Shalom from Zion

While Chuck was teaching a seminar in the UK on the Church's relationship and responsibility toward Israel, a young man paced restlessly in the rear of the room. After the first session he told Chuck that he was a new believer and though wanting to hear what was being taught, he was feeling furious at both the teaching and the teacher!

After asking a few questions and then getting his permission, Chuck took authority over the spirit of anti-Semitism imparted through his parents. Later, he told Chuck that he enjoyed sitting through the rest of the seminar, and was in agreement with most of the teaching.

The battle over Israel in today's Church,

is not against flesh and blood, but against Satan's spiritual hordes (Eph. 6:12). This does not excuse believers who resist what God is doing with His people and His land. The Adversary deceives, entices, tempts, and we either fall into the trap or fight against his tactics (2 Cor. 2:11; 10:3-5).

Intense demonic pressure comes against believers who stand with Israel and the Jews. Satan uses false argument, humanism, propaganda and scripture twisting that fail only in the light of God's Word. For example, we are given false choices: either 'social justice' or 'prophetic fulfillment' - as if the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25) fulfilling His promises to Israel will not do justly. Outcomes may not line up with man's superficial view - but who is man to determine what is truly just (Rom. 9:13-24)?

Another false choice is that we either stand with the Palestinians or Israel. Yet if we are concerned for Palestinians and their salvation, we must stand with, and pray for, Israel to possess her possessions (Obad. 1:17). Since Israel's rebirth in 1948, multitudes in Islam have come to know the true God through Yeshua. God's prophetic will for Israel continues to be His means to reach the nations (Gen. 12:3b; Gal. 3:8).

Many in the Church are blind to this. Middle East [ME] church-sponsored 'peace initiatives' preach to those already convinced that immoral Israel is the greatest threat to world peace… These activities have not swayed Israel's supporters. But in March, in Bethlehem, the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference [CATC], differed from previous conferences. CATC aims to influence Israel's single largest and most reliable supporter: tens of millions of evangelical Christians who have stood with the Jewish state since day one. CATC speakers, including influential evangelicals, argue that Christian Zionism is a perversion of Christian belief. With the arrival of Jesus, Jews and their descendants lost all claim to the Biblical covenants - replaced by the New Jews, or Christians. Classic Christian heresy.

Christians who believe Israel's biblical everlasting covenant for the Land face CATC's shameless rewriting of history. Jews are depicted as recent usurpers while Palestinians are presented as the true descendants of the Biblical Jews!

Who are some of these anti-Zionist evangelicals? Anglican Rev. Stephen Sizer, who keeps company with people like Sheikh Kaouk, deputy chairman of Hezbollah's executive council. He and Holocaust denier Frederick Toben participated in the Voice of Palestine's Nakba Conference in Jakarta, where Sizer stated, The church in Palestine was telling me… that Palestine needed to be liberated from the Jews!

Gary Burge, an influential theologian and an anti-Israel activist, author of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel & the Palestinians, said, The people of Israel cannot claim to be planted as vines in the land… Branches that attempt living in the land… which refuse to be attached to Jesus will be cast out and burned. Scripture twisting, anyone?

Then there is Porter Speakman, Jr., who produced the horridly biased… film, With God On Our Side, that urges Christians not to assist Israeli brutalizing of Palestinians… He openly endorses replacement theology.

Also, UK anti-Israel activist Ben White, who has said, I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can understand why some are. Why? Because of Israel's ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. Lies.

So what solution do these Christians offer to bring 'peace' between Israelis and Palestinians? The two-state solution? Those Bethlehem conference organizers who still speak of two states have refused to acknowledge that one of them is Jewish. ("This Bethlehem conference is no Purimshpiel," Rabbis Abraham Cooper & Yitzchok Alderstein, JP Op-ed, 29 Feb. 2012)

The Palestinian Authority [PA] was so encouraged by CATC that they brazenly made illegal Bethlehem's First Baptist Church, because it stands with Israel! It will no longer receive rights as a religious institution… This decision comes a week after their Prime Minister [PM] S. Fayyad told, CATC attendees, his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities.

This church has experienced persecution from Muslims already. Senior Pastor Naim Khoury said hostility towards Christians in PA areas, including rape and forced conversions, is getting worse.

Fact: After Judea and Samaria were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War, the Israeli government opened up churches and holy sites, reversing the policy of Jordan, which had closed all Jewish and Christian holy sites during its [19 year] occupation after the War for Independence in 1948. ("PA Declares Church in Bethlehem to be Unlawful," Arutz 7, 14 Mar. 2012)

With all of My heart and soul

There is only one place in God's Word where He says He will do something with all of His heart and soul. What follower of Yeshua would knowingly fight this? Yet fighting this is what believers opposing Israel's physical restoration are doing. I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly [lit: 'in truth'] with My whole heart and with My whole soul. (Jer. 32:41)

What excuse will they make when standing before Yeshua? "Lord, what we saw on TV, and read in the media, swayed us!" But trusting BBC, CNN, The NY Times, etc., is walking by "sight" and not by faith in God's Word. "Lord, we stood for social justice for the poor Palestinians against evil Israel!" Yet in hypocrisy they keep silent at repeated threats to destroy Israel or when terrorist rockets from Gaza rain down on Israeli citizens - over a thousand each year since Israel left Gaza.

They might say, "Lord, we are New Testament believers and we never read or heard Jeremiah 32:41, or the other 200 times You promised to give the land to the Jewish people."

Yet without the Old Testament [Tanach], the foundations of the New crumble. For example, why did Yeshua have to shed His blood on the cross (Lev. 17:11)? Why is Yeshua called the Lamb of God (Ex. 12:5-13; 1 Cor. 5:7)? What is sin (1 John 3:4)? Why was Messiah born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2)? Is Messiah really God the Son (Psa. 2:6-12; Prov. 30:4b; Isa. 7:14; 9:6-7)? To where will Yeshua return (Zech. 14:3-4)? How do we know that nations are being judged today because of how they relate to Israel (Gen. 12:3; Joel 3:1-2; Zech. 2:8)?

Not believing the only Bible Yeshua, the apostles and the first Church quoted from, grieves the One who died for us. Yeshua said to His disciples, Fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken… (Luke 24:25, see vv. 27,44)

The end of the 'peace' process?

In January, Israel's UN Ambassador Ron Prosor, speaking to the UN Security Council [SC], rebuked the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to all other ME conflicts. The ME situation proves that Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and many other ME conflicts have nothing to do with Israel.

UN members also parrot, [Israeli] settlements are the primary obstacle to peace. Yet the real obstacle is PA leaders never saying two states for two peoples, because while they want their own state, they also want the Palestinian 'refugees' and descendants to settle in Israel. Uprooting millions of Palestinians and flooding Israel with them will never be accepted by Israel. The international community knows it. The PA leadership knows it. But they are not telling their brainwashed people, since a Palestinian Center for Public Opinion poll in late 2011 showed that 90% would not give up the 'right of return'.("Ambassador Prosor addresses UNSC…," Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 24 Jan. 2011)

Another poll shows 61% of Palestinians do not accept two states for two peoples; 66% said a two-state solution is the first step for replacing Israel with a single Palestinian state; 92% said Jerusalem can be the capital of 'Palestine' only. This poison is a fruit of 72% rejecting any Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem and the land… Are we then surprised that 73% of adults agree with the old Islamic teaching that one day every Jew must be hunted down and killed…? ("Poll: Palestinians reject 2-state solution," Israel Today, 12 Feb. 2012)

Israel Today stresses that the 'Palestine' the world wants to create will forbid any Jew from living within its borders. Anywhere else, such a condition would be viewed as "racist and anti-Semitic." ("Where can Jews live in the Holy Land?" Israel Today, 2 Apr. 2012)

Israel, the Jews & Islam

Reuters reported that at a rally, the PA's mufti (the head Muslim cleric), M. Hussein read a Hadith, a traditional text attributed to the Prophet Mohammad. The hour of judgment will not come until you fight the Jews… The Jew will hide behind the stone and the tree… [They] will cry, O Muslim, O Servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

Although condemned by Israel's leaders, when interviewed on TV, Hussein said it was an end time prophecy, not a political principle. There is nothing in my speech that calls for killing… I was speaking about my people, its steadfastness and its existence in this land until the hour (of resurrection). Yet a video showed the man who introduced the mufti, saying, Our war with the descendants of apes and pigs is a war of religion and faith. The Quran says that after the Exodus from Egypt, Allah turned some Jews who rebelled against Moses into apes and pigs. ("Israel condemns Palestinian cleric over sermon," Ma'an News, Reuters, 22 Jan. 2011)

PM Netanyahu said, …there is here a legacy of hatred and annihilation because this mufti is following in the footsteps of a previous mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. At the Nuremberg trials, Eichmann's deputy said al-Husseini influenced Hitler more than anyone else to carry out the Final Solution… He established the Balkan Muslim Waffen-SS units. He broadcast and preached annihilation of the Jews and… poisoned Arab leaders against Zionism and the Jewish People. Now his successor calls for the annihilation of the Jews, and there is no condemnation from any world leaders. ("PM Netanyahu's Remarks [re:] Incitement by [PA's] Mufti," PM Media Adviser, 24 Jan. 2011)

Iran and global responsibility

In February, South Africa's chief rabbi Warren Goldstein wrote, In a speech last week during mosque prayers… broadcast to the nation, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, said Iran would support any attack on Israel. The Zionist regime is a true cancerous tumor on this region that should be cut off. And it definitely will be cut off, he declared.

This was followed by publication of an article by Alizera Forghani, a top Khamenei strategist, on an Iranian government-supported website, who quoted from the Quran and other Islamic sources, to justify theologically the murder of all Jews and the destruction of Israel…

For years, senior Iranian leaders have openly said this is their goal. These are no empty threats; Iran, via Hezbollah and Hamas, has been waging a proxy war against Israel and has even attacked Jewish communal targets in other parts of the world. Yet, international indifference prevails… The NY Times, when reporting on Khamenei's… speech, didn't even include [his] reference to Israel as a cancerous tumor that needed to be cut out… The silence and its accompanying acquiescence, is morally reprehensible… Where are the statements of condemnation from governments of the world? From the UN? From religious leaders? Where is the horror, the outrage?

R. Goldstein writes, the test of true repentance is when a sinner is faced with the same circumstances he faced before, but this time, he refrains from committing the sin again. In the lead up to and during the Holocaust the world sinned by ignoring the desperate plight of Europe's endangered Jews. Many nations prevented Jews from finding asylum… Boats of terrified Jewish refugees were… sent back to their deaths in Europe. When horrific reports of gas chambers and crematoria came through, the Allies refused to bomb railroads to Auschwitz and other death camps.

Holocaust Remembrance days have become part of the global ethos, with a desire to repent for sins of the past, the omissions and commissions which led to the death of six million Jews… Now is the test to see if this repentance is genuine. Nations of the world are confronted with the same set of circumstances… Now is judgment time before G-d. No one can claim they weren't warned. No one can say genocidal threats against Jews are deranged rantings not to be taken seriously. History proves otherwise. This time there are no excuses.

We all hope and pray sanctions will work, but there isn't much time left. If and when the crunch comes… will the Jewish people once again stand alone? World leaders must ask themselves this: Would you wager the life of your children on the mercy and reasonableness of the Iranian government? The question may not be hypothetical either. Hitler came after the Jews first, then he attacked the world. The Jews are Iran's first target, certainly not its last.

There is one major difference this time… G-d's blessing of Jewish sovereignty in Israel, with its accompanying political and military power. In Nazi Europe our faith was tested by our helplessness and vulnerability. Now, our faith is being tested by our power. Arrogance is our temptation. Do we see the remarkable achievements of the State of Israel… as blessings from G-d? We are warned about this in Torah. He then quotes from Deuteronomy 8:11-18, which ends, But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he that gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as it is this day.

Goldstein: It is unprecedented and incomprehensible that one nation should face the threat of genocide twice within living memory. These events - indeed all of Jewish destiny - cannot be understood in terms of the normal laws of history. It is perhaps the very surreal nature of these events which calls on us to see G-d's hand in our history and that, together with the appropriate political and military preparations, we need to realize that our strength and direction come from G-d and… His Torah. ("Iran- Judgment time before G-d," R. W. Goldstein, JP Op-ed, 9 Feb. 2012)

Reza Kahili, former CIA operative in Iran, comments on the article mentioned above. The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel… Calling Israel a danger to Islam, it says opportunity must not be lost to remove this corrupting material. It is a jurisprudential justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel, and the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.

The author, Forghani, quoting the Quran, says Moslems must wage jihad, holy war, for Allah's sake, and defensive jihad should be waged when Islam is threatened. He says for Israel to attack Iran, it needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the US, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks… He adds that Ayatollah Khamenei, believes Israel and America not only must be defeated but annihilated.

An Iranian secret documentary exposed that its current leaders believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic Messiah [Mahdi] and that even Jesus Christ, who will convert to Islam, will act as the Mahdi's deputy… ("Ayatollah: Kill All Jews, Annihilate Israel," R. Kahlili, World Net Daily, 6 Feb. 2012)

US elections and an Israeli attack vs. Iran

US President Obama is worried that if Israel attacks Iran before the November Presidential elections, it would likely drive up fuel prices and drive down his popularity. Of course, the US says to Israel that military action would derail increasingly successful international economic sanctions… Yet, so far, these 'successful sanctions' have not slowed down Iran's nuclear program at all.

David Ignatius wrote, Very soon, Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon, and only the US could then stop them militarily. And Israel's top leaders do not want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action… ("US Worries Israel is about to Strike Iran -Washington Post," Arutz 7, 3 Feb. 2012)

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, on CNN , warned against an Israeli pre-emptive military strike… While also noting economic sanctions, he added that the US thinks the Iranian regime is a rational actor… Will someone please show him Forghani's article!

A report in the British Guardian said key officials in the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran… and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so. They see the main use of sanctions as delaying an Israeli military strike. Until when? After the US elections? ("Dempsey: It's Premature to Decide to Attack Iran," Arutz 7, 19 Feb. 2012)

Columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks so, saying a senior administration official told the Washington Post, We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.

Krauthammer accused Obama of cheering for Israel at last week's American Israel Political Action Committee [AIPAC] conference, and then turning 180 degrees by agreeing to yet another round of talks, despite Iran's flagrant stalling and lack of intent. These negotiations don't just gain time for a nuclear program about whose military intent the IAEA is issuing alarming warnings… They make it extremely difficult for Israel to do anything about it… lest Israel be universally condemned for having aborted a diplomatic solution…

A fair-minded observer might judge that Israel's desire to not go gently into the darkness carries a higher moral urgency than the political future of one man, even if he is president of the US. Amen! ("Krauthammer: Israel's Existence More Important than Obama," Arutz 7, 11 Mar. 2012)

'Bibi' Netanyahu and Iran

Bibi's speech at the AIPAC conference focused on Iran. He said openly that Israel is determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons… The Jewish state will not allow those who seek our destruction to possess the means to achieve that goal.

As for people who still believe Iran's claims that it's enriching uranium to develop medical isotopes, he said, A country that builds underground nuclear facilities, develops ICBMs, manufactures 1000s of centrifuges, absorbs crippling sanctions, is doing all that in order to advance medical research. So… when that Iranian ICBM is flying… to a location near you, you've got nothing to worry about. It's only carrying medical isotopes.

Today, most world leaders see Iran as trying to develop nuclear weapons. Yet some are willing to accept a dangerous situation of a world in which the Ayatollahs have atomic bombs. They see Iran as rational and able to be deterred. But Netanyahu, like a true statesman, said, Responsible leaders should not bet the security of their countries on the belief that the world's most dangerous regimes won't use the world's most dangerous weapons…

Iran accuses the American government of orchestrating 9/11, denies the Holocaust and calls for Israel's destruction… This is how Iran behaves today, without nuclear weapons. Think of how they will behave tomorrow, with nuclear weapons.

There's been plenty of talk recently about the costs of stopping Iran… [It's] time we started talking about the costs of not stopping Iran. After listing an increase in terrorism, a real threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, thus driving up fuel prices, and sparking a nuclear arms race in the ME, he added, what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in the hands of those who lead millions of radicals with chants of Death to America and Death to Israel?… [For] the sake of our prosperity…our security…our children, Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons!

He closed, saying 2012 is not 1944. Today we have a state of our own, the purpose of which is to defend Jewish lives and secure the Jewish future… Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat… We deeply appreciate the great alliance between our countries. But when it comes to Israel's survival, we must always remain the masters of our fate. (PM Netanyahu's Speech at AIPAC…2012," www.pmo.gov.il, 6 Mar. 2012)

Is Israel bluffing about a military strike against Iran? Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg came to Israel to answer that question, and discovered that this isn't a bluff. From the perspective of the two men who matter most in the Israeli decision-making process - Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak - American promises are somewhat immaterial, because it is imprinted on the Israeli DNA that Jews, post-Holocaust, shouldn't rely on the kindness of non-Jews to bail them out of trouble… Israel's leaders will not subcontract out their defense to the US or any other party. ("Netanyahu is not bluffing on Iran," Israel Hayom, 28 Mar. 2012)

On Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, Bibi said that people who dismiss the Iranian threat have learned nothing from the Holocaust… A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to the State of Israel… Remembering the Holocaust is not merely a matter of ceremony or historic memory. Remembering… is imperative for learning the lessons of the past in order to ensure the foundations of the future. We shall never bury our heads in the sand…

He accurately added, I know some people don't appreciate me speaking such uncomfortable truths. ("Netanyahu Links Holocaust to Iranian Threat," BFP Update, 20 Apr. 2012)

Ultimately, it is our God who guarantees Israel's survival. Thus says YHWH, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night… If these ordinances depart from before Me… then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. (Jer. 31:35-36)

The true face of that 'religion of peace'

For those still convinced that Israel is the real culprit holding up ME peace, Turkish journalist Burak Bekdil, provides a reality check. One million deaths in the all-Muslim Iran-Iraq war; 300,000 Muslim [Shia and Kurdish] minorities killed by Saddam Hussein; 80,000 Iranians killed during the Islamic revolution; 25,000 deaths in 1970-71 in… Black September [Jordan vs. the PLO]; and [at least] 20,000 Islamists killed in 1982 by the elder al-Assad in Hama [Syria]. The World Health Organization's estimate of Osama bin Laden's carnage in Iraq was 150,000… [Approximately] 11 million Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, [one-third of one percent] died during the Arab wars against Israel… ("The war inside Islam," Yoram Ettinger, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 20 Jan. 2011)

Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, Imagine if [a major Christian leader] called for the demolition of all mosques in America. It would be front-page news… There would be a demand for Christians to denounce him, and… they would - in the harshest terms. World leaders would do the same and rightly so. So why was there no mention in the mainstream media, when Saudi Arabia's grand mufti recently said that all the churches on the Arabian Peninsula should…be destroyed because the alternative would be to approve of them.

He explained, The Prophet [Mohammed]… commanded us, Two religions shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula, so building [churches] in the first place is not valid because this Peninsula must be free from [any other religion.] Saudi Arabia has banned all non-Islamic houses of worship long ago.

The grand mufti is Saudi's highest religious authority, and a member of its leading religious family. So his pronouncements represent Saudi's official position. All this stands out against the backdrop of the most significant news story the mainstream media insist on ignoring: the spreading and intensifying persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries. ("Destroy all the churches," C. May, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 22 Mar. 2012)

JP's Isi Leibler writes that the Moslem Brotherhood, the real winner in the 'Arab Spring", is a radical Islamic organization, rabidly anti-Western, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic, with the goal of seeing Islam rule the world via a global caliphate. And they will use any means to achieve this. Their creed tells it all: Allah is our objective, the Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our way and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations. ("Groveling to the Brotherhood," Isi Leibler, JP Op-ed, 18 Jan. 2011)

Prophetic update

Preparations for a One World Order: While 9/11 woke up many Americans to the threat posed by totalitarian interpretations of Islam, John Fonte, of the Hudson Institute, is concerned about another ideology… no less dangerous to free peoples, which is called by vaguely utopian names, such as global governance, or transnational progressivism.

Fonte's new book, Sovereignty or Submission, reveals how this ideology, widely embraced in Europe and, increasingly, among US elites… is stealthily undermining liberal democracy, self-government, constitutionalism, individual freedom and even traditional… relations among sovereign nation-states. To put it bluntly: While jihadistscall for Death to the West! transnational progressives are quietly promoting civilizational suicide.

While in theory, they recognize global interdependence and say that global problems require global solutions, their goal is to shift political and economic power from citizens of nation-states and their elected representatives to the UN, unelected bureaucrats, judges, lawyers and NGOs, who will then wield both transnational authority, power beyond nations, and supranational authority, power over nations.

The people behind this want democracy redefined to include the enforcement of universal principles of human rights which, of course, they will define. They want sovereignty collectively shared, birthing a new age of global authority, and global justice under a global rule of law.

Dangerously, the transnationals work closely with Islamists to achieve such goals as a global prohibition of Islamophobia, which would represent an historic abridgement of free speech.

Also Islamists and transnationals unite over Israel, which is the major target of those who seek to expand global authority in determining the laws of war. Certain factions of this movement also support the worldwide Islamist campaign to de-legitimize Israel as an apartheid state through the boycotts, divestment and sanctions strategy. ("Brave New Transnational Progressive World," Clifford D. May, Jewish World Review, 11 Nov. 2011)

Israeli elections

As we finish this newsletter, it has just been decided to hold new elections in Israel in early September. God is the One who raises up and brings down (Dan. 2:21; 4:17). Still, we believe that Bibi Netanyahu is the best - maybe the only - person to lead this nation at this time. Our prayer is, Lord, give us a leader through whom You can glorify Yourself. Amen!

…the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed…

Rev. 5:5b

Chuck & Karen Cohen