Shalom!

Peace to you from the land of Israel.

Television screens are once again convulsed by images of violent Palestinian mobs burning tires and attacking Israeli police and army with submachine guns, rocks, grenades and RPGs. Israeli soldiers are shown responding with tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire, while attack helicopters and tanks await potential escalation. The images are compelling and distressing, and the world's media (like CNN and BBC) confidently present the analyses of their Middle East supposed experts who (not surprisingly) ascribe nearly all of the blame for the current mob violence to Israel.

How can believers far removed from this swirling vortex make sense of what is true and what is propaganda, what is tragic and what is evil? This letter is an attempt to help in this process.

Four main points are being consistently communicated by the world media throughout this crisis. Let's consider these claims:

CLAIM NUMBER ONE

1. "The riots are an understandable reaction to a flagrant Israeli provocation, the visit of Ariel Sharon (Israeli Likud party leader) to the Haram a-Sharif/Temple Mount on Thursday September 28. This was a desecration of a Moslem mosque/holy place."

Israeli politicians have visited this area many times, as has Sharon. These visits happen all the time. MKs (members of Knesset, Israel's parliament) have the legal right to go anywhere at any time with full legal protection and immunity. As well, Israeli Jews and non-Moslem tourists from all over the world visit this site daily in the hundreds of thousands. An Israeli police post is located on the northwestern corner of the compound, and armed Israeli soldiers and police regularly patrol the compound. The explosion which was triggered has nothing to do with non-Moslems or Israelis visiting the site, but everything to do with a strategic decision by the Palestinian Authority to use violence to achieve a new status quo in the so-called peace negotiations.

In point of fact, Sharon never entered the mosques, but toured the area outside of the mosques. This plaza is part of the area of Mount Moriah, where the Bible says (and archeology confirms) that Solomon's and Herod's Temple stood, where the Jewish Jesus came to teach and pray. This area is promised to the Jewish people as the heart of their biblical inheritance, and will be the focus of worldwide pilgrimage and devotion at the end of days (cf., Isa.2:1-3; 4:2-6; 56:3-8; 65:18-24; Jer.3:19; 31:4-14; Psa.102:21-22; Ezek.43:6-7; 47:9-12; Zech. 8:20-23; 14:20-21) . From the perspective of the Scriptures, Islam has long attempted to replace the Jewish people on what the Bible describes as 'ground zero', the very place where the Messiah of Israel will establish His glorious throne.

When the Islamic country of Jordan was in charge of the Temple Mount, Jews were not allowed up to visit the compound. The same was true under Islamic Turkish rule. It has always been the ardent and stated desire of the Moslem Waqf (Islamic council which oversees activities on the Temple Mount) to prevent Christians and Jews from having access to this area. They dream of the day when the Mount will have a status similar to Saudi Arabia (where no Jews are allowed to visit) and Mecca (where non-Moslems are forbidden from approaching). To be frank, the leaders of Islam in Jerusalem preach publicly about the day prophesied in the Koran when all Jews on the earth will be massacred by all faithful Moslems. This is the world view that continues to enflame many Islamic hearts in the Middle East, and the spiritual forces behind this world view which animate and activate the rioters.

CLAIM NUMBER TWO

2. "The riots were spontaneous, and Arafat has no control over these people. The riots are the result of Israeli violations of Islamic sensibilities."

Prior to Sharon's visit, on Wednesday Sept 27 two explosive devices were electronically detonated by Palestinian terrorists near Netzarim, a Jewish farming community in the Gaza Strip, mortally wounding David Biri a 19 year old Israeli army medic and Jerusalem resident. Armed Arabs then attacked the Israeli soldiers present with submachine guns. Israeli Army (IDF) officials were concerned that Palestinian Authority (PA) security officials were behind that attack.

On that same day Jibril Rajoub, presently Preventative Security Service chief for the PA and former commander of Force 17 (a PLO elite terrorist group formerly on the US terrorist watch list) threatened countrywide riots if Sharon visited the Temple Mount. "The visit is a provocation which will trigger bloodshed and confrontation . . . If Sharon tries to enter the Haram a-Sharif, the Moslems will stop him" said Rajoub. On the same day Marwan Barghouteh, a senior Fatah (PLO) leader said that should riots erupt and Palestinians get injured, the protests will spread to the West Bank and Gaza and turn violent.

During Sharon's visit on Thursday Sept 28, three Arab MKs present on the Mount led chants of "murderer, out!" against Sharon, stirring up Moslem bystanders. After Sharon left, Palestinians began throwing stones, bottles and chairs at police, who responded with tear gas. Soon after the visit, Arafat's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh stated, "Sharon's visit was an incitement to terror which can lead to religious confrontation." Arafat then called Sharon's visit "a dangerous process conducted by Sharon against Islamic sacred places." He called upon Arab and Moslem states to take action to protect the site. Faisal Husseini, senior PA official in charge of Jerusalem, said, "Sharon thought that this place belongs to the Israelis, but...(this) was clear proof to all the world that the Israelis have no sovereignty here". This was followed by a statement by the Moslem Brotherhood Movement's Central Committee of Moslem Scholars in the Islamic Action Front Party in Jordan, which stated, "This is an atrocious act which requires Moslem and Arab leaders to declare jihad to liberate ... the shrines in Jerusalem" and called for "shedding the blood of those Jews if they implement their outrageous crime and establish their alleged temple in the yards of the blessed Al-Aksa Mosque."

That same Thursday another roadside bomb was again detonated against an IDF jeep patrol in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday Sept 29 an early morning joint jeep patrol of Israeli and PA soldiers (part of the Oslo peace process security framework) sipped coffee together for 20 minutes in the Kalkiliya area before continuing on patrol. As the Israelis returned to their jeeps, one of the PA soldiers Nail Suliman walked over to the Israeli jeep, shouted "Allahu akbar!" (Allah is great) while emptying his gun into the heart of one of the soldiers, Yossi Tabaja, a 27-year old immigrant from Ethiopia, killing him and wounding the Israeli soldier sitting next to him. The PA soldier then escaped to the PA-controlled area, where he turned himself over to Jibril Rajoub's forces and was temporarily detained (pending a quick trial and soon release by the PA, as is the norm in these matters). PA forces immediately stated that IDF forces had provoked Suliman into murdering them.

A senior Fatah (PLO) leader has stated, "Fatah's position is clear, we will stop the riots when the Israelis withdraw". At another meeting with Israeli security officials, it is said that Jibril Rajoub said that he would stop the shooting if the Israelis apologized for the earlier deaths, but that the Israelis refused to apologize. A senior Israeli security source who participated in that meeting said, "This just shows that they had the power to control the situation."

The fact that Arafat's top official echelons are on record with prophesied warnings of coming riots and promising that they will not stop them, the atmosphere created by Islamic declarations of jihad, the cries of "death to the Jews" that occurred during these riots - all these clearly reveal that events have not spun out of control. On the contrary, these riots and the ensuing deaths of Palestinian rioters are a deliberate PA strategy, employed often in the past, which uses civilian casualties as a bargaining tool. The IDF, which has a longer history in dealing with Arafat than do most newsmen, are on record in their conclusion that Arafat has full control over these events. Guarded reference has been made in the Israeli media to interception of sigint (signal intelligence) where Arafat has been urging on riot leaders to attack Israeli forces.

CLAIM NUMBER THREE

3. "Israelis were the first to shoot, and they perpetrated a massacre of young children, ambulance drivers and young men. They did not use proper anti-riot control but shot to kill. As France's Chirac said, 'One does not respond to emotions with guns.'"

The first riots occurred Thursday Sept 28 on the Temple Mount after Ariel Sharon departed. Thirty Israeli policemen and four Palestinians were lightly wounded. One round of tear gas was fired by Israeli police at the Palestinian rioters.

On Friday Sept 29 just after 1 p.m. as Moslem worshippers began to exit the mosques on the Temple Mount, hundreds of Palestinian Moslems tried to overpower Israeli Border Patrol guards stationed near the Mugrabi Gate on the Temple Mount and began to throw stones over the retaining wall (approximately 25 feet high) down onto Jewish worshippers 120 feet below at the Western Wall. With over 22,000 Moslems on the Mount the situation was explosive. Large numbers of Moslems began to rush the Mugrabi Gate in order to attack Jewish worshippers below, stoning and wounding Jerusalem police chief Cmdr. Yair Yitzhaki in the process. At that point IDF Border Patrol reinforcements entered the Mount and began to disperse the rioters, first using rubber bullets and tear gas. Israeli Police Inspector-General Yehuda Wilk said that police mainly fired rubber-coated steel pellets, but that some police snipers also fired live rounds, targeting violent protesters whom they felt were endangering the lives of Israeli police officers. More than 100 Palestinians were wounded and four were killed. Over the weekend 58 Palestinian youths were also arrested by Israeli police in Jerusalem for stone throwing incidents and firebomb attacks. During the riot and also on Saturday, Moslem religious leaders called from the loudspeakers of the mosques for a jihad, a holy war against Israel.

During the past days of rioting 4 of the Israeli Magen David Adom (Red Star of David, equivalent to the American Red Cross) mobile intensive care units and 11 ambulances were shot at, damaged or destroyed by rioting Palestinians. During an intense firefight between Palestinians armed with machine guns (who were attacking the Netzarim Israeli outpost in the Gaza Strip, close to where the three roadside bombs were detonated against Israeli jeeps) and Israeli soldiers defending the post, a 12-year old boy, Mohammed Jamal Aldura, and his father were caught in the middle of a murderous crossfire. The boy was shot dead and his father was wounded. It is not clear by what bullets the boy was killed, nor does that fact matter for his father and family. Some bystanders said that Mohammed was participating in the stoning of the IDF outpost when his father came to drag him home before he got hurt. In any case, this tragedy of war was broadcast across the world as a French TV crew was filming in that direction during that moment. The clip was accompanied by PA officials who were certain that the bullets were Israeli and that the shooting had been deliberate. In fact, the corner where the boy and his father were hiding was close to the direct line of fire, but due to smoke and fire visibility was severely curtailed for both sides.

It is frivolous for a French leader like Chirac to suggest to the IDF that the machine gun attacks that they are facing are 'merely emotion', and that the IDF should stand down when faced by thousands of rioters with murder in their eyes, mouths and hands.

One Israeli official, when asked to comment on whether the Israelis deserved the rioting, since Sharon's visit was seen as provocative by the PA. "We say the following: There is freedom of access and worship on the Temple Mount (ed. for Moslems only), and Sharon's visit did not damage the Aksa Mosque in any form whatsoever. But say it was a provocative act, is this the way to respond? It's like the abusive husband who says he beat his wife because she burned the food!"

CLAIM NUMBER FOUR

4. "The peace can be restored when the Israelis withdraw from the Arab areas in question. Anything less will lead to continued violence."

This is getting to the heart of the matter. During the riots, Arafat and his negotiators released unofficial demands for stopping the riots. (How can one stop that which one has not started?...) These include Israeli forces surrendering all outposts which were being attacked and fired upon by Palestinian forces; an official Israeli apology for having responded to mob violence and shooting with tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.; total removal of all Israeli forces from the Temple Mount.

What we have here is pure Machiavelli, who once stated that politics is simply making war by other means. In Arafat's case, he views the peace process as a political way to get what he wants and, if that fails, he abandons the olive branch to pick up the machine gun.

Please pray for Israel's leaders, that the deceiving and seducing mirage of peace falsely extended by the PA will be decisively blown away, and that God-given wisdom, discernment and courage will strengthen and inform their decisions. Pray for the salvation and safety of the soldiers, for wisdom and discernment for their commanders, and for salvation for the many Palestinians who are being led along a path of destruction and perdition by their evil leaders.

"WORST CIVIL DISTURBANCES SINCE 1948

How have the events of the past few days affected most Israelis? Most are in shock. The Jerusalem Post has as its headlines today (Tuesday Oct 3) 'Worst civil disturbances since 1948'. Israelis are concerned about three separate issues. First, the return to mob violence accompanied by PA machine guns is not what was the hoped for result of the Oslo peace process. If the PA decides to use weapons against Israeli troops even occasionally, most Israelis would conclude that the peace process is dead and buried, and that a return to armed conflict is unavoidable. Second, the participation by some Israeli Arabs in attacks and riots against Israel's police is considered seditious, as these Arabs are citizens of Israel. The potential effect of a growing fifth column is a red line that Israelis would prefer not to consider, for that would put the majority of Israel's Arab citizens (over a million Arabs are Israeli citizens) under the shadow of treasonous suspicion. Third, most Israelis are too tired to imagine living under continued threat from an openly hostile PA. Most Israelis had truly hoped that peace was but a signature away, and that dreams of calm and prosperity were at hand. There is a great deal of agony of soul as most Israelis realize that 'it ain't so' and that this mild earthquake of riots may be the harbinger of blacker days ahead.

HOW SHOULD BELIEVERS RESPOND?

How are praying believers to respond? How can we intercede for this highly explosive situation? First on the biblical priority is to pray for Israel's salvation. Rom.11:15 says that Israel's salvation will transform the Middle East and bring life from the dead to all the peoples of the world. God has purposed to bring life to this people; the enemy has purposed to bring death. Pray that God will bring resurrection life out of death, salvation out of destruction, and mercy out of judgment. Pray for God to open the eyes of His people to their crucified Messiah, and that He would raise up the mighty Israeli army prophesied in Ezek 37:10.

Pray for whatever peace can be preserved, be it even a temporary one, which is based on clear-eyed discernment and courage on the part of Israeli leaders (2 Tim.2:1-4).

GOD'S PURPOSES FOR ISRAEL

Remember that God's purposes for Israel will triumph, that His plans for their good, their welfare and their future will come to pass (Jer.29:10), and that interceding for Israel's salvation, her entering into God's magnificent purposes, her call to be a light to the nations (Isa.49:6-7; Acts 13: 46-47) - all are being opposed by the enemy. Do not believe the enemy's lies when he suggests that Israel is "motivated by pure, unadulterated evil." Instead, stand in the gap and pray for a beleaguered people whose salvation is the key to world revival.

Tomorrow, God willing, we shall send out another e-mail which will update you on the recording project! In the meantime, much love to you!

Avner for Rachel and all the kids!