With the recent military victory of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, we have yet more bad news for the beleaguered nation of Israel. Iran and Syria have been working overtime to establish hegemony in the Middle East, with a big part of the agenda focused on the elimination of Israel.
In Gaza two thugs have been slugging it out, and in the end, one prevailed. While Fatah was nothing to get excited about, Hamas is even a more nasty piece of work to deal with. And with Syria-backed Hezbollah working to destabilise Lebanon, the whole situation is looking very grim indeed for the State of Israel.
Cal Thomas, in a June 19, 2007 column, examines the implications of this latest round of instability and brinkmanship in the Middle East. He notes that Israel is now faced with some very grim choices, as is its major ally, the United States:
“The Bush administration’s announced goal for Israel and the ‘Palestinian people’ has been two states, living side by side in peace. The administration is two-thirds there. There are now two states – one in Gaza, headed by the militant Hamas organization, which shot its way to power; and another in the West Bank headed by accused Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately for Israel, there is no peace, which should not surprise those who have been predicting exactly what is now coming to pass.”
Whether it be Hamas or some other radical group, they all spell bad news for Israel. “Whatever their names, be they groups like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida, or states like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, their objectives are identical: the annihilation of the democratic Jewish State and the elimination of all Jews, either by death or displacement, from the land. To argue otherwise and to continue believing the fiction that ‘infidel’ diplomats from the State Department or European Union can magically transform people commanded to hate Jews and Israel based on a twisted mandate from their corrupt notion of God, is to be in extreme denial.”
And Gaza of course is not the end. “Hamas won’t stop with Gaza. After its victory over poorly directed Israeli forces in Lebanon last summer, why should it? The one thing terrorists understand is weakness. They perceive Israel, under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as weak and they are going for Israel’s jugular. Benyamin Elon, a conservative member of Israel’s Knesset, said, ‘The Fatah is diminishing in front of our eyes, and a group of gangsters is taking over. Israel can wake up now from the delusion of an independent Palestinian state’.”
Yet the left, and misguided strategists will continue to pin the blame on Israel, and demand that it make more concessions. The trouble is, Israel has been making concessions, and things have only gotten worse. “It is mystifying why Western diplomats continue to pressure Israel to ‘do more’ when ‘more’ has brought Israel less. Each time Israel gives up something necessary for its security, it receives in return more war, more terror and more insecurity. If more for less remains the ‘strategy’ of the United States, then Israel has two choices: surrender now, or prepare for all-out war with catastrophic results.”
The trouble is, the enemies of Israel have all along made their intentions clear, yet many in the West refuse to believe them. “The intentions of Hamas and other terrorist groups are not hidden. They openly proclaim what they intend to do and then they do it. Osama bin Laden said five years before Sept. 11, 2001, that he planned to attack the United States. Few took his statement seriously enough to eliminate him when they had the chance.”
These are dark days indeed for Israel and the West. Great wisdom and understanding are needed, as is some gritty realism, in the face of far too much wishful thinking and appeasement. Whether Israel makes it through this latest crisis remains to be seen. But to bury our heads in the sand and hope there will not be another Holocaust in the making is simply not the answer.
One does not have to be a student of Politcial Science to see that Israel is just another convenient pawn in the Islamic agenda. Coalition forces in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan may not be valuable currency politically, but the murder, mayhem and hatred in such countries as well as Chechnya, Darfour, Palestinian enclaves in Lebanon are driven by the Islamists themselves. Recent news report indicate that another church group in Indonesia was brutalised by jihadists.
We are told that Islamic enclaves are growing rapidly over Europe. The placards displayed by protesting Muslims in the UK are distinctively clear that the ‘targeted ‘ enemy of Islam is non – muslims.
Y’shua will prevail over Allah but at what price for Christian disobedience?
Ray Robinson
Hamas is the Hebrew word for “violence”, as in “the earth was filled with violence” in Genesis 6:11, 13. Ben Shapiro has it right in his latest column, The Radical Evil Of The Palestinian Arab Population.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
I received the following helpful email:
After 40 years of persistent media anti Israel / pro Palestinian propaganda, most Christians seem to be just as mis-informed as the secular world – this one presentation shows the reality of the situation. It’s the best I have ever seen.
One does not have to be a student of Politcial Science to see that Israel is just another convenient pawn in the Islamic agenda. Coalition forces in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan may not be valuable currency politically, but the murder, mayhem and hatred in such countries as well as Chechnya, Darfour, Palestinian enclaves in Lebanon are driven by the Islamists themselves. Recent news report indicate that another church group in Indonesia was brutalised by jihadists.
We are told that Islamic enclaves are growing rapidly over Europe. The placards displayed by protesting Muslims in the UK are distinctively clear that the ‘targeted ‘ enemy of Islam is non – muslims.
Y’shua will prevail over Allah but at what price for Christian disobedience?
Ray Robinson
Hamas is the Hebrew word for “violence”, as in “the earth was filled with violence” in Genesis 6:11, 13. Ben Shapiro has it right in his latest column, The Radical Evil Of The Palestinian Arab Population.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
I received the following helpful email:
After 40 years of persistent media anti Israel / pro Palestinian propaganda, most Christians seem to be just as mis-informed as the secular world – this one presentation shows the reality of the situation. It’s the best I have ever seen.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane