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 1,053

Hard to believe 20 years have passed. The Second Intifada (Arab for “Uprising”) was unleashed on Israel by Yasser Arafat and his bloodthirsty henchmen in September, 2000. The last months of the Clinton administration, a gang that had done much to prop-up the evil troll. We were two months from the contested election of George W. Bush.

And still more than four years(!) from the end of the Intifada. In all, during that time, 1,053 Israelis were murdered. Not a peep from the international community.

What it meant was that Palestinian terrorists were given the greenlight to bomb and murder Jews wherever they could. Restaurants, buses, malls. It was the systematic murder of Jewish civilians, something the international community has counted as sport for many hundreds of years.

It was when the disastrous Ehud Barak tenure as Israeli prime minister was coming to an end that the country woke up to the real game the PLO was playing. Raising its children on a diet of Jew-hatred, the Palestinian “leadership” targeted innocents.

I was there in November, 2000. I will never forget standing at the Western Wall and turning around to see no one in the plaza behind me. If you’ve been there, you know where this is and know that constantly almost, there are hundreds or thousands milling about on their deeper entry into the Old City. Merchants practically grabbed my hands, begging me to buy something. Once again, the PLO had hamstrung its own people and ruined businesses as they were ruining Jewish lives.

One morning, I was finishing breakfast at the American Colony Hotel, talking with a friend. As we got up to leave, we noticed a commotion outside. Word had reached us that a homicide bomber had detonated on a bus in the western part of the city.

I went outside and three Palestinian cab drivers argued over who would take me to the scene. They seemed unconcerned that children had been murdered on that bus.

When we arrived, police were keeping the public away, but the bus was no more than 40 yards away. Unfortunately, we could see everything. Then I had one of the strangest brief conversations I’ve ever had.

It was obvious that mostly young Palestinian men were detonating these bombs; not difficult to profile.

But of course, in societies where liberalism seeps in, people cannot profile. It might be offensive to the alleged killer!

So, I asked an Israeli man standing next to me: “Why don’t you just not allow young Palestinian men on buses?”

His head snapped around and he looked incredulous.

“We can’t do that!”

Even in the midst of 11 dead children, hanging out of blown-out windows, the Israelis could not bring themselves to “discriminate” against their enemies.

It took (thank you, merciful God) Arafat’s death in 2004 to bring the curtain down on this latest reign of terror.

It was also ushered-in the Ariel Sharon era in Jerusalem. His building of the security barrier largely stopped the bombings, and its importance continues to this day.

The whole affair is a stark reminder that the world groans in misery until the Prince of Peace arrives.

May that day be very soon.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Cold Peace, Hot Wars

Donald Trump has done some remarkable things in his short time in office. It seems that his reputation as a dealmaker is well-earned. The Art of the Deal is now gobbling-up peace overtures in the Middle East, between old enemies.

We’ve known for some time that the Middle East is a hotbed of Islamic ideology. As the researcher Raymond Ibrahim (you should check out his work) has pointed out, complete domination of the world has been a core Muslim goal since the 7^th century. It is difficult—very difficult—for western minds to accept this. And so much of our society goes on in a dream-like trance, unable and unwilling to see the obvious existential threat for what it is. I will be honest: I’d be hard-pressed to ever trust national Arab leadership, and that includes what is going on right now in the Middle East.

And yet.

Just when many of us think we have the immediate future somewhat figured out, comes a reality that bends reality.

Recently, it was announced that a peace deal had been brokered between the UAE and Israel. Stunning, really.

Now comes word that Bahrain is prepared to recognize Israel as well, and normalize relations.

Additionally, more and more countries announce that they are opening embassies in Jerusalem. Eastern European countries and those aforementioned Gulf States are forming a remarkable coalition willing at least on paper to make peace with the Jewish state.

In this way, Trump is similar to Benjamin Netanyahu. Both men are resolute in crisis, and resolute in the face of the most sinister media attacks. Both men are hated by media in their respective countries. Netanyahu has dealt with this for 25 years, Trump for four.

And while we may never know what operational masterpieces Netanyahu has taken part in as a commando, and authorized while prime minister, Trump too has ice water in his veins when it comes to ordering strikes that are game-changers.

His early 2020 order to take out the Iranian terror master Soleimani showed that Trump, like Netanyahu, is willing to take bold steps that really alter the way even diplomacy is done going forward. Seth Frantzman, a terrific writer in the Jerusalem Post, talks about the new Bob Woodward book, Rage, in which Trump’s Soleimani hit is examined in a new light.

“The book paints a picture of a calculating Trump who made a decisive decision that went against the fear-mongering of experts, politicians and advisors.

“According to accounts published online, the powerful US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is a key foreign policy player and close to Trump, was concerned about striking Soleimani. He warned that it was ‘over the top’ and a ‘giant step’ and that it would lead to ‘almost total war.’ He suggested striking someone lower level, an attack that Iran could ‘absorb.’”

Do you see? Politicians and advisors like Graham have kept Netanyahu fairly hamstrung for a quarter-century. Dennis Ross, Graham, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright…the list goes painfully on. They forced Israel to go along with Oslo and the result was thousands of dead and maimed Israelis. Now Trump has changed the equation and is allowing by extension Netanyahu to do some real broken-field running, as they say. They make quite a tandem in reshaping the Middle East, while scrapping conventional (dangerous) diplomacy.

So while we who study Bible prophecy wait (im)patiently for that just-right alignment of nations to fulfill the great end-times prophecies, we must in the here-and-now have some appreciation for these pragmatic deals that at least tamp-down hostilities and make way for thawing relations. These cold peace deals are preferable to hot wars where people die.

I’ve read some interesting things this week that propose that Arab nations are not part of the Gog-Magog War. And these geopolitical machinations are complex. Maybe what we should do in this present moment is take the peace we can get now, brace for the potential treacheries that may come, and leave to God the final outcomes.

I will be skeptical of Arab overtures, for Israel’s sake, but hope for the best in the short-term. At the very least, two transformational leaders are taking America and Israel in new directions.

It is a remarkable time to be alive.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com