Hell Unleashed

Preview of an upcoming Beyond Today Program

Satan in Council: Gustave Dore

My next Beyond Today television program will be entitled, “Hell Unleashed: The Spirit Behind the Hamas Attack”. We held a production meeting today and it passed muster. Taping is next week.

We’ll be saying something about the background to this war that no one else is saying. People continue to be repelled by revelations of the atocities committed on that day. Someone said recently “even Satan the Devil would not do the evil done that day”. I will share a few comments about that next post.

Here is an excerpt from the upcoming program. I mention a book, “A Peace to End All Peace”. The book is a few years old but I recommend it to anyone who would like good story telling how the diplomats at the end of World War I got the world into the mess called the modern Middle East.

Let me first say something about the political events that accompanies any significant event involving Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Palestinian people. The current chapter is more than a hundred years in the making.  

During World War I the British government, and later the League of Nations, approved a plan for the settlement of Jews in the land of Palestine, then a part of the old Ottoman Empire. After the war, Jewish immigration to their ancient homeland began in earnest. Thousands of Jews from Europe, Asia, America and other parts of the world settled and began to build a presence alongside the Arab population.  

After the World War II and the impact of six million Jews systematically murdered by the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, the pressure for a separate Jewish state in Palestine continued to mount. Finally, on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared. Recognizing the biblical connections of this event United States President Harry Truman was first in line to recognize the new state.  

Immediately the young nation was attacked by Jordan, Syria and Egypt in a bid to destroy the state. Israel held its ground. It survived.  

This formative event created the class of Palestinian peoples, those displaced by the war and forced in some cases to flee the land and take refuge in neighboring Arab states. Subsequent wars, such as the 1967 Six Day War, created more displaced peoples as the Jewish state expanded its borders. 

From these refugees, have come different terrorist groups whose sole purpose is to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, driving them into the sea, as they, and their supporters from around the world loudly chant in the protests that come. No one, no Arab state, no other world power or treaty arrangement has succeeded in solving this permanent class of refugees called the Palestinians. 

They have become pawns in the larger dreams of states like Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Iran. Powers whose aim has been to become the dominant power in the Middle East. No Arab leader has demonstrated the ability, nor the political will, to solve the part of the Middle East puzzle. For anyone who would come close it would be suicidal. To reach a lasting peace with Israel is not the goal of the Arab world. This is not popular to say but it is true. 

The political picture of the Middle East is long and complicated. After World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, world powers created the modern Middle East. Whole libraries of books have been written detailing the sad and convoluted consequences of this diplomatic folly. I think it is best summarized by the title of one book, “The Peace to End All Peace.” There has not been a lasting peace in the region to this day. 

The Biblical story containing the origins of this conflict, indicate the hatred and division is so deep as to be beyond human ability to solve.  

The present conflict started by this Hamas attack, is known to be backed by Iran. Iran is the largest supporter of terrorism in the Middle East. They fund and control Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran’s ruling Islamic clerics are very clear their goal is to drive Israel into the sea, removing their presence from the land. They are near to developing nuclear capability. Their intent to use whatever means to kill Jews is clearly stated. Both Hezbollah and Hamas say the same. Their relentless moves to arm, attack and vilify press those goals. It is the height of folly for western liberal minded leaders to think that reason and the perfectibility of human nature can alter these plans. History, experience, and again the Bible show this will not occur. More attacks, more atrocities, and continued escalation will occur.