Planet Earth is picking up speed – if not in rate of rotation, then certainly in spiritual polarization. Good and bad, light and darkness, God and Satan – each one is coming more sharply into focus. And once again, the crucible of this process revolves around God’s penultimate end-time strategy – the Jewish people, their biblical calling and their ancient land.
2009 has seen the budding of a new and virulent virus totally unrelated to swine flu. The plague of anti-Semitism is spreading rapidly across the globe, and this contagion has found new worlds to conquer. It is safe to assume that the UN will never classify this spiritual disease as a Level 6 pandemic.
The American newspaperwoman Ann Landers popularized the proverb “Wake up and smell the coffee!” meaning “take a good hard look at the facts.” Here’s the wake-up call – we have stepped through the doorway of time and have come face to face with a resurrected swastika.
Hitler Redux
John Updike coined the term “Rabbit Redux,” from the ancient Latin verb reducere, meaning “reborn” or “restored.” What is happening right now is “Hitler Redux” in two parts –
- part one, the restoration of a virulent hatred of the Jewish people and their state;
- part two – open and brazen genocidal strategies aimed at obliterating the people of Israel.
Attacks in the media
Anti-Semitic forces have been gradually increasing their bandwidth over the past few years. Anti-Jewish/Israeli cartoons in Middle Eastern newspapers (and even in the US – www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=760) are once again using techniques honed by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm) to turn the hearts of many peoples toward hatred of God’s chosen people.
Over the past few years, books and articles suggesting that Jews are controlling Western governments policies regarding Israel have surfaced and generated a marked increase in the anti-Semitic nature of the debate concerning the Jewish state (see especially www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=189&x_article=1105;
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401282.html).
During the Nazi period, Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels made extensive use of media attacks on the Jewish people in his national radio addresses (www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb1.htm). His goal was to change public opinion and prepare the masses for harsher techniques soon to come.
Physical attacks on the street
Physical attacks against Jews in general and Israelis in particular have recently become commonplace again throughout Europe, and are growing in North America. One outstanding example concerns the kidnapping, torture and murder of French Jewish 23-year-old Ilan Halimi in 2006, just now coming to trial in France (www.nysun.com/foreign/tale-of-torture-and-murder-horrifies-the-whole/27948/ ; www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=5309).
A huge jump in anti-Jewish/Israeli attacks was noted during the recent Israeli counter-terrorism Operation Cast Lead against Hamas rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip (January 2009). Violent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations of thousands coupled with murderous attacks against Jewish people and Israeli embassies throughout Europe, Britain and Asia have racked up world anti-Semitism to unprecedented levels.
One of the marks of the rise of Nazism in Germany was patrols of SA (Sturmabteilung) Brownshirts who would often beat up Jewish pedestrians and vandalize businesses. These “random” acts prepared the social climate for acceptance of more drastic measures.
Attacks in international forums
In our day the anti-Semitic stewpot has been hotly peppered in an outstanding way by Iran. President Khatami has described Israel as “a plague” and “the greatest enemy of Islam and humanity” (August 9 1998).
Here are some recent quotes from Iranian President Ahmedinejad:
- Israel is “the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime … The reason for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned and this regime is on its way to annihilation … (Israel) has reached the end like a dead rat” (May 8 2008).
- “The Zionists and their protectors are the most detested people in all of humanity, and the hatred is increasing every day.” (July 13, 2006, Iranian State TV; http://80.179.148.196/eng/Mahmoud%20Ahmadinejad)
- President Ahmedinejad denied the reality of the Holocaust and described Israel as a “most cruel and repressive racist regime” (April 20 2009; www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=31653).
The use of public attacks on the Jewish people in international forums was a trademark of the Nazi regime, as described in Jeffrey Herf’s “The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust.”
Calls for boycotts against Jews
Attempted boycotts against Israel have become daily news. Whether it be Scottish or South African trade unions (www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865408.html), British Muslims, academics or liberal churchmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_political_boycotts_of_Israel), the use of boycotts to isolate and do damage to the Jewish state is alive and well on Planet Earth.
Once again, note the eerie parallels to early Nazi boycotts of Jewish stores and businesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_boycott_of_Jewish_businesses;www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/angrif10.htm). Hitlerian tactics have risen from the ash heap of history.
Calls for genocide against Jews
Addressing the opening of the “Support for the Palestinian Intifada” conference in Teheran on April 14, 2006 President Ahmedinejad declared, “The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat. Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm.”
On a recent Middle Eastern television program, the Iranian announcer said, “Nothing can prevent Iranian missiles from targeting the heart of Israel, if Iran is subjected to a military strike by Israel.” General Ataollah Salehi, General Commander of the Iranian army then stated, “The truth is that Israel does not have the courage to attack us. If we are subjected to any attack by Israel, I do not think we will need more than 11 days to wipe Israel out of existence.” (LBC TV, May 3 2009; www.memritv.org/clip/en/2099.htm).
A stark parallel to Nazi thought and expression can be drawn. On January 30 1939 Hitler addressed the German Reichstag (Parliament) and declared, “I want once again to be a prophet. If the international Finance-Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples of the earth once again into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of earth, and thus a Jewish victory, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe” (www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_fi.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005175&MediaId=3108).
When economic fears and uncertainties attempt to find refuge in creating and destroying a Jewish scapegoat, it can be stated with certainty that the spirit of the swastika is once again at work.
“When You Gonna Wake Up?”
Back in 1979, Bob Dylan was singing passionately about his newfound Messiah. He gave the world rock poems like “When You Gonna Wake Up?” Quoting from God’s prophetic exhortation in the Book of Revelation to Turkish believers in Sardis, Dylan sang, “When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?”
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you” (Revelation 3:1-3).
Ever the Poet, YHVH describes many of the believers in Sardis as “dead or mostly dead” (to paraphrase Billy Crystal’s Miracle Max in Princess Bride). Though some in Asia Minor thought of this group of early Christians as being cutting-edge, Yeshua describes them as asleep at the wheel, about to die, lacking significant pieces of the puzzle, and in need of radical repentance. And He enscripturated this rebuke for all believers of all ages to chew on.
Snoring in the spirit, blissfully unaware that the Lord is about to move – these characteristics could also apply to many in our day.
Even as we speak, menacing and malignant decisions are being taken by world leaders a la Psalm 2 and Psalm 83 – judgments about the Jewish people and their state, which will incur earth-shaking judgment from on high.
The horror and terror of anti-Semitism has once again popped its leering, many-headed countenance out of the Middle-eastern genie bottle and is rapidly wrapping its wraithlike arms around East and West alike.
“The Lord whom we seek” is about to come suddenly, as a thief in the night.
“Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with Him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed” (Rev.16:15).
Prayer arrows
The grooming of world anti-Semitism is a well-aged Satanic strategy. Here are a few prayer guidelines:
- Repent for whatever anti-Semitic theology and behavior is still found within the leadership of Christian denominations, among governmental leaders and advisors, and in the hearts of influential business leaders. Ask for repentance to be granted to these leaders.
- Pray that God would give these men and women His perspectives, His eyes and a renewed heart for the Jewish people and their state.
- Pray that God would give you solid strategies on how to respond, prepare and react to increasing waves of anti-Semitism. Strategies would include:
- intercession for Israel’s preservation and salvation;
- freedom and anointing for the communication of the good news of Yeshua to His own Jewish people;
- preparations for a worldwide underground railroad a la Harriet Tubman, to hide and move persecuted Jewish people back to their homeland (see Isaiah 27:12-13).
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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