Shalom from Jerusalem

What governs our worldview? What molds our thinking? Through what filter do we judge, perceive and know what is happening in our lives, our congregations, our nations and the world? If it is not God's Word, from Genesis to Revelation, we are on thin ice.

Here's why. Our Creator God sees the whole picture. In fact, He is the only One who can, because He is self-described as 'holy', meaning 'separate' - separate from His creation. We, on the other hand, only see through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12).

God created time. He is outside of time and sees the end from the beginning. This is one reason why He is called Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last (Isa. 48:12; Rev. 22:13). This is also why He can 'foresee' the future. I have declared former things from the beginning. They went forth out of My mouth. I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. (Isa 48:3; cp. 42:9; 46:10)

For man to think he can judge social processes and world events without God and His Word is the very definition of arrogance. As part of creation, our thinking is limited. For the issues God's Word touches we are wise to consider His thoughts (Isa. 55:8-11). These include how to possess eternal life (John 17:3; cp. 14:6), what God is really like (He is not only love!), what morals humans should live by (adultery, fornication, a gay lifestyle and much more that is flaunted today are immoral!), and how we view both the Church and Israel.

Why Israel?

If you are a believer in Yeshua, God sovereignly chose you (John 15:16,19). In the same way - by His sovereign will - God chose Israel, land and nation, as His very own inheritance. (Deut. 7:6; Psa. 33:12; 105:26; 135:4; Rom. 9:4-5; 11:11-12).

God chose Israel as a vehicle for the salvation of mankind. He promised Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3b). Paul calls this the gospel to the gentiles (Gal. 3:8). Many today, even in the Church, do not like the idea of the Jews as God's chosen people. After all, they were/ are not worthy of that call. Yet look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you were worthy for Yeshua to have chosen you. If you think so, find someone to pray with you - and get saved!

Now here is the question. What determines how we view Israel? By 'sight' via BBC, CNN, The NY Times, or by faith in Isaiah, Jeremiah and the rest of God's word? And since it needs to be God's Word, then we need to understand that…

The God of the Bible is not 'Politically Correct'!

Man would like Him to be 'PC', but God does not bow to man's will; He does what He pleases.

The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the thoughts of the people of none effect. (Psa. 33:10)

You have brought a vine [Israel] out of Egypt. You have cast out the nations, and planted it. (Psa. 80:8)

The LORD has made all things for Himself, even the wicked for the day of evil.  (Prov. 16:4)

A man's heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps. (Prov.16:9; see also 21:1) Revelation 17:17 reveals that even the Anti-Christ's plans are under the control of our God.

Paul addressed this issue of God's non-'PC' sovereignty using the example of God raising up Pharaoh and hardening his heart for God's glory (Rom 9:17). [Note: God speaks Ex. 3:19 and 4:21 before Moses speaks to Pharaoh.] Some dislike this aspect of God's sovereignty, but to paraphrase Paul, You are created. He is the Creator. He can do what He wants with His creation! (Rom. 9:20-24)

Yeshua also was not politically correct when speaking the truth. He offended religious authorities and His own disciples if need be. Even after His ascension, the Lord Yeshua declared very hard truths to five out of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3.

Bibi Netanyahu's remarks on Jerusalem Day

Israel's Prime Minister [PM], who is also known to speak hard truths, said on Jerusalem Day, Israel without a unified Jerusalem will be like a body with a weak heart, adding that any nation willing to sacrifice its heart will only convince its enemies that it lacks the willpower to fight for anything…

Our generation has been granted a great privilege: we are witnesses to the fulfillment of the words of the prophets. We saw the resurrection of Zion;…the restoration of the sovereignty of the people of Israel here in the Land of Israel;…the ingathering of the exiles; and…the unification and rebuilding of Jerusalem. Our generation also bears the tremendous responsibility of ensuring that we safeguard this transformation for future generations.

The prophet Isaiah said: Wake, wake! Arise, O Jerusalem… After centuries of repression and intolerance by other faiths, Jerusalem has arisen and been unified. ("PM Netanyahu's Speech…45^th Anniversary of the Unification of Jerusalem…" PM's Office, 20 May 2012)

What 'Occupied Territories'?

Israel has legal and historical rights to Judea and Samaria - the 'occupied territories'! After a six month investigation, an advisory committee of three legal experts, submitted some clear-cut conclusions to the Israeli government. Former Supreme Court justice E. Levy, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser and international law expert Dr. A. Baker and former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court T. Shapira, found that the hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens living in Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights are not criminals, as many of Israel's adversaries, and allies, would argue, because the post-1967 settlement project, which has reunited the Jewish people to the land… can in no way be taken as an international crime.

Their conclusions are based on these facts of history. First, the British Mandate, which came into effect in Sept. 1922 after being ratified by the League of Nations, called for creation of a national home for the Jewish people in the territory west of the Jordan River, including Judea and Samaria.

Second, the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine never replaced the British Mandate as intended. It was accepted by the Jewish community in Palestine represented by the Jewish Agency, but was rejected by both the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee and by the states belonging to the Arab League.

Third, in the wake of Israel's War of Independence, when local Palestinian militias and the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon failed to destroy the new-born state of Israel, Jordan seized control of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and parts of Jerusalem, but its sovereignty over these areas was never recognized by the international community.

Fourth, after the Six Day War, when the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the PLO, tried and failed to wipe Israel off the map, Israel found itself in control of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, along with the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights…

Even UN Resolution 242, which introduced the 'land-for-peace' formula, calls on Israel to withdraw from 'territories' in exchange for peace, but not all the territories, as the word 'the' was specifically left, since it was clear to many, that Israel would retain an undetermined portion of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

While this report will not convince Israel's critics, still the plain truth has now been reiterated - for the record. And it should be officially recognized as such by the government. ("Settling truths," JP Editorial, 9 July 2012)

Another article quoted committee member Baker as saying, In terms of international law, it is not illegal to settle in Judea and Samaria… God agrees! (Jer. 31:4-5; Zech. 12:2-8, etc.)

Here are a few more facts. After Turkey's defeat in WW I, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Allies dialogued between Jews and Arabs on Palestine. Would it be a Jewish or an Arab state? King Faisal al-Hashemi argued in favor of Arab sovereignty over Palestine (on both sides of the Jordan River). A few weeks later, Chaim Weizmann argued the case for the Jews. It was decided in favor of the Jews, especially as the rest of the Middle East [ME] - Syria, Lebanon and Iraq - was designated for the Arabs. The League of Nations composed a contract-like document called the Mandate of Palestine in the spirit of that decision.

The document, while protecting the civil and religious rights of all residents of Palestine, gave the right to self-determination, future sovereignty and governance only to the Jews, upon expiration of the mandate. The document was ratified at the San Remo Conference (a meeting of the post-WW I Allied Supreme Council) in April 1920, and it was unanimously approved by the League of Nations in July 1922. At that point in modern history, Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel was recognized, and this recognition became part of international law, which hasn't changed since then. ("History proves settlements' legality," Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 12 July 2012)

The US response was typical of recent leanings. The Obama administration vociferously condemned Israel for having the nerve to ask a panel of senior jurists to opine about its rights, with a State Dept. spokesman saying, we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, and we oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts. ("Obama's spectacular failure," C. Glick, JP Op-ed, 12 July 2012)

Dangerously false assumptions

Barry Rubin said, If I've ever seen a sentence that spells disaster in the ME it's this one: People say things in a campaign and then when they get elected they actually have to govern. He was quoting a US State Dept. spokeswoman talking about an Egyptian Presidential candidate who had called Israel racist, an enemy of Egypt, and a state based on occupation, therefore having no legal right to exist.

Rubin exposed some of her dangerously false assumptions. She is assuming that radical movements are saying things to please voters in the same way American politicians do. Yet American politicians are overwhelmingly unideological…But what if they sincerely and passionately believed that every plank on their platform was ordered by the Supreme Being and that this was…the only reason their political party existed? Suppose their rivals were willing and able to destroy their careers or even kill them if they showed they were totally phony in their devotion? Suppose a large portion of the masses took all of this seriously and meant to hold them to their promises? And suppose they truly believed that instituting Shari'a law…was the only way to govern? …[So] there are lots of reasons for radicals to remain radicals in government. ("The scariest sentence," B. Rubin, JP Op-ed, 20 May 2012)

Why the 'peace' process is dead

Hisham Jarallah, a Muslim Arab journalist in the 'West Bank', says that the 'peace process' is dead, as Palestinian Authority [PA] President Abbas uses any excuse not to return to the negotiating table with Israel. His demand that Israel stop building in the settlements sounds more like a joke: has he just discovered there are settlements in the West Bank? Arafat negotiated with Israel for years while construction in the settlements was continuing? Abbas did so as well before Netanyahu became prime minister.

Abbas' demand that Israel recognize the pre-1967 lines as the borders of a future Palestinian state, is basically insisting that Israel must commit to give him everything before talks restart.

His new demands, the release of prisoners and the import of weapons, surprised even some Palestinians. It is not even clear how the release of Palestinians…involved in terror attacks, or giving more weapons to the PA will help advance peace.

Jarallah says the peace process died the day a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas in a free and fair election in 2006… [It] died when Hamas expelled the PA from the Gaza Strip and established an Islamic emirate in the area. Actually, it died when Arafat said no to former Israeli PM Barak at the botched Camp David summit in 2000…

The peace process is dead because a majority in the Arab and Islamic world still has not come to terms with Israel's right to exist. ("Muslim Arab who gets it," israelmatzav.blogspot.co.il, 20 June 2012)

Is there a chance of 'peace' with the next generation? Not when a UN and PA-funded East Jerusalem children's center put on a puppet show encouraging [Arab] children to give up smoking cigarettes and instead become machine-gun toting men who liberate Jerusalem from the Jews.

Palestinian Media Watch, which translated a video of the event, noted that in sync with Islamic teaching, the show glorified death and violence and educated children to see Jews as 'enemies' who kill Palestinian children. One puppet said, Jerusalem is being kept from us. Jerusalem, whose youth are being killed by the Jews … we are coming; the time of death has arrived. Jerusalem, we will not surrender to the enemies or be humiliated. (Palestinian kids urged to give up smoking and kill Jews," Israel Hayom, 9 July 2012)

"Let all that hate Zion be confounded." (Psa. 129:5)

Intercessors for Israel has declared that verse consistently, and today this is what God is doing with Israel's neighbors.

Egypt is divided between the ruling military council and the parliament-ruling Muslim Brotherhood [MB]. Syria is in the midst of a horrific civil war. In Lebanon, although the terrorist group Hizbullah is in the government, many Lebanese are opposed to them being armed. And all attempts to forge a unity government between the PA in Judea and Samaria and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, has ended as a fantasy.

God moved on Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1; cp. Prov. 21:1) to take a census involving all the world, sending families back to their ancestral homes so that the King of the Jews could be born in Bethlehem to fulfill biblical prophecy (Mic.5:2; Matt. 2:1-6; Luke 2:11). Should we not expect Him to make preparations for the return of His Son? Nations may be raging and world leaders thinking vain thoughts, yet the LORD has established His throne in the heavens. His kingdom [rulership] rules all. (Psa. 103:19)

Egypt

Here is the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood [MB], Egypt's new ruling party. Allah is our objective. The Prophet [Mohammed] is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. This should remove all doubts about whether they are 'moderate' or not.

Their spiritual leader, Mohammed Badi', on Israeli Independence Day, wrote, On this day…Arab and Islamic nations remember the worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world…We demand the international community rectify the historic injustice [of 1948] and pressure the government of the Zionist entity to withdraw from the land of Palestine. ("Muslim Brotherhood demands the destruction of Israel," ICEJ News, 1 June 2012)

In June, he said, How glad Muslims will be if all Muslim rulers make the Palestinian cause a pivotal matter…with the single goal of restoring the Al-Aqsa Mosque [on the Temple Mt.], saving it from the filth of the Zionists, and enacting Islamic sovereignty over the beloved land of Palestine. ("…MB Calls For Jihad to Liberate Palestine," MEMRI,www.memri.org, 23 July 2012)

Rubin exposed the skewed view that the Obama administration has of the MB. The interesting news was not that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cairo, but rather who was doing the pelting.Once upon a time, anti-American radicals threw things at US leaders. Now it is members of the Free Egyptian Party together with other Egyptian liberals. Egypt's Christian leaders refused to even meet with Clinton. So all Egyptians view Obama's administration as a MB ally.

That might sound far-fetched, yet in articles of liberal Arabs; statements of Persian Gulf Arab establishment figures; conversations of Syrian, Turkish, Iranian and Lebanese oppositionists, the idea that the US government is now helping the Islamists is taken for granted.

So in today's ME, liberals, democrats and moderates see the US as an enemy! These critics have a strong case. Obama's Cairo speech was precisely about encouraging Middle Easterners to redefine their identity from a national one - principally Arab - to an Islamic one. Obama invited the [MB] to sit in the front row. And when the upsurge in Egypt began… [he] demanded the end of the regime, even saying that the US wouldn't mind if the MB became the government of Egypt.

Obama has backed a MB-dominated leadership in the Syrian National Council, and he sees Turkey as the ideal Islamic nation, lavishing praise and almost never criticizing it for becoming pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran…and fanatically anti-Israel… ("Obama's Egypt policy," B. Rubin, JP Op-ed, 22 July 2012)

Syria

As of mid-summer, the situation in Syria goes from bad to worse. Israel now sees that what is more dangerous than Syrian President Bashar Assad having control over the world's largest stockpile of chemical and biological weapons is if those fighting him get them, or he gives them to Hizbullah, or he sends them 'to Israel with love'. Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman, warned the EU-Israel Association Council, The moment we see Syrians transfer chemical and biological weapons to Hizbullah, this is…casus belli, using the Latin expression justifying war. He added, We will act decisively, without hesitation or restraint, and Israel hopes the world will understand. ("Israel Will Go to War if Hizbullah Gets Chemical Weapons," Arutz 7, 24 July 2012)

Yet Israel will be blamed no matter how it tries to protect itself. With few exceptions, the world's condemnation to Israel's responses to rocket attacks from Gaza is enough proof that the only Jews the world respects and honors are dead ones.

Meanwhile, fundamentalist Islamic jihadists are infiltrating and fighting alongside the Rebel Syrian Army. Reports now show that the US backed rebels are committing Christian genocide in Syria …sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians is taking place… ("…Muslim Persecution of Christians," Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, 26 July 2012,www.gatestoneinstitute.org)

The reality in the ME is that Christians have always been safer under dictatorial governments than Islamic ones. Western style democracy will finally fail in any society that is not founded on, or remain based-upon, Judeo-Christian law and ethics.

Iran

Clifford D. May, president of America's Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote, It is no longer possible to pretend we don't know the intentions of Iran's rulers. They keep telling us, candidly, clearly, and repeatedly. For instance, on May 20^th, the commander of Iran's army, Maj. Gen. Firouzabadi, declared that their goal is the full annihilation of the Zionist regime…

At a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs conference, former Spanish PM, Jose Maria Aznar, recalled a "private discussion" he had with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei in Oct. 2000, who told him: Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth. Aznar clarified: He meant physical termination through military force.

Khamenei also said the goal of the 1979 Islamic Revolution still stood - to rid the world of Israel and the US. Eventually, there must be an 'open confrontation'. He sees it as his duty to ensure that Iran prevailed. So with this background, May says we can no longer pretend that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not a priority for Khamenei, and thus for Iran.

Aznar also said he had advised Russian President Putin against selling surface-to-air missiles to Iran. Putin's response: Don't worry…we can all sell them everything, even if we are worried by an Iranian nuclear bomb… [because eventually] Israel will take care of it. ("What Iran's rulers want," C. May, Israel Hayom, 24 May 2012)

At a UN sponsored international anti-drug conference in Tehran Iran's VP Rahimi said the Talmud, a central text of Judaism, was responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world, and taught Jews to destroy all those who oppose them. He noted there are Jews who follow the prophet Moses, but then there are the Zionists - the leaders of the international drugs trade.

FM Lieberman retorted, The fact that the UN…and European representatives are still participating in conferences in Tehran, where the most despicable of anti-Semitic sentiments are voiced, provides legitimacy to the Iranian ayatollah regime, which poses a danger to peace for the entire world. ("At UN event, Iran's VP launches into anti-Semitic tirade," Israel Hayom, 27 June 2012)

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for ME Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the Iranian VP's statement shows that the assumptions behind the nuclear negotiations with Iran are at best questionable, because they are based on the assumption that Iran's leaders will react to harsh sanctons as Western leaders would, balancing the costs and benefits of the nuclear program…

How do we factor in an irrational hatred of the Jews…a deep desire to destroy the Jewish state? How do we calculate the effect of beliefs that seem to us in the West to be preposterous, ludicrous and impossible? Or a better question: How do Israelis make those judgments?

Historians remind us that, lucid calculations are often absent, statesmanship is often pushed aside by ideological obsessions and hatred is often more powerful than rational calculations. Just because we think it is irrational for Iranian officials to make such speeches, or wreck their economy to pursue nuclear weapons, or threaten Israel, does not mean that such things…will not happen. ("The voice of Iran," E. Abrams, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 28 June 2012)

Daniel Tauber notes that Bibi Netanyahu has been accused of overstating the Iranian threat. True, his warnings have been very strong. Back in 2006 he said, It's 1938 and Iran is Germany, and Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs… Often Bibi uses the Holocaust as an example saying this year on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, to fear telling the truth, which is that there are those today who also seek to destroy millions of Jews, is to disrespect the Holocaust and insult its victims.

Tauber says it would be comforting to think that even without these warnings, Western leaders would have come to their own conclusions and taken the lead in stopping Iran…But this would be an illusion. Until recently, Netanyahu has been the only world leader talking about Iran's nuclear ambitions…

President Obama came into office apologizing to the Muslim world, and in his Cairo speech he even equated Jewish suffering in the Holocaust to Palestinian displacement at Israel's founding… He wanted to negotiate with Iran, and recognized Iran's 'right' to nuclear energy.

In recent decades India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all obtained nuclear weapons. If not for a probable Israeli strike in 2007, that list might include Syria today. Based on this record, there is little chance that Western powers would have enacted sanctions like we have seen against Iran on their own initiative. Netanyahu forced them to act by emphasizing that Israel sees a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. With Israel's past unilateral and daring military actions to back him up, his harping on this threat, convinced Western nations that if they did nothing, Israel would act, regardless of what regional turmoil would result. ("Can Netanyahu's messianism save us?" D. Tauber, JP Op-ed, 3 July 2012)

It is very possible that Israel will still need to attack. Pray for her leaders to be led by God in all of their deliberations. There are many thoughts in a man's heart; yet the counsel of the LORD - that shall stand. (Prov. 19:21)

Iran's version of the end of days

Reza Kahlili (alias of an ex-CIA operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guards), a member of the US Task Force on National and Homeland Security and a teacher at the Dept. of Defense's Joint Counter-intelligence Training Academy, wrote that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently said Iran must prepare for war and the end of times… On July 6^th, all Iran's state-owned media ran this story, emphasizing his message on the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the 12^thImam, the Mahdi.

Kahlili explains: Shiite theology holds that great wars must engulf the Earth, during which one-third of the world's population die in the fighting and another third from hunger, lawlessness and havoc. Israel is to be destroyed, and only then will the 12^thImam, the Mahdi, reappear and kill all infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world…

After a decade of negotiation with Iran, the West has yet to make any inroads in stopping the regime's illicit nuclear program. In fact, the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran now has enough material for at least five nuclear weapons. ("Iran Leader: …'End of Times'," R. Kahlili, WorldNetDaily, 9 July 2012)

US blocks Israeli from anti-terror conferences

To not offend Turkey, the US blocked Israel's participation in the Global Counter-terrorism Forum, a group of 29 nations meeting in Spain. A NY Post editorial said, If there's one nation on earth that knows what it is to be a victim of terrorism, and how best to combat it, it'd be Israel. So you'd think. Unless you're the Obama administration

Besides not being invited, Israel was completely ignored, as in her remarks at the conference, US Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights M. Otero didn't include Israel in a list of terror victims. ("Israel excluded from Global Counterterrorism Forum at Turkey's behest," Israel Hayom, 15 July 2012)

Dr. Michael Widlanski, expert on Arab politics and ex-Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel's Ministry of Public Security, says top Israeli security experts worry about Obama's attitude to radical Muslim governments, as well as his willingness to freeze Israel out, of these anti-terror conferences. They say the administration has a naïve or even uninformed view of recent upheavals in, the ME, especially in Egypt and Turkey, seeing both current regimes as forces for moderation.

Israeli Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad, who heads up a section of Israel's military intelligence, and has held secret talks with Arab leaders, says US officials are in a state of psychological denial concerning their understanding of the so-called 'Arab Spring' and that free elections would lead to Islamic dictatorships. ("Top Security Experts Concerned…," M. Widlanski, The Algemeiner, www.algemeiner.com, 15 July 2012)

Our responsibility in prayer

Christmas Evans knew how to pray and therefore knew the power of the Holy Spirit. He viewed prayer, not as a passive or a casual thing, but as a responsibility that must be practiced. In a sermon preached on the Holy Spirit, he reminds us of this often neglected truth. [Messiah] is making intercession on our behalf without us and independently of us. But the Holy Spirit is making intercession through us, pleading in our prayers with groanings that cannot be uttered. He never acts without us. He inspires us to pray, but the act of prayer is our own. He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure. But He does not will and do for us! If we are going to see revival, we must pray! (www.watchword.org)

The fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.

James 5:16b