- Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” And the king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” But the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son, and she said, “Pardon me, my lord! Give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other woman was saying, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; cut him!” Then the king replied, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.” When all Israel heard about the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king, because they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice (1 Kings 3:23-28)
The wisdom of Solomon was like a prophetic word (see 1 Corinthians 14:24-25), revealing the secrets of men’s hearts. The God of Jacob uses the Middle East to to divide people’s hearts: “I, YHVH, search the heart; I test the mind!” (Jeremiah 17:10). Western empires have also used the Middle East as a surgery ward over the last two centuries, dividing lands and then sewing territories together – creating countries out of thin air. Many of the nations created in this way have become ticking time-bombs in our day.
Dividing the Middle East
- A text without a context is a pretext. Much of what is being trumpeted by mainstream media about the Islamist takeover of Syria is unfortunately wishful or deceived thinking. To unpack current events in Syria, one must dig deeper – into the 20th century roots of current clashes, and into the Islamist historical roots and significance of Damascus.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement, ratified May 23 1916. is a good example of this: Britain and France, at the close of WWI, were becoming the new colonial masters of the Near East. One of their major concerns was to avoid clashes between the two superpowers by clarifying spheres of influence and control in their new colonial possessions. Sitting down at a table in France, they divided up the territories soon to be conquered into parcels of land and regions of political control. Yet both Britain and France were sorely ignorant of the ethnic, tribal and religious dynamics of these new colonies. They certainly had no interest in preserving the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire – but these newly carved-up colonialist creations would need more than diplomatic crazy glue to hold them together. the creation of these new countries (like Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) at the hands of Britain and France has shaped much of subsequent Middle Eastern and world history. And today the whole world is dealing with the fallout of these hasty decisions.
Today, the borders established by Western imperial forces are giving way to more ancient identities. The results here are ethnic warfare and spreading violence. Over the last six decades, 23 conflicts have exploded throughout the Middle East, resulting in more than one million casualties. The artificially-created countries glued together in the Middle East are turning out to have a rather tenuous shelf-life. This is reflected in a comment made by the Jewish-Iraqi historian Elie Kedourie, who labeled Iraq as a ‘make-believe kingdom.’ The failure and blowback of Western colonizing policies among the nations of the Middle East can be seen in how Europe and the U.S. handled Syria’s Bashar Assad regime over the last two decades. Their blunders led to an intensification of the Syrian civil war, with the resulting wave of more than four million refugees crashing down on the shores of Europe. In the end, the Western-style secular nationalism has not overridden ethnic, tribal and religious identities, nor has it brought peace to the Middle East. As the national poet of Scotland Robert Burns once said, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley” (‘The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’).
Here are some demographic fault-lines to consider: Iraq’s establishment gave dominance to the Sunni Muslim minority, while weakening the Shi’ite Muslim majority (50%) and denying national aspirations to the Kurds (25%). Syria was constructed in a way which weakened both the Sunni majority and the Druze minority, but strengthened the Alawi miniscule remnant. Lebanon was birthed giving preference to its Christian majority, while marginalizing its smaller Sunni, Druze and Shi’ite segments. The Gulf States were molded give preeminence to Sunni leaders, while assigning an inferior role to Shi’ites.
Each of these countries’ size and borders was intended by Britain and France to ‘hold down the fort,’ to divide and conquer,’ and to guarantee long-term Western control and strategic interests. Yet these precipitate decisions pressed the countdown button on what would end up being a ticking time-bomb in each state – geopolitical IEDs that would explode in the second half of the 20th century and well into our day as well. The boundaries drawn up just over 100 years ago by Western powers are disintegrating before our very eyes, and the appearance of the entire region is morphing beyond recognition.
Today, perhaps the most significant challenge in the new Middle East is the Islamist movement – a stream opposed to pan-Arab nationalism in general, and to local nationalism in particular. The Muslim dream revolves around a revived Islamic ‘Ummah’ (transnational Islamic nation) to be governed according to ‘Sharī’ah’ (Islamic law). The Islamist world vision is for the Caliphate (Muslim dictatorship) to rule over all Moslems and to take possession of the entire world. Islamism adamantly rejects Western culture, perceiving it to be a spiritually impure threat capable of adulterating Moslem culture and dominating Islamic territory and resources.
- It comes as no surprise that Jewish aspirations to statehood in the Middle Eastern arena were totally disregarded by Sykes-Picot, whose authors were steeped in Replacement Theology. Nevertheless, and no thanks to them, a Jewish state now exists in that region, and any threats to its vital interests, its security, its divine gifts and prophetic calling are of foundational importance in considering Middle East peace. There will be no Middle East peace and no end to the Arab-Israeli conflict until the priority of Israel’s calling is successfully resolved to YHVH’s satisfaction.
“The head of Aram is Damascus” (Isaiah 7:8)
In the days of Abraham, the country where Damascus was situated was called ‘Aram,’ and the people living there were called ‘the Arameans of Damascus’ (see 2 Samuel 8:5-13). These Arameans were descendants – not of Abraham but of Shem. Shem had given birth to many children – one was Aram, and one of Aram’s brothers was Arpachshad (from whom Abraham was descended; see Genesis 10:21-23).
The Hebrew Scriptures describe Aram as a mortal enemy of Israel. Here are some of passages which flesh this out: 2 Samuel 8:5-13; 2 Samuel 10:17-19; 1 Kings 20:27-29; 2 Kings 6:8-24; 2 Kings 13:2-6; 2 Kings 13:16-19; 2 Kings 24:1-3; 2 Chronicles 24:23-25; 2 Chronicles 28:4-6; Isaiah 7:1-3; Isaiah 9:11-13.
In biblical days the country was known as Aram, Aram Damascus, or Aram Naharaim. The Greeks took the Semitic name ‘Aššūr’ or ‘Ashur’ (from the Hebrew word for Assyria), and derived two Greek words from it – Σύριοι (Sýrioi) or Σύροι (Sýroi) – which we use today to describe ‘the country of Syria.’ To sum up: the present name of Syria is a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew word, referring to a non-Abrahamic but nevertheless Semitic people.
- Throughout biblical history, Syria has been viewed as the cruelest enemy of the Jewish people. In our day, Syria is considered the most violent of Israel’s enemies. Recent developments in Syria should be viewed in this light.
The City of Jasmine and her two skulls
Damascus is the largest city in Syria, the oldest continually inhabited capital city in the world, and the former center of the Islamic world. In modern Arabic it is called ‘Dimašq’ (‘Dimashq’) or ‘aš-Šām’ (‘as-Sham’). It is also dubbed, poetically, the ‘City of Jasmine’ (‘Madīnat al-Yāsmīn’), though the Damask Rose may be the more famous flower associated with this city. The patterned Chinese silks sold through the ages in Damascus, at the Western end of the Silk Road, took on the city’s name and are still called ‘Damask silk,’
Aram-Damascus clashed with the Kingdom of Israel on and off for centuries, under the rule of the Aramean kings Ben-Hadad I (880-841 B.C.; 1 Kings 15:17-19), Hazael (2 Kings 8:8-10) and Ben-Hadad II (2 Kings 13:24-25). In 64 B.C. the Roman general Pompey occupied Damascus, eventually incorporating it into the ten-city league known in the New Covenant Scriptures as the ‘Decapolis’.
After the death of Muḥammad in 632 A.D. his jihadi armies began to conquer what was then called ‘Syria Palaestina’ (which they accomplished by 641 A.D.). The Rashidun Caliph Abu Bakr gave a new name to the new conquest – Bilad aš-Šām (or Bilad as-Sham) – the Arabic word for ‘The Region on the Left Side.’ The original jihadi army which exploded across the Meccan desert had lived in the Hejaz (or western Arabia). When they looked eastward toward the rising sun, they would have located Syria on their left – while al-Yaman (Yemen; ‘the region on the right hand’) would have been on their right. This same geographical way of locating ‘The Left’ is also found in Genesis 14:15: “Then [Abraham] divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is to the left [north] of Damascus.”
Bilad as-Sham was organized by Abu Bakr into four sub-divisions or ajnad (singular, jund: the Arabic-Persian word for ‘military colony’ or ‘administrative district’ or ‘province’):
- Jund Hims – Homs (capital city), Latakia and Tadmor
- Jund Dimashq – Damascus (capital city), Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli
- Jund al-Urdunn – Tiberias (capital city), Mount Lebanon, Galilee, Golan and the eastern Jordan
- Jund Filastin – Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa, Lydda (capital city), Ramle, Nablus, Sebastia, Caesarea, Jerusalem and Amman (but not including Haifa, the Galilee, Nazareth, Safed or Bet She’an)
The modern English word used today for Bilad as-Sham is ‘the Levant’, coming from the French ‘levant’ (‘rising’), referring to the rising of the sun in the east. It includes the countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, as well as the modern Turkish regions of Hatay, Gaziantep, and Diyarbakir. The Islamist group which has just conquered the lion’s share of Syria calls itself ‘Hayʼat Taḥrīr aš-Šām’ (‘Hayat Tahrir as-Sham’; ‘Organization for the Liberation of as-Sham/the Levant’; acronym HTS).
- The use of the Arabic term ‘as-Sham’ here indicates that the group’s goals include turning all of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Judea and Samaria into a jihadi Islamist Caliphate. This much is clear to every Arabic speaker who knows his own language and regional history.
A Christian tradition from the 500’s A.D. states that the head of John the Baptist is buried in a crypt-like box under the former Byzantine cathedral, which was destroyed by Muslim conqueror al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, and rebuilt by him as the ‘Great Mosque of Damascus’ (‘The Umayyad Mosque’; ‘al-Jāmiʿ al-Umawī’). Another skull, purported to be that of Mohammed’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali, is traditionally buried there as well (one of the seven traditional sites where his skull might be located).
On October 3 1918 the forces of the Arab Revolt led by Hashemite Faisal I bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi also entered Damascus, where he was temporarily proclaimed King of Syria under French administration. Later, on August 23 1921 he was proclaimed King of Iraq under British administration. During his reign, Faisal I attempted to create an Arab state modeled on the 600’s A.D. Islamic Bilad as-Sham which would include, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestine Mandate, Kuwait and parts of Turkey.
Damascus has an estimated population of 2.7 million. Most are Sunni Arabs, with Kurds, Alawites and Twelver Shi’ites being minorities, along with 10-15% Orthodox Eastern Christians. Damascus is the headquarters of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. A small Druze minority exists, but the once thriving Jewish community (since Roman times) has utterly vanished.
When Islam and socialism first kissed
The 54-year dynastic rule of the al-Assad family in Syria (which ended on December 8 2024) had is origins and foundations in an Arab socialist and revolutionary military government called the ‘Ba’ath movement’ – ‘Hiẓb al-Ba’th al-‘Arabī al–Ishtirākī’ (‘The Party of Arab Socialist Resurrection’). The ideology envisioned a vanguard of socialist revolutionaries who would establish a one-party state in various Arabic-speaking countries, based on the principles of secularism, Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism and Arab socialism. Ba’ath leaders included former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein and former presidents of Syria Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad.
In 1963 a Syrian coup d’état occurred, led by Alawite military officers, after which Syria was ruled by the Ba’ath Party as a totalitarian state for the next 61 years. After that coup, Hafez al-Assad purged the Syrian Armed Forces, replacing 90% of its officer corps with Alawites. Another coup d’état in February 1966 led to the overthrow and exile of the Ba’ath movement’s founders. In 1970 General Hafez al-Assad overthrew President Salah Jadid in another coup d’état, named the ‘Corrective Revolution.’ The new doctrine of Assad’s revolution placed emphasis on defeating Israel, and strengthening Syria’s military with Soviet support. Assad’s dynasty continued for 54 years up to December 2024, when his Ba’ath regime collapsed.
Though Assad was an Alawite (a religious stream considered heretical and non-Muslim by traditional Islam), he began to posture himself as a Sunni (and therefore ‘authentic’) Muslim. Because the Syrian Constitution allowed only Muslims to become president, Assad presented himself as a pious Muslim. In order to gain support from the ulamah – the ruling Islamic scholars, he prayed in Sunni mosques, even though he was an Alawite. In the early 1970’s, Assad was verified as an ‘authentic Muslim’ by the Sunni Mufti of Damascus and made the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca – a journey permitted only to ‘kosher’ Muslims. In his speeches, he often used classical Islamic terms such as ‘jihad’ (struggle) and ‘shahada’ (martyrdom) when referring to his war against Israel.
Nazi officers were given asylum by Assad after WWII: Nazi war-criminal Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right hand man, and a key participant in the Final Solution, lived under government protection in Syria under the alias ‘Dr. Georg Fischer.’ He assisted Syrian rulers for over 30 years, serving as an instructor on torture techniques, combating internal dissent, and purging Syria’s Jewish community.
In 1976 Sunni groups – including the Muslim Brotherhood (from which sprang the PLO, Hamas, al Qa’eda, al Nusra and HTS) – led an armed uprising against the Assad government. In order to eliminate the small Muslim Brotherhood group hiding in the Syrian city of Hama, Assad send his brother General Rifaat al-Assad to destroy the entire city. Rifaat sealed off the entire city; all electricity and food supplies were halted. Syrian military shelled and bombed the city; tanks demolished most of the Old City; hydrogen cyanide was used by troops against the civilian population. Diesel fuel was pumped into underground tunnels and then ignited. Rifaat stated that 38,000 Syrians will killed, while the Syrian Human Rights Committee puts the number at 40,000. Over 15,000 residents have never been located, and 100,000 were expelled from Hama. Mass torture and rape were reported as being commonplace.
Syrian civilian protests against Ba’athist rule in March 2011 during the Arab Spring riots led to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. Forces rebelling against Assad received military support from Turkey, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates fought against the Syrian Army. Assad’s forces, on the other hand, received support from Iran and Russia. The regional capitals of Raqqa and Idlib were captured by the rebels, but Iran and Russia intervened militarily, crushing rebel gains. In 2014, Da’esh or the Islamic State fought and defeated both rebels and the Syrian government in many areas, seizing large parts of Eastern Syria and Western Iraq. In October 2014 the U.S. led an international coalition – the Combined Joint Task Force, in Operation Inherent Resolve, with the aim of degrading and destroying the Islamic State group. The coalition ended its combat mission in Iraq in December 2021.
In November 2024, a major rebel offensive was spearheaded by the jihadi and Salafi HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham; see above) in tandem with the Syrian National Army (supported by Turkey, Qatar, Azerbaijan). They fought against and defeated Syrian government forces bolstered by Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Hezbollah. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Free Army (both U.S. supported) launched their own offensives against Assad’s armies in Deir ez-Zour and Tadmor respectively, participating in the battle for Damascus. On December 8 2024, Damascus was taken, with Syria’s Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali officially handing over the reins of power to the rebel armies.
- Part Two of this three-part newsletter will unpack background about HTS; what their Islamist belief system and strategies are; and what are Israel’s strategy and moves on the ground within Syria as HTS forces move closer to the border with the Jewish state.
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation and courage to be given to Israel’s leaders in political, intelligence and military spheres – to understand and counteract 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
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