When Diplomacy Ends Holy War Begins!

By Bill Salus

On April 19, 2010 Israel celebrated 62 years of independence. On that same day American president Barrack Obama announced the United States may leverage its veto power in the United Nations against Israel in the future. His threatening statement, which represents a major departure from previous U.S. foreign policy, was designed to coerce Israel into Obama’s vision for Middle East peace.

The very next day the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion occurred in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. This explosion created what is being touted as the world’s largest oil spill and is still ongoing today. Estimates are that hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have already seeped into the gulf and no definitive end to the seepage is presently in sight.

Approximately one week earlier on April 14, 2010 the UK watchdog agency called the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned Israel from including pictures of the Western Wall in promoting tourism to citizens of the UK. The ASA is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media including TV, internet, sales promotions and direct marketing. The reason given is that it implied Israel possessed legal sovereignty over East Jerusalem, something the Arab League and apparently even the UK government contests.

Oddly on the very same day the Eyjafjallajokull Iceland volcano erupted grounding all flights and about one-million people from the UK and much of Europe. The apparent reward for the ASA’s potential adverse affect on Israeli tourism was that all tourism departing from or arriving to the UK remained at a complete standstill. All flight traffic remained grounded for approximately 2 weeks until the volcanic dust settled.

Meanwhile, as the ashes were falling upon the UK creating a nauseous odor over parts of Europe, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, “Yom Hashoah”, ceremonies were concluding in various parts of the world. These ceremonies commemorated the millions of Jews reduced to ashes from being incinerated during the Holocaust. Many in Europe still recall the horrific smell of those charred Jewish ashes. Dust for dust and ashes from Auschwitz might best describe the irony.

Interestingly, on July 1, 2010 I landed at Heathrow airport in the UK for a three week TV and speaking tour and was surprised to see almost as many Muslims in their religious garb as there were westerners. The Muslim population is rising 10 times faster than the rest of UK society. Presently the Muslim community has grown to about 2.5 million inside of the entire U.K. population of approximately 62 million. Islamic (Sharia) law has been adopted and is being integrated into various municipalities within the UK. (image of a previous Muslim protest in London)

Apparently the growing number of Muslims in the UK has shaped the ultra liberal politically correct thinking of the ASA. As such, it seems the God of Israel may have punished the UK by temporarily grounding all flights, which caused the loss of millions of dollars in tourism and other related revenues.

My delightful UK tour host, Pastor Bob Waughman an associate of Prophetic Witness Movement International, (PWMI) informed me of this recent ASA incident. He and many of the end time’s experts in the UK are correlating the coincidental timeliness of the Iceland volcano and the BP oil spill with the curse for curse in kind clause of Genesis 12:3. For those of you not familiar with how God’s Gentile foreign policy toward Israel is finding application today, Bill Koenig’s “Eye to Eye” book is a must read.

The obvious lesson to be gleaned by humanity from these seemingly coincidental episodes above is “do unto Israel as you would have done by Israel’s God Jehovah unto you”. However, is there an even greater lesson to be learned? If there is a connection to be made between mistreatment of Israel resulting in an almost instantaneous repercussion to the perpetrator, then one might safely assume that God is warning the world that it’s time to bless the Jew or else! Perhaps the days for Mideast diplomacy have ended.

Underhanded political dealings with inherent potential for harm to the nation of Israel seem to be the order of the day. A case in point occurred recently on June 29, 2010 when President Obama beseeched Saudi King Abdullah to help America win the war in Afghanistan. Abdullah sought compensation for this favor in the form of Israel accepting the Saudi Peace Initiative of 2002. Obama informed Abdullah that, if necessary, he would force Israel to accept this Arab initiative. The centerpiece of this Arab initiative is the territorial withdrawal of Israel back to its pre 1967 borders.

However, on July 6, 2010 Obama met with Netanyahu in Washington and no mention of this important discussion with Abdullah was alluded to during their photo op statements to the public. This seems surprising considering the powerful imposing implications to Israel should Obama pressure Israel in the near future toward this end. Additionally, Obama briefly mentioned the sticky topic of Nuclear Non Proliferation during the press conference with Netanyahu but didn’t elaborate upon his position about the subject. Obama simply acknowledged that Israel has unique security needs.

This surprised many of us familiar with the announcement made by Obama in May of 2010 that he wanted Israel to “come clean” on its nuclear program and come into compliance with Nuclear Non Proliferation. Reportedly, Netanyahu was infuriated with Obama’s flip-flop in this nuclear matter at the time. This represented a dramatic change from the former Bush administration’s position with regard to Israel and Non Nuclear Proliferation. Israel has adamantly shunned all past Arab demands to come clean about its nuclear program.

Amidst the backdrop of all the above, Iran enriches uranium, Hezbollah procures more rockets, Hamas still reigns in Gaza, and Syrian President Bashar Assad warns “no peace can be achieved with the present Israeli government”. Stepping outside the political spin and rumors of war hovering over Mideast matters, one gets the startling impression that the time for politically brokered land for peace deals has expired.

It is historically understood when diplomacy ends war begins. Conversely it is prophetically understood the stage appears to be set in the Middle East Theater for the Israeli war prophecies described Isaiah 17:1, Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38 & 39 to occur soon and sequentially. The question is can a temporary peace be achieved prior to the fulfillment of these Israeli war prophecies? I think the fact that the cursing aspect of Genesis 12:3 is fulfilled almost instantaneously evidences that war, not peace, is coming next in the Holy Land.