Has The Anti-Christ Arrived?
By Jon Christian Ryter (bio)
Other Articles by Jon Christian Ryter Has Antichrist quietly arrived in the Mideast, and is he posing as a friend of the Christian believers? According to Scripture, Antichrist will appear on the world scene as a man of peace. He will arrange a peace accord between the Arabs and the nation of Israel. He will be recognized as the man who brought peace to the world, and the Jews, at the urging of their own religious clerics, will view him as their “savior.”
Will he be the new king of Jordan, the new “president” of Syria, or the son of Saddam Hussein who is waiting in the wings for his father, who has cancer, to die? Meet the most likely candidate for Antichrist...
A stunned American people watched a real life tragedy unfold before their eyes on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 when Islamic terrorists directly linked to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden hijacked four 767 jet airliners. Two of those 757s were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center as the third, a few minutes later, was crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers in the fourth plane learned by cell phone conversations with loved ones who had watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center that airliners were being hijacked in order to use them as “weapons of mass destruction” to kill thousands of Americans. Knowing they were doomed to die, a handful of the 39 passengers on that flight decided to wrest control of the doomed plane from the hijackers even if it meant crashing the plane in the mountainous, unpopulated terrain in western Maryland. Unknown to the passengers of that doomed flight, as they planned their assault on the cockpit of the 757, the Department of Defense had already ordered USAF jet fighters to shoot the plane from the sky. It is unclear today if that plane went down in rural Maryland because the passengers brought it down or the USAF jet fighters assigned the task of shooting it down reached their target and completed their mission. Four 757s went down ton September 11 creating the worst terrorist act experienced anywhere in the world. One hundred eighty-nine people lost their lives in the Pentagon crash and somewhere between 3,400 and 6,500 people lost their lives in the Twin Towers crashes. (As I suggested in an earlier article, the death toll at the World Trade Center would be reduced until, I predicted, the numbers would fall to the 3,000 level. News reports now suggest that the final death toll in the Twin Towers might end up to be less than 3,400 due to ”initial double counts.”)
The Twin Towers and Pentagon tragedies led to George W. Bush’s declared War on Terrorism that brought the United States and England to Afghanistan in an joint effort to rid the world of the terrorists. Even as F-14s, F-111s, B-1 and B-52 bombers dropped thousands of pounds of explosives on Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan, everyone knew that the War on Terrorism would start, but not end, in Afghanistan. When the Taliban is crushed and bin Laden is killed or captured, the Allied forces that destroy the al Qaeda network will not go home—they will move on to the next terrorist stronghold, most likely in Yemen or Iraq. This has to bring a great deal of consternation to the Arab world since the Muslim nations that protect those who perpetuate terrorism either on a regional or global basis include most of the Islamic countries in the Mideast—including America’s closest allies in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (who have, themselves, been waging a terrorist war on Israel since 1948. Muslim extremists—both at home and abroad—who view America as the reason Israel has not been destroyed, began to focus their attention on the United States in the mid-1970s and continue to do so today.
This, of course, put the United States in something of a quandary when President George W. Bush initiated his War on Terrorism. We needed the political support of the same Muslim nations who secretly financed most of the terrorism spawned against Israel and, for that matter, against the United States for the past 30 years. Added to that, the Bush Administration sought support from the Muslim controlled United Nations which is dragging its heels to keep from participating in the establishment of a multi-ethnicentric, multicultural government in Afghanistan that could include non-Muslims. For Bush to succeed in his mission to actually “win” in Afghanistan, he needed to do what his father did during the Gulf War in 1991—he needed to actively involve the Arab States in the ground war against a Muslim enemy with whom they were theologically and politically aligned. Since the Koran (Qu’ran) forbids Muslims from joining forces with infidels to fight other Muslims, the military task and political reality before President Bush (both father and son) was virtually impossible from a theological perspective. Yet, both accomplished their objective. George H.W. Bush, the 41st President, received military support of the Saudi royal family. Sheik Hamaud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi, a leading Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa on King Fahd and other members of the royal family in 1991. To avoid execution of the fatwa, King Fahd pressured the first Bush Administration to end its Iraqi excursion before the coalition captured Saddam Hussein, prematurely ending the Gulf War (and using as an excuse that America was afraid that if they destroyed the Iraqi military too completely they would upset the balance of power in the Mideast and Iran would arise as a threat to the whole region.) With a new fatwa issued by Sheik Oqla against the Sauds this year, King Fahd and Crown Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz were unable to give George W. Bush, the 43rd President, the military support America needed. In fact, as the Sauds provided America with not much more than lip service support in the English-speaking media, they were condemning America in the Arabic newspapers and blaming the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks on Israel.
Help from a surprising quarter
As long as the war in Afghanistan was one in which the United States and Great Britain (the infidels) were fighting the “legitimate” Afghan government (the Taliban) and the al Qaeda terrorist network (its Shi’ite Islamic fundamentalist allies), the Muslim world would view the conflict not as a justified war against terrorism, but rather, as a Jihad—the promised Holy War between Allah’s chosen (the Muslim world) and the infidels (everyone else). What President George W. Bush desperately needed in order to win the public relations war in the Muslim world was one or two or more Muslim nations to join the American-English alliance by sending troops into Afghanistan with the understanding that these troops would spearhead the fighting against the Taliban and the al Qaeda network. Of course, since Osama bin Laden had declared his attack on America a Jihad, Islamic clerics throughout the Muslim world in the Mideast, Africa, Asia and the United States concurred. America’s attack on Afghanistan was not a war against terrorism, it was a war against Islam and the Muslims were justified in declaring a Jihad not only against the United States and England but against any nation that joined the Anglo-American alliance or even stood with them. Saudi Arabia and Egypt, America’s two strongest Arab allies in the Mideast condemned the terrorist attacks of September 11 in the American and European media, but afraid of the Muslim clerics at home, blamed America for its “unprovoked attack” on Afghanistan in the Muslim media. Fearful of assassination, the Sauds backed down. When Crown Prince Aziz presented a $10 million check to Rudy Guiliani at “ground zero” in New York, aides to the Prince distributed a press release to the media in which the Sauds blamed the World Trade Center tragedy on the Jews.
Because the Sauds would not lend support to the Bush Administration by allowing U.S. war planes to fly missions from Saudi bases, or by supplying Saudi troops or jet fighter-bombers to the war effort, or even in lending diplomatic efforts to help Bush recruit other Muslim nations to join the war against terrorism, George W. turned to what might appear to Americans in the United States as the most unlikely source for help: King Abdullah II of Jordan, the Hashemite monarch. Jordan is generally viewed by most Americans as militarily the weakest Arab nation in the Gulf. Jordan, a nation about the size of Austria or Portugal, is sandwiched between the most dangerous terrorist nations in the world: Iraq, Iran and Syria. While Jordan has a modern American-equipped army and air force, Jordan’s defense system is a dwarf compared to any of its neighbors. If attacked by Syria or Iraq, it is an almost dead certainty that Jordan would be completely overrun by its neighbor before the United States could launch an adequate military response. Yet, King Abdullah II, responding to George W. quietly loaning what most Americans would construe as Abdullah’s featherweight clout to the tough task of aligning military support in the Arab world. Yet, to those within the world of Islam, King Abdullah II was probably the mightiest Muslim advocate President George W. Bush could have enlisted. Even though Hashemite diplomats were unable to enlist military support from any of the Gulf States, the diminutive western educated King Abdullah proved to be a giant by aligning military support from Islamic Turkey, the seat of the old Ottoman Empire. In addition, the king has proved to be immune from retribution from the Muslim clerics that issued the fatwa on the Saudi royal family. The question is, why would the Muslim nations throughout the world listen so intently to the monarch of one of the weakest member states of the Arab League?
The Meek Muslim Messiah
On Monday, November 19, 2001 The Washington Times reported in a front page story that King Abdullah II of Jordon had embarked on a secret peace-building mission designed to elicit public guarantees from all of the Arab States that will obligate them to accept Israel as a legitimate nation-state in the Mideast, allowing the Jewish State to become fully and peacefully integrated in the economy of the region as an equal trading partner. In a radio talk show emanating from London, and during news briefings with European journalists that followed the program, Abdullah outlined a strategy that, if accepted by the Arab states and other Muslim nations, will constitute the Muslim world’s most dramatic shift towards peace with Israel—with Jordan functioning both as the peace broker and as the guarantor of the peace. Shocking most of the European journalists, King Abdullah’s position on the current Mideast crisis conflicts with the vitriolic views expressed by his closest ally in the Mideast, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who succeeded slain Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in 1981. Mubarak, who quietly fears the same type of fatwa that caused the death of his predecessor, publicly blames the Jews for the climate of hate in the Holy Land. Mubarak was one of Abdul Nassar’s lieutenants and was the head of the Egyptian army before becoming Sadat’s vice president. There was a fear when he succeeded Sadat that Mubarak would take Egypt back into the Soviet camp. Instead, he became a staunch supporter of the west. While every Arab leader in the Gulf blames Israel and not the Palestinians for the impasse, Abdullah insisted that the problem lies on both sides of the theological divide, with Jews and the Palestinians equally at fault. Abdullah told his radio audience in London that efforts to bring about a Palestinian state could not happen unless Israel receives the guarantees needed to assure its security. Public guarantees from each of the Arab Gulf States would obligate them to protect Israel from Islamic extremists who might be likely to perform terrorist acts against the Jews. Christian conservatives who have more than a cursory knowledge of premillennial Bible prophecy know that when Antichrist appears on the world scene [Rev. 13:1-10], he will initiate a peace accord with the Jews [Dan. 9:26-27], guaranteeing the security of the Jews for a period of seven years. While many of those same Christians believe that Antichrist must necessarily be a Jew for the Jews to accept him as their messiah (and others because of the description of the Harlot of Babylon [Rev. 17:1-14] have wrongly construed the Harlot to be the pope of Rome), Scripture clearly identifies Antichrist as a Muslim [Isa. 9:14-15, 30:31; Dan. 8:9-25, 11:21-25; Hosea 9:7-8, 13; Rev. 13:1-10]. The False Prophet, who directs the Jews to the foot of the throne of Antichrist, will be a Jew. He is scripturally described [Rev. 13:11-18] as the second beast, arising out of the Earth. Unlike the first beast which has 10 horns, the second beast has two. The horns of the second beast represent the Jewish tribes of Dan and Ephraim who led the Jews into idolatry as Israel settled the Promised Land at the end of the Egyptian captivity.
Could King Abdullah II be the Antichrist?
On March 26, 1979 President Jimmy Carter witnessed the signing of what became known as the Camp David Accord between Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin—a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Students of Bible prophecy alternately labeled first Begin and then Sadat as Antichrist and then first Begin and then Carter as the False Prophet. Needless to say, the Biblical pundits of the 1970s were wrong. Neither Sadat nor Begin were Antichrist, and neither Begin nor Carter proved to be the False Prophet. When the Camp David Accord was signed, Muslim clerics issued a fatwa on Sadat. When he was assassinated by his own security guard on October 3, 1981, many unlearned and misguided Christian prophecy buffs believed he would rise from the dead in three days and assume his role as Antichrist. He did not.
Clearly, at this moment, only God knows the identity of Antichrist. Suffice to say, not even the Muslim leader who will assume the trappings of Antichrist knows he has been selected for this ungodly role. In other words, there is not a man in the Mideast who has pledged his allegiance to Satan in exchange for power. Antichrist will be a devout Muslim; the False Prophet will be a devout Jew. Since Scripture describes Antichrist as a man of peace it is clear that none of the old generation of Muslim leaders fits the bill since all of them ascended to power through bloodshed. There are three “new generation” leaders—all economists—who fit the bill. First is King Abdullah II, the Hashemite king of Jordan; Bashar Assad, the newly anointed “president” of Syria; and the son of Saddam Hussein who is standing off in the wings waiting for the imminent death of his father from cancer. Scripture describes Antichrist as a small, meek-looking man. The prophet Isaiah wondered how such a diminutive, wimpish-looking man could have frightened the whole world. Of the three most likely candidates, only King Abdullah II has the politically-correct, certifiable credentials. He is likewise the only Muslim leader who possesses the right “bonafides” to avoid having an angry Muslim cleric issue a fatwa on him for his pro-Israeli views.
Unlike Saddam Hussein, who claims (but cannot prove) to be a direct ancestor of Saladin (and through Saladin to Nebuchadnezzar) simply because he was born in the same village where the Muslim conqueror of Europe was born, the Hashemite king has the most direct link to Mohammad the Prophet of Islam—even though the Saudi royal family also claims that distinction through one of Mohammad’s other wives. While Antichrist must have “first born” direct linkage to Mohammad (in order for the Muslims to accept his peace initiatives towards Israel), Antichrist must have one other thing. He must have direct ancestral linkage to Abraham through Esau and Ishmael. It is that tie that links Antichrist to God—a necessary ingredient for him to be linked to the creation of mankind and therefore tied to Satan’s efforts to thwart God’s plan from the beginning.
For that reason, the recording and certification of ancestral genealogies is as important to the Muslims as it is the Jews. In the Holy Bible, the Book of Numbers is the recording of the genealogy of the Jews by a census that was taken every seven years. In fact, Numbers begins with such a census. “Number the whole Israelite community...” In the text, the Hebrew word separ is used. Separ means census. In the King James Version of the Bible, the term “...number of their names...” is used in verses 1:2, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42. Verse 45 records taking the census by number. The Jews, like their Muslim counterparts, placed much store on ancestral lineage because to them, a man was judged not by who he was or who he was able to become through his own sweat equity, but rather, who his father was—and more important—who his father’s father was. While Saddam claims direct ancestral linkage to Saladin, it is a lineage that he knows—and most Muslim clerics know—would not withstand the scrutiny of an ancestral census. Antichrist will be Scripturally confirmed as the Beast when his ancestral tree is run after he assumes global power. That census is noted in Revelation 13:14. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and that number is six hundred three score and six.” In the Greek text, we see the word number is arithmos, which means “a specific number.” The “number” of the beast, 666, is not a general term. It is the specific census number of a specific person. Just as your social security number, or your new personal identifier that will appear on your personal National ID Card will specifically identify only you, 666—used as a census number—will specifically identify only Antichrist. That census must necessarily go through a handful of historic people who are symbolically used in prophecy to identify Antichrist, and that genealogy must end up establishing his direct lineage to Abraham. If Antichrist is not directly related to Abraham through Ishmael and Esau, the Arabian peninsula, which is the land given to Israel by God, can be claimed only by someone else. Prophetically, when Antichrist is established as the savior of the modern world, he will become so popular that artifax honoring him will be sold around the world. As his genealogy is run, the world will learn that among his ancestors was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid ruler who ascended to the Seleucid throne in 175 B.C. and conquered Egypt in 171 BCAntiochus IV, who is described by Daniel in Dan. 8:23-25, is the subject of 1 Macabees (which appears only in the Catholic version of the Holy Writ). In addition, the history of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, through whom Antichrist is viewed by the prophet Daniel, is adequately recorded in the Antiquities of the Jews. It would not surprise me too much to discover that this lineage included Sargon and Sennacherib the Assyrian King. The 666th direct, first-born descendant of Antichrist will prove either to be Abraham, the patriarch of both the Muslims and the Jews or Ishmael, his first born son.
The Genealogy of King Abdullah II, the Hashemite King
The Hashemite Kings have proudly displayed their pedigree for all the world to see and examine for the entire 20th century, and likely before. (Sample below, left, is the genealogy of the Hashemite kings found on King Abdullah II’s website.) None in the Arab world have disputed it. And, regardless of the pro-American views of King Abdullah II or his father, King al Hussein, no Muslims clerics have issued fatwas in their names. The reason is the direct link of the Hashemite dynasty to Mohammad. While the genealogy of Abdullah II goes farther back than shown here, this is a partial genealogy of the Hashemite kings: Abdullah II, al Hussein, Talal, Abdullah I, Ali, Muhammed (Emir of Mecca), Abdul Mu’een, Auon, Ra’i al-Hadala, Muhsin, Abdullah, al Hussein, Abdullah (Emir of Mecca), al-Hassan (Emir of Mecca), Muhammad Abu Numayy II (Emir of Mecca), Barakat II (Emir of Mecca), al Hassan (Emir of Mecca), ‘Ajlan (Emir of Mecca), Rumaytha (Emir of Mecca), Muhammad Abu Numayy I (Emir of Mecca), al-Hassan (Emir of Mecca), Ali, Qutadah (Emir of Mecca), Idris, Muta’in, Abd al-Karim, Issa, al-Hassein, Suleiman, Ali, Abdullah, Muhammad, Abdullah, Muhammad, Musa, Abdullah, al-Hassan al-Muthanna, al-Hassan, Fatima az-Zahra (the daughter of Muhammad the Prophet), Muhammad (the Prophet of Islam), Abdullah, Abd al-Mutalib, Hashem (the ancestor of the Hashemites), Abd Manaf, Qusai (King of Mecca). It is important to note that from Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad back, the genealogy assumed by the Hashemite kings was the genealogy of Muhammad’s wife, not Muhammad. Muhammad came from an impoverished background. His father, Abd Allah, although a Hashemite chieftan, died before his birth negating any possible claims to an inheritance by his son. His mother, Amina, died when he was 6 years old. Muhammad was raised by an uncle, but without any inheritance since whatever wealth was possessed by his father was assumed by his father’s brother. When Muhammad was in his early 20s he met and married a wealthy widow, Khadijah who financed his “discovery” of the Koran (Qu’ran) through visitations by the angel Gabriel on Mount Hira just outside Mecca.
Muhammad—who preached one god to a polytheistic culture—promoted himself as God’s only prophet (or Apostle—a word Muhammad used often to describe himself). Muhammad’s monotheistic views were antithetical to the pagan society in which he lived. As long as the local ruler, Abu Talib was living, Muhammad was protected. When Abu Talib died, Muhammad and a handful of his followers were driven from Mecca. Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina. Medina had an extensive Jewish community. Muhammad’s early converts were largely Jews or Palestinians whose ancestors were Jews left behind in Palestine during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. It would not be until Muhammad returned to Mecca with an army of Islamic converts and subdued the city that Arabs became converts to Islam. It is important for Christians throughout the world who believe that the Jews will not follow an Arab, believing him to be their Messiah, that around 630 AD Jews and Gentiles by the thousands did just that.
The American Peace Process
While Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton expended much effort trying to create a peace treaty in the Mideast, Clinton’s efforts were largely centered around Palestinian terrorist Yassar Arafat who is not recognized by any Arab leader (not even those like Saddam Hussein or Hafiz Assad of Syria before he died) as the head of any state. In point of fact, Arafat is not even recognized as the Palestinian “head of state” by most Palestinians. He is largely viewed as a Clinton stooge since Clinton legitimized Arafat in the eyes of the world community by acknowledging him as the “leader” of the Palestinian homeland movement. However, Arafat remains a regional character with a mongrel pedigree. In the eyes of the Sauds who can trace their own pedigree back at least 100 years, and in the eyes of King Abdullah II who can trace his ancestry back to 200 AD, if not earlier, Arafat is a merely a terrorist muscle man who holds power through terrorism and bloodshed—much like Saddam Hussein, Abdul Nassar of Egypt (in the 1950s), Hafiz Assad of Syria and Moammar Gadhafi of Libya. Their pedigrees all came from the ammo clip of a AK-47. They ascended to power by killing their predecessors, or by creating such a reign of terror that ascension to power was easy.
It is pretty much the same in Afghanistan. The leaders of the Northern Alliance, whom the United States chose to support because they were Muslims, are as bad as the Taliban. It was atrocities committed against the Pashtuns by the Northern Alliance that spawned the Taliban. Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are dangerous—and both of them hate the United States and despise the theological diversity this nation sanctions. We are, in the eyes of all Muslims (in the United States as well as abroad), the Great Satan.
The Northern Alliance is using the United States at this moment to win back their country. Once they have become sufficiently entrenched and have established themselves as the “government,” (the multicultural government rhetoric notwithstanding) they will resist efforts on the part of the United States and Pakistan to force them into a power-sharing arrangement with the Pashtuns and quite possibly the Taliban, creating a new diplomatic crisis that the Bush Administration will not be able to deal with and continue its War on Terrorism. That’s why the Bush people are offering the Northern Alliance a $10 billion foreign aid package to create a loya jirga (a grand tribal council) and share power with the southern tribes like the Pashtun, the Tajik, and even the Taliban. The former king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah, was from the Tajik tribe. He was deposed by the Northern Alliance which installed Burhanuddin Rabbani as the Afghan president. Rabbini was deposed when the Taliban overran Afghanistan. Neither side wants Afghanistan to become a democratic nation. Each side wants a theocracy that is ruled by them. The Muslim nations watching what is happening in Afghanistan are less concerned about the Taliban being overthrown than they are about seeing infidels on the ground in a Muslim nation. It is for that reason that King Abdullah II acted as George W. Bush’s secret emissary to the Islamic Turkish government that led to the decision of Turkey to place Muslim ground troops in the region—and it is the reason that Jordan itself has offered to send troops to Afghanistan as well. The Northern Alliance has already discouraged England from sending 6,000 British commandos and regular army troops into the region and has told the United States it does not want American marines on the ground, either. The Northern Alliance has tolerated American special ops on the ground only because they needed American bombs and guided missiles to soften up a well-entrenched, superior enemy. As the Northern Alliance become more entrenched in Kabul and around Afghanistan they will become more reactionary “Muslim” and will demand that the United States withdraw all ground troops from Afghan territory. If the new Afghanistan government is not a coalition government that Pakistan feels comfortable with, Pakistan will go on heightened military alert. Pakistan, you will recall, funded the creation of the Taliban to rid Afghanistan of the Northern Alliance several years ago. Pakistan is a nuclear power that will not hesitate to use its nuclear muscle against Afghanistan if it feels threatened. It is likely that whatever “legitimate” government is established in Afghanistan will seek out regional allies such as Turkey and Pakistan’s archenemy, India, to keep Pakistan in check since India is also a nuclear power. Instead of “cooling” off a regional terrorist hot spot, the United States has abetted in the creation of a new nuclear hot spot since both India and Pakistan has already indicated a willingness to use nuclear weapons against each other.
Why the timing is right now for peace in the Mideast
Theologically, the timing could not be better for the initial cursory introduction of Antichrist to the world. Why? Because the world will chose not to notice, and most Christians—if told—will not believe. Clearly, if the Christian community (which will be as spiritually blind as the unchurched on this issue) recognized Antichrist as Antichrist when he appears as the global savior of peace, they would all rededicate themselves to Christ, knowing that the end had arrived and the rapture of the church was about to occur. Instead, they will collectively admire the diminutive little man from the Mideast who solved the hottest political issue in the world—an issue so complex that not even the United Nations could solve it; an issue that has plagued the world since the recreation of the State of Israel in May, 1948.
As Palestinians and Israelis continue to kill each other in record numbers along the West Bank of the Jordan River as the Palestinian Liberation Front and Hamas seeks a Palestinian homeland within the State of Israel, the United States and the Muslim nations in the Mideast and around the world are facing a new quandary created by the World Trade Center tragedy. George W. Bush has made it clear not only to the G-20 industrial leaders of the world but to the Islamic nations in the Mideast, Africa, and the Asian subcontinent that the United States will wage its War on Terrorism until the last terrorist is dead—wherever that terrorist is found. And, if the nations in which those terrorists are found will not surrender the terrorist, those nations will feel the full wrath of the military might of the United States of America. Clearly the Saddam Husseins of the world are not happy that the sleeping giant was awakened on September 11 since each of them had enjoyed eight years of kicking the United States and triumphantly thumping their chests to show their neighbors they were not afraid of America when Bill Clinton was at the helm of the ship of state of America.
As much as the Muslim nations in the Mideast hate both the Jews and the infidels who support them, they are now faced with the question of whether or not they are going to escape the wrath of the angry giant who has pledged to destroy every terrorist cell in the world since every Muslim nation in the world has financially, if not morally, supported both the global and regional terrorist organizations who are dedicated to the destruction not only of Israel but the democracies of the West whom they believe have controlled the destinies of all of the nations of the world throughout the 20th century. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and most of all, Kuwait have opened their wallets to the Hezbollah, Hamas, the al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations around the world who have directed terrorist attacks against the United States and against American people around the world. None of the Muslim nations in the Mideast who profit by selling their oil (which is actually owned by American and British oil companies that are, themselves, owned by either Rothschild or Rockefeller interests) to America know at what point evidence will suddenly be uncovered by the American military, the NSA or the CIA which will conclusively prove that nation’s complicity with Osama bin Laden or some other terrorist in their aiding and/or abetting bin Laden in the planning or execution of the September 11 Tragedy that will bring them into the crosshairs of the American military. The Bush Administration has already tracked bin Laden funding through several Saudi “charities.” The Bush Administration knows that the Red Crescent (the Islamic version of the Red Cross) has dispersed more money to terrorist organizations like Hamas and al Qaeda than they have to health-related issues or disaster relief in Muslim nations. The unanswered question in the minds of many Mideast leaders is: does what they have done rise to the level requiring American retaliation? Are they on America’s “hit list?”
Iraq knows it is. Yemen knows it is. Iran knows it is. Somolia knows it is. The Sudan knows it is. Libya knows it is. However, since every Muslim nation in the world has financially supported the terrorists who killed Americans in Somolia, in Lebanon, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia, in Libya, in Egypt, in the Sudan and in western European nations where they were the unintended victims of terrorism, none of them—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt included—can be absolutely positive that they are immune from America’s wrath...if not militarily then economically.
Each of those nations now has an incentive to listen to the peace-building campaign of King Abdullah II. Abdullah has received assurances from George W. Bush that the United States will back his move, adding the military clout of America to put some “bite” behind Abdullah’s “bark.” The Abdullah Initiative will offer Israel, for the first time, collective guarantees from 22 Islamic nations stretching from the Mideast to Africa. In his declaration, Abdullah called for his fellow Arab leaders to “...recognize the world’s new realities after September 11...” and acknowledge that what has happened in America has made the Arab-Israeli conflict secondary to battling terrorism worldwide. The pan-Arab declaration would provide the underpinning for the “...integration and security of Israel into the [Mideast] region.”
The idea of integrating Israel into the Mideast economy as an equal trading partner has always been an anathema to most of the Arab States. Even Egypt, which was pressured by the United States to sign a peace accord with Israel in 1979—an act that caused the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981—has refused to promote trade or cultural exchanges between the two nations. The Israelis refer to the Camp David Accord as “the cold peace” (as opposed to the cold war). Every peace initiative that has been offered to Israel has been a proposal in which the Jews were promised peace in exchange for the land taken by Israel during the Six Day War in June, 1967 when Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan in six days. During that brief war, Israel took all of the West Bank—including Jerusalem—and a large portion of the Sinai Desert from Egypt as well as a large section of land from Syria. When the war concluded, Israel refused to give back any of the land it had taken from its Arab neighbors. Neither the United States nor the UN, which has been trying to force Israel to surrender land for peace, realizes that the land God gave to Israel was an inheritance [Numbers 34; Joshua 1:2; Ezekiel 47:13-23] given in perpetuity. The Jews have no authority on their own to surrender their land to anyone else. In fact, Scripture necessitates that if a Jew sells his land, he must sell it to another Jew—and, during the Year of Jubilee (every 50 years)—the land reverts back to the original family, thus maintaining the integrity of the tribal identity of those land owners.
It was because former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to engage in a land swap for peace with the Palestinians that the Clinton Administration decided to interfere with Israeli politics. At the urging of Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak retained the services of Clinton spinmeister James Carville to slander Netanyahu with Clintonesque spin, bringing about the downfall of the Lukid Party’s candidate in the general election. Barak, who had pledged to do the land swap for peace for Clinton, found himself at odds with the Jewish people who knew you can’t bargain with terrorists. Barak quickly lost favor, and his government collapsed.
Since Israel would much rather go to war with the Arabs than cede more land for empty promises of peace and security, the peace talks remain at an impasse. King Abdullah II seems to be the only one who is currently aware that all of the issues surrounding the security of Israel must be resolved before the issue of a Palestinian state can even be addressed. In a discussion with King Abdullah over the prospects of a Palestinian state on the West Bank, with East Jerusalem serving as a Palestinian capitol, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Abdullah that Israel will never disappear and, in his opinion, it remained to be seen if a Palestinian state would ever appear. Talking on British radio, Abdullah admitted that “...as an Arab, I don’t know whether or not there’ll be a Palestinian state.”
While it appears that King Abdullah II has taken on an impossible task, there are only two Muslim nations standing in the way of his accomplishing his objective: Iraq and Syria. Moammar Gadhafi, the king of terrorism in the 1980s, announced at a recent Arab Summit in Cairo that he joined King Abdullah in favoring a pan-Arab declaration such as the one promoted by Abdullah—providing any treaty with Israel contained a condition that would grant the Palestinians a capitol in East Jerusalem. Since both Iraq and Syria are high up on America’s list of nations who sponsor terrorism, both might well be on George W. Bush’s list of targets that will be struck before America’s War on Terrorism is over. If Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad are eliminated from the power equation—and Sunni moderates take control of the Persian theocracy in Iran—it is likely that King Abdullah’s plan to create a lasting peace in the Mideast will easily be accomplished. Already many of the Muslim heads of state have seen the handwriting on the wall and have publicly, in the international arena, moderated their stance out of fear of American retaliation. Privately, out of fear of their own clerics who control the fatwa, they are not quite so open in their support of the United States. In fact within their borders, America remains the Great Satan and the Jews remain a people that must be eradicated.
President George W. Bush is reluctant to publicly back King Abdullah’s grand play too loudly or too openly until he is assured the Hashemite king cannot fail. “You can’t play that card,” Bush told Abdullah, “if there’s a chance for failure. What happens if it fails? You are going to have to wait for years...It must be 99% clear...” His Christian upbringing notwithstanding, Bush does not seem to realize that God has already decreed that it would work. It is, after all, part of God’s master plan in the end times. The plan will succeed. It appears, at least today, that the emissary who will guarantee the peace and security of Israel—and fulfill Daniel’s prophecy—will be King Abdullah II of Jordan. But, we must wait and see if some other Mideast ruler rises to the occasion and assumes the lead role. However, none of the other leaders of the Mideast have Abdullah’s pedigree...and, in the Mideast, everything has to do with who your father’s father was. |
