anti-Zionist nations of the world – is paramount among many Israeli leaders.

We have written previous newsletters about the Stockholm Syndrome – how victims of terror sometimes become defenders and enablers of terrorists.

https://davidstent.org/from-egypt-to-stockholm-a-messianic-perspective-on-israels-elections/

https://davidstent.org/the-caesarea-syndrome/

With regard to Gallant and others in Israeli leadership, perhaps a new term should be invented: the ‘Stockholm-DC Syndrome.’ The idea here would be “Don’t get Uncle Sam angry – at any cost! Even at the cost of Israel’s security!” This dynamic is all too real, and is something worth adding to intercessory prayer-lists.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelation and courage to Israeli and American leaders in their dealing with jihadi terror organizations

Pray for the annulling of Iranian war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of jihadi plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

The weight of Babylon

On Friday November 1, 2024, twelve USAF Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range bombers took off from North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base. Their flightpath would take them to the State of Qatar (Dawlat Qaṭar) on the Arabian Gulf. Just after 02:00 hours on Saturday morning November 2, 2024, the aerial convoy landing at al-Udeid Air Base, the U.S.’s biggest airbase in the Middle East, and host to the forward HQ of U.S. Armed Forces Central Command (CENTCOM). The American bombers taxied and then parked, only a few miles’ drive from the world administrative HQ of Hamas – whose main financier is also Qatar. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and nowhere is this more true than in the Byzantine mosaic known as the Arabic-speaking Middle East.

Just across the Gulf from Qatar lies the modern Republic of Iraq (Jumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq) – modern home to two ancient biblical empires: in the north of the country, Assyria; and in the center and south, Babylon. Babylon plays one of the most powerful roles of any nation in the prophetic Scriptures.

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. Now Cush fathered Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before YHVH; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before YHVH.” And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city (Genesis 10:6-12)

The original inhabitants of Babylon (modern Iraq) were Hamitic, not Semitic. Their forefather was Nimrod, a personal name meaning ‘Let us rebel.’ Nimrod was the founder of the city called ‘Babel.’ When ‘Nimrod’ was later transliterated into Greek, it became ‘Babylon,’ and that is the name used today.

By the rivers of Babylon, Jamaica

The famous reggae rock star, Bob Marley, proclaimed in his song ‘Exodus:’ “We know where we’re going, We know where we’re from, We leaving Babylon, We goin to our Father’s Land.” For Bob and his band (the Wailers), as well as for the whole Replacement Theology movement known as ‘Rastafaris,’ Babylon represents the corrupt world system, both physical and spiritual. It is especially a symbol of white European Christian colonialist and imperialist power which Rastafarians see as having oppressed Blacks over the centuries. Rastas believe that they are the original ancient Israelites spoken of in the Holy Scriptures. For Rastas, Jesus was not Jewish: he was a Black African; they see the ‘white Jesus’ as a false god. According to ‘kosher’ Rastafarian theology, ‘Zion’ is actually a reference to Ethiopian Africa, ‘the ancestral homeland of all Black people.’ The crowning of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1930 is considered a defining messianic moment for the movement, who view this Ethiopian king as a direct descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican-American political leader, was the creator of ‘Pan-Africanism’ or the ‘Back to Africa’ movement, out of which were born the reggae-related Rastafaris. Garvey drew narrative themes from the Bible, re-interpreting them along the way. He was the one responsible for morphing biblical Babylon into a new (actually racist) definition: white Christianity.

What is the biblical view of Babylon, and what can be said about its spiritual dimensions? Let’s look back to the world-famous story of the ‘writing on the wall’ – the inscription written by a disembodied hand on the wall of King Belshazzar’s palace in Babylon (see Daniel 5) in 539 B.C.. Daniel the prophet spoke those words out as: “Menē, Menē, Tekēl, Upharsin.” The divinely inspired interpretation was also given to him: ‘Menē’ – God has carefully numbered the kingdom of Babylon and decided to put an end to it. ‘Tekēl’ – King Belshazzar himself has been weighed on the scales and found deficient by the God of Jacob. ‘Perēs’ – Belshazzar’s kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians. What was it that God ‘found deficient’ in Belshazzar’s kingdom? The Scriptures give us detailed answers.

The sins of Babylon on which the God of Jacob focused

Isaiah and Jeremiah speak directly about the sins for which YHVH judged Babylon. Most of these evils revolve around their treatment of the Jewish people and their land, although other sins listed are more international in scope.

Isaiah 13 – Babylon’s pride, arrogance
Isaiah 14 – Babylon was the oppressor and captor of the House of Jacob
Isaiah 47 – Babylon did not show mercy to the Jewish people
Isaiah 48 – Babylon was wicked to God’s servant Jacob
Jeremiah 25 – Babylon did grievous wrong against the Jewish people
Jeremiah 50 – Babylon gnawed on the bones of Israel
Jeremiah 50 – YHVH will plead His legal case against Babylon
Jeremiah 50 – God’s punishment and time of vengeance is coming against Babylon
Jeremiah 50 – God’s plans and purposes against Babylon will be accomplished as
payback for Babylon’s destruction of Solomon’s Temple
Jeremiah 50 – Babylon’s arrogance against YHVH
Jeremiah 51 – Babylon’s judgment for what it did to Israel has reached to the heavens

Here are some scripture portions which also develop this theme:

“YHVH has brought about our vindication; Come and let’s recount in Zion the work of YHVH our God! Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! YHVH has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is against Babylon to destroy it; For it is the vengeance of YHVH, vengeance for His Temple. Lift up a signal flag against the walls of Babylon; Post a strong guard! Station sentries! Set up an ambush! For YHVH has both planned and performed what He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon” (Jeremiah 51:10-12)

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me. He has set me down like an empty vessel. He has swallowed me like a monster, He has filled his stomach with my delicacies; He has washed me away. May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” the inhabitant of Zion will say. “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,” Jerusalem will say. Therefore this is what YHVH says: “Behold, I am going to plead your case and take vengeance for you. And I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry. Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants. They will roar together like young lions, They will growl like lions’ cubs. When they become heated up, I will serve them their banquet and make them drunk, so that they may rejoice in triumph, and may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,” declares YHVH. “I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams together with male goats” (Jeremiah 51:33-40)

Then heaven and earth and everything that is in them will shout for joy over Babylon, because the destroyers will come to her from the north,” declares YHVH. Indeed, Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel, as the slain of all the earth have also fallen for Babylon (Jeremiah 51:48-49)

When Babylon meets the Jewish threshing sledge of YHVH

The God of Jacob proclaims a special role to the people of Israel in Babylon’s coming judgment, as the prophets declare:

Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored. Those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish. You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them. Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent. For I am YHVH your God who takes hold of your right hand, who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you. Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you people of Israel. I will help you, declares YHVH . . . Behold, I turned you into a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges. You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, and make the hills like chaff. You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the storm will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the Lord. You will boast in the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 41:11-16)

The portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of everything, and of the tribe of His inheritance – YHVH of armies is His name. He says [to Israel], “You are My war-club, My weapon of war; And with you I shatter nations, and with you I destroy kingdoms. With you I shatter the horse and his rider, and with you I shatter the chariot and its rider, and with you I shatter man and woman, and with you I shatter the old man and youth, and with you I shatter the young man and virgin. And with you I shatter the shepherd and his flock, and with you I shatter the farmer and his team, and with you I shatter governors and officials. But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes,” declares YHVH (Jeremiah 51:19-24)

The power behind the throne

The Scriptures tell us that a spirit lies behind the superpower of Babylon – an energized demonic power like unto the Prince of Persia in Daniel 10:13-20. “Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of YHVH, intoxicating all the earth. The nations have drunk of her wine. Therefore the nations are going insane” (Jeremiah 51:7). This theme is repeated a handful of times in the Book of Revelation, and the Rastafaris borrowed and distorted this theme as they developed their Replacement Theology use of term ‘Babylon.’ Here is how John the Revelator describes ‘the power behind the throne’ – the spiritual root of Babylon:

And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.” (Revelation 14:8)

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of sexual immorality, and those who live on the earth became drunk with the wine of her sexual immorality.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls, holding in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her sexual immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery: “Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth” (Revelation 17:1-5)

And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird . . . And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of sexual immorality and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning” (Revelation 18:2, 9)

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo any more – cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; every kind of citron wood, every article of ivory, and every article made from very valuable wood, bronze, iron, and marble; cinnamon, spice, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, and cargo of horses, carriages, slaves, and the souls of men (Revelation 18:11-13)

The operating spirit behind Babylon branches out into various areas of sin, not limited to anti-Semitism: idolatry; the worship of materialism and luxurious narcissism; sexual immorality and prostitution; spiritual uncleanness and abominations; the buying and selling of men’s and women’s souls.

In light of the above . . .

The God of Jacob stresses that all nations, including superpowers, are judged – past, present and future – by their heart attitude toward the Jewish people and their treatment of the Jewish homeland. This was not only true 2,700 years ago; it is just as true in our day. As Iran, Iraqi Hezbollah, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Yemenite Houthis, Gazan Hamas and Islamic Jihad all aim their guns, rockets, missiles and drones at the Jewish state, at its armies and at its citizens, and as voters in the United States of America (a superpower if there ever was one) get ready to cast their electoral ballots, let us keep God’s heart, priorities and strategies regarding the Jewish people and their homeland in mind in all that we do and pray!

Blinksmanship

There is a word for when two opposing forces, whether military or political, get close to the edge in their conflict – brinksmanship. Part of that dynamic sometimes involves ‘blinksmanship’ – who blinks first. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been targeting Israel since 1982, and slowly constructing a constricting belt of fire with nations opposed to Israel’s existence. The jihadi terrorist juntas of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen and Kata’eb Hezbollah in Iraq (ancient Babylon) – all are being armed, financially supported and given military strategic help in order to destroy the Jewish state. Iran’s firing the largest drone strike in history against Israel on April 13, 2024, and the largest ballistic missile attack in world history against Israel on October 1, 2024, were clear signals that its Shi’ite jihadi plans for genocide against the Jews would do Haman proud. In response, IAF jets attacked over 20 military sites in Iran on October 26, 2024, connected to rocket, missile and drone development; rocket fuel; anti-aircraft batteries, etc.

IRGC chief Hossein Salami warned Israel on Thursday, October 24, 2024: “You cannot win this conflict. We will destroy you.” On Monday, October 28, 2024 Khamenei ordered Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to prepare to strike Israel. Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of IRGC, declared on Thursday, October 31, 2024, that retaliation was inevitable. “Iran’s response to the Zionist aggression is definite. We have never left an aggression unanswered in 40 years. We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation.” In a video released Saturday, November 2, 2024, on Iranian state media, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared: “The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing against Iran. the Iranian people and the Axis of Resistance.” General Mohammad Ali Naini, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman, also stated on Saturday that Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”

When all else fails, try bringing in Babylon

Iran’s threats to attack Israel again have raised awareness and preparedness in Israel. Two unidentified Israeli intelligence sources suggest the strong possibility that Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraqi territory soon by transferring a large number of drones and ballistic missiles into the territory of what was once Ancient Babylon – possibly before the US presidential election on November 5, 2024. Unnamed officials apparently tell the outlet that satellites have monitored Tehran doing just that.

Such an attack from pro-Iran militias in Iraq could be an attempt by Tehran to lower the risk of another Israeli attack on Iranian strategic targets. Tehran’s proxy groups Hamas, Hezbollah (both Lebanese and Iraqi) as well as Yemenite Houthis might join in such an invasion. In a Saturday, November 2, 2024 interview in the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, Haidar al-Lami, a member of Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba’s politburo – a pro-Iranian jihadi terrorist militia based in Iraq, stated that his organization was “fully coordinated with Iran to organize the timing and location of this response . . . The Islamic Republic has the right to target the Zionist entity from anywhere within Iraq.”

The U.S. has passed messages to Iran over the past few days via Swiss intermediaries: “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” an unnamed US official was quoted as saying.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory diplomatic and war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the annulling of Iranian war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of jihadi plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Gold rings, pig’s snouts and election year promises

“As a ring of gold in a pig’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). Solomon’s words have special application in an American election year, when the marketing of image is a major preoccupation.

Solomon’s firstborn son Rehoboam “abandoned the Teaching [Torah] of YHVH” at the age of 42, just after he was crowned Davidic king. “But he did evil because he did not set his heart to seek YHVH” (see 2 Chronicles 12:1-14). Immediately before his turning away from the God of David his grandfather, he had gone up to Shechem (modern Nablus) for his national coronation (see 1 Kings 12:1-20). It was ‘an election year,’ so to speak, and Rehoboam consulted to different groups of ‘election advisors:’

Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, “Your father made our yoke hard; but now, lighten the hard labor imposed by your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.” Then he said to them, “Depart for three days, then return to me.” So the people departed. And King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” Then they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their request, and speak pleasant words to them, then they will be your servants always.” But he ignored the advice of the elders which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and served him. He said to them, “What advice do you give, so that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us’?” And the young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, “This is what you should say to this people who spoke to you, saying: ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us!’ You should speak this way to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! Now then, my father loaded you with a heavy yoke; yet I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions!’”

And the king answered the people harshly, for he ignored the advice of the elders which they had given him, and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men . . . So the king did not listen to the people; because it was a turn of events from YHVH, in order to establish His word which YHVH spoke through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people replied to the king, saying, “What share do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now look after your own House, David!” So Israel went away to their tents . . . So Israel has broken with the House of David to this day. And it came about, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, that they sent word and called him to the assembly, and made him king over all Israel. None except the tribe of Judah alone followed the House of David.

It is usual to make grandiose promises preceding an election – vows which are later not usually carried out. In the words of a famous French luxury perfume commercial of bygone days, “Promise her anything, but give her Arpège!” At this significant crossroads in Jewish history, Rehoboam ignored that public relations principle to his own detriment. The fallout was civil war among the people of Israel, and a rejection of the Davidic dynasty’ rule by the overwhelming majority of the sons of Jacob – a rebellion which has lasted up to our day.

Ballot days are here again

On November 5, 2024 the United States of America will hold their once-every-four-years national election. Candidates are again making promises, and it seems that the country feels more divided than at any period since the 1861 American Civil War. Bob Dylan’s 1983 description of the penultimate politician in his sizzling ‘Man of Peace’ seems even more relevant than ever:

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue
He knows every song of love that ever has been sung
Good intentions can be evil, both hands can be full of grease

Well, he catch you when you're hoping for a glimpse of the sun
Catch you when your troubles feel like they weigh a ton

He's a great humanitarian, he's great philanthropist
He knows just where to touch you honey, and how you like to be kissed

Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl
Trees that've stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall

Dining at the diplomatic delicatessen

YHVH declared that King Solomon was the wisest ruler ever to walk this planet:

And God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself a long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice, behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you” (1 Kings 3:11-12)

Solomon cautions followers of the God of Jacob to exercise extreme discernment when engaging in diplomatic discussions with world rulers: “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are a person of great appetite. Do not desire his delicacies, for it is deceptive food” (Proverbs 23:1-3). He adds a graphic note of caution, using earthy language: “Do not eat the bread of a selfish person or desire his delicacies. For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, ‘Eat and drink!’ but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten and waste your compliments” (Proverbs 23:6-8).

At this moment, much diplomatic pressure – political thumbscrews applied against Israel’s leaders – continues to come from the POTUS and from U.S. State Department diplomats who have clear goals in mind. In light of the razor-thin margins among the American electorate between Democrats and Republicans, there is a concerted effort to garner votes by appealing to ‘woke’ and leftist voters – making promises and hinting at policy changes which would be more user-friendly to Israel’s enemies than to Israel herself. This has manifested itself in the many orders of “Don’t!” given by the POTUS to the Jewish state – rebukes and threats aimed at forcing Israel to pull back from decisively defeating jihadi terror (whether it be Sunni Hamas in Gaza and PLO in the West Bank, or Shi’ite Hezbollah in Lebanon and Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] in Iran). The list of ‘don’t’s' has included warnings to the IDF not to enter Gaza; not to enter Khan Yunis; not to enter Shifa Hospital in Gaza; not to enter Rafah; not to enter Jabaliya; not to enter Lebanon; not to bomb Hezbollah HQ in Dahieh, Beirut; not to respond to Iranian missile, rocket and drone attacks on Israeli civilians, etc. Yet is each case, Israel’s insistence on pursuing their own military goals has let to significant IDF victories on the battlefield as well as the decisive elimination of top jihadi commanders.

In the words of journalist and analyst Eitan Fischberger on April 15, 2024: “Turns out that simply saying ‘don’t’ is not an effective deterrent against genocidal regimes hellbent on the destruction of Israel.” And as Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon added on April 19, 2024: “Israel Is Right to Reject Biden’s Bad Advice.”

Who is picking up the tab?

In recent days, on April 13, 2024, the Islamic Republic of Iran fired 221 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and over 110 ballistic missiles at Israel. Over nine million Israelis huddled in bomb shelters during this largest drone strike in history. On October 1, 2024, the IRGC fired approximately 200 ballistic missiles at the the Jewish state – the largest ballistic missile attack in world history. On October 19, 2024, three Hezbollah drones headed out to attack Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Caesarea home. Two were shot down before reaching their target, and one hit the home. The PM and his wife were absent from home at that time.

POTUS Biden’s heavy-handed instructions to Israel’s Prime Minister after the first April 13, 2024 Iranian attack were clear: “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Bibi on April 14, adding that the US would not participate in any offensive operations against Iran. Biden’s definition of ‘a win’ was that no Israeli citizens were injured or killed in that first Iranian missile attack.

These three events were serious acts of war. Israel’s response on the first attack was to take out one Russian-built S-300 Iranian anti-aircraft battery. Israel’s response to the second attack was to target 20 Iranian military installations. Though Israel’s second response was more significant in nature, the tab is still very much open as far as Israel is concerned – though the U.S. immediately pressured Israel after the first Iranian attack to cease and desist regarding further response against Iran.

The POTUS’ initial ‘orders’ to Israel show that the U.S. Administration has a hierarchy of ‘more important’ strategic concerns here; they center on both the upcoming American elections and U.S. Middle East ‘imperial realpolitik.’ Whereas the prophet Elisha on his deathbed encouraged King Joash to strike the ground forcefully in a prophetic action as a sign of his resolve to wipe out Israel’s Syrian/Aramean enemies, the king of Israel half-heartedly hit Elisha’s arrows against the floor only three times – with the prophetic result being that Israel would not decisively vanquish her enemies (see 2 Kings 13:14-19). These examples of fighting spirit and battlefield resolve are important lessons to be learned from this prophetic history.

GI Joe meets Jihad Jane

The basic blockage here – U.S. inability to size up the enemy in this battle – is a result of America’s secular and non-Biblical worldview, one that fails to grasp the viral danger of international jihad. This Islamist terror war of conquest, murder and enslavement of non-Muslims – is a decisive spiritual and dynamic factor in the clash of civilizations. And the West is still hesitant to call a spade a spade, to recognize the spiritual aspect of this struggle.

Genesis 12:3 is another decisive matter here: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.” The theological cursing of Israel and the Jewish state which is part of classic Islamist texts has brought an elephant into the room that few Westerners have the courage or backbone to name and confront.

Messiah Yeshua’s teaching on spiritual dynamics regarding the demonic world certainly applies to formerly Christian nations who have lost their vision and resolve regarding spiritual threats to the gospel. A clean but spiritually empty room is ‘an accident waiting to happen:’

“Now when the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they come in and live there. And the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation” (Matthew 12:43-45).

The pressures that America and the West are applying to Israel are actually bringing curses down on those countries. They are pushing the Jewish state into a corner and forcing it to fight the forces of jihad with one arm tied behind its back. It is time for believers to get back up on the walls and intercede for Israel’s protection, salvation and victory in the present and coming battles.

American political forces on both sides of the aisle seem to have many illusions regarding how to ‘solve’ the problems in the Middle East. Threatening Israel and setting a cut-off date for the conclusion of present conflicts is one such example. But jihadi strategies are not susceptible to American date-setting. Only iron-clad resolve and steely commitments to opposing Islamist encroachment are the language that jihadi armies understand.

The famous King Théoden, seventeenth King of Rohan in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ narrative, declared as he rallied his troops before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields: “Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now! Ride now to Gondor!” His rousing challenge stands us in good stead in our day

If at first you don’t succeed

In a scene reminiscent of Psalm 2:1-3, a power-delegation from the U.S. has arrived in Israel today, attempting to sew up a ‘peace treaty’ – or more likely a threadbare ceasefire – between Lebanon and Israel, just in time to squeeze under the finish-line rope of the November 5 U.S. elections. There are trying to breath new life into the diplomatic corpse of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 (August 6, 2006). This Resolution was supposed achieve the following:

a full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah

the withdrawal of Hezbollah and other forces from Lebanon south of the Litani River

the disarmament of Hezbollah and all other armed groups, leaving only UNIFIL and the Lebanese military south of the Litani River

the need for full Lebanese (non-Hezbollah) government control of Lebanese territory

the unconditional release of abducted Israeli soldiers, whose corpses were being held as collateral by Hezbollah

It needs to be noted that Lebanon in this Resolution is not considered the main protagonist facing Israel. In this Resolution Lebanon is understood to be a mostly powerless puppet of Hezbollah, which in turn is recognized as a proxy jihadi army of Iran. To solve Lebanon’s problem, Iran’s gnarled talons and Hezbollah’s terror junta still need to be removed from Lebanese soil. Resolution 1701 does not achieve those goals. Another U.N. Resolution (1559) was ratified on September 2, 2004, requiring Hezbollah to totally disarm and for Lebanon to exercise complete sovereignty over its own territory. Neither of these two Resolutions has ever been carried out. Instead, the result has been:

Hezbollah and other armed groups in southern Lebanon have not withdrawn at all

Hezbollah has significantly increased its weapons capabilities, amassing up to 200,000 ballistic missiles, rockets and drones

Hezbollah has increased the deployment of its armed forces south of the Litani River, developing networks of tunnels, weapon stashes, airstrips and military installations, most of these hidden underground beneath civilian housing

Neither the U.N., France, UNIFIL or the U.S. has stepped in to guarantee these resolutions over the past 20 years. Why, it should be asked, would these nations stand up and be counted now? Only Israel’s recent intensive bombings and ground invasion have moved events in the direction that these failed U.N. Resolutions called for. Western Powers are primarily interested in removing Israel from Lebanon and from blocking its rather successful ground and air operations aimed at neutralizing and eradicating Hezbollah. The West does not want to put boots on the ground to guarantee Israel’s survival and security. They would rather fob off that responsibility at the U.N. and the Lebanese Army, both of which have proven themselves to be utterly incapable of carrying out such a task. Those who are wise will pray accordingly for this complex situation.

The pressure of world media

A few days ago, Israeli Main Stream Media (MSM) leaked a news item: an anonymous military source in Israel’s Northern Command declared that the IDF’s military goals have now been achieved in southern Lebanon and that the IDF can now retreat to Israel’s recognized international border with Lebanon. At the same time, CNN has broadly hinted that PM Netanyahu is ignoring these ‘new realities’ and that CNN truly knows that the IDF Chief has a better grasp of these realities than does the Israeli government. Would the Head of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff ever make such public declarations against a standing POTUS? Such declarations would be considered treasonous. Yet in Israel, business goes on, with loud American support being echoed for the Israeli COS’s declarations. Warm op-ed pieces are suddenly appearing in Israeli media, insisting (with no sense of irony) – that Israel’s government “must learn how to take the win.” – a phrase POTUS Biden used on April 14, 2024 in his vain attempt to prevent Israel from striking down its jihadi enemies.

What defies the imagination here is that, at the same time as these leaks are circulating on MSM, Hezbollah is murdering Israeli farmers and civilians, and destroying buildings in Arab and Jewish communities across the Galilee. The vast majority of Israelis are astounded by the criminally irresponsible hubris in this ‘fake news.’ A survey which appeared October 29, 2024 in the newspaper Israel HaYom asked its readers the question: “Does Israel need to push for a Lebanese ceasefire?” The answers were as follows: Yes 348; No 2,100.

Hubris (or chutzpah in Hebrew and Yiddish) has certainly been demonstrated in times past by former Israeli Chiefs of Staff, Generals and Prime Ministers, concerning retreats from Gaza and Lebanon. Two such examples are:

Ehud Barak and his disastrous retreat from Lebanon in May 2000:

Ariel Sharon and his disastrous retreat/disengagement from Gaza in August 2005:

In light of the intelligence and IDF disaster that swirled around the recent Hamas pogroms of October 7, 2023, many Israelis are hesitant to believe bold declarations by Israeli generals that all is well, and that everything has been taken care of. Trust is in very short supply at this moment.

The nightly news in Israel offers amply proof that military goals in Lebanon and in Gaza have not yet been achieved in fullness. The daily announcements of IDF casualties and funerals are sober reminders that MSM is not accurately reflecting Israeli realties on the ground. Over the past week, 56 Israeli children lost their fathers in clashes with jihadi terrorists.

Israeli media spin owes much of its impetus to some ambitious Israeli politicians who ‘just want to be king,’ as well as to some in the current U.S. Administration who are bean-counters for the coming American elections.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory diplomatic and war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the annulling of enemy war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of jihadi plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Parthians, Medes and Elamites (Acts 2:9)

When the God of Jacob charted out the destinies of the nations, “when He separated the sons of mankind, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For YHVH’s portion is His people – Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the howling wasteland of a wilderness. He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:8-10).

“Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth . . . The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras . . . Also to Shem . . . (and the older brother of Japheth) children were born. The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram” (Genesis 10:1-2, 21-22).

The Jewish people were exiled to the Land of the Medes (ancient Madai/Persia, which is found today in modern Iran) in approximately 722 B.C. during the reign of Shalmaneser V of Assyria: “Then the king of Assyria led Israel into exile to Assyria, and put them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2 Kings 18:11). At the time of Haman and Ahasuerus, Mordecai and Esther lived in ‘Shushan Habira’ (Susa the citadel), a royal city in ancient Persia. In Ezra 4:9, those Jews who lived in Susa were also considered as Elamite citizens. Ancient Persia was once the abode of Elamites, Medeans and Persians (see Daniel 5:28).

Today, out of Iran’s 90 million citizens, approximately 51% are Persians (including the originally Caspian Mazandaranis and Gilakis); 5-24% are of Turkic origin (Azeris, Turkmens, Qashqais, Kazakhs); 10% are Kurds; 7% are a Kurdish sub-group known as the Lurs; 2-3% are Arabs; 2% are Balochis; 2% are Turkmens; and less than 1% are various tribal Turkic groups (Qashqai, Afshar, Talysh, Tats, etc.).

The descendants of the original Medeans live in the more northern sections of the country, near Tabriz and Azerbaijan. The descendants of the Elamites would be located in western Iran – Ilam, Khuzestan (Ahvaz) and Kermanshah – all bordering Iraq. The Persians (once called ‘Parthians’) have spread across the majority of central and eastern Iran. So today, Iran is a blend of Japhetic and Semitic people, though none of the Iranian Semitic offshoots trace their descendance back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Iranian ballistic missile attacks of April 13 and October 1, 2024 were fired from the territories which were once part of all three ancient nations – Elam, Medea and Persia. Israel’s response on October 26, 2024 also targeted strategic sites in all three of these ancient lands.

What Iranian sites did the IDF target on October 26 – ‘Operation Days of Repentance’?

For a breakdown of the various Iranian attacks and Israeli responses in the past while, see our newsletter of October 26, 2024 - ‘Haman’s edict and God’s signet ring.’ When this last newsletter was posted, up-to-date information on IDF targets and results were not yet available. The following is a brief but incomplete update:

Upward of 100 Israel Air Force (IAF) planes were involved in the attack, including refueling tankers, electronic countermeasures/intelligence aircraft, attack and surveillance drones

Three attack waves were carried out.

IAF jets flew across southern Syria, emitting sonic booms near the Jordanian border, and then cut across Iraq towards Iran.

The first attack wave (just after 01:53 local time) destroyed Syrian and Iraqi anti-aircraft (AA) defenses, as well as three out of Iran’s four Russian S-300 PMU-2 ‘Grumble’ long-range surface-to-air missile systems. This specific model includes 16 transporter erector launchers, multiple 96L6E target acquisition radars, 30N6E2 target tracking radars, 64N6E2 battle management radars, and several supporting components. These had been sold and transferred to Iran in November 2016.

The fourth Russian anti-aircraft missile system (including its 30N6E radar) had been previously destroyed on April 19, 2024 at 0523 hours at Shekari air base near Isfahan. This fourth battery was responsible for guarding the Natanz nuclear facility. The IAF had used an Israeli-developed RAFAEL ROCKS autonomous extended stand-off range air-to-surface missile to take out that fourth battery. To sum up, all four Russian batteries have been demolished by the IAF, leaving Iran’s oil, port and nuclear assets defenseless to future potential strikes.

The three S-300’s hit this time were at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (Tehran) and at the Malad missile base (outskirts of Tehran)

The second (03:30 am) and third waves struck ballistic rocket and drone manufacturing facilities, as well as solid fuel mixers and drone factories

Israeli planes hit the following sites:

Anti-aircraft (AA) systems in Khuzestan, Ilam and Tehran. Khuzestan Province in southern Iran is home to most of Iran’s oil and gas fields.

AA batteries in Karaj, northwest of Tehran (which is home to Iran’s nuclear centrifuge system) and at the Malad missile base on Tehran’s outskirts.

In Khuzestan Province, the Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni Petrochemical Complex beside the port of Bandar-e Mahshahr, is the largest such complex in Iran, connected by rail and road to the Abadan oil refinery, which is Iran’s largest oil refinery. The AA batteries of both the Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni petrochemical complex and the Bandar port were destroyed. The AA batteries of the largest oil field in Iran (Ahvaz) were hit, killing two Iranian soldiers manning the AA facility.

The Tang-E Bijar natural gas fields refinery in Ilam Province were hit, and satellite images revealed burned fields around the refinery.

The military bases of Parchin, Parand and Khojir were hit, also with drones.

Parchin, located 40 km southeast of Tehran near the Mamalu Dam, is linked to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, including high explosives experiments and krytron testing. A specific building, Taleghan 2, was previously linked to the Iranian nuclear weapons program between 1989 and 2003. Three buildings 320 metres from Taleghan 2 were hit and destroyed. The Parchin plant is related to rocket manufacture.

Khojir is a large missile production site 20 km away from Tehran, where solid fuel for ballistic missiles also was mixed. Two buildings used for mixing solid fuel for ballistic missiles were destroyed. Axios reported that Israel destroyed 20 ‘planetary mixers’ – Chinese rocket fuel mixers – at that site. The Saudi website Elaph puts a price tag of a minimum $2 million USD on each mixer. The destruction will take at least two years to repair. One source told the Saudi website Elaph that it was the “backbone of Iran’s missile industry” and that Israel had “put it out of service.”

Three major missile manufacturing bases in Tehran Province were hit. These were run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Falagh, Shaid Ghadiri and Abdol Fath.

The operation was concluded with the sunrise, and all IAF planes returned safely to home base in Israel with no losses or damages.

What strategic goals were achieved in Israel’s strikes?

Here are three revealing comments from astute analysts of Iran:

“This looks like a potential preamble to a much more effective strike against Iran’s infrastructure and even nuclear sites,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of International Crisis Group. “Iranians don’t have the capacity to replace these systems in a timely manner, which renders the country much more vulnerable in future tit for tats.”

“Israel is sending a clear message to us,” said Hamid Hosseini, an expert on Iran’s oil and gas industry and member of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce. “This can have very serious economic consequences for Iran, and now that we understand the stakes we need to act wise and not continue the tensions.”

Jason Brodsky, from ‘United Against Nuclear Iran,’ said on X that the attacks this weekend send “a very clear message” to Iran. “Israel is laying the groundwork to attack your oil and petrochemical refineries in the next round should you retaliate.”

At this point in time, Iran is wide open to further devastating Israeli strikes. If the Ayatollah Khamenei chooses to unleash his missiles of war against Israel, the Jewish state would be able to quickly and efficiently destroy the economic lifeblood of the Shi’ite jihadi state, since 80% of Iran’s finances come from its oil industry. An overwhelming percentage of Israelis surveyed on Sunday October 27, 2024 believe that now is also the time to obliterate Iran’s nuclear weapons program. These two issues are high up on the strategic list, and should be made a matter of ardent prayer.

How will Iran respond?

It is estimated that Iran still has over 2,000 long-range ballistic missiles in its inventory. Though it would take up to two years for Iran to replenish its stocks, it still could use what it has against Israel in a potential counter-attack against Israel – even though its air defenses are significantly weakened. Yet is important to remember that Iran’s track record in such matters over the past 42 years is written with blood-stained hands:

the bombing of IDF HQ in Tyre, Lebanon (November 11, 1982; 91 murdered

the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut (April 18, 1983; 63 murdered)

the bombing of the American Marine Barracks in Beirut (October 23, 1983; 241 murdered)

the bombing of the French Multinational Forces Paratroop Barracks in Beirut (October 23, 1983; 58 murdered)

the bombing of IDF HQ in Tyre, Lebanon (November 4, 1983; 60 murdered; 40 wounded)

the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires (March 17, 1992; 29 murdered, 242 injured)

the bombing of the AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) in Buenos Aires (July 18, 1994; 87 murdered, 250 injured)

the bombing of Khobar Towers USAF family residence in Saudi Arabia (June 25, 1996; 20 murdered, 372 injured)

Demonized anger and murderous intent have characterized the jihadi terror actions of Shi’ite Iran and their Hezbollah proxies for close to half a century. It should be made a matter of earnest prayer for God’s justice to be done in dealing with this cancerous growth which has been malignantly expanding across the face of today’s Middle East.

Over 2,600 years ago, the God of Jacob gave a prophetic word to Jeremiah concerning the Elamite enemies of Israel who dwelt in ancient Persia. Will YHVH do such things again in our day to modern enemies who are being catalyzed and set murderously aflame by the Prince of Persia?

The word of YHVH that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam . . . saying: “This is what YHVH of armies says: Behold, I am going to break the bow of Elam . . . So I will shatter Elam before their enemies and before those who seek their lives, and I will bring disaster upon them, even My fierce anger, declares YHVH” (Jeremiah 49:34-38)

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the annulling of Iranian war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of Hezbollah and Iranian jihad plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Haman’s edict and God’s signet ring

Nearly 2,500 years ago, the demonic Prince of Persia (see Daniel 10:12-21) stirred up murderous rage in the heart of a top Iranian diplomat (see Esther 3:5-6) – “Haman sought to annihilate all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were found throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.” His plan involved a state-sponsored pogrom of mass murder, plunder and rapine – one similar to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on peaceful Jewish farms and kibbutzim – where over 1,200 Israelis were tortured, raped and massacred, and over 250 were kidnapped to dank tunnels in Gaza’s Hamastan. The October 7 attack was planned and enabled with the consultation and strategic help of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s jihadi terrorists.

Haman’s planned attack at the time of Queen Esther was preceded by a seal of approval – Ahasuerus’ stamped signet ring (see Genesis 41:42). That gave Haman royal approval to commit genocide against the entire people of Israel. It is important to remember that, at that time, nearly all of the world’s Jewish population was under the domination of the Persian empire:

Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of all other people and they do not comply with the king’s laws, so it is not in the king’s interest to let them remain. If it is pleasing to the king, let it be decreed that they be eliminated, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry out the king’s business, to put into the king’s treasuries.” Then the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, “The silver is yours, and the people also, to do with them as you please.”

Then the king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written just as Haman commanded to the king’s satraps, to the governors who were over each province and to the officials of each people, each province according to its script, each people according to its language, being written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to annihilate, kill, and destroy all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (which is the month Adar) and to seize their possessions as plunder. A copy of the edict to be issued as law in every province was published to all the peoples so that they would be ready for this day. The couriers went out, speeded by the king’s order while the decree was issued at the citadel in Susa. And while the king and Haman sat down to drink, the city of Susa was agitated. (Esther 3:8-15)

In today’s Middle East, days of old intersect with modern times. The demonic overlords of Iran are once again making headlines, stirring up their Hamanic hatred across the globe.

The Middle East is still an unfriendly neighborhood

YHVH is a good judge of character. He shares His insights with Moses about Jacob’s neighbors, explaining that the Jewish people should not be surprised when surrounding countries attack Israel, wanting to destroy it: “And when you go to war in your land against the enemy who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you will be remembered by YHVH your God, and be saved from your enemies” (Numbers 10:9).

At least five hundred years later, the Psalmist echoes that same perspective: a Jewish state living in the Middle East will find itself still surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies:

“Many times they have attacked me from my youth up,” let Israel say. “Many times they have attacked me from my youth up – yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back! They lengthened their furrows!” YHVH is righteous – He has cut up the ropes of the wicked. May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward! May they be like grass upon the housetops, which withers before it grows up – with which the harvester does not fill his hand, or the binder of sheaves his arms” (Psalm 129:1-7).

At the same time, the God of Israel makes a decisive promise to Israel: the Jewish people will ultimately defeat their enemies and thus be vindicated in the eyes of the whole world:

“If anyone fiercely attacks you, it will not be from Me. Whoever attacks you will fall because of you. Behold, I Myself have created the smith who blows on the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its work. And I have created the destroyer to inflict ruin. No weapon that is formed against you will succeed! And you will condemn every tongue that accuses you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of YHVH, and their vindication is from Me, declares YHVH” (Isaiah 54:15-18).

With those promises in mind, let’s consider recent threats coming against the Jewish state from the Shi’ite jihadi terror base known today as Iran – biblical Persia.

Ballistic missile attacks – Iran’s historical record

Operation Martyr Soleimani – January 8, 2020

On January 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched Operation Martyr Soleimani. Between 0120 and 0135 hours, at least 13 ballistic missiles targeted the second-largest U.S. military airbase in Iraq at the time – al-Asad Airbase in al-Anbar Governorate, western Iraq – as well as another U.S. airbase in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. These missile attacks were in response to the assassination of IRGC Major-General Qasem Soleimani by a United States drone strike. Iran informed the Iraqi government and Swiss mediators of an imminent attack shortly beforehand, with the understanding that this would allow the American forces to take pre-emptive defensive measures. The Iranian strike was the largest ballistic missile attack ever against U.S. forces abroad. The U.S. Department of Defense ultimately said that 110 U.S. service members were diagnosed and treated for traumatic brain injuries (mainly concussions) from the attack.

Operation True Promise – April 13, 2024

On April 13, 2024, the IRGC-Aerospace Force launched air attacks against Israel from Iran, Iraq and Yemen consisting of approximately 221 ‘Shahad 136’ drones, over 30 ‘Shahad 238’ and ‘Quds’ cruise missiles, and more than 110 ballistic missiles (the ‘Ghader,’ the “Imad,’ and the ‘Khaibar Shikan’). The attack was codenamed Operation True Promise, and was declared to be in retaliation for the April 1, 2024 IDF bombing of a housing annex in Damascus next to the Iranian embassy. In that attack three Iranian generals were eliminated, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force commander in Syria and Lebanon Mohammad Reza Zahedi – the most senior IRGC general to have been killed since the U.S. assassination of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

Official Iranian authorities provided a clue as to the strategic value of this target two days later, on April 3, 2024. The Iranian Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces (headed by Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as father-in-law to Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei) published a notice of mourning and appreciation for General Zahedi: “The strategic role of the martyr Zahedi . . . in the planning and execution of ‘al-Aqsa Flood’ [Tufan al-Aqsa – the Arabic name for the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023] is part of the great pride that will transform the quiet efforts of the great commander into the eternal history of the struggle against the occupation by the Zionist regime.”

This statement was an official admission of Iran’s involvement in both the planning and the execution of the October 7 Hamas jihadi terror attack on Israeli civilians bordering Gaza. General Zahedi had planned and overseen the murder of over 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023 – atrocities planned down to the last detail, including mass rapes, torture, horrific murders and kidnappings. The God of Israel gives His perspective on the judgment coming to such a man: “Rejoice, you nations, with His people! For He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will return vengeance on His adversaries, and will atone for His land and His people” (Deuteronomy 32:43).

Iran’s April 13, 2024 strike was its first direct attack on Israel. Their attack was also the largest attempted drone strike in history, as well as a clear attempt to overwhelm and penetrate Israel’s anti-aircraft defenses. It was the first time since Saddam Hussein’s January-February 1991 SCUD missiles strikes that Israel was directly attacked by the military of another state.

On April 13, 2024, the night of Iran’s massive attack, the IDF used home-grown Arrow 3 and David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile systems to shoot down most of the incoming weapons. American, British and French air forces (who also participated in the defensive coalition codenamed ‘Iron Shield’) helped in interdicting Iranian missiles and drones. Jordanian air forces (and perhaps Saudi planes as well) took a lower profile, saying their role was limited to intercepting objects flying into their airspace “in order to protect their own citizens.” Israel and the coalition destroyed probably between 80-86% of the incoming weapons, and specialists conclude that, as a result, 99% of the threats did not reach their targets. At least four ballistic missiles struck two IAF airbases, causing minor damage. Perhaps 20 Iranian ballistic missiles in total hit Israeli soil. Amina al-Hasoni, a 7-year old Israeli Bedouin girl, was severely injured by falling debris from an intercepted missile, while 31 Israelis were slightly injured while running to their sheltered rooms.

Five days later, on April 18, 2024 Israel retaliated against Iran (having consulted with American leadership), carrying out limited strikes on Shekari airbase near Isfahan (according to U.S. and Iranian officials), where Iranian anti-aircraft radar defenses are stationed which guard the Natanz nuclear facility. A U.S. official told CBS News that the Israeli objective of the strike was to communicate Israel’s capabilities to Iran without escalating tensions further. The Israeli reprisal was a mild slap on the wrist to Iran, and its notable restraint came in light of strong American pressure on the Jewish state.

In a recent newsletter ‘Shootout at the Orient Bazaar: Part One of Three’ of April 17, 2024, behind-the-scenes evidence is presented of American collusion with Iran regarding setting the terms and extent of Iran’s April 13, 2024 attack on Israel. The same dynamics were involved in negotiations between Iran and the USA regarding Iran’s January 8, 2020 ballistic missile strike on US troops stationed at the Ayn al-Asad and Erbil Airbases in Iraq. It is worth going back to that newsletter and re-examining the details involved there, since the same dynamics were repeated on April 13, 2024 (and also on October 1, 2024; see below). Here is one of the conclusions from that article:

“It is jolting to see that the U.S. State Department, the POTUS, the U.S. intelligence community and military – all were involved in negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its upcoming attack on American ally Israel – the extent of the attack, the weapons to be used, and the projected casualties. As is the case in such circumstances (see the case of Jonathan Pollard, where the U.S. concealed intelligence information from Israel regarding Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare program targeting the Jewish state, and denied its existence to its ally Israel), the U.S. did not seriously block or threaten Iran over the projected attack, but manipulated the situation for its own Middle Eastern strategic goals.”

Operation True Promise 2 – The mother of all ballistic missile attacks

On October 1, 2024, the largest ballistic missile attack in world history took place when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force of Iran fired approximately 200 rocket-boosted ballistic missiles at the Jewish state of Israel. The attack was codenamed Operation True Promise 2. Iran has tweaked its strategy since April 13, 2024, abandoning slower drone attacks (eight hours warning time) and solely using ballistic missiles (twelve minutes). Approximately 20 of these 200 Iranian missiles were either intercepted or degraded by U.S., British or Jordanian airforces before entering Israeli airspace. Approximately 180 Iranian missiles (of the ‘Fattah’ or ‘Khaibar Shikan’ class – though Iranian Mehr News Agency refers also to Ghadr and Emad missiles) crossed into Israeli territory, where they were either intercepted or hit the ground (impacted). Almost ten million Israelis huddled in bomb shelters as missiles and interceptors exploded over their heads.

According to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and AP, based on satellite imagery, videos and interviews with ballistics experts, 32 Iranian missiles made identified hits on the Nevatim Airbase near Beersheva in the Negev desert. Though no fighter aircraft were damaged, the missiles hit open areas, the roofs of an aircraft hangar and a row of buildings near a runway, and surrounding fields. Three Iranian missiles struck the IAF’s Tel Nof airbase in central Israel and surrounding areas, and at least two missiles landed near the Mossad intelligence HQ next to Cinema City in Glilot. Sameh al-Asali, a 37 year-old Palestinian worker from Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip, was killed in Nu’eima near Jericho, when falling fuselage from a destroyed Iranian rocket landed on him.

Considering the high cost of Israeli Arrow 3 ($3.5 million) and David’s Sling ($1 million) interceptors, it is likely that the IAF decided to ignore some of these Iranian ballistic missiles. Retired USAF General Tim Ray, who once commanded the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, noted that the Israelis “are brilliant at prioritizing and protecting the things that have to be protected. They may have looked at [Nevatim] and said, ‘This is acceptable, I still have to prioritize Tel Aviv, I have to prioritize my critical infrastructure. There is no way to stop everything.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at the start of his Security Cabinet meeting on the night of the attack:

“Iran made a big mistake tonight - and it will pay for it. The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies. Sinwar and Deif did not understand this, Nasrallah and Mohsen did not understand this, and there are probably those in Tehran who do not understand this. They will understand. We will stand by the rule that we have established: Whoever attacks us - we will attack him. This is true wherever we fight the axis of evil. This is true for Judea and Samaria, it is true for Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria - and it is also true for Iran. We fight the axis of evil everywhere”

Breathing out threats

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been breathing out murderous threats against the Jewish state for many years:

On September 9, 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed Israel on Twitter: “You will not see next 25 years. Insh’Allah, there will be nothing as Zionist regime by next 25 years.”

On April 20, 2018 the vice commander of the IRGC Hossein Salami wrote on Twitter: “If there’s a war, the result will be your complete elimination.”

On April 21, 2018, the Commander of Iran’s Army Major-General Abdolrahim Mousavi declared: “When the arrogant powers create a sanctuary for the Zionist regime to continue survival, we shouldn’t allow one day to be added to the ominous and illegitimate life of this regime. The Army will move hand in hand with the IRGC so that the arrogant system will collapse and the Zionist regime will be annihilated.”

On October 20, 2023, Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij Organization emphasized that the “ultimate achievement in this conflict's second phase will be the disappearance of Israel.”

On May 9, 2024, Kamal Kharazi, former Iranian Foreign Minister and at present an advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated in an interview with Qatar’s al-Jazeera Mubasher network: “Should Iran face an existential threat, we will have no choice but to change our nuclear doctrine. Military officials have also declared if Israel decides to attack the nuclear installations, Iran renouncing its previous considerations is likely and conceivable.”

On June 29, 2024 the Iran Mission to the UN declared on Twitter: “Albeit Iran deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon, should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue.”

On October 24, 2024, IRGC Hossein Salami declared, “You cannot win this conflict. We will destroy you!”

Two helpful articles are available here:

‘How Iran Plans to Destroy Israel,’ by Nicholas Carl and Brian Carter; Critical Threats Project, May 23, 2024

‘Growing Concern Over Iran’s Nuclear Program,’ Sima Shine and Eldad Shavit; The Institute for National Security Studies, No. 1868, June 23, 2024

‘Operation Days of Repentance’ – Israel’s response on October 26

Close to 0153 hours on Saturday October 26, 2024, three waves of at least 100 IAF jets attacked Iran in Operation Days of Repentance (Hebrew: ‘Yimei Tshuvah’). The bombing were directed against ballistic missile factories and storehouses, ground-to-air and ground-to-ground missiles and stockpiles, as well as against other aerial capabilities. At least 20 sites were targeted in three waves of aircraft, including sites in or near Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Qom. According to Sky News Arabia, Russia supplied intelligence information to Iran hours ahead of the attack regarding Israeli and U.S. military movements, based on Russia’s “military cooperation with Iran, in order to lower escalation in the region” (YnetNews in Hebrew). No civilian casualties have as yet been reported by Iran.

A senior US State Department official stated that Israel had been encouraged “to conduct a response that was targeted and proportional with low risk of civilian harm. That appears to have been precisely what transpired this evening . . . This should be the end of this direct exchange of fire between Israel and Iran . . . Accordingly, we will call on all countries of influence to press Iran to stop these attacks against Israel so that we can move beyond this direct cycle of attacks over the coming days.”

The Scroll of Esther is a historical witness that, in His timing, God takes the signet ring off of the gnarled fingers of Haman (the Persian enemy of Israel) and places it instead on Mordecai, the defender of the Jewish people:

“[Mordecai] wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus, and sealed it with the king’s signet ring, and sent letters by couriers on horses, riding on royal relay horses, offspring of racing mares. In the letters the king granted the Jews who were in each and every city the right to assemble and to defend their lives, to destroy, kill, and eliminate the entire army of any people or province which was going to attack them, including children and women, and to plunder their spoils, on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month Adar)” (Esther 8:10-12)

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the annulling of Iranian war strategies and counter-attacks, and for the blocking and frustration of Hezbollah and Iranian jihad plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Hitler and Hamas – a tale of two sofas

A sofa in Berlin

The Russians were coming. On January 16, 1945 Adolf Hitler entered the property of Berlin’s Reich Chancellery (Reichskanziel) and walked down the stairs into the subterranean bunker complex known as the Führerbunker. It was located about 28 feet (8.5 metres) below the garden of the old Chancellery, covered by a concrete roof more than 9 feet (3 metres) thick. Four of the 30 small rooms were for Hitler’s private use – a private guest room, a sitting room, a study/office (where hung a large portrait of Frederick the Great, painted by Anton Graf), and a private bedroom. Hitler would be joined there by his senior staff, including Martin Bormann. In April 1945 Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels also moved in to the bunker’s crowded accommodations.

On April 16, 1945 the Soviet Red Army started the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation, encircling the city and shelling Berlin. Hitler’s last trip to the surface was on his birthday, April 20, 1945, where he awarded the Iron Cross to boy soldiers of the Hitler-Jugend (Hitler Youth paramilitary organization) in the garden of the Reichskanziel. Before dawn on April 29, Hitler dictated his will, wherein he stated: “My wife and I choose to die in order to escape the shame of overthrow or capitulation. It is our wish for our bodies to be burnt immediately on the place where I have performed the greater part of my daily work during the course of my 12 years’ service to my people.” A few hours later he received the news of Mussolini’s execution by Italian partisans. The SS bodyguards began destroying his personal papers, and Hitler’s Alsatian Blondi was poisoned by cyanide pill, testing out the effectiveness of the method by which Evan Braun would later commit suicide.

By the morning of April 30, Red Army forces had reached the nearby Potsdamer Platz and were less than 1,600 feet (500 metres) from the bunker. Just after 13:00 Hitler bade farewell to his staff and inner circle. He retired to his study somewhere between 14:30 and 15:15, when he met with his valet Heinz Linge and told him: “You must never allow my corpse to fall into the hands of the Russians. They would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body.” Hitler told Linge that he was going to shoot himself and that Linge knew what he had to do. At approximately 15:30 several people in the bunker heard a gunshot. After a few minutes, Hitler’s valet Linge entered the small study, accompanied by Hitler’s personal SS adjutant Otto Günsche, and found the lifeless bodies of Hitler and Braun on a small sofa. Braun had bitten into a cyanide capsule, while Hitler had shot himself in the right temple with his own pistol, a Walther PPK. There was a large bloodstain on the right arm of the sofa. Hitler was 56 years old that day, and Braun was 33.

A sofa in Gaza

The end came for Hamas leader and Political Bureau Chairman Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 in the Tall as-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah Governate, Gaza Strip. At approximately 10:00 am, an IDF soldier from the 450^th Battalion of the School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders (Hebrew abbreviation: BISLAMACH or BISLACH Brigade) scouring the area noticed a suspicious figure entering and exiting a building in their sector. At 15:00 an IDF drone identified three figures leaving that building in their attempt to move to another structure. Two of the figures were covered in blankets, concealing their identities from the drone’s cameras. They walked ahead of a third figure, who was armed and wearing a combat vest, with a hood covering his head. The 450^th Battalion commander opened fire on the group, hitting the third person’s hand. The two in the advance squad fled into one building, while the third (Sinwar) fled into a second building. The two fired back at the BISLACH team, causing a severe upper body injury to an IDF Druze soldier from northern Israel, now recovering in intensive care at Soroka Hospital, Beersheva.

Sinwar moved up to the second floor of that building. A MATADOR missile was fired into that structure, and then a BISLACH unit moved toward the building. Sinwar threw two grenades at them, causing the IDF soldiers to pull back and send in a drone instead. That footage revealed an injured man in battle fatigues, whose face was covered with a gray blanket, sitting on a sofa. His right forearm was severely injured from missile fire (which bleeding he had tried to staunch unsuccessfully by using an electrical cord as an impromptu tourniquet). His left leg was damaged from falling masonry, and he had many shrapnel injuries on his body. This would all be discovered in the subsequent medical autopsy performed by Dr. Chen Kugel, chief pathologist at Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv. Drone footage shows that Sinwar tried without success to knock the drone away from him while still sitting on the sofa, using a stick held in his left hand. A short time afterward, an IDF sniper bullet struck Sinwar in the left temple, instantly killing him. During this entire time, the IDF soldiers did not get a clear facial recognition that it was Sinwar they were dealing with. An IDF Merkava Mark IV tank then fired a shell into the building. Within moments, smoke was seen issuing out of the second floor, and then the building collapsed.

On Thursday morning, October 17, 2024, IDF soldiers entered the ruins of the building and discovered in the rubble the body of a man who bore a marked resemblance to Yahya Sinwar – especially his distinctively large ears. Forensic evidence was gathered and sent back to Israel for confirmation. This included DNA samples and photographs of his dental peculiarities and distinctive moles. In Sinwar’s possession were 40,000 New Israeli shekels, an expired passport belonging to a UNRWA worker, Mentos candies, a cigarette lighter, and a Glock pistol that had once belonged to a Sayeret Matkal (IDF Delta Force) Druze commander – Lt. Col Mahmoud Kheir el-Din – who had been killed by Hamas during a failed IDF Gaza operation on November 11, 2018.

IDF Military Intelligence believes that Sinwar was trying to flee from the Rafah area and reach the al-Mawasi Humanitarian Area bordering the Mediterranean Sea, when he was spotted and killed by the IDF. Al-Mawasi was the area where Mohammed Deif (Hamas military commander) had been recently eliminated in an IAF airstrike on July 13, 2024.

My struggle – Mein Kampf – My jihad

Hitler and Sinwar did not only die seated on sofas – one in Berlin, one in Gaza. They were both committed to similar strategies in some highly significant areas. In Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf (‘My struggle’), he outlined his political beliefs, his strategic ideology and his future plans for Germany and the world. The introduction to the 1999 edition of ‘Mein Kampf ’ (Mariner Books) states: Hitler “had made his ultimate goals clear in Mein Kampf as early as 1926: rearmament, the abolition of democracy, territorial expansion, eugenics, the ‘elimination’ of the ‘Jewish threat.’”

The word ‘struggle’ in classical Arabic is ‘jihad.’ It comes from the root j-h-d, meaning “fight, battle, jihad, holy war against the infidels, as a religious duty.” ‘Mein Kampf’ can therefore also be translated as ‘My Jihad.’ The similarity between Hitler’s murderous Nazism and classical jihadi Islamist teaching here is not accidental.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB, or ‘Society of Muslim Brothers’ – Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) – was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a school teacher. His classic message to the world is also the motto of the MB: “Allah is (the Muslim Brotherhood’s) goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.” During the 1930’s and 1940’s the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) had links with the Nazis, and Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s main contact in Jerusalem was Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem.

The Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas’ older brother) is an Islamist organization calling for jihad or holy war against its enemies (which include Israel, America and all Western nations) (see “Hurtling Through The Fog of War: A Messianic Perspective On The New Hamastan”; February 2006). From the MB perspective most Arab and Islamic states are run by evil pseudo-Islamic rulers and need to be overthrown. Only strict Islamist rule and the re-establishment of the Muslim Caliphate or khilafah is ultimately acceptable to the MB.

Hamas was established in 1987 or 1988, and its charter proclaims that “the Islamic Resistance Movement [aka Hamas] is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) . . . the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era” (Hamas Charter, Article Two; in www.acpr.org.il/resources/hamascharter.html).

According to the historian Professor Jeffrey Herf of the University of Maryland, it was the Nazis' paranoid conspiracy theory concerning an imaginary plot by international Jewry plot to destroy Germany, that morphed pre-existing Muslim anti-Jewish hatred into a paranoid conspiracy theory focusing on a supposed plot by ‘international Jewry’ to destroy Islamic society:

“For the radical Islamist, it is not enough to merely humiliate the Jew, he must be annihilated. The Jew-hatred of jihad, therefore, is not something that Muslims adopted from Hitler. Rather, it is the adaptation of a message inherited from Muhammad. In other words, the anti-Semitism of Mein Kampf has merely been grafted onto the anti-Semitism of the Koran. Now that the two hatreds have become intertwined.”

This paranoid perspective was echoed by the original spiritual mentor of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah: “The struggle against the Jewish state, in which the Muslims are engaged, is a continuation of the old struggle of the Muslims against the Jews’ conspiracy against Islam.”

Raymond Ibrahim, specialist in Islamic history and doctrine, notes that “the ideologies presented in Mein Kampf are ultimately traced back to a man, whereas many of the ideologies of … [radical jihadi Islam] … are traced back to Mohammed and Allah . . . (T)ransforming ideologies to theology is a great matter.”

The connection between Nazi and Islamist anti-Jewish and genocidal hatred is significant and foundational, according to Professor David Patterson, Hillel A. Feinberg Chair in Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas, Dallas, in his article ‘Nazis, Jihadists, and Jew Hatred’:

“The association between National Socialism and Islamic Jihadism goes back to Hasan al-Banna’s founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, the group that would spawn most of the major Jihadist movements of our time”

“Among today’s scholars and intellectuals the silence on these connections is overwhelming. Long before John Kerry’s complaint that the media are to blame for the terrorist problem because they report terrorism and upset people, the majority of scholars in the world have been silent on the connections between National Socialism and Islamic Jihadism. The most fundamental connection lies in the exterminationist antisemitism that drives both. Until we name Islamic Jihadism and understand it in terms of this form of antisemitism, we shall be impotent to deal with it.”

Sinwar’s ‘Final Solution’ regarding the Jewish people and their state

The Tehran Times states that “from its inception, Hamas [has been] committed to jihad, a struggle that is both spiritual and military. Sinwar's primary responsibility in Hamas was to maintain loyalty and punish betrayal.”

Sinwar, on his release from an Israeli jail years ago, co-founded with Rawhi Mushtaha the Munazzamat al Jihad w'al-Dawa (Arabic acronym, Majd, Arabic for ‘glory’), an organization that worked to identify, torture and kill locals who collaborated with Israel or violated Islamic religious law. His cruelty in torture and murder earned him the name ‘the Butcher of Khan Yunis.’

Michael Koubi, former Israeli SHABAK Senior Officer and Head of Interrogation, who had interrogated Yahya Sinwar extensively during his imprisonment, says this about Sinwar’s attitudes toward the Jews: “His motivation was in line with the Hamas Charter . . to destroy the Israeli State or the Jewish State first and then all the infidels.” When asked if Sinwar was very religious, and if this was his main motivation, Koubi answered: “He is really very, very religious. He hates the Jews, you know, from all his heart, you know – very deep hate . . . He knows the Quran almost by heart. I don’t think that he is a psychopath, I don’t think so.”

On April 30, 2022 Sinwar threatened Jewish synagogues across the world with attack, if Israeli police moved to suppress violent disturbances on the Temple Mount:, “Our people must prepare for a great battle if the occupation does not cease its aggression against the al-Aqsa Mosque. Violating al-Aqsa and Jerusalem means a regional, religious war. Whoever makes the decision to allow . . . the violation of al-Aqsa – he has decided to allow the violation of thousands of synagogues all across the world.”

In an interview after October 7, 2023, Koubi added:

“I knew Sinwar almost better than his own mother did. After 180 hours of interrogation with Yahya Sinwar, believe me I know him, I smell him, I eat him, everything. You know, he is the man that I will never forget. Sinwar is the cruelest man I’ve ever met . . . Yahya Sinwar was a murderer. He kept dreaming all the time how to kill Jews. That was Yahya Sinwar. For him it doesn’t matter if it is a boy, a child, a woman, or anyone. He wants to kill Jews, you know, by machete. That was his dream. He told me that the best way is to kill them by machete. That was during the interrogation. On the 7th of October [2023], [Hamas] used machetes and they also used guns and rifles.”

On April 6, 2018, Sinwar addressed a Hamas gathering, threatening Israel with “a big push” – one which would eventually come on October 7, 2023: “Our people and our boys will surprise the entire world with what they have in store. Let them wait for our big push. We will take down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies.”

Yuval Bitton was head of the Israel Prison Service Intelligence Division. His nephew was murdered by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 pogrom. This interview (with his comments about Sinwar) was published on April 13, 2024.

The thing with Hamas is that they have always been a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood. They set themselves Islamist goals: to annihilate the State of Israel, to liberate sacred Muslim lands. The Israelis just didn’t get it: For them, Hamas and Fatah were the same thing.

I said to Sinwar, “Tell me, is it worth it for 10,000 innocent people to die, in order to free 100 prisoners?” The reply was, “Even 100,000 is worth it.” Their notion of time is different, and the price in blood they are ready to pay in order to achieve their goal is different. Because each person who dies is a shahid [an Islamic martyr]. It’s warfare in the name of God.

Today he feels like Saladin, because he succeeded in doing what no Arab leader before him did. He sees himself as playing a central role in the realization of the Islamist ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood. He thinks he has entered the annals of history. And he really doesn’t care if 200,000 people are killed and not a single house remains complete in Gaza. The main thing is the goal, the greater idea.

On June 10, 2024 the Wall Street Journal published dozens of messages authored by Sinwar crowing about Palestinian deaths in Gaza. In a letter sent to Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh on April 11, 2024, Sinwar wrote that the Palestinian death toll would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.” In another message to Hamas leaders in Qatar, Sinwar maintained that thousands of civilian casualties “are necessary sacrifices.” Sinwar told Hamas negotiators that “we have the Israelis right where we want them.”

Here are two analysts who explain Sinwar’s strategy in how he saw such deaths as benefiting jihad:

“While some analysts may argue that Hamas’s underground tunnel network is its greatest strategic advantage, the current conflict has starkly revealed a more disturbing truth. In fact, Hamas’s most potent weapon is the Palestinian civilian population. Putting civilians in harm’s way is no coincidence; it has been done by design. Hamas’s leadership has always understood that Palestinian deaths in a conflict with Israel creates leverage over the Jewish state despite the group’s role in perpetuating the violence” (Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at ‘Long War Journal’)

“The Hamas death cult seeks to maximize the casualties on both sides. For Sinwar, Palestinian lives don’t matter. Moreover, by punishing Israel, the international community perversely incentivizes Hamas to get Palestinians killed” (David May, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst)

This above research shows that both Hitler’s Nazism and Sinwar’s Hamas Islamism are based on highly motivated ideologies and strategies. Just as it would have seemed total madness for the Allies to have appealed to the Führer in 1944 for a ceasefire, so it is equally the height of folly for the US Administration, Western diplomats, Russia, China and the United Nations to champion the forcing of Israel into a ceasefire with the spiritual descendants of Hitler – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet POTUS Biden and VP Harris, White House spokesman John Kirby, French President Macron, German Chancellor Schotz, UN Chief Guterres, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and VP Borrell, Canada’s Trudeau and the UK’s Starmer are all turning the thumbscrews on the Jewish state, bullying them to throw in the towel and declare both a ceasefire with Hamas and a speedy withdrawal from Lebanon.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the annulling of Western diplomatic evil and criminal foolishness regarding pressure on Israel for a ceasefire with Hitler’s spiritual progeny

Pray for the blocking and frustration of Hezbollah and Iranian jihad plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8)

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Military witchcraft

King Jehoram son of Ahab had a rebellion on his hands: Mesha King of Moab had been Jehoram’s vassal but, after Ahab’s death, he rebelled and declared his independence (2 Kings 3). Jehoram (the King of Israel’s Ten Tribes) turned to King Jehoshaphat of Judah and his two tribes – asking him to join in a military confederacy (which also included the King of Edom) in order to fight against Moab and subdue her. Looking for a word of divine guidance, they turned to Elisha the Prophet, who declared: “And this is an insignificant thing in the sight of YHVH! He will also give the Moabites into your hand. Then you shall strike every fortified city and every choice city, and cut down every good tree and stop up all the springs of water, and spoil every good plot of land with stones” (2 Kings 3:18-19). And so it came to pass:

“But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and struck the Moabites, so that they fled from them. And the Israelites invaded the land, killing the Moabites. So they destroyed the cities. And each one threw a stone on every plot of good land and filled it. So they stopped up every spring of water and cut down every good tree, until in Kir-Haraseth only they left its stones. However, the rock slingers surrounded it and struck it” (2 Kings 3:24-25)

The armies of Israel, also known as the armies of YHVH (see 1 Samuel 17:26) had broken through the defenses of their Moabite enemies. They tore down strongholds, destroyed citadels and fortifications, and surrounded the King of Moab himself in a pressure-cooker move: “When the King of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred men who drew swords, to break through to the king of Edom. But they could not” (2 Kings 3:26).

Moab’s King then resorted to military witchcraft: he sacrificed his firstborn son on the walls of his major fortress Kir Haraseth (see Isaiah 16:7; Karak in modern Arabic). He believed that such a great sacrifice would release spiritual forces in the unseen world, thus granting him victory over his mortal enemy. The biblical text points in this direction: “Then the King of Moab took his oldest son who was to reign in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great wrath [qetseph gadol] came upon Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land” (2 Kings 3:27).

The military witchcraft of Balaam and Balak

Six hundred years before Elisha and Jehoshaphat, King Balak of Moab and his nation were also terrified. They had heard of the arrival of armies of Moses and the Jewish people on the borders of their territory, and declared: “Now this gathered people will lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field” (Numbers 22:4). So Balak sent a delegation to Balaam, a Mesopotamian sorcerer in Pethor (see Deuteronomy 23:4; Pitru in ancient Hittite, located near Carchemish). Balak’s message was this: “Please come at once, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed!” (Numbers 22:6). Balak’s wording in that confession has a poetic parallel to Genesis 12:3, where YHVH irrevocably prophesies over the Jewish people: whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever disparages Israel will be cursed. Balak was trying to do the exact opposite here of what YHVH commanded.

The Moabite king would pay top dollar to this Mesopotamian wizard, if only Balaam’s voodoo-like curses would be effective against Israel, rendering the Jewish armies militarily impotent and disarmed. But this was not to be. Instead, the Holy Spirit unexpectedly filled Balaam’s mouth with a declaration concerning Israel’s crushing victory over the Moabites:

“Look, a people like a lioness … It shall not lie down until it devours the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain” (Numbers 23:24)

“He shall consume the nations, his enemies. He shall break their bones and pierce them with his arrows … Blessed is he who blesses you [Israel], and cursed is he who curses you!” (Numbers 24:8-9)

“A Star shall come out of Jacob! A Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and batter the brow of Moab, and destroy all the sons of Sheth!” (Numbers 24:17)

YHVH specifies His operative rules of engagement when confronted by the military witchcraft of Israel’s enemies: “For there is no sorcery against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel!” (Numbers 23:23). As Asaph the psalmist prophesies: “Let vengeance for the blood of Your servants which has been shed be known among the nations in our sight!” (Psalm 79:10).

Cursing one’s enemies in German

The greatest of all Western military theoreticians was Prussian General Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780-1831). In his most famous work ‘Vom Kriege’ (‘On War’), Clausewitz describes one of the main objectives of war: “to render the enemy politically helpless or militarily impotent” (“sein nächster Zweck ist, den Gegner niederzuwerfen und dadurch zu jedem ferneren Widerstand unfähig zu machen”; Carl von Clausewitz; ‘On War’; Princeton University Press, 2008).

Clausewitz states up front that “war is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will” – “Der Krieg ist also ein Akt der Gewalt, um den Gegner zur Erfüllung unseres Willens zu zwingen” (Clausewitz, ‘On War,’ Book I, Chapter 1, 24).

Perhaps the most quoted saying of Clausewitz is this: “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means” – “Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln.” The context here is helpful: “So we see that war is not just a political act, but a true political instrument, a continuation of the political process, an application of the same by other means. War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.”

Making war, Clausewitz explained, is another implement in the tool chest of politicians and diplomats. War is another way of talking to and communicating with one’s enemies, albeit a violent one.

Henry Kissinger added a unique perspective here, noting that Vladimir Lenin’s revolutionary strategies revealed that he saw politics as a continuation of war by other means. In other words, though it may look like modest political interaction, in actuality the Communist diplomat sees his work as part of the struggle of class warfare.

These perspectives are of the utmost importance in making sense of what is happening in the current round of Middle Eastern war.

“Well, he got no allies to really speak of” (Bob Dylan, ‘Neighborhood Bully’)

Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston (also known as Lord Palmerston) was once Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In a March 1, 1848 speech in the House of Commons, Palmerston made a significant realpolitik declaration:

“It is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

Palmerston’s axiom is helpful as we consider the relationships between the USA and Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

Kissinger offers another enlightening guideline here in the following quote from his 2016 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in ‘The Atlantic’: “There is obviously a gap between the public's perception of the role of US foreign policy and the elite’s perception.” Many Evangelical Christians, Jews of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or liberal stripe, or simply secular US citizens have a quiet respect for plucky Israel, her courage and heroism in battle, her tenacity in the face of many deadly challenges, her sufferings in the Holocaust. They tend to believe that popular pro-Israel American sentiment shapes and guides US policies in the Middle East. Kissinger, however, bluntly intimates that Presidents and State Department ‘lifers’ may give the outward impression that they are avidly pro-Israel, but the truth is actually nuanced in a very different direction. Expressing his own view of how American diplomats and politicians see and shape the world, Kissinger put the matter succinctly to the ‘Forty Committee’ (the secret operations group that he headed) in 1970: “The issues are too important to be left for the . . . voters.”

Some very influential Americans are opposed to Zion. Secular isolationists and anti-Semitic professors, self-hating Jews and jihadi Islamists, oil barons and most State Department honchos, CIA movers and shakers – there are significant and influential layers of American society solidly positioned against the land and people of Israel. At the upper echelons of US politics, business and intelligence, powerful people are ensconced – pressuring and persuading, weakening and attempting to destroy the apple of God’s eye. Anti-Semitism has been hard-wired into the roots of the US intelligence community and the US State Department from Day One. Its poison influences current positions trumpeted from the Rose Garden, the Congress and the mainstream media (MSM). A more in depth analysis of these roots and this history can be found in two of our recent newsletters ‘Why are the peoples plotting in vain?’ (April 12, 2024) and ‘Shakings, Weighings and Divisions: Syria, Annapolis and the Return of YHVH – Part Three of Three – Cutting Israel Down to Size’ (October 17, 2007).

Originally, ‘the Agency’ (also known as the CIA) was at its heart an ‘old boys’ network’ of Ivy League university graduates. Most of these men were thoroughly pickled in old-school anti-Semitic prejudices and attitudes. ‘America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East’ by Hugh Wilford (2017) notes that the CIA’s Middle East division was headed by ‘Arabists’ – men like Kermit ‘Kim’ Roosevelt (grandson of POTUS Theodore Roosevelt); Kim’s cousin, Archie Roosevelt (a Middle East scholar and Chief of Beirut Station); and Miles Copeland (a covert American intelligence operator since WWII). These Agency Arabists were the intellectual, and often biological, descendants of American missionaries in Arab lands. They believed that a century of American missionary activity had paved the way for a Pax Americana in the region – if only the recalcitrant Israelis could be sidelined. These officials were fiercely anti-Zionist, convinced that American support for Israel was a strategic blunder of the first order. Wilford states that these founders believed “in the overriding importance of American-Arab, and Christian-Muslim, relations.”

Reflecting on these bedrock anti-Semitic foundations, one former CIA operative explained: “You shouldn’t be surprised [at the CIA’s covert war with the Jewish state]. It’s [simply a matter of] pure hypocrisy. In public, Israel is our ally. What the public doesn’t know is that all Western nations have covert policies to side with the Arabs. It keeps the intelligence community busy” (see John Loftus and Mark Aarons,The Secret War Against the Jews (How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People); p. 510).

These gnarled anti-Semitic roots are still wrapped around the trunk and tree of State Department and intelligence community policies toward the Jewish state. And they are a helpful key in deciphering US political and diplomatic moves as Israel is attempting to destroy Iranian jihadi influence and military witchcraft which are currently targeting the Jewish state.

The Great Game

Political historians use the term ‘The Great Game’ to refer to the political rivalry and military confrontation between Great Britain and the Russian Empire beginning in 1830, as their spheres of influence and control moved closer to each other in Mughal India, Turkestan and Persia (modern Iran). Here too, war was “not just a political act, but a true political instrument, a continuation of the political process.” The Crimean War (1853-56) was one eruption of this clash, as were the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42) and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1872-80). The present hostilities and divisions between India and Pakistan find some of their roots in this “continuation of politics by other means.”

As superpowers stumbled down the corridors of time, Britain’s imperial designs on Afghanistan eventually gave way to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 24, 1979 – February 15, 1989) and then to the US invasions of Afghanistan (October 7, 2001 – August 30, 2021). At present, the jihadi Taliban government has resumed control of the country, after an ignominious American retreat in August 2021.

Superpowers abhor a vacuum. Today the various contenders for Middle Eastern influence include such outsiders as the USA, China and Russia, while Iran and Saudi Arabia wrestle for Islamist hegemony. Israel is the wild card in the equation as America attempts to play all parties against each other in a Machiavellian gambit to hold on to fading glory.

The Prince of Persia meets Old Glory

The Hebrew prophet Daniel was granted prophetic insight into the inner spiritual machinations behind superpower struggles in his day. The angel Gabriel informed him in Daniel 10:10-21 that a demonic principality, the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, was actively seeking the destruction of the Jewish people – as seen in that Prince’s mortal combat with the Archangel Michael (who bears the Jewish portfolio in the angelic realm; see Daniel 12:1), as well as in Haman’s genocidal attempt to wipe out Mordecai and his people.

This demonic prince still exists, influencing the thoughts and the political and military strategies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. His diabolical tactics now have a worldwide spotlight thrown on them, as Iran aims its terrorist jihadi weapons against Israel – though at times it has also been directed at Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, the USA, France, Britain, etc.

The gnarled arm of the Prince of Persia has reached out across the oceans, seducing American Presidents and diplomats with its malevolent spiritual influence. Former POTUS Obama was waylaid by these deceptions, re-aligning American policy to make diplomatic compromises with Iran by developing strategic links with the Shi’ite terror dictatorship. Barak Obama was determined to avoid full-scale confrontation with Iran, and instead granted it a political-military truce through practical immunity for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

America’s diplomatic addiction to bribing and appeasing Iran is now manifest to the entire planet. The US Administration continues to turn a blind eye to Iran’s striving to achieve regional hegemony, as well as to its funding of terrorist jihadi proxies like Gaza’s Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s Kata’eb Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, etc. All these groups are supplied with Iranian missiles, rockets, drones, artillery and other assorted weapons. They are aiming these armaments at the heart of Israel (and occasionally, at Saudi Arabia). Any nation who gets in the way of Iran finds its ships blown up in the Persian Gulf, its diplomats assassinated, etc.

The US continues to signal to the international community and to its MSM cheerleaders that America wants no part of a military-political conflict whose ultimate target involves defeating Iran. POTUS Joe Biden and his State Department spokesmen Anthony Blinken, John Kirby and Matthew Miller (as well as VP Kamala Harris) are continually leaking to the press that the US Administration is forbidding Israel from striking at Iran’s nuclear weapons installations – which are an existential threat to both the Jewish state and to pro-Western Gulf Arabs. The American administration continually expresses vociferous disapproval of an Israeli attack on Iranian oil assets – which the Shiite dictatorship depends on to fund 80% of its budget, including its military and terror operations.

Tragically, American diplomacy and its military leadership are wholeheartedly devoted to the goal of not threatening Tehran or its most important economic and nuclear strategic assets. The past two Democratic administrations have championed a commitment to a realigned Middle East, one where conflicts between the USA and Iran would be replaced by a rapprochement with the Islamist Shi’ite superpower-in-waiting.

Such US policies, to quote Clausewitz, are attempts to weaken Israel, to render it politically helpless and militarily impotent. These threatening policies are attempts to force and compel the Jewish state to do America’s will. America’s pressure on Israel to back off from eliminating the terrorist organizations of Hamas, Hezbollah the PLO/Palestinian Authority (as well as Iran’s jihadi doomsday organizations) are all classic examples of diplomatic warfare waged against the Jewish state – the ‘continuation of the political process by other means.’ The endgame here is the shrinking of Israel (as Kissinger was wont to say), and the establishment of a jihadi Palestinian state in Gaza and on the West Bank – on lands which the God of Israel declared as Israel’s national patrimony forever (see Joel 3:1-2).

The bear hug that crushes

Spiritual warfare in the Middle East has caused ugly cataracts to form on the American eagle’s formerly razor-sharp eyes. Though most Americans oppose deals with jihadi terror dictatorships, various administrations have surreptitiously developed a multifaceted policy of ‘doing one thing while pretending to do its opposite.’ This shrewd plan involves showering Israel with primarily defensive military systems, while forcing Israel to sign deals forbidding it from developing strategic military independence from the USA. Two examples: the IDF’s current F-35 air platforms can be shut down at the push of an American button, if Israel insists on not following America’s military orders. At this point in time, the US is also withholding heavy bunker-buster bombs like the MOAB (GBU-43/B) Massive Ordnance Air Blast, and concurrently threatening arms embargos on Israel if the IDF’s order of battle or military thinking does not jibe with the Pentagon’s.

The US Administration has had a decades-long policy of subverting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s power by cultivating both former and currently serving security brass of Prime Ministers, squeezing them to inform America of any Israeli military plans in the works against Iran. Former Head of Mossad Meir Dagan is one such case, and many current examples can be found in today’s newspapers. US intelligence agencies have lately been fostering and encouraging civil rebellion and quasi-putsches in Israel, resulting in what the MSM spins as ‘mass popular demonstrations.’ The main goals here are to subvert the current Israeli government, especially its political, economic and military strategies and policies.

Jonathan Tobin of Jewish News Syndicate says it clearly: “Even gestures of support – such as the sending of a sophisticated THAAD missile-defense system to Israel, along with 100 American personnel to operate it – seem aimed more at restricting the Jewish state’s freedom to make a decision about retaliating against the latest direct Iranian attack, than to protect it. The fact that the administration has made sure to leak to the press that it wants Israel to avoid striking at Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, which is an existential threat not just to Israel but to Arab nations and the West, was a shocking indication of its ongoing devotion to the idea that Tehran and its most important assets should not be threatened.”

The penetratingly insightful reporter Carolyn Glick sums up how the US Administration’s bear hug has affected Israel’s successful prosecution of the current war. Her points reveal Clausewitz’s principle at work again – of how politics and political pressure are merely another way of making war:

“This was why the U.S. opposed Israel’s ground operation in Gaza; supported Egypt in blocking Gazans from fleeing Gaza for shelter in Egypt or third countries; opposed Israel’s takeover of Rafah and the border with Gaza; slow-walked the delivery of offensive weapons, including assault rifles, tank and artillery shells and bombs for the air force in an effort to compel Israel to adopt a defensive posture; and consistently sought to coerce Israel to accept hostage deals with Hamas that would precipitate its strategic defeat in the war. This is why the administration began sanctioning Israeli citizens who they claim obstruct their goal of establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Likewise, the administration’s consistent, unswerving pressure on Israel to admit massive quantities of goods into Gaza, under the headline ‘humanitarian aid,’ facilitated Hamas’s survival in power.”

How should we then pray?

Pray for the God of Jacob to grant revelatory war strategies to Israel’s leadership, as did Elisha in his day (2 Kings 6:8-13)

Pray for the blocking and frustration of both Hezbollah/Iranian jihad plans against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) as well as for the transformation of current US Administration strategies and perspectives converging Iran and Israel

Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips

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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

War in Lebanon

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been preparing for jihadi war against Israel and the West for many years. It has structured a Shi’ite crescent of terror, all facing the Jewish state and strategizing for its destruction. These armies include Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Kata’eb Hezbollah in Iraq, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, and both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Sunni jihadi terror groups) in Gaza.

Hezbollah has been stocking up on over 150,000 rockets (some with GPS accuracy) and cruise missiles, all aimed at Israel.

Over the past six weeks, the IDF and IAF have been systematically removing rocket launchers, cruise missiles, rockets of all kinds from southern Lebanon. The top brass of Hezbollah likewise have been taken out by IAF bombs.

In the past two weeks, Israel’s Mossad and Military Intelligence pre-positioned explosive materials in new orders of beepers for Hezbollah, as well as in walkie-talkies used exclusively by the organization. These were then blown up in two salvoes over two days, crippling up to 4,000 Hezbollah terrorists within minutes, across Lebanon. Many jihadis were blinded, lost limbs and were otherwise taken out of commission. Over 30 were killed. It is important to remember that only Hezbollah operatives possessed those beepers and walkie-talkies, though some Iranian diplomats and terrorist leaders also were decommissioned through these explosives.

Hezbollah issued orders that all jihadi operatives were to immediately ditch any remaining beepers and walkie-talkies – leaving these terrorists in the dark, unable to receive battle orders. Iran also forbade its operatives from using these appliances. The Shi’ite terror army was now in the dark

Destroying master terrorists

Hezbollah’s ‘Pentagon’ is an area in south Beirut, Dahieh. Its command-and-control center is there, five stories deep and heavily reinforced with steel and concrete. Hezbollah’s leader for 32 years, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has been hiding there in underground bunkers for a number of years. Above this nerve-center are the human shields – apartments for Hezbollah operatives and their families.

On Friday September 27, over 20 IAF jets laid down over 80 one-ton bombs on Hezbollah’s HQ, each one just a few seconds apart. The entire structure down to it foundations was obliterated. Nasrallah was instantly killed, as were eight of nine most senior military Hezbollah commanders – including IRGC’s top deputy commander.

Over these past six weeks, Israel has eliminated as many terrorists on the US list of wanted terrorists as America has managed to do in the last 20 years. But both the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the POTUS have expressed extreme displeasure publicly or privately with Israel’s stunning successes here. French President Macron condemned Israel for taking out arch-terrorist Ibrahim Aqil, responsible for murdering over 60 French paratroopers in 1983’s Beirut. We live in bracing days.

The straw that broke Israel’s back

Since Hamas’ mass pogrom on October 7, 2023 – its mass rapes, torture, atrocities of murder and kidnapping – Hezbollah has been attacking Israel ‘in solidarity’ with Gaza. They have fired nearly 9,000 rockets at Israeli civilians in northern Israel, killing 48 Israelis. Between 63,000 and 80,000 Israelis have fled their homes and are currently refugees in their own country. Over 325 Israelis have been injured. Over 1,400 buildings and homes have been damaged or destroyed. This has been going on for close to 12 months – a full year. And Hezbollah is a member in good standing of Lebanon’s Parliament, with the country’s leaders supporting Hezbollah in its attacks on Israel.

Israel had warned Hezbollah that, if the area surrounding Haifa or south of that would be targeted by Shi’ite rockets, the IDF would begin to attack Hezbollah’s more precious assets, possibly even attacking Lebanon’s infrastructures of water, electricity, sewage networks, airports and bridges – actions which force Lebanon to reign in and muzzle Hezbollah.

On Wednesday September 25, Hezbollah fired a heavy missile at Israel’s intelligence center, where both the Mossad and SIGINT Unit 8200 are located. This was the equivalent of Osama bin-Laden’s 9/11 attack on the US Pentagon. Other jihad rockets began to rain down on civilian areas of Haifa and even further south.

Israeli escalation was soon coming. Within two days, Hassan Nasrallah and his High Command were no more. And a new stage in the war was now on its way.

The guns of Autumn

Over the past few hours, the IDF has declared three Israeli areas in the Finger of Galilee (Metulla, Kfar Giladi and Misgav Am) to be closed military areas. Beirut’s Dahieh region has been given time-sensitive evacuation orders by the IDF regarding certain buildings. Arab media is reporting IAF bombing attacks in this Hezbollah stronghold, as well as the bombing of Hezbollah fortresses in Tyre, on the Mediterranean.

According to Saudi, American and British reports, IDF artillery are shelling Hezbollah strongholds, tunnels and rocket depots in southern Lebanon. According to these same foreign reports, Merkava tanks have crossed the Blue Line and are maneuvering in Lebanese villages, forcing jihadis north, past the Litani River and eventually perhaps even further.

This is a rapidly forward-rolling operation right now on Lebanese soil. In due time the IDF will release official statements, so it is foreign non-Israeli sources which are the main source of information.

How should we then pray?

Pray for revelatory strategies to be given to Israel’s leaders about how to defeat and remove jihadi terror forces from south Lebanon, as well as from any area in Lebanon that can be used to attack the Jewish state

Pray that angelic armies guide and protect the Israeli armed forces to a successful outcome with minimal loss of life.

Pray for the physical protection of Israel’s and Lebanon’s civilian population in these upcoming clashes

Pray for a decisive victory over Hezbollah in Lebanon, and over Iran’s terror masterminds

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