What you need to know about the crisis in Gaza

The current flare up of violence in Gaza is simply the most recent confrontation in a long history of battles between the Israelis and the Arab occupants of the Gaza Strip, a tiny area on the Mediterranean Sea between Israel and Egypt that is about the size of Montgomery, Ala. and is home to 1.8 million Palestinian Arabs. To fully understand the current situation, one must look back almost 50 years to 1967 and the Six Day War.

In antiquity, Gaza was ruled by a number of empires including the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Israelites, the Romans, and the Ottomans. The home of the ancient Philistines, it was also the location of Samson’s imprisonment in the Old Testament. After World War I, control passed from the Ottoman Empire to the British. After Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, an event referred to by Palestinians as “al Nakba” (the catastrophe), Gaza was occupied by Egypt even though the United Nations partition plan for Palestine had set aside the area to be an Arab state. Gaza was ostensibly governed by the All Palestine government during this time until 1959 when Egyptian President Nasser assumed overt control.

In 1967, an Arab alliance consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq with the backing of the Soviet Union attempted to launch a surprise attack against Israel. The Israelis learned of the Arab intentions and, after Arab forces had illegally blockaded Israeli ships from the Straits of Tiran, launched a preemptive attack on June 5. The attack was a stunning success, destroying most of the Egyptian air force on the ground. As a result of this initial success, Israel captured the territories of Gaza, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Golan Heights from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria respectively.

Israel governed Gaza from the end of the Six Day War until 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The agreement established limited self-government for the Palestinians living Israeli-occupied territories. Yasir Arafat, a terrorist and founder of al Fatah and the PLO, was elected president of the Palestinian National Authority, a post that he held until shortly before his death in 2004.

In 2005, Israeli President Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza. Although Israel did build some Jewish settlements in Gaza during its occupation, the goal of occupying Gaza in 1967 may have been to trade land for peace or an end to the blockade of the Straits of Tiran. In any event, Israel ended up occupying the Gaza Strip for almost 40 years until the 2005 disengagement.

Under Arafat’s rule, as well as that of his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian National Authority became known for corruption and links to terror. Public infrastructure crumbled and the people became destitute. In 2006, after more than a decade of PLO rule, the people of Gaza voted for change in the form of a government by Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist group. The election ushered in a period of fighting between supporters of the PLO and Hamas known as the Palestinian Civil War. Today, the Palestinian National Authority is still split between the two groups with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah, the PLO, in control of the West Bank.

In 2006, Hamas terrorists launched a raid into Israel that captured a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Galid Shalit. The kidnapping, combined with increasing numbers of rocket attacks using more sophisticated and longer range rockets, drove Israel to launch an aerial campaign against Hamas targets in Gaza in 2006. Shalit was ultimately exchanged for 1,027 imprisoned Palestinian terrorists after five years of captivity, but rocket attacks continued.

In 2008, the rockets prompted Israel to launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Known as the Gaza War, the campaign was a military success for Israel and the resulting damage to Hamas caused a lull in the rocket attacks. Before withdrawing, the IDF also destroyed many of the tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

Since the end of the Gaza War, the Gaza Strip has been effectively sealed off by both Israel and Egypt. The border crossings with Israel are frequently closed. The border crossing in Rafah, which leads into Egypt, the only border crossing with a country other than Israel, is almost always closed by the Egyptians as well.

The recent upheaval in the Gaza Strip comes in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers in June. The murders were celebrated by Palestinian Arabs and sparked Israeli air attacks on Hamas in the West Bank as well as a possible revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by three Jewish Israelis. In turn, Hamas has increased rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

Joel Rosenberg reports that 520 rockets have hit Israel so far. Many of the rockets that threatened population centers have been shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. There are also indications that Iran is supplying longer range rockets than were previously available to Hamas. The M-302 rockets from Iran have a 115 mile range, which means that they can be fired from Gaza to Israel’s capitol of Tel Aviv.

It is unclear at this point what the next step in the current conflict will be. Many observers expect another Israeli incursion into Gaza. In the past, Egypt has often mediated ceasefires, but the chaotic situation in Egypt makes that unlikely.

Read the full article on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Rabbis say Arab unrest may signal Messiah's coming

Rabbi Chaim Konievsky (Wikimedia)

A number of Israeli rabbis have said that the spreading unrest in the Arab and Muslim world may signal the long-awaited coming of the Messiah.  Christians, who believe that the Messiah has already come in the form of Jesus (Yeshua), can also find many reflections of Biblical prophecy in current headlines.

Chaim Kanievsky, a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi who is believed by his followers to have mystical powers, said, “"It is evident that many unnatural things are happening.  People have come to me and said that it's 'Gog and Magog'. We cannot know. But it's probable that any unrest that God creates shows that the Messiah is coming, and that we must begin to prepare for it and become stronger."

Another Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, Aharon Leib Steinman, blamed the unrest on the persecution of Torah (Old Testament) students:  “Recently it appears that there is a powerful effort to destroy and agitate the world of the Torah, through various attempts to prosecute kollels and yeshiva students.  When you try to agitate the world of the Torah, God agitates the world.”

Much of the focus on the Arab uprisings stems from a Biblical prophecy of Ezekiel regarding the future War of Gog of Magog.  In the prophecy (found in Ezekiel 38-39), a coalition of nations is led by “Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meschech, and Tubal” in an attack on Israel.  Although the names of the nations listed in the prophecy are antiquated, most are generally believed to refer to modern day Arab and Muslim nations.  One nation that is easily identified is Persia, which is the historic name of Iran.  Modern Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel.

The current wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world may eventually bring nations that are now ruled by secular dictatorships and monarchies under the sway of radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.  Where the secular governments have realized the folly of directly confronting Israel, newly radical governments might take the success of their revolutions as a sign of Allah’s favor and be more inclined to join in an attack on the predominantly Jewish state.

The War of Gog of Magog will be different from previous Arab-Israeli conflicts which have been settled by conventional means.  According to Isaiah, the coming war will be won by divine intervention.  In 38:19, Ezekiel describes an earthquake followed by a rain of fire and ice from the sky in verses 21-22 as Gog’s troops turn on each other.  This bombardment from Heaven will totally destroy the attacking forces.  Chapter 39 describes the aftermath of the attack and the carnage inflicted on the attacking armies.

In Christian theology, the War of Gog of Magog is typically thought to occur before the second coming of Jesus Christ.  It is possible that the utter destruction of the militant Islamists in the Middle East will make it possible for the Jews to construct a replacement for their temple in Jerusalem.  The last temple was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 during the First Jewish Revolt.  The Biblical book of Daniel describes a latter-day stoppage of sacrifices at the temple (9:27, 12:11).  Jesus refers to these verses (Matthew 24:15-16) in response to a question about his return and the end of days.  The prophecy of Daniel was partially fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes when he defiled the altar of the temple in 168 B.C.  Obviously this is not the ultimate fulfillment because Jesus was speaking of future events and Antiochus’ actions had occurred over 150 years earlier.

The Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount (Wikimedia/Chris Yunker)

The traditional site of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem is now occupied by the Muslim Dome of the Rock mosque.  The mosque is currently protected by the Israeli government even though Jerusalem has been under Israeli control since Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser’s disastrous Six-Day War on Israel in 1967.  Any attempt to remove the mosque to rebuild the temple would undoubtedly spark a holy war.  If the mosque were destroyed as a result of the divine intervention against Gog, however, it might well provide an opening for Jewish Israelis.  Interestingly, the chapters of Ezekiel following the Gog prophecy contain a description of a new temple that has so far never been built.

Along with a defilement of the temple, Jesus also says that signs of his return will include earthquakes and famines.  The recent Japanese earthquake ranked as the fourth largest of all time by magnitude.  Of the nine strongest earthquakes in history, four have occurred within the last decade. With respect to deaths, only two of the top ten earthquakes (Haiti in 2010 and Sumatra in 2004) have occurred in the past decade.  Likewise, world food prices have risen sharply over the past few years.  The rising cost of food is a factor in the Arab uprisings and is already causing a food crisis in the poor nations of the world.

 “We've been living in the ‘last days’ ever since Jesus' ascension,” says David Reid, pastor of Peachtree Community Church in Villa Rica and author of Leading to the Bedroom.  “He could come back for the church at any time.  It's the next appointment on God's calendar. Jesus gave many signs of His return in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 including wars and earthquakes.  All of these things are warnings for us to be ready for His return because it is closer than ever before.”

As David Gushee, professor of Christian ethics at Atlanta’s Mercer University also notes “According to the New Testament, Jesus will one day return to earth. But he also said that no one knows the day or hour of his return. The only proper posture for the Christian is to ‘be always on the watch.’  We must live in a way pleasing to Christ whether he is to return tomorrow or in 10,000 years. All speculations that a certain sequence of events now definitively means that the messiah will soon come should be rejected, even though they seem to be a quite natural response of human beings to the stressful and sometimes terrible events of life on earth.”

For a brief overview of Biblical signs of the approaching end of days, please visit http://www.captainkudzu.com/2007/12/signs-of-times.html

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