Prophecy and Current Events

Three Israelis were shot and wounded, one critically, this afternoon north of Nablus.  The critical man is fighting for his life in a Tel Aviv hospital, and an injured woman is also in serious shape.  The three were shot at while traveling in a car near the village of Burka. Soldiers have now surrounded the village.  So the trouble continues...     PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THE FOLLOWING SPECIAL ARTICLE ON TO YOUR FRIENDS     

                                                    ISRAEL’S NEXT WAR

                                                               David Dolan

Soon after the new Palestinian uprising began in late September, I wrote to the few hundred of you getting my early e mail update reports that I felt the escalating violence could easily lead to a new regional war. Now, just a little over two months later, Israeli army and government leaders are saying the same thing, along with Palestinian, Egyptian, US and UN officials. Some of those comments have been recorded in my daily updates.

I also wrote that I strongly suspected that the outline for the seemingly looming conflict might be found in a biblical psalm. This was the topic of a talk I gave at the Christian Friends of Israel annual Jerusalem conference in May, 1999. I have found no reason to change my opinion since then. Indeed, I subsequently wrote about this in some detail in a chapter that is included in my new book, Israel in Crisis: What Lies Ahead?

Around 400 of you received a copy of that chapter in early October. I am sending a few highlights from it below, especially for the vast majority of you who were not yet receiving these regular updates at that time. Other versions can also be found in upcoming issues of the Jewish Voice magazine and the Messianic Times newspaper published in North America, along with Prophecy Today in England.

                                                LINES ARE FORMING

Let me begin by boldly stating that the outline of a major military alliance aimed at going to war with Israel is now becoming clear. So far, it seems to link Syria (and by extension Lebanon), Iran and Iraq together with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Each country seems to have its own reason for being involved in such a plot: Iraq to officially rejoin the Arab world and help break UN sanctions imposed after its humiliating Gulf War defeat, Iran to further spread its leadership of the worldwide Islamic fundamentalist movement, and Syria to try and weaken Israel enough that it will evacuate the entire Golan Heights, as it did southern Lebanon last May.

However, if I am correct in suspecting that the possibly looming conflict could very well fulfill an ancient prophecy found in Psalm 83, as detailed below, then at least two other countries listed in that psalm must come on board: Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Naturally, both officially backed Arafat’s new uprising at the Arab League emergency summit meeting in late October, as did all the Arab states. The Saudis even pledged a quarter of a billion US dollars to aid the uprising, although Arafat has complained that very little money has flowed his way so far. But neither Riyadh nor Amman is really very eager to jump on board a ship piloted by Saddam Hussein or the Iranian mullahs.

Let me digress for a moment and say that I do not think the extensive plot described in the coming paragraphs existed before the new uprising began in September. I do suspect that Saddam and Arafat, who are long-time allies, may have schemed up a plan to "put Israel in a corner," as the American ambassador to Israel said earlier this week. But I doubt that Syria, Lebanon and Iran were on board at that point. In my estimation, they only joined up when Islamic public opinion became enraged in October over a flood of televised reports pointing to "naked Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people." I am certain that Jordan and Saudi Arabia had no inkling of any pending organized war effort, but they are surely fully aware of it now.

Back to the players listed in Psalm 83. The Saudis could be expected to financially back any new war effort, if only as a form of protection money to keep the radicals at bay. On top of that, the desert kingdom is the earthly seat of Islam, and therefore must at least give lip service to any holy war struggle to "liberate Jerusalem" from detested Jewish control.

Jordan is a different matter altogether. It is one of the smallest, must vulnerable Arab states in the region. Unlike its rich Gulf cousins, its economy is desperately struggling to keep afloat. More than this, a majority of its population is of ethnic Palestinian origin (in other words they or their older relatives originally resided west of the Jordan River). Not too many of them were happy when the late King Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, feeling it was premature to do so until all outstanding Arab-Israeli issues were resolved, especially the fate of refugees and the final status of Jerusalem. It is important to note that most of Jordan’s Palestinian residents are either refugees themselves or the offspring of the same.

All this means that the young untested King Abdullah will probably find it impossible to cling to his father’s peace pact with the increasingly unpopular Jewish State. If he resists the powerful eastern warfront that is apparently now developing, he may find himself the target of the same assassination bullets that have been directed at Israeli embassy personnel serving in Amman in recent days. One way or another, if I am correct in saying that Israel’s next major war may well be the fulfillment of Psalm 83 (and of course I may NOT be correct; only God knows for sure), then Jordan must fall in line, however that occurs.

Below is a bit of the excerpted material from my new book dealing with this topic. At the very least, I hope you are stirred to prayer by it in these difficult, but interesting days.

                                                    CONSPIRACY

Israeli military analysts say that the 1991 Iraqi long-range missile strikes on Israel’s congested coastal plane were probably a foretaste of the next major war. It will not be fought on some remote battlefield like the Sinai desert or the sparsely-populated Golan Heights, by soldiers backed by tank and artillery fire and supported by air force jets and helicopter gunships. The next big bust-up, if it comes, will undoubtedly feature ballistic missile attacks upon urban centers. Most chillingly, missile warheads are likely to contain chemical weapons, if not nuclear ones.

Several official scenarios exist as to how Israel’s next war might begin, and who could be involved. They have been drawn up by Israeli military planners at the request of the government. Although the projections are supposed to be top secret, some details have been published by the Israeli and foreign press.

Most war scenarios are said to start with a complete breakdown of the slow-moving Arab-Israeli peace process, followed by local and then regional violence. We are already apparently seeing the first part of this scenario unfold in these tumultuous days. The spark is usually projected to be the same one that set off the violent new Palestinian uprising in September--an unresolved struggle over who gets what in Jerusalem.

When I moved to Israel in 1980, many Christians here and abroad were expecting an imminent Soviet invasion. The superpower "detente" worked out between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in the early 1970’s was falling apart under the weight of the Kremlin’s armed intervention in Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons where being manufactured like hotcakes on both sides of the East-West divide. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was the strategic doctrine that both superpowers were clinging to in hopes that it would deter the other from firing the first round.

I have felt for many years now that the next major attack upon Israel will not emanate from Russia. Instead, I believe it will probably be of more localized origin, and lack superpower backing. I am not just saying this because the sprawling Soviet empire crumbled in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I arrived at this position around 1982 when the Russian bear was still big and boisterous. My revised stand was based on biblical research , coupled with new insights I gained from living here in Israel. These led me to conclude that the Gog and Magog invasion is most likely connected to the final war of Armageddon. I will examine this issue more fully in Chapter 8.

It seems likely to me that the outline for Israel’s next major conflict is found in the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Indeed, I suspect it is located in a psalm.

                                                        PSALM 83

Asaph begins his psalm by pleading for God to "not remain quiet; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still." The reason for his distress is quickly revealed in verses 2 through 4: "For behold, Thine enemies make an uproar; And those who hate Thee have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against Thy people, And conspire together against Thy treasured ones. They have said ‘Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more.’"

Who are these shrewd enemies plotting to destroy the Jewish State? Asaph carefully lists them in verses 6 through 8: "The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagrites; Gebel, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also has joined with them; They have become a help to the children of Lot."

What is most intriguing is that Bible scholars say there is no evidence that such a far-reaching regional conspiracy--uniting ten enemies to the north, east, west and southeast of Israel-- ever occurred in ancient times! I quote from page 503 of the respected "Revised New Bible Commentary" (Eerdmans, 1970): "No such widespread alliance of adjacent states as is described in verses 6-8 is mentioned in the Old Testament."

The textual evidence is strong that the psalmist is describing a tangible military alliance against Israel. This is not only confirmed by the plotter’s intention to "wipe Israel out as a nation," but by the allusions to other historic battles later in the psalm. An actual military plan of attack is being hatched here, not just a spiritual plot against the kingdom of God. Indeed, such an alliance is so massive and intimidating that it surely would have been mentioned elsewhere in the Bible if it had been formed in ancient times.

I believe that the psalmist was foreseeing a distant end-time plot against the restored Jewish State of Israel. It is quite interesting to note that modern descendants of all of the listed conspirators took part in the 1948 and 1967 pre-planned (and shrilly trumpeted) assaults upon Israel.

The first seven people groups were all located east of Israel. They were semi-nomadic tribes whose fluid boundaries often overlapped. The first two, Edom and the Ishmaelites, have also become synonymous today with the entire Arab-Muslim world. This is because both peoples are thought to have migrated further south into the Arabian peninsula--the seat of Islam. On top of that, Ishmael is an important figure in Islamic theology. So in modern terms, these names could be referring to the oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia, which backed front-line Arab forces in 1948 and 1967, or to the entire Arab-Muslim world that stretches from Morocco to Oman. I believe the former option is the most probable one.

Moab was situated due east of the Dead Sea, with Edom to its south and Ammon to its north. The other listed eastern tribes--the Hagrites, Gebal and Amalek--mingled in this area. Of course, the name Ammon is very much still with us today. It is the capital of the modern Kingdom of Jordan (usually spelled Amman in English). The fledgling country where these ancient tribes roamed played a pivotal role in both the 1948 and 1967 wars.

It is not hard to identify the modern equivalent of Tyre. In biblical days, it was the leading city of Phoenicia. The area is now part of the battle-scared country of Lebanon. Israel’s northern Arab neighbor officially took part in both the Independence and Six Day wars, although her military contribution was negligible. Since 1970, south Lebanon has been the most active battle zone between Arab (and Iranian) Muslims and Israeli Jews.

Historians believe that the Philistines sailed to Canaan from either the Greek island of Crete, or from the Anatolian region of western Turkey. Wherever they originated, iron-wielding Philistine warriors proved formidable enemies to the settling Hebrew tribes. However, they were eventually absorbed by attacking Assyrian forces and disappeared as a separate people group.

However, the name "Philistine" was resurrected by the Romans, who applied it to the Promised Land in an attempt to obliterate the Jewish connection to Zion. This took place after the Roman legions destroyed Judea in AD 70. One of the main Philistine towns was called Gaza. The modern city by that name has served as the unofficial seat of the Palestinian autonomy government, while the Gaza Strip is home to over one million Palestinians. This provides a strong hint as to who the modern equivalent of the ancient Philistines might be. An even greater hint is the very name "Palestinians," derived from the ancient Philistines.

Although they were not a significant military power in 1948 or 1967, Palestinian Arabs were at the political center of the wars that broke out in those years. Had their leaders wholeheartedly accepted the 1947 United Nations partition plan, as a few recommended, surrounding Arab states would have found it morally difficult to attack the emerging Jewish State. Palestinian sufferings over the years have provided a potent excuse for the enduring "holy war" struggle against re-born Israel.

The last nation mentioned in Psalm 83 is the powerful Assyrian empire, which acts as "a help to the children of Lot," i.e. to Moab and Ammon. The biblical Hebrew literally states that Assyria has become "an arm" to Lot’s descendants. The great empire stretched over the territory of several modern countries, including western Iran, parts of Turkey, most of Syria and even very briefly along Egypt’s Nile river. But it was centered in what is today Iraq, with its capital, Nineveh, situated on the banks of the Tigris river.

Baghdad took a very active role in the 1948 and 1967 Mideast wars. However, it was mainly a supporting role, with Iraqi forces bolstering those of Jordan and Syria. In that sense, Assyria’s modern equivalent was literally acting as a "helpful arm" to the eastern front-line states.

So to summarize, the modern countries where the ten ancient people groups resided are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, the Lord’s land itself, Iraq and probably Syria.

                                                    CONCLUSION

In Chapter 5 of my new book, I go on to detail the roles that the countries listed above might play in any coming war, and examine their current military capabilities. I will leave that material out for now in order that those of you getting the book will have something new to read in the chapter! At any rate, the material above is only a small portion of the text. But I wanted to give you a taste of this intriguing psalm, and to show that it seems to be coming together in our day.

Again, only the Creator knows if this prophetic psalm will be fulfilled in the coming months or years Israel could face a series of wars in the last days that are not foretold in the ancient biblical Scriptures. But I lean heavily toward the proposition that Israel’s next war will be the one described in Psalm 83, and that its fulfillment is probably not too far off. If so, may we all experience the same mercy that Asaph implores God to shower on the conspirators who plot to destroy His chosen people: "Fill their faces with dishonor, that they may seek Thy name oh Lord! (verse 16).