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.
Parts One and Two of our last two newsletters deal with the Iranian cruise missile/rocket attacks on Israel – context, background and battle details.. This newsletter (Part Three) presents the perspectives and goals of each nation involved in the mix. Part Four will deal with a wake-up call to Israel, with a focus on the Jewish state’s strategic alliances with unreliable nations – in biblical days and in our own time.
Iran’s perspective
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Chief Commander Hossein Salami recently stated that Iran now feels free to directly strike at Israel from the territory of Iran itself, in response to whatever Iran considers an Israeli attack on Iranian interests: “We have decided to create a new equation [with Israel] . . . From now on, any assault by [Israel] on our people, property, or interests will be met with a counterattack originating from within the Islamic Republic of Iran . . . Operation ‘True Promise’ [the April 13-14 missile/rocket/drone attack] is a distinguished and clear example of this new equation.”
Senior Iranian political and military officials (Senior Advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Akbar Velayati, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, and IRGC Commander Major-General Hossein Salami) declare that, from their perspective, the October 7 Hamas jihadi attack on Israeli citizens demonstrates Israel’s military weakness.
Michael Keays, Senior US Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State, notes that “perceptions of US and Israeli weakness played a role” in Hamas’ attacks on Israel. “The relationship between the Biden Administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been strained” and “various voting districts in the US are now increasingly critical of Israel . . . Iran also stands to benefit from sabotaging the growing rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia that was being built on the success of the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and three Arab states: Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.” Iran’s long-term strategic plans involve the establishment of a ‘Shi’ite Crescent’ – an Islamist dictatorship/caliphate which would crush Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as destroy Israel.
Hamas’ perspective
Hamas’s perspective regarding Israel is clearly spelled out in its covenant, which calls for the total destruction of the Jewish state without compromise; no recognition of Israel; and the eschatological murder of the entire Jewish nation. “The very identity of Hamas is enshrined in opposition and violent hostility to Israel,” says a senior official in the American Foreign Service.
Sheikh Hassan Yousef, co-founder of Hamas (and father of ‘The Green Prince’), was interviewed while in Israeli prisons. He explained to intelligence reporters Avi Issacharoff [of ‘Fauda’ fame] and Amos Harel that one of Hamas’s goals in its pursuit of the Jewish state’s ultimate destruction is to foment and enhance internecine Israeli strife. Yousef told these reporters that Hamas exploits visible Israeli weaknesses: the calls of the Israeli Left for a complete withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip; the movements encouraging IDF soldiers and reservists to refuse to serve in those territories or to do reserve duty altogether; the well-oiled anti-government protest movement – commandeered by formerly prominent figures – promoting the demonization of the powers-that-be in Jerusalem.
Hamas and its Iranian patron are paying close attention to what they perceive as Israel’s imminent implosion. Together they are exerting much effort to catalyze deep divisions in the Jewish state. Jerusalem Post writer Ruthie Blum concludes that those who rabidly vilify Prime Minister “Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee MK Simcha Rothman [are contributing] to the sense on the part of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic that Israel won’t make it much past its upcoming 75th birthday.”
Matti Steinberg, former adviser to several heads of Shin Bet (Israeli FBI), points out that “someone like [Hamas Gaza Chief Yahya] Sinwar understands the Israelis very well. The leaders of Hamas have basically understood the divisions in the country, and therefore its weaknesses, perfectly well.”
In the months leading up to the Hamas massacres of October 7, the Commander of the Israel Air Force, General Tomer Bar, told his forces in July, 2023 to stay “vigilant and prepared . . . It is possible that at a time like this, [Hamas] will try to test the frontiers, our cohesion and our alertness.”
US State Department Spokesperson, Matthew Miller said on April 22, 2024, that Hamas only wants a hostage agreement which will involve a total Israeli surrender, leaving Hamas free to rebuild and attack Israel again: “Hamas has signaled that they don’t want an agreement. And the ball is very much in their court, and if they really had the interests of the Palestinian people at heart, as they claim that they do, then they would accept this agreement.” Their strategy mirrors that of the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu, in his 500’s BC ‘The Art of War’: “Instill fear into the heart of your enemy and they’ll hand victory over to you.”
Saudi Arabia’s perspective
A member of the Saudi royal family who is also an official government spokesman, has given an anonymous interview to the Israeli KAN network, blaming Iran for being behind the war in Gaza, and specifically the October 7th attack – all this in order to hobble normalization agreements between Israel and Saudi Arabia: “Iran is a country that sponsors terrorism, and it should have been stopped a long time ago.”
Russia’s perspective
Russia’s long-term goals have focused on establishing naval bases in the Mediterranean. Tim Marshall in his Prisoners of Geography explains: “From the Grand Principality of Muscovy through Peter the Great to Stalin and Putin, every Russian leader has been confronted by the same problem: ports still freeze and the North European Plain is flat …This lack of a warm-water port with direct access to the oceans has always been Russia’s Achilles heel, as strategically important to it as the North European Plain. Russia is at a geographical disadvantage, saved from being a much weaker power only because of its oil and gas. No wonder, in his will of 1725, Peter the Great advised his descendants to ‘approach as near as possible to Constantinople and India. Whoever governs there will be the true sovereign of the world. Consequently, excite continual wars, not only in Turkey, but in Persia … Penetrate as far as the Persian [Arabian] Gulf, advance as far as India.’” Russia has three main ports open to world trade: St. Petersburg (often ice-bound); Vladivostok (ice-locked for several months each year, and accessing only the Pacific); Sevastopol in Crimea on the Black Sea, under Ukrainian rule until recently).
According to KGB documents in the Mitrokhin archives (smuggled out of Russia and now stored in Cambridge, England), the KGB and Politburo heads saw the Zionist and Jewish movements as a clear and present danger to world peace and to the integrity of the Soviet empire – “a danger which is only second to the main enemy, the United States.” “Moscow Center was obsessed with the ‘Zionist subversion’ against the Soviet Union,” notes Professor Christopher Andrew, historian of the British intelligence community. In the Summer of 1982, Vladimir Kryuchkov (later appointed head of the KGB) issued a “work plan for fighting Zionism” stressed that “Zionism is the main threat to the USSR and to the Soviet bloc.”
This is the strategic background and context behind Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia’s comments to the Security Council on April 14, 2024. Defending Iran’s missile and rocket attack on Israel, Nebenzia darkly hinted that “what happened on the night of April 14 did not happen in a vacuum.”
International Atomic Energy Agency’s perspective
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, when asked about the possibility of an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, answered: “We are always concerned about this possibility.” He urged that Israel exercise “extreme restraint.”
US perspective
US officials were “frustrated” by Israel’s decision not to inform them about the purported Israeli April 1, 2024 Damascus strike which took out Iran’s terror mastermind Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said on Sunday, April 7, 2024 on ABC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that there has been a “growing degree of frustration that we’ve had with the way these operations are being [executed].” The Biden administration asked Israel to update and consult with the United States before any Israeli response to a potential Iranian attack, senior American and Israeli officials said, according to the Wall Street Journal – in part to protect US forces in the region.
The US continues to re-iterate its 75-year-old State Department strategy at every available opportunity – the dividing of the Jewish Promised Land into a ‘two state solution’ – a Palestinian state run by jihadis and ‘ex-terrorists’, and a Jewish state run by Israel. This ‘two state solution’ strategy makes its way into nearly every administration statement and declaration – regardless of the open and unchanging Palestinian link to terrorist leadership and strategies.
The US is the primary super-power in the Middle East, and it is playing a Machiavellian game, bolstering Shi’ite Iran while counterbalancing with funneling support to Sunni Saudi Arabia (Iran’s arch enemy). America supports Israel with state-of-the-art munitions while placing its main Middle Eastern airbase and CENTCOM connections in Qatar – the main world supporter of jihadi terrorism, including Hamas. America channels billions (in POTUS Obama’s terms of office as well as in POTUS Biden’s) to Iran, which the IRCG then uses to attack Israel though arming Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi terror regime. Superpower diplomacy makes for strange bedfellows. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be this way!” (James 3:10).
The international community speaks with one voice – Israel must not retaliate or escalate
The world’s immediate response to the Iranian drone/cruise/ballistic missile attack on Israel – the largest such attack in world history – was to warn Israel and threaten the Jewish state that it must not retaliate or attack Iran.
- On April 7, 2024, UK Foreign Minister David Cameron wrote in The Sunday Times. “Our backing is not unconditional.” Then on April 15, 2024, Cameron told LBC Radio, that “We’re asking [Israel] as their friends to think . . . – the best way to deescalate the situation is not to attack back.”
- On April 15, 2024, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, “All sides must show restraint.”
- French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will try to “convince Israel that we must not respond by escalating.” “We are all worried about a possible escalation,” Macron told BFM TV and RMC radio. “We will do all we can to avoid things flaring up, escalating.”
- On April 15, 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in Brussels: “For us, it is important that this moment is now also used for further de-escalation and that Israel … does not respond with a massive attack of its own.”
- On April 17, 2024 Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said: “The risks are enormous . . . The situation is too dangerous. The chances of regional explosion are real, and that has got to stop. We’ve got to make sure there’s no further escalation”
- On April 15, 2024. Russia’s Kremlin Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We are extremely concerned about the escalation of tension in the region. We call on all countries in the region to exercise restraint. Further escalation is in no one’s interests. Therefore, of course, we are in favor of seeing all disagreements settled only politically and diplomatically.”
- On April 14, 2024, The People’s Republic of China Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “China expresses deep concern over the current escalation and calls on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent further escalations.”
- On April 14, 2024, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said: “We are seriously concerned at the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran which threatens the peace and security in the region. We call for immediate de-escalation, exercise of restraint, stepping back from violence and return to the path of diplomacy.”
- On April 14, 2024, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reminded the UN Security Council that acts of reprisal involving the use of force are barred under international law: “The Middle East is on the brink. The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict. Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate. Now is the time for maximum restraint.” (See Bob Dylan’s son-in-law Peter Himmelman’s YouTube video ‘Maximum Restraint’).
- On April 14, 2024, US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told NBC’s Meet the Press “We don’t want to see this escalate. We’re not looking for a wider war with Iran.”
- On April 14, 2024, an unnamed White House official conveyed to news platform AXIOS that POTUS Biden spoke with PM Netanyahu, stating that that Israel should see Iran’s failure to cause major damage to Israel as a “win,” and that U.S. won’t join an Israeli attack on Iran. “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to the official. The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke on Saturday with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and asked that Israel notify the U.S. ahead of any response against Iran, a senior Israeli official said.”
- On April 18, 2024, the Qatari newspaper The New Arab reported that a senior Egyptian official revealed that “Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu managed to obtain American approval for a military operation in Rafah, in exchange for [Israel] refraining from carrying out a wide military operation against Iran in response to its recent attack.”
In an April 14, 2024 article appearing in the Jewish News Syndicate, three Middle East specialists comment:
- “By leaking Biden’s conversation with Netanyahu in this way, the leaker has increased both the likelihood and importance of an Israeli response – given the dynamics that led Tehran to calculate it could launch this attack without consequence in the first place,” wrote Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Can you imagine 100 ballistic missiles being fired on the United States and your closest ally calling to say, no need to retaliate, you should feel really secure right now?” he added. “Now imagine our country was the size of New Jersey. And we were fighting a seven-front war of survival.”
- NGO Monitor founder Gerald Steinberg adds: “No, Joe Biden. The Iranian regime’s failure to do major damage with 350 missiles is not a ‘win’ – 9 million Israelis spent the night being terrorized. The regime must pay a major price so that this will not be repeated. And better – showing them the door.”
- Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, wrote that Biden’s response, “spinning an unprecedented attack by Iran on Israel,” is “akin to telling the victim of a bully – he didn’t make impact, so deescalate. With this message that the US won’t support an Israeli counterattack on Iran, Biden is signaling that his ‘don’t’ to Tehran didn’t mean anything,”
Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett succinctly addressed this issue on his tweet of April 14, 2024:
- “This wasn’t designed merely as ‘bells and whistles’ with no damage. When you shoot 350 flying objects timed to hit Israel at the same moment, when you use three fundamentally different weapon types – cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and UAVs, you’re looking to penetrate Israel’s defenses and kill Israelis. The US administration is telling us: ‘This is a victory; you’ve already won by thwarting the missiles. No need for any further action!’ No, it’s NOT a victory. Yes, it’s a remarkable success of Israel’s air defense systems, but it’s not a victory. When a bully tries to hit you 350 times and only succeeds seven times, you’ve NOT won. You don’t win wars just by intercepting your enemy’s hits, nor do you deter it. Your enemy will just try harder with more and better weapons and methods next time. How DO you deter? By exacting a deeply painful price.”
As pointed out in our recent newsletter, Iran’s rocket/drone attack on Israel on the night of April 13-14, 2024 was coordinated with the following American authorities: US State Department, US Intelligence, US Joint Chiefs and the POTUS. Immediately after that attack – the largest of its kind in world history – the US POTUS and State Department demand from Israel that the Jewish state not respond, while the US Secretary of Defense demands that Israel run any even potential Israeli responses by the US for approval or tweaking. Iran has succeeded in moving the Middle Eastern goalposts in a significant way.
- The Middle East is a very dangerous jungle. Whoever is attacked and does not respond, is written off as a collapsing power. The necessity for fearful deterrence is a matter of survival in this part of the world. The majority of the nations on this planet either do not understand this Middle Eastern dynamic or do not care.
One final analytical comment from Lawrence Kadish at the Gatestone Institute on April 17, 2024:
- “We need to appreciate that Iran and its puppets appear to view the White House as apparently dedicated – like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s ‘peace for our time’ in 1938 – to a policy of diplomatic ‘conflict resolution’ appeasement, which undoubtedly will not work any better now than it did then. ‘Talking’ and ‘meetings’ just enable the adversary to buy time to strengthen its military – in this instance, that means Iran finalizing its nuclear weapons. America’s adversaries – such as Communist China, Russia and Iran and North Korea – seem to believe that Western democracies are in a historic retreat and that the time is ripe for their own ascendancy through violence, intimidation, and with third party proxies to do their bidding. History reminds us time and again that the only effective defense against the forces of darkness is strong, determined leadership – along with a strong modernized military – like US President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, ‘Star Wars.’ It not only deterred Russian aggression but brought down the Soviet Empire.”
World perspective – WWIII
WWII exploded onto the European battlefields as a result of certain pivotal decisions. These include: the permission which the Allies granted to Germany to re-arm as long as they attacked Russia; the Anschluss and annexation of Austria on March 12-13, 1938; the Munich Pact of September 30, 1938 handing over Sudetenland (parts of Czechoslovakia) to Hitler; the seizure of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15,1939. Despite breaking the Munich Pact almost immediately, Hitler did not face a military response from the Allies.
- The parallels to that Hitlerian epoch – as well as the horrendous rise of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli attacks on US campuses over the past two weeks – underscore that we are living in earth-shaking days.
Today the world is facing the onset of three major theaters of Word War: Russia, Iran and China. The following articles are instructive and illuminating:
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/27870285 – ‘The Ghost of Munich: America’s Appeasement Complex’
How should we then pray?
- Pray for the Holy One of Israel to foil the nations’ Machiavellian strategies and for joint-plots for Middle East mischief and murder to be exposed and neutralized
- Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 129 Israeli hostages (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). Sadly, at least 35 of these hostages (conservatively speaking) are the corpses of Israeli citizens, held in cold storage by Hamas 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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