Praying for the Middle East

A CBN Jerusalem Dateline Blog

http://blogs.cbn.com/jerusalemdateline/archive/2011/01/29/praying-for-the-middle-east.aspx

The events throughout the Middle East, and especially in Egypt, are sending shock waves throughout the world. The impact is being felt politically and economically around the world. It’s affecting oil prices, stability in the Middle East, and the security of Israel.

But how are some Christians in this part of the world responding to these events? It’s driving many to their knees and to the Bible. Many site these scriptures, in I Timothy 2:1-6, as one of the Apostle Paul’s most fervent exhortations to pray for events like the ones we’re seeing unfold in Egypt today:

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.”

It might surprise you that there is a formative prayer movement in Egypt with a number of “houses of prayer.” There’s also a nascent move of young Egyptians – former Muslims – coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Rick Ridings, with Succat Hallel, mentions those phenomena in this YouTube posting.

Here’s another excerpt from another Middle Eastern house of prayer. It sums up some of the pressing prayer requests some in the Middle East are sending out:

“Pray for Egypt, Gaza, Yemen and Tunisia – cover the Middle East! Lebanon is also in a government upheaval adding to the tensions of the region. Pray that the Lord would direct the outcome of these riots. (Ps. 75:7 – But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another)”

There is also a danger to Israel in that it could potentially find itself sandwiched between two radical Islamic regimes should more radical elements prevail and overthrow Mubarak.

- Pray that the Lord establish the leadership of His choice in Egypt.

- Pray for the Egyptian people that they would call upon the name of the Lord in the midst of this turmoil and be saved.

- Pray for the Coptic Christians in Egypt. Pray for their safety.

- Pray that this violence does not spill over into Israel. Pray for the government of Israel to hear the LORD. Islamic governments often tend to blame Israel and the Jewish people as being the root cause of their problems.

Some of our Christian Arab friends feel that the Middle East is on fire spiritually and God is about to manifest powerfully.”

It’s worth remembering too that the Bible talks about a future time when the entire Middle East from Egypt to Assyria (modern day Iraq) will enjoy tranquility. Many here in the Middle East are praying for the fulfillment of these verses in Isaiah 19:23-25:

“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

And of course, many are praying for what Psalm 122:6 says:

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure.”

Texas Senator Takes Action to Support Israel

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137987#replies
by Hana Levi Julian

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tx) has proposed a resolution supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and condemning last week’s actions by the Turkish-sent six-ship flotilla that wanted to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

The text is blunt in condemning Hamas for rejecting Israel’s right to exist, for its “human rights abuses” against its own citizens in Gaza, and for its opposition to peace efforts in the region. It also condemns Iran for supporting Hamas.

Moreover, the measure urges Turkey – which funded the flotilla and whose Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan is now threatening to personally join the next one – to “recognize the importance of continued strong relations with Israel.” The bill also expresses American lawmakers’ “profound disappointment with the counterproductive actions of the United Nations regarding this incident.”   …READ THE REST OF THIS STORY

No way home: The tragedy of the Palestinian diaspora

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/no-way-home-the-tragedy-of-the-palestinian-diaspora-1806790.html

You might think Palestinian refugees would be welcomed by their Arab neighbours, yet they are denied basic rights and citizenship
A special report by Judith Miller and David Samuels
Thursday, 22 October 2009

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/no-way-home-the-tragedy-of-the-palestinian-diaspora-1806790.html
Please follow the link to read the entire article.  This is important information for prayer and understanding but I cannot re-post it.

 

PRAY FOR THE LEADERS OF ISRAEL- by Joel Rosenberg

To visit Joel’s weblog site and get the latest developments in Israel, Iraq and the epicenter — including the latest on Netanyahu’s efforts to form a new government in Israel and an analysis of the U.S. economic crisis in light of Bible prophecy — please click here

 

The big question in Israel right now is this: Will Ehud Barak join Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to form a government that can and will defend Israel from the apocalyptic ayatollahs in Iran?

Netanyahu has said from the beginning that he wants a broad, “unity” government rather than a narrow, partisan one. He believes that he made a mistake in 1996 not asking Labor Party leader Shimon Peres not to join his government. So now he’s going the extra mile to invite Labor’s current leader onto the team. Privately, he has offered Barak the opportunity to stay on as Defense Minister, and has offered key positions to other members of Labor.

Personally, I hope Barak says yes, not for partisan political reasons but to unify the country in the face of the threat of Radical Islam. I met Barak once at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and I have come to like him. True, he was not an effective Prime Minister. In 2000, he made a serious error of judgment. He gave away southern Lebanon for nothing. In 2006, Israel paid for that error, receiving 4,000 rockets and missiles from Hezbollah as a “thank you” present. Political leadership has not been Barak’s strong suit. Still, he was an amazing general – one of the most decorated in Israel’s modern history. He helped rebuild the IDF after the 2006 debacle (which he was not in government for) and led a brilliant campaign into Gaza in January (which PM Olmert ended too quickly). Most importantly, Barak understands the Islamic revolution. He understands the existential threat Israel faces now from the ayatollahs in Iran who are feverishly trying to acquire or build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Bibi could really use him at his side.

The challenge: the Labor Party’s rank and file membership – as well as some of its top officials – can’t stand Netanyahu. The party is filled will “ABBs” – people who want “Anybody But Bibi” to lead Israel. So it’s not clear by any means that Barak can persuade Labor to accept Netanyahu’s generous offer. What has become clear in the last 24 hours that Barak wants to accept Bibi’s offer. To his credit, I believe he sees it as his patriotic duty, not a matter of partisan politics. He knows the future of his country is on the line, and like the good soldier he has always been, Barak wants to suit up and help.

Please pray faithfully for Messrs. Netanyahu, Barak and their advisors. Pray for wisdom. Pray for unity. Pray for clear vision and courage to do the right thing. The deadline to submit the final coalition is Sunday at 3pm local time. Netanyahu could ask for a two week extension, but he has indicated he does not want to. Let’s pray he can finalize a broad, stable, “unity” government quickly and get on with the urgent business of governing right away. Time is short and the stakes are high. 

 

 

Israel’s Elections – Pray for Mercy

 Today, Israel will elect their new Prime Minister and government. As the “experts” are busy predicting the outcome, we need to focus on praying for God’s will and purpose to be accomplished. Scriptures tell us that righteousness will arise from Jerusalem. Instead we see rampant selfishness, appeasement and apathy from government, candidates and the public. Pray that Israelis will overcome their apathy, take responsibility, and vote wisely according to God’s will, rather than sitting home and then complaining about the results. World crisis and threats dictate that it is the hand of God and His wisdom that is needed in this hour to overcome evil that is bent on destruction. Pray for God’s mercy. His mighty right arm is able to save and intervene. He has set the times and the seasons and they cannot be changed by any force set against Him or His people.

Below is an article by Caroline Glick which gives a candid assessment of the elections:

February 07, 2009

Israel’s Fateful Elections    By Caroline Glick
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/israels_fateful_elections.html

Tuesday’s general elections will officially end the briefest and most nonchalant electoral season Israel has ever experienced. Regrettably, the importance of these elections is inversely proportional to their lack of intensity. These are the most fateful elections Israel has ever had. The events of the past week make this point clearly.

On Monday Iran successfully launched a domestically manufactured satellite on a ballistic missile called the Safir-2 space rocket. Since the launch, experts have noted that the Safir-2 can also be used to launch conventional and nonconventional warheads. The Safir-2 has an estimated range of 2,000-3,000 kilometers. And so the successful satellite launch showed that today Iran is capable of launching missiles not only against Israel, but against southern Europe as well.

Many Israeli leaders viewed Monday’s launch as a “gotcha” moment. For years they have been saying that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to global security – not merely to Israel’s. And Monday’s launch demonstrated that they were right all along. Israel isn’t the only country on Iran’s target list.

Unfortunately for Israel, the international community couldn’t care less. Its response to Teheran’s latest provocation was to collectively shrug its shoulders.

On Wednesday emissaries of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany convened in Wiesbaden, Germany, to discuss their joint policies toward Iran in the aftermath of the satellite launch. Some Israelis argued that Iran’s provocation forced these leaders’ hands. Their reputations for toughness were on the line. They would have to do something.

Unfortunately for Israel, the emissaries of Russia, Britain, China, France, Germany and the US are more interested in convincing the mullahs that they are nice than in convincing them that they are tough.

Far from deciding to take concerted action against Iran, the great powers did nothing more than wish the Obama administration good luck as it moves to directly engage the mullahs. As their post-conference press release put it, the six governments’ answer to Teheran’s show of force was to “agree to consult on the next steps as the US administration undertakes its [Iranian] policy review.”

As President Barak Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have explained, the US is reviewing its policy toward Iran in the hopes of finding a way to directly engage the Iranian government. While they claim that the aim of these sought after direct negotiations will be to convince the mullahs to give up their nuclear weapons program, since taking office the new administration has sent out strong signals that preventing Iran from going nuclear has taken a backseat to simply holding negotiations with Teheran.

According to a report in Aviation News, last week the US Navy prevented Israel from seizing an Iranian weapons ship in the Red Sea suspected of carrying illicit munitions bound for either Gaza or Lebanon. A week and a half ago, the US Navy boarded the ship in the Gulf of Aden and carried out a cursory inspection. It demurred from seizing the ship, however, because, as Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained on January 27, the US believed it had no international legal right to seize the vessel.

In inspecting the ship the US was operating under UN Security Council Resolution 1747, which bars Iran from exporting arms. The US argued that it lacked authority to seize the ship because 1747 has no enforcement mechanism. Yet the fact of the matter is that if the US were truly interested in intercepting the ship and preventing the arms from arriving at their destination, the language of 1747 is vague enough to support such a seizure.

And that’s the point. The US was uninterested in seizing the ship because it was uninterested in provoking a confrontation with Teheran, which it seeks to engage. It was not due to lack of legal authority that the US reportedly prevented the Israel Navy from seizing the ship in the Red Sea, but due to the administration’s fervent wish to appease the mullahs.

Today the ship, which was sailing under a Cypriot flag, is docked in the Port of Limassol. Cypriot authorities have reportedly inspected the ship twice, have communicated their findings to the Security Council, and are still waiting for guidance on how to deal with the ship.

ALL OF this brings us back to next Tuesday’s elections. With the US effectively giving up on confronting Iran, the entire burden for blocking Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons falls on Israel’s shoulders.

This means that the most important question that Israeli voters must ask ourselves between now and Tuesday is which leader and which party are most capable of achieving this vital goal?

All we need to do to answer this question is to check what our leaders have done in recent years to bring attention to the Iranian threat and to build coalitions to contend with it.

In late 2006, citing the Iranian nuclear menace, Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman joined the Olmert government where he received the tailor-made title of strategic affairs minister. At the time Lieberman joined the cabinet, the public outcry against the government for its failure to lead Israel to victory in the war with Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hizbullah had reached a fever pitch. The smell of new elections was in the air as members of Knesset from all parties came under enormous public pressure to vote no confidence in the government.

By joining the government when he did, Lieberman single-handedly kept the Olmert government in power. Explaining his move, Lieberman claimed that the danger emanating from Iran’s nuclear program was so great that Israel could not afford new elections.

But what did he accomplish by saving the government by taking that job? The short answer is nothing. Not only did his presence in the government make no impact on Israel’s effectiveness in dealing with Iran, it prolonged the lifespan of a government that had no interest in forming a strategy for contending with Iran by two years.

In light of this fact, perhaps more than any other Israeli politician, Lieberman is to blame for the fact that Israel finds itself today with no allies in its hour of greatest peril. Had he allowed the people to elect more competent leaders in the fall of 2006, we might have been able to take advantage of the waning years of the Bush administration to convince the US to work with us against Iran.

Then there is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. If Lieberman was the chief enabler of Israel’s incompetent bungling of the Iranian threat, as Israel’s chief diplomat, it is Livni – together with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – who deserves the greatest condemnation for that bungling.

Throughout her tenure as foreign minister and still today as Kadima’s candidate for prime minister, Livni claims that she supports using diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But in her three years as Israel’s top diplomat, Livni never launched any diplomatic initiative aimed at achieving this goal. In fact, she has never even publicly criticized the European and American attempts to appease the mullahs.

Livni has remained silent for three years even though it has been clear for five years that the West’s attempts to cut a deal with Teheran serve no purpose other than to provide the Iranians time to develop their nuclear arsenal. She has played along with the Americans and the Europeans and cheered them on as they passed toothless resolutions against Iran in the Security Council which – as the Iranian weapons ship docked in Cyprus shows – they never had the slightest intention of enforcing.

As for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as a member of the Olmert government, his main personal failure has been his inability to convince the Pentagon to approve Israel’s requests to purchase refueling jets and bunker buster bomb kits, and to permit Israeli jets to fly over Iraqi airspace. To achieve these aims, Barak could have turned to Israel’s friends in the US military and in Congress. But he did no such thing. And now, moving into the Obama administration, Israel finds itself with fewer and fewer allies in Washington’s security community.

For the past several years, only one political leader in Israel has had the foresight and wisdom to both understand the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and to understand the basis for an Israeli diplomatic approach to contending with the threat that can serve the country’s purposes regardless of whether or not at the end of the day, Israel is compelled to act alone.

In 2006, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu took it upon himself to engage the American people in a discussion of the danger Iran poses not only to Israel but to the world as a whole. In late 2006, he began meeting with key US governors and state politicians to convince them to divest their state employees’ pension funds from companies that do business with Iran. This initiative and complementary efforts by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy convinced dozens of state legislatures to pass laws divesting their pension funds from companies that do business with Iran.

Netanyahu also strongly backed the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs’ initiative to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an international war criminal for inciting genocide. Both the divestment campaign and the campaign against Ahmadinejad have been Israel’s most successful public diplomacy efforts in contending with Iran. More than anything done by the government, these initiatives made Americans aware of the Iranian nuclear threat and so forced the issue onto the agendas of all the presidential candidates.

Instead of supporting Netanyahu’s efforts, Livni, Barak and Lieberman have disparaged them or ignored them.

Because he is the only leader who has done anything significant to fight Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu is the only national leader who has the international credibility to be believed when he says – as he did this week – that Israel will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Likud under Netanyahu is the only party that has consistently drawn the connection between Iran, its Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Afghan terror proxies, its Syrian client state and its nuclear weapons program, and made fighting this axis the guiding principle of its national security strategy.

GIVEN THE US-led international community’s decision not to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it is clear that in the coming months Israel will need to do two things. It will need to put the nations of the world on notice that they cannot expect us to stand by idly as they welcome Iran into the nuclear club. And Israel will need to prepare plans to strike Iran’s nuclear installations without America’s support.

More than ever before, Israel requires leaders who understand the gravity of the hour and are capable of acting swiftly and wisely to safeguard our country from destruction. Only Netanyahu and Likud have a credible track record on this subject.

For the sake of our country, our nation and our posterity, it is our responsibility to consider this fact when we enter the voting booths on Tuesday.

War With Hamas – Day Twenty-Two and Unilateral Cease-Fire

This report contains details of Saturday and Sunday’s events, a brief analysis, and specific prayer requests.

 

Ø  The Israeli cabinet declares a unilateral cease-fire late Saturday evening

Ø  22 Hamas rockets and mortar attacks after Israeli cease-fire declaration

Ø  IDF begins partial redeployment Sunday afternoon

Ø  On Sunday afternoon Hamas announces gradual cease-fire

Ø  Majority of Israelis opposed to cease-fire

Ø  Double press conferences of 6 European leaders (Sharm eh-Sheikh, Jerusalem)

Ø  The Obama factor

 

Background to the present hostilities

 

Hamas or ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’ (for deeper background on Hamas and all archived newsletters on the war see www.davidstent.org, under “words”, newsletters February 2006, June 2007) is linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, a world jihadi group ideologically connected to Osama Bin Laden.  Hamas has fired over 10,000 rockets and mortars against civilian targets in Israel over the past 8 years. Sporadic firing of rockets against Israel continued during a recent temporary “cessation of hostilities”, and that season was used by Hamas to build up forces and weaponry in preparation for the present continued attacks on Israel.

 

On December 19 2008 Hamas refused to extend even that partial cease-fire and began intensive rocketing Israeli kibbutzim, towns and cities on the average of 40-50 attacks a day. On Saturday December 27 Israel Air Force jets attacked Hamas forces in Gaza, finally responding to years of Hamas rocket attacks. On January 3 2009 a land invasion of Gaza was initiated.

 

IDF activity

 

Throughout Saturday IAF planes bombed 100 smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egyptian border, as well as targets throughout the Strip. Firefights between IDF and Hamas gunmen erupted throughout Gaza. Booby-trapped buildings and homes were disarmed or blown up by IDF sappers.

 

On Sunday 170 truckloads of humanitarian aid (including fuel, food and medicine) were allowed through IDF checkpoints from Israel into Gaza.

 

Unilateral Israeli cease-fire

 

Just after 2300 Saturday night Prime Minister Olmert announced that the cabinet had authorized a unilateral cease-fire, which would come into effect on Sunday at 0200.

 

Olmert said, “Our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so”. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “We’ve met our military objectives”. On Sunday morning Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi added “The objectives set for the operation have been achieved in full”.

 

Fine-print on the cease-fire

 

There are some troubling aspects to this cease-fire which are not being emphasized in the news.

 

PM Olmert added, “This is not a ceasefire with Hamas … These understandings do not guarantee a ceasefire of Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israeli civilians”.

 

DM Barak said, “Hamas may fire at (IDF) forces and the home front”.

 

Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said, “No-one expected (Hamas) to stop firing immediately after the ceasefire had gone into effect”.

 

C.O.S. Ashkenazi added, “We have created conditions to fundamentally change the security realities in southern Israel”. Note the fluid and amorphous (and extremely non-military!) definition that does not allow for clear or definable benchmarks in judging military success. No wonder; that strategic aim was devised by the cabinet and given to the IDF just prior to the Operation’s inception.

 

Hamas responses

 

Hamas’ immediate response to Olmert’s ceasefire declaration was to fire 22 rockets into Israel over the next 18 hours. Cities hit included Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheva, Kiryat Gat, Netivot and Sderot. IAF strikes took out some of these rocket launchers and cells.

 

Hamas released reports on Sunday morning that IDF choppers were firing on civilians near a Palestine Bank branch in Jabalya. These reports were immediately picked up by world media. Only later, after a few hours, did the facts come out: six hours after the Israeli ceasefire declaration, Hamas gunmen fired on IDF soldiers, who returned fire and called in tank and IAF reinforcements.

 

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan responded to the ceasefire with these words: “Either we hear what we want or the result will be continuing the confrontation”.

 

Abu Ubeida, Hamas spokesman for Izz ed-Din al-Qassam, stated “Do what you like, but the manufacturing of holy weapons is our goal. Bringing arms into Gaza is not smuggling. The natural situation would be for all Arab and Muslim countries, along with the rest of the free world, to formally allow weapons into the Strip… Meanwhile, we believe it is our right to bring arms in any way we find fit.”

 

Though Hamas had secretly communicated to Egypt that it would accept a ceasefire, Hamas sources declared with bluster, “Rocket fire is intended to send the message that we are the ones who decide when there is a ceasefire, not some unilateral decision in Israel”.

 

Ayman Tahu, Hamas spokesman in Cairo, declared at 1431 on Sunday that Hamas would accept a limited ceasefire: “Hamas and the factions announce a ceasefire in Gaza starting immediately and give Israel a week to withdraw.” From the tenor of these words it sounds like Hamas had pummeled Israel into submission and not vice-versa.

 

Gaza’s “victorious” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke from his secret bunker hidden under Shifa Hospital, declaring that “the enemy has failed to achieve his goals” and that Hamas had pulled off “a popular victory”. Hamas’ sponsor Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that “this is only the beginning of victory,” while Mushir al-Masri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza said “We are in a powerful, victorious position. Israel will soon learn that the balance of power has changed in Hamas’s favor.”

 

In an unintentionally dry comment on Sunday, Hamas sources added, “The Palestinian organizations have no intention of drawing IDF fire that could harm Palestinian populations”.  There might be some Gazans who are thankful that this statement was made although, since it came after a ceasefire and after 22 days of Hamas’ totally opposite strategic war policy which made use of Gazan civilians as human shields, it is probably a moot point.

 

David Horovitz, Editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, notes that Hamas will never “fundamentally change a mindset that emphatically places the destruction of Israel above the well-being of Palestinians”.

 

Egyptian responses

 

Egypt, like Johnny Cash, is trying to “walk the line” between scorning and yelling at Israel (on the one hand) and insisting that it is a viable peace partner with Israel and America (on the other hand); between placating Islamist popular forces which could overthrow or assassinate President Mubarak (on the one hand) and arresting and imprisoning Hamas’ sister organization in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood (on the other hand).

 

On Saturday Mubarak (who already had spoken with Israeli representatives and knew that Israel would declare a ceasefire within a few hours) proclaimed, “I demand Israel today stop its military operations immediately. I demand from its leaders an immediate and unconditional cease-fire and I demand from them a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip”.

 

On Sunday Egyptian security sources announced that they had detained 620 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest roundup of MBers in recent months. The arrests were due to pro-Hamas demonstrations and “membership in illegal organizations”. It seems that Mubarak considers the MB to be a threat to Egypt’s stability, but feels that Israel should not at all be heavy-handed in dealing with its own home-grown MB organization – Hamas.

 

At the Arab Economic Summit in Kuwait on Sunday, Mubarak spoke approvingly of Islamist armed resistance (to the State of Israel), saying “We support the right to resistance, but feel it should be responsible. We believe that resistance, like the decision to start a war, should be responsible, and should be subject to profit and loss calculations. There are factions that admit the balance of power leans very much in Israel’s favor, and it will take many years to reach a balance of power. Should the Palestinian people wait that long?”

 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit commented on the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Israel and the United States (which is supposed to impede Hamas smuggling of rockets through Egyptian territory) in these words: “We have no commitment towards this memo whatsoever”. The US and Israel can “do what they wish with regard to the sea or any other country in Africa, but when it comes to Egyptian land, we are not bound by anything except the safety and national security of the Egyptian people and Egypt’s ability to protect its borders”. Aboul Gheit reiterated that no weapons were being smuggled into Gaza from Egypt; he again stated that Hamas was rearming by sea. It seems that the Foreign Minister feels that the Israeli Navy is simply falling down on the job.

 

Aboul Gheit added that Israel is the main obstacle to an Egyptian sponsored peace, and that “Israeli intransigence” is due to that Jewish state being “drunk with power and violence”.

 

Israeli responses

 

A poll taken by the War and Peace Index after the first week of fighting showed that 90% of Jewish Israelis surveyed believed that this war should continue until it has achieved its goals – total cessation of rocket fire and terror attacks, and a total halt to smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Polls taken Sunday indicated that approximately 40% of Israelis are in favor of a ceasefire. This is due to the fact that the two main objectives listed by the cabinet were not totally achieved.

 

Knesset Member (MK) Avigdor Lieberman commented, “The Israeli people cannot live in peace while Hamas is in control of Gaza. Any armistice will surely be used by Hamas to prepare for the next conflict.” He stated that what was needed was “crushing Hamas’ motivation to fight us”; “Past experience shows us that ceasefires become deathtraps”.

 

SHABAK (Israeli FBI) Chief Yuval Diskin stated that “if Israel doesn’t deal with the problem of the Philadelphi route (ed., the smuggling tunnels), the situation will go back to the way it was within a number of months”.

 

MK Yuval Steinitz (former Chairman of the following Israeli Government Committees – Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee; Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services; and Joint Security Committee Between the Knesset and the US Congress) said, “I fear that the main objectives of the IDF operation in Gaza have not been met. It is not clear what mechanism will prevent the arms smuggling into Gaza or why we can rely on Egypt”.

 

Likud whip MK Gideon Sa’ar added; “We assume Hamas will continue to arm itself, and we will find ourselves in another conflict with the organization in the near future after it has obtained long-range rockets”.

 

The Jerusalem Post’s David Horovitz says that “a definitive result has not been achieved” in this war.

 

Former Prime Minister MK Bibi Netanyahu noted that “the IDF has dealt Hamas a severe blow, but unfortunately the job has not been completed. Hamas still controls Gaza and will continue to smuggle improved rockets through the Philadelphi route. We cannot show any weakness in the face of the Iranian-backed Hamas terror and must act with an iron fist to defeat the enemy”.

 

Televised interviews with two mothers whose sons were recently killed in Operation Cast Lead revealed that both mothers were opposed to stopping the operation, and both felt that their sons would have wanted the operation to continue until the rockets are stopped, Hamas control over Gaza is broken, and Staff-Sergeant Gilad Shalit (kidnapped by Hamas and held incommunicado for nearly 940 days) is freed.

 

An article in Yediot Aharonot (Israel’s leading Hebrew paper) noted that “many soldiers in the field” see the unilateral ceasefire as “a missed opportunity to crush Hamas”.  “We could have done a lot more. There’s a feeling the operation ended too early” said soldiers.

 

Avi Farhan, a resident of Sderot (who had been evacuated from Yamit in 1982 under PM Begin’s Camp David pullout, and again from Gaza in August 2005 under PM Sharon’s disengagement) commented, “We have witnessed a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and we’ve seen what has happened since then. Now they decide on a unilateral ceasefire with no one asking what part Egypt has played so far in the smuggling of all the weapons to the Gaza Strip. All we want and demand is to let the IDF win. We don’t want decisions to be made now for election considerations and other political considerations”.

 

European responses

 

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said, “Hamas must halt rocket attacks on Israel and the smuggling pf weapons into the Gaza Strip”.

 

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, UK PM Gordon Brown, Spanish Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi and Czech PM Mirek Topolánek all flew in for a whirlwind series of press conferences and photo opportunities at Sharm esh-Sheikh, Egypt and Jerusalem, Israel.

 

British PM Gordon Brown said, “We are prepared to provide British naval support to stop arms trafficking … At the same time, we’re prepared to provide European support for monitoring at the (Gaza-Egypt) crossings”. Considering that Hamas’ rockets enter Gaza by land through Sudan and Egypt, even the Royal Navy may find that assignment somewhat challenging.

 

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Walner declared that the “ceasefire should be followed by the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip”.  Would it have been too much to have hoped for some comment about peace being somehow connected to Hamas no longer attacking Israel?

 

France‘s Nicolas Sarkozy stated, “Israel should state immediately and clearly that if rocket fire will stop, the Israeli army will leave Gaza. There is no other solution to achieve peace.” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier added that “an international conference should be quickly organized” for launching “a dynamic for negotiations” on creating a Palestinian state. Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said that the Arab initiative for peace between the Palestinians and Israel is “not dead” but requires a new endorsement of the two-state solution from all parties involved.

 

Most Israelis do not think that now is a good time for peace, and that a continuing Hamas presence in Gaza will do nothing to aid tranquility in the region. And of course, from a biblical perspective, the dividing up of the land of Israel (as Blair and Sarkozy et al advocate) is a rather dangerous assignment for any world power to attempt.

 

The Obama factor

 

Having surveyed the significant glitches and strategic problems inherent in a unilateral ceasefire, one must ask what compelling reason might there be in favor of ending Operation Cast Lead so suddenly. The compelling reason is the calendar date of January 20 – the Inauguration Ceremony of President Barak Hussein Obama, soon the 44^th President of the United States of America.

 

According to senior Israeli cabinet officials, Israeli PM Olmert decided to withdraw from Gaza prior to the inauguration “as a gesture to the incoming President”, not wanting to “embarrass” President Obama as he takes office. These senior officials added that the cabinet reached its decision approving a unilateral ceasefire because political considerations began to outweigh the military considerations. As well,  intense international pressure to stop the fighting was brought to bear on Israel.

 

Ø  As we pray for the continued safety of Israel and the defeat of her enemies, we need to lift up Israel’s political and military leadership, asking for the God of Jacob to grant them courage, strength, clarity, discernment and revelation, and for the fear of God to triumph over the fear of man.

 

Riots and anti-Semitism

 

A Saturday demonstration in Paris organized by EuroPalestine brought 2,600 demonstrators marching towards the Israeli Embassy before they were stopped by the local gendarmerie. Israeli and US flags were burned, and for good measure the windows of a nearby McDonald’s were shattered. London, not to be outdone, witnessed the shattering of a local Starbucks shop window on January 10 in an anti-Israel demonstration. These two rather powerful examples of political activism spilling into pseudo-revolutionary violence find their common ground in pogrom-like anti-Semitism. An excellent and penetratingly prophetic piece of writing by Liat Collins of the Jerusalem Post is recommended to you in this regard (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232100170492&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull).

 

On Sunday, 200 violent Beirutis were stopped with water cannons and tear gas as they attempted to cut through the barbed wire perimeter surrounding the US Embassy.

 

Also on Sunday Indonesian Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir (founder of Islamist terror group Jemaah Islamiah – see www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ji.htm), called for a jihad against Israel in his sermon to 500 at a local mosque in Bekasi, east of Jakarta: “The war in Palestine isn’t a war between one country and another, it is a religious war. The Jews try to destroy Islam, and so Muslims must join, to fight in their own capacity”.

 

On Saturday a Berlin court struck down an administrative ban on demonstrators using Hamas flags, clothing and banners, but felt constrained to prohibit calls to murder Israeli or Jews at public demonstrations. Recent demonstrations in Germany have been marked by calls to “kill, kill Israelis”, “kill, kill Jews” and “Juden raus!” (“Jews out!”, a Nazi slogan). Though Hamas is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations (September 2003), freedom of speech for anti-Semites won the day in Berlin. 

 

In an article in the German Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger entitled “Vom Wegsehen und Vergessen” (“About averting one’s gaze and forgetting“), political commentator Tobias Kaufmann notes that in today’s Germany “blatant anti-Semitism is blossoming. Germany is currently experiencing perhaps the largest anti-Jewish manifestations since World War II. Jews are called child-murderers, and Israel is compared with the Third Reich”.

 

Precedents, jihad and Arab shame

 

Three thoughts in closing:

 

1. Israel took unilateral steps in its withdrawal from West Bank cities (1994) after which Yasser Arafat’s PLO filled the vacuum; in its withdrawal from Lebanon (2000) after which Hizbollah filled the vacuum; and after its withdrawal (“disengagement”) from Gaza (2005) after which Hamas filled the vacuum. In each case terror was subsequently directed against Israeli civilians as the relinquished territory became a jihadi base for killing Israelis. Unilateral withdrawals have an abysmal track record in this part of the Middle East.

 

Ø  Pray for Israel’s leaders to have the veil of fear lifted from their eyes and hearts vis-à-vis the displeasure or opposition of the nations.

 

2. Islamic jihad is a powerful spiritual force. Most Westerners are far too secular to appreciate this, and have ignored jihad to their national detriment. Until the power of jihadi Islam is broken over the Middle East and Central Asia, there will be no peace for the Western world and no peace for the Middle East. That, and not  a Palestinian state, is the real deal-breaker.

 

Ø  Pray that the God of Israel will cause the anti-Christ religion of jihadi Islam to collapse, and for a new harvest to take place throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

 

3. Embedded deep with the Arab and Islamic culture is a life-and-death polarity between honor and shame (highly recommended is The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, by David Pryce-Jones; Ivan R. Dee Publishers, Chicago 1989). Leaders in the Arab world know that their survival depends on their supporters’ honoring them, and these leaders’ demise is directly connected to the level of shame they tolerate. So Hamas boasts that it has won the recent war, because if it admits the truth (that it has been decimated by Israel, a non-Islamic power) it will lose its status, its influence and eventually its head in Gaza. Mubarak refuses to stop smuggling on Egypt’s Gaza border because he knows that if he allows foreign forces to operate on Egyptian soil, he will be targeted by Osama Bin Laden and his followers – as another apostate Arab ruler who has allowed the “Western infidel” to obtain another foothold on Islamic soil.

 

Ø  Pray for deliverance and salvation for President Mubarak of Egypt, for the Hamas leadership, and for Mahmoud Abbas and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. While you’re at it, pray for the salvation of many Hizbollah adherents, and for many Syrian and Jordanian seekers of truth.

 

Ø  And end your prayers with one penultimate prayer for the salvation and deliverance of Israel and the Jewish people!

 

In Messiah Yeshua,

 

Avner Boskey

 www.davidstent.org

Prayer Priority Update – Gaza War

[from an Israeli born pastor in Jerusalem]     

 

The challenge of praying in time of war

If you were living during Second World War and did not yet know all the atrocities that Hitler committed would you have been able to hear the Lord ask you to pray for Him to pull the German army into Russia, knowing that it would cost millions of lives and untold suffering? This is precisely what Reese Howells and his group of intercessors heard from the Lord and prayed. The result is well known; the German army was decimated in Russia and never recovered. Many millions of lives were lost, but God saved the world from a much worse blood bath, and Israel from annihilation; for that was Hitler’s plan – to come down into Palestine and finish the Jews off.

 

London’s Telegraph withdrew its “support” of Israel in the current operation because “There comes a point beyond which an operation of this sort becomesŠ morally unjustifiable,” it said. “The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is so severe that a cease-fire is essential, irrespective of whether Israel feels it has achieved its military objectives.”

 

“By this logic,” writes David Horowitz, editor in chief for Jerusalem Post, “Britain should have thrown in the towel in its war against Germany by September 18, 1939 – 17 days into WWII. Instead, Winston Churchill fought on for five long years at an awful – but morally justifiable – cost in Allied and enemy civilian lives.

 

Praying in time of war can be a real challenge; it takes a real knowledge of God and His purposes, to be able to stand before Him until those purposes are fulfilled. But most of the Church is used to walking in compromise with the World and its sprit of Humanism so much so, that it can only utter half hearted diluted prayers for “some kind of good” to come out of this for “both sides”.

 

Yet, the purposes of God are clear. The Bible clearly shows that the restoration of Israel and its salvation involves not just a spiritual side. Israel’s restoration to the Land is physical as also God’s dealing with her enemies. Why is this important? Because there is salvation in no other but Yeshua, the King of Israel. Read chapter 12 of Zechariah and you will see both sides of this very clearly. Read this chapter and you will see one other thing; that God, both fights for Israel and uses her to fight her enemies as well.  (Zechariah 12:6,8)  The result will be that the nations around us will know clearly that He alone is God, and many will turn to Him (Ezekiel 36:35-36)

 

If you need more background, read Ezekiel 35 and 36, you will find the same two points there.

 

Are you ready to boldly stand before the Lord and pray for Israel’s salvation from its enemies? (Below you will find how to pray for Hamas and for the innocent civilians it is holding captive as human shields). Please note that we are not trying to cover every aspect of praying for everything, but only sharing these points the Lord is emphasizing to us at this time.

 

Prayers for the Leadership and for God’s overruling authority

 

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.  (Zechariah 12:6 notice that the of this verse is connected with the welfare of Jerusalem and her wellbeing)

 

Father, we ask you to put fire, conviction and vision in our leaders’ heart. Strengthen them to withstand the world’s pressures and lead them to do what is in your purpose at this time.

 

We pray that you will give our leaders the courage to do what is necessary to defeat the Hamas so that both peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians are free from that death loving and death dealing spirit.

 

Lord, as the King of Israel and the one who bears the governmental authority over Israel on your shoulders (Isaiah 9:6), overrule any decisions that are not of you; lead your people to triumph and salvation.

 

Prayer for the war on the ground

Psa 108:9

Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph.rium

Lord, give Israel a tangible and strategic and specific victory on the field so that Hamas despairs from its purpose; to destroy Israel. Don’t let this war be for naught, as terrible as it is, let it accomplish your full purposes through it.

 

Lord may the nations around us and of all the earth know that you alone are God at the end of this war.

 

Praying for our enemies and for the Palestinians caught in between

Someone asked me my opinion of how to pray for our enemies (Hamas). Please take the time to look at this video of a former Hamas member who became a Christian to gain an understanding and an inspiration to pray for them. (Amazingly, Fox news aired it in the middle of the current conflict although it happened some time ago.) If this link does not lead you to the right spot, just go to youtube and search: escape from Hamas.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ZXXtzbmVk   (watch Escape from Hamas full video here on this blog)

 

 Musab Hassan, (in the video) former member of Hamas said there will never be lasting peace between the two groups. (Israel and Hamas)

 

“The Hamas leadership, including my father, they’re responsible; they’re responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel (for) which there was the killing of many civilians.”

 

But there is a solution, if you saw the videos, then you it and saw it, there is one solution, and that is that many in Hamas will see the light as this young man and turn to the Savior who is also the King of Israel. That is the solution, that is God’s desire and that is the only way.

 

***

 

Lord we pray that you will reveal yourself to our enemies just as you revealed yourself to Musab Hassan. Lord we remember that he had this revelation when he was under Israeli authority, in prison. Give thousands in Hamas this revelation as Israel’s army is in Gaza.

 

Lord, break the hold of this terrible sprit that has invaded the Palestinian people and release them from this bondage.

 

Lord let many in Hamas see the truth just as Musab Hassan did, let your truth free them from this terrible spirit, which so hates you and your people.

 

Father preserve the innocent Palestinian populace who are being held captive by Hamas, let them despair from this path of death and turn to you, O living God.

 

Father come to the Christians still left in Gaza and protect them, provide for them. Lord, breath upon them and encourage them to stand before you in these difficult moments.

 

 

May God help you to stand and to pray and to win in this prayer battle.

 

Blessings in Messiah,

 

Ofer Amitai

War With Hamas – A perspective on the broader picture

This newsletter is a break from the near daily prayer updates regarding the war between the IDF and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In this letter we consider some issues that most of the news media do not delve into. These matters concern the background to the conflict, as well as present directions for prayer and intercession.

 

Blowback – the backfiring of best-laid plans

 

Kings and presidents throughout history have discovered that occasionally their wisest strategies come up short. Assyria ruled the world until it snarled at the God of Israel and His people (Isaiah 10:1-19). King Hezekiah thought is was a wise idea to show the Babylonian delegation the splendor and riches of his kingdom, but Isaiah the prophet rebuked the king, telling him that Babylon would one day cause great damage to the Jewish people and their kingdom (Isaiah 39).

 

At the close of WWII the OSS (Office of Strategic Services – the precursor to the CIA) recruited Nazi Major-General Reinhard Gehlen to head up counter-intelligence work against the USSR. What the OSS did not know is that the Gehlen Organization was thoroughly penetrated by Soviet double agents, thus compromising Western spying efforts for years to come.

 

In 1983 the CIA funded and trained Islamist jihad fighters (see the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”) in order to successfully sabotage Russia’s imperialistic conquest of Afghanistan. The blowback from this operation came through the very same Islamists that the CIA trained. These jihad terrorists used CIA tradecraft to successfully bomb the World Trade Center (1993),  the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam (1998), the USS Cole (2001), and of course the 9/11 attacks.

 

Today much of Western intelligence efforts are focused on degrading the ability and operations of these US-trained Islamist jihad fighters.

 

“The enemy of my enemy …”

 

There is a well-known Middle Eastern proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Sometimes this adage is not 100% accurate.

 

Hamas was birthed out of the womb of the Muslim Brotherhood, and specifically out of an Islamist welfare charity called Mujama, established in 1973 by  Sheikh Ahmed. Israeli security officials in charge of the Gaza Strip were concerned about how to weaken and destroy Yasser Arafat’s PLO terror gangs. They encouraged Sheikh Yassin’s welfare group, hoping that it might loosen the PLO terrorists’ grip on Palestinian society.

 

In the early 1980′s Yassin’s Mujama secretly began to stockpile weapons in preparation for jihad activities. By 1984 Sheikh Yassin was arrested by Israel for commanding jihad activities against Israel, but was released as part of a prisoner exchange in 1985. At the outbreak of the first Arab civilian revolt or intifada in December 1987, Yassin secretly gathered six other Gazan Islamists and founded Hamas.

 

They drew up a charter which declared loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood, to jihad, and to the Islamist vision of Israel’s subjugation and destruction. In 1989 Yassin was re-arrested for ordering the kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldiers. In October 1997 he was released from jail through the efforts of Jordan’s King Hussein. Out of jail again, Yassin returned to spearheading Hamas terrorist operations until he was killed in a targeted Israeli helicopter attack in March 2004.

 

Hamas began as a secret and poisonous flower growing in a Gazan ‘garden plot’ – using the freedoms that Israel had allowed – whose goal remains the destruction of Israel. Operation Cast Lead is Israel’s attempt to weaken and crush this “blowback” terror movement.

 

To learn more about the origins, ideology and strategies of Hamas (and for all archived newsletters on the war) see www.davidstent.org, under “words”, newsletters February 2006, June 2007.

 

Hamas roots and Muslim Brotherhood fruits

 

Hamas’ older brother is The Muslim Brotherhood (hereafter MB), or Society of Muslim Brothers (Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, a school teacher. From the MB perspective most Arab and Islamic states are evil and need to be overthrown. Only strict Islamist rule and the re-establishment of the Muslim Caliphate or khilafah is ultimately acceptable to the MB.

 

During the 1930′s and 1940′s the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) had links with the Nazis, and Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s main contact in Jerusalem was Haj Amin al-Husseini.

 

MB assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmi al-Noqrashi Pasha in 1948, and attempted to overthrow Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. That revolution failed, and many MB members were jailed in Egyptians concentration camps and severely tortured. Sayyad Qutb, a main MB theologian, was imprisoned, tortured and later executed in 1966. Qutb’s brother moved to Saudi Arabia and later became the mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri (later Osama Bin Laden’s deputy). 

 

Yasser Arafat joined the Egyptian MB in 1952.  MB members in East Jerusalem established a shadow organization in 1953 called Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) which today is a worldwide terror organization.

 

In the late 1970′s MB members established Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al-Jihad al-Islami) led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Jamaat al-Islamiyya or al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Group) led by the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is now serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado for his role in directing the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1983, as well as for thwarted plans to bomb NY tunnels and bridges as well as FBI and UN headquarters. Both organizations’ primary goals are to overthrow the Egyptian Government, to replace it with an Islamic state, and to attack American and Israeli interests in Egypt and abroad.

 

Ayman al-Zawahiri was jailed in Egypt for his part in planning and carrying out President Anwar al-Sadat’s 1981 assassination. He was later released and went on to become Bin Laden’s deputy in al-Qa’ida. He was involved in planning and executing the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

 

Ø  Pray that the God of Israel would confound and nullify the Islamist strategies and plans of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (Psalm 83:9-18).

 

Egypt and Hamas

 

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt fears the MB, for an Islamist MB-led revolt is the main threat to his rule. For more background, read “A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam”, Mary Anne Weaver, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). A victory for Hamas in Gaza would encourage anti-Mubarak forces in Egypt, while a defeat of Hamas would create Egyptian civil unrest as well. Mubarak’s strategy seems to be “to do as little as possible and hope for the best”.

 

As a result, he has turned a blind eye to Hamas’ tunnel-smuggling of rockets and weapons into Gaza, while delusionally protesting that the weapons are actually being run successfully by the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza!

 

He refuses to totally open Egypt’s borders with Gaza, since this would be a violation of signed peace agreements with Israel. Yet he allows Hamas officials to travel freely through Egypt and to plan attacks on Israel from sovereign Egyptian territory, and to smuggle weapons into Gaza for use against his peace partner Israel.

 

PM Mubarak has been hoping that Operation Cast Lead would severely downgrade Hamas’ strength and, indeed, he recently has had key leaders communicate this desire in off-the-record conversations with Israeli leaders.

 

Were Mubarak to decisively dry up Hamas’ smuggling activities, the rocket fire would cease. Operation Cast Lead would not have happened has Egypt reined in Hamas. One of the reasons that Israel has gone to war is to get the world to pressure Egypt into stopping Hamas’ smuggling operations.

 

Ø  Pray for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, that he will have the courage, wisdom and backbone to turn off the Hamas weapons faucet which runs through sovereign Egyptian territory.

 

Jihad – God speaking to a secular West

 

In Romans1 the Apostle Paul describes a socio-spiritual process of handing nations over to demonic influence and control, through His removing of restraints on major sins. Some of these sins include idolatry, materialism, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, greed, deceit, faithlessness, hatred of the God of the Bible, boastfulness, insolence and ruthlessness. These sins increase their manifestation in society incrementally. God’s divine judgment is a process, a route which descends quietly into darkness.

 

Europe and North America once adhered to the Hebrew Scriptures and to the New Testament, albeit in a faltering and halting fashion. Today, however, the intellectual forces of secularism have fashioned an atmosphere of political correctness, intolerance and scorn toward biblical truths. The West now views life, politics and strategic thinking through secular lenses, and in many ways it is opposed to a Judeo-Christian worldview and lifestyle.

 

In the Book of Judges 2:10-23 the God of Israel responded to His people’s cooling hearts by raising up plunderers – evil and cruel invaders.  God raised up brutal marauders to attack Israel, hoping that these trials would cause His people to cry out and turn back to Him.

 

In a similar way, God has allowed jihadi Islam to arise and to threaten a secular West – a West which to a large extent scorns faith, God and the Bible. God is involved in a process of testing and judging the nations. Yet if we allow Him, these challenges could drive many Westerners to cry out and turn their hearts back to the God of Israel.

 

Ø  Pray for the secular West to turn their hearts back to the God of Jacob and to embrace His heart for Israel.

 

Ø  Pray also for the Jewish people in Israel and in the Diaspora, that through these shakings our hearts would be quickly moved to cry out and turn back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through Yeshua the Messiah.

 

Israel – at the forefront

 

The Scriptures tell us that Israel is God’s billboard to the nations (Isaiah 11:12; 49:22; 62:10). God uses the Jewish people to reveal His ways, to reveal His heart. to shout out His message to all countries. Senator Hillary Clinton once called Israel “the canary in the mineshaft”. By that, she meant that Israel is an indicator – an air-raid siren, an advance warning alarm – to the world. What happens with Israel is a preview of coming attractions; these same challenges or trials or wars will soon be coming to the whole world.

 

The anti-Nazi Pastor Martin Niemöller put it this way, The Nazis “came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, for I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me”.

 

For decades Islamist and Arab terrorists have attacked the Jewish people and the State of Israel. These atrocities have for the most part been brushed under the carpet by the nations of the world. The United Nations even passed a resolution condemning Zionism (the Jewish people’s national liberation movement) as racism (General Assembly Resolution 3379, passed in 1975, revoked in 1991). At this moment Iran is openly pursuing nuclear weaponry in its self-confessed drive to wipe Israel off the map.

 

Over 10,000 Hamas rockets and mortars have rained down on Israel for the past 8 years, and for the world this has been merely business as usual.

 

Through all of this God is communicating a message to the world: what comes first to Israel (Islamist attacks) surely comes to the rest of the nations (9/11 etc). Hamas’ attempts to establish an Islamic state and to destroy Israel through rocket fire, indicates that unless the nations of the world get with the plan, they will see similar things happening in their neck of the woods.

 

Green tide rising

 

We are living in the days of the restoration of the Jewish people to Israel, their promised land. God’s restoration movement has been opposed by Satan in many ways – through Communism, Fascism and now through Islamist hatred and murder of the Jewish people. The flags and colors of these movements are red, black and green. Today the anti-Semitic charge is currently being led and catalyzed by those carrying green banners – the banners of Islamic jihad.

 

As European and the Islamic world march in their tens of thousands against the Jewish state, it is time to “wake up and smell the coffee”. We are living in the days of Satan’s renewed and murderous onslaught against the Jewish people. These are the “days of the hunters” (Jeremiah 16:16-17).

 

Ø  Pray for believers worldwide to wake up and recognize that the Jewish people are being strategically targeted by the enemy. Pray that believers worldwide will target the Jewish people in prayer, for blessing, protection and salvation.

 

In Messiah Yeshua,

 

Avner Boskey 

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES   

 www.davidstent.org

 

A Prayer Under Fire – video

The link is to a song in Hebrew written by a believer in Beersheva last week.  He and his wife sang it on Israel Channel 10 yesterday.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5lpcLFO6g (Captions in Engish)

 

 A Prayer Under Fire

 

Hi. We’re residents of the city Beer Sheva in Southern Israel. In light of the grads, kassams, and other projectiles that are continuously being shot at us and the other Negev cities, we sat down to express our confused feelings about the present situation. This song is what came out of it. Our hope is that this song will ease a little tension and encourage you in this difficult time.

If you are not an Israeli, we hope that this song will help you to understand the conflict from our perspective. In truth, these words are a simple prayer that could have been written from anyone who is suffering from war and turns to God for help.

The 2nd verse is taken from Psalm 91.

Shalom,
Anthony, Irene and Tal

http://www.myspace.com/acoustiyah

War With Hamas – Days Fourteen, Fifteen Sixteen

This report contains details of three days of fighting, a brief analysis, and specific prayer requests.

 

Ø  The IDF kills over 50 Hamas gunmen in central and northern Gaza

Ø  IAF continues to bomb strategic targets, eliminates head of rocket forces

Ø  More than 100 Hamas rocket attacks against Negev cities in three days

Ø  IDF again opens humanitarian aid corridor for 3 hours per day

Ø  Two Muslim countries recall ambassadors from Israel

Ø  US Congress and Senate pass resolutions supporting Israel’s right of self-defense

Ø  Anti-Semitic riots & demonstrations internationally

 

Background to the present hostilities

 

Hamas or ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’ (for deeper background on Hamas and all archived newsletters on the war see www.davidstent.org, under “words”, newsletters February 2006, June 2007) is linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, a world jihadi group ideologically connected to Osama Bin Laden.  Hamas has fired over 10,000 rockets and mortars against civilian targets in Israel over the past 8 years. Sporadic firing of rockets against Israel continued during a recent temporary “cessation of hostilities”, and that season was used by Hamas to build up forces and weaponry in preparation for the present continued attacks on Israel.

 

On December 19 2008 Hamas refused to extend even that partial cease-fire and began intensive rocketing Israeli kibbutzim, towns and cities on the average of 40-50 attacks a day. On Saturday December 27 Israel Air Force jets attacked Hamas forces in Gaza, finally responding to years of Hamas rocket attacks. On January 3 2009 a land invasion of Gaza was initiated.

 

Seeing the forest and the trees

 

Understanding events is more than simply scanning a list of facts. These reports attempt to give accurate, up-to-date facts – necessary information which often is unreported by the “fast food” media matrix. But there is also a need for perspective – what do these events mean –a need to communicate background dynamics which decisively influence developments on the ground. Today and tomorrow two newsletters will be sent out – this first one focusing on the fast moving events, and a second newsletter laying out seven mini-perspectives to help the reader obtain a better grasp of what is going on.

 

Ground operations

 

For the past three days IDF ground operations focused on the destruction of Hamas’ terror infrastructure – tunnels, weapons caches and weapons labs.  More than 50 Hamas gunmen have been killed in close-quarter firefights. Heavy fighting has occurred in Sheikh Ajleen, a northern suburb of Gaza City, where ten Hamas gunmen were killed in an ambush on Sunday. The IDF is clearing a security zone close to the border with Gaza, removing buildings which could serve as forward command posts and tunnel exits for any future attacks on Israel. Israeli reserve soldiers are beginning to be enfolded into the order of battle.

 

Ø  Pray for the brave soldiers in these units who are risking their lives many times a day – that the Lord of hosts would give them steady hands, cool nerves and total protection as they confront Hamas gunmen throughout Gaza (Number 10:9). Pray that the God of Israel would give them a saving revelation of Yeshua (1 Kings 8:37-44; Zechariah 12:10).

 

Ø  Pray especially for the close to 50 believing Messianic soldiers participating in these battles (Galatians 6:16). Ask God to strengthen them, grant them victory, and strengthen their families with His power, love and confidence.

 

Air operations

 

Since the onset of Operation Cast Lead, over 2,200 air sorties have been carried out by the IAF. Friday saw 70 sorties, while Saturday and Sunday each saw 60 sorties. The home of Ahmad Ja’abari (commander of Hamas’ military wing) was bombed Saturday in northern Gaza City suburb of Saja’iya. Amir Mansi, commander of all Izz ed-Din al-Qassam rocket squads, was successfully targeted as well.

 

IAF planes dropped Arabic leaflets throughout the Gaza Strip which said, “Strip residents … In the near future, the IDF will continue to attack tunnels, arms caches, and terror activities with greater intensity all across the Strip. For your safety and the safety of your families, you are required to refrain from staying near terror elements or sites where weapons are being stored.” Other leaflets asked Gazans to call an Israeli phone number and pass on the locations of rocket launchers, weapons warehouses, tunnels and terror groups operating in the area – confidentiality guaranteed.

 

Hamas rockets

 

Over the past three days Hamas fired 104 rockets (Friday 32, Saturday 49, Sunday 23) at civilian targets. Over 700 rockets have been fired so far in the last 16 days of hostilities. The cities Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, Ashdod, Beersheva, Ashkelon and Kiryat Gat were hit, along with moshavim and kibbutzim. Kindergartens and school buildings were struck in some of these rocket attacks. Recently small orange and black billboards have been erected around the Negev, warning civilians to listen for air raid sirens on certain radio frequencies.

 

Ø  We are so thankful for how God’s angels have pushed rockets and mortars off-course and spared many Israeli lives. Pray that this continues to happen (Hebrews 1:14).

 

Hamas casualties

 

Close to 400 Hamas gunmen have been killed since the war began. Israeli Military Intelligence had stated that over 200 of these corpses are being kept in morgue refrigerators and are not being buried, in order to keep these losses hidden from ordinary Gazans. Media reporting from the Gazan side are not showing any Hamas fatalities due to Hamas censorship.

 

An amazing answer to prayer was revealed Sunday, when video was released of a school and zoo in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City that had been booby-trapped by Hamas. A group of 150 Givati soldiers spent the night there, and one Israeli soldier answering the call of nature at first light discovered an explosive trigger with suspicious wires – left on the grass by a Hamas operative who had fled the building the previous evening. A major disaster was avoided, and much of this is connected to prayer.

 

Ø  Keep praying for safety for the Israeli soldiers! God is answering your prayers.

 

Hamas’ strategy of civilian casualties

 

The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008. Hammad explains that using civilians as a human shield is not an accident on Hamas’ part; it is a strategic military and propaganda tactic.

 

 ”[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahidin (ed., jihad warriors) and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahidin, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: ‘We desire death like you desire life.’ ” (www.memritv.org/video.html).

 

Karam Jaber, Egyptian editor of Roz al-Youssef magazine, recently stated that Hamas has “inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians … We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians”. A Fatah (Palestinian Authority) official in Ramallah was quoted Monday regarding Hamas, “Ever since they came to power, they brought death and destruction to our people”.

 

Ø  Pray for the defeat of Hamas, its leadership and its ideological hold over many Gazans.

 

Humanitarian aid

 

For the past three days the IDF has allowed convoys of humanitarian aid to reach Gaza for three hours per day, contingent upon Hamas also holding their fire. Hamas in fact broke this mini-ceasefire on Sunday, firing mortars at the convoys coming through the Kerem Shalom crossing, and again on Monday when they rocketed Ashdod and Beersheva during the temporary hold-fire times.

 

The IDF conducted two internal investigations regarding recent UN charges concerning IDF conduct, and revealed its findings on Monday. Regarding the 39 deaths in a recent mortar attack, it was found that a Hamas rocket attack was launched on IDF troops from beside the UN school. IDF mortars responded with 3 shells, two of which struck their targets, killing approximately 10 positively identified terrorists. The third shell went off course and struck the school. Regarding the UN driver of a humanitarian aid truck, it was ascertained that he was killed from non-IDF fire, and not from tank fire (as was originally charged by the UN). Nevertheless, the charges made against the IDF were widely circulated around the globe by world media, though the careful IDF investigations and their results have not been so widely disseminated.

 

Poll on Israeli attitudes

 

A poll taken by the War and Peace Index 6 days ago discovered that 90% of Jewish Israelis surveyed believed that this war should continue until it has achieved its goals – total cessation of rocket fire and terror attacks, and a total halt to smuggling of weapons into Gaza. A high 93% have strong confidence in the IDF’s abilities and 87% believe that Israelis in the Negev and South have the stamina to bear up under the rocket attacks. However, 93% of Israeli Arabs surveyed want an immediate ceasefire and open borders for Hamas.

 

Since the outbreak of the war more than 700 Israelis (mostly Arabs) have been arrested in riots. Over 600 events (demonstrations or riots) have taken place in Israel over this time period, mostly in the Arab sector, with over 90 police injured.

 

Cease-fire deliberations

 

Hamas politburo Khaled Mashal responded to UN Resolution 1860 in Damascus on Saturday, rejecting any security arrangement “that infringes on the right of resistance against Israeli occupation”.  He added that Hamas “rejects the presence of international forces or inspectors in the Gaza Strip”. As mentioned in our last newsletter, this is due to Hamas’ Islamist beliefs never to recognize Israel and always to work for its destruction through jihad.

 

An Egyptian government official said on Sunday. “This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians,” he said. “They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions”. Magdi Khalil, an Egyptian political analyst, said that Hamas was weakening Egypt’s national security: “By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt’s eastern border.”

 

World responses

 

Mauritania and Jordan have recalled their ambassadors from Israel, These are two of the four Islamic countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel, the others being Egypt and Turkey.

 

Anti-Semitic riots and demonstrations are spreading across the Islamic world and Western Europe. Here is a partial list of events in the past three days:

 

Israel –

ü  Hebron (1,000 people)

ü  Nazareth (3,000)

ü  Baqa al-Gharbiya (10,000)

 

Islamic world –

ü  Amman (2,000)

ü  Beirut (2,500)

ü  Nabatiya, Lebanon (20,000)

ü  Jakarta (20,000)

ü  Alexandria (50,000)

 

Western Europe –

ü  Berlin (8,500)

ü  Duisberg (10,000)

ü  London (12,000)

ü  Paris, Brussels and Barcelona (30,000 each)

ü  Madrid and Seville (100,000 total)

 

In London 2,000 violent demonstrators were stopped by police before they attacked the Israeli embassy, with 15 arrests. Outside of Paris 2 Molotov cocktails were thrown at a Jewish synagogue Sunday night at Seine-Saint-Denis, while a Toulouse synagogue was rammed by a flaming car last week. In Brussels violent mobs overturned cars and broke shop windows.

 

In Milan white sheets with bloody handprints, and swastikas turning into bloody Stars of David were paraded. An impromptu Islamic prayer service was carried out in the main square across from Milan’s Cathedral a week ago, and on Saturday another call to prayer was carried out across from the main train station. Italy’s Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said, “I say enough of the provocations of Islamists in Milan. In Milan, a legitimate demonstration ended in a deliberately provocative mosque under the open sky. What would have happened if a group of Christians gathered together to pray with a rosary before Mecca? They probably would have been stoned”. 

 

In Duisburg Germany 10,000 people marched with placards reading “Down with the murdering of children”, while in Barcelona blood-stained blankets and mock dead babies were carried,

 

America also witnessed crass anti-Semitic displays. In New York‘s Times Square, anti-Israel marchers carried placards reading “Israel: the Fourth Reich”, Stop Israel’s Holocaust”, “Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza”, and “Holocaust by Holocaust Survivors”.

 

On December 30 the Israel Consulate in Los Angeles was picketed with signs including “Every Israeli committing the genocide in Gaza is a ‘Hitler’” and the swastika/Star of David morph above the words “Upgrade to Holocaust Version 2.0″.

 

Tampa had demonstrators on the same day who carried placards reading “Zionism is Cancer; Radiate it” and showing an Israeli flag with the word “Nazi” written on it. Calls were made by Tampa Muslims in hijabs, “Jews go back to the ovens” (a reference to Nazi crematoria).

 

Chicago has seen four synagogues attacked in the past three days with anti-Jewish spray-paintings, bricks and death threats. These include Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation; Young Israel of Roger’s Park; Congregation Anshe Motele; and the Lubavitch Mesivta. Earlier, on December 29 Temple Shalom in Lakeview IL had a Molotov cocktail thrown at the building.

 

These very serious events show an explosion of anti-Semitic words and deeds. The Director of the Yad Vashem Libraries Dr. Robert Rozett, commented, “By accusing us of being Nazi-like, Europeans alleviate some of their own feelings of guilt and responsibility for the Holocaust … Moreover, by saying that the Jews are acting like Nazis, they are delegitimizing the very existence of the State of Israel”.

 

The National Director of B’nai Brith’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Araham H. Foxman, added, “Anti-Semitism in Europe was never really rooted out, just contained”.

 

Though this may partially explain European manifestations of anti-Jewish hatred, there are roots darker and deeper still that have also infected Islamic and American societies.

 

Ø  Pray fervently that the Holy Spirit, God’s Heavenly Restrainer, will suppress and foil this explosion of Jew-hatred in our day (2 Thessalonians 2:7). Pray that He would increase revelation concerning His heart for the Jewish people, the apple of His eye (Zechariah 2:8).  

 

In Messiah Yeshua,

 

Avner Boskey

 

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