Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on David’s Tent, a ministry of Israeli believers Avner and Rachel Boskey. The Boskey’s have ministered at Tabernacle of David, and we consider them trustworthy and Biblically sound.
The world’s largest sports event – FIFA World Cup 2022 (also known as ‘the Mondial’) – is taking place this month in Doha, Qatar. It is the first World Cup to be held in the Arab/Muslim world, with 32 soccer/football teams participating. Over the past 12 years an estimated $220 billion dollars has been invested by Qatar in preparation for these games, fifteen times more than Moscow laid out for its 2018 World Cup.
Only five years previously, on June 5, 2017 Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, banning Qatar-registered planes and ships from utilizing their airspace and sea routes and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, blocking Qatar’s only land crossing. This was officially due to Qatar’s open support for jihadi terror groups (including hosting the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, funding and arming Hamas, and violating Gulf consensus regarding ties with the Shi’ite revolutionary dictatorship, the Islamic Republic of Iran).
Investigative reporters have uncovered the facts that over 6,500 migrant workers are said to have died building the Olympic facilities in Qatar, subject to cruel and deadly working conditions. To add to this potent mix, strong evidence of corruption and bribery have been published regarding Qatar’s successful bid to host FIFA 2022. Yet just in time, the diplomatic tide turned. Qatar was able to pour oil on troubled waters, making Middle Eastern peace with its four opponents (who also have supported terrorism throughout the years). And the Mondial is now being successfully hosted in Doha.
Mohammad al-Emadi (Qatari envoy to Gaza) flew to the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the Mondial. His job? To convey the message to the Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that they needed to chill any rocket attacks on Israel during the World Cup (that it, until after December 18). Such activities would embarrass Qatar in world media and would certainly spoil the party.
In other news, Israelis attending the Qatari World Cup have been running into hostility and hatred from Islamic and Arab football fans. Some Israelis have been thrown out of restaurants when their national identity became known. Israel (a member in good standing of FIFA) has been removed from the FIFA site travel links, and visitors are directed instead to a site entitled ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories.’ Israelis who had thought that a new era of friendship and brotherhood was opening between the Arab world and the Jewish people (with direct Tel Aviv-Doha flights for the duration of the World Cup) are seeing their hopes dashed by anti-Semitic pails of cold water thrown at them in Doha.
A historic step between Jews and Arabs – or treason?
Right in the middle of the Mondial, on Sunday December 4, Israeli President Isaac Herzog flew to Manama, Bahrain with a message that his trip was “another historic step in the relationship between Israel and Arab states that signed the Abraham Accords, with the hope that more and more countries will be able to join the circle of peace with the State of Israel.”
But a few days before, on Friday December 2, demonstrators in Bahrain chanted “death to Israel” at rallies, gathering in several areas of the tiny country to denounce Herzog’s upcoming Sunday arrival – the first Israeli head of state to ever visit Bahrain. Signs at the demonstrations featured Herzog’s photo with the word ‘criminal’ and ‘you are not welcome in Bahrain.’ Demonstrators burned an Israeli flag and squared off with riot police. One activist Bahraini post stated, “All normalization is an act of treason. Do not come.”
Is peace breaking out in the Middle East? Or are the various Oslo and Abraham Accords bumps in the road on the way to regional war?
The Abrahamic Accords bump up against Arab realities
In a recent Jerusalem Post analysis titled ‘Qatar shows that Abraham Accords did not change Arab-Israeli relations’, Lahav Harkov points out a sobering fact: average people in the Arab world do not view the Abraham Accords positively.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a July 2022 poll which revealed by national percentages that the majority of the Arab world’s public does not have a positive view about the Abraham Accords. Positive views of the Abraham Accords were listed as follows:
United Arab Emirates – 25%
Bahrain – 20%
Saudi Arabia – 19%
Kuwait – 14%
Egypt – 13%
Jordan – 12%
Surprisingly, Palestinians lined up as follows:
Palestinian Authority – 25%
Gaza – 34%
East Jerusalem – 48%
Approximately half of Persian Gulf Arabs oppose having any business and sports dealings with Israelis. The populations of the two countries which already have peace treaties with Israel are overwhelmingly opposed to business and sports relations with Israelis – Egypt (85%) and Jordan (87%). Another poll (The Arab Barometer) conducted in 2021-2022 and released in September 2022, found that the only countries with more than 20% in favor of normalization between Israel and Arab states are Sudan (39%) and Morocco (31%). Positive attitudes in Jordan and Egypt hover at around 6% each.
- The Washington Institute concludes based on these facts: “The wave of Arab countries officially normalizing relations with Israel over the past several years stands in contrast with a growing lack of public support for the Abraham Accords in the Gulf.”
The Oslo Accords were signed between Israel (PM Yitzhak Rabin) and the PLO (Chairman Yasser Arafat) between 1993 and 1995, but by 1996 a bloody wave of Palestinian terrorism swept across Israel. Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir wryly declared at the time that “the sea is the same sea and the Arabs are the same Arabs.’ Shamir was implying that, in spite of the Oslo Accords, Arab leaders had changed neither their animosity toward Israel nor their desire to throw the Jews of Israel into the Mediterranean. Recent opinion polls show that Shamir’s concerns are still anchored in reality, as far as the bulk of the Arab world is concerned.
The longing in the Jewish soul for peace
One of the Songs of Ascent, sung in ancient days as Jewish pilgrims made their way uphill to the House of YHVH in Jerusalem, spoke of the Jewish desire for peace while surrounded by Arab nations seeking our physical destruction: “Rescue my soul, YHVH, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue . . . Woe to me, for I reside in Meshech – for I have settled among the tents of Kedar [Arabian desert areas]! Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war” (Psalm 120).
Living with existential tension is not easy. The leaders of the Jewish people continuously face the temptation to offer their electorate tantalizing promises of rapidly approaching peace, even if cold realities are quite different. Over 2.600 years ago the prophet Ezekiel spoke of YHVH’s wrath against “the prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem, and who see a vision of peace for her when there is no peace” (Ezekiel 13:16). The God of Jacob soberly warned those leaders: “It is definitely because they have misled My people by saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash. So tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall” (Ezekiel 13:10-11).
Just before the destruction of Solomon’s Temple at the hands of Babylon, Jeremiah repeated the same prophetic warning with tears: “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ But there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14).
In these days some believe that peace to be breaking out across the Middle East. Some speak hopefully of a new dynamic supposedly now at play between the Arab world and Israel – an incremental progression toward greater acceptance, and greater military, intelligence and political cooperation between Islamic states and the Jewish state. But such ethereal dynamics have not persuaded the Middle East’s Arab majority. Unfortunately, these pipe-dreams have influenced many in Israel.
The ‘konseptzia’ syndrome
The stunning and earth-shattering victory of the June 1967 Six Day War made many Israelis giddy. The Israel Defense Forces had fought off a concerted invasion by five hostile Arab nation (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) as well as two minor supporting nations (Lebanon and Kuwait), capturing territories promised in prophecy to the Jewish people from Abraham to Amos. The words of the Psalmist seemed to come alive once again: “When YHVH restored the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Then they said among the nations, ‘YHVH has done great things for them.’ YHVH has done great things for us. We are full of joy!” (Psalm 126).
Yet in a short while giddiness morphed into hubris (chutzpa in Hebrew). Significant amounts of Israelis began to boast of ‘our achievements’ and began to assume that the Jewish state would always emerge triumphant from any battle. The humble prayer of the psalmist was not the focus: “Not to us, YHVH, not to us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your covenant faithfulness, because of Your truth!” (Psalm 115:1).
Six years later, in 1973 the Yom Kippur War (also known in the Arab world as the Ramadan or October War) surprised an unprepared Israel. Eleven hostile Arab invaders (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Kuwait, Sudan) and Cuba, as well as five supporting nations (Soviet Union, East Germany, North Korea, Pakistan and Lebanon) broke through into Sinai and the Golan Heights. Though AMAN (Israeli military intelligence) and the MOSSAD had received the entire Arab order of battle as well as many concrete warnings, the military, intelligence and political shomrei hasaf (Hebrew, watchmen) had let their guard down. The prevailing perspective (konseptzia in Hebrew) was that the Arab world would never dare to attack Israel and if they did, they would be quickly and soundly broken on the battlefield. But in the meantime, Soviet military and intelligence forces analyzed Israeli weaknesses and came up with their own battlefield strategies. These included new battlefield weapons like the anti-tank AT-3 Sagger, the latest SAM 6 anti-aircraft missiles, jamming equipment, etc., as well as strategic military disinformation. Israel’s false assumptions and lack of preparedness cost us dearly in military casualties.
Present military threats against Israel and the new ‘konseptzia’
Existential threats against the Jewish state have incrementally increased over the past 17 years. At this point we are faced with mortal enemies on at least five fronts: Iran; Lebanon (Hezbollah); Syria; Iraqi Shi’ite forces which are Iranian proxies; Houthi Yemenite Shi’ite forces in cooperation with Iran; ISIS/ISIL forces in both Syria and Egyptian Sinai. There are also fungible and internal fronts: Hamas Muslim Brotherhood forces in Gaza/the West Bank/Israel; Palestinian Islamic Jihad forces in Gaza/the West Bank/Israel; PLO/Palestinian Authority terror gangs in the West Bank and Israel; Arab and Bedouin Israeli civilians involved in terror, rioting and civil unrest. A brief description of the nature of some of these threats follows:
Iran – The Islamic Republic of Iran is a Shi’ite Islamic revolutionary movement actively spreading terrorism throughout the world in general and the Middle East in particular. Its strategic goals include the nuclear destruction of Israel, the crushing of Sunni Islam (85-87% of all Muslims) and the establishment of a Shi’ite caliphate over the entire planet, centered in the Middle East (the Shi’ite Crescent). A recent article in Beirut-based Al Mayadeen (a pan-Arabist satellite news channel) reported that media outlets close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have published a list of sensitive sites that Iran would target by missile in a future war: the Knesset; the Prime Minister’s Office; the Defense Ministry; nuclear sites and facilities; Rafael Advanced Defense Systems site in Haifa; the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot; the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa; military and intelligence bases; civilian airports (such as Ben-Gurion Airport and Ramon Airport near Eilat); military airports and bases.
Lebanon (Hezbollah) – Col. Yechiel Kuperstein, head of the IDF’s Physical Protection Department, noted that during the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah (July 12 to August 14, 2006), 3,917 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, 23% of which fell in built-up (civilian) areas. A total of 43 Israeli civilians and 121 IDF soldiers were killed. Thirty-three civilians suffered serious physical injuries, 68 suffered moderate physical injuries, and 1,388 civilians suffered light physical injuries. Hospitals treated 2,773 civilians for shock and anxiety. Rockets struck homes, damaging over 9,000 and totally destroying 2,000. Hospitals in Nahariya, Safed, and Mazra were hit, as was an elementary school in Kiryat Yam, a post office in Haifa, etc.
Throughout the 2006 war, an average of 116 rockets per day were fired by Hezbollah. This effectively paralyzed large areas of northern Israel and 650,000 residents fled south for safety. In 2006 Hezbollah’s arsenal was predominantly composed of short-range Katyushas. IDF Major-General Noam Tibon comments about that conflict: “A key lesson from the conflict is that when flooded with enemy rockets, the ability of Israel’s home front to continue to function is extremely finite.”
Shi’ite Iran has been helping the Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah (Arabic, the party of Allah) develop and improve the accuracy of its current stockpile of more than 150,000 rockets, missiles and mortars – all of which can hit civilian and military targets in Israel. The development of precision-guided rockets has been an ardent Hezbollah goal for many years.
On November 20, 2022, Al-Hadath (a Saudi Arabian media outlet) reported current Hezbollah intentions to transfer chemical warhead-armed rockets (chlorine or possibly sarin nerve gas) from Syria into Lebanon.
In a future war, Hezbollah’s main effort will be to fire massive barrages of rockets and missiles into Israel. The majority will be of high statistical accuracy, with long-range systems such as Syrian M-600s, Iranian Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles, Shahab-1 and Shahab-2s (Iran-made Scuds) that can cover most of the Israeli heartland and accurately strike key IDF infrastructure. A recent IDF Home Front Command report forecasts that up to 1,500 rockets and missiles will be launched daily into Israel. Major General Uri Gordin, recent head of the Home Front Command, foresees up to 2,500 Hezbollah rockets per day. The IDF assumes that thousands of homes will be hit, hundreds of Israeli civilians will be injured or killed, and hundreds of thousands will be evacuated from their homes. Herein lies the magnitude of the coming threat.
During a recent military drill, Chief of General Staff Aviv Kochavi briefed IDF commanders, and some of his words were leaked to the media: “Israel could suffer 300 civilian and military deaths after nine days, and the destruction of 80 sites around the country, including apartment buildings that may take direct fire and collapse . . . But military leaders are uncertain as to how the impact of such a war on the home front, as it emerged from the drill, should be presented to the Israeli civilians. The IDF understands Israelis may suffer under rockets and missiles fire in an intensity never before seen in Israel – but wish to avoid unnecessary panic.”
Dr. Uzi Rubin, 81, the father of Israeli missile defense and the Arrow missile system, was the founder and first director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization in the Defense Ministry. His perspective is helpful regarding IDF predictions that Hezbollah rocket fire could lead to as many as 1,000 dead Israeli civilians. Rubin pointed out “that the total volume – whether it was 100,000, 150,000 or whether it someday reached 200,000 rockets – [is] not the pivotal point. Rather, the two critical points [are] ‘the rate and the precision of the rockets’ . . . Hezbollah [doesn’t have] the ability to unleash its full arsenal at once . . . In that light, the question becomes how many rockets per day an adversary like Hezbollah is capable of actually launching against Israel as compared to how many rockets Israel can shoot down when under attack by a simultaneous hail of rockets.”
Major-General (reserves) Yitzhak Gershon, former IDF Home Front chief in 2006, spoke of the coming war between Israel and Hezbollah in a 2016 Army Radio interview: “It will be a completely different scenario from anything we’ve known . . . We will need mental fortitude more than physical protection.” According to current IDF estimates, Hezbollah today is six times more powerful than it was in 2006.
Syria – The Syrian Arab Army was one of the main threats to Israel in times past. In 1967 and 1973 some of the fiercest battles were fought on the Golan Heights between Syrian and Israeli forces. The rise of ISIS/ISIL, the irredentist goals of Turkey, the military strategies of Iran, the goals of the scattered Kurdish nation, and Russian and American geostrategic moves have certainly weakened the cruel Syrian regime.
Iran’s efforts in Syria involve the establishment of its Shi’ite Crescent; military bases which serve as a bridge of control between Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Hezbollah and its own Revolutionary Guards; the import and smuggling of precision-guided weapon systems, munitions (regular and chemical), and military/terror trainers into both Syria and Lebanon; missile and drone bases targeting Israel; etc.
Russia’s goals of seeking warm water ports and controlling Middle East geopolitics have come together significantly in our day. Its construction of naval and submarines facilities in Tartus, and fighter aircraft bases in Khmeimim, attenuate the strategic importance and difficulties for Israel in preserving operational freedom of action against Iranian weapons shipments (which shipments have the potential of drastically shifting the military balance in a future war).
Syria’s documented repeated use of chemical weapons against civilians (with Russian oversight) establishes a worrying precedent for Israel in any future conflict. With an eye to the future, the involvement of Syria in coming attacks on Israel cannot be ruled out. Consider the possibility that Egypt and Jordan will turn on Israel as well – think of Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi who temporarily upended Cairo’s apple cart.
Yemenite Houthis – Iran has recently been helping Houthi jihadis in Yemen to develop UAVs (unmanned air vehicles) and military drones which have the ability to hit and destroy both Saudi oil refineries and Israeli airfields and civilian installations. Dr. Uzi Rubin notes that the “growing capabilities and the impressive skill of their operators elevate the threat from Iran’s unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) from a nuisance to a strategic level on par with Iran’s missiles and rockets threat on Israel.” Israel has shot down Iranian UAVs recently which had been launched both from Syria and Iran. The likelihood of Houthi swarming attacks of drones and UAVs must be considered by those watching over Israel’s national security.
An Arab Israeli ‘fifth column’ – In April and May 2021 tensions broke out at symbolic Jerusalem flashpoints (Sheikh Jarrah, Damascus Gate Plaza, Silwan, etc.) between East Jerusalem Arab demonstrators and Israeli security forces. Within a few days a significant minority of Israeli Arabs and Bedouin engaged in violent rioting against Jewish neighbors and Israeli infrastructure (highways, stores, homes, police, etc.). The potentially explosive Ramadan season was a factor, irritated by the Jewish celebration of Jerusalem Day. The catalytic behavior of some extreme right-wing Jewish groups was also a factor. Arabs assaulted Jews travelling on Jerusalem’s light rail network or on streets close to Arab areas. Arab-Israeli riots spread to mixed cities, with life-threatening attacks carried out on Jews in Jaffa, Lod, Akko, Ramle, Haifa, and at major intersections in the north and south of the country. Main highways in our area were shut down as local Bedouin toppled kilometers of electrical poles and towers, even shooting into the back entrance of our home town.
Jewish residents’ sense of security was shaken, and this caused serious damage to the fabric of common life. Police response to the riots was slow. Violent retaliatory Jewish riots then erupted in various hotspots – Arabs were attacked, some of them innocent bystanders.
On May 10, 2021 the jihadi terror group Hamas launched a surprise rocket attack during the Israeli Jerusalem Day Flag March, firing a barrage of rockets into Israel and even at Jerusalem. The IDF responded with the 11-day military Operation Guardians of the Walls, during which time even more violent riots erupted in various parts of the country. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired a total of 4,360 rockets and mortars against Israeli civilians (400 a day, on the average). Of these, approximately 3,600 crossed the border from Gaza into Israel. Around 1,700 were intercepted, and close to 180 fell in populated areas, causing casualties and substantial damage at dozens of sites while disrupting daily life.
The intensity and strength of these Arab-Israeli riots caused many Jewish Israelis to think hard. At this point, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank shelters over 20,000 trained and equipped terrorists armed with sub-machine guns. Were these to rise up in coordination with Hamas, Hezbollah and local Israeli Arabs/Bedouin, they would be able to quickly massacre and destroy a significant amount of Jewish towns and settlements located within the biblical borders of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – think 1948. IDF forces would be rushed to reinforce Jewish residents of those areas. But if tens of thousands of Arab Israelis were to block the free movement of those Israeli troops, or if thousands of Arab mechanics and Bedouin tank-transporter drivers who do contract work for the IDF refused to show up to move armor into place, Israel would be facing a clear and present danger. Severe measures would need to be taken to keep roads and supply lines open. Herein lies the magnitude of the local and internal threat.
Dr. Eado Hecht, researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is a defense analyst specializing in military theory and history. He lectures at Bar-Ilan University and at the IDF Command and General Staff College. He challenges his readers to think strategically about possible future scenarios: “What will happen if the IDF needs to fight against more than only Hezbollah? If, for example, a rebuilt Syrian military faces it in the Golan Heights, backed up by Shiite forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran? And at the same time, Hamas begins bombarding our home front from the south? Does the IDF have a sufficiently large order of battle to deal with all of these enemies at the same time? We would have to call up reserves against Hamas on its own. Against a smaller Hezbollah in 2006, we had to call up reserves. Since then, we have cut reserves very sharply – entire divisions and brigades have been canceled.”
Strong horses and lion cubs
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence specializing in Syria, Arab political discourse and mass media, Islamic groups and Israeli Arabs. An expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, his take on these developments is worth reading: “Given Islam’s pervasive entrenchment in Palestinian society (and for that matter in all Middle Eastern societies) – even Yasser Arafat and most of the PLO’s founding generation were Muslim Brotherhood members in their young age – the acceptance of Israel’s existence by Muslims communities, both within Israel and abroad, will only be feasible upon their realization of the Jewish state’s overwhelming strength and invincibility. Only a powerful, well organized, highly determined and militarily invincible Israel can stand a chance of surviving in its violent and merciless neighborhood.”
This can be described as ‘the strong horse’ principle. In mid-November 2001, Osama Bin Laden spoke to a room of supporters, discussing the September 11th terrorist attacks: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. This is [the] only goal . . . following the doctrine of Muhammad.” Bin Laden saw Islam as the strong horse, and Christian America as the weak one.
Journalist Lee Smith based the name of his book The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations on Osama bin Laden’s above-mentioned quote. In this work, Smith states that strength or “violence is central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East, and that Arab politics is driven by the ‘strong horse’ principle.” “Bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe but represents the political and social norm [of the Arabic-speaking Middle East].” According to T. Edward Donselm (writing in the Arab Studies Quarterly), Smith sees a revived modern Islamism as an effort to employ the fourteen-hundred-year old political institution of jihad as a tool to restore Sunni Islam to the supremacism it enjoyed in Islam’s first century.
Agreeing with Dr. Kedar’s appraisal, Daniel Pipes (director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University) applies Bin Laden’s ‘strong horse’ principle to Israel’s role in the Middle East. Israel serves as “a proxy strong horse” for both the United States and the Saudi-Egyptian bloc in the latter’s Cold War rivalry with Iran’s bloc. Pipes outlines the policies of non-Arab actors in the Arab world: unless they are forceful and show true staying power, they lose. “Being nice – say, withdrawing unilaterally from southern Lebanon and Gaza – leads to inevitable failure. More broadly, when the U.S. government flinches, others (e.g., the Iranian leadership) have an opportunity to ‘force their own order on the region.’ Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze leader, has half-seriously suggested that Washington [should] ‘send car bombs to Damascus’ to get its message across and signal its understanding of Arab ways.”
Pipes concludes that Lee Smith’s ‘strong horse’ paradigm helps us to comprehend the Arabs’ cult of death, honor killings, terrorist attacks, despotism and warfare. Pipes acknowledges that the strong-horse principle may strike Westerners as ineffably crude, but he correctly insists on its being a cold reality that outsiders must recognize, take into account, and respond to.
In the Hebrew Scriptures the God of Jacob uses the poetic figure of a strong war horse to describe His gifts and calling on the Jewish nation: “For YHVH of armies has visited His flock, the House of Judah, and will make them like His majestic horse in battle” (Zechariah 10:3).
But the Jewish people are not only YHVH’s strong horse; they are also His lion cub (Genesis 49:8-9): “As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares to stir him up?”
For the present time, the best and most realistic posture for the Jewish people to take in the Middle East is to be both the strong horse and the roaring lion – until the time when the Arab world bows the knee before the God of the armies of Israel.
- But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a saber, but I come to you in the name of YHVH of armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Samuel 17:45)
- On that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in great fear because of the waving of the hand of YHVH of armies, which He is going to wave over them. The land of Judah will become a cause of shame to Egypt. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in great fear because of the plan of YHVH of armies which He is making against them. On that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to YHVH of armies. One will be called the City of Destruction (Isaiah 19:16-18).
How should we then pray?
- Pray for YHVH to reveal Messiah Yeshua, the Lion of Judah, to His strong horse Israel
- Pray for God to grant spiritual discernment, revelation and strategic wisdom to those entrusted with leading the Jewish people and their state
- Pray for God to grant revelation of these truths to the Jewish nation, to those Arabs who dwell in the Land, and to the larger Arab world
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
Donations can be sent to:
FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES
BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA
Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal) through: www.davidstent.org
The post Strong horses and lion cubs appeared first on David's Tent.
