From Bad to Worse

Those of you who have been reading my column for several years know that for some time I have predicted a coming confrontation between Israel and Iran. Today, I looked back though the archives and noted that I have written about this 19 times over the past five years! Some would say I am beating a dead horse! But I say, I am beating a drum and sounding a trumpet! I want to wake up the sleepers out there who are oblivious to the coming events that are about to overtake the world like a thief in the night. I believe this confrontation will happen - and when it does, it may very well bring about unpredictable consequences, which like rapidly falling dominoes, will propel the world towards the coming of the anti-Christ and the second coming of Christ. I read a very interesting article this week in the Atlantic magazine entitled “The Point Of No Return” about the probability of this coming conflict. I do not have space to reprint it, but for those of you who are awake enough to care about such things you can read it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186/
Perhaps nothing in this article was more profound than the recent words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu on the occasion of his 100th birthday. (Think for a moment about what this Jewish centenarian has witnessed in his lifetime!) Ben-Zion is a noted historian and the father of both the current Prime Minister and another son who died in a fire-fight while freeing the Jewish hostages during the 1978 “Raid on Entebbe.” Here is a portion of his remarks that night: “Our party this evening compels me to speak of recent comments made about the continued existence of the nation of Israel and the new threats by its enemies depicting its upcoming destruction. From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being fed a lie - that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them! The Jewish people are making their position clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation of Israel is showing the world today how a state should behave when it stands before an existential threat: by looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should be done and what can be done. And to be ready to enter the fray at the moment there is a reasonable chance of success.”

Now read these words spoken by Iranian President Ahmadinejad about a month ago: “Sixty years ago, by means of an artificial and false pretext, and by fabricating information and inventing stories, they gathered the filthiest, most criminal people, who only appear to be human, from all corners of the world. They organized and armed them, and provided them with media and military backing. Thus, they occupied the Palestinian lands, and displaced the Palestinian people.” The “invented story” is, of course, the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to deny the historical truth of the Holocaust reflect the official position of the Iranian government. Iranian foreign minister, Mottaki said in 2005, “The words of Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinion, nor isolated statements, but they express the view of the government.” The Iranian leadership’s own view of nuclear war is perhaps best exemplified by a comment made in 2001 by the former Iranian president Rafsanjani, who entertained the idea that Israel’s demise could be brought about in a relatively pain-free manner for the Muslim world. “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while a nuclear attack against the Islamic countries would only cause damages.” This is the thinking that has the Israeli government on a knife’s edge.

Following his father’s birthday speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked to comment on the Iranian threat, “Iran has threatened to annihilate a state. In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there is perfunctory condemnation, but there is no shock.” And then, as if he were channeling is father’s historian persona, he warned, “A crucial lesson of history is that bad things tend to get worse if they are not challenged.”

Friends, his words are true, whether you are talking about a death-cult dictator like Ahmadinejad, bad policy right here in America, or our own personal sin. Chew on that for a while.