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.
Hans Christian Andersen published a children’s fairy tale in 1837 titled ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ (Danish, Kejserens nye klæder). His story was based on an even older Indian anthology of fables – the Nirvāṇalīlāvatī of Jineśvara – dated to 1052.
In the original Indian fable, a dishonest merchant swindles the king of Śrāvastī (a town located in modern Uttar Pradesh) by offering to weave an expensive supernatural garment which cannot be seen or touched by a person of illegitimate birth. The merchant ‘clothes’ the king in these invisible robes, and presents him before his flattering court. They all pretend to admire the wondrous attire. He is then paraded about his city ‘wearing’ the ‘new royal clothes.’ A brave peasant asks him if he has become a sadhu (holy hermits who sometimes walk around unclothed). The Raj at last realizes that he is the victim of a deceptive scam, but it’s too late! The swindler has already made off with his dishonestly gained loot.
In the political sphere, diplomats and presidents also weave ‘the Emperor’s New Clothes’ – verbal fantasies, schemes and traps –which similarly lack truth and reality. In the Middle East these are sometimes described as ‘peace accords.’ But such Machiavellian schemes are unable to protect Israel’s citizens from real jihadi threats. These superpower intrigues are commonplace, but they will never bring peace. They are invisible pipe-dreams built on sinking sand, and their proffered solutions are as ephemeral as the desert winds.
The current war between Israel and her immediate enemies – the Iranian-supported ‘axis of evil’ (Gaza’s Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Lebanese and Syrian Hezbollah, Iraq’s Kata’eb Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, etc.) – has thrown a spotlight on another ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ dynamic, one to which most news media and op-ed commentators are blind.
Here are the ‘naked’ realities behind these ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ – an uncovering of how these ‘politically correct’ international ‘peace strategies,’ crafted for Middle Eastern consumers, are totally off base. A look at how some Arab countries (who are supposedly peace partners of Israel) have responded to the jihadi atrocities of Hamas on October 7, 2023, reveals the true state-of-affairs between Israel and its Islamic neighbors, as well as the actual dangers confronting the Jewish state.
The battlefield test of reality
A healthy normal reaction to Hamas’ jihadi massacres, rapes and tortures, would be shock, disgust, anger, compassion and a desire to protect Israel and stand with her as a true ally – if these nations truly were peace partners with Israel. But how has it worked out in reality? The answers are depressing but not surprising. The Psalmist saw those same cruel dynamics nearly 3,000 years ago; they have not changed, even in our day:
- “Woe to me, for I reside in Meshech! For I have settled among the tents of Kedar [ed., a region in Saudi Arabia]! 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 120:5-7).
Young David had to deal with similar dynamics. At one point before he became king, David had escaped from Saul’s assassination squads to a region just east of Philistine Gaza. There he found protection under the Philistine chieftain Achish. Eventually the Philistines massed their armies in a major assault against King Saul and all Israel. David found himself in a difficult situation. He would certainly not raise his sword against his own people. But how could he extricate himself from following his Philistine ‘allies’ into this fateful battle against Saul and his armies? The opening skirmishes of the Battle of Gilboa reveal what the Philistines’ real attitude was toward David the Hebrew warrior:
- Now the Philistines gathered all their armies to Aphek, while the Israelites were camping by the spring which is in Jezreel.And the military commanders of the Philistines were proceeding on, leading hundreds and thousands, and David and his men were proceeding in the back [of the military procession] with Achish. Then the commanders of the Philistines said, “What are these Hebrews doing here?” And Achish said to the commanders of the Philistines, “Is this not David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, who has been with me these days, or rather these years, and I have found nothing at all suspicious in him since the day he deserted to me to this day?” But the commanders of the Philistines were angry with [Achish], and the commanders of the Philistines said to him, “Make the man go back, so that he will return to his place where you have assigned him, and do not let him go down to battle with us, or in the battle he may become an adversary to us. For how could this man find favor with his lord [King Saul]? Would it not be with the heads of these [Philistine] men? Is this not David, of whom they sing in the dances, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’” (1 Samuel 29:1-5)
These Philistine generals were gruff military men. They knew that the tenuous ‘peace’ between the Philistine king Achish and David was not ‘a marriage made in heaven,’ It could collapse at any moment – even on the field of battle. They knew in their gut that such ‘peace accords’ were not to be depended upon. In the same way, in our day Egypt and Jordan, Morocco and Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are undependable weak reeds, easily breaking apart in times of crisis. These nations are not dependable ‘peace partners,’ as Isaiah so eloquently stated:
- “Behold, you have relied on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him” (Isaiah 36:6).
- Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with She’ol we have made a pact. The gushing flood will not reach us when it passes by – because we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.” (Isaiah 28:15)
Egypt – a cold heart, a cold peace
Egypt is one of the original biblical superpowers. Its power and influence were always a threat to the Jewish state:
- Therefore this is what YHVH God of armies says: “My people, you who dwell in Zion, do not fear the Assyrian who strikes you with the rod, and lifts up his staff against you the way Egypt did” (Isaiah 10:24)
Though Egypt was originally a Hamitic (non-Abrahamic) country (see Psalm 78:51; Psalm 105:23) and remains mostly Hamitic to this day, the Bedouin of Mohammed’s jihadi armies conquered that land, forcing the inhabitants to bow the knee to Islam or face decapitation or slavery, and making Arabic the national language. Modern Egyptians are thus a blend of ancient Hamitic Copts, Hamitic Sudanese, and a sprinkling of Ishmaelite Islamist colonizers.
The loathing of the Jewish people which was injected into Egyptian society owes its origins to classical Islam’s anti-Jewish roots.
Asiem El-Difraoui, a Middle East expert with the Berlin Institute for Media and Communications Policy, explains: “The views of the Egyptian people are extremely anti-Israeli . . . The peace created by the Camp David agreement is, in reality, a very cold peace.”
The former Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, said in an October 19, 2023 address delivered in the Egyptian parliament:
- “From this blessed house, I am sending a message to the Israeli government. That Zionist state – or rather, that Zionist entity – seems to have grown old, and the time for its demise has come. It is time for it to be gone”
Egypt – led by a Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-affiliated President
The former President of Egypt Mohammad Morsi (2012-2013) was an official member of the Muslim Brotherhood – the spawning ground for the PLO, al Qa’eda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In 1995, he became a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, the group’s highest decision-making body. Morsi was chosen as a member of the Zionist Resistance Committee, and was a founding member in the Egyptian Committee for Combating the Zionist Project. In 2010 Morsi publicly referred to the “Zionists [as] bloodsuckers and warmongers, and descendants of pigs and apes.” In 2012, the year he became President of Egypt, Morsi declared:
- “They (Israelis) have to be driven out of our lands. Therefore, these negotiations must stop once and for all. Everybody must turn to the support of the resistance.” Morsi also rejected the planned two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians in an interview with al-Quds TV, which is close to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas: “We want a country for the Palestinians on the entire land of Palestine on the basis of Palestinian citizenship. . . All the talk about a two-state solution and about peace is nothing but an illusion, which the Arabs have been chasing for a long time now.”
On June 24, 2012, just prior to becoming President, Morsi stated to an Iranian reporter from the Fars Network: “We will reconsider the Camp David Accord” the US-brokered ‘peace treaty’ between Israel and Egypt. This ‘peace accord’ involved Israel pulling back from Sinai, taken by the Jewish state in the defensive Six Day War in June 1967.
During that same year Morsi visited Iran, the first visit by an Egyptian leader since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. “We must restore normal relations with Iran based on shared interests and expand areas of political coordination and economic cooperation because this will create a balance of pressure in the region,” he stated.
According to Egyptian journalist Adnan Abu Amer, Mohammed Morsi was a true friend to Hamas in Gaza: “Morsi drew Hamas closer . . . He met them frequently in Egypt, often in the closed rooms of the secret services, which was unusual for an Egyptian president”
Egypt – ripping up the ‘peace accords’
Two recent comments from Egyptian Members of Parliament reveal that anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli attitudes are actually mainstream in that country:
On November 21, 2023 Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri stated to the House:
- “The Egyptians are boiling with rage! We are boiling with rage! We cannot tolerate what is happening. We no longer care whether we live or die. We are all prepared to become martyrs for the sake of Palestine and Egypt. But when it comes to crisis management – freeze relations [with Israel]! Recall our ambassador [from Israel] and deport the [Israeli] dog from Egypt! Take practical steps. We are behind you, Mr. Prime Minister! We are behind you. This is the matter of life and death for us. We are all prepared to die for Egypt!”
- At that same parliamentary meeting, MP Dia El-Din Dawood tore up a copy of the Camp David Accords at the podium, declaring: “We have a [peace] agreement [with Israel]. I disagree with it. This agreement ties Egypt’s hands . . . If this agreement is so meaningless, we should tear it apart, for the sake of Egyptian and Arab national security . . . We should make this Nazi country face facts on the ground. [Israel] is the successor of the colonialism of the past, and the ally of present-day colonialism. It is the ally of all the colonialist regimes, in an attempt to destroy the region, with Egypt being the top prize . . . Many fall into humiliating normalization [with Israel]. We have signed an agreement [with Israel] more than fifty years ago, but here it is, torn up by the Egyptian people who have never cooperated with it.”
Many Egyptian voices (since the signing of the Camp David Accords) have repeatedly harped on their burning desire to suspend the ‘peace treaty’ with Israel and to go to war with the Jewish state. In light of that history, the recent anonymous Egyptian high-level calls for suspending the Camp David accords is nothing new, and it is not primarily a response to Israel’s highly successful military campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas’ military abilities and threats to the Jewish state:
- “Biden and Netanyahu spoke after two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Egypt threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if troops are sent into Rafah, where Egypt fears fighting could push Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula and force the closure of Gaza’s main aid supply route. The threat [is] to suspend the Camp David Accords, a cornerstone of regional stability for nearly a half-century”
“No more war, no more bloodshed”?
Major-General (retired) Yitzhak Brik has been warning for years about concrete threats from Hamas, Hezbollah and Egypt. For the most part, the IDF’s top brass and military intelligence leaders have ignored his jeremiads, which included a clear warning about the possibility of an ‘October 7’ Hamas attack.
On February 11, 2024 Major-General Brik warned again, this time about the threat from Egypt:
- “But today, there is a very big problem with Egypt. They . . . threaten that if we start doing various things that will cause masses to cross into Sinai, then they will stop the peace. Although it’s a poor country, [Egypt] is the strongest army in the Middle East today – 4,000 tanks, 2,000 modern ones, hundreds of the most advanced aircraft, and a navy of the best there is. For years, they’ve been building highways into Sinai. We’re the target. They’re not building the army for anywhere else. This means [that if they make] one decision to cancel peace, they become an enemy state, and we don’t even have a brigade to stand against it.”
The knee-jerk tendency of Egypt to threaten an annulment of the Camp David Accords, shows the tenuous nature both of those accords and of Egypt’s trustworthiness vis-à-vis Israel.
Egypt would happily do harm to Israel
Three power brokers are pushing for a deal between Hamas and Israel – Egypt, Qatar and the USA. All three are on record as pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian state led by terrorists on portions of the Land promised by God to the Jewish people. Egypt’s proposals in late December 2023 contain terms and conditions which would empower both Hamas and the establishment of a jihadi terrorist state in the heartland of Israel:
- “The second phase would see an Egypt-sponsored ‘Palestinian national talk’ aimed at ending the division between Palestinian factions – mainly the Fatah party-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas – and leading to the formation of a technocratic government in the West Bank and Gaza that would oversee the reconstruction of the Strip and pave the way for Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections.”
The third stage of the Egyptian proposal includes the release of many Palestinian jihadi terrorists who have murdered Israelis, including those who raped, murdered and tortured Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
At present Hamas is able to resupply its terror forces with arms, gas, food, medicine and the smuggling in of many goods that Hamas needs to continue its jihad against Israel. These all come from underground tunnels that start in Egypt and end in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Fat bribes grease the operation of these jihadi tunnels, and the Egyptian leaders of both army and intelligence allow the smooth running of this system. Hamas is very much dependent on Egypt’s support, and Egypt is very much responsible for Hamas’ survival and continuing terror activities.
- The existence of an official ‘peace accord’ between Egypt and Israel does not mean that true peace exists between these countries. What is going on is even less than ‘a virtual peace.’
Jordan – condoning calls for jihad against Jewish Jerusalem
In the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan’s Parliament (House of Representatives), jihadi declarations calling for Israel’s destruction are commonplace. These are permitted by a country which has a ‘peace agreement’ with Israel.
On Tuesday, July 17, 2018, a Jordanian parliamentarian named Huda Etoom told the gathering of her late mother’s desire to be a suicide bomber and kill ‘Zionist Jews:’
- “A single desire was left in her soul: to don an explosives belt and blow herself up among the Zionist Jews. This is an example of our sentiment – the sentiment of all free people . . . We shall continue to feel remiss unless we are martyred on the land of Palestine.” Etoom said the Palestinian cause “is a priority on which we must not compromise,” and called for a free state of Palestine, spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said on a November 21, 2023 Saudi Al-Arabiya Network program that peace with Israel is Jordan’s strategic choice. However, he added that if Israel breaches the peace agreement in a material and contractual manner that poses a danger to Jordan’s national security, then “all our options would be on the table.” Like Egypt, Jordan is announcing its attempts to hobble and prevent Israel from removing the threat of Hamas’ jihadi forces to the Jewish state.
- Jordan’s encouraging such statements of enmity and threat to Israel in the wake of October 7 show that once again, like Egypt, there is a cold heart toward the Jewish state. Jordan is involved in strategic moves to weaken and ultimately bring down its Hebrew ‘peace partner.’
How should we then pray?
- Pray for clear revelation to be given to the Jewish people and their leaders about the tenuous and deceptive nature of what is falsely called ‘the peace process’
- Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 134 Israelis (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Hamas is also holding onto many corpses (35-55) as bargaining chips
- Pray for Hamas’ cruel terror dictatorship in Gaza to be decisively shattered and for all chains broken off the Palestinians living there, and for Iran’s role in jihadi deception, dissimulation and anti-Semitism to be exposed and opposed by world leaders
- Pray that Israel’s leadership be granted justice, clarity, moral courage, discernment and divine strategies in utterly destroying the jihadi threat in all of its aspects, and for minimal loss of life for Israel’s defense forces and for those Gazans who are truly innocent
- 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
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