Fixing a Tyre in the Middle East

Ever had a flat tyre? Run over a nail or a screw that's punctured it? Although it's really annoying, it's not hard to fix compared with other motoring problems - you simply change the flat for your spare and take it to the tyre shop to be fixed. I've had this happen a couple of times and watched how the guys fix it. They begin by searching for the cause of the puncture - when they find the nail or screw, they remove it, plug and seal the hole, and have you back on the road in less than an hour.

If, however, it's a slow leak and you don't get it fixed, the tyre will never stop going flat and you'll have to keep inflating it over and over again. Even worse, driving on a deflating tyre can wreck the tyre walls - the only long-term solution is to find the nail or screw and remove it.

I thought of this after talking to a friend who's taught theology for decades and who's convinced that the only solution to the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinians is a cease-fire, to stop the fighting and build up the defeated Palestinians again, just as they have for the last 76 years: "Let's just keep inflating the punctured tyre!"

Many of my friends and family believe what our media, our universities, and astonishingly, even some Bible colleges tell us today, that the nail in the Middle Eastern tyre is the Jewish State of Israel. They think that it was created in 1948 by the colonialist powers of Europe so if Israel didn't exist, there would be no puncture! The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the Shi'ites of Iran would then quickly resolve their 1,400 year warfare over who should have succeeded Muhammad! Problem solved - drive on!

At least my theologian friend believes "there is a need for a Jewish state to avoid antisemitism in Europe". But is this virulent, often murderous hatred only in Europe? Where else can the Jews go to avoid it? Elsewhere in the Middle East?

Since 1948, the Arab nations have driven out 856,000 Jews from their midst -

Morocco (262,000)
Algeria (140,000)
Iraq (135,000)
Tunisia (104,000)
Egypt (75,000)
Yemen (55,000)
Libya (38,000)
Syria (30,000)
Aden (8,000)
Lebanon (5,000)

Other Muslim nations have also cheerfully joined in:

Turkey (62,700)
Iran (56,000)
Afghanistan (5,000)
Pakistan (2,000)

How about in the USA, home to over a third of all Jews today? New York City has 960,000 and the New York Times is reporting that hate crimes against Jews there more than tripled last year, despite going down generally by 10%. And surely you don't need me to detail the appallingly blatant antisemitism on even Ivy League campuses throughout the nation.

The real nail in the Middle East tyre is this virulent, often murderous hatred of the Jews. Hamas's Charter openly proclaims in Article 7 that they are obeying Muhammad's call for the complete annihilation of Israel and every last Jew. Article 13 states:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors".

How then do we remove the nail? How do we change the hearts and minds not only of Hamas jihadist terrorists but also of the civilians providing them with their cannon-fodder and the ideology? We infidels, whether secular, Jewish, or Christian, are considered unclean, which means only Islam's ayatollahs and mullahs, Sunni or Shi'ite, can challenge the jihadist mind-set.

The trouble is the Arab nations know all too well that Hamas is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (Article 2) who wage war on moderate Muslim governments too. There is no possibility of Egypt, for example, allowing any of their Palestinian neighbours to flee to even a temporary refugee camp in the Sinai Peninsula, right next door to Gaza, even during Israel's attempts to root out Hamas (see my "Elections and Consequences").

My theologian friend assures me that if only Jewish state of Israel had accepted all of the 1948 refugees, i.e. 600,000 Jews (the other 256,000 emigrated to France and the USA) and 711,000 Arabs, there would be no Hamas in Gaza, hence no nail. My thought is that if only the Arab/Muslim nations had simply accepted their fair share of the population transfer in 1948, there would be no Hamas in Gaza, hence no nail. But that was never going to happen.

So now what? This is a religious war, one that Muslims have been waging on the rest of us for the last 1,400 years, off and on, at terrible cost. As I detail in my Slouching Towards Bethlehem: The Rise of the Antichrists, by the 8th century, the Arab-Muslim Empire had wiped out virtually the entire Christian and pagan African population of North Africa; between the 11th and 16th centuries, they killed an estimated 60-80 million Hindus in northern India. Will Durant, the American historian, concluded:

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history.

In the 20th century, Turkish Muslims slaughtered almost 1 million Armenians and 750,000 Greeks for being Christians; in the Sudan, the Islamic government killed up to 2 million Christians and pagans alike; in the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988), one million died in the argument between Sunnis and Shiites.

So, there is just no fixing the Middle East tyre - Hamas's mind-set is Islam (Articles 1-5), armed by Iran who are also arming Hezbollah in Lebanon. There's also no removing of Israel - they will exist as a nation as long as the sun is shining: 

Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;
The LORD of hosts is His name:
"If this fixed order departs
From before Me," declares the LORD,
"Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
From being a nation before Me forever." (Jer 31:35-36)

As I see it, we're heading into the last, great battle at Armageddon, the Bible's prophetic name for Jerusalem (Revelation 16:13-21) as I explain in Threshing Hour: Armageddon & Babylon the Great. It will be very brief because God will personally intervene to destroy all the armies that the Muslim nations coerce the United Nations to muster to regain Israel's holy city for the Palestinians. And then the end shall come with Jesus' return and usher in the kingdom of God!

The only real question remaining is, are you ready?

And in the meantime, if we genuinely care for the civilians in Gaza, we should be siding with the men and women of the Israeli Defence Force who are trying to rescue them from Hamas fighters, men who cheerfully filmed themselves on October 7 massacring 1,139 Jews and foreign nationals (including 38 children and babies, some of whom they put alive into ovens!) while sexually mutilating and gang-raping women and girls, before kidnapping another 251 Jews and foreign nationals (including 33 children and babies). Ever since then in this truly horrific war, the IDF has tried every possible means to save Palestinian civilians, allowing food and water ¹ across enemy lines (imagine this happening in war), and even warning them to move before every attack on Hamas fighters; Hamas fighters who have hidden behind them in hospitals, schools, family homes, and mosques, putting their women, children and babies in the cross-fire.

Please, please think before you side with these truly evil men.

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