Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news, and messages by Steve Martin.
Israeli soldiers last week clashed with ISIS terrorists along the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights. Those same soldiers later reported, and provided evidence of, divine intervention.
Last Sunday, ISIS gunmen opened fire on a group of Israeli soldiers operating in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria. Israel Air Force aircraft quickly eliminated the threat. A day later, Israel bombed the local terrorist base of operations – a facility that had been surrendered by the UN.
Israel feared the incidents marked the beginning of a severe escalation in ISIS attacks against the Jewish state.
But then, God apparently stepped in.
As seen in the following video, shortly after the attacks described above, a literal pillar of cloud appeared, blinding the terrorists, but stopping just at the border and not entering Israel.
Just like the pillar of cloud that protected Israel during her Exodus from Egypt.
Federal police members carry their weapons as they attempt to break into the Old City during a battle against Islamic State militants in Mosul. (Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani)
Mosul Won't Solve the Real Problem—Enemies Still Surround Israel on All Sides
At 8,019 square miles, Israel is roughly the same size as New Jersey, America's fifth-smallest state. Think about how small that actually is. You can drive from one side of Israel to the other in as little as 90 minutes. And yet, there it sits, surrounded by geopolitical and ideological threats on all sides.
Hamas to the west of Israel in Gaza.
Hezbollah to the north of Israel in Lebanon.
ISIS to the east of Israel in Syria and Iraq
ISIS to the south of Israel in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Most recently, coalition forces are battling to retake Mosul after more than two years under the control of ISIS. With the terrorists now on the defensive, it's critically important that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past by assuming this means victory.
Let's recap a bit of recent Middle Eastern history to prove that it doesn't.
Osama Bin Laden, born in Pakistan, traveled to join the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the '80s. In the '90s, Bin Laden moved to Sudan, where he leveraged the weak infrastructure of the chaotic East African nation to establish the Al Qaeda network and eventually—after moving back to Afghanistan—launched the largest terrorist attack in American history before being killed in 2011.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born in Jordan, also traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. After spending a few years in a Jordanian prison, he returned to leverage the lawlessness of Afghanistan, where he started training jihadis. After Afghanistan was invaded by U.S. forces after 9/11, Zarqawi moved into the lawless region of northern Iraq, where he eventually became the mastermind behind the insurgency which threw Iraq into a bloody sectarian war and nearly toppled the nascent, U.S.-backed Iraqi government. Zarqawi was finally killed in 2006, and he remains the father of ISIS.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, born in Iraq, took over Zarqawi's old network in Iraq in 2010. This time, it was the chaos in Syria that would provide the jihadis a prime opportunity to regroup and launch their most ambitious plan to date: the creation of a geographical caliphate complete with Sharia law, schools, hospitals, revenue from oil and land. This was the creation of ISIS, a fearsome military presence that has been continually reinforced by foreign fighters flooding Syria and Iraq to wage jihad. Baghdadi is still at large.
These three men are merely representatives of a growing and evolving, existential threat to the very existence of Israel and her allies. And candidly, they only represent one branch of the ideological threat, namely Sunni radicals. Iran's Shiite regime funnels billions of dollars into Lebanon's Hezbollah (also Shiite) and to Hamas in Palestine.
When Mosul is liberated, it will certainly mark a victory for freedom-loving peoples everywhere as well as the citizens of that terrorized city. But let us not kid ourselves. The truth is, like a virus, radical Islamic terrorists will continue to infiltrate other chaotic and lawless nations to spawn their strain of hatred for Israel and the West all over again. Next, could it be Libya or Somalia? Maybe it will be a region like the northeast of Nigeria or Kenya?
You see, it's important to properly frame recent history so that we can look clear-eyed into the future, and this is what it reveals: If radical Islamic terrorism is the virus, then stability is the antibody.
And it's a critical moment. Slowly, Middle Eastern regimes that have quietly funded and encouraged jihad from the safety of their palaces and oil rich treasuries, have come to realize that they, too, are viewed as enemies and apostates by terrorists like ISIS. Should the opportunity present itself, jihadists will infiltrate whatever nation they can, killing innocent civilians and toppling regimes in order to establish their idea of a true caliphate--spreading instability and chaos with it.
But they are no match for stable governments, working in unison and sharing intelligence to disrupt terrorist networks and root out jihad in all its forms. This is exactly why Israel is the key to the Middle East's current crises. Israel possesses the single greatest surveillance gathering network in the region; boasts the strongest military might; enjoys the most robust economy; and is the region's only stable democracy. It's common knowledge that for all of these reasons, Israel is the best friend of the United States in the Middle East, but what's less understood—while they would never admit it—is that Israel is also the ad-hoc best friend of all its Arab neighbors that the terrorists would also aim to destroy from the inside out.
Israel may be surrounded by threats on all sides (literally), but so, too, are her neighboring nations surrounded themselves by jihadis. Some of them have already been infiltrated by them. When Mosul is reclaimed, the remnants of the virus of ISIS will scatter to the wind. Where they will ultimately end up, no one yet knows.
Let us hope and pray that we finally have consensus and the political will throughout the Middle East, to rip this barbaric and hellish virus up from its roots once and for all.
But, trust me, without Israel it would be worse—maybe even apocalyptic.
Dr. Michael D. Evansis a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author and head of several prominent international non-profit organizations in the U.S., Netherlands, and Israel, including the Friends of Zion Heritage Center and Museum in Jerusalem.
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JERUSALEM, Israel – Should war erupt on the northern border with Hezbollah or on the southern border with Hamas, Israel's Home Front Command is prepared to evacuate up to 250,000 civilians to safety.
The evacuation plan, called "Safe Distance," would rehouse civilians in the line of fire to hotels, schools or guest houses on kibbutzim.
"In places where we understand there is great danger to civilians…we will evacuate," Col. Itzik Bar with the Home Front Command told The Associated Press.
Bar said Hezbollah has honed its combat skills in Syria, fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces. "We want a meeting of army and Hezbollah forces and not civilians with Hezbollah forces," he said.
In the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets on northern Israel, while the IDF targeted military posts in southern Lebanon. A cross-border attack on an IDF base by a Hezbollah terror cell sparked the month-long war.
During Operation Protective Edge, the IDF's 51-day military incursion into the Gaza Strip during July and August 2014, thousands of Israelis living near the border left their homes.
Gaza-based jihadists fired more than 3,500 rockets at Israel, which included about 1,000 mortar shells and more than 60 long-range rockets capable of reaching major population centers, including Beersheva, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Iron Dome anti-missile batteries intercepted more than 600 rockets and missiles, a 90 percent success rate. With the recent addition of David's Sling, designed to intercept mid-range rockets, aircraft and cruise missies, and the Arrow 3 batteries for long-range missiles, Israel is better prepared than its ever been against rocket and missile attacks,
While Israel continues its preparations, both defensive and offensive, to meet any future confrontations, Hezbollah and Hamas say they've rebuilt their rocket arsenals.
Earlier this month, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said any future war with Hezbollah would send Lebanon "back to the Middle Ages."
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(Dallas, Texas) -- Yesterday, the horrific attack in London underscored yet again the threat radical Islamic terrorism poses to our allies. We mourn for those murdered, killed and traumatized, and we pray for the Lord to comfort and heal.
The attack on our British ally was also a stark reminder that such terror could strike inside the U.S. homeland without warning if our leaders do not aggressively improve defensive measures to protect the American people, and launch far more aggressive offensive measures to decisively defeat the Islamic State and other militant Islamist groups.
In this context, I was encouraged that yesterday the Trump-Pence administration was actually hosting a conference of foreign ministers from 68 countries, focused on how to improve cooperation not simply to fight ISIS but to win.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered an excellent address (read or watch here).
The State Department released a helpful fact sheet detailing the progress that has been made against ISIS so far.
The coalition released a statement on areas of agreement and focus for 2017.
Now it is time for President Trump to deliver a major address to the American people on how he views the war against the Islamic State and his vision for victory.
Mr. Trump, to his credit, is the first president in American history to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism," which he referred to in his Inaugural Address and his Joint Address to Congress. Neither Presidents George W. Bush nor Barack Obama chose to use this term.
Mr. Trump is absolutely right to shine a spotlight on the homicidal ideology that drives jihadists to wage war against us and our allies. But he must be careful not to assume that everyone understands what he means. The phrase, after all, is simply shorthand.
Now that he has captured people’s attention by using the term "radical Islamic terrorism," it is vitally important that he define it. As leader of the free world, he has an extraordinary platform to educate a national and global audience about the true nature and magnitude of the threat in more detail and with more precision. He should seize it.
He should explain to the nation that last year alone, 37 people were arrested in the U.S. for ISIS-related terrorist plots -- that's three a month. He should explain that ISIS has recruited jihadists from 120 nations, and have killed more than 1,200 people outside of Iraq and Syria. He should explain that as we take territory away from ISIS in the Mideast, thousands of trained and experienced foreign fighters are redeploying all over the world, to launch new and devastating attacks.
The President should explain the objectives of the global jihadist movement, and why they particularly seek to attack the American people. No American President has ever walked the public through this savage worldview. He should.
At the same time, the President needs to be clear that we are not at war with the religion of Islam, and that he is not talking about the vast majority of Muslims who, in fact, do not pose a threat at all.
A careful analysis of extensive polling in the Muslim world since 9/11by multiple research groups shows that upwards of 90 percent of Muslims worldwide are not radicals. However, it also reveals that between 7 and 10 percent of Muslims worldwide do support the violence of the Islamic State, suicide bombings against innocent civilians, and other acts of violence to accomplish their religious and political objectives. The good news is that the vast majority of Muslims are not a threat. But in a world of 1.6 billion Muslims, 10 percent represents upwards of 160 million people who support terrorism.
Fortunately, according to a new poll we recently commissioned, we found that the American people overwhelmingly rejects the idea that in the conflict with ISIS we are at war with the religion of Islam. Only 10 percent believe that. What's more, only about one-in-three Americans (36 percent) think our leaders should say we are at war with the forces of "violent extremism."
A plurality (45 percent) support the President in saying we are waging war against the forces of "radical Islam," but add that they want our leaders to be careful to explain that most Muslims are not our enemy. The President could do just that in a major address.
The release of these survey results comes as the White House is rightly reaching out to our Mideast allies. President Trump recently met with Jordan's King Abdullah II, and with the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince to discuss the war against ISIS. This week, he also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, after which he pledged to speed up U.S. support to Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State. Now, Mr. Trump has invited Egyptian President el-Sisi to make his first-ever visit to Washington in early April.
The President is wise to embrace both our Sunni and Shia Muslim allies and work closely with them. But he should not only seek their counsel on developing a better war strategy. He should also get their input on how to craft a much better strategic communications plan to define the nature of our enemy and explain to the public why the stakes are so high. Then he should address the American people.
At the moment, our survey found that Americans believe we are losing the war against ISIS, and nearly 70 percent fear catastrophic terrorist attacks by ISIS are coming to the homeland.
The President is showing impressive leadership in the fight against ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism. Now it's time to brief the American people on what this all means, and where we are going next.
FoxNews.com recently published a column of mine — “Are We Winning Or Losing The War Against ISIS?” — in which I examine the latest intelligence, and reveal some of the polling data. You can read the full column by clicking here.
We have published a detailed polling memo so you can see all the questions we asked, the results, the methodology, and many of the cross-tabs. You can read the polling memo by clicking here.
