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, 3rd 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
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