PROPHECY UPDATE-JAN 2006
ISRAEL UPDATE JANUARY NEWS REVIEW – David Dolan
Greetings from Jerusalem,
Below is my news review and analysis report covering the dramatic events that have shook Israel so far in January. Due to the sudden ascension of former Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert to the prime minister’s chair earlier this month, I detail his background as well as look at how he is projected to fare in Israel’s March 28th national elections, and also what he might do while in power. I examine how this week’s Palestinian legislative elections and spiraling tensions with Iran might affect the Israeli elections as! well.
On another related topic, many of you like me have apparently received a plethora of reports in recent weeks of a pending massive terror attack in America. Some specify today as the target date, while all ask for prayer about this disturbing matter. Some of the reports are based on actual security information, and others are “words of knowledge†or “prophecies†attributed to various Christian leaders. The most interesting to me was a report of a dream early this month, attributed to author and former White House official Charles Colson—which included major terror attacks upon America and Israel, and the overthrow of various regional Arab governments by Muslim fundamentalists. Disturbing indeed!
Since I have been asked by quite a few Israel Update subscribers in recent weeks what I think of these reports, I want to address them briefly here. Like many others, I have been warning that additional Al Qaida terror attacks all almost inevitable at some point. The real questions are where, when, and how big and “successful†the assaults might be. World Net Daily and other web sites have carried background reports on this matter for some months, some quoting well-placed sources as warning that Muslim terrorists have succeeded in smuggling some nuclear materials into the United States via Mexico.
While definitely expecting more attacks at some point, and probably severe enough ones that they alter the course of history and usher in the biblically prophesied End of Days, I am extremely wary of published reports that include precise projected dates disclosed through private revelations. As Jerusalem author and Bible scholar Lance Lambert pointed out at a conference I attended here in Jerusalem last evening, such date-setting regarding various topics in the past has usually proved incorrect, and is probably a demonic tool apparently designed to discredit the name of Christians and Christianity, especially with young people seeking spiritual truth.
So while we should all pray about the ominous threats around us—which are obvious enough even without such “words,†especially in light of Osama Bin Laden’s latest tape vowing to launch more destructive attacks upon America—we must be very careful in my estimation to stay within biblical boundaries and not publish dates or supposedly “exact†details in advance. Human emotions, wishes and private interpretations can so easily get in the way. I hope this helps answer some of the queries I’ve gotten. I do agree that 2006 is likely to be a dramatic year, but that is also not difficult to project given all the upheaval of last year, which began with the aftershocks of the massive Asian tsunami and included the Gaza withdrawal and Katrina disaster. That this year began with Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke is probably not a sign of calm seas ahead!
HISTORICAL HOURS - By David Dolan
The Israeli political world was turned upside down in a matter of seconds in early January when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke while being rushed by ambulance to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital. His immediate complete incapacitation freshened painful Israeli memories of the similarly sudden exit ten years before of another popular, controversial premier, Yitzhak Rabin—felled by an assassin’s bullet in Tel Aviv.
The historic parallels do not end there. As was precisely the case with Rabin one decade ago, Sharon’s debilitating stroke came after a major Israeli withdrawal, from the Gaza Strip. In both instances, this was being followed up by controversial government plans to implement further land handovers to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
In late 1995, the planned Israeli pullouts were centered on six Arab towns located there, including from a portion of Judaism’s second holiest site, Hebron. While negotiations stalled over the town where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried, the other withdrawals were subsequently implemented by Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres. In late 2005, Sharon was planning to evacuate another small portion of Israeli-held Hebron, along with unspecified Jewish settlements in outlying parts of Israel’s biblical heartland. Now, it seems those highly cont! ested evictions will be carried out by Sharon’s formal successor, Ehud Olmert, with strong support from his apparent new deputy, Shimon Peres.
Yet another strange similarity was the fact that the Palestinians were scheduled to hold their first ever national elections when PM Rabin was shot dead. They were in the final stages of planning their long overdue second parliamentary election when PM Sharon was struck down with a severe hemorrhagic stroke. One glaring difference this time is evident: While the first election brought the expected stamp of voter approval for PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and his Fatah political movement, the second ballot could bring the fundamentalist Hamas Islamic movement to power. If Hamas actually triumphs, or even makes an expected strong showing, the political earthquake that shook the region with Sharon’s sudden downfall may be relatively mild compared to the major aftershocks that would undoubtedly follow such an outcome. At the very least, a substantial Hamas showing would signal another major step forward for the Islamic fundamentalist upsurge that began with the 1979 Iranian revolution.
EHUD OLMERT ON TOP
Born just weeks after American atom bombs ended World War II in mid-1945, sixty year old Ehud Olmert’s overnight elevation to the pinnacle of Israeli power was preceded by many years of careful political calculation. Widely regarded as a shrewd, if not always totally above board, attorney and politician, Olmert began his long climb to the Prime Minister’s chair in 1973 when he became the youngest person ever elected to the Knesset at just 27 years of age. One of several ‘Likud party princes’ whose fathers had played significant right-wing roles during Israel’s initial decades, his fortunes rose further when Menachem Begin became the country’s first Likud premier four years later. Even then, Olmert only weakly disguised his ultimate ambitio! n to rule the country himself one day.
The Hebrew University graduate sat on various Knesset committees and held several cabinet positions in the 1980s and early 90s. Although he had served as an officer in an elite Golani brigade, Olmert’s actual military experience was quite limited, given that he mainly acted as a reporter for the army’s Bamahaneh (‘In the Camp’) magazine. Still, with Begin’s influential backing, Olmert managed to secure a seat on the Knesset’s prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. He was helped in this venture by his academic brother, Yossi, a well-known Israeli expert on Lebanon.
The rising Likud star was appointed by Begin’s successor, Yitzhak Shamir, as a minister without portfolio responsible for minority affairs in 1988. This came in the wake of the election that year which brought his main Likud ‘young guard’ rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, into the Knesset for the first time following a successful stint as Israel’s UN ambassador in New York. In 1990 Olmert was handed a higher cabinet assignment when Shamir appointed him Health Minister—which many saw as ironic given his well publicised propensity to smoke fat cigars whenever possible (but at least he is also known as an exercise enthusiast, unlike his portly predecessor).
When Yitzhak Rabin ousted Shamir in the 1992 elections, Olmert wisely decided it was time to temporarily exit the national political stage. He realized the decade’s headlines were destined to be dominated by the Labour party’s warm embrace of the American-sponsored ‘land for peace’ process, launched by George Bush Senior at an international Mideast conference in late 1991. Instead of fighting that process with Likud cohorts from the Knesset’s back benches, he would attempt to gain an influential national, and even international, voice as mayor of the Jewish people’s holiest city on earth, Jerusalem. He defeated aging mayor Teddy Kolleck in the ! 1993 municipal election, spending the rest of the decade championing the continued unification of Jerusalem under Israel’s rock solid rule.
COMFORT IN ZION
Hoping to reenter the Knesset and assume a leading national government role, Olmert managed to soften his hard-line political image soon after the new millennium got underway. He suddenly found himself rushing to the sites of a series of heinous Palestinian terror attacks in many parts of the capital city. Unless he was away on one of his frequent foreign speaking tours—which were heavily castigated by his local opponents—Mayor Olmert faithfully arrived at the ugly scene on every sad occasion, night or day. He would later visit wounded victims in hospital, and attend the funerals of those who did not survive the atrocities—offering televised comfort to the multiplying mourners in Zion.
Ehud Olmert had actually attempted to re-ascend the national political stage soon after Netanyahu lost the 1999 national election to Labour’s Ehud Barak. But he lost the internal party leadership battle to Likud founder and veteran warhorse, Ariel Sharon. This was partially due to spreading Likud suspicions that Olmert had adopted at least some of the left-wing political views known to be held by his wife, along with some of their four offspring. The mayor would bide his time, sitting comfortably in his new Jerusalem municipality building’s stupendous office with its magnificent view of the nearby walled Old City, waiting to see if the much maligned former general would succeed in returning the Likud to power. If he failed to do so, as most pundit! s expected in pre-Al Aksa uprising days, Olmert would get another opportunity to possibly rule the Likud roost.
When Ariel Sharon was swept into power amid widespread Palestinian rioting in early 2001, Olmert realized that a new Likud era was beginning. If he wanted to eventually have a realistic shot at the Prime Minister’s chair, he would have to swallow hard and ally himself with the perceived ‘ultra-right-wing’ Sharon.
In 2002 Olmert announced that he would not seek reelection for mayor in a municipal ballot scheduled for 2003, but would instead seek a place on the Likud’s Knesset list. Facing constant rumblings from former PM Netanyahu and his allies, Sharon realized he needed a faithful Likud subordinate in his cabinet. So he proffered a strong endorsement of Olmert, despite the fact that they had suffered strained relations in the past. Even with such powerful backing, Olmert barely made it onto the list, being extremely disliked by many party kingmakers. Still, he is now well positioned to win the ultimate prize—becoming Israel’s next elected Prime Minister—even if to finally achieve this lo! ngtime goal he had to abandon the very Likud party that had nurtured his rise to power.
All now know that Ariel Sharon turned out not to be the extreme ultra-nationalistic leader that Israeli and international pundits had generally anticipated. Instead, he surprised nearly everyone by becoming a centrist successor to Rabin, Peres and Barak; handing over more disputed territory to the Palestinians while removing some Jewish settlers from their cherished homes. Many analysts point to substantial evidence that it was largely Ehud Olmert, the first Likud politician to publicly call for a unilateral Gaza withdrawal, who played the pivotal role in Sharon’s unexpected political transformation.
HOW LONG WILL OLMERT GOVERN?
In the stricken premier’s significant wake, two major questions now dominate the spinning Israeli political scene: How long will Ehud Olmert serve as Israel’s Premier, and what will he do while in power?
All opinion polls taken in the hours and days after Sharon suffered his massive stroke forecast that his new Kadima party would crush its Likud and Labour rivals even without the comatose PM at the helm. But Labour and Likud analysts think that much of this projected support was a mere sympathy reaction to Sharon’s dire condition, and therefore not a true reflection of how people will actually vote on March 28th. Evidence that this might indeed be the case mounted as the month wore on, with later surveys showing a small but steady erosion in Kadima’s support amid a significant rise in Labour’s projected fortunes, along with a less substantial upturn for the Likud party.
Possibly indicating a further deterioration in Kadima’s currently anticipated landslide victory, various polls all found that at least six out of every ten Israeli voters chose someone other than new Kadima leader Ehud Olmert as their first choice for premier. Over 20% picked Netanyahu, mostly citing his substantial governmental and military experience. A paltry 10% to 12% named new Labour party leader Yitzhak Peretz as their first choice for premier. This is not surprising given that the fiery socialist has absolutely no national governing experience (as was also the case with Labour’s trounced 2003 candidate, Amran Mitzna), and seems to have little clue what he might do to revive the shattered O! slo peace process. To the further chagrin of many party members, the same polls show that Shimon Peres would have secured around 10 additional Knesset seats for Labour, mostly at Kadima’s expense, if he had not been ousted as party leader last November.
Despite his relative personal unpopularity, most political pundits believe that Ehud Olmert will easily emerge as Israel’ next elected Prime Minister. This is because a substantial number of Israeli voters indicate they see no other viable way forward but the ‘middle ground’ that Kadima has staked for itself, including grudging support for a Palestinian state while maintaining Israeli security supremacy and vigilance, bolstered by physical separation from the Palestinians wherever possible.
WHAT WILL OLMERT DO?
The second question preoccupying the political establishment in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke is seemingly much easier to answer: Ehud Olmert plans to implement Sharon’s political programme as much as possible. This was made clear in the first cabinet meeting the Acting Premier chaired just four days after the veteran PM was incapacitated. Olmert bluntly told his somber cabinet colleagues that he would “carry out the wishes of Ariel Sharon.â€
So the more pertinent question is this: What were Sharon’s wishes and goals, and can they actually be implemented by anyone other than the ‘bulldozer’ himself?
Although it is probable that he held some in-depth discussions with his chief cabinet deputy, the truth is that the stricken premier kept his cards close to his extensive chest. While promising to virtually fulfill a messianic role by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and drawing permanent borders for his small country, Sharon revealed little if any details to the public as to how these lofty goals might be achieved. It was apparent that such a process involved additional Israeli military and civilian withdrawals from Judea and Samaria, but exactly from where and when was anybody’s guess. Sharon’s endorsement of the American-initiated Road Map peace plan has already been echoed by Olmert, who has also repeated Sharon’s insistence that Palestinian leaders must keep their side of the bargain by disarming and dismantling terror groups before formal peace negotiations can be resumed.
Most pundits assume that while Sharon shared at least some of whatever actual plans he had with Olmert, he probably spoke far more freely with his longtime friend and former political nemesis, Shimon Peres. So the new Kadima leader may actually need to rely upon his new Number Two—and trust that Peres is not putting words in Sharon’s stilled mouth—if he wants to faithfully implement the unconscious Prime Minister’s wishes.
This apparent reality has left many Likud strategists hoping that, given previously proven widespread public distrust for Peres, many projected Kadima voters will return to their usual Likud home on election day. Still, they realize that many others will stay put in the new centrist party, partly because they anticipate that Netanyahu will not be able to govern without the support of several small right-wing and religious parties. Such a Likud-led coalition mix has often been tried before, and usually falls apart rather quickly due to exorbitant financial demands from the Orthodox parties, and/or because of the maximalist political positions maintained by far-right parties. Both basically seem to be looking for Messiah’s perfect rule—a role that n! o Likud leader can fulfill.
THE PALESTINIAN EFFECT
One other significant question remains unanswered as Israel prepares to choose a new leader: What effect might the Palestinian elections, and subsequent Palestinian actions, have on the March 28th Israeli ballot? Most analysts agree that the expected strong Hamas showing will bolster the voting public’s growing sense that no final peace accord is ever achievable with their recalcitrant Palestinian adversaries. But whether a majority will then buy Kadima’s main argument—that further unilateral action is necessary to cut off whatever territory cannot be easily maintained, while hanging tough on Israel’s overall defence needs—or whether they will accept Netanyahu’s contention that one-sided land pullouts! are too risky to take, especially around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, is not clear.
Analysts say the answer may lie in what actually takes place on the ground between now and March 28th. If more Palestinian rockets are launched at Israeli targets from Samaria (as has now been confirmed to have occurred at least once in December, and maybe up to six times), this may well strengthen the Likud’s hand. They add that a plethora of Palestinian terror attacks like the one that left over 20 Israeli civilians wounded in Tel Aviv on January 19th may do the same. A large-scale Hizbullah attack in the north, probably ordered by Iran and Syria (whose despotic Presidents met together in Damascus the same day as the Tel Aviv attack), could similarly spark a voter shift to Netan! yahu’s column. Indeed, this is exactly what took place in 1996, when initial opinion polls projecting an easy Peres win over Netanyahu were eclipsed by a spate of Hamas bus bombings and Hizbullah rocket assaults during the campaign.
Another increasingly important election issue is the question of who can most effectively deal with the growing threat from Iran. Both Acting PM Olmert and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz strongly denounced Tehran’s early January decision to defy international opinion and resume Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which experts say could lead to the creation of nuclear weapons. During a January 16th news conference, Olmert alluded to possible Israeli military action to halt the programme: "Under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us, to control weapons of mass! destruction that can threaten our existence." Iranian officials hit back hard one week later, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi warning “Israel knows quite well that any military action will produce severe consequences†for the small Jewish State.
With most Israeli security experts and politicians saying that both the grave Iranian and Hizbullah threats must be dealt with rather sooner than later, it seems realistic to forecast that Israel’s next premier will need extra divine wisdom and insight to adequately deal with his heavy responsibilities. May all who stand with Zion in these difficult days intercede like never before for such gifts to be granted from the Heavenly Throne! “‘For I will restore you to health, and I will heal you of your wounds,’ declares the Lord. ‘Because they have called you an outcast, saying: “It is Zion; no one cares for her.â€â€! ™â€ (Jeremiah 30:17).
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Where prophecy and policy converge - By Paul Boyer - Star-Telegram
There he goes again! No sooner did Pat Robertson apologize for advocating the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez than he stirred fresh controversy by suggesting on his popular show The 700 Club show that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land" by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and hinting at a partial pullback from the West Bank.
Despite the outpouring of condemnation, Robertson was simply expressing in a particularly bald form a viewpoint shared by many Americans. On the basis of their understanding of Bible prophecy, many agree that God established Israel's future boundaries millennia ago and that anyone who meddles with these boundaries risks the wrath of the Almighty.
Many also are convinced that the Bible foretells regime change in Iraq; that the United Nations is a forerunner of a satanic world order; and, indeed, that key themes in the Bush administration's foreign policy are not simply actions in the national interest but are directly linked to an unfolding sequence of end-time events.
Millions of Americans -- upward of 40 percent, according to some polls -- believe that the Bible outlines a specific sequence of end-time events. According to the most popular prophetic system -- premillennial dispensationalism, formulated by the 19th-century British churchman John Darby -- a series of last-day signs will signal the approaching end. These include wars, natural disasters, rampant wickedness, the rise of a world political and economic order, and the return of the Jews to the land promised by God to Abraham.
In Darby's system, the present "dispensation" will end with the Rapture, when true believers will join Christ in the air. Next comes the Tribulation, when a satanic figure, the Antichrist, will arise in Europe and impose a global tyranny under the dread sign "666," mentioned in Revelation.
After seven years, Christ and the saints will return to vanquish the Antichrist and his armies at Har-Megiddo (the biblical "Armageddon"), an ancient battle site near Haifa. From a restored temple in Jerusalem, Christ then will inaugurate a thousand-year reign of peace and justice -- the Millennium.
Darby's scenario, cobbled together from various freely interpreted biblical passages, was popularized in America by Cyrus Scofield, whose 1909 reference Bible became a bestseller.
Spreading the premillennial word
In our day, dispensationalism has been promulgated by radio evangelists; fundamentalist and Pentecostal pastors and megachurch ministers; televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe, and John Hagee of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church; and paperback popularizers such as Hal Lindsey and the dynamic duo of the Left Behind books, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a slangy update of Darby's teachings, became the nonfiction bestseller of the 1970s. The 14-novel Left Behind series, a fictional treatment of dispensationalism, have sold more than 60 million copies.
During the Cold War, Lindsey and other prophecy gurus focused on the Soviet Union, citing a passage in Ezekiel which they interpreted as foretelling the destruction of Russia. Today's popularizers, while keeping an eye on Russia, spotlight the Middle East and the rise of a New World Order led by the United Nations and other international bodies; global media conglomerates; and multinational corporations, trading alliances, and financial institutions. This interlocking system, they preach, is laying the groundwork for the Antichrist's dictatorship.
Pat Robertson's New World Order (1992) sees history as a great conspiracy, from the Illuminati and the Masons to the United Nations and the Trilateral Commission. In both the Left Behind series and Lindsey's 1996 prophecy novel Blood Moon, the U.N. secretary-general emerges as the Antichrist. ("I've opposed the United Nations for fifty years," boasts LaHaye, a veteran activist on the religious right.)
The popularizers view Israel's founding in 1948 and its recapture of Jerusalem's Old City in 1967 as key end-times signs. They also see the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and a future rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple on a site sacred to Muslims, as steps in God's unfolding plan.
Hard-line expansionists in Israel welcome this support. When Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu visited the United States in 1998, he called first on Falwell and only then met with President Clinton. (Dispensationalist dogma also foretells the mass slaughter of Jews by the Antichrist and the conversion of the surviving remnant to Christianity, but today's popularizers downplay these themes.)
On the basis of these beliefs, dispensationalists denounce any proposals for shared governance of Jerusalem.
As Hagee writes in Final Dawn Over Jerusalem (1998): "Christians and Jews, let us stand united and indivisible on this issue: There can be no compromise regarding the city of Jerusalem. ... We are racing toward the end of time, and Israel lies in the eye of the storm. ... Israel is the only nation created by a sovereign act of God, and He has sworn by His holiness to defend Jerusalem, His Holy City."
They also oppose any Jewish withdrawal from the West Bank or Gaza because these areas lie well within God's grant to Abraham, recorded in Genesis, of all the land from "the river of Egypt" to the Euphrates.
The Bush administration's so-called road map for peace of 2003, involving a partial Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, dismayed prophecy believers.
Michael Evans, author of the bestselling Beyond Iraq (2003), declared: "The only road map for peace is the Bible. ... God gave [the Jews] that land and forbade them to sell it." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a prophecy believer then at the peak of his power, flew to Israel to denounce the road map.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza further rattled the prophecy writers. Evans declared himself "appalled" both by Sharon's action and by the Israeli leader's failure to cultivate Christian prophecy believers: "Taking this group for granted is a huge mistake," he warned.
The Islamic factor
In the dispensationalist scenario, the Islamic world is allied against God and faces annihilation in the last days.
This is actually an ancient theme in Christian thought. Medieval prophecy expounders saw Islam as a demonic force whose doom is foretold in scripture. As Richard the Lionhearted prepared for the Third Crusade in 1190, the famed Cistercian monk and prophecy interpreter Joachim of Fiore assured him that his cause was just because the Muslim ruler Saladin, who held Jerusalem, was the Antichrist. Later interpreters cast the Ottoman Empire in the Antichrist role.
This theme faded after 1920 in the wake of the Ottoman collapse and the rise of the Soviet Union, but it surged back in the later 20th century, as prophecy popularizers demonized Islam as irredeemably evil and destined for destruction.
"When all the Jews return ... in ... fulfillment of the prophecies ..., Arab power will be destroyed," wrote Arthur Bloomfield in Before the Last Battle (1971). "God says he will lay the land of the Arabs waste and it will be desolate."
In Lindsey's novel Blood Moon, Israel, in retaliation for a thwarted nuclear attack by an Arab extremist, launches a massive thermonuclear assault on the entire Arab world. Genocide, in short, becomes the ultimate means of prophetic fulfillment.
Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait led to much speculation about Saddam Hussein's prophetic significance. In full-page newspaper ads, the organization Jews for Jesus declared that Saddam "represent[s] the spirit of Antichrist about which the Bible warns us."
Attention focused especially on Saddam's grandiose plan to rebuild Babylon, the fabled city on the Euphrates. Babylon owed its splendor to King Nebuchadnezzar, the same ruler who destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and, according to the Book of Daniel, suffered God's punishment for his arrogance. Revelation 17 portrays Babylon as the embodiment of evil, "a great whore ... with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication," and foretells its fiery annihilation.
Since Babylon can hardly be destroyed unless it exists, Saddam's rebuilding project fell into place as an essential step toward this prophetic fulfillment.
In The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Times (1991), Charles Dyer of Dallas Theological Seminary saw Saddam's restoration of Babylon as "thrilling proof that the Bible prophecies are infallible."
"When Babylon is ultimately destroyed," Dyer declared, "Israel will finally be at peace and dwell in safety." This theme flowed naturally into generalized musings about Saddam's overthrow. The cover illustration of Dyer's book juxtaposes Saddam and Nebuchadnezzar.
In the Left Behind series, the Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, moves the United Nations to a rebuilt Babylon, laying the groundwork for the simultaneous destruction of both the sinister organization that is softening us up for the Antichrist and the city that for dispensationalists represents absolute evil and defiance of God.
The anti-Islamic rhetoric exploded after 9-11. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, denounced Islam as "a very evil and very wicked religion." Evans, in Beyond Iraq, called it "a religion conceived in the pit of hell."
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top Pentagon official, delivered sermons in fundamentalist churches portraying Washington's post 9-11 military actions as a religious war. For Boykin, America is battling "a spiritual enemy ... called Satan" whose forces will be defeated only "if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, projected in 2002 and launched early in 2003, made perfect sense in terms of prophecy believers' reading of Scripture. Lindsey's Web site featured a cartoon of a military aircraft emblazoned with a U.S. flag and a Star of David and carrying a missile targeting "Saddam." The caption quoted the Hebrew prophet Zechariah: "In that day I will seek to destroy all nations that come against Israel."
In a November 2002 sermon simulcast to 127 TV stations and 82 radio stations via the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Hagee called the coming Iraq war "the gateway to the Apocalypse" and a sure sign of the Second Coming. The "birth pains of sorrow" were beginning, he said, but after this period of tribulation would come "a thousand years of peace in the millennial reign." As the service ended, DeLay declared: "Ladies and gentlemen, what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."
Although Saddam's capture undermined his Antichrist credentials, interest in Iraq's apocalyptic significance remains intense in prophecy circles.
God and government
To be sure, some administration policies trouble prophecy believers. The expansion of Washington's surveillance powers after 9-11 struck some as another step toward the Antichrist's global dictatorship. On balance, however, prophecy believers generally see the administration's policies, from its scorn for the United Nations to the overthrow of Saddam, as placing America on God's side in the end-time apocalyptic faceoff.
President Bush views his career as divinely ordained. As he told the Southern Baptist leader Richard Land as early as 1995: "I believe that God wants me to be President." Boykin fervently agrees: "Bush is in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
With his sense of divine mission, Bush has repeatedly cast his foreign policy in apocalyptic terms. As he told Congress three days after 9-11, his goal was "to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." In June 2002, he proclaimed: "We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America ... will lead the world in opposing [evil]." The description in Revelation of Jesus Christ, returning on a white horse to vanquish his foes, seems equally apt for Bush: "[I]n righteousness he doth judge and make war."
The apocalyptic mind-set breeds triumphalist and, ultimately, deeply hubristic thinking. On one side are the evildoers -- whether Russia, Islam, the New World Order or all of the above. On the other side gather the righteous who, led by Christ, will soon annihilate their foes.
Ironically, the prophecy beliefs embraced by millions of Americans find their parallel among some Muslim fundamentalists who foresee the return to Earth of the "hidden imam," or Mahdi, who will bring a reign of peace and justice -- but only after a terrible final conflict. The Mahdi's return dominates the imagination of Iran's fire-breathing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his followers.
In the world of apocalyptic belief, the two sides gradually become mirror images.
Since time immemorial, people have found the events of their own day foretold in Bible's prophecy. In 1756, the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew of Boston declared: "There has probably been no age ... of the world wherein events have more nearly corresponded to prophetic description than the present."
Mayhew's successors 250 years later similarly find today's world foreshadowed in the prophecies, and they shape their politics accordingly.
Anyone concerned about American public life at the outset of the 21st century would do well to pay close attention to the prophetic scenario embraced by millions. For these believers, America faces not just shadowy terrorists but nothing less than the advance guard of Antichrist himself.
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Greetings from Jerusalem,
Below is my news review and analysis report covering the dramatic events that have shook Israel so far in January. Due to the sudden ascension of former Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert to the prime minister’s chair earlier this month, I detail his background as well as look at how he is projected to fare in Israel’s March 28th national elections, and also what he might do while in power. I examine how this week’s Palestinian legislative elections and spiraling tensions with Iran might affect the Israeli elections as! well.
On another related topic, many of you like me have apparently received a plethora of reports in recent weeks of a pending massive terror attack in America. Some specify today as the target date, while all ask for prayer about this disturbing matter. Some of the reports are based on actual security information, and others are “words of knowledge†or “prophecies†attributed to various Christian leaders. The most interesting to me was a report of a dream early this month, attributed to author and former White House official Charles Colson—which included major terror attacks upon America and Israel, and the overthrow of various regional Arab governments by Muslim fundamentalists. Disturbing indeed!
Since I have been asked by quite a few Israel Update subscribers in recent weeks what I think of these reports, I want to address them briefly here. Like many others, I have been warning that additional Al Qaida terror attacks all almost inevitable at some point. The real questions are where, when, and how big and “successful†the assaults might be. World Net Daily and other web sites have carried background reports on this matter for some months, some quoting well-placed sources as warning that Muslim terrorists have succeeded in smuggling some nuclear materials into the United States via Mexico.
While definitely expecting more attacks at some point, and probably severe enough ones that they alter the course of history and usher in the biblically prophesied End of Days, I am extremely wary of published reports that include precise projected dates disclosed through private revelations. As Jerusalem author and Bible scholar Lance Lambert pointed out at a conference I attended here in Jerusalem last evening, such date-setting regarding various topics in the past has usually proved incorrect, and is probably a demonic tool apparently designed to discredit the name of Christians and Christianity, especially with young people seeking spiritual truth.
So while we should all pray about the ominous threats around us—which are obvious enough even without such “words,†especially in light of Osama Bin Laden’s latest tape vowing to launch more destructive attacks upon America—we must be very careful in my estimation to stay within biblical boundaries and not publish dates or supposedly “exact†details in advance. Human emotions, wishes and private interpretations can so easily get in the way. I hope this helps answer some of the queries I’ve gotten. I do agree that 2006 is likely to be a dramatic year, but that is also not difficult to project given all the upheaval of last year, which began with the aftershocks of the massive Asian tsunami and included the Gaza withdrawal and Katrina disaster. That this year began with Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke is probably not a sign of calm seas ahead!
HISTORICAL HOURS - By David Dolan
The Israeli political world was turned upside down in a matter of seconds in early January when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke while being rushed by ambulance to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital. His immediate complete incapacitation freshened painful Israeli memories of the similarly sudden exit ten years before of another popular, controversial premier, Yitzhak Rabin—felled by an assassin’s bullet in Tel Aviv.
The historic parallels do not end there. As was precisely the case with Rabin one decade ago, Sharon’s debilitating stroke came after a major Israeli withdrawal, from the Gaza Strip. In both instances, this was being followed up by controversial government plans to implement further land handovers to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
In late 1995, the planned Israeli pullouts were centered on six Arab towns located there, including from a portion of Judaism’s second holiest site, Hebron. While negotiations stalled over the town where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried, the other withdrawals were subsequently implemented by Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres. In late 2005, Sharon was planning to evacuate another small portion of Israeli-held Hebron, along with unspecified Jewish settlements in outlying parts of Israel’s biblical heartland. Now, it seems those highly cont! ested evictions will be carried out by Sharon’s formal successor, Ehud Olmert, with strong support from his apparent new deputy, Shimon Peres.
Yet another strange similarity was the fact that the Palestinians were scheduled to hold their first ever national elections when PM Rabin was shot dead. They were in the final stages of planning their long overdue second parliamentary election when PM Sharon was struck down with a severe hemorrhagic stroke. One glaring difference this time is evident: While the first election brought the expected stamp of voter approval for PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and his Fatah political movement, the second ballot could bring the fundamentalist Hamas Islamic movement to power. If Hamas actually triumphs, or even makes an expected strong showing, the political earthquake that shook the region with Sharon’s sudden downfall may be relatively mild compared to the major aftershocks that would undoubtedly follow such an outcome. At the very least, a substantial Hamas showing would signal another major step forward for the Islamic fundamentalist upsurge that began with the 1979 Iranian revolution.
EHUD OLMERT ON TOP
Born just weeks after American atom bombs ended World War II in mid-1945, sixty year old Ehud Olmert’s overnight elevation to the pinnacle of Israeli power was preceded by many years of careful political calculation. Widely regarded as a shrewd, if not always totally above board, attorney and politician, Olmert began his long climb to the Prime Minister’s chair in 1973 when he became the youngest person ever elected to the Knesset at just 27 years of age. One of several ‘Likud party princes’ whose fathers had played significant right-wing roles during Israel’s initial decades, his fortunes rose further when Menachem Begin became the country’s first Likud premier four years later. Even then, Olmert only weakly disguised his ultimate ambitio! n to rule the country himself one day.
The Hebrew University graduate sat on various Knesset committees and held several cabinet positions in the 1980s and early 90s. Although he had served as an officer in an elite Golani brigade, Olmert’s actual military experience was quite limited, given that he mainly acted as a reporter for the army’s Bamahaneh (‘In the Camp’) magazine. Still, with Begin’s influential backing, Olmert managed to secure a seat on the Knesset’s prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. He was helped in this venture by his academic brother, Yossi, a well-known Israeli expert on Lebanon.
The rising Likud star was appointed by Begin’s successor, Yitzhak Shamir, as a minister without portfolio responsible for minority affairs in 1988. This came in the wake of the election that year which brought his main Likud ‘young guard’ rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, into the Knesset for the first time following a successful stint as Israel’s UN ambassador in New York. In 1990 Olmert was handed a higher cabinet assignment when Shamir appointed him Health Minister—which many saw as ironic given his well publicised propensity to smoke fat cigars whenever possible (but at least he is also known as an exercise enthusiast, unlike his portly predecessor).
When Yitzhak Rabin ousted Shamir in the 1992 elections, Olmert wisely decided it was time to temporarily exit the national political stage. He realized the decade’s headlines were destined to be dominated by the Labour party’s warm embrace of the American-sponsored ‘land for peace’ process, launched by George Bush Senior at an international Mideast conference in late 1991. Instead of fighting that process with Likud cohorts from the Knesset’s back benches, he would attempt to gain an influential national, and even international, voice as mayor of the Jewish people’s holiest city on earth, Jerusalem. He defeated aging mayor Teddy Kolleck in the ! 1993 municipal election, spending the rest of the decade championing the continued unification of Jerusalem under Israel’s rock solid rule.
COMFORT IN ZION
Hoping to reenter the Knesset and assume a leading national government role, Olmert managed to soften his hard-line political image soon after the new millennium got underway. He suddenly found himself rushing to the sites of a series of heinous Palestinian terror attacks in many parts of the capital city. Unless he was away on one of his frequent foreign speaking tours—which were heavily castigated by his local opponents—Mayor Olmert faithfully arrived at the ugly scene on every sad occasion, night or day. He would later visit wounded victims in hospital, and attend the funerals of those who did not survive the atrocities—offering televised comfort to the multiplying mourners in Zion.
Ehud Olmert had actually attempted to re-ascend the national political stage soon after Netanyahu lost the 1999 national election to Labour’s Ehud Barak. But he lost the internal party leadership battle to Likud founder and veteran warhorse, Ariel Sharon. This was partially due to spreading Likud suspicions that Olmert had adopted at least some of the left-wing political views known to be held by his wife, along with some of their four offspring. The mayor would bide his time, sitting comfortably in his new Jerusalem municipality building’s stupendous office with its magnificent view of the nearby walled Old City, waiting to see if the much maligned former general would succeed in returning the Likud to power. If he failed to do so, as most pundit! s expected in pre-Al Aksa uprising days, Olmert would get another opportunity to possibly rule the Likud roost.
When Ariel Sharon was swept into power amid widespread Palestinian rioting in early 2001, Olmert realized that a new Likud era was beginning. If he wanted to eventually have a realistic shot at the Prime Minister’s chair, he would have to swallow hard and ally himself with the perceived ‘ultra-right-wing’ Sharon.
In 2002 Olmert announced that he would not seek reelection for mayor in a municipal ballot scheduled for 2003, but would instead seek a place on the Likud’s Knesset list. Facing constant rumblings from former PM Netanyahu and his allies, Sharon realized he needed a faithful Likud subordinate in his cabinet. So he proffered a strong endorsement of Olmert, despite the fact that they had suffered strained relations in the past. Even with such powerful backing, Olmert barely made it onto the list, being extremely disliked by many party kingmakers. Still, he is now well positioned to win the ultimate prize—becoming Israel’s next elected Prime Minister—even if to finally achieve this lo! ngtime goal he had to abandon the very Likud party that had nurtured his rise to power.
All now know that Ariel Sharon turned out not to be the extreme ultra-nationalistic leader that Israeli and international pundits had generally anticipated. Instead, he surprised nearly everyone by becoming a centrist successor to Rabin, Peres and Barak; handing over more disputed territory to the Palestinians while removing some Jewish settlers from their cherished homes. Many analysts point to substantial evidence that it was largely Ehud Olmert, the first Likud politician to publicly call for a unilateral Gaza withdrawal, who played the pivotal role in Sharon’s unexpected political transformation.
HOW LONG WILL OLMERT GOVERN?
In the stricken premier’s significant wake, two major questions now dominate the spinning Israeli political scene: How long will Ehud Olmert serve as Israel’s Premier, and what will he do while in power?
All opinion polls taken in the hours and days after Sharon suffered his massive stroke forecast that his new Kadima party would crush its Likud and Labour rivals even without the comatose PM at the helm. But Labour and Likud analysts think that much of this projected support was a mere sympathy reaction to Sharon’s dire condition, and therefore not a true reflection of how people will actually vote on March 28th. Evidence that this might indeed be the case mounted as the month wore on, with later surveys showing a small but steady erosion in Kadima’s support amid a significant rise in Labour’s projected fortunes, along with a less substantial upturn for the Likud party.
Possibly indicating a further deterioration in Kadima’s currently anticipated landslide victory, various polls all found that at least six out of every ten Israeli voters chose someone other than new Kadima leader Ehud Olmert as their first choice for premier. Over 20% picked Netanyahu, mostly citing his substantial governmental and military experience. A paltry 10% to 12% named new Labour party leader Yitzhak Peretz as their first choice for premier. This is not surprising given that the fiery socialist has absolutely no national governing experience (as was also the case with Labour’s trounced 2003 candidate, Amran Mitzna), and seems to have little clue what he might do to revive the shattered O! slo peace process. To the further chagrin of many party members, the same polls show that Shimon Peres would have secured around 10 additional Knesset seats for Labour, mostly at Kadima’s expense, if he had not been ousted as party leader last November.
Despite his relative personal unpopularity, most political pundits believe that Ehud Olmert will easily emerge as Israel’ next elected Prime Minister. This is because a substantial number of Israeli voters indicate they see no other viable way forward but the ‘middle ground’ that Kadima has staked for itself, including grudging support for a Palestinian state while maintaining Israeli security supremacy and vigilance, bolstered by physical separation from the Palestinians wherever possible.
WHAT WILL OLMERT DO?
The second question preoccupying the political establishment in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke is seemingly much easier to answer: Ehud Olmert plans to implement Sharon’s political programme as much as possible. This was made clear in the first cabinet meeting the Acting Premier chaired just four days after the veteran PM was incapacitated. Olmert bluntly told his somber cabinet colleagues that he would “carry out the wishes of Ariel Sharon.â€
So the more pertinent question is this: What were Sharon’s wishes and goals, and can they actually be implemented by anyone other than the ‘bulldozer’ himself?
Although it is probable that he held some in-depth discussions with his chief cabinet deputy, the truth is that the stricken premier kept his cards close to his extensive chest. While promising to virtually fulfill a messianic role by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and drawing permanent borders for his small country, Sharon revealed little if any details to the public as to how these lofty goals might be achieved. It was apparent that such a process involved additional Israeli military and civilian withdrawals from Judea and Samaria, but exactly from where and when was anybody’s guess. Sharon’s endorsement of the American-initiated Road Map peace plan has already been echoed by Olmert, who has also repeated Sharon’s insistence that Palestinian leaders must keep their side of the bargain by disarming and dismantling terror groups before formal peace negotiations can be resumed.
Most pundits assume that while Sharon shared at least some of whatever actual plans he had with Olmert, he probably spoke far more freely with his longtime friend and former political nemesis, Shimon Peres. So the new Kadima leader may actually need to rely upon his new Number Two—and trust that Peres is not putting words in Sharon’s stilled mouth—if he wants to faithfully implement the unconscious Prime Minister’s wishes.
This apparent reality has left many Likud strategists hoping that, given previously proven widespread public distrust for Peres, many projected Kadima voters will return to their usual Likud home on election day. Still, they realize that many others will stay put in the new centrist party, partly because they anticipate that Netanyahu will not be able to govern without the support of several small right-wing and religious parties. Such a Likud-led coalition mix has often been tried before, and usually falls apart rather quickly due to exorbitant financial demands from the Orthodox parties, and/or because of the maximalist political positions maintained by far-right parties. Both basically seem to be looking for Messiah’s perfect rule—a role that n! o Likud leader can fulfill.
THE PALESTINIAN EFFECT
One other significant question remains unanswered as Israel prepares to choose a new leader: What effect might the Palestinian elections, and subsequent Palestinian actions, have on the March 28th Israeli ballot? Most analysts agree that the expected strong Hamas showing will bolster the voting public’s growing sense that no final peace accord is ever achievable with their recalcitrant Palestinian adversaries. But whether a majority will then buy Kadima’s main argument—that further unilateral action is necessary to cut off whatever territory cannot be easily maintained, while hanging tough on Israel’s overall defence needs—or whether they will accept Netanyahu’s contention that one-sided land pullouts! are too risky to take, especially around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, is not clear.
Analysts say the answer may lie in what actually takes place on the ground between now and March 28th. If more Palestinian rockets are launched at Israeli targets from Samaria (as has now been confirmed to have occurred at least once in December, and maybe up to six times), this may well strengthen the Likud’s hand. They add that a plethora of Palestinian terror attacks like the one that left over 20 Israeli civilians wounded in Tel Aviv on January 19th may do the same. A large-scale Hizbullah attack in the north, probably ordered by Iran and Syria (whose despotic Presidents met together in Damascus the same day as the Tel Aviv attack), could similarly spark a voter shift to Netan! yahu’s column. Indeed, this is exactly what took place in 1996, when initial opinion polls projecting an easy Peres win over Netanyahu were eclipsed by a spate of Hamas bus bombings and Hizbullah rocket assaults during the campaign.
Another increasingly important election issue is the question of who can most effectively deal with the growing threat from Iran. Both Acting PM Olmert and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz strongly denounced Tehran’s early January decision to defy international opinion and resume Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which experts say could lead to the creation of nuclear weapons. During a January 16th news conference, Olmert alluded to possible Israeli military action to halt the programme: "Under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us, to control weapons of mass! destruction that can threaten our existence." Iranian officials hit back hard one week later, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi warning “Israel knows quite well that any military action will produce severe consequences†for the small Jewish State.
With most Israeli security experts and politicians saying that both the grave Iranian and Hizbullah threats must be dealt with rather sooner than later, it seems realistic to forecast that Israel’s next premier will need extra divine wisdom and insight to adequately deal with his heavy responsibilities. May all who stand with Zion in these difficult days intercede like never before for such gifts to be granted from the Heavenly Throne! “‘For I will restore you to health, and I will heal you of your wounds,’ declares the Lord. ‘Because they have called you an outcast, saying: “It is Zion; no one cares for her.â€â€! ™â€ (Jeremiah 30:17).
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Where prophecy and policy converge - By Paul Boyer - Star-Telegram
There he goes again! No sooner did Pat Robertson apologize for advocating the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez than he stirred fresh controversy by suggesting on his popular show The 700 Club show that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land" by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and hinting at a partial pullback from the West Bank.
Despite the outpouring of condemnation, Robertson was simply expressing in a particularly bald form a viewpoint shared by many Americans. On the basis of their understanding of Bible prophecy, many agree that God established Israel's future boundaries millennia ago and that anyone who meddles with these boundaries risks the wrath of the Almighty.
Many also are convinced that the Bible foretells regime change in Iraq; that the United Nations is a forerunner of a satanic world order; and, indeed, that key themes in the Bush administration's foreign policy are not simply actions in the national interest but are directly linked to an unfolding sequence of end-time events.
Millions of Americans -- upward of 40 percent, according to some polls -- believe that the Bible outlines a specific sequence of end-time events. According to the most popular prophetic system -- premillennial dispensationalism, formulated by the 19th-century British churchman John Darby -- a series of last-day signs will signal the approaching end. These include wars, natural disasters, rampant wickedness, the rise of a world political and economic order, and the return of the Jews to the land promised by God to Abraham.
In Darby's system, the present "dispensation" will end with the Rapture, when true believers will join Christ in the air. Next comes the Tribulation, when a satanic figure, the Antichrist, will arise in Europe and impose a global tyranny under the dread sign "666," mentioned in Revelation.
After seven years, Christ and the saints will return to vanquish the Antichrist and his armies at Har-Megiddo (the biblical "Armageddon"), an ancient battle site near Haifa. From a restored temple in Jerusalem, Christ then will inaugurate a thousand-year reign of peace and justice -- the Millennium.
Darby's scenario, cobbled together from various freely interpreted biblical passages, was popularized in America by Cyrus Scofield, whose 1909 reference Bible became a bestseller.
Spreading the premillennial word
In our day, dispensationalism has been promulgated by radio evangelists; fundamentalist and Pentecostal pastors and megachurch ministers; televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe, and John Hagee of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church; and paperback popularizers such as Hal Lindsey and the dynamic duo of the Left Behind books, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a slangy update of Darby's teachings, became the nonfiction bestseller of the 1970s. The 14-novel Left Behind series, a fictional treatment of dispensationalism, have sold more than 60 million copies.
During the Cold War, Lindsey and other prophecy gurus focused on the Soviet Union, citing a passage in Ezekiel which they interpreted as foretelling the destruction of Russia. Today's popularizers, while keeping an eye on Russia, spotlight the Middle East and the rise of a New World Order led by the United Nations and other international bodies; global media conglomerates; and multinational corporations, trading alliances, and financial institutions. This interlocking system, they preach, is laying the groundwork for the Antichrist's dictatorship.
Pat Robertson's New World Order (1992) sees history as a great conspiracy, from the Illuminati and the Masons to the United Nations and the Trilateral Commission. In both the Left Behind series and Lindsey's 1996 prophecy novel Blood Moon, the U.N. secretary-general emerges as the Antichrist. ("I've opposed the United Nations for fifty years," boasts LaHaye, a veteran activist on the religious right.)
The popularizers view Israel's founding in 1948 and its recapture of Jerusalem's Old City in 1967 as key end-times signs. They also see the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and a future rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple on a site sacred to Muslims, as steps in God's unfolding plan.
Hard-line expansionists in Israel welcome this support. When Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu visited the United States in 1998, he called first on Falwell and only then met with President Clinton. (Dispensationalist dogma also foretells the mass slaughter of Jews by the Antichrist and the conversion of the surviving remnant to Christianity, but today's popularizers downplay these themes.)
On the basis of these beliefs, dispensationalists denounce any proposals for shared governance of Jerusalem.
As Hagee writes in Final Dawn Over Jerusalem (1998): "Christians and Jews, let us stand united and indivisible on this issue: There can be no compromise regarding the city of Jerusalem. ... We are racing toward the end of time, and Israel lies in the eye of the storm. ... Israel is the only nation created by a sovereign act of God, and He has sworn by His holiness to defend Jerusalem, His Holy City."
They also oppose any Jewish withdrawal from the West Bank or Gaza because these areas lie well within God's grant to Abraham, recorded in Genesis, of all the land from "the river of Egypt" to the Euphrates.
The Bush administration's so-called road map for peace of 2003, involving a partial Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, dismayed prophecy believers.
Michael Evans, author of the bestselling Beyond Iraq (2003), declared: "The only road map for peace is the Bible. ... God gave [the Jews] that land and forbade them to sell it." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a prophecy believer then at the peak of his power, flew to Israel to denounce the road map.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza further rattled the prophecy writers. Evans declared himself "appalled" both by Sharon's action and by the Israeli leader's failure to cultivate Christian prophecy believers: "Taking this group for granted is a huge mistake," he warned.
The Islamic factor
In the dispensationalist scenario, the Islamic world is allied against God and faces annihilation in the last days.
This is actually an ancient theme in Christian thought. Medieval prophecy expounders saw Islam as a demonic force whose doom is foretold in scripture. As Richard the Lionhearted prepared for the Third Crusade in 1190, the famed Cistercian monk and prophecy interpreter Joachim of Fiore assured him that his cause was just because the Muslim ruler Saladin, who held Jerusalem, was the Antichrist. Later interpreters cast the Ottoman Empire in the Antichrist role.
This theme faded after 1920 in the wake of the Ottoman collapse and the rise of the Soviet Union, but it surged back in the later 20th century, as prophecy popularizers demonized Islam as irredeemably evil and destined for destruction.
"When all the Jews return ... in ... fulfillment of the prophecies ..., Arab power will be destroyed," wrote Arthur Bloomfield in Before the Last Battle (1971). "God says he will lay the land of the Arabs waste and it will be desolate."
In Lindsey's novel Blood Moon, Israel, in retaliation for a thwarted nuclear attack by an Arab extremist, launches a massive thermonuclear assault on the entire Arab world. Genocide, in short, becomes the ultimate means of prophetic fulfillment.
Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait led to much speculation about Saddam Hussein's prophetic significance. In full-page newspaper ads, the organization Jews for Jesus declared that Saddam "represent[s] the spirit of Antichrist about which the Bible warns us."
Attention focused especially on Saddam's grandiose plan to rebuild Babylon, the fabled city on the Euphrates. Babylon owed its splendor to King Nebuchadnezzar, the same ruler who destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and, according to the Book of Daniel, suffered God's punishment for his arrogance. Revelation 17 portrays Babylon as the embodiment of evil, "a great whore ... with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication," and foretells its fiery annihilation.
Since Babylon can hardly be destroyed unless it exists, Saddam's rebuilding project fell into place as an essential step toward this prophetic fulfillment.
In The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Times (1991), Charles Dyer of Dallas Theological Seminary saw Saddam's restoration of Babylon as "thrilling proof that the Bible prophecies are infallible."
"When Babylon is ultimately destroyed," Dyer declared, "Israel will finally be at peace and dwell in safety." This theme flowed naturally into generalized musings about Saddam's overthrow. The cover illustration of Dyer's book juxtaposes Saddam and Nebuchadnezzar.
In the Left Behind series, the Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, moves the United Nations to a rebuilt Babylon, laying the groundwork for the simultaneous destruction of both the sinister organization that is softening us up for the Antichrist and the city that for dispensationalists represents absolute evil and defiance of God.
The anti-Islamic rhetoric exploded after 9-11. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, denounced Islam as "a very evil and very wicked religion." Evans, in Beyond Iraq, called it "a religion conceived in the pit of hell."
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top Pentagon official, delivered sermons in fundamentalist churches portraying Washington's post 9-11 military actions as a religious war. For Boykin, America is battling "a spiritual enemy ... called Satan" whose forces will be defeated only "if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, projected in 2002 and launched early in 2003, made perfect sense in terms of prophecy believers' reading of Scripture. Lindsey's Web site featured a cartoon of a military aircraft emblazoned with a U.S. flag and a Star of David and carrying a missile targeting "Saddam." The caption quoted the Hebrew prophet Zechariah: "In that day I will seek to destroy all nations that come against Israel."
In a November 2002 sermon simulcast to 127 TV stations and 82 radio stations via the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Hagee called the coming Iraq war "the gateway to the Apocalypse" and a sure sign of the Second Coming. The "birth pains of sorrow" were beginning, he said, but after this period of tribulation would come "a thousand years of peace in the millennial reign." As the service ended, DeLay declared: "Ladies and gentlemen, what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."
Although Saddam's capture undermined his Antichrist credentials, interest in Iraq's apocalyptic significance remains intense in prophecy circles.
God and government
To be sure, some administration policies trouble prophecy believers. The expansion of Washington's surveillance powers after 9-11 struck some as another step toward the Antichrist's global dictatorship. On balance, however, prophecy believers generally see the administration's policies, from its scorn for the United Nations to the overthrow of Saddam, as placing America on God's side in the end-time apocalyptic faceoff.
President Bush views his career as divinely ordained. As he told the Southern Baptist leader Richard Land as early as 1995: "I believe that God wants me to be President." Boykin fervently agrees: "Bush is in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
With his sense of divine mission, Bush has repeatedly cast his foreign policy in apocalyptic terms. As he told Congress three days after 9-11, his goal was "to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." In June 2002, he proclaimed: "We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America ... will lead the world in opposing [evil]." The description in Revelation of Jesus Christ, returning on a white horse to vanquish his foes, seems equally apt for Bush: "[I]n righteousness he doth judge and make war."
The apocalyptic mind-set breeds triumphalist and, ultimately, deeply hubristic thinking. On one side are the evildoers -- whether Russia, Islam, the New World Order or all of the above. On the other side gather the righteous who, led by Christ, will soon annihilate their foes.
Ironically, the prophecy beliefs embraced by millions of Americans find their parallel among some Muslim fundamentalists who foresee the return to Earth of the "hidden imam," or Mahdi, who will bring a reign of peace and justice -- but only after a terrible final conflict. The Mahdi's return dominates the imagination of Iran's fire-breathing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his followers.
In the world of apocalyptic belief, the two sides gradually become mirror images.
Since time immemorial, people have found the events of their own day foretold in Bible's prophecy. In 1756, the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew of Boston declared: "There has probably been no age ... of the world wherein events have more nearly corresponded to prophetic description than the present."
Mayhew's successors 250 years later similarly find today's world foreshadowed in the prophecies, and they shape their politics accordingly.
Anyone concerned about American public life at the outset of the 21st century would do well to pay close attention to the prophetic scenario embraced by millions. For these believers, America faces not just shadowy terrorists but nothing less than the advance guard of Antichrist himself.
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