Funding the Terrorists

U.S. foreign policy is often nothing if not enabling where terrorists are concerned. It’s still a “mystery” that the Bush administration allowed members of the Saudi royal family fly home immediately after 9/11.

For decades, we have propped-up rogue regime after rogue regime. Pumping money into Middle East police states, Ukrainian oligarchs, and Palestinian grifters has compromised our own financial integrity. It has also corroded our moral structure.

Now, a charity operating in Gaza (“Hamas Land”) has come under the scrutiny of Republican Congressman Darrell Issa. According to a report from Caroline Glick, Issa sent a letter to Anthony Blinken and, well:

“On Feb. 27, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding the suspension of a U.S. State Department grant that was awarded to Fares Al Arab for Development and Charity Works in Gaza due to the group’s ties to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organizations.

“The State Department gave Fares Al Arab a $41,213 grant for ‘Developing Palestinian Journalists’ English Skills.’ But as The Washington Free Beacon reported, Fares Al Arab issued a grant ‘to a radio network run by the Islamic Jihad … , honored a self-described journalist who belonged to the PFLP, hosted a press freedom event that featured a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, and co-led a human rights training course with a convicted terrorist.’”

Issa said that he wanted to know by March 10 why the grant was issued if the terror ties were known, and to give complete rundown of the financials involved.

I think we all know this current rogue regime in Washington will never deign to give those kinds of answers. But I applaud Issa for trying. It is important to keep trying to penetrate the corridors of the Deep State, of which Blinken is a loyal foot soldier.

Glick explains that this whole affair is tightly choreographed. As Glick wrote: “The full expanse of the Biden administration’s policy towards Palestinian terrorists and Israel became clear this week during U.S. Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr’s visit to Israel and Jordan.”

Amr first stopped in Jordan (no real friend of Israel or the U.S.). Ostensibly, he was there to participate in a summit to combat terror, specifically the uptick of murder in Israel by Palestinians. Get this: the end goal here is to train 5,000 (thousand) Palestinian commandos to be deployed in the Territories to “fight” (my quotes) terrorism. Here comes the scary specifics:

“The U.S. proposal would also require Israel to sharply curtail IDF counterterror operations. It foresees the deployment of foreign forces, including U.S. military forces, on the ground. The ostensible purpose of those forces would be to separate Palestinians from Israelis. In practice, such a deployment would pit U.S. and other forces against IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians on behalf of the Palestinians.

“Among the many alarming aspects of the U.S. plan is the fact that it ignores completely the direct involvement of Palestinian forces in terrorist attacks. During the course of the Palestinian terror war 20 years ago, U.S.-trained P.A. forces murdered 26 IDF soldiers in 2002 alone. The Palestinians learned how to use cell phones as remote detonation devices from their American trainers. Over the years, they have put that knowledge to use not to fight terror but to kill Israelis in terrorist attacks.

“The P.A., whose forces the U.S. seeks to ‘empower,’ is controlled by the Fatah terror group. P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of Fatah. Fatah terrorists carried out most of the murderous terror attacks in 2021-2022. Several of those attacks were carried out by P.A. security officers.”

These people aren’t to be trusted. Yet the U.S. appears ready to trust them. Why? I think at the root, the current regime in Washington, like that of Barack Obama’s, really seeks to undermine Israel and make her soft and vulnerable for the long-anticipated destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel will survive the latest round of violence, as it always does, and will. But how utterly tragic that death robs Jews of family and friends. All the while, the world aligns itself with the evil one.

The anti-Israel, anti-Jew sentiment in our State Department and White House is a stain on our national history.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Rumblings

Mountains shall be overthrown, cliffs shall topple, and every wall shall crumble to the ground. (Ezekiel 38:20)

I once had a fascinating conversation with a geologist studying earthquakes in the Middle East. He also was a believer and we talked at length about the earthquake of Amos’s time. The 8.2 quake, around 750 B.C., was a major event and ever since, especially due to Bible prophecy, believers have been waiting for the next really big one.

Of late, secular geologists have been studying past and present fault-lines and the geologic evidence supports the Bible’s recordings of major earthquakes that shook God’s people.

It is rare to find evidence supporting the biblical narrative. Thousands of years after the event, the causes of destruction can be hard to pinpoint. War or quake are just two possibilities that spring to mind when evidence of heavy destruction is found.

While earthquakes in the Middle East and Levant are as common as flies, the ancient annals did not tend to mention them – with one glaring exception. The books of Amos, Zechariah and Ezekiel explicitly note an earthquake, which scholars agree would have been in roughly 760 B.C.E. Much later, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote in his typical hair-raising style about the same temblor and its supposed origin in the prideful King Uzziah.

The Bible records an earthquake springing from the wrath of God, and His indiscriminate shaking of all peoples in the region, devastating everyone from the Kingdom of Judah to the coastal peoples. Interestingly, the geology supports the biblical accounts, so that even some secular sources say, yes, the biblical record on this is accurate.

(Sadly, the writer of a Haaretz article on this subject feels compelled to say that other biblical accounts, such as Jonah and the great fish are “far-out tales.”)

Josephus wrote in some detail about this event:

“a great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it; and fell upon the King’s face; insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately. And before the city, at a place called Eroge, half the mountain broke off from the rest on the west” – Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews, Book IX 10:4

We see from these biblical accounts that the Lord takes obedience deadly seriously, literally. When Solomon insisted on going into the Temple to offer incense, rather than the priests (they begged him not to), God’s wrath was kindled. This is instructive for us today, especially in our age of people focusing exclusively on a message of God’s unconditional love for us.

Additional damage throughout Israel occurred at Haifa Bay, where a city was fallen and not rebuilt, and at Megiddo (the site of the future Armageddon), along with Tel Dan. All strong evidence of a giant quake.

The Philistine city of Gath, with a 13-ft. Thick wall simply fell on its side during the eighth century, offering further clues to even skeptics that the biblical accounts of this earthquake line up on the timeline.

Israel today has many fault-lines, but the big one is the Dead Sea Transform, which is the source of catastrophic earthquakes. Remember, the Great Day of the Lord will bring a catastrophic earthquake, so it’s coming. Large earthquakes have occurred in that area in the 1830s and in 1927.

Typically, earthquakes of this magnitude carry with them thousands of aftershocks, which have and will terrify anyone in the region.

One day, the topography of the earth will change again. In that day, let us pray that as men’s hearts fail them, they will also beforehand be turned to faith in the one true Creator God.

A shaking is coming.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com