ziggy88 Loc: quincy illinois 62301

By Pastor Gary Boyd

War clouds are darkening over the Middle East as I write. Israel is being put in the crosshairs of Syrian weapons supplied by none other than the good old pot stirrer Putin and his elitists power brokers. This is all about money and oil, whose got it, who wants it, and the bloody way Syria will try to get it.

After murdering almost 600,000 of its own countrymen, through bombings, sarin gas, epidemics of typhus and such, there is little Assad will not do to keep his cracking empire together.

However, attacking Israel will not make things better for him. An ancient prophecy written over 3000 years ago reveals that the Arab states and terrorist populations, which presently share common borders with Israel, will soon confederate in order to wipe Israel off of the map. They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more." (Psalm 83:4). Psalm 83 predicts a climactic, concluding Arab-Israeli war that has eluded the discernment of today's top Bible scholars, and yet, the Middle East stage appears to be set for the fulfillment of this prophecy. While many of today's top Bible experts are predicting that Russia, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and several other countries are going to invade Israel according to the prophecy in Ezekiel 38, a timely book by Bill Salus called “Psalm 83 War” explains how Psalm 83 occurs prior to the war of gog & magog. Americans will stand beside Israel in this coming war!

Now To the Present

Late on Friday, March 17th, Israeli fighter jets crossed the Syrian border and carried out bombing raids against targets located in or near Palmyra. It represents the most northerly point Israel have ever attacked in Syria since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. It is believed Israel were targeting Hezbollah advanced weapons transfers.


The Syrian response was immediate, launching several anti-aircraft missiles which pursued the IDF jets back into Israeli airspace. Israel were then forced, for the first time, to deploy the new Arrow defense system, which according the Israeli government successfully intercepted the Syrian anti-aircraft missiles just moments before they hit the retreating Israeli jets.

Syria replied officially through its Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Al Jaafari, who reflected a change of mood in the Syrian capital Damascus to such attacks, “the Syrian response was appropriate and changed the rules of the game.” However, concerning Damascus, the Bible states, Isaiah 17:1. “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.” Damascus is a 3,000 year old city and has never been destroyed. So this will happen sometime in the near future.


Assad Feeling Empowered


The Syrian government, under Bashar Al Assad, is feeling increasingly empowered and to a very large degree immune from Israel’s more drastic military responses, due to Russia’s ever growing presence within Syria. Assad is beginning to feel secure again and also quite emboldened, to the point that he clearly no longer fears the consequences of firing upon Israeli jets, or perhaps even upon Israel itself.


Shortly after the successful bombing raid, Israel’s Ambassador to Russia, Cary Koren, was summoned to Moscow to hear the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister deliver a stern and severe rebuke, warning Israel in no uncertain terms not to interfere again in future Russian plans for Syria.

Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Defense Minister responded as only he can, by threatening to wipe out all Syrian anti-aircraft batteries that fire on intruding Israeli bombers in the future.These Israeli fears have led the defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to threaten to wipe out any Syria anti-aircraft battery that fires on intruding Israeli bombers.


Without a doubt Israel and her “exceedingly great army” are heading towards war. Though much of Israel’s future security strategy is understandably shrouded in secrecy, there are enough fragments of publically available information to clearly signpost in which direction Israel is headed.


In mid-June of last year, at the annual Herzliya Security Conference, Major General Herzl Halevi, the chief of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate, gave a speech in which he detailed the immediate military and security threats faced by Israel at that time. He was very clear about the belief within the Israeli military establishment that Iran’s Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah are Israel’s current number one threat. He concluded ominously that, “For Israel, Hezbollah must be incapacitated or destroyed; war becomes inexorable by implication.” As you may already know Hezbollah is controlled by Iran and the Revolutionary Guard make up a large piece of the terrorist group.


Israel views war with Hezbollah as being a certainty at this point, and there is a belief that this unavoidable future conflict will be different from those fought in the recent past. The IDF believe that in the next war, unlike previously, Israel will sustain serious numbers of casualties, “I wouldn’t say the next round of violence with the Iran-backed terror group would result in mass casualties among Israel’s civilian population, but close.”


The Israeli Defense Forces have been preparing for this eventuality and seem to genuinely believe they are ready for what is to come. Halevi continued,
“I’m going to say this with all due caution, but there has never been an army that knows as much about its enemy as we know about Hezbollah…But still, the next war will not be simple, it will not be easy.”
Halevi’s comments reflect the growing assumption within Israel’s political and military leadership that at this late point in the Syrian civil war, after years of death, displacement and suffering, there will not now be any meaningful political settlement found that will be able to reunify and bring peace to Syria. Halevi himself believes that Syria is “saturated by bloodshed,” making any realistic or lasting peace impossible.


The second key assumption of Israel’s leadership is that Iran, under the cover of this Syrian civil war and using Hezbollah as a front, have been transporting increasing numbers of Iranian commanders directly into the Syrian border areas, adjacent to Israel. It is now a commonly held view in the IDF that they will soon begin seeing, “entire Iranian Revolutionary Guards battalions from their Golan observation points.”


Israel’s military and political leadership believe Iran have been hugely emboldened by Barack Obama’s failed Iranian Nuclear Accords. Obama has given Iran international legitimacy, along with 150 billion US dollars, without providing any way at all to check the real and growing threat they pose to Israel. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Syria today.


Under the direct military cover of Russia, and using the fight against ISIS as a convenient excuse, Iran have been flooding Syria with both men and weaponry, as well as reinforcing Hezbollah. All this is for one purpose alone, to bring the fight directly to Israel.


Israel recognize that a major confrontation is coming, as does Hezbollah’s leader, radical Shiite cleric, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. It is for this reason that Hezbollah have withdrawn and recalled all their Special Forces troops from the Syrian theatre back into Lebanon. Hezbollah, it is believed, will need them to face off against Israel in the approaching war,
“Nasrallah was serious when he said that the region is heading towards a conflict and that there would be casualties in the next few months. This is because he has information that tells him Israel is preparing for war and soon. And because of this, Hezbollah is prepared for an armed standoff.” [


Israeli military planners have been rapidly drawing up their own plans. Already in the later stages of preparation, plans for the mass evacuation of up to a quarter of a million civilians from communities bordering Lebanon have just been revealed. Colonel Itzik Bar of the IDF’s Home Front Command said, “In places where we understand there is a great danger to civilians, for example, where we won’t be able to supply defenses or supply deterrence … we will evacuate…”
As Bar concludes, in the next war with Hezbollah, “…all of Israel is under threat.”


Complications


Yet this fragile and dangerous situation is further complicated by one issue over which Israel has no influence or control: Russia. Hezbollah and Iran’s obvious reliance upon Russian military cover in Syria presents Israel with a huge strategic problem. Up until this point Israel has proved time and again that when they feel there is an existential threat to their existence, or are faced with a situation where hostile enemies, like Hezbollah, are on the brink of receiving sophisticated weaponry, Israel will act every time. This will not change in the immediate future.


Yet Syria is now at a turning point. Syrian President Assad is increasingly stabilizing his hold over a country torn apart by war. His successes in recent months, propped up by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, have prompted Assad to change his tactics and his approach towards Israel. He is getting bolder and has proven over the last few weeks, especially in his response to Israel’s most recent incursion into Syrian airspace, that he is now prepared to start firing back. He is actively trying to bring down Israeli jets operating in Syrian airspace.


Israel, for its part, seems to be in no mood to draw back from its consistent policy of attacking arms transfers to Hezbollah, wherever they see them. The potential for future confrontation between Israel and Syria, or worse between Israel and Russia is now a very real and growing one.


The problem Israel faces is one of balance. Do they continue their policy of strikes against Hezbollah, diminishing their capabilities which have until this point proved a tactical success, but which also may provoke a much greater strategic problem for Israel by drawing Syria and Israel into a full blown military confrontation? Worse still, Israel may even be drawn into an open confrontation with Russia.


Ominously, the beginnings of this may be happening right now. At the United Nations on Sunday night, Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari, speaking of Israeli Ambassador Cary Koren’s summoning to the Russian Foreign ministry, revealed that a clear message had been sent to Israel, “Putin sent a clear message, Israel was told categorically that this game is over.”


Events in Syria will continue to deteriorate from Israel’s strategic point of view. Bashar al-Assad, increasingly empowered, emboldened and now antagonistic, will continue to tighten his growing grip on Syria. Israeli border areas will continue to be flooded with Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah with fighters, all of whom are armed to the teeth and intent upon confronting the Jewish state with an arsenal so vast that it exceeds all of
Europe’s armies current conventional capabilities put together.


Russia will also continue to turn Syria into essentially one huge forward operating base.


It would seem Vladimir Putin is signaling that Israel’s time to act with impunity against Hezbollah over the skies of Syria is now over. The rules of the game for Israel are changing and her freedom to act decisively is coming to an end. War clouds are gathering over Israel and as Israeli Major General Herzl Halevi asserts, an approaching war for Israel, at this point, would seems to be an inevitability.


Conclusion


According to the Psalm 83 prophecy, however, Israel will be victorious in this coming fight, taking spoils of war, the Arab oil, and expanding their territory taking back the original Promised Land.

Pslam 83, “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;
15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Lord.
17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.”


So God marches on to protect his chosen few, but this will be the beginning of many sorrows for Israel as her enemies regroup to plan the War of Gog and Magog. That is a story for another day. Maranatha……………..

pickmeup Loc: Mid Michigan

Iran fired on Israel not Syria.