Weekly Update: “Cries of fear are heard—terror, not peace”
Everyone is still trying to work out the implications of the agreement reached between UAE and Israel, brokered by USA. US Secretary of State Pompeo has spent this past week visiting other states in the region to promote the deal. So far, no other nations have shown willingness to follow UAE’s lead.
As indicated in last week’s update, the normalization with UAE (and potentially other Sunni Arab states in the region) has a price. Is Israeli PM Netanyahu missing the opportunity to create a breakthrough in the failed Oslo negotiations, by agreeing (at least for the time being) not to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank?
This past week 39 year old Jewish Rabbi Shai Ohayon was murdered in Israel by a suspected terrorist. The threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah and others remain. According to Seth Frantzman at Jerusalem Post “It looks like a regional consensus is afoot with Turkey, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah all seeking to push tensions with Israel, but on their own time and place of choosing.”
Yet the Jewish people continue to come home.
Andrew Tucker
Editor-in-Chief – Israel & Christians Today
Despite COVID-19, 230 Jews make Aliyah from Mexico
A first-of-its-kind charter flight from Mexico carrying 230 olim (immigrants), Masa Israel Journey volunteers and Israelis returning home landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday. Dubbed “Operation Home,” the flight was organized by The Jewish Agency for Israel and Hanoar Hatzioni, with support from Keren Hayesod and a special gift from C4I (Christians for Israel). Read more..
Israel’s borders
Seth Frantzman: Hezbollah wants to pose as secure in its power and prepare to threaten Israel at a time of its choosing. Read more..
JPost reports: IDF forces struck targets in the Gaza Strip belonging to the Hamas terrorist group early Friday morning in response to six rockets that were fired from Gaza towards southern Israel through the night. Read more..
UN refuses to impose sanctions on Iran
The United States’ bid to reimpose sanctions against Iran by triggering a snapback mechanism has not been advanced, the UN Security Council President and Indonesia’s UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani said on Tuesday, as he dismissed the move that could have ended the 2015 Iranian deal. Read more..
Implications of the Israel/UAE agreement
According to historian Michael Oren, “The impending peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is a game-changer for the entire Middle East… More than its economic and diplomatic potential, though, the UAE-Israel accord is of immense strategic value. It signifies the emergence of a united Middle Eastern front against Iran.” Read more..
Interview with Israeli writer Caroline Glick about the delay in applying Israeli sovereignty over parts of the “West Bank”. She argues that the Israeli and US military’s obsession with “stable” relations with Israel’s enemies is a mistake. Read more..
The peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates presents the Iranian regime with dilemmas on both the foreign and the domestic front. The regime fears the emergence of a new international alliance that will have greater power to contain its hegemonic regional aspirations, and there is a new urgency to the need to prove to the Iranian people that the government’s imperialist foreign policy works to their benefit. Read more..
Khaled Abu Toameh writes: Scenes of Palestinians burning and trampling flags of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and pictures of its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, have sparked a wave of protests in a number of Arab countries. Their citizens are accusing the Palestinians of ingratitude, treason and hypocrisy. Read more..
The resilience of the Jews of the UAE is one of the most interesting stories in light of the anti-Jewish (or anti-Israel) sentiment and demise of many Jewish communities in the Middle East. Read more..
Israel and Russia coordinate activities in Syria
Israeli PM Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to continue coordinating to allow for Israeli airstrikes in Syria, in a phone conversation on Monday. “I talked to [Putin] about Syria and ensuring the air force’s freedom to act in that area. It’s very important for Israeli security,” Netanyahu said soon after. Read more..
“The Ratline” – a brilliant book
Professor Philippe Sands is one of the world’s most highly-recognized international lawyers. He teaches at a prestigious university in London, and regularly appears before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. When he received an invitation in 2010 to deliver a lecture in the East European city of Lviv, he could never have imagined the decade-long journey that it would spark. It is one that has seen Sands attempt to uncover the truth about the life and death of Otto von Wächter — the Nazi governor of the city where 80 members of his grandfather’s family perished during the war. The extraordinary story is told by Sands in his engrossing new book, “The Ratline.” It recounts Wächter’s responsibility for the horrors which occurred on his watch in wartime Galicia. It also lays bare the grubby betrayals and compromises of the early years of the Cold War as Wächter sought to evade justice before his mysterious death in Rome in 1949. Read more..
“Hospitality” – Video teaching by Johannes Gerloff
Episode 35 in the series of teachings by Israeli-based Bible teacher and journalist Johannes Gerloff:
Abraham’s generosity towards unknown foreigners, who theoretically might have been idol worshippers, was a decisive key to his relationship with the one, true and living God.
Scripture for the week: Jeremiah 30:1-11
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. 3 The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.”
4 These are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah: 5 “This is what the Lord says: “‘Cries of fear are heard—terror, not peace.
6 Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale?
7 How awful that day will be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.
8 “‘In that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘I will break the yoke off their necks and will tear off their bonds; no longer will foreigners enslave them.
9 Instead, they will serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.
10 “‘So do not be afraid, Jacob my servant; do not be dismayed, Israel,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will surely save you of a distant place,your descendants from the land of their exile. Jacob will again have peace and security, and no one will make him afraid.
11 I am with you and will save you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you I will discipline you but only in due measure; I will not let you go entirely unpunished.’
The goal of Israel & Christians Today is to help Christians to take God’s Word seriously, and study current events in the world in the context of the Bible.
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