Important Mideast Developments

In the aftermath of the US elections, media coverage of Mideast developments seems to have waned; however, important developments have occurred.

The ISIL siege of Kobani, a Kurdish city on the old Turkish-Syrian border, was a daily event for weeks, but it has scarcely been mentioned on media reports lately. The battle there is still going on and the outcome is not yet decided, but the Kurds are now gaining ground (first link). After an influx of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters surged into the city from the northern Kurdish region of Iraq, the ISIL advance has not only been stopped, but it has been reversed. Given the cruelty of ISIL, I hope and pray the Kurds prevail in this battle. The first link also reports the Kurds have made progress in fighting ISIL forces in northern Iraq and that Iraqi central government forces have worked with Peshmerga troops to push back ISIL forces. That is an encouraging development. The link also reports the unsettling fact that Turkey still is declining to join the fight against ISIL. I think Turkey’s hitherto-refusal to fight ISIL with its military forces is doing far more damage to Turkey’s international reputation than it realizes.

The second link reminds us that it is not only Israel which is seeking to oppose and isolate Hamas in its Gaza enclave. Egypt is taking strong action to keep Hamas terrorists isolated inside the Gaza strip so they do not enter Egypt and join terrorists aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in attacking Egyptian targets. Egypt and Israel are allies against Hamas, a fact not highlighted enough in the establishment media. This Egyptian-Israeli military cooperation bodes well for the security of both nations and for the future of the Mideast.

The third link deals with the aftermath in Israel of the terrorist attack against a Jewish synagogue which viciously killed five Israelis (including three rabbis who had joint American-Israeli citizenship). I have heard a report that the Israeli government is considering making it easier for Jewish Israelis to carry firearms so such terrorist attacks can be stopped more quickly in the future. Perhaps they need an Israeli version of the American National Rifle Association (NRA)! One of the most salient points in the link is the statement that “Israel appears to be moving toward more aggressive actions…” in combating and retaliating against terrorists attacks. The Palestinians keep hurting their own cause when Palestinians launch grisly terrorist attacks vs. Israelis (the Israeli victims were chopped with axes and meat cleavers). No nation can tolerate such attacks against its citizens. Israel may react with very deadly force against the terrorist cells and bases within the Palestinian zone if these attacks are not stopped quickly.

Various nations around the world periodically condemn Israel when it is provoked into defending itself against terrorism (such as the thousands of rockets and missiles fired by Hamas into Israeli territory before Israel launched a necessary counter-terrorism attack vs. Hamas). However, the final link reports the very important development that India is not joining the knee-jerk chorus of anti-Israeli statements by rather hypocritical allies of Israel around the world. Indeed, the last link states that “India has pledged to strengthen its relations with the nation [of Israel],” and the article also indicates that Indian Prime Minister Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are forming a good personal relationship. This bodes well for both nations. India needs a powerful regional ally in South Asia and Israel needs allies as well. Both India and Israel are democracies, are threatened by radical Islamists and have a heritage that includes many English-speakers in both nations. Both are also nuclear powers (although Israel technically hasn’t acknowledged that fact yet).

The above developments are important not only for the world’s geopolitics, but these developments give us insights into the eventual alignments of the rival global alliances foretold by the Bible (Ezekiel 38-39) to exist in the latter days of our age. The Gog-Magog alliance will be led by Russia, China and Iran while the rival alliance will be led by the modern nations of the “house of Israel” and its allies. As readers of my books and articles know, the ten tribes of Israel grew very numerous and powerful in the centuries after their exile from the Promised Land in the 8th century BC. They founded the Scythian, Carthaginian and Parthian Empires and the descendants of the Scythian and Parthian Empires migrated into Europe from the 3rd-6th centuries AD, forming the population bases for many of the modern European nations. This alliance is headed by the USA and its NATO allies. The Bible’s prophecies have been coming to pass with stunning accuracy, in spite of the fact that the modern world is largely unaware of this fact. New readers of my blog can peruse the homepage of my website for a variety of articles on many historical and prophetic subjects confirming the Bible’s prophetic accuracy.

Important Mideast Developments

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