Of Nations
by haRold Smith
Jerusalem, Israel
The Second Wave -
A tsunami is not a single wave. A tsunami is a wave train that may contain 5 to 20 waves altogether. The first waves are typically small, and subsequent waves become larger. This means if you don't get washed away by the first wave, you still need to stay away from the shore to escape the others. Once the waves end, there is then flooding, carnage, destruction and cleanup to deal with that remains a state of total devastation sometimes for years afterward.
The waters started receding in 2007 (see Economic Tsunami Warning click on highlighted verse to see scripture - a prediction of what was to come a year and a half before the 'meltdown' occurred - published on May 23, 2007) and as the year 2008 came to a close, this global economic tsunami we are now experiencing crashed upon us. The tide is now fully pulled out to sea again and, while pundits around the world are hopeful the corner has been turned, the bottom has been reached and all is soon to be well again, it is because they are only looking at the financial aspect of what is upon us now. The last half of 2009 and 2010 will likely see the subsequent waves of this massive global tsunami, building on the horizon for almost a year now, come crashing down on mankind with even more severe and destructive results than the first. Where and how that wave will appear will be a surprise to most.
Many are unaware that, in this year of 2009 alone, more than 100 of the largest banks in the world have collapsed. The FDIC said on Wednesday that the number of US banks on its "problem list" grew 21 percent in just the first quarter to 305 institutions -- the highest number since 1994. Some of those institutions will likely be nursed back to health, but others will join the ranks of the 36 U.S. banks so few have heard about that have failed so far this year. The number of seized banks has been consistently creeping upward, with 25 failed banks in all of 2008, and only 3 in 2007. (see FDIC Bank List). The amount of money required to seize and then guarantee their failed assets to attract buyers also grows exponentially.
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A PERSPECTIVE
one million seconds = eight days ago one billion seconds = thirty years ago one trillion seconds = 30,000 years B.C.
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The issue involving money, however, is merely a distraction from what is looming. The world is still in the early stages of this growing global economic crisis. There are many that are in a daze and struck with surreal disbelief - like a group of tourists wandering the beach in Thailand after the waters receded from the last great physical tsunami in South Asia, not knowing how to respond. This awe inspiring global event has never been seen before. As enormous as it appears, however, this is just the breathtaking precursor of what is to come. The weak economy will prove to simply be laying the groundwork as the catalyst for YHVH's Purpose on the globe in this time of times. Soon we will begin to see events appear that money won't be able to fix.
In a testimony before the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Wednesday, March 11, 2009 (see A WORLD TRANSFORMED: THE GREAT HOLLOWING OUT AND THE RISE OF NEW THREATS - The Security Consequences of the Current Global Economic Crisis), David Rothkopf, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out we have already seen political reactions in public demonstrations and other violent episodes in a diverse list of countries including France, Greece, China, Haiti, Latvia, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy, Ireland, Iceland and Lithuania as a direct result of the economic downturn in those countries. But these events are just the first rumblings of upsets that almost certainly will ultimately be far more serious and will have important national security consequences for the U.S. as well as other nations (now being played out in North Korea, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran) Further, the crisis may in the longer run produce lasting geopolitical shifts as power is concentrated in the hands of nations with available capital, drawn away from those who are net borrowers, and greater and greater constraints limit the options of nations who are likely to spend years seeking to work down the debts incurred during this time of severe global contraction.
This new reality was reflected in the fact that Director of U.S. National Intelligence Blair in his February 12, 2009 testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Intelligence Community�s Annual Threat Assessment cited the crisis as the primary driver of concerns in today�s world. As he clearly stated, �The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications.� In fact, during the past few months, as the crisis has brought down governments (Iceland) and threatened others (across Eastern Europe), it has also had more pernicious effects that are harder to see. Greatest of these is certainly its impact on the United States, reducing the resources available to this country as well as seemingly eating away at the political will that would be required if the U.S. were to play the active, broad-ranging internationally stabilizing role that has marked it's foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. Adding to this is the weakening of core alliances.
"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:3).
The true indicator to watch concerning where we are positioned in this time of the ages is Israel
(see "All Nations...").
That US President Barack Obama is distancing America from Israel is most recently seen as a result of the meeting that took place in the White House with Israel's Prime Minister
(see Jerusalem Post, May 21, 2009),
and the more recent statements he has made concerning settlements
(see UK Telegraph, May 28, 2009).
A more reserved relationship is forming between them, a top aide to late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Wednesday. "The State of Israel is losing its greatest asset in the White House - intimacy with the president," Rabin's bureau chief, Eitan Haber, told The Jerusalem Post. "The Obama administration is giving up the decades-old intimacy the White House had with the State of Israel."
Last week, a round of meetings in London with George Mitchell, Obama's envoy to the Middle East, stunned the Israeli delegates in attendance by the uncompromising U.S. stance and by statements from Mitchell and his staff that agreements reached with the Bush administration was now unacceptable. (see Haaretz). An Israeli official privy to the talks said that "the Americans took something that had been agreed on for many years and just stopped everything." The Israeli envoys said their demand for a total settlement freeze was not only unworkable, but would not receive High Court sanction. "What about the Tenet Report, which demanded that the Palestinians have to do their part to dismantle the terror infrastructure," said one Israeli official, referring to former CIA director George Tenet? "It's unfair, and there is no reciprocity shown toward the Palestinians." Tensions reportedly reached a peak when, speaking of the Gaza disengagement, the Israelis told their interlocutors, "We evacuated 8,000 settlers on our own initiative," to which Mitchell responded simply, "We've noted that here."
President Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting over the weekend the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official. "The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA," said Nimer Hamad, Abbas' senior political adviser. "Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest," Hamad said.
Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs' goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down -
- The Peel Commission, which proposed a two-state solution in 1937, showed the Arab leaders as being more intent on preventing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine than in achieving a state for themselves when they rejected the Peel plan out of hand.
- On Nov. 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly debated - and by a vote of 33-13 adopted - Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine on the basis of population. The Arab League vowed to block Jewish sovereignty by waging "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre" beginning the very next day. Israel won her war for independence.
- Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."
- At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking - a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and tens of billions of dollars in "compensation" for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel's history.
It is not coincidental that President Barack Obama is to deliver his upcoming Cairo speech signaling a desire to align the US to the Muslim world on June 4, the very day the Six Day War began in 1967 which resulted in Israel exerting her sovereignty over Jerusalem three days later on June 7 and, thus, fulfilled the times of the Gentiles spoken of by Yeshua in
Luke 21:24.
Obama's insistence on using this forum to announce to the world his support for removing the settlements shows his ignorance of what he is faced with. Where 8,000 were evacuated from the Gaza Strip in 2005, there are 300,000 Israeli residents in Judea and Samaria (the Biblical name for the West Bank) who are resolved - they will not be moved. No sooner did the army bulldozers plow under a few hilltop outposts (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's token response to Washington's pressure last week) then the settlers were back with renewed zeal, along with nails and concrete to re-build their smashed homes
(see Time, June 1).
Arabs regard all of Israel as an illegitimate settlement and placating their demands, as Obama is now poised to do, only further serves to put America in harm's way.
What is it about this small country that takes the brunt of the blame for whatever ails the world? People forget just how tiny Israel is - her narrow waistline is only nine miles between the Mediterranean and the border near Netanyah and North to South is only 300 miles. You can fit the entire land mass of Israel into the US State of Texas 27 times. These settlements aren't remote from Israel's heartland. Indeed, they're directly adjacent to its most crowded population centers - besides being the cradle of Jewish history. Jews are hardly foreign interlopers in their homeland. Large Jerusalem neighborhoods - some continuously Jewish from time immemorial - are categorized internationally as objectionable "settlements."
Maligning the settlements - with such alarming world unanimity - is the updated version of blaming Jews for everything wrong in the world as far back as the Black Plague of medieval Europe. Israel has been hated, designs for its destruction were blueprinted and terror was rampant before the first settlement was founded on land liberated in the Six Day War of self-defense. Had the Arab world not attempted to destroy Israel in 1967, the territories on which settlements eventually arose would not have come under Israel's control. Settlements are not the problem and removing them is not the solution. Israel foolishly dismantled 21 Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. Did peace blossom all over as a result? Precisely the reverse occurred. The razing of Israeli communities was regarded as terror's triumph, expediting the terrorist organization, Hamas', takeover in the Gaza. Emboldened by seeming success, Hamastan amassed formidable military arsenals and launched rocket attacks on Israeli civilians beginning the very next day after Israel removed it's presence from the Strip and is continuing to this day, despite the razing during the recent incursion.
Before, during and since the last engagement in the Gaza at the beginning of 2009, Israel has and currently provides 70% of the electricity, water, sewage, garbage and tax collection for the Gaza Strip. Why - because they are racists? No - because, at heart the Jews want to live in peace with those around her and continually offers her hand in friendship. In 2005, as Israel left the Gaza, she generously left behind a half a billion dollar (that's billion with a "B") yearly produce and floral export industry, leaving the hothouses and other livelihood-generating facilities intact as incentives for Gaza's population to opt for productive pursuits rather than murder and mayhem. Nevertheless, the bequeathed infrastructure was wrecked in violent frenzy and turned into terror bases within three days - so much for addressing Gaza's humanitarian plight. Once again the Arabs have demonstrated they want nothing to do with anything Jewish - even to their own detriment.
The settlements are not 'illegal' incursions. Most have been bought outright from the Arabs who owned the land. Of course, now that the Jews have caused the Land to prosper; building metropolitan cities like Tel-Aviv, founded on 12 acres of what was sand dunes when purchased from Bedouin Arabs at the turn of the 1900's - the Arabs want it. Granted, it was like purchasing Manhattan Island in New York from the Indians in America, but the Jews can't be faulted because the Arabs place so little value on the land when they have it in their possession.
If Isaiah 60 is read from a perspective of judgment on nations not being the hell-fire and brimstone image most conjure in their mind's eye but, rather, a consequence of choices emanating from a motivation of hatred, envy and jealousy in not wanting to partake of anything having to do with Israel, even if it would help their own interests - we see a prosperous Israel arising. Indeed, already verse 5 is being fulfilled with the discovery of the largest natural gas reserve in the Middle East (5 trillion cubic feet) just off the coast of Haifa in January 2009 and another subsequent discovery (500 billion cubic feet) off the coast of Hadera in March of 2009 (see www.zionoil.com). These are discoveries that will transform the face of the entire region - everyone will be affected or disaffected depending on the choices they make in regards to Israel.
Do you want to know how to respond to this global crisis? Get out of debt as quickly as possible and begin to bless Israel with what you have. The stage is being set for Israel's rise to global prominence (see A Modern Hanukah). Yeshua said when you begin to see these things happen, Rejoice! - for your redemption draws near (Luke 21:28-31). Part of our redemption comes from seizing the opportunity YHVH is placing before us to invest our resources in the Land. Scripture tells us over and over that whoever seeks to bless Israel will be blessed. Not by handing over what money we have to groups and corporations who would consume it upon themselves just to keep their enterprise afloat, not by injecting ourselves into the stir of the political - but, rather, real investment into the heart and soul of the people and economy of the Land of Israel. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem that it might reside upon you but, alongside praying - become involved. Not only are we privileged to be living in the time all the prophets of the Book longed to see and are coming to pass before our eyes, we also have the distinct privilege of becoming participants in the unfolding of it.
As a start, here are some places where you can become involved -
| "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him...And the King will answer and say to them, �Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." click Matthew 25:31-46 |