Report Date:
June 16, 2007
==================
June 16, 2007
SHALOM FROM JERUSALEM,
I have been receiving requests to comment on this week’s massive upheaval in the Gaza Strip, now also affecting areas around Jerusalem. I will be submitting a commentary to World Net Daily on this topic, and discussing it at 1:00 PM EST, or 17:00 GMT today on Jimmy De young’s Prophecy Today radio program, https://jimmydeyoung.gospelcom.net/pp/index.php and also this coming Monday on Moody Radio’s Prime Time America program. But meantime, the main thing I can say is that it signals far more regional trouble ahead—possibly including the collapse of the Hashemite regime in Jordan—and drives the final coffin nail into the imaginary Western-backed Oslo peace process, which was based on the naïve proposition that Arab populations, especially the Palestinians, but later also the Iraqis, are ready for stable, Western style democracy.
The brutal, bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip this week also portends another round of armed attacks upon Israel from Iranian-back forces, including Hamas, Hizbullah and this time probably also Syria. It is also another serious blow to US foreign policy in the region, which has been off course in my estimation ever since President Bill Clinton pushed a skeptical Yitzhak Rabin to shake hands with the weak Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, followed by the Bush Administration’s post 9/11 strategic error to widen the justified war against Taliban forces in Afghanistan with an attack upon Saddam Hussein, which could only predictably bring a Shiite-dominated government to that country. This in turn would predictably further embolden the region’s main threatening Muslim actor, Shiite Iran, and all of its allies, especially Hamas, Syria, and Hizbullah, the Iranian-Syrian puppet Lebanese Shiite force.
I was actually taking a short break on a Tel Aviv beach on Thursday when the main fighting was going on in the nearby Gaza Strip. I had not heard the news that day, since my radio became the victim of a sudden wave the evening before that thoroughly soaked it (and me) in salt water. But all day long I could hear something eerily familiar to me—the sound of distant booms signaling major military activity. It was a sound I frequently heard while living along the Israeli border with war-torn Lebanon in the early 1980s. I only had my suspicions confirmed later that evening when I was finally able to hear the news on another radio—the distant rumblings were coming from the trauma unfolding in the Gaza Strip, located just 35 miles south of Israel’s main urban center.
So now we have an Islamic fundamentalist state, Hamastan, backed by Syria and Iran, not far from Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport, and Jerusalem.
The sad, disturbing fact is that a majority of Palestinians around Jerusalem also support the radical, banal thugs, as the Palestinian elections showed in early 2006, followed by municipal elections in several cities, and recent opinion polls also demonstrate, meaning the struggle could easily spill over to those areas as well. This in my opinion is clearly Iran’s hope and intention. Of course, the Israeli government and military are well aware of this ominous prospect, which partly explains why a new, more experienced Israeli Defense Minister was quickly installed this week—the former army general and former prime minister, Ehud Barak. Whether he can focus on the explosive crisis instead of trying to undermine the other Ehud—current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert—remains to be seen.
As some of you know, I was the first Israel-based journalist to focus on what was then a new offshoot of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood, called Hamas. I did that in my first book, HOLY WAR FOR THE PROMISED LAND, which I began writing just one month after the group was formed in August 1988. I devoted over seven pages to the extremist group in the first edition, published by Thomas Nelson in January 1991 (the most recent edition is by Broadman & Holman).
Reporting on the first Palestinian uprising that began in December 1987, I began the section on the top of page 169 with the subtitle “ISLAM LEADS THE REVOT.” That was followed two pages later by a five page examination of the new Hamas founding charter under the subtitle “AN ISLAMIC COVENANT.” Then I noted that Hamas represented the true “WILL OF THE PEOPLE” in my estimation, predicting that PLO chairman Yasser Arafat would not in the end be able to thwart the Iranian-inspired threat that Hamas would eventually pose to his declared intentions to lead his people to a two-state peace solution with Israel. All that has sadly proved to be correct, as the radical group began blowing up Israeli buses, and thus wrecking the Oslo process, in April 1994, leading to its total collapse in the summer of 2000.
I was heavily criticized by several well-known media colleagues here in Israel for focusing so much attention on Hamas, and especially for predicting that they would be able to crush any peace accord between Israel and the PLO, with the help of Iran and Syria. Although some of them have won major media prizes over the years, which I have not, they totally missed the mark on this one. I do not claim this was due to much greater insight on my part. It was mainly because I took the growing fundamentalist Muslim convictions of the Palestinian people—partly inspired by the Khomeini Islamic revolution—far more seriously than most of my colleagues did. This was mainly because, unlike most of them, I am a person of strong personal (albeit Christian) faith, and so better understand its potential power in the lives of true believers, for good or evil.
I have been asked by dozens of people over the past couple years if I had read a very popular, award winning novel written by an acquaintance of mine and published in 2005, which I will leave unnamed. Due mainly to the constant news and current events reading I must do to keep up with the rapidly changing Middle East, I had not done so until this week! I was just sent a copy in the mail last week, and so was reading the novel while listening on a Tel Aviv beach to the distant blasts coming from the Hamas takeover of Gaza.
I can only say how ironic it was to read the scenario of a durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians, based on the discovery and development of giant oil reserves off of the Israel-Gaza coast, while listening to the distant thunder of the collapsing Palestinian Authority along that same coast! The novel also postulated a stable, prosperous Iraq—sadly anything but a reality, which in my estimation was predictably the case even before US and British forces entered the country in 2003.
Anyway, it is a well written and fast paced novel, so I enjoyed the read despite thinking that those particular aspects were further evidence of a typical world view prevalent in America, even after the 9/11 attacks. Neither the Palestinians or Iraqis, nor any other regional Arab people group, are even remotely ready for western style democracy in my on-scene estimation. If we insist that they have a fully “free” vote—as the State Department and others did in 2005, imploring Israeli leaders to allow Hamas to run in the January 2006 PA elections since that was “true democracy,” despite the fact that the elections were set up as part of an Israel-Palestinian peace accord that Hamas totally opposed—radical Muslim groups backed by Iran and Al Qaida will only use such votes as a further tool in their aspirations to strike down all pro-Western regional governments, including in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and of course in Israel. And if the nations insist that Israeli leaders hand over more territory to her determined enemies, such land will only be used to launch further assaults against the only functional democracy in the turbulent Middle East.
So let’s try to better understand actual regional realities and not dwell in grand fantasies, which can be quite deadly in the end. Meanwhile please pray for the many innocent Arab victims of this latest chapter in the Islamic jihad war to take back the biblical Promised Land, especially the Gaza Strip’s small Christian community, whose lives are now well and truly in harm’s way.
DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived and worked in Israel since 1980.
June 24, 2007
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SHALOM FROM JERUSALEM,
Although I rarely send out other people’s news articles to this large international Israel Update list, I felt the report below, published on Sunday in Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, merited that treatment. It concerns ominous Syrian war preparations, and contains some information that I had not previously seen. It comes as the Israeli government’s Security Cabinet is preparing to hold a special session on Wednesday to examine growing evidence that Syria is preparing for war, and one day after rogue Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yet again that Israel will soon be completely destroyed. I will include a short article about that below as well.
This Tuesday, June 5, marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the
Six Day War, which significantly altered the face of the Middle East
map and the course of history. Some Israeli commentators are concerned that Syria
and its allies might attempt to erase the results of that war in the
comings days or weeks, especially by launching an attack on the Golan
Heights, captured from Syria by IDF forces on June 10, 1967. All of this obviously
suggests an extra need for prayer and alertness at this time, and that is the
main reason I decided to send you the following articles.
Another Yom Kippur War?
Assad advocates diplomatic talks, yet evidence shows he is preparing for war Guy Bechor Published:
06.03.07, 19:21 / Israel Opinion
The UN Security Council's decision to establish an international court
to try Basher Assad and his relatives for the murder of former Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has made the Syrian government frantic. This
development may come at Israel's expense, as within the battle for
his survival Assad may embark on a war against Israel sooner than expected.
It's difficult not to notice that the Syrians are heading for war
since they are convinced that Israel has lost its former "killer instinct" and fears a conflict. The Syrians followed the suicidal attitude that prevailed
here following the Second Lebanon War with gaping mouths. They view the public
criticism prevalent in the Israeli press and culture, as well as the Winograd's Commission's testimonies, as their strategic assets.
As a result of the last war they understood that there is no need
for a large ground force, but rather, missiles aimed at dense Israeli
population centers. For the past two years the Syrians have been engaged in massive
acquisitions from Russia. In the past they owed some $11 billion
to the Russians, yet in 2005 the Russians erased part of the debt and the rest was covered
by the Iranians.
Syria began equipping itself with advanced anti-aircraft missiles in order to crush our Air Force,
anti-tank missiles - as the last war demonstrated that our armored corps weren't prepared - and cruise
missiles against our Navy.
The Saudi London-based daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Syria
has completed the deployment of Chinese C-802 cruise missiles, which
it acquired from Iran, and that the deployment of its Air Force has
also been completed. Russia has expressed its willingness to also
sell the Syrians its most advanced 280 kilometers (174 miles) range Iskander
missile, more than enough to strike at any destination in Israel. Each such missile
features an optical GPS navigational system that allows operators
to guide missiles to their targets.
Wide-scale exercises Two additional developments of concern occurred recently: Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that as of May the Syrian army has been engaged in a series of wide-scale military exercises. In 1973, as it may be recalled, these exercises turned out to be a de facto attack. Even the Israeli ambassador to the US, Salai Meridor, has officially confirmed that Syria has significantly boosted its military presence on the border with Israel. "Since the Yom Kippur War Syria hasn't deployed such a significant number of forces on the border," he said.
What can Israel do in face of these alarming developments? As the
IDF has lost its power of deterrence, it must be reinstated,
post haste.
Israel must make it clear that if Syria launches a surprise assault,
it may signify the end of Assad's regime. These moves must be coordinated with
the US in order to place the option of an American-Israeli alliance
on the table. As it may be recalled, large American forces are stationed on the
Syria-Iraq border.
In addition, the positive relations between Israel and the
Turkish army should be taken advantage of so that Assad
will understand that in the event of a surprise assault he would have to confront forces on
the Turkish border as well.
And finally, we should explain to the world that this is how Assad is fooling Israel and the world: He advocates
diplomatic talks, yet evidence shows he is preparing for war.
Iranian President Predicts Israel's Destruction
By VOA News
03 June 2007
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the world will
witness the destruction of Israel in the near future.
Mr. Ahmadinejad made his remarks Sunday in a speech marking the 18th anniversary of the death
of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iranian
media quoted the president as telling
foreign guests that last year's war between Israel
and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon had started the countdown
to Israel's destruction.
Mr. Ahmadinejad sparked outrage shortly after coming
to power in 2005 for saying that Israel should be wiped
from the map.
He then repeatedly
predicted that Israel would disappear.
The Iranian president caused further controversy when
he labeled the holocaust as a myth. He later invited
several Holocaust deniers
to a conference in
Tehran, playing down the mass slaughter of Jews in
World War Two.
DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived and worked in Israel since 1980.
June 26, 2007
==================
Shalom!
Here is my news and analysis report for June, mostly covering the dramatic events in the Gaza Strip during the month. The significance of the Hamas takeover there is just beginning to sink in as regional and world leaders deal with the fallout from the virtual coup Hamas staged against the Palestinian Authority. I also examine developments concerning Syria and Lebanon, and how the takeover is affecting Gaza's small Christian community.
GAZA FALLS TO HAMAS
Nearly three decades after a major Middle East country, Iran, fell under the chilling control of radical Islamic fundamentalists, another piece of regional territory has been seized by Muslim extremists. Given that one of the main goals of America’s post 9-11 military and political strategy was to topple the terror-supporting Taliban regime in Afghanistan and prevent the spread of Al Qaida-style rule to other lands, the fall of the Gaza Strip to complete Hamas control during June was a shocking bit of evidence that Islamic militants remain as powerful as ever in this troubled region nearly
six years after New York’s Twin Towers came crashing down to the ground.
Many Israeli military commentators noted that the Palestinian Islamic group, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Movement that has long been banned by Arab regimes ruling from Cairo, could not have possibly taken complete control over the strategically-situated piece of real estate if Israeli soldiers and civilians were still present in the Gaza Strip. The fact that Washington, London and other Western capitals urged Ariel Sharon-now in a deep coma for over 17 months-to uproot all 21 Jewish communities with over 8,000 residents from the coastal zone has come back to haunt them, as it does every day the thousands of Israeli civilians forced to endure intensified Hamas rocket fire ever since the pullout was completed in September 2005.
The latest Hamas triumph produced a new humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, with hundreds dead or wounded, buildings looted, food and fuel in short supply, and thousands attempting to flee the sealed off zone. Israeli political analysts say it also dealt another major political blow to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. After all, he was the principal Likud party promoter for the unilateral withdrawal scheme that was long advocated by the opposition Labour party, but strongly opposed by most Likud leaders and the rank and file.
Despite Olmert’s immediate contention during a June visit to Washington that the conquest might actually revive the dormant "land for peace" process, most analysts pointed out that this proposition was extremely unlikely-given that the Hamas victory can only further embolden the Islamic clerics who run Iran and their Syrian and Hizbullah allies, not to mention Al Qaida activists: reenergizing all of them to pursue Iran’s declared goal of annihilating the world’s only Jewish State.
ISLAMIC RESISTANCE SEIZES THE DAY
Just as Lebanese Shiite Hizbullah leaders could reasonably claim
that their jihad fighters had "liberated" the Land of the Cedars from detested "Israeli
occupation" when IDF forces evacuated the country in May 2000, so the
Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement-widely known by its Arabic acronym,
HAMAS-was successfully able to claim that its violent "resistance" to
Israeli rule had driven the hated Jews from the Gaza Strip five years later.
This claim, widely accepted on the Gaza Strip’s troubled streets, and
also in Palestinian-controlled areas in Samaria and Judea, led in turn to
the group’s triumph in Palestinian Legislative Council elections just
four months after the Gaza Strip evacuation was completed. That in turn allowed
the radical group significant political cover to openly organize and arm
a 3,000 man Gaza militia force, buttressed by hundreds of local armed Hamas
cells.
When the corruption-ridden PLO-dominated PA security force resisted
this bold Hamas gambit, the stage was set for internal armed
clashes, which began in earnest just over one year ago. Battles also occasionally broke out in PA zones north and south of Jerusalem. But very few expected the official PA security contingent in Gaza-numbering some 40,000 men-to
crumble so quickly, as they did in fighting that raged for five days
beginning on June 10th. Many analysts said the ominous truth was that when push came
to shove, many of the armed PA policemen saw the Islamic writing
on the wall and stayed out of the fray, given the heavily outnumbered Hamas forces
the critical advantage they needed.
The implications of the unprecedented Hamas military takeover-which overall PA leader Mahmoud Abbas termed a coup against his rule-are unsettling to both Israeli and PLO leaders, to say the least. The immediate question that both are faced with is a very troubling one: Could the frightening Fatah collapse that unfolded like lightening in the Gaza Strip be repeated in Judea and Samaria? Even more ominously, could clashes then spread to nearby Palestinian-dominated Jordan, possibly threatening the Hashemite monarchy that has ruled the country since its founding in the 1920s? And what about the several hundred thousand Palestinians living in Lebanon-will clashes break out there
as well?
SHORT TERM SIGHT
Faced with the worst humiliation so far in his troubled time
in power, Abbas wasted no time in dissolving the Hamas-dominated
Palestinian
Unity Government
that was formed only two months before. The PA leader replaced
it
on June 15 with an "emergency government" of mostly technocrats led by
former Finance Minister Salam Fayad, who was elected to the Palestinian Legislative
Council in 2006 as head of the new "Third Way" political party,
along with long time Palestinian activist Hannan Ashrawi.
Born in Jordan and a graduate of the University of Texas Austin campus, Fayad spent two decades living in the United States-part of that time working at the World Bank. The former economist has strong ties to the Bush Administration. This well known fact naturally makes him an American lackey in the eyes of many Palestinians, and a probable target of Hamas attack.
Seemingly confirming Fayad’s "collaborator" status in many
Arab eyes, Western leaders flocked to endorse the new cabinet, followed later on by hina and other world powers. However, despite the quick international support, the new PA government will only effectively hold sway in portions of Judea and Samaria, where about 2.5 million Palestinians live (as compared to an estimated 1.5 now under Hamas control in Gaza).
The emergency government will at least apparently have lots of money to play with-both the United States and the European Union rushed to lift economic sanctions imposed on the former Hamas-led government in 2006. But some Israeli analysts questioned the wisdom of this move, noting that Fatah economic corruption was a major factor in the Hamas electoral victory in the first place. They argued that opening the financial faucet once again will only breed the same results as last time-widespread Palestinian public revulsion against Fatah elites perceived to be living the high life due to generous international largess, while the masses virtually starve.
POSITIVE SPIN
Facing continuing calls for his resignation in the wake
of the Winograd Commission interim report concerning
last year’s Lebanon War (with the full report
due out in July), Ehud Olmert tried to put the best possible light on the portentous disaster that had engulfed Israel’s Gaza neighbor. While holding previously scheduled talks in Washington DC with President George W. Bush and other senior American officials, Olmert told reporters that the Hamas triumph and PA-Gaza collapse might somehow energize the brain-dead PLO-Israeli Oslo peace process. According to his thesis, the fact that Abbas had effectively cut to pieces the February Mecca accord that joined his Fatah party with Hamas in a so-called unity government might just open the way for a separate peace deal with Abbas in his only remaining base of power, PA-dominated areas of Jordan’s former West Bank.
However dozens of Israeli Knesset members, including increasingly popular opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, joined many media analysts in terming this extreme wishful thinking. They noted that Hamas had won an overwhelming majority of votes in the West Bank, as well as in Gaza, during the January 2005 Palestinian elections. Despite the imposition of international economic sanctions against the Hamas-dominated cabinet that was sworn in two months later, widespread support for the radical group did not wane, as proved by the group’s subsequent triumph in municipal elections in several Palestinian towns later in 2006, including in the former Christian stronghold of Bethlehem.
On top of this, the main reason many Palestinians gave for supporting Hamas in the first place-rampant corruption in the PA and Fatah-has not changed. In fact, various attempts to implement real reforms in both bodies since then have largely failed, as has been widely reported in the Palestinian press. Why Israel would suddenly be able to negotiate a final peace deal with Abbas that would actually stick in the face of overwhelming Islamic opposition-when it could not do that with the late Yasser Arafat, who was known as the ‘founding father of the Palestinian nation’-was hardly evident to Olmert’s many critics.
IRANIAN HAND
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a longtime PLO official and chief aid to Abbas, blamed Iran for being behind the violent Hamas Gaza Strip takeover. Speaking to reporters on June 19, he said that "Iran supports non-democratic groups in Palestine, Lebanon and in Iraq, and we hold Iran responsible for encouraging Hamas to carry out its coup in Gaza." His comments came after Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki condemned the formation of a new PA government that excluded Iran’s terrorist Hamas ally. Rabbo replied that Iran "has no right to give us lessons in democracy."
Israeli Mideast experts were almost unanimous in seeing the veiled hand of Iran behind the latest regional upheaval. Some said that nearly 30 years after Ayatollah Khomeini marched into Tehran to the adulation of millions of Iranians, the Shiite regime believes it is now on the verge of establishing a new Persian empire that will eventually have ascendancy over regional Sunni Muslims. Waking up to the harrowing possibility that a nuclear armed Iran just might succeed in reaching that vaulted goal, Arab League ministers held an emergency meeting in Cairo in mid-June to discuss the Gaza crisis. Predictably, Iran’s only Arab ally, Syria, resisted attempts to issue a unanimous condemnation of the horrendously brutal Hamas takeover and a statement of support for Abbas.
Meanwhile in Lebanon, Iran’s puppet Hizbullah militia force naturally sided with its Hamas ally. This came as several Katyusha rockets landed in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, hit hard during last summer’s Hizbullah blitz upon northern Israel. But the militant Lebanese Shiite group, busy trying to topple the duly elected government in Beirut, immediately disavowed responsibility for the one-off attack, which damaged a car but thankfully left no one injured. Israeli officials accepted the statement, saying that the rockets were probably fired by Al Qaida-linked Palestinian cells known to be operating in south Lebanon. Osama Bin Laden’s Palestinian surrogates took responsibility for firing several rockets into Israel just months before Hizbullah launched its cross-border raid last July, sparking off the Second Lebanon War.
SYRIA IN FOCUS
The Israeli inner security cabinet held a
special session in early June to discuss
the possibility of war in the coming months with Syria. This came as a Syrian parliament member confirmed
in an Al Jazeera interview that his government is currently making
active war preparations, and as several military analysts predicted that a conflict could break out as early as August. The Israeli ministers reportedly agreed that PM Olmert had acting correctly in sending recent messages to Damascus meant to assure Baathist regime officials that Israel is not planning a pre-emptive strike against Syria.
The security cabinet also discussed the Premier’s public offer to open peace negotiation with the Assad regime even if Israel would have to pay what Olmert termed "a very high price for peace"-which all commentators agreed meant the total uprooting of the estimated 30,000 Israelis living on the strategic heights that rise above the lush Galilee panhandle. However knowing that the Israeli public is hardly in the mood to hand over more territory to Arabs who might then use it to launch further attacks upon the country-opinion polls in June showed over 90% of the public against such a Golan Heights pullout-many analysts said Olmert’s statement amounted to mere words meant for international consumption, not a serious indication that peace talks might soon begin with Syria.
Syria’s puppet militia force in Lebanon is also said to be feverishly preparing for another round of conflict with Israel. That at least is according to Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former military chief of staff and defense minister. He said in early June that Hizbullah now has around 20,000 rockets in its growing arsenal, most of them surreptitiously smuggled in from Syria over the past year in violation of last summer’s UN ceasefire accord. More ominously, he claimed that some of the missiles are of a longer range than the group possessed last year, saying they could now potentially strike all of Israel, including the southern port city of Eilat. However, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Italian General Claudio Graziano, claimed that Hizbullah had not returned to its former strength in south Lebanon, saying evidence of the group is practically nonexistent along the border. However he would not comment on Mofaz’s statement that Hizbullah had rebuilt its rocket arsenal, and then some.
THE BOYS ARE BACK
The internal Labour primary produced a new party leader in June-former prime minister Ehud Barak. However his triumph was thin, beating former Shin Bet internal security chief Ami Ayalon by just 51% to 48%. The campaign was marred by charges of vote buying,
especially by Barak whose people reportedly had signed up whole Galilee Druze villages in recent months-securing support by promising financial benefits after Barak joined the government-all the while knowing that most of his quot;supporters" were not really Labour party voters at all.
Barak wasted no time in replacing the vanquished Amir Peretz as Defense Minister. The process was actually sped up by the Gaza crisis, with PM Olmert requesting that Barak join the government as Defense Minister just days after his victory in order to deal with the potential military fallout from the crisis. However he also made clear that he planned to replace Olmert as premier in the next year or so, presumably by winning new national elections. However opinion surveys taken after the Labour primary was held showed that Likud leader Netanyahu-who accurately predicted that Hamas would seize control over the Gaza Strip if Israel pulled out of the territory-is supported by at least 35% of the public for Israel’s top government job, with only some 20% picking Barak and just 8-10% for Olmert.
Meanwhile the Knesset elected Israel’s ninth president in June, and the victor was veteran statesman Shimon Peres. His main rival, the Likud’s Ruby Rivlin, received only 38 votes in the first round, with 21 votes going to Labour’s candidate, former diplomat Collette Avital. Since it was clear that neither would beat Peres in the second round, both candidates pulled out and asked for a unanimous endorsement for the 83 year old veteran politician. However almost one third of the Knesset members did not take up the suggestion, with some saying they feared the aged firebrand politician would use his new platform to further his left-wing agenda, including a Golan Heights pullout and the uprooting of most Jews currently living in Judea and Samaria.
GAZA’S CHRISTIANS IN PERIL
Various Israeli and international
media outlets reported that
the small Gaza
Strip Christian community, numbering around 2,000, is in imminent danger following the Hamas conquest. As PA forces squared off with Hamas fighters, attacks were launched on several churches and a Christian school in Gaza City, where most live, leading to an appeal from church leaders for international intervention. Many said they planned to flee the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.
One news report quoted a senior Hamas official warning that Christian women from now on must cover their heads in public,
as Muslim women are required to do, adding that all alcoholic beverages, including ceremonial wine, will be banned from Gaza. He also threatened that any Christian caught
carrying out any missionary activity would be "harshly dealt with."
Gaza’s tiny Christian community is obviously in dire need of prayer
in the wake of the Hamas takeover, along with moderate Muslims. May the God of all comfort watch over His people in Gaza, the God who "sets the needy securely on high away from affliction, and makes His families like a flock" (Psalm 108:41).
DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived and worked in Israel since 1980.
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A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events
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