The anti-Israel rally, the first of its kind by the Muslim Brotherhood since the Islamist party took power from Egypt’s military nearly a year ago, protested Israel’s recent brief detention of the Mufti of Jerusalem and its purported airstrikes in Syria.

During the rally, demonstrators chanted “the people want the destruction of Israel,” and a leading Muslim Brotherhood member got up and shouted over the microphone, “We will repeat it over and over, Israel is our enemy,” according to the Associated Press. Additional chants from the crowd urged the Egyptian army to launch a war against Israel to “liberate Palestine.”

While Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has repeatedly told Western officials that he will uphold his country’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, earlier this year a video of Morsi emerged where he described Zionists as “bloodsuckers” and “descendants of apes and pigs” in 2010.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s ultraconservative Salafi party, al-Nour, boycotted the anti-Israel rally. Instead, the Salafis urged Morsi to wage jihad.

“The fighters in Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Gaza, Palestine, Mali and Damascus need the sacrifices of money and souls rather than demonstrations and stances,” Egyptian Salafist leader Sheikh Murjan Salem al-Jawhari said, Al-Arabiya reported.

Jerusalem is the capital of the Children of Israel, now called the Jews; and it is forbidden for Musims to demand it, just as a married woman belongs only to her husband. Is it possible that Allah, who on His infinite mercy, calls them the Chosen People, and promises them the Holy Land, also plans to murder them, using the Muslims in Palestine as His intermediary? Every Muslim knows that Allah does not break His promises.

If you listen in Arabic to the hate-speeches made by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; or to Turkish President Erdogan; or to the calls made from Qatar by Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and from the Gaza Strip by the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal for the killing of the Jews, you will understand why Arabs and Muslims believe Allah is punishing them by having them kill each other: It is because His prophecies are not being fulfilled.

For example, it is heresy and a violation of the will of Allah to sidestep calls for recognizing Jerusalem as official capital of the Children of Israel, and moving the American embassy there. It ignores the prophecy of the Noble Qur’an, which predicts the return of the Children of Israel to their land from the four corners of the earth, as it is written in Al-Isra, Verse 104, “And we said to the Children of Israel after him, “Dwell in the land, then, when the final and the last promise comes near, we shall bring you altogether as a mixed crowd.”

Although the stance adopted by the leaders of the Western world in general, and the American administration in particular, may be the consequence of their desire to strengthen their image in the eyes of the Muslim countries, their image is seen only as reflecting their weakness and attempts to ingratiate themselves with both radical Islam and Christian anti-Semitism.

It is not my intention to state that the other monotheistic religions do not also have their place in the holy city of Jerusalem. But political lies come mostly from radical Islamist sources, then somehow become accepted facts. This violates the prophecies of the messengers of Allah, and especially those of the greatest of His prophets, Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).

The various distortions of history and religion by politically-oriented Islamic sheiks and leaders for the sake of false, infidel, political goals, are legion. The way the Salafist Islamic sheiks and members of the Muslim Brotherhood twist the Noble Qur’an to suit their narrow political goals makes me angry, as it also makes angry the millions of Muslims around the world who know the eternal truth written in Islam’s Noble Qur’an.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, for example, invented the fabrication that Palestinians are the descendants of the Jebusites and other Canaanite tribes of the land of the at the time of the Book. Behind this fabrication was Arafat’s attempt to “prove” that the Palestinians lived in the Holy Land before the Children of Israel, and that therefore they have a greater right to it,

According to the Qur’an, however, “a race of giants” lived in the Holy Land but were destroyed by the Children of Israel, led by Joshua with the help of Allah the Almighty. There were never “Palestinians” in the Holy Land, nor is there one word of them in the Noble Qur’an, nor any prophecy regarding their existence, nor any right to the Holy Land or any other place in the future or on Day of Judgment in the Noble Book of Allah.

The Palestinians are not mentioned or even hinted at in the Noble Qur’an, but the Children of Israel are mentioned countless times and they are mentioned as the Chosen People, as it is written in Al-Baqara, Verse 47, “O Children of Israel, remember My favor that I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds.” They are mentioned as inheritors of the Holy Land which, according to all the Islamic commentators, is Jerusalem and the country around it. The Muslim claim that the Divine promise to the Children of Israel appears in the Noble Qur’an in the past tense and therefore is not relevant today is a malicious lie. Everyone knows that most of the Noble Qur’an was written in the past tense, but what was written about the Children of Israel was a promise and a prophecy, and Allah does not change His mind or break His promises.

Anyone who claims that what is written about the Jews is only relevant for the past and that the Children of Israel disappeared turns our beloved Prophet from prophet to mere historian who did not know what the future would bring. Anyone who claims that the “real” Children of Israel disappeared and that the Jews of today are not the genuine Children of Israel of the Noble Qur’an is a liar and a deceiver, because if there are no Children of Israel then the prophecy of Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) (sallal laahu alaihi wasallam), is irrelevant and he did not foresee the return of the Children of Israel to their land for the third time and instruct them to settle it, and promise that if they did what was right in the eyes of Allah and acted well they would succeed, as it is written in Al-Isra, Verses 6 and 7, “We gave you back the power against them, and aided you with wealth and children, and made you larger in numbers. Now, if you do well, you will do well for your own souls; and if you do evil, it will only go against them….” And if one prophecy is false then all are false, and the Noble Qur’an has no value. Thus we have to admit that regardless of the mistakes the Jews make concerning our Palestinian brothers, they in fact act well, even to the Arabs in Israel, and they are charitable according to the tradition of Islam, and they are clearly more honest than the Arab and Muslim leaders today who oppress their own people and daily slaughter them and shed their blood.

To the eternal credit of Islam it must be said that in the seventh century the armies of Islam invaded Palestine and wrested it from the Byzantines, and that Jerusalem was turned over without a battle to the Muslims by the Christian Bishop Sophronius. This was the beginning of the Arab presence in the Holy Land, which ended and was renewed for years under various conquests, including the Crusaders, but ended for good nearly a century ago, when the Turks went back home. The Holy Land was then given back into the hands of the Children of Israel, according to the decree of the Noble Qur’an and the prophecy of Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam). The Children of Israel came from all the corners of the earth, as it is written in Al-A’raf, Verse 137, “And we caused the people who had been oppressed to inherit the eastern regions of the land and western ones, which We had blessed. And the good word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of what they had patiently endured.”

The Palestinian claim that the Prophet Jesus was a Palestinian Arab is also a fabrication, unfortunately characteristic of Palestinian leaders who invent them and invest enormous sums of money to buy weapons, kill the Children of Israel, carry out terrorist attacks and launch Qassam rockets at civilians instead of rehabilitating the Palestinian refugees, their brothers, who, as a result of the establishment of Israel, actually returned to the bosom of the Islamic nation.

The more the Palestinians repeat the infamy that Jesus was a Palestinian Arab, the more likely it is that the Christians themselves will believe it, especially those who, by ignoring and denying the rights of the Children of Israel to Jerusalem, reveal their own baseness and lack of respect for their own religion, based on Judaism and begun in the Jewish capital of Jerusalem. According to such an absurdity, the Jewish prophet Jesus, son of Mary, who opposed the corrupt Jewish priests in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, was a “Palestinian Arab; ” but it is just another way of denying the Jews the right to their land. Christians who ignore the Jewish right to Jerusalem are also denying their own religion.

From a religious point of view, the connection between Muslims and Jerusalem began with the “Night Journey,” a dream that appears in the Noble Qur’an and was also reported by the Prophet’s beloved child-wife, Aisha. According to the dream, Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam), went on a night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem riding on a marvelous animal named Al-Buraq, and from Jerusalem to heaven, where he received the principles of Islam. Jerusalem was then temporarily designated as the “Kibla,” the first direction for Muslims to face during prayers; but Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam) changed the direction to Mecca. Since that time Jerusalem has been considered as only the third most sacred place for Islam.

It is saddening to think that we deny the Jews, the modern-day Children of Israel, their identity, despite the fact that we know that they preserved their faith for thousands of years in the face of torture, rape, persecution, burning and genocide, all crimes committed against them because they were Jews and were determined to remain Jews. We, however, the faithful of Islam, accept into our ranks every criminal and murderer who converts, in or out of prison, who only has to say, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet;” all it takes is five minutes. This new Muslim is considered a good Muslim, but a Jew who has adhered to the history and faith of his Jewish ancestors, the faith kept for thousands of years, is not in our eyes a genuine Jew, a Child of Israel. How long will we deny the Islamic faith and the prophecies of our Prophet Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) (sallal laahu alaihi wasallam)?

Unfortunately, even those among us who do believe that the Jews in Israel are genuine Children of Israel, the ones Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam), referred to in his noble Surahs, the ones who have inherited the Holy Land promised to them by the Noble Qur’an, conduct themselves despicably. They adopt the counterfeit, apocalyptic, false sayings which do not appear in the Noble Qur’an and are falsely attributed to the Prophet of Allah. They adopt as genuine traditions those which are lies, and, contradicting the promises made by Allah in the Noble Qur’an, falsely prophesy the destruction of the Jews by the Muslims in Palestine.

These commentators, inspired by Satan, refer to the Jews as “Zionists,” as though changing their name makes it permissible to kill the People of the Book and violate the words of Allah and His prophets. Is it possible that Allah, who in His infinite mercy calls them the Chosen People, and promised them the Holy Land, also plans to murder them using the Muslims in Palestine as His intermediary? Every Muslim knows that Allah does not break His promises. Therefore, his promise to the Children of Israel is both relevant and eternal. The Jews, weak and miserable, who came from all over the globe, victims of hatred and murder would not found their state in Palestine unless it were the will of Allah, who supports them.

Jerusalem is the capital of the Children of Israel and it is forbidden for Muslims to demand it, just as a married woman belongs only to her husband. Jerusalem is never mentioned by name in the Noble Qur’an, but it is mentioned there as the heart of the Holy Land given in perpetuity to the Jews. It therefore has to be capital of the Children of Israel in the Land of Israel and not of the planned state of “Palestine.” If, as Muslims, we look into our hearts, we have to admit that a state called Palestine never existed but we need to help it come into being, with the help of Allah, next to Israel. Since there never was a state called “Palestine” or a Palestinian people, Jerusalem was never their capital or the capital of any people or country except for the current State of Israel. Therefore the Palestinians cannot demand Jerusalem as its capital, but they can demand the right for all Muslims to pray at Al-Aqsa mosque. Actually, the Jews allow freedom of worship to all the religions in Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa mosque is under the management of the king of Jordan, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).

In addition, nowhere in the world have Muslims turned a city holy to Islam into a capital. Neither Mecca nor Madinah is the capital of Saudi Arabia and Karbala and Qom are not the capitals of Iraq and Iran. Even Jordan, whose capital is Amman, did not turn Jerusalem into its capital when it controlled the city between 1948 and 1967.

Instead of the monotheistic religions’ helping the Jews to construct Jerusalem in preparation for Judgment Day and as proof of the truth of the prophecies in the Noble Qur’an, the infidels protest construction of new housing. If the Muslims used the return of the Children of the Book to Israel as proof of the truth of the prophecy of the Noble Qur’an, they would succeed in fulfilling the mission of Muhammad, the prophet of the entire world (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam) to Islamize the world. Whoever goes against the will of Allah will fail. The Christians as well suffer from the historical lie and from the denial of the rights of the Jews to Jerusalem. What is happening in the Middle East and the mutual bloodletting of the Muslims is not a consequence of the “problem of Palestine.” It is a manifestation of Allah’s anger at the infidels of the world who do not accept His prophecy regarding the return of the Jews to their land and establishing their capital in the united holy city of Jerusalem.

Go to http://www.hopeofisrael.eventbrite.com to register.

We will be gathering to delve into the prophetic Scriptures, to pray, and to seek the counsel of the Lord in reference to the Biblical testimony regarding Israel and the Church in the “last days.” It behooves the Church to seek understanding on these matters, for to be “ignorant of the mystery” (Rom. 11.25) is to miss God’s mind and heart, and to be ill-prepared be the days that lie ahead.

The issue of Israel is not a fringe issue. It is at the very heart of God’s plan for the ages; it is at the heart of the Gospel itself. Therefore Paul, when imprisoned for preaching Christ, declared, “…I am wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel.”(Acts 28.20) We must recognize that our view of Israel and our view of eschatology (the last things) has a significant effect on pastoral ministry, theology, and missional labors, and it is crucial that we give an adequate hearing to the prophets and apostles of Scripture.

What is the mystery of Israel? How does God intend to be glorified through this mystery? What is the Biblical testimony regarding the Day of the Lord? What is the Church’s role in the days leading up to the glorious appearing of Christ? We are gathering for the express purpose of peering into the Scriptures on these crucial matters, and we anticipate a rich time in the Lord’s presence together.

Speakers:

Reggie Kelly (the.mysteryofisrael.org)

Scott Volk (togetherforisrael.org)

Joel Richardson (joelstrumpet.com)

Dalton Thomas (daltonthomas.org)

Bryan Purtle (pilgrimagekc.org)

Registration is limited to 350, so register as soon as possible!

For the Glory of Christ & the Hope of Israel,

The Pilgrimage Staff

The report’s conclusions, revealed Thursday, are not legally binding, but they further inflame tensions between the U.N. Human Rights Council and Israel, and between Israel and the Palestinians. Israeli officials immediately denounced the report, while Palestinians pointed to it as “proof of Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing” and its desire to undermine the possibility of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians also hinted that they could use the report as a basis for legal action toward a war crimes prosecution.

In its report to the 47-nation council, a panel of investigators said Israel is violating international humanitarian law under the Fourth Geneva Convention, one of the treaties that establish the ground rules for what is considered humane during wartime.

This was the first thematic report on Israel’s settlements with an historical look at the government’s policy since 1967, U.N. officials said. Previous U.N. reports have taken a look at Israeli settlement policy only through the lens of a specific event, such as the 2009 war in the Gaza Strip, when Israel launched an offensive in response to months of rocket fire by the ruling Hamas militant group.

The Israeli government persists in building settlements in occupied territories claimed by Palestinians for a future state, including east Jerusalem and the West Bank, “despite all the pertinent United Nations resolutions declaring that the existence of the settlements is illegal and calling for their cessation,” the report said.

The settlements are “a mesh of construction and infrastructure leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian State and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” the report concludes.

More than 500,000 Israelis already live in settlements that dot the West Bank and ring east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital. Israel annexed east Jerusalem, with its Palestinian population, immediately after capturing the territory from Jordan in 1967 and has built housing developments for Jews there, but the annexation has not been recognized internationally.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the council of taking a systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel, with the report being merely “another unfortunate reminder” of that bias.

“The only way to resolve all pending issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the settlements issue, is through direct negotiations without pre-conditions,” the ministry said. “Counterproductive measures – such as the report before us – will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”

French judge Christine Chanet, who led the panel, said Israel never cooperated with the probe, which the council ordered last March.

Because it was not authorized to investigate within Israel, Chanet said, the panel had to travel to Jordan to interview more than 50 people who spoke of the impact of the settlements, such as violence by Jewish settlers, confiscation of land and damage to olive trees that help support Palestinian families. The report also references legal opinions, other reports and a number of articles in the Israeli press.

Another panel member, Pakistani lawyer Asma Jahangir, said the settlements “seriously impinge on the self-determination of the Palestinian people,” an offense under international humanitarian law.

At a news conference, Chanet called the report “a kind of weapon for the Palestinians” if they want to take their grievances before The Hague-based International Criminal Court.

The Palestine Liberation Organization appeared to suggest it might seek such action, in a statement that called the report’s legal framework a clear indictment of Israeli policy and practice.

“All the Israeli settlement activities are illegal and considered to be war crimes according to the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention. This means that Israel is liable to prosecution,” said PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi. The settlements, she added, are “clearly a form of forced transfer and a proof of Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing.”

In November, the U.N. General Assembly recognized a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in a vote that was largely symbolic but infuriated Israel. In December, the Palestinians accused Israel of planning more “war crimes” by expanding settlements.

The Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council was set up in 2006 to replace a 60-year-old commission that was widely discredited as a forum dominated by nations with poor rights records. The United States finally joined the council in 2009, and U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier this month that while all countries should appear for their review “we also consistently registered our opposition to the council’s consistent anti-Israel bias.”

Earlier this week, Israel became the first nation to skip a review of its human rights record by the council without giving a reason. Diplomats agreed to postpone their review until later this year based on Israel’s request for a deferral.

The council, which could have proceeded with the review or canceled it, said its agreement to defer would set precedent for how to deal with any future cases of “non-cooperation.”

All 193 U.N.-member nations are required to submit to such a review every four years, and council diplomats said they worried that if a nation were let off the hook that could undermine the process.

For more information visit: http://covenantandcontroversy.com/videos

“We are all one,” said Mashaal, referring to Palestinians residing in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and inside Israel. “We are all united in the way of resistance.”

Mashaal entered the Strip on Friday, for the first time ever and after a long exile from Palestinian territory, to attend the mass rally.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza on Saturday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Hamas. Tributes to Ahmed Jabari, the Hamas terror chief killed by Israel on the first day of Operation Pillar of Defense last month, were central to the event.

Hamas supporters, some of them flashing victory signs, were braving the rain to attend the event. Some parents brought children dressed in military uniforms.

Palestinian sources reported that the terror organization’s supporters from throughout the region had arrived in Gaza to participate in the festivities. Israel Radio said supporters had come from across the Middle East, and that 100 Muslims had also traveled from the United Kingdom.

Israel said Thursday that it did not control who entered Gaza from Egypt. The Foreign Ministry noted that the entry of Mashaal and other supporters to Gaza underlined that Israel did not maintain a hermetic land blockade on the Strip.

Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal speaks to Hamas supporters during a visit to the house of Ahmed Jaabari, the leader of the Hamas armed wing who was killed in an Israeli air strike in November, in Gaza City, Friday. (AP Photo/Mohammed Saber)

A spokesmen for Hamas’s military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, warned Israelis to prepare their passports.

“We fought the Zionist entity with limited power,” he said. “What will happen when we fight with all our might?

“Zionists, you should prepare your passports and get ready to disappear,” the spokesman added.

In a special message released in honor of the anniversary, Hamas leaders vowed to continue the path of resistance and jihad “to liberate Palestine.”

“The great crimes perpetrated against us by the Zionist occupation only fuel our desire to resist and fight,” read the message.

The anniversary comes two weeks after the bloodiest round of Israel-Gaza fighting in four years.

Hamas has portrayed itself as the victor of the eight-day conflict because Israel agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce instead of sending in ground troops, as it initially threatened.

“Let no man deceive you … the end is not yet!”

The commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, had shifted Hamas’s low-grade militia into a disciplined force with sophisticated weapons like Fajr-5 rockets, which are named after the Persian word for dawn and have significantly increased the danger to Israel’s major cities. They have a range of about 45 miles and are fired by trained crews from underground launching pads.

Hamas had perhaps 100 of them until the Israeli attacks last week, which appear to have destroyed most of the stockpile. The rockets are assembled locally after being shipped from Iran to Sudan, trucked across the desert through Egypt, broken down into parts and moved through Sinai tunnels into Gaza, according to senior Israeli security officials.

The smuggling route involves salaried employees from Hamas along the way, Iranian technical experts traveling on forged passports and government approval in Sudan, Israeli officials said.

Mr. Jabari’s strategy has been so effective and alarming for Israel that it is preparing for a possible next stage in the four-day-old battle: a ground war in which its troops would seek to destroy remaining rocket launching bases and crews and munitions factories.

Under Mr. Jabari, Hamas also developed its own weapons industry in Gaza, building long-range rockets as well as drones that they hoped to fly over Israel just as Israeli drones roam the skies of Gaza, sowing fear in its population.

The current operation to eliminate the Hamas rocket launchers could serve to cripple the ability of Iran’s allies in Gaza from retaliating should Israel ever carry out its threat to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

“Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are building weapons with experts from Iran,” one top security official said Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “What we took care of last night was their own production facility for U.A.V.’s,” he added, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. “This was all the work of Jabari, who was a very sophisticated and strategic thinker.”

A number of recent Israeli military attacks were aimed at cutting the supply chain into Gaza. In late October, a munitions factory in Sudan was hit from the air. Israel did not acknowledge carrying out the attack, but the winks and nods of officials here make clear that it did. Israel has carried out several other such attacks on Sudan, including on convoys, in the past few years.

In addition, Mossad agents killed a Hamas official in a Dubai hotel in early 2010 because he was thought to be crucial to the Hamas supply chain of weapons and rockets into Gaza.

One official here said that until Israel ended its military occupation of Gaza in 2005, there were only primitive weapons factories there. The Hamas rockets had a flight capacity of about a mile, they could not be aimed and they flew in a wild cylindrical pattern. Hamas then built better rockets that could fly up to 12 miles.

That changed little until 2007, when Hamas fighters pushed the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority out of Gaza into the West Bank and took over governing the coastal strip.

“At that point, Jabari turned his neighborhood defense operation into a real army,” said a retired Israeli general whose portfolio included Gaza and who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He organized what was a militia into companies, battalions and brigades. He sent commanders to Syria and to Iran to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards. And then he built up this whole new branch to develop military technology focusing on long-range missiles.”

The collapse of the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya last year created other supply options for Hamas as Libyan military storehouses were raided and the equipment sold off. Those weapons were driven across Egypt and into Gaza.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Jabari’s death will truly cripple Hamas, or whether it will find someone equally adept to take his place, the officials said.

Either way, Hamas now has a range of rockets and weapons in its arsenal, said Jeffrey White, a former analyst with the United States Defense Intelligence Agency and now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In addition to the Fajr-5, Hamas has a few hundred of what are known as enhanced Grad rockets, which have a range of about 25 miles. The Grads are 122-millimeter rockets that have bigger warheads than the standard Grads, but their accuracy is relatively low. The Grads may also be coming from Iran, Mr. White said, but others are made in Gaza and imported from Libya.

In addition, Hamas has hundreds of standard Grads that have a range of about 12 miles, as well as thousands of homemade mortars and Qassam rockets with a range of about six miles.

Israeli officials said the movement of the Fajr-5 rockets through Egypt could not go unnoticed there, given their size. Each is 20 feet long and weighs more than 2,000 pounds — the warhead alone weighs 375 pounds — and the trucks carrying them across Egyptian bridges and through roadblocks into Sinai would be hard to miss.

In the current conflict, Israel’s antirocket system, known as Iron Dome, has been more effective than expected, but still dozens of rockets have landed.

Whether the military operation against Gaza is a dress rehearsal for any future attack on either Iran or Lebanon — where Hezbollah has thousands of rockets pointed at Israel — is a matter under debate here. Some see it as clearing away any possible trouble from Gaza. Others say that makes little sense, given the difference of scale in the conflict in Gaza and any war against Iran or Hezbollah. Hamas’s arsenal is tiny compared with what Hezbollah in Lebanon is thought to have: thousands of rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Yonatan Touval, an analyst with Prime Source, a private Tel Aviv risk-assessment company, said, “The Iron Dome system is ineffective in intercepting longer-range projectiles, such as those that would be launched from Lebanon toward the Tel Aviv area. To address this threat, Israel is currently developing the Magic Wand system, but it is not expected to become operational before 2015.”

He added that the fighting now was therefore not really a test of a future conflict involving Iran and Lebanon. “If Israel’s political leadership is treating the current operation in Gaza as something of a rehearsal for a future war with Hezbollah and Iran, it is rehearsing the wrong play,” he said.

Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967. 

The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East. 

The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?

The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people. 

These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars. 

In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people. 

In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?

On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.

And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten. 

Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian? 

The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.

— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
almulhimnavy@hotmail.com

[Jerusalem Post] Christian Zionists increasingly act as if they were religious Jews until the End. They refer to the year 5773; many have changed their day of Sabbath from Sunday to Saturday; some have made aliya through the use of suspect Jewish ancestry, or are on permanent tourist visas; they donate millions of dollars indirectly to settlement activity and provide various IDF battalions military equipment; their national allegiance is seemingly stronger to Israel than America, as illustrated by their condemnation of US policy that criticizes Israel, because Israeli policy is understood as God-sanctioned and therefore infallible, and they make pilgrimages to Israel less to celebrate Christ and more to “witness the incoming” of Jews to Israel.

Christian Zionists also increasingly celebrate Jewish holidays, including this week’s Succot, by way of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem’s (ICEJ) “Feast of Tabernacles” conference.

This week, 7,000 Christian Zionists will descend into Jerusalem for this conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. The Feast of Tabernacles is the largest non-Jewish tourist event in the State of Israel.

Each year Israel’s prime minister has addressed this body.

As in previous years, Netanyahu is eager to address these Christian Zionist pilgrims to gain support for the bombing of Iran.

SINCE ITS inception in the 1980s, the organizers have structured the Feast’s itinerary around an existential threat to Israel. In the 1990s it was Oslo threatening Israel’s territorial integrity, and in 2008/9 it was rockets being launched into southern Israel from Gaza. This is an attempt to foment anxiety around the promise of Armageddon and Christ’s return to earth. This year, the threat will be Iran’s nuclear armament. But this concern is not simply contingent upon the fallout from Israel’s threat to strike Iran; rather it resonates with deeper prophetic concerns that have long seen nuclear weapons as the cause of the apocalypse. Indeed, immediately following the Cold War, Iran replaces the USSR as the purveyor of global nuclear war.

Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), deemed by The New York Times to be the best-selling non-fiction book of the 1970s, turned the Bible’s references of “fire and brimstone”, according to Paul Boyer, the preeminent scholar of the apocalypse, “into a manual of atomic age combat.”

Lindsey claims that the convoluted doom and tribulation analogies of the Book of Revelation were the ancient prophets witnessing atomic war. The vision of disaster, that one-third of the world’s population would be consumed by fire, was only made possible by thermonuclear weaponry.

Christian Zionist concern for a nuclear Armageddon was pervasive during the Cold War. It prophesized that the USSR would start the war to end all wars. But with the end of the Cold War, Russia was no longer considered the “evil other” or what Christian Zionists referred to as Gog and Magog, biblical nations said to usher in the apocalypse. In the post- Cold War geopolitical disorientation regarding the identification of friend versus foe, the geography of evil was transposed instead onto Iraq and Iran. These states became the new Gog and Magog for Sunday school teachers, pastors and prophecy writers.

For example, Mark Hitchcock is a pastor from Oklahoma and of prophetic fame among Christian Zionists for his revision of post-Cold War prophetic geopolitics. He has encouraged the transposition of evil from the USSR to Iran. He wrote in his book, The Silver Kingdom: Iran in History and Prophecy (1993): “Iran is accumulating conventional weapons at an alarming rate, and is also now in possession of nuclear weapons.” Of course these same arguments were used to justify a war with Iraq a decade later.

In his most recent book on the subject, Iran the Coming Crisis (2006), Hitchcock explains that Ahmadinejad is the Antichrist and will take the throne at the Third Temple by threat of nuclear provision.

While Hitchcock’s theme of Iran as the new geography of evil has had significant purchase among Christian Zionists, much before Israel’s current nuclear impasse, while Christian Zionists are not alone: Netanyahu has been itching to bomb Iran’s nuclear program since July 1996. This scenario is not something Christian Zionists fear, but rather is something welcomed. They believe nuclear war is inevitable by virtue of God’s will, and that even if Israel strikes Natanz and Fordow, the armies of Armageddon will start marching toward Israel.

NO DOUBT these prophetic events will be lamented by delegates at the Feast of Tabernacles conference, but they will also be celebrated. Nuclear war between Iran and Israel means they will finally be Saved by their Messiah. They will escape the atrocities by being Raptured into heaven before WWIII, while watching from auditorium seats in Heaven.

They will be saved while most everyone else dies (except according to some versions of eschatology 144,000 Jews who have converted to Christianity). Christian Zionists find vindication in these atrocities.

The Islamic studies professor and former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filiu argues forcefully in his book Apocalypse in Islam (2012) that it is not just Christian Zionists who truly believe this fatalistic perspective on history. Many of the violence- prone fundamentalists in the Muslim world share this apocalyptic perspective, some within the present Iranian regime. All covet the annihilation of the other, assuming a cosmic war playing out on earth will end in their favor by vanquishing the heathens as their Messiah redeems them in the millennium.

Similarly, according to Timothy Weber a leading scholar of Christian Zionists, upon bombing Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981, Menachem Begin phoned Jerry Falwell before President Reagan in an attempt to garner support amongst the American Christian community. Likewise, when Binyamin Netanyahu visited Washington in January 1998, his first meeting was with Falwell and The National Unity Coalition for Israel, as constituted by 5,000 fundamentalist Christian leaders. The coalition, which has over one million members, is organized to lobby the US government on pro-Israeli issues.

The point here is that Christian Zionists have served both as ambassadors to Israel and the most ardent supporters of Israel’s most risky foreign policy decisions. It is not only that Christian Zionists are meddling in Israel affairs, it is that the choice of causes has detrimental results for the perception of Israel as a specious apocalyptic actor and the rest of the world, but the blowback from such religious politicking will have few repercussions for them except their faith in redemption, at the cost of Israeli lives.

THE ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles conference at International Convention Center Jerusalem starts the 30th of September and ends on the 4th of October. Attendance is free each evening for all Jews living in Israel, and not simply the advertised “Parade of Nations” evening on October 1, which is open to the public. I encourage readers to attend the conference and ask a delegate where Jews fit into Christian Zionist vision of the End Times. Let me give you a hint: in the End you die.

The writer is assistant professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. He has published in Haaretz, The Toronto Star, and The Japan Times. He is co-editor (with Jason Dittmer) of the book Mapping the End Times (Ashgate 2010).