What will the Jewish people’s acceptance of Yeshua result in but life from the dead?
(Romans 11:15)
Make war, not love
The Woodstock Generation had many buzzwords and pet phrases such as “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” “Go with the flow,” and “Make love not war.” At the same time, a simmering spirit of rebellion and violent revolution played at the edges of hippiedom. Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers of America”, Neil Young’s “Ohio,” and MC5’s “Kick out the jams” painted a vision of America burning, beset by internal revolution. The Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” and the Beatles’ “Revolution” took a step back from the brink, lowering the rhetoric and letting off steam in more quixotic ways.
Right now the Middle East is going through epileptic convulsions. Sunni jihadi armies are sweeping like a black cloud across Syria, Iraq and Africa, while Shi’ite terror armies are stretching their bony green fingers across Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Over 200,000 people have died in these recent outbreaks of hostility. Both Saudi Arabia and Jordan have moved their armies to their borders with Iraq and are on hair-trigger alert.
At the same time Hamas (in Arabic, Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiyya, or ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’; http://davidstent.com/hurtling-through-the-fog-of-war-a-messianic-perspective-on-the-new-hamastan/) has kicked off a third military campaign, (2006 – http://davidstent.com/the-coming-war-with-hamas/; 2012 – http://davidstent.com/category/hamas/page/2/), targeting over half of Israel’s residents with short and long-range rockets.
As world media zooms in on the developing war, we need accurate facts, clear context and biblical perspective. And how can we pray for the situation with biblical compassion and wisdom?
The bombs bursting in air
On Saturday Hamas upped the military ante, firing barrages totaling over 100 rockets at major Israeli cities. They threatened to unleash a new type of rocket called the J80, notifying Israeli TV to make sure that cameras were focused on Tel Aviv at 21:00 hours. Six rockets were fired and all were shot down by the Iron Dome system with no injuries. Saturday night three Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Western Galilee by Palestinian Lebanese fighters also with no injuries.
Ø The amazing lack of injuries is a sign of God’s protection and the ongoing prayers of the saints, because Hamas is trying its hardest to wound and kill Israeli civilians. Keep praying for continued protection!
Military intelligence estimates that Hamas still has over 7,000 short-range rockets and over 200 long-range rockets stored in residential homes, hospitals, mosques and schools throughout Gaza – as was the case in 2006 and 2012. It is impossible to destroy these inventories without causing extensive collateral damage. As a result, last night the IDF began to communicate with residents of northern Gaza by leaflet, phone calls and text messages, warning them to vacate specific areas by noon Sunday or face potential damage or death. Sunday afternoon will see intensive pinpoint bombing of Hamas’ northern Gaza rocket bunkers.
Escalation mostly from the air
As of 23:30 Saturday night The Israel Air Force (IAF) intensified its bombing of terror command-and-control centers, rocket launchers and rocket bunkers – by jet, helicopter and by IDF artillery from outside the Gaza Strip. A Shayetet 13 (Israeli Navy Seals) team was inserted into the northern Gaza Strip before dawn to take out rocket launchers near Sudaniye.
As well, Hamas public and political leaders’ homes are being targeted, though these leaders have long since gone to ground, hiding in a rat’s warren of underground tunnels that would have made the Viet Cong proud. World media have reported that some of Hamas former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s nephews were killed in a bombing attack, though without giving vital context – that the main target was jihadi Nidal al-Malash (https://mobile.twitter.com/KhaledAbuToameh/status/487949076697083905/photo/1) – leader of a Hamas rocket squad division.
World media is casting an anti-Israel spin on such casualties. They are actually following Hamas’s posted guidelines on how best to inflict maximum propaganda damage on Israel by selective media spin (www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-warns-residents-against-revealing-downtown-gaza-launches/;www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-11/is-hamas-trying-to-get-gazans-killed).
But former Hamas PM Haniyeh blows away the fog of war with unapologetic and fighting words. Describing Hamas’ jihadi warriors (which include his own nephews) he said on January 13, 2014, “Beware of this generation. This is a generation which knows no fear. It is the generation of the missile, the tunnel and suicide attacks.” Hamas is not a peace-seeking group.
“Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition” (Bob Dylan)
To get the UN Security Council to agree on censures is like pulling teeth. Whether it be Ukraine, Georgia, Sudan, North Korea, Syria, al-Nusra, ISIL/ISIS – the “world’s moral conscience” slowly lowers its head and slowly mosies on in all the above cases. When Christians are tortured, raped and murdered in Syria, Iraq or Iran, or when similar massacres happen to Shi’ites or Sunnis in Iraq, the U.N. is silent. However, when Israel defends itself from Hamas’ jihadi madness as, world censure and Security Council and General Assembly resolutions are passed in a jiffy. Hypocrisy combined with anti-Semitism is the order of the day in international relations – as prophesied in Psalm 2:1-3).
Ø Pray for wisdom for the leaders of your own country (Psalm 2:10-12) that they will make righteous and true choices regarding the enemy’s attacks on the Jewish people and their state
For an in-your-face challenge regarding world hypocrisy and anti-Semitism, watch the biting British commentary by Pat Condell entitled “Why I support Israel” – www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHC8KC5cLs8&feature=youtube_gdata_player.
Why is Hamas doing this?
Western minds find it difficult to understand why Hamas would provoke a fight with Israel when they are bound to take a whipping militarily. The answers have to do both with political strategy (http://m.nationalreview.com/article/382477/why-does-hamas-want-war-daniel-pipes) and with spiritual dynamics.
From a spiritual point of view, Hamas is committed to endless jihad against Israel. Its Islamist charter (www.acpr.org.il/resources/hamascharter.html) states bluntly that it will never cease from violent jihad against Israel until the Jewish state is destroyed. As a result, there is no peace treaty that can be established with Hamas. It is a fight to the death:
Ø “The Platform of The Islamic Resistance Movement (ed., Hamas): Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.
Ø “The Islamic Resistance Movement…join(s) its hands with those of all Jihad fighters for the purpose of liberating Palestine … Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave…until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails” (Introduction).
Ø “The Islamic Resistance Movement (ed., Hamas) draws its guidelines from Islam” (Article #1).
Ø “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin)…the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era” (Article #2).
Ø “The Islamic Resistance Movement…has raised the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors in order to extricate the country and the people from the (oppressors’) desecration, filth and evil” (Article #3).
Ø “The Islamic Resistance Movement…strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” (Article #6).
Ø “Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree’ (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)” (Article #7).
Ø “Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief (ed. this is also the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood)” (Article #8 – The Slogan of the Hamas).
Ø “The land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf (ed. irrevocably Islamic land, never to be owned again by non-Muslims) throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection. No one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President…has that right … This is the status (of the land) in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force … Any demarche in violation of this law of Islam, with regard to Palestine, is baseless” (Article #11).
Ø “Nothing is loftier or deeper in nationalism than waging Jihad against the enemy and confronting him when he sets foot on the land of the Muslims. And this becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman” (Article #12).
Ø “(Peace) initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement … From time to time a clamoring is voiced to hold an International Conference in search for a solution to the problem … The Islamic Resistance Movement…does not believe that those conferences are capable of responding to demands, or of restoring rights or doing justice to the oppressed . . . Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the nonbelievers as arbitrators in the lands of Islam … There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility” (Article #13).
Ø “In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad … We must imprint on the minds of generations of Muslims that the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise. ‘I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill’ (told by Bukhari and Muslim)” (Article #15).
Ø “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims” (Article #28).
For more insight into the geo-political ramifications of these teachings, see former CIA DCI James Woolsey’s address at the Restoration Weekend conference in 2002 (http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21031 ).
A cup of cold water
While Hamas rockets are landing over major sections of Israel, their operators have also accidentally targeted Arab areas – including an Arab village in the Gush Etzion area, the Arab city of Hebron, and Ramallah.
Simultaneously, as rocket fire continues, Israel is supplying its enemies in Gaza with over 200 trucks containing 1,998 tons of food, 9 trucks of medicine, 759,000 liters of fuel, and an uninterrupted supply of electricity. This same electricity also runs Hamas’ weapons factories. This is indeed a Twilight Zone scenario.
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning coals on his head,and YHVH will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21-22). It is challenging to consider that the Jewish state is acting in a more “turn the other cheek” with Gaza, than many so-called Christian countries do in their international dealings.
Gandhi, Britain, Hitler and Hamas
In 1940 the Indian advocate of non-violence Mahatma Gandhi wrote an open letter “To Every Briton” offering his sage advice to Winston Churchill, the Queen and everyone in between on how to deal with the Nazi menace:
“I hope you do not wish to enter into such an undignified competition with the Nazis. I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them. This process or method, which I have called non-violent non-co-operation, is not without considerable success in its use in India. Your representatives in India may deny my claim. If they do, I shall feel sorry for them” (Open letter, “To Every Briton”, New Delhi [2 July 1940]; published in Harijan [6 July 1940]; www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945851/posts).
In many senses, this is the position held by the U.N., the E.U., the Quartet and its smiling envoy Tony Blair, and even some in the State Department. Thankfully, Mahatma Gandhi’s free advice was not followed by the Allies in WWII. Otherwise no Jewish people would have ever survived the Holocaust. Israel is in no mood to repeat colossal foolishness and follow such frivolous and disastrous counsel in our day.
Ø Pray for Israel’s leaders to receive revelation and resolve from YHVH Lord of the battle to do all that is needed to protect and defend the Jewish state and all of its citizens.
Wisdom from Germany
Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz is the recognized master of military strategists. In his magnum opus Vom Kriege (On War;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War, Clausewitz sated some salient points worth remembering here:
Ø “Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed. War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst” (Book I, Chapter 1, Section 3, Paragraph 1).
Ø “We see, therefore, that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means (In laymen’s terms, he is saying that war is merely the continuation of politics by other means. War is an act of violence to compel our enemy to fulfil our will). (Book I, Chapter I, Paragraph 2).
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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