(Jerusalem, Israel) — “We have no territorial disputes with Iran,” noted Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon in an address to nearly 300 evangelical Christians here in the Holy Land as part of a Joshua Fund prayer & vision trip. “So why do Western leaders believe territorial compromise by Israel will appease them?”

General Ya’alon – who served from 2002 to 2005 as the Israeli Defense Forces’ chief of staff — pointed to ”Iranian fingerprints” on arms shipments and terrorist actions in recent years in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and most recently in Yemen. He warned that Iran is rapidly acquiring the technical capacity to build nuclear weapons. In light of such dangerous developments, he urged the West to wake up to the danger and gain the “moral clarity and strategic clarity” needed to confront Iran successfully.

“We have a couple of disputes with the American administration,” he conceded, alluding to the fact that only 4% of Israelis now believe President Obama is pro-Israel, compared to 88% of Israelis who believed President George W. Bush was on the side of the Jewish State. “They [in the White House] believe in engagement and negotiations with Iran. But this approach is perceived by extremists as weakness.” He described 1979 as the beginning of a “new wave of jihadism” sweeping the Middle East, in which Iranian leaders began exporting “a vision of imposing Islam all over the world [and] defeating Western civilization, the infidels.”

“We believe there is a way to defeat the Iranian regime without immediately resorting to the military option,” said Ya’alon, who is widely known in Israel for being a tough, no nonsense military expert and right-of-center politically. He called for the West to impose crippling economic sanctions on Iran, as well as isolating the nation diplomatically. But also noted quite emphatically: “Without defeating the Iranian regime — not the people, but the regime — there is no way to bring peace and stability to the region.”

“We’re waiting for the [Obama] administration to come to the same conclusion,” Ya’alon added, just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama at the White House amidst growing tensions between the two leaders and their respective governments.

 Ya’alon thanked The Joshua Fund and evangelical Christians around the world for standing with Israel and the Jewish people. He also urged those assembled at the breakfast gathering in Jerusalem to go home and speak out and stand up for Israel’s right to self-defense and the right of the Jewish people to have and protect one Jewish state in the world. The audience gave him three standing ovations, one as he took the stage, one after he finished his remarks, and a third after he answered a few of my questions.

[I'll post more details on The Joshua Fund's prayer & vision trip through Israel soon, including six projects we did to bless the poor and needy in the Land, and my meetings with Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin and separately with Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar. On Saturday and Sunday, we'll be hosting our first-ever Jerusalem Prayer Summit. During this time, we'll be praying for wisdom for the Prime Minister and Israeli leaders as they confront Iran and try to improve U.S.-Israeli relations; praying for the peace of Jerusalem and the safety of all people in the region; praying for enough resources to continue caring for the poor and needy; praying for reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians; and praying for encouragement for the believers in the region. We would be grateful if you would join us in prayer at this critical hour. Thanks so much, and sorry for not posting all week until now.]

* If you would like to learn more about The Joshua Fund, or make a tax deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more to help provide food, clothing, medical supplies and other aid to the needy in the epicenter, please visit www.joshuafund.net.

* If you would like to sign up for Joel’s weekly email alerts, please go to www.joelrosenberg.com.

———————–

NOTE: A few of my readers have expressed concern that I’ve agreed to speak at the “Break Forth 2010″ conference in Edmonton, Canada from January 29-31 because there are some other speakers slated to attend whose theology is questionable. The chief concern that has been raised revolves around William Paul Young, author of The Shack, a very controversial novel that I and some evangelical Bible leaders have found heretical. (For examples, see Dr. Norman Geisler’s article, “The Shack: Helpful or Heretical?”; Michael Youssef’s “Thirteen Heresies in The Shack“; and Dr. Albert Mohler’s, “A Look At The Shack”] The reason I am attending is because it is the largest Christian conference in Canada (some 15,000 are expected to attend), I believe the Holy Spirit wanted me to accept the invitation, and I’m not ready to concede such ground to those who are peddling false teaching. I’ve  been asked to come and teach the Word of God and preach the gospel and that’s what I intend to do. I can’t explain why Young, for example, was invited. But why cede the entire stage to him? Moreover, at this critical juncture, I hope to explain why the God of the Bible loves Israel so much and why He wants us to help mobilize a global movement of true believers to stand with Israel while so much of the rest of the world turns against her. Thanks for your concerns. I would appreciate your prayers. God bless you.

UPDATED: (Jerusalem, Israel) — For the last several weeks, I’ve been reporting extensively about the Iranian nuclear threat and the serious and growing strains in the U.S.-Israel alliance. Now U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is vowing to bring the Goldstone Report to the Security Council for review and action within three  months. That potentially means Israeli leaders could find themselves facing indictment and prosecution before the International Criminal Court on “war crimes” charges for defending themselves from 12,000 Hamas rockets, missiles and mortars.

It’s a very serious and troubling situation. And yet, some Israelis, particularly some within the media elite here, see the current situation from a sharply different perspective. They say, “Yes, Israel has problems and enemies — when haven’t we? — but hey, the Jewish State is more secure today than ever before.”  An analysis piece in Friday’s Haaretz (Israel’s equivalent of the New York Times — that is, prestigious, left-of-center, read by the elites, can’t stand Netanyahu or conservatives generally) sums it up this way: “After seven months in power, Netanyahu’s popularity resembles that of Sharon’s, the coalition is calm, the borders are quiet, and the economy is on the rise.”

• Student stuns Iran by criticizing supreme leader
• Fort Hood killer: Muslim, Palestinian origin, reportedly shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” (God is great) before his killing rampage began

>> Deputy FM: Israel threat to attack Iran is not bluff

———————————————-

“The UN General Assembly approved on Thursday an Arab-backed resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, paving the way for the matter to be sent to the Security Council,” reports the Jerusalem Post. “A total of 114 nations voted in favor of the resolution and 18 voted against it, with 44 members abstaining.”

How is it possible that Israel only has 17 other true friends in the world, out of 192 countries?

An evil wind is blowing against the State of Israel and the Jewish people. This resolution — written by the Arab League — calls for a investigation of Israel for “war crimes” during the January 2009 Gaza war in which Israel was defending itself from some 12,000-plus rockets, missiles and mortars that had been fired by Hamas at civilian centers in southern Israel over the course of several years. Yet the resolution never even mentions the word “Hamas.” The resolution has no balance, no sense of fair play, and effectively denies that Israel has a right of self-defense, which is, in fact, a basic right affirmed in the U.N. charter. The resolution affirms the findings of anti-Israel and ultimately anti-Semitic Goldstone Report and recommends the Secretary General require the Security Council to take up the issue and condemn Israel. After all, the war crimes were committed by Hamas for firing rockets at civilians, for using civilians as shields in Gaza during the war, for using elementary schools, hospitals and mosques as military bases during the war. Yet the U.N. cares not one bit about such bitter truths.

If countries cannot fight against terrorists in self-defense, will the U.S. be charged with war crimes for fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan? Will Great Britain? Will Australia? Will Canada? Will other NATO powers?

[VIDEO: Fmr. Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dore Gold debates Richard Goldstone at Brandeis University]

Pray that the U.S. vetoes the resolution in the Security Council, if it does in fact get that far. The United States, thank God, voted against this wicked resolution. Congressional pressure on the White House to take actions supporting Israel is working, but more must be done to pressure the Obama administration to stand consistently with Israel, not against her.

Canada — ably led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the most pro-Israel leader in the Western alliance — also voted against, as did Australia. Europe, however, was split. Germany voted against. France and Great Britain abstained.

Here’s the breakdown of the vote:

In favour:  Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against:  Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Poland, Slovakia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, United States.

Abstain:  Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom, Uruguay.

Absent:  Bhutan, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Togo, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan– about to be deployed to Iraq — kills 12, wounds 31 at Fort Hood
• U.K. Guardian: Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design ["two-point implosion"], says secret IAEA report — “There are fears in Washington and London that if no deal is reached to at least temporarily defuse tensions by the end of December, Israel could set in motion plans to take military action aimed at setting back the Iranian programme by force, with incalculable consequences for the Middle East.”
• Obama softens Jerusalem stance in bid to appease Abbas
• Still no meeting set between PM Netanyahu and President Obama on upcoming trip to U.S.
  

Just finalized travel plans to speak at “Break Forth 2010,” a powerful Christian conference in Edmonton, Canada Jan 29-31….15,000 evangelical expected….my focus: explaining why God loves Israel so much and seeking to help mobilize a global movement to stand with Israel while so much of the rest of the world is turning against her….music by Michael W. Smith and the Newsboys….other speakers: Lee Strobel, Anne Graham-Lotz, and Frank Peretti….sure it’ll be 30 below….but where’s your adventurous spirit and kinship with our brothers to the North, eh???….sign up, stand with Israel, and come join us for an amazing weekend.

>> Israel seizes ship with 500 tons of Iranian arms bound for Hezbollah

>> Netanyahu: Ship proves Iran’s support for terrorism

Dawn had not yet broken in Washington.

It was Sunday morning, November 4, when an urgent “Flash Traffic” message from Embassy Tehran arrived in the State Department’s top-secret communications center: “Demonstrators have entered embassy compound and have entered the building.”

More than three thousand Radicals, most of them students, had climbed over the embassy’s walls, penetrated the compound’s internal security fences and doors, disarmed the Marines (who had been ordered by their superiors not to shoot), and were holding sixty-six Americans hostage while rifling through whatever files they could get their hands on.

Staffers in the White House Situation Room immediately awoke the president at Camp David with a phone call at 4:30 a.m. The president spoke with Brzezinski, just back from Algiers, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Both were concerned, to be sure, but neither was overly worried, believing the situation would be corrected quickly, as it had been on Valentine’s Day. The president, therefore, went back to sleep. It was the last half-decent sleep Carter would get until after he left office on January 20, 1981.

U.S. intelligence officials soon had a translated copy of the students’ first communiqué, which blasted “the world-devouring America” and stated, “We Muslim students, followers of the Imam Khomeini, have occupied the espionage embassy of America in protest against the ploys of the imperialists and the Zionists. We announce our protest to the world; a protest against America for granting asylum and employing the criminal shah while it has its hands in the blood of tens of thousands of women and men in this country.”

Top officials at the CIA and State all expected Khomeini to order the students to free the Americans and their compound in short order. It never happened. To the contrary, the ayatollah quickly issued a statement praising the students. He then appointed his son, Ahmad, to serve as the liaison with the students holding the embassy.

Ahmad would later write that his father expected “thunder and lightning” from Washington, a quick and fierce military operation that would both rescue the embassy staffers and punish the new regime. But weeks turned into months without such a response. Instead, in Ahmad’s view, the Carter White House churned out feckless, limp-wristed statements and showed no serious interest in a military confrontation. President Carter’s envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Andrew Young, publicly implored the ayatollah to show “magnanimity and compassion.”

Khomeini smelled weakness. He mocked the Carter administration as acting “like a headless chicken,” and exploited Carter’s indecision to the fullest.

For well over a year and a half, fifty-two American citizens were subjected to torture, interrogation, and all manner of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Islamic Radicals.

Some of the hostages were blindfolded and paraded before the Iranian media in pictures that would be flashed around the world. Others were repeatedly kicked and beaten. Some had guns put to their heads while students threatened to blow their brains out if they did not open safes or answer questions. At other times, the students played Russian roulette with them. At one point, a group of students forced a diplomat to the floor. One pulled out a knife, positioned it mere centimeters from the diplomat’s face, and threatened to cut out his eyes, one by one, if he refused to divulge classified information. And all the while, the Ayatollah Khomeini gave his full approval to such activities, and his son oversaw the terrorists’ day-to-day operations.

Back home, Americans felt a growing sense of humiliation and outrage as they saw the crisis in Iran play out on the evening news night after night with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel. Most people did not understand the motivation of the Radicals who had seized the embassy or the ayatollah whom they apparently worshiped. Nor did they understand why President Carter looked so weak in the face of such a serious threat to U.S. national security. All they saw were millions of Iranians chanting, “Death to America! Death to Israel!” and violent, fanatical mobs burning the American flag and burning President Carter in effigy. As the crisis worsened, Carter’s approval rating plummeted to a mere 25 percent.

Muslims around the world—Sunnis and Shias alike—were stunned by such a dramatic turn of events. Radicals were energized. Reformers were horrified.

Officials in Washington were stupefied. In less than a year, the White House, the State Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency had missed the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of Khomeini, the fall of the shah, and the takeover of the U.S.’s own embassy in a country central to its national security and sharing a 1,600-mile border with the Soviet Union.

Admiral Stansfield Turner, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Carter, would later admit in his memoirs, “We in the CIA served the president . . . badly with respect to our coverage of the Iranian scene. . . . We had not appreciated how shaky the Shah’s political foundation was; did not know the Shah was terminally ill; did not understand who Khomeini was and the support his movement had; did not have a clue as to who the hostage-takers were or what their objective was; and could not pinpoint within the embassy where the hostages were being held and under what conditions. . . . We were just plain asleep.”

The question today is whether Washington is “just plain asleep” with regards to the genocidal, apocalyptic objectives of the current regime in Tehran. God forbid.

This article is adapted from Inside The Revolution.

UPDATE: Fortunately, Congress is taking a different path towards Israel than the Obama administration. While the President and his team are taking an increasingly hard line against the Jewish State, an overwhelmingly bipartisan consensus in Congress is standing strongly with Israel. On Tuesday for example, “the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday condemning the Goldstone Report, that accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, and calling on the Obama administration to oppose its endorsement. 334 representatives voted for the resolution while only 36 voted against and 22 abstained.” This bodes well.

——————

(Jerusalem, Israel) — If I had to rank the most pro-Israel leaders in the Western alliance right now, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and French President Nicolas Sarkozy would top the list. President Obama wouldn’t even be on the list.-

Last Friday night, I gave an address to the Christian Embassy banquet in northern Virginia. The title of my talk was, “Train Wreck: The Coming Collision of U.S.-Israeli Relations.” With deep concern and regret, I noted that just as the Iranian nuclear threat is worsening, we are currently witnessing the worst strains in U.S.-Israel relations in memory.

• Before January, polls showed 88% of Israelis believed President Bush was pro-Israel.
• In May, a Jerusalem Post poll found that only 31% of Israelis believed President Obama was pro-Israel.
• By August, a Jerusalem Post poll found only 4% of Israelis believed President Obama was pro-Israel.

Israel’s plummeting confidence that the White House truly understands their security needs and will stand with them as a faithful ally is the results of numerous actions and statements by the President and his senior advisors.

• During the primaries, then-Senator Obama described Iran as a tiny country that didn’t pose much of a threat, and vowed to enter direct talks with Iranian leader Ahmadinejad and senior Iranian officials without preconditions. He later said Iran was a “grave threat,” but his initial analysis raised real doubts about his understanding of the situation.
  
• As President, Mr. Obama seems determined to pursue a policy of “direct engagement” with Iran in the absence of any  evidence that Iran’s Radical Islamic leadership wants a better relationship with the U.S. and the West — to the contrary, Iran is accelerating its nuclear and ballistic missile development programs and becoming more belligerent towards the U.S. and Israel.
  
• President Obama refuses to impose crippling economic sanctions on Iran, despite the revelation of a third secret Iranian nuclear facility, this one located on a military base near the religious city of Qom.
• In May, Gen. James Jones — the President’s national security advisor — appeared on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopolous and referred “Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat” — preoccuption? That’s like pooh-poohing Jewish “preoccuption” with Hitler in the late-1930s.
  
• In May, CIA chief Leon Panetta was sent to Israel reportedly to warn Israeli leaders not to launch a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities without permission from the U.S., though he offered no proof the U.S. had an effective strategy to stop Iran from getting the Bomb.
  
• In the summer of 2009, President Obama did precious little to support the Reformers on the streets of Tehran after a rigged “re-election” of Ahmadinejad, and said he refused to “meddle” in other countries’ affairs.
• Yet the Obama administration seems perfectly willing to “meddle” in Israeli affairs.
  
• Gen. Jones told a European diplomat in May that President Obama “will convince Israel to compromise on the Palestinian question. We will not push Israel under the wheels of a bus, but we will be more forceful toward Israel that we have been under Bush.”
• Since then, President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell has applied intense pressure on Israel to stop building, improving and expanding Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
• President Obama has also called for a comprehensive final peace treaty in which Israel returns to the 1967 borders, a requirement that would force Israel to divide its capital city of Jerusalem and give up the strategically vital Jordan Valley.
• In the fall of 2009, the Obama administration reneged on security commitments the U.S. had made to Poland and the Czech Republic regarding missile defenses, causing many in the U.S. and Israel to wonder if other security commitments to American allies would be respected or rescinded in the future.
  
• The Obama administration is doing precious little to persuade the world to denounce and then ignore the conclusions of the Goldstone Report, which essentially charges Israel with war crimes for defending her citizens from thousands of rocket, missile and mortar attacks emanating from Gaza. [TUESDAY: U.S. Congress poised to vote on resolution to condemn Goldstone Report]
  

These are just a few reasons for the meltdown in Israeli confidence in White House support for the Jewish State. But such trends have real-world effects. How could the Israeli people be expected to postpone a preemptive strike against Iran much longer if they don’t believe the White House has a serious and effective plan to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them? How could Israeli people be expected to make major concessions in return for peace with the Palestinians if they don’t fundamentally believe Israel’s most faithful historic ally will truly be there for them if the going gets rough?

On April 14th of this year, I said on the Glenn Beck show that I believed we were witnessing a coming “train wreck” in U.S.-Israeli relations over the Iran and Palestinian issues. The situation has only worsened since then.

That’s why I’m in Israel for the next few weeks, leading a Joshua Fund “prayer & vision trip” — to better understand the dynamic that’s underway, and to mobilize evangelical Christians in the U.S., Israel and around the world to bless Israel in real and practical ways, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, pray for wisdom for Israeli leaders, and pray for a change of heart in the Obama administration. The tour begins Friday. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, and would be grateful for your faithful and continued prayers for these issues as well.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Israeli police arrest new suspect in Jewish terrorist case
• Israeli Military Intelligence Chief: No possible civilian use for secret Iranian nuclear facility in Qom
• Wall Street Journal Column: When No Means No: Pleading with Iran will get the West nowhere — “I once overhead a guy try to make a date over the phone. His end of the conversation went roughly as follows: ‘How about Friday?’ (Pause.) ‘Not Friday? Because I’m free most of the weekend.’ (Pause.) ‘Not this weekend? What about next Saturday?’ (Pause.) ‘Are you free at all next week?’ (Long pause.) ‘Well, are you ever free?’ Apparently she was not, at least as far as he was concerned. Now it’s the turn of the Obama administration to play the guy who won’t take a hint. And it falls to the Islamic Republic of Iran to be the girl who’s hard—actually, impossible—to get….”
• Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says Hamas rockets can now reach Tel Aviv
• Merkel: Iranian threat to Israel threatens us all – German chancellor addresses US Congress, says ‘nuclear weapon at the hands of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and negates its right to exist is simply unacceptable’
• IDF executes largest-ever terror attack simulation
• North Korea claims to expand arsenal of atomic bombs
• WSJ: Waiting for Obama: Hamid Karzai isn’t the biggest problem in Afghanistan.

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 20% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund educate Christians about God’s love for Israel, as well bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

* GO: See Joel speak at the 2010 Break Forth Conference in Edmonton, Canada January 29-31. Other headliners include Michael W. Smith, the Newsboys, Anne Graham-Lotz and Lee Strobel.

“The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police have arrested an American-born Jewish settler who was behind an unprecedented series of deadly terror shootings and bombings spanning over a decade, in which two Palestinians were killed and Israel Prize Laureate Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell was injured,” reports the Jerusalem Post in a major breaking news story. “He also planted a bomb at the entrance to house of a messianic family in Ariel, seriously wounding their son, then-15-year-old Ami Ortiz.”

Israeli authorities are to be commended for cracking these serious cases. The fact that so many hate crime attacks may, in fact, be linked together is deeply troubling. Evangelical Christians in the U.S. and around the world have been deeply concerned about the targeting and attempted murder of Israeli Pastor David Ortiz and his family because of their faith in Jesus as the Messiah in the land of Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection. Threats have been made to other followers of Jesus in Israel. And now we learn that other minorities in Israel were allegedly targeted by this man, as well.

[UPDATE: See Jerusalem Post interview with Pastor Ortiz.]

[UPDATE: PM Netanyahu comments]

The question that must be asked at this point is this: Was Yaakov “Jack” Teitel working alone, or are there others planning and perpetrating similar crimes in the Land? The man is reportedly a fairly new immigrant (moving to Israel seven years ago) and doesn’t speak much Hebrew. Is it possible he was really a lone gunman? This remains to be seen.

Please pray for justice to be done, but please also pray for the Lord’s mercy on this man, his family, and his victims. If there are others involved in these crimes, please pray that they are apprehended and prosecuted as well.

MORE EXCERPTS FROM JERUSALEM POST STORY:

• “Yaakov ‘Jack’ Teitel, 37, was arrested by the Israel Police’s elite counter-terror unit YAMAM on October 7th as he was hanging flyers in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof in support of the attack on a Tel Aviv gay and lesbian youth club in August in which two people were killed. Teitel, the Shin Bet said, was not the gunman in that attack.
  
• “Teitel, the father of four from the settlement of Shevut Rahel, came to Israel in 1997 and succeeded in smuggling a pistol into Israel aboard a British Airways flight. The gun was used to kill an East Jerusalem cab driver on June 8, 1997 and two months later to shoot and kill a Palestinian shepherd near the settlement of Carmel in the Southern Hebron Hills….
• In addition to the gun smuggled by air, Teitel also smuggled another nine automatic machine guns and pistols into Israel hidden in a shipping container….
  
• “During his interrogations, Teitel confessed to a long list of shooting and bombing attacks. The first two attacks were the shootings in 1997. In November 2006, he planted a bomb inside a police station in the settlement of Eli. The bomb was discovered and dismantled but the Shin Bet official said that ‘it was sophisticated’ and had it gone off ‘people would have been killed.’…
• “In April 2007, Teitel planted a bomb next to the Beit Jamal Monastery near Beit Shemesh. A Palestinian driving a tractor set off the bomb and was injured….
• “On May 15, 2007, Teitel planted another bomb in the Jerusalem neighborhood Ramot near police car. The bomb exploded but no one was injured. A month later he planted another bomb on the side of a road near the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot Shlomo and detonated it as a police car passed by. No one was injured….
• “On March 20, 2008, Teitel planted a bomb at the entrance to the Ortiz family in Ariel, who he believed were messianic Jews and were trying to convert Jews to Christianity.
• “On Sept. 25, 2008, Teitel planed a bomb at the entrance to the home of Sternhell in Jerusalem, which went off and injured the well-known academic. He said he decided to target Sternhell since he understood that the professor had called to kill Jewish settlers.
• “He also confessed to stabbing an Arab youth in 1997 in Independence Park since he thought he was gay….
• “In the arms cache found near his house, police discovered a sophisticated sniper rifle, an M15 machine gun, an M16 shortened automatic rifle, a Glock pistol as well as a Browning 9mm.”

MORE COVERAGE:

• Ynet News: Settler suspected of multiple hate crimes – authorities believe Yaakov Teitel of Shvut Rachel murdered two Arabs, planted pipe bomb which injured Hebrew University’s Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell, planted multiple explosive devices. Lawyer: He’s mentally unstable.
• Haaretz: Alleged Jewish terrorist arrested for murder, series of bomb attacks
• Haaretz: Who is suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel?

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 20% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

>> Sec. Clinton makes first trip to Israel since Netanyahu took office, will pressure Israel to stop building settlements

We are currently finalizing plans for the first “Epicenter Conference” in Asia for early 2010. We are finalizing plans for our first U.S. East Coast “Epicenter Conference,” to be held in Philadelphia in the summer of 2010. I also just got off the phone with Pastor Greg Laurie from Harvest Ministries. He’s developing a prophecy conference in California for the spring of 2010 and has invited me to participate. I’ll have more details on all these events soon.

My team and I would be deeply grateful for your prayers as we seek to educate Christians here at home and around the globe and mobilize them to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus at this critical moment. Thanks so much.

That said, here’s a quick update on the “National Town Hall Meeting on the Threat of Radical Islam and the Church’s Response” we held on September 11th of this year:

* After analyzing the data, we now estimate that more than 265,000 people participated in the 9/11 Town Hall meeting via webcast, via the hundreds of church congregations that showed the event, and via 750 Christian radio stations that aired the event live or by tape delay.

* Many more watched the event on TV as it was carried live or by tape delay by five Christian TV stations and networks. But we did not include those numbers in our total because we could not determine with any precision just how many were watching.

* There have been 4.9 million hits on the www.insidetherevolution.org website since it was launched, representing people in 162 countries. These don’t represent 4.9 million individual people, but rather tens of thousands coming to the web page and using the site extensively.

* A month later, we’re still getting 800 visitors a day to the site.

* More than 4,000 people from 57 countries have downloaded the podcast of the event since 9/11.

* More than 20,000 people have purchased a copy of the Inside The Revolution documentary film on DVD — many have told us they have shown it to the church congregations, as well as to family, friends, Bible studies and home fellowship groups

* By way of context, the original “Epicenter Conference” we held in Israel in April 2008 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem drew some 2,000 people.

* The first U.S.-based “Epicenter Conference” we held in San Diego in April 2009 drew more than 20,000 people, including 7,000 people who came to Cox Arena on the campus of San Diego State University.

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 20% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

>> FLASH: Gunman shoots two at synagogue in L.A.

On October 19th, I wrote a weblog entry entitled, “Turkey Turns On Israel.” That dynamic is now accelerating. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pronounced “Erdo’-wan”) is now in Tehran, embracing President Ahmadinejad, calling Iran’s tyrannical regime a friend, endorsing Iran’s nuclear program and international defiance, and continuing to denounce Israel. This is a nasty development in its own right. It also is consistent with biblical prophecy. Ezekiel 38-39 indicates that in the “last days” Iran and Turkey (“Persia” and “Gomer,” respectively) will form an alliance with each other, with Russia and a group of other nations hostile to Israel. Developing….

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• NEW:Daniel Pipes column — Turkey embraces its Islamic friends
• Ahmadinejad hails Erdogan’s nuclear support
• Iran’s Ahmadinejad praises Turk PM on Israel stance
• Ahmadinejad: ‘Zionist regime is a threat to all nations’
• Turkish PM: Iran is Our Friend
• Turkish PM in Iran to boost bilateral ties
• Turkey invests $4 billion in Iranian gas field
• Obama Declares H1N1 Flu ‘National Emergency’
• Europe H1N1 flu spreads, ‘millions’ infected in US
• Swine flu spreads in Europe as global toll nears 5,000
• Ynet News: Prof. Weiss at rightist event: Build third temple immediately; In wake of Muslim riots at Temple Mount, leading rabbis, rightists call on Israel ‘not to capitulate to Palestinian violence.’ Feiglin: Direct link between Jerusalem unrest, Goldstone Report
• FLASHBACK April 2009:  Feiglin: If I were PM, I’d rebuild the Temple
• FLASHBACK May 2009: The Cornerstone for the Third Temple Weighing 13 Tons Was Carried by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement on Her “Jerusalem Day” March, 27 Iyar 5769, 21 May 2009
• FLASHBACK July 2009: Survey: 64% want Temple rebuilt
• Katyusha rocket fired at northern Israel from Lebanon; Israeli military fires back
• Sec. Clinton heading to Israel Sunday

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 20% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

We just completed several days of Joshua Fund board meetings. I’ll have much to report soon. But one thing I wanted to let you know is that with the threat of a war with Iran so high, the board has authorized funding for two ambulances for Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medical service. Lord willing, we’ll be able raise the necessary funds and transfer them to MDA by the end of this year. The purchase of ambulances (similar to the one pictured) was not in our original 2009 budget. But we added this as part of our approach of “praying for peace, but preparing for war.” For more information, and to learn how you can financially contribute to Joshua Fund projects like this, please click here.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• New poll finds 57% of Americans support Israeli military strike against Iran to stop nuclear weapons development
• Gadhafi: Let the Palestinians develop nuclear weapons
• Police on high alert at disputed Jerusalem shrine
• Israeli columnist: Prepare for the next war
• Forbes columnist: Armageddon time — when it comes to Iran, the U.S. may be facing a cataclysm

At 6:25 local time on the morning of October 23, 1983, agents of the ayatollah used a suicide bomber to plow a truck filled with explosives into the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.

The attack resulted in “the largest non-nuclear explosion that had ever been detonated on the face of the Earth,” according to a U.S. federal court judge who found the Islamic Republic of Iran guilty of perpetrating the crime. Locked doors on a building nearly three hundred feet away were ripped off their hinges. All the trees in the surrounding area were stripped completely bare of their leaves. The windows in the control tower at Beirut’s international airport were blown out. And the four-story cement and steel Marine facility collapsed into fifteen feet of rubble, ash, and smoke.

When my wife and I got married in the summer of 1990 and settled in the Washington, D.C., area, we soon met Charlie and Lynn Derbyshire, a couple at church who had experienced the evil of the Iranian Revolution firsthand. Lynn lost her oldest brother—Marine Captain Vincent Smith—in the Beirut bombing. Charlie was still helping her heal from the loss when we met. But the horrors of 9/11 and the subsequent deaths of American and Israeli forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon in the years that followed ripped open those wounds afresh. Through Lynn and Charlie, my wife and I have gotten a personal and painful glimpse at the lasting emotional scars left by the jihadists.

When I set out to write this book, I wrestled with whether or not to even ask Lynn if I could share her story. In the end, however, I did ask. I felt it was important for others to understand the human impact of the Revolution and to realize that for the victims of terrorism, the trauma is in many ways as real today as it was so long ago.

Graciously, Lynn and Charlie agreed.

In October of that year, Lynn was living in New Mexico. Newly married, she and her husband had just come home from church on a beautiful Sunday morning when her neighbor ran to meet her. Tears were streaming down her neighbor’s face. She grabbed at Lynn’s arm as Lynn was getting out of the car. “You’ve gotta come in the house,” she said. “Something terrible has happened! You gotta come watch the news.”

“It was about ten in the morning,” Lynn recalled. “I kept saying, ‘Well, just tell me what’s happened—just tell me.’ We went into her house—and this was before they had 24/7 coverage of news events, so we had to wait through whatever the program was until the next time they broke in with their special report—and I kept saying to her, ‘Tell me what’s wrong; tell me!’ We were both crying, and I just couldn’t conceive of what was happening. So then when the news came on, I was obviously prepared that there was a huge tragedy, but I just didn’t . . . I just couldn’t think. And so when the news came on the television, it was almost like being physically hit. I kind of sat back in the chair—‘This can’t be happening, this can’t be true.’”

Network newscasters reported that suicide bombers had attacked the Marine barracks in Beirut as well as the barracks housing French peacekeepers. There were 241 Americans dead, 56 dead from the French barracks, and many more wounded.

Lynn rushed back home and called her parents, who were living in Washington, D.C., but they were not home. Nobody had cell phones back then, so she had no way of reaching them.

She then called Vince’s wife, also in the D.C. area, and found her parents already there, trying to comfort her and her young son. Lynn asked her father, who was an active duty colonel in the Marine Corps at the time, “Dad, don’t you know what’s happening? Can’t you tell us anything?”

“We just don’t know anything yet,” her father replied, noting that his colleagues were saying a massive search-and-rescue operation was under way because there were so many men still unaccounted for.

“That was a Sunday,” Lynn remembered, “and it was two and a half, almost three weeks later before they were able to identify Vince’s body. So it was just every day—going into my neighbor’s house to watch the television and calling my parents every day. My dad finally said, after about the fourth day, ‘Honey, I know it’s hard, but I promise I’ll call you if I find anything out. I’m not gonna leave you out. I promise I’ll call.’

“I was a schoolteacher, and I went to school and was trying to teach, and I just couldn’t even function. I would be writing on the blackboard and forget midsentence what I was writing. I would turn around and look at these little sixth graders, and I just kept leaving the room. But I couldn’t not go to work, because that’s even worse. So if you can just imagine . . . waiting—nineteen days—to find out whether someone you love is dead or alive. It was torture.”

“How did you finally get the news?” I asked her.

“My father called me on a Thursday morning. It was about 5:00 a.m., I think. And when the phone rang, I knew. I just knew. You know, you have a sixth sense about that stuff. I answered the phone, and he said, ‘It’s time to come home. They’ve identified Vince, and it’s time to come home to bury him.’

“That was a whirlwind in itself, trying to get from a tiny little town in central New Mexico back to Washington, D.C., and see to the funeral arrangements, and it was just surreal. They buried him in Quantico Cemetery. It was the first time I had been back together with most of my family since my wedding day. So to go from the joy of seeing your family at your wedding and then to be together at a funeral, it was just terrible.

“And I really couldn’t believe it. I spent a long time in that first of stage of grief, where you say, ‘This isn’t happening; this can’t be real; this isn’t me.’ Because I was accustomed to Vince being gone for a long time. He was seven years older than me. When I was eleven, he went away to the Naval Academy, and I was accustomed to not seeing him. He would be gone for long stretches, and then we would get letters and hear whatever was going on with him. Then he would be home for a few days, and then he’d be gone again for six months. So I just had this surreal feeling that, ‘He’s gonna come home. He’s gonna come home.’

“Of course it was a closed casket, so I had to talk myself into believing that he was in that box. I remember when we went to the funeral home the night before the funeral. They had the casket in a room and you could go in and kneel down and pray, and they gave each of us an opportunity to do that. Here’s this flag-draped casket and all these flowers, and there’s nothing there that was Vince. It couldn’t be—it just couldn’t be. I remember kneeling down and praying, ‘Lord, how could You do this? If You really are a loving God, how could You let this happen?’”

In time, U.S. authorities reconstructed the chain of events that led to the bombing.

They learned that after months of monitoring operations at the barracks housing the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, Hezbollah operatives had ambushed a truck that was headed to the compound to deliver fresh water. The operatives then quickly replaced that truck with one they had painted to look like the one Marine guards were expecting. This nineteen-ton vehicle, however, had been outfitted with some 2,500 pounds of high-tech explosives.

The driver, the U.S. later learned, was a devout jihadist, eager to give up his life to kill Americans and thus, he hoped, secure his place in paradise.

As the sun was just beginning to rise on a gorgeous autumn day in the Lebanese capital, “the driver drove past the Marine barracks” and “circled in the large parking lot behind the barracks.” He then pushed the accelerator to the floor, “crashed through the concertina wire barrier and a wall of sandbags, and entered the barracks.” The force of the explosion was equivalent to between 15,000 and 21,000 pounds of TNT.

At the time, of course, Lynn and her family knew almost none of the details. They were operating in the fog of war, amid rumors and scraps of information. Moreover, they were dealing with a kind of warfare that had never been used against Americans before.

“I’d never heard of suicide bombing,” Lynn recalled. “And up until Vince went there, I had never heard of Lebanon. I’m embarrassed to say I was one of the average Americans who doesn’t know anything about geography. We had to look it up on a map. I had never heard of terrorists, of course. I had heard of Muslims, but I’d never heard of this whole idea of radical Muslims and jihad and all of that sort of stuff. None of us had ever heard of that.”

Lynn was not alone; this was the first known suicide bombing by Muslims against American targets in history.

“Right after the bombing,” Lynn explained, “Hezbollah came forward and claimed credit for having done this, and in a very bragging, grandiose way: ‘We killed all these Americans! We’re gettin’ ’em! We’re gettin’ ’em where it counts, and we’re the ones; we did it!’ But by pretty early in 1984, it became clear that Hezbollah was doing this at the behest of the Iranian government.”

Sure enough, over the next few years, as the U.S. government continued to investigate the attack, it became increasingly clear that the entire operation had been set into motion not by Hezbollah alone but with the direct assistance of the Khomeini regime in Tehran. The mounting evidence was so compelling, the families of the slain Marines eventually decided to join together and file a wrongful death suit against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In so doing, they hoped to prove once and for all in a court of law that Iran was, in fact, responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. They also hoped to punish the regime in the only way they could, since neither the Reagan administration nor any U.S. administration that followed had punished anyone for the wanton murder of American Marines.

“I’m just a soccer mom,” Lynn demurred. “Really, I’m just trying to raise my children and keep my household running. I’m going to the grocery store and doing the laundry and those kind of things, so most of this about radical Islam I don’t really understand. It’s way above my pay grade. It wasn’t until we were actually at the trial and I was hearing the testimony they had gathered that I understood how cut-and-dried the case really was, how completely and thoroughly responsible the government of Iran was for the death of my brother and the other 240 Americans that were killed that day.”

Lynn was right. During the court case, which the families ultimately won, many facts came to light that proved beyond a doubt that Iran was behind the attack. Consider the following excerpts from the trial judge’s written opinion:

• “The post-revolutionary government in Iran . . . declared its commitment to spread the goals of the 1979 revolution to other nations. Towards that end, between 1983 and 1988, the government of Iran spent approximately $50 to $150 million financing terrorist organizations in the Near East. One of the nations to which the Iranian government directed its attention was the war-torn republic of Lebanon.”
• “Dr. Michael Ledeen, a consultant to the Department of Defense at the time of the Marine barracks bombing and an expert on U.S. foreign relations, testified at the trial that ‘Iran invented, created, funded, trained, and runs to this day Hezbollah, which is arguably the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization.’”
• “The fake water delivery truck . . . [was] driven by Ismalal Ascari, an Iranian.”
• “On October 25, 1983, the chief of naval intelligence notified Admiral [James A.] Lyons of an intercept of a message between Tehran and Damascus that had been made on or about September 26, 1983. . . . The message directed the Iranian ambassador to contact . . . the leader of the terrorist group . . . and to instruct him to have his group instigate attacks against the multinational coalition in Lebanon, and ‘to take a spectacular action against the United States Marines.’” (emphasis added)
• “Based on the evidence presented by expert witnesses at trial, the Court finds that it is beyond question that Hezbollah and its agents received massive material and technical support from the Iranian government.”….

When the trial was over and all the evidence had been examined and thoroughly reviewed, the Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, the U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, ruled that agents acting on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran “caused the deaths of over 241 peacekeeping servicemen at the Marine barracks” in a “willful and deliberate act of extrajudicial killing.” Moreover, Judge Lamberth concluded that Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security “are jointly and severally liable to the plaintiffs for compensatory and punitive damages.”

On September 7, 2007, after reviewing the merits of each individual member of the class action suit, Judge Lamberth ordered Iran to pay more than $2.6 billion to the nearly one thousand survivors and family members of those killed. “The cost of state-sponsored terrorism,” he said, “just went up.”

The families of the victims know that the chances of their ever actually receiving any of the settlement money are very low. And even victory cannot heal all the wounds.

“Twenty-four years later, the wound in my heart over Vincent’s death is still gaping wide,” Lynn shared with me as our conversation drew to a close. “Now why is that? It’s because the criminals are getting away with their crime. And it’s because they’re continuing to commit similar crimes and other people are suffering and dying at their hands.”

May we never forget the Americans Iran killed in Beirut in 1983. May we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, praying faithfully for the victims and their families and friends, as well as the criminals.

——————

This article is adapted from Joel C. Rosenberg’s New York Times best-selling non-fiction book, Inside The Revolution.

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 20% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

>> Meir Javedanfar: The Brain Behind Ahmadinejad

Excerpts from AP coverage: “Israeli forces stormed Jerusalem’s holiest shrine Sunday, firing stun grenades to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinian protesters in a fresh eruption of violence at the most volatile spot in the Holy Land. A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields closed in on the crowd, sending many protesters — overwhelmingly young men — running for cover into the black-domed Al-Aqsa mosque. The mosque is one part of the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Dozens of protesters remained holed up inside the mosque for several hours, occasionally opening shuttered doors to throw objects at police. The Israeli forces did not enter the building, and the protesters eventually left peacefully and the compound was closed, police said. There were no serious injuries. Israel’s national police chief, David Cohen, accused a small group of Muslim extremists of trying to foment violence — echoing a charge made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago. ‘The police will act with a strong hand against anyone who disrupts order on the Temple Mount and against those incite to riot,’ Cohen said….”

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Twin blasts kill 136 in Baghdad
• Afghanistan president says runoff must be held
• Turkish PM to visit Iran
• U.N. inspectors reach Iran’s new nuclear site
• Iran sidesteps deadline for UN-backed nuclear deal
• Khamenei blames U.S. for suicide bombings in Iran, vows to punish terrorists
  

>> Netanyahu interview in Newsweek on Iranian nuclear threat, the Goldstone report, and the peace process

>> Netanyahu heading to Washington in November

The U.S. and other Western powers seem convinced Iran is making a major concession. Iran’s leaders say they will agree to ship about 1.2 tons of enriched uranium to Russia and France to be reprocessed. It will then be sent back to Iran in a form that could be used as fuel for a reactor but couldn’t be turned into nuclear weapons.

I don’t buy it. Iran would still be enriching more uranium. Within 9 months to a year, experts say, they would again have enough enriched uranium to be able to build 1 to 2 nuclear bombs. What if they have more enriched uranium hidden away that we don’t know about?

A deal in the next few days would be hailed as a great Western victory, perhaps even a reason for President Obama to have actually won the Nobel Peace Prize. Iran would slip out of the sanctions noose. The Israelis would have absolutely no international support for a preemptive military strike, even if it felt one were still needed.

I will wait to read the fine print before rendering a final judgment. I continue to pray for peace, and hope there is a true way out of this crisis. But at this stage, I’m highly skeptical that the Iranian leadership has suddenly “seen the light” and given up its stated goal of annihilating the U.S. and Israel. I believe the regime in Tehran is craftily trying to buy time to complete its nuclear weapons program by forestalling crippling international economic sanctions, and/or an Israeli preemptive strike. Developing….

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• NEW: Washington Post: Iranian site prompts U.S. to rethink assessment; Tehran set to open Qom nuclear facility to inspectors amid concerns over its role
• New York Times: Iran Deal Would Slow Making of Nuclear Bombs
• Washington Post: Iranian officials accept draft deal on uranium transfer — Pact, which Tehran must approve, would buy U.S. more time
• Ynet: Israeli official: Bomb threat still alive; Senior officials in Jerusalem divided over draft agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, but agree that threat remains; objectors to deal say Tehran continues to secretly enrich uranium for military aims
• Haaretz: Draft nuclear deal is a victory for Iran
• Haaretz: Does Iran draft deal change game or shift players?
• Foreign Policy: The hidden costs of the nuke deal with Iran
• Disturbing new poll: Fifteen years after making peace with Israel, Jordanians hold nearly unanimously negative attitudes toward Israel and by a 2-1 margin support the use of rocket attacks against the Jewish state
• Indyk: Turkey ties could head for breakup
• Interior Ministry given 45 days to provide citizenship to man adopted by Catholics

>> Reuters: Javier Solana seems to suggest Israel should be member of the EU, is already more a part of the EU than candidate Croatia

>> New York Times: Iran Threatens to Back Out of Fuel Deal

UPDATED: On Friday night, October 30th, I will be addressing the Christian Embassy’s annual fellowship dinner in the Washington, D.C. area. The event is designed to introduce their ministry and to raise financial support to reach leaders in the nation’s capital.  Christian Embassy reaches out to leaders on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, in foreign embassies and to Presidential Appointees. I will be discussing Inside The Revolution, the rising threat of Radical Islam, the dramatic advances being made by the Revivalists, and the recent screening we had on Capitol Hill. During the evening,  you will also hear about what God is doing in our nation’s capital and how lives are being changed with the gospel through this dynamic ministry.  There is no cost for the dinner, but an opportunity for a financial investment will be provided.  For further information or to register, contact Danielle at 703-525-1770 or by email: danielle@cembassy.org.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Christopher Hitchens: Why Wait To Disarm Iran?There’s no possible advantage in waiting until Tehran has nukes
• AP: US and Israel stage major air defense exercise
• Karzai Agrees to Nov. 7 Runoff in Afghanistan
• Iranian Supreme National Security Council Advisor: ‘Circumstances May Arise Under Which Iran Will Require Uranium Enriched to 63%’
• Washington Post: Flow of terrorist recruits increasing; Westerners attending camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan despite successful U.S. strikes

Turkey is a beautiful, wonderful and fascinating country.

The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament either in Turkey (then “Asia Minor”), or to the churches located throughout that remarkable land. The Apostle John saw in Turkey the startling vision of the End Times that became the Book of Revelation. The country later became the seat of the Ottoman Islamic empire. Later it became a modern democracy, a NATO ally, a friend of Israel, and the original “Reformer” country. I have been there numerous times and shot part of the Inside The Revolution documentary film there last year.

But something is amiss. Just back from a family vacation abroad, I have come home to find the international news media filled with stories about escalating tensions between Turkey and Israel. Over the past 10 days or so:

• Turkey has canceled a NATO military exercise because Israel was invited to participate
• Turkey has aired a drama on state-run TV portraying an Israeli soldier walking up to a Palestinian child and barbarically shooting her point-blank
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Iran and Syria, including choosing to engage in military exercises with Syria instead of Israel
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Russia
  

These are troublesome developments on two levels.

First, they indicate that Turkey is not simply turning against Israel but doing so, in part, to curry favor with an emerging Russia-Iranian-Syrian alliance.

Second, these developments are consistent with Bible prophecies found in Ezekiel 38-39 which indicate that in the “last days” Turkey (identified in the prophecies as “Gomer” and part of “Beth Togarmah”) will join a Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel. While it remains too early to draw any conclusions on whether the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies will come to pass in our lifetime, much less soon, it is not to early to be concerned about the pivot Turkey is making away from Israel and toward her enemies, and ours.

Please pray for the leaders of Turkey to resist the temptation so many other world leaders are having to turn against Israel. Please pray, too, for the gospel to spread throughout all of Turkey and that many in that country find the amazing love and grace and forgiveness found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Finally, please pray for the leaders of Israel to have the wisdom to know how best to handle the current tensions with Turkey.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• AP: US chides Turkey for canceling NATO air exercises because Israel was participating
• Syria says to hold military exercises with Turkey
• Turkey Tightens Syrian-Iranian Axis after Snubbing Israel
• AP: Analysis — Turkey gets tough on Israel
• Turkey’s Erdogan slams Israel as ‘persecutor’
• NPR: Tensions Between Turkey And Israel Escalate
• Ynet News: Disengaging from Israel: While reconciling with past enemies, Turkey increasingly shunning Israel
• Ynet News: Strategic blow to Israel — for time being, Turkey is no longer a dependable strategic ally of Israel
  
• Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick: How Turkey was lost
• Haaretz: Israel rebukes Turkey over brutish TV portrayal of IDF
• AP: Italy, Russia, Turkey sign pipeline deal
• U.S., Russia agree to delay sanctions on Iran
• Suicide bomber kills 31 in attack on Iran Guards

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 35% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

To watch my address at Liberty University on Ezekiel 38-39 and the curious similarities between the current Russian-Iranian-Libyan-Sudanese alliance that is emerging and this 2,500 year old prophecy, please click here and scroll down to Sept 30th.

Note: Dead Heat won the 2009 Christian Retailers Choice Award for Fiction.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Russia set to boost military-technical ties with Iran
• Iran nuclear enrichment deal in works: Russia
• Russia has 5 arms deals with Libya
• Russia launches new Mideast arms push….in Libya: “Russia’s state arms exporter is launching a big drive at the Tripoli air show to sell combat jets, missiles and air-defense systems to Middle Eastern states, including the state-of-the-art S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile that Iran and Syria desperately want to acquire.”
• Moscow to host international conference on Sudan October 6-7
• Iran to ‘blow up the heart of Israel’ if attacked
• Libya v. Israel: “Libya on Tuesday requested a meeting of the Security Council to discuss a U.N. report that accused Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes during Israel’s offensive in Gaza, diplomats said.”
• Jordan’s King: Nuclear transparency applies to Israel as well
• IAEA passes resolution against Israel: “The IAEA General Conference (GC) was able on September 18, 2009 to pass a resolution that “calls upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards.” The resolution did not call on India and Pakistan, members of the same IAEA region and two countries that carried out underground nuclear tests, to accede to the NPT, and there was no resolution reprimanding Iran for its continuous non-adherence to the requests of the IAEA for information on its suspect nuclear program.”
• ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast: report

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 35% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

On Tuesday night, I was invited up to Capitol Hill for an “Inside The Revolution” event. Attending were 13 Members of Congress, several of their wives, several chiefs of staff, some Congressional staffers, the ambassador of an African country, a diplomat from an Asian country, several pastors, ministry leaders and lay people. In all there were about 60-70. We showed 30 minutes of excerpts from the Inside The Revolution documentary DVD. I spoke for about 15 minutes on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s End Times theology, and how it is driving Iranian foreign and military policy. Then I answered questions for about an hour. Excellent questions. Fascinating discussion. Wish I could have brought you all into the room. In 2 Kings 6:17, the Hebrew Prophet Elisha prays, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Please pray that the Lord opens the eyes of our government and religious leaders, and that they truly understand the threat Iran poses. Pray, too, that our leaders will have their opened to precisely how they can and should properly defend the United States and our interests, and to the critical importance of standing with Israel and blessing the Jewish people. Finally, please pray that our leaders will not only bless Israel, but will also be champions for the freedom and human rights of oppressed Muslims in the epicenter who suffer under such tyranny, and the growing threat of a major war.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Report: Global Muslim population hits 1.57 billion
• Time: CIA Knew About Iran’s Secret Nuclear Plant Long Before Disclosure
• CIA: Israel helped expose covert Iran nuclear facility
• WSJ: Intelligence Fiasco Footnote: The authors of the 2007 Iran NIE have some explaining to do
• Amb. Dore Gold: Waiting for the deadline on Iran – again
• Jerusalem Post: Since 1901, only 9 Muslims have one the Nobel Prize, compared to 171 Jewish winners
  

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 35% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

>> New poll finds 61% of Americans would support military action to stop Iran from getting the bomb

On October 6, 1973, Israel was hit by a massive and devastating surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. The warning signs that Israel’s enemies were gearing up to deal the Jewish State a death blow were there. Her leaders simply didn’t properly assess, interpret and respond to them. By God’s grace, Israel was saved from the brink of utter ruination. But it was close, and painful.

Thirty-six years later, Israel is once again in grave danger. By Iran’s nuclear threat, to be sure. But Israel is actually in danger of being blindsided by two new threats.

The first threat is the real and growing possibility that the United Nations will shift the nuclear spotlight away from Iran and on to Israel in an effort to force Jerusalem to disclose and dismantle its alleged nuclear weapons and join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel does not openly acknowledge having atomic weapons. But the U.N. Security Council could pass a resolution forcing Israel to allow international inspectors in. If Israel refused to comply, she could be subject to diplomatic isolation, crippling economic sanctions, and even international enforcement (that is, a coalition of nations ready to go to war over the issue, just as the U.S. led a coalition in 2003 to force Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction.)

This is a scenario I’ve been warning about for years, including in my 2005 political thriller, The Ezekiel Option. But this is no longer fiction. IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei publicly raised this as a serious possibility yesterday, saying, “Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses.” The Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens also has a must-read column in today’s paper explaining how this scenario could come to pass in the not-too-distant future. Keep in mind: President Obama is making global nuclear disarmament his top foreign policy priority. He chaired a U.N. Security Council meeting last week to push this agenda. It is increasingly conceivable that he will try to force Israel to “play by the same rules” as everyone else and disarm unilaterally, even though Israel has never threatened to “annihilate” a neighbor. As I imagine in The Ezekiel Option, such a resolution against Israel could be introduced into the U.N. by Russia. The coalition against Israel could be led by Russia and Iran. Should this happen, we could begin to see the prophecies of Ezekiel 38-39 come to pass in fairly short order. While it is too early to conclude that is what is happening now, it is not too early to intensify our prayers for the peace of Jerusalem, according to Psalm 122:6.

The second threat is the real and growing possibility that the world will unilaterally create and recognize a Palestinian State, not through negotiations with Israel but by fiat. World leaders have been trying to engineer a “comprehensive” final peace agreement for decades. The Palestinians rejected a generous final peace offer by then-Israeli PM Ehud Barak in 2000 at Camp David (too generous, in my view). Then, Yasser Arafat unleashed the “Second Intifada” and a horrific wave of suicide bombings throughout Israel. The Palestinians then rejected repeated peace offers by then-Israeli PM Ehud Olmert (also too generous). Then, Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortars at southern Israel until Operation Cast Lead crushed most of the Hamas activities in January of 2009.

Rather than be impatient with the Palestinian leadership, however, for consistently rejecting sweeping Israeli peace proposals, the world increasingly wants to force Israel to make deeper and deeper concessions. With his Cairo and U.N. General Assembly speeches, President Obama has taken the lead on this effort. He is demanding Israel return to its pre-1967 borders, divide Jerusalem and allow the Palestinians to have a state with contiguous borders (thus cutting Israel proper in two).

Now come a growing number of signs that world leaders are preparing to impose a final solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, perhaps based on Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad’s new two-year plan to create a viable Palestinian state. “During July, the EU’s Javier Solana lectured in London and said that if the peace process was going nowhere, the international community should consider recognizing a Palestinian state under a UN resolution even without Israel’s consent,” reports Dr. Dore Gold, the former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. “[Solana] called for a fixed deadline for future negotiations. The Fayyad Plan could prepare the groundwork for such international action by providing the Palestinians with the main legal preconditions for recognition: the exercise of effective governmental control, the capacity to engage in foreign relations, and a defined territory. The last criteria for statehood is the most problematic. According to Solana, after the UN Security Council proclaims the adoption of a two-state solution, it will also adopt further follow-up resolutions regarding the highly contentious issues of refugees, Jerusalem and borders. In short, the Solana plan is an imposed solution, using the UN Security Council as its main instrument, which will decide the issue of Israel’s future borders and those of the Palestinian state.”

• Amb. Dore Gold in the Jerusalem Post: The Quartet’s disturbing shift and America’s new direction
• Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs analysis: Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s Two-Year Path To Palestinian Statehood: Implications for the Palestinian Authority and Israel

These are dangerous developments. And let’s be clear: trying to force Israel to comply with such unfair and misguided initiatives won’t lead to peace. Rather, they will put millions of innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives in grave danger. May God have mercy on us all.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• ABC News: Is the U.S. Stepping Up Preparations for a Possible Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities?
• Obama Says US Making “Progress” Against Terrorists, Warns Extremists are “Still Plotting”
• Anger as Iran holds up IAEA inspectors’ visit: “Britain on Monday expressed irritation that the International Atomic Energy Agency was being forced to wait three weeks before being given access to Iran’s hitherto secret enrichment plant, amid fears that the delay could allow Tehran to cover up possible evidence of military links to its nuclear programme.”

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* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

>> IAEA’s ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast

>> 7,000 Christian pilgrims arrive in Israel to fulfill ancient prophesy

>> Joshua Fund accredited by national financial accountability organization

Excerpts from the New York Times front-page story on Iran having sufficient data to build the Bomb: “Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired ’sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable’ atom bomb. The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations. But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States. Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed. A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions. The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed….Most dramatically, the report says the agency ‘assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device’ based on highly enriched uranium. Weapons based on the principle of implosion are considered advanced models compared with the simple gun-type bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. They use a blast wave from a sphere of conventional explosives to compress a ball of bomb fuel into a supercritical mass, starting the atomic chain reaction and progressing to the fiery blast. Implosion designs, compact by nature, are considered necessary for making nuclear warheads small and powerful enough to fit atop a missile. The excerpts of the analysis also suggest the Iranians have done a wide array of research and testing to perfect nuclear arms, like making high-voltage detonators, firing test explosives and designing warheads.”

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Fmr. U.N. Amb. John Bolton: Iran’s Big Victory in Geneva — we are now even further from eliminating Tehran’s threat
• Russia FM: We will help Iran enrich uranium
• Tehran Times: 5+1 group didn’t ask Iran to suspend enrichment
  
• Washington Post: The Coming Failure on Iran
  
• Israel prepares for threat of tsunami: “Research shows that a powerful tsunami is likely to hit the area every 120 years. According to Dov Rosen, of the oceanographic institute, a powerful earthquake can be expected in Israel in the next 50 years, and there is a reasonable chance of a sizable tsunami during this period.”
• EU Observer: Ireland paves the way for Tony Blair (to be the first President of the European Union)
• Greek socialists win snap elections
  

* LEARN: The Inside The Revolution film on DVD is available for 35% off at Barnes & Noble

* LEARN: Sign up for Joel’s email alerts with geopolitical analysis on trends in Israel and the Middle East, Joshua Fund project updates and prayer requests

* PRAY: Join Joel’s “Epicenter Team” on Facebook

* GIVE: Would you like to help The Joshua Fund bless Israel and her neighbors with food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid, especially as we pray for peace and prepare for the growing possibility of a war with Iran? A gift of $50, $100, $250 or more would make an enormous difference, as would becoming a monthly financial partner. Learn more at www.joshuafund.net.

In the last days….

“there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven….There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21:11,25,26)

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” (Romans 8:22, KJV)

Please be praying for the millions in Asia tonight who are suffering a devastating week of typhoons, “super typhoons,” tsunamis and earthquakes.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• AFP: Philippines looks to God as super typhoon looms – “Millions of terrified Philippine flood survivors hunkered down Friday as a super typhoon approached, with officials pleading for God to save the disaster-struck Southeast Asian country from more devastation.”
• Typhoon Parma slams into Philippines
• 2nd typhoon lashes northern Philippines
• Samoa plans mass tsunami victim burial, 180 feared dead
• Indonesia Earthquake Death Toll Reaches 800
• 6.3 earthquake hits Taiwan
• AFP: Death tolls rise in disaster-struck Asia – “The death toll from a week of catastrophes in the Asia-Pacific rose to 1,680 Saturday as the region struggled to cope with a freak series of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.”