Last week, I reported in my column at WorldNetDaily that the
spontaneous uprising in the Middle East was not spontaneous at all, in
spite of what the Western media -- and especially CNN was telling
people. It turns out that not all the Western media is buying the
spontaneous intifada line, after all. The Washington Post interviewed a
Hamas spokesman in Gaza the day after my column was published. According
to the report, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have set up steering
committees to coordinate the violence.
The paper writes that Arafat is working closely with leaders of both
the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. Yasser Arafat
ordered the leaders of these organizations released from prison at the
start of the uprising. It seems that some of the released terrorists are
being hidden in PLO buildings. The Associated Press similarly reported
Wednesday that representatives of Hamas and other Palestinian groups
have been directing the Palestinian protests. "The existence of the
steering committees ... would undermine Arafat's contention that the
Palestinian protests of the past month have entirely been a spontaneous
outburst of anger against Israel," reported the AP.
This week, the IDF attacked Arafat's headquarters in response to the
murder of an Israeli civilian. He had been beaten and stabbed. Before
his body was set afire, the words 'God is Great' were carved in his back
in Arabic with a knife. The PA denounced the Israeli attack on its
headquarters as "brutal." Few mainstream media organizations bothered to
report that the Israelis gave advance warning of the attack, to allow
everyone to leave safely in advance of the strike. That would have
spoiled the systematic portrayal of Israel
as the unreasoning aggressor.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Arafat continued to whip up fury against Israel
by pushing the envelope -- continuing to demand what Israel can never
grant. On Monday, he told his followers, "Until Jerusalem, until
Jerusalem, until Jerusalem, the capital of our independent Palestinian
state.''
Jerusalem is the one thing Israel can never surrender if it is to
remain Israel. Arafat knows that, and that's why he continues to demand
it. Israel wants peace at almost any price. For that reason, Arafat is
demanding a price he knows they can never pay. Columnist George Will
summed up Arafat's true agenda in a single sentence last Sunday. He
said, "the problem is not that Israel is being provocative, but that
Israel's being is provocative." He couldn't have captured the
sentiment more perfectly.
The Bible says that Israel is the linchpin around which Bible
prophecy revolves in the last days. Zechariah said that the key to the
conflict that was to come would be the city of Jerusalem. Despite the
number of times it's been said, it doesn't dilute the amazing accuracy
of Bible prophecy by a single iota. It is all about Jerusalem -- nothing
less will do -- for the Palestinians, and for the Jews. Yet at the time
in which the prophets wrote the majority of Scripture relating to
Jerusalem and the last days, the city was already occupied by a series
of conquerors. For most of the last two thousand years, it lay dormant,
unnoticed and largely ignored by everyone except the Diaspora Jews who
prayed at each Passover "Next year, in Jerusalem."
There are those who would say that Bible prophecy was all fulfilled
in the past. The prophecies concerning Israel and Jerusalem were
fulfilled with the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. In this
view, those who see a pattern between Bible prophecy and current events
are simply twisting God's Word to suit the moment.
In order for this view to have merit, one must believe that the
restoration of Israel after two thousand years of exile is coincidence.
That Ezekiel's prophecy that Israel would be restored to the "mountains
which had always been waste" was allegorical, since Israel ceased to
exist as a nation in the eighth century BC. At the time of the
destruction of the Temple, all that remained of Israel was Judah, a tiny
occupied remnant of what had once been the nation of Israel. Since AD
70, no place on earth was home to any kind of Jewish state, let alone
Ezekiel's vision of a nation called Israel. Until this generation. The
generation that saw, for the first time in millennia, a nation known as
Israel, a Jewish state governed by Jews for Jews. A nation in constant
conflict with her neighbors over who owns Jerusalem. It requires
ignoring the historical fact that Jerusalem has never been the capital
of any other state except that of the Jews. It requires ignoring the
historical fact that there has never been a state of any kind located on
what is now the Land of Israel. No Palestinian state, no Arab state, no
state of any kind. Just a dusty backwater province under a series of
occupying forces. The Arab claim to a historical state in the region
falls flat when examined under the microscope of history.
The citizens of Iowa are Americans. There has never been a "nation of
Iowa." Arafat's claim is analogous to the citizens of Iowa rising up
against Washington under the guise of reclaiming a previous national
entity that was Iowan. It just doesn't hold water. Repeating an
inaccuracy does not make it accurate, no matter how many times it's
repeated, or how many people repeat it. It just isn't true, no matter
which side of the dispute one favors.
The Bible says that the current Middle East situation is part and
parcel of the fulfillment of a series of prophecies that will begin to
unfold in the last days before the return of Christ. Since those
prophecies were penned thousands of years in advance, it isn't a case of
making current events conform to Bible prophecy. Bible prophecy, by
virtue of its antiquity -- is history. The history of our current, and
our near future. It predates the claims of Yasser Arafat by thousands of
years. It accurately portrays current events from a vantage point far
removed from what is taking place before our eyes. The Bible lays out
the current scenario in detail, and in a chronological order consistent
with what is taking place right now. It takes a far greater leap of
faith to believe that what is happening is merely coincidence than it
does to accept the reality that the Bible is divinely inspired, and
therefore unerringly accurate.
The fact is that many of the most vocal critics of end time prophecy
are themselves sincere Christians. The Apostle Peter addressed this
seeming inconsistency when writing to the Church regarding the attitude
that will prevail among many Christians in the last days.
He wrote in his second epistle, "Knowing this first, that there shall
come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and
saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of
God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and
in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with
water, perished" (2 Peter 3:3-6).
The promise of his coming is as sure as the promise of the Flood.
Nobody believed Noah, either. But that didn't stop the rain.