WORLD ATWAR: 12.9.23 - Terrorist Violence

 Pushing Israel Toward Policies That Would Ensure An Ongoing Cycle Of Terrorist Violence – By Hal Lindsey - https://harbingersdaily.com/pushing-israel-toward-policies-that-would-ensure-an-ongoing-cycle-of-terrorist-violence/ After the October 7th Hamas terror attacks, the Biden Administration and most congressional Democrats stood with Israel to a surprising degree. But today that resolve hasbegun to crack. At the beginning, President Biden’s support gave Israel great comfort. In an opinion piece for The Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon cast the President in the role of Israel’s unifierand inspirational leader. “Israel is facing its own Battle of Britain moment,” he wrote. “And the leader stepping into the role of Winston Churchill — raising morale, uniting the nation, instilling a sense of hope, articulating hard truths — is not Netanyahubut Biden.” During President Biden’s October 19th visit to the Holy Land, he said, “I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone.” He also said, “I don’t believe you haveto be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.” Just a few weeks ago, he said Israel will stop fighting “when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse, and do horrific things to the Israelis.” On October 20th, the White House released a statement on Biden’s phone call with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. It said, “The President reaffirmed the United States’ supportfor Israel’s right to defend itself and obligation to protect its citizens.” President Biden’s backing of Israel against Hamas soon began to alienate members of his political base. A new Associated Press poll shows that 50% of Democrats support thePresident’s handling of the current conflict, but 46% do not. It’s difficult to be reelected when one’s own party is divided. And this is not an obscure foreign policy disagreement. Democrats on both sides feel passionate about this issue. At first, the President was against a ceasefire until the hostages were rescued and Hamas incapacitated. But as his party protested, he began to call for, not a ceasefire,but a “pause.” He got the pause he wanted, but it was not enough. A large part of his team wants a “permanent pause.” But a ceasefire now would allow Hamas to regroup, rebuild, and rearm. It would guarantee more rounds of bloodthirsty assaults on Israeli civilians. In the Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum wrote, “What began as a ‘bear hug’ strategy of intense backing by President Biden has become one in which US officials, facing growingblowback at home and internationally, have distanced themselves from scorched-earth Israeli tactics.” Let me briefly take issue with the idea that Israel has been fighting a “scorched earth” campaign in Gaza. When a tornado strikes, news cameras do not point at the part oftown still standing. They show the dramatic stuff, the damage. This sometimes leads viewers to wrongly imagine an entire town in ruins. It’s the same in Gaza. Photos and video show the damage, creating an illusion of total destruction. But Israel has not used “scorched earth” tactics. If you look in the background of many photos, you will clearly see vast portions of Gaza still standing. And, even using the inflated casualty counts put out by Hamas, it is nothing like genocide. Nevertheless, the Administration’s strong initial support for the Jewish state is already waning. It is now pushing Israel toward policies that would ensure an ongoing cycleof violence in the region. That, in turn, ensures continued poverty in Gaza and continued Israeli strictures against Gazans in order to keep Israelis safe from terrorism. -------------------------------- Iran's Regime Soon to Have Nuclear Bombs; Hezbollah Is Next -by Majid Rafizadeh - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20191/iran-nuclear-bombs Iran is closer than ever before to obtaining nuclear bombs; meanwhile, the Biden administration's only policy toward the ruling mullahs of Iran is to keep "rewarding" themwith billions of dollars. After the Iran-backed Hamas terror group launched its genocidal war against Israel and Jews, the Iranian regime ratcheted up its enrichment of uranium. The regime claims itnow has enough enriched uranium to make three nuclear bombs, according to one of the two confidential reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and seen by Reuters. On November 22, 2023, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi warned in his latest report on verification and monitoring: "Iran's stockpiles of uranium enriched up to 5%, enriched up to 20% and enriched up to 60% – high enriched uranium – have all increased since we met in September with theincrease of the 60% continuing at the same rate as I reported at the time of the last Board." The regime has also barred IAEA's inspectors from entering Iran to monitor its nuclear activities. In a press briefing, Grossi said: "Iran has ceased to implement lots of aspects and nuclear related obligations under the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and it's not implementing mutually agreedadditional measures under the joint statement of March 4th." The European Union and the Biden administration have been turning a blind eye to the escalation, ostensibly because they reportedly do not want to add "fuel" to the currenthostilities in the Middle East (which Iran's proxy Hamas started it in the first place). Nonsense. This is simply the most dangerous, disingenuous, cowardly appeasement policy in modern history. The West is basically saying, "Let's not upset the mullahs! Instead,let's allow the world's top state sponsor of terrorism to continue its march toward having nuclear weapons in the hope that it will not use them." "There is a sort of paralysis, especially among the Americans... because they don't want to add fuel to the fire," said a senior European diplomat to Reuters on the conditionof anonymity. "The picture is pretty bleak, but the fact at the moment is that there is no appetite to provoke a reaction in Iran in the context of the war in the Middle East," an unnamedsenior diplomat told Agence France-Presse. This feckless rush to appease aggressors and abdicate of responsibility for national security is exactly that Winston Churchill warned against: "Each one hopes that if hefeeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last." Once the Iranian regime gets access to nuclear weapons, it will most likely provide some of them to its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Thethreat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be underestimated. Iran's regime has frequently threatened to wipe a whole country -- Israel -- off the map, and is also increasing military cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba to threaten the US. Europe, too, remainsa rich target for nuclear blackmail. Iran would not even have to use its nuclear bombs; the threat would be enough. General Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the regime's plans vehemently clear: "Our strategy is to erase Israelfrom the global political map," he announced on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. In case anyone had a doubt, Iran's Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published "Palestine," a 416-page "guide to destroying Israel," and railing against "The Great Satan,"the United States It is high time for the Biden administration and the European Union at least to stop Iran from selling its oil. If not, much of the planet will soon see itself either in WorldWar III or a surrender. The present strategy of Western powers is no different than enriching Nazi Germany during WWII or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. For the expansionist, hegemonic IslamicRepublic of Iran, concessions and appeasements mean only weakness. It would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to stop Hitler before he sent the German army across the Rhine in 1936. Perhaps US President Joe Biden is trying to bribe the mullahsnot to create any more mayhem before next year's US presidential election – but the only result of such timidity is that the price goes up – with a worse war to follow. Biden would not have won WWII. The Iranian regime, through its proxies, has already attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria at least 74 times since October 17. US retaliation – against the proxies, not Iran – apparently could not impress Iran's regime less. Someone else takes the bullet: that is why Iran has proxies in the first place. The proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- are Iran's human shields. The more the US and the EUgive Iran a pass, the more belligerent it will become. The Biden administration is not only allowing to Iran's mullahs to create a war cost-free, it is paying them to do it. ------------------------- It Should Come as No Surprise That Israel Is Once Again The World’s Tipping Point – By Franklin Graham - https://harbingersdaily.com/franklin-graham-it-should-come-as-no-surprise-that-israel-is-once-again-the-worlds-tipping-point/ As Christmas approaches, the world is on edge. Following the slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis—including women and children—by savage Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, the stateof Israel launched retaliatory strikes across the Gaza Strip to destroy the entrenchments of militants who butchered unsuspecting civilians and carried off more than 200 hostages, including Americans and Brits. The conflict threatened to escalate, as the United States sent carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and warned against intervention by Iran—whosupplies arms to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. It should come as no surprise that the Middle East—specifically focused on the nation of Israel—is once again the world’s tipping point. Modern Israel was born in 1948, andin my lifetime, tensions between Arabs and Israelis have erupted into battle at least seven times, including the Six-Day War in 1967. The Bible is clear that in the days before the return of Christ, the end-time battle of Armageddon will happen on the plainsof Megiddo in Israel, as the anti-Christ and his evil forces seek to destroy Jerusalem, literally the “City of Peace.” International conflict has defined Israel’s history since the reign of King David and his son Solomon. The people of Israel endured captivity and exile from a succession ofhostile world powers, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. The Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem in 63 B.C., so it was under the oppressive thumb of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus that a Jewish King, Jesus Christ, God’sSon, was born in the small village of Bethlehem to a poor Jewish couple from Nazareth. They came to take part in a worldwide census ordered by Augustus. God moved the entire world in order to get two small people to travel 70 miles to fulfill His Word givento the Prophet Micah 500 years prior: Micah 5:2 KJV – “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” God has given me a heart for Israel. When I was 19, I helped lead Christian tours in the little town of Bethlehem. Six miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is in a zone nowcalled the West Bank, which today is governed by the Palestinians. The birth of Christ was the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies, in which God promised a Jewish Messiah, a Savior, a coming King whose rule would extend worldwide. “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:7). Those promises were misunderstood by some who believed the Messiah would be a military king, delivering Israel from despised Roman rule. But of course, Jesus’ Messianic reignwasn’t about political change. He was sent by the Father to set mankind free by saving souls from the tyranny and slavery of sin, dying on a Roman cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and rising from the dead on the third day! The Prophet Isaiah foretold the Suffering Servant’s true mission in perhaps the most well-known of the Messianic prophecies: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, hewas bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6). God the Son won the most important battle ever fought, the victory of the cross where our Savior endured the wrath of God for sin, so we might receive forgiveness and thegift of everlasting life. For the past 2,000 years, His rule and reign has extended into the hearts of an untold multitude of people. We know the Lord will continue to patiently wait for repentantsinners until His return: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsufferingto us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8-9). When that day comes, Israel will be front and center. Revelation 14:1 tells us there will be a special role for 144,000 Jewish people, 12,000 from each tribe, as the Lordprepares to return and establish His Kingdom on Earth, judging the wicked and delivering the righteous. As Jesus’ millennial reign on Earth comes to its conclusion, ready to usher in the new Heavens and the new Earth, world powers will come together for one last battle to destroythe city of Jerusalem. But of course, it fails. “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them togetherto battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceivedthem was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” (Revelation 20:7-10). In the meantime, we are instructed to intercede for the Jewish people: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). -----------------------------