In Defense of Truth :: By Robert Asher Mandel

I like to write about biblical issues, not political ones. I always have. But I cannot stand by silently and allow any Christian to wonder if perhaps the claims of “genocide” currently being shouted at Israel from around the world might contain some truth. So this article is an effort to shed the light of truth upon the current war with Hamas and to show that, quite the opposite of genocide, Israel is the only one showing any mercy in Gaza.

Recently, there have been studies published by statistics researchers informing us that the civilian death totals issued by Hamas authorities in Gaza cannot possibly be accurate. You can read them at these links:

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry-admits-to-flaws-in-casualty-data/

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Another reason to doubt the verity of the information issued by Hamas is because that organization has been caught spreading lies and disinformation since the very beginning of the current conflict. Consider just these four…

1—Hamas claimed that Israel fired a missile at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in October. The truth soon came out that it was the misfire of a Hamas rocket that killed hundreds of their own citizens. Even CNN, no friend of Israel, reports it here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/21/middleeast/cnn-investigates-forensic-analysis-gaza-hospital-blast/index.html

2—Hamas claimed that they never hid their operatives in Gazan hospitals. The IDF took extensive video footage of their findings at the Shifa Hospital and arrested hundreds of Hamas militants. Even CNN, no friend of Israel, had to report on this. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/politics/white-house-hamas-al-shifa/index.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-interrogation-video-hamas-terrorists-confirm-groups-hideout-under-gaza-hospital/

3—Hamas claimed that IDF soldiers were firing on citizens of Gaza to keep them from getting to food shipments. Gazan citizens themselves are now reporting that Hamas has stolen most of the food and aid shipments from the people of Gaza. This would also be consistent with Hamas’s use of citizens as human shields. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2024/0314/Hamas-gambled-with-our-lives-Gazans-are-now-daring-to-speak-out

4—Hamas denied ever using ambulances in Gaza for anything other than transporting wounded. Then a recording was made of a Hamas operative boasting about the routine use of ambulances for driving around Hamas militants. https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-operative-boasts-he-can-leave-with-any-ambulance-in-call-overheard-by-idf/

These four instances alone should convince reasonable people that Hamas consistently lies to advance their narrative and generate compassion from the West. But even if we put logic aside and assume that the death toll figures from Hamas are accurate, let’s compare them to the civilian death toll figures from WW2.

The allied war with Germany began in September of 1939 and ended in May of 1945. In Germany alone, the civilian death toll during those 68 months of war was 3,810,000. That total divided by 68 equals 56,029. That means that every month, 56,029 German non-combatant civilians lost their lives to the forces of America and their allies. If you then multiply that monthly total of civilian deaths by 7 (the number of months that Israel has been prosecuting their war in Gaza), you get the astounding total of 392,203 deaths! https://historylearning.com/world-war-two/civilian-casualties-of-world-war/

Compare that with the figure of 25,000 civilian deaths over the same time span in Gaza! (Hamas admits that their death toll includes dead militants). This all means that civilian deaths in Gaza are nearly 16 times smaller than civilian deaths in Germany in WW2! How can we understand such an amazing discrepancy?! Especially in such crowded urban spaces as Israel has had to fight in! It can only be explained by the unprecedented procedures Israel has used to warn the Gazan civilians in an effort to minimize their casualties. This is the opposite of genocide!

Newsweek magazine (another news outlet that does not usually take Israel’s side) published an article a few months back on this same topic. The author is John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point; he served for 25 years as an infantry soldier and two tours in Iraq. Below is an extended quote from the article found at this link: https://www.newsweek.com/israel-implemented-more-measures-prevent-civilian-casualties-any-other-nation-history-opinion-1865613

Major Spencer writes this…

“…one of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare is to provide warning and evacuate urban areas before the full combined air and ground attack commences. This tactic is unpopular for obvious reasons: It alerts the enemy defender and provides them the military advantage to prepare for the attack. The United States did not do this ahead of its initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, which involved major urban battles to include in Baghdad. It did not do this before its April 2004 Battle of Fallujah….”

“By contrast, Israel provided days and then weeks of warnings, as well as time for civilians to evacuate multiple cities in northern Gaza before starting the main air-ground attack of urban areas. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) employed their practice of calling and texting ahead of an air strike as well as roof-knocking, where they drop small munitions on the roof of a building, notifying everyone to evacuate the building before a strike.

No military has ever implemented any of these practices in war before.

The IDF has also air-dropped flyers to give civilians instructions on when and how to evacuate, including with safe corridors. (The U.S. implemented these tactics in its second battle of Fallujah and 2016-2017 operation against ISIS in Mosul.) Israel has dropped over 520,000 pamphlets and broadcast over radio and through social media messages to provide instruction for civilians to leave combat areas.

Israel’s use of real phone calls to civilians in combat areas (19,734), SMS texts (64,399) & pre-recorded calls (almost 6 mil.) to provide instructions on evacuations is also unprecedented. The IDF also conducted daily four-hour pauses over multiple consecutive days of the war to allow civilians to leave active combat areas. While pauses for civilian evacuations after a war or battle has started is not completely new, the frequency and predictability of these in Gaza have been historic.

Another historical first in war measures to prevent civilian causalities was Israel’s distribution of IDF military maps & urban warfare graphics to assist civilians with day-to-day evacuations & alerting them where the IDF will be operating. No military in history has ever done this.

The reality is that when it comes to avoiding civilian harm, there is no modern comparison to Israel’s war against Hamas. Israel is not fighting a battle like Fallujah, Mosul, or Raqqa; it is fighting a war involving synchronous major urban battles. No military in modern history has faced over 30,000 urban defenders in more than seven cities using human shields and hiding in hundreds of miles of underground networks, purposely built under civilian sites while holding hundreds of hostages.”

Mr. Spencer writes this in his conclusion…

Despite the unique challenges Israel faces in its war against Hamas, it has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in history.”

Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, once famously said these words: “We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

In Exodus 4:22, God says this: “Israel is my first-born son.” The Jewish people have certainly strayed from their Father’s home and heart, but they still carry His DNA in their spirit. Our God (and theirs) has a heart of mercy and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I personally believe that Israel feels the same way. That is why we see their military acting in merciful ways as no other military force in history has ever done!

So, my appeal to the adopted Gentile sons of God is this: Do not believe the lies of the enemy about Israel. Pray for your wandering half-brothers. Ask Jesus to use the pressure and pain of their current situation to cause them to look up and “behold their God”!

Shalom,

Robert Asher Mandel

is53@att.net

Profound Changes Indeed! :: By Terry James

I wrote an article in 2020 with the title: Profound Changes Must Come. I’ve included a large block of that article here.

Like the current article’s title indicates, those changes, and they are profound, have indeed happened. Here is the gist of that 2020 commentary and my current take on what it all might mean moving forward.

(From the 2020 article)

While we investigate constantly the many signals that future Bible prophecy is on the verge of fulfillment, there remains the truth of the matters involved: Tremendous change must take place in order for that fulfillment to actually transpire.

The United States of America, for example, must fade from view. It is far from that prospect at present; in fact, our nation is front and center at every level of international interaction.

Under the Trump administration, the nation has become that much more at the center of world affairs. The US president is a powerful force, with a personal presence and personality that when other leaders are in his company, they are changed from their otherwise contrarian demeanors.

This is not to just laud Mr. Trump. It is fact. Even the Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping, when in the direct presence of Mr. Trump, has been almost acquiescent in past meetings in Florida and other places. The president has proven “stage presence,” which seems, at the very least, to impress and, in some instances, to intimidate.

In major meetings with other world leaders, America is front and center in determining the direction of those gatherings because Donald J. Trump is there and seems to personally take charge. The other leaders—at least those of the Western world—seem to acquiesce to his suggestions and proposals. Of course, their demeanors often change once they’re no longer face to face with the president. In many cases, they go back to their contradictory ways.

The point is that America is in a stronger position for leadership in the world than it’s been in many, many years. This cannot stand from the standpoint of Bible prophecy.

As we’ve looked at many times, America is found by name nowhere in Scripture. We concede it could be there by implication, like when we infer that the “young lions” said to be among the nations who protest the Gog-Magog invasion (Ezekiel chapter 38) could refer to America as an offspring of England. But that is a weak position in trying to make the point that America is in Bible prophecy for certain.

So there must be a radical change in this matter alone. America, the most powerful nation ever to have existed in terms of economic, technological, and military achievements in the history of mankind, must suffer profound diminishment, at the very least.

And Mr. Trump and America are at the heart of another significant change that must take place. It involves history’s most important nation from Heaven’s perspective—Israel.

Israel, in its own right, stands as the most powerful nation among its Middle Eastern counterparts. It has nuclear weaponry and technological capability to engage in war, the likes of which none among the diplomatic world can fully know—i.e., the weaponry that the Israeli military possesses is a highly protected secret.

On top of that, Israel is now, under the Trump administration, backed up by the world’s only superpower, the United States of America.

This is perhaps the greatest factor that must undergo dramatic change. The change must take place in the most astonishing way possible because Israeli political and military leadership, regardless of whether conservative or liberal, hawkish or dovish, are in agreement. They know they are surrounded by those who hate the nation and who don’t want the Jewish state to exist. Therefore, Israel must never give up its vigilance against this surrounding enemy. It must always have the very best defensive and even offensive capability in order to avoid annihilation.

Iran, of course, is Israel’s number-one threat. The ayatollahs are constantly promising to wipe the Jewish state from the Middle East map.

Israel will, it’s stated by those in the know, immediately introduce the so-called Samson Option if it’s ever about to lose in a military conflict. To start war with Israel would likely be to light the fuse that will ignite World War III…

Just considering Israel and America’s positions in current issues and events brings us to conclude that major changes are coming. America must fall or be diminished from its superpower status. Israel must somehow give up its great defensive and offensive military capabilities in order to meet prophetic pronouncements by the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel said Israel will be in “unwalled villages” at the time of the Gog-Magog attack from its north. This means the Jewish state will not be capable of defending itself. Ezekiel says that God promises to do the defending of His chosen people. And it will be an offensive show of power unlike any in history prior to Armageddon itself.

Almost certainly, the Rapture of the Church will bring about the conditions for these profound changes that must take place. Those changes could be initiated…well…in the “twinkling of an eye.”

(Back to today May of 2024)

Need I remind anyone who has kept up with these matters and who read our column articles that the phrase “profound change” is a tremendous understatement? That is, the changes that have taken place since President Trump left office are monumental –to say the least.

America has transformed from a nation of sound mind and sound national body to something people who died prior to 2020 and beyond would, I’m convinced, scarcely recognize.

The orchestration of America’s moving down the road of Prophetic Progression, as my partner in Raptureready.com, Todd Strandberg, has coined the term, has come as from an unseen, supernatural Maestro. The conductor, I have tried to point out through many articles and books, is none other than the leader of the Ephesians 6:12 cabal of wickedness in high places.

Large in Satan’s orchestration and direction was the COVID so-called pandemic that picked up steam just as the November presidential election came. Lockdowns, not only nationally but worldwide, were unlike anything ever seen in human history. The effects on American life were profound. But the effects on the electoral process for the 2020 presidential election were profound indeed. COVID-engendered stay-at-home voting and other things that, in my opinion, led to cheating on a massive scale, brought into the Oval Office in January of 2021 the most destructive administration imaginable –even more destructive than that of Mr. Obama, who promised before his election to “fundamentally transform America.”

As I’ve written before, a portal from the nether regions seems to have been opened and is opening wider by the day. Evil is gushing into our once-blessed nation at a rate that again can only be called Profound.

How else is explainable the woke insanity that has even public school administrators trying to change the gender of young school children by turning them over to those who would think to try to change boys into girls and girls into boys through drugs and even mutilations? And this while, through legal processes, trying to keep parents from interfering?

How else is it explained that LGBTQ-plus entities, only a small percentage of the American culture, are now dictating much of how this society must adhere to Sodom-like ungodliness –or face governmental punitive action? And the symbolic love for Sodom-like wickedness now allowed to be displayed by turning the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ movement upon the White House blatantly demonstrates in dramatic fashion how this once great republic is on the verge of going the way of that wicked, doomed region of Lot’s day.

Those changes I feared were coming are here. I’m not prescient and deserve no credit for predicting what we see has now transpired. It is all in God’s Prophetic Word. That’s why it is important for pastors to preach and teach it to their congregants. That is why it is vital for believers to read and study the Prophetic Word as well as other parts of God’s Word.

The Bible is the only Truth that can tell you and me exactly where we stand on God’s Prophetic Timeline. –Because Jesus Christ is the Word –John 1:1.

Jesus is the Way, Truth and Life. He is the Blessed Hope –the Redeemer– Who is coming to rescue believers from the destruction that is coming upon this nation and world that is filling each and every hour with anti-God evil.

You don’t want to be here when the Lord must Judge and destroy in preparation for His Second Coming. Here is how to be a part of that pre-Tribulation Rescue (Luke 21:28).

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).