Thursday, September 24, 2009

Damascus the world’s most dangerous destination!

By Bill Salus

According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, tourism in Israel has steadily declined in 2009 in comparison to 2008. There appears to be a developing concern among would be “holy land” travelers that a major Mideast war involving Israel, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and others is inevitable and soon to happen.

In a semi-related area, Israel’s concerns are further fueled by the genuine possibility that immigration into Israel will come to a complete halt the minute Iran possesses its own nuclear weapon. Ephraim Sneh, the former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, was quoted by the Jerusalem Post on 9/16/2009 as stating:

“If the Islamic republic (Iran) completes its military nuclear program, immigration to Israel would stop, young men and women would emigrate to pursue their future in places seen as more secure and investment in Israel would be reduced.”

Legitimizing the above holy land concerns are the additional geopolitcal facts that Mideast Peace talks remain at a standstill, the international community is further isolating the Jewish State, and Israel has been preparing its citizenry and military for a massive multi-front war for the better part of 2009!

Has the Middle East become the world’s most dangerous travel destination?

Perhaps so; many end time’s experts are predicting war is presently gyrating upon the prophetic radar. Several of them believe Damascus, Syria will soon be the site of the world’s next deadliest disaster! Ancient bible prophecies foretelling the coming destruction of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city increasingly pique the attention of today’s top eschatologists.

They fevereshly sort through the geo-prophetical blueprints to see if they appropriately align with today’s turbulant geo-political Mideast events. The interrelated prophecies of particular interest are contained in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Isaiah 17:1 declares that Damascus will someday cease to be a city. The prophecy suggests that it will be reduced to rubble in a matter of hours indicating that it becomes the target of a devastating attack. Only nuclear weapons could accomplish such destruction in a brief time period. Isaiah 17:9,14 encourages the possibility that such an attack is is conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.).

Several bible translations, like the King James Version, New King James Version, and American Standard Version, seem to suggest that Jeremiah 49:23-27 depicts an I.D.F. attack emanating from warships located in the Mediterranean Sea. Presently Israel has several such warships purportedly packing that type of powerful punch patrolling therein!

Although Damascus, (pictured here), was overtaken around 732 B.C. by the Assyrians and has changed sovereign hands several times since, it has never ceased entirely from being a city. In fact today it thrives as Syria’s capital city, housing a population within its connecting metropolitan borders of about 4.5 million people. This is approximately one quarter of the entire nations population.

Futhermore, it is considered by many to be the central hub from which every known Mideast terrorist organization finds safe haven. In light of these important facts and many others, several prophecy scholars have safely deduced that Isaiah’s damnation of Damascus has yet to find its final fulfillment!

In the event Israel strategically strikes Iran’s nuclear sites and in return receives a massive reign of retaliatory rockets from a hostile multi-front venue, Damascus becomes Israel’s most opportune return target. By decisively destroying Damascus, the I.D.F. demonstrates to its Mideast foes that it intends to act boldly, swiftly, and victoriously. Furthermore by dooming Damascus, the I.D.F. limits the mobilization capabilities of several key terrorist entities expected to engage in the anti-Israel confederacy.

Presently Syria is among a multiplicity of world nations that disallow normal diplomatic international relations with Israel. In fact they, like Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinians, and many more, refuse to recognize Israel’s right exist as the sovereign Jewish State.

Syria, along with Egypt, Jordan, and others, has prominately participated in the major Middle East Arab – Israeli wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973. However, unlike Egypt and Jordan, who have developed a wholesome fear of the I.D.F., Syria still rattles its sabers and stakes its claims upon the strategic Golan Heights, land which Israel currently possesses.

Although Egypt and Jordan have formulated fragile peace treaties with Israel, Syria has refused to emulate their examples. Instead Syria has opted to befriend Iran, Hezbollah, and the Hamas, all of whom exist as Israel’s greatest military threats today.

In light of the fact that Syria has refused to learn its modern day lessons regarding Israel’s right to exist in the holy land, it appears as though they are about to descend from a condition of denial into a dreaded circumstance of destruction.

Jeremiah 49:25 asks – “Why is the city of praise (Jerusalem) not deserted, the city of My joy?” By asking this question of Damascus humanity is caused to consider that there comes a time when Jerusalem and Damascus become two central competing cities. Jeremiah suggests that Syria will someday seek the forced exodus of Jews out from Jerusalem. Presently the Syrians and many of their Arab cohorts seek this very thing. They desire that Jerusalem become the capital of an additional Arab State called Palestine.

According to Jeremiah’s subsequent concluding prophetic words to Damascus, we discover the Syrian army will mobilize in a final attempt to separate Jews from their holy city of Jerusalem. However, this futile Syrian attempt will prove to be fatal, and in the aftermath, Damascus becomes the world’s most dangerous destination!

“Therefore her (Damascus) young men shall fall in her streets, And all the men of war (Syrian army) shall be cut off in that day,” says the LORD of hosts.” (Jeremiah 49:26; nkjv)

Currently there is credible chatter that an unprecedented increase in Christian conversions is taking place in Syria. However, this window of opportunity to preach the gospel in a predominately Arab Islamic country may be about to abruptly shut! If Damascus is soon to become the target of mass destruction, then perhaps these converts ought to be incorporating a sound exit strategy out of Syria within their temporarily flourishing Christian message.

BELOW ARE THE COMMENTS TO THE POTENTIAL PRESENT LOGISTICS OF THE ABOVE DAMASCUS ARTICLE FROM DR. LAWRENCE PRABHAKER...

Dear Brother Bill,

I read this excellent post of yours "Damascus the world's most Dangerous Destination!"
Its analytical narration and the Biblical Eschatological correlation is simply superb. I just would like to add just three points to your pristine analysis:

a) Citing Jeremiah 49:23-27 in sequence to Isaiah 17:1-3 & 14, it appears that Israel is the reciepient of the missile barrage of the Hezbullah and Hamas, backed by the Syrians and the Iranian military advisors operating from Lebanon, we could see that Israel would have been completely tormented by the "vicious attrition of the missile barrage".

As you know that Hezbollah boasts of 40,000 rockets (by the way these are just FROGs Free Rockets Over Ground with very little or no terminal guidance. That means they would wreck havoc on impact that would simply fragment every piece of Israeli territory.
Assuming that the 40,000+ rockets bombard Israel and assuming Syrian SS-21 missiles also hit Israel with possible Chemical warheads, what would remain of Israel would be just dust and burning mass.

So the question is how does Israel retaliate against Damascus?

Here is a possibility:

i) All the Hezbollah & Hamas rockets and the Syrian missiles would not fully peneterate Israel since Israel would erect its Iron Dome -- a missile defence system with limited interception capability, but what would actually shield Israel would be their Tesla Dome that they would quietly erect.

Please read this I. The Israeli Air Defenses chief announces that Israel can defend itself against ALL of the ballistic missile threats it faces in the entire Middle East! http://www.cuttingedge.org/newsletters/080608.html

This would simply be Israel's formidable shield. Very few nations have this capability they include Russia, US, China, France etc.

Once the missile and rocket barrage proves ineffectual, it would simply infuriate the Iranians and the Syrians, it is here that the Iranians would prod the Syrians to attack Israel by SS-21s with chemical warheads. The effect of that attack we read in Isaiah 17:4-6 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isa%2017&version=KJV

ii) This would be the most obvious trigger for Israel since the unstated Israel doctrine of nuclear deterrence reads that crossing the threshold of weapons of mass destruction in the sequence of biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear weapons, Israel would simply operationalize its latent existential nuclear capability of "mating its nuclear warheads to its Jericho I, II, III, IIIB Medium range, intermediate range and extended intermediate range ballistic missiles, beside Israeli F-15I aircraft are nuclear capable and would do the job in no time.

Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal is well analysed in: "THE THIRD TEMPLE'S HOLY OF HOLIES: ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm


b) The scope of the Israeli counterpoise and strike seems to come from its small, yet one of the most powerful navy as in Jeremiah 49:23-27.

You have very correctly cited this. Israeli Dolphin class submarines carry one of the most formidable Land Attack Cruise Missiles called the Popeye Turbo Cruise Missiles. In May 2000, Israel tested these missiles off the coast of Sri Lanka. The missiles have a range of 1,500 km and carry the standard 200 KT nuclear warhead.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/missile/popeye-t.htm

Besides the Popeye nuclear Tactical Land Attack Missile (TLAM), Israel's Dolphin class submarines being one of the most sophisticated conventional submarine with Air Indepedent Propulsion technologies of endured submergence http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dolphin/

Israel's Dolphin's would also have the Delilah missiles tipped with HPM (High Power Microwave) warhead--essentially a non-nuclear warhead that shreds every bit of electrical and electronics system, blinding, deafening and dumbing a country's critical infrastructure. The Delilah on impact would simply unleash a microwave lightning bolt of energy in excess of 2 billion watts. http://defense-update.com/products/d/delilah.htm

Just imagine the consequences of such an attack on Damascus or even on Teheran, I see that the Israeli Dolphins and their Saar class corvettes http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/saar5/would launch the Delilahs and the Popeyes -- simply saturating the Syrians and the Hezbollah and Hamas.

Backing these would be the Tesla Howitzers that could fire in electro-magnetic beams that would simply fry everything on its path that would be coordinated from land.
http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1776b.cfm

So thats the formidable order of battle that Israel has in place.

BUT more than all these, Israel's guardian angels led by Archangel Michael would war with Satan trouncing him and throwing him down to earth.(Daniel 12:1http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dan%2012&version=KJV
and Revelation 12:7-9 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2012&version=KJV

Even as Archangel Michael truimphs over Satan and his hosts, Israel would be empowered to this massive and unpredictable victory of Psalms 83--that simply snatches overwhelming victory over the 10-nation Arab confederacy from what the world would be thinking would be the jaws of defeat.

Shalom,

"Lawrence of India" W.Lawrence Prabhakar, Ph.D.,Strategic Affairs Analyst,
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Madras Christian College
Chennai, India

Friday, September 11, 2009

Israel close to confirming Antichrist's death covenant!

There’s no fooling humanity anymore! Mankind nervously watches current international and Mideast events spin apocalyptically out of control. The world accelerates toward a one-world banking system, one-world order, and a one-world leader. The sign’s of the times suggest the biblical Antichrist has already arrived on the scene!

Atop the list of end time’s Antichrist signs are current Middle East war gyrations. The Bible predicts that hostilities between the Jews and their Arab and Persian enemies will rise to an unprecedented fever pitch. It further states that the whole world will someday turn against Israel, leaving the Jewish State to fend for itself. From the looks of things in the cradle of civilization, that time appears to have come!

Eschatologists email each other daily with new evidences that current events continue to reinforce their conclusions that humanity is hastening toward the dreaded “Tribulation Period”. Many of them teach that this 7-year period commences with a covenant confirmed for a similar duration between Israel and the Antichrist according to Daniel 9:27. Isaiah 28:15 and 18 identifies this Middle East peace - pact as a “covenant of death”. Isaiah’s rendition likens it to an agreement with Hell!

Undeniably the spotlight has again turned toward Israel, only this time the stakes have risen to an insurmountable high. All the Middle East prophetic chess pieces, political leaders, military arsenals, and terrorist organizations, like the Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas are in place for the final showdown.

There appears no way around it, this must be it! The time has come for a charismatic world leader to emerge and put a peace-proposal together that puts the Middle East temporarily out of its misery and finally works!

I say temporarily, because the prophecy contained in Daniel chapter nine clearly foretells that the Antichrist will violate this peace treaty at the mid-point of the Tribulation Period. He then turns his hatred toward the Jews, and in Zechariah 13:8 we are informed that he will successfully kill two-thirds of the Israeli Jewish population living at that time. In light of other important preceding prophetic events, which I’m about to introduce, we can anticipate that the final Jewish body-count affected by his end time’s genocidal effort will total well into the millions!

This brings me to the prophetic point of this article whereby I must thrust a monkey wrench into most end time’s models. All the above is true, however the Bible declares that before the peace-pact is confirmed; powerful Mideast wars are foretold to occur!

According to yet unfulfilled prophecies contained in Isaiah 17, Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38 & 39, Israel will first do battle against the Syria, Iran, the Hezbollah, and many other of their surrounding Arab enemies. Some scholars predict that these three Bible prophecies will occur soon, sequentially, and in rapid succession.

Isaiah 17:1 suggests that Israel is about to nuke Damascus turning it into a ruinous heap. Most military analysts suspect that Israel presently has the nuclear wherewithal to accomplish this damnation of Damascus. Isaiah’s entire prophecy seems to infer that the Israeli Defense Forces are the instrument through which the destruction of the world’s oldest continuously populated city occurs.

Psalm 83 encourages the possibility that Israel will then battle against the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Hamas, and many other surrounding Arab enemies, like the Saudis, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Egyptians. This prophetic psalm declares these enemies of Israel will unite to wipe the Jewish State off of the map, so that the “name Israel be remembered no more”. (Psalm 83:4)

As I point out in my book, Isralestine, The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East, this Arab confederacy likewise meets its demise at the hands of the I.D.F. according to assorted Bible prophecies.

Then flip a few prophetic pages forward to the war between Israel and Iran. After Damascus goes down and the inner ring of Arab populations that share common borders with Israel meet their pending doom as per Psalm 83, Iran is scheduled to team up with Russia, Turkey, Libya and a hostile host of others in fulfillment of the Ezekiel 38 & 39 invasion of Israel.

In light of Iran’s present full court press for a nuclear weapon purposed to wipe Israel off of the pages of time, this is the prophecy most frequently discussed by eschatologists today. Ezekiel 38:18-39:6 predicts yet another massive Israeli victory over Iran and its powerful allies.

At this point I could itemize the litany of current Mideast events that undeniably indicate the world has arrived at this final fateful hour; however that’s reserved for a subsequent article. What I deposit with you in closing is that the events leading up to the Antichrist’s 7 year temporary peace-pact with Israel are about to happen. As eerie the thought may be, one could possibly presume that the Antichrist may be alive and residing somewhere on the earth today!

Furthermore; the Israeli victories in the wars listed above dictate that the content of the false covenant will probably not contain the present Israeli-Palestinian 2-state peace proposals. According to Bible prophecy Israel soon defeats the Palestinians and their Arab cohorts; thus achieving this illusive peace militarily before the advent of the Antichrist. No; Isaiah’s covenant with death, will likely paint and entirely different geopolitical picture upon its pages.

To imagine its content, one must envision the existence of a significantly different, more prosperous and powerful Israel. A Jewish State that is probably much larger and more densely populated with Jews than the lesser Israel of today.
A Greater Israel, that dwells securely in receipt of vast Arab and Iranian arsenals and spoils of war. A prosperous nation that is freed from further Arab terror, torment, and threats to be wiped off of the map.

Only then can one search the scriptures to grasp the enormity of the Antichrist’s last days covenant with Israel. Christians today ought to understand current Middle East and world events in order to utilize Bible prophecy as a witnessing tool for reaching out to a harvest field of souls. The world is filled with humanity hunkering down and hungering for truth and prophetic information, and the God of the Bible has not let them down.

More to follow…