One day in the not too distant future the armies of the world will attack and invade Israel. The Hebrew prophets clearly stress that in the days immediately before Messiah’s return, an international assault on the Jewish state will occur, a last-ditch attempt to vanquish her (Zechariah 14:1-2 etc).
God declared through the prophet Ezekiel that He will have an active hand in setting up this up. He will summon the nations for a battle royal – causing them to do an about face, putting a hook into their jaws, and pulling them down to Israel for war (Ezekiel 38:4, 8). In fact, He says that many prophecies about these anti-Israel attacks have already been given through His “servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years” that He would both catalyze this invasion and bring judgment to the nations who raise their hand against the Jewish people (Ezekiel 38:17).
As we attempt to discern the times in which we live (as did the sons of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 – men “who discerned the times and knew what Israel should do”), let us peer through the present fog and make out the shape of the road leading us toward this prophetic encounter.
The old shell game
Carnival hucksters (or carnies) have been known to swindle gullible customers out of hard-earned cash through a sleight-of-hand game involving three coconut shells. Under one of the half-shells lies a hidden object. The “mark” (the naïve customer) needs to guess under which shell the hidden object is concealed. As the carny moves the shells rapidly back and forth, the mark loses concentration for a split second, and ends up losing the game as well. Distracting the customer is the means to winning a game of confidence.
An enemy as adroit as Satan also goes in for sleight of hand. Though the Bible is clear – Satan wants to totally destroy the Jewish people (Zechariah 3:1-2; Revelation 12:4, 9) – he does not always go for a frontal attack. Often he prefers to distract his customer (which is the world, according to 1 John 5:19) from his ultimate genocidal goal.
Of course, it is also true that the enemy appreciates a flat out call for genocide (as Iran’s Ahmedinejad continues to do in word and deed). Such calls to wipe Israel off the map may motivate and mobilize many in the Islamic world. But sometimes brazen Persian chutzpa bows before a more subtle, silky, diplomatic and Western approach. This satanic strategy is our subject today, and it is a tactic which is being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the majority of the world’s population.
Delegitimizing Israel
Satan’s current strategy is an all-out attempt to delegitimize Israel. Though at first this may seem like only another political buzz-word, the enemy’s ultimate goal involves using this scheme to lead the world toward ”a final solution of the Jewish question,” to paraphrase Hitler’s call for genocide. And to a large extent his strategy is enjoying a large degree of success. Across the globe politicians and media are being seduced into first tolerating and then joining in on declarations invalidating the Jewish state (see helpful articles by Michael Oren, Tony Blair – www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/seven-existential-threats-15124; www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/tony-blair-welcomes-re-start-of-direct-peace-talks-during-herzliya-speech/).
Little by little, line upon line, an international movement is capturing world opinion, effectively portraying Israel as a sinful, renegade, maverick threat to world peace. From trade unions to the United Nations, from “peace movements” to “peace flotillas” – the initial goal is to boycott Israel, her universities, her agricultural produce, the free travel of her citizens, etc. Its penultimate goal is a total shunning of Israel as a “pariah state.”
Once again, Europe is targeting Jews for “special treatment.” Once again Jews visiting Europe or living there feel as if they are suddenly “wearing yellow stars.” This time, however, it is not the forces of the right who are the instigators of this new outbreak of an age-old anti-Semitic virus. It is the so-called “progressive” groups who are on the forefront of this battle line.
Sad to say, even one or two Messianic leaders in Israel have unwittingly become fellow travelers on the fringes of this movement, participating in educational attempts in Christian and Messianic circles to delegitimize and downplay God’s hand in restoring the Jewish people, their state and renascent army. They speak publically of Israel as a failing, unrighteous country – while simultaneously supporting one or two Israeli Arab Christian ministries which brazenly undermine and delegitimize God’s restoring of the Jewish people to their own promised land.
Pray that God will increase discernment and courage for Messianic leadership in Israel and for Christian leaders internationally regarding these issues.
Stoning the Neighborhood Bully
Many years ago a gem of a Jewish movie came out of Montreal titled “Lies My Father Told Me.” In one scene an old Orthodox Jewish grandfather refers to “a great rabbi” who spoke to a lynch mob intent on stoning a Jewish prostitute (John 8:7). “A great rabbi?” asks another Jewish man in the scene. “And what was He, if not a great rabbi?” answers the grandfather.
Some of the nations of the world may feel, like that lynch mob, that Israel deserves a good stoning. But a great Rabbi named Yeshua has totally different plans for Israel (Jeremiah 30:11; Amos 9:8). He will not condemn the people whom He is restoring to their own land – His Jewish people for whom He bled and died (Isaiah 53:4-6).
The nations of the world have swallowed a double standard regarding the Jewish state. No one bats an eye when Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia forbid Jews from travelling to their country, or taking up residence there, or even building synagogues in Mecca or Medina.
Yet Israel is expected to allow Muslim Brotherhood jihadi terrorists free access to Gaza on Turkish ships like the Mavi Marmara, part of the “Free Gaza” flotilla (www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo). It is supposed to allow thousands of Islamist rockets to fall on Israeli farms and cities without ever retaliating – whether from Gaza’s Hamastan or from Lebanon’s Hezbollahstan. It is supposed to negotiate with Palestinian leaders who will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and openly call for its destruction. As Bob Dylan wryly comments in “Neighborhood Bully,” it seems that Israel is just “supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.”
In each case the delegitimizers insist that Israel’s “evil nature” is the root cause of all problems, and that Islamist responses of violence are understandable and even justifiable. Herein lies the soft evil underbelly of the delegitimization movement – it winks knowingly as it justifies jihad against the Jewish state.
Every nation must get stoned
Yet the Lord God of Israel has a very different perspective. He prophesies in Jeremiah 50 that He is the One who is returning Israel the people to Israel the land. He vows that this process will result in Him cutting a new and everlasting covenant with the Jewish people. And He points out that He Himself will judge and punish the nations of the world who devour Israel – those nations who frantically plead innocence before God and argue that “wicked Israel had it coming” – that the Jews deserve the nations’ hatred and abuse.
“In those days, at that time, declares YHVH, the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek YHVH their God. They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to YHVH in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place. Whoever found them devoured them; their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against YHVH, their true pasture, YHVH, the hope of their fathers’” (Jeremiah 50:4-7).
Rebuking the devourer
Israel’s failings do not change or block God’s covenant love for the Jewish people, nor does Jewish sin stymie the fulfillment of YHVH’s promises to them. Though God’s enemies may try to point an accusing finger at Israel (as they also do on the stages of today’s world), God Himself warns Israel’s accusers that His day of reckoning is at hand – and on that Day the devourers will in turn be devoured (Romans 2:5-11)!
“But all who devour you will be devoured; all your enemies will go into exile. Those who plunder you will be plundered; all who make spoil of you I will despoil. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares YHVH, because you are called an outcast, Zion ‘for whom no one cares’” (Jeremiah 30:16-17).
With this Scripture in mind, consider the recent quote from Iran’s President regarding the Jewish state: “‘Any offensive against Iran means the annihilation of the Zionist entity,’ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. ‘Iran does not care much about this entity because it is on its way to decay’” (AP, June 9, 2010).
Devourers past, present and future should put the following Scripture on their laptop screensavers: “Israel was holy to YHVH, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them, declares YHVH” (Jeremiah 2:3).
Pray for a revelation of God’s heart concerning Israel to be imparted to the leaders of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Remember to pray for your own country’s leaders as well in this regard.
Boycotting Israel
Many years ago my Stalinist mother instructed me in the finer arts of boycotting German vehicles as a partial response to the Holocaust. My older brother (who later became a lawyer) wryly commented at the time that our family also owned a Citroen, and that in revolutionary Algeria these vehicles were also seen as “vehicles of oppression”…
For years the Arab world has prosecuted a boycott against Israel, but for most of those decades their attempts were internationally seen as a fanatic expression of rabid regimes. Recently, however, boycotts specifically targeting the Jewish state are coming into a vogue that has not been seen since brown-shirted Nazi thugs patrolled the Reich’s streets armed with heavy truncheons.
The year 2010 has not quite come to an end, but already she has witnessed the following foreboding aktions of the delegitimization movement:
British and Scottish trade unions and universities have linked arms with Swedish and Norwegian dockworkers in boycotting Israeli foods and cargoes, research students and teachers.
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recently praised Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli foodstuffs, as did Irish Nobel Prize recipient Mairead Maguire (a recent arrestee on the Turkish terror flotilla to Gaza).
The Presbyterian (PCUSA) and British Methodist churches have come out in favor of boycotting Israeli products.
Even the famous pop reggae band Boney M was told on July 22, 2010 not to sing the Bible-based hit “Rivers of Babylon” at the Palestinian International Festival in Ramallah, due to its quotation from Psalm 137 calling for the return of the Jewish people to Biblical Zion (King David’s capitol city), which today is considered by the world as part of Palestinian Jerusalem!
Pray for revelation and conviction to sweep over the Christian leaders and congregations of Western Europe regarding God’s heart for Israel and His strategies for them and their land..
Hang together or hang separately
In a courageous article José María Aznar (former Prime Minister of Spain 1996-2004) responds to boycott calls, exhorting the world to “support Israel; if it goes down, we all go down.”
“Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbors using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathizers, it faces a campaign of delegitimization through international law and diplomacy. Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival” (www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/main/showNews/id/9401).
Arrested development?
Certain Palestinian and radical leftist groups in Europe have tried to use EU laws to summarily arrest Israeli politicians, generals and soldiers who come to visit European countries on official or even private business. The honors list of those who narrowly evaded arrest include:
- former IDF Major-General Doron Almog (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7251954.stm);
- Kadima party chairwoman Tzipi Livni (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/tzipi-livni-israel-gaza-arrest);
- Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/09/2009928181312543279.html);
- former GSS Director Avi Dichter (www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3479583,00.html);
- former COS Moshe Ya’alon (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/israeli-moshe-yaalon-visit-arrest).
It is becoming dangerous for Israeli civil servants, politicians and security personnel to travel in Europe due to the efforts of the anti-Israel delegitimizers. In Genesis 12:3 the God of Abraham promises that those who curse Israel will be cursed directly by Abraham’s God.
Though the ramifications of His word may eventually come as a surprise to some, those who believe Holy Writ need to remain prayerfully “on our toes” in the Spirit.
Pray for God to raise up champions for His people and defenders of righteousness among the nations – people who will lift up banners of truth and equity in defense of the Jewish nation and their restoration to their Promised Land.
Thanks for standing with us. Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do!
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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