This next section of Zechariah, chapter 9-14, opens a whole new world of prophetic study. The writings are so unique that many scholars ascribe these oracles and prophecies to the Prophet Jeremiah. There is much known about the role of Zechariah with the exiles returning from the land of Babylon. Most students of the Bible are not aware that Zechariah was also an influential person in the Temple of Solomon before the destruction of that temple seventy years before the rededication of the Temple of Zerubbabel. Zechariah’s personal acquaintance with Jeremiah and his role in the religious underground forces that hid the treasures of Solomon and David is documented in the articles, Jeremiah and the five guardians of the Temple Treasures of Solomon.

The first eight chapters of Zechariah can be described as a literal description of the developing infrastructure that is occurring in the Land of Israel as the Lord of hosts is preparing a people and a land to be the center of His future kingdom on earth. This will be the time when the Sefirot of the World of the Divine will implant itself again on this earth. At that time the Shekinah presence of the Lord of hosts will shine forth again as the Glory of the Lord.

Throughout this commentary, the interpretation of chapters nine through fourteen will be read and interpreted literally as an ongoing historical sequential event as the fledgling Nation of Israel in 1948 matures and develops into a Greater Israel, a power to strong that all the nations of the world will soon be forced to deal with in a military confrontation at the Plains of Megiddo and then, the messiah (Maschiach) will return.

The Oracle of God as the War on Terror

Against the Lebanese and Syrian Terrorists

Zechariah 9:1 – An oracle: the word of the Lord (the burden of the word of Hashem)

He has come to the land of Hadrach (Modern Lebanon)

And established himself in Damascus: (Syria)

For the capital city of Aram (Damascus) is the Lord’s as are all the tribes of Israel.

Transliteration by Maggid ben Yoseif from the Hebrew Text - “The Burden of the Word of Hashem in the land of Hadrach (modern Lebanon),

And Damascus (Syria) the rest thereof; (Lebanon ‘rests’ within the political boundaries of Syria);

When the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel,

Shall be toward the Lord.

It was September, 2000, one year before “911” when the BibleSearchers, just finishing eighteen months in the Book of Revelation, interpreting it as a literal end times prophecy, that we opened the Book of Zechariah. The symbiotic relationship between Zechariah and Revelation became more obvious especially with the since it appeared the meaning of the four horsemen of Revelation was interwoven with the four horses and chariots in the Book of Zechariah.

Our first impression of this text was “This is a time when the ‘eyes of man’, like ‘all the tribes of Israel (the lost tribes) will begin to look towards the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This will be a time when the non-Jews, the gentiles will begin to look back towards the people of Judah, their God HaShem, the Torah and the land of Israel.”

Our text continued, “HaShem (God) is now speaking in an oracle. This is the direct ‘Word of the Lord’. The Hebrew for this phrase occurs only two other times in the Old Testament (Zech 12:1, and Mal. 1:1) The power of import in this oracle is now focused on the End of Times and directed to the lands surrounding the Land of Israel to the north. While the eyes of the world and all the tribes of Israel are on the Lord, which can also be translated, the eyes of the Lord are upon all men and the tribes of Israel, the Lord will reign judgment upon these lands. Judgments are usually given by human agents, except when God is seeking to protect and shield his own remnant. Hadrach or Hatarikka, which is north of Hamath on the Orontes River and Damascus, the largest and leading city state in Aramea, now the country of Syria, will now feel the burden or the judgments of the Lord.”

In the fall of 2000, we could only see through a dusky glass, as Paul says, “a glass darkly”. Then came the mind-shattering events of September 11. 2001. The two icons of America and the oppressive forces of the modern military and economic world order sustained catastrophic damage. Three modern jet airplanes, serving as fuel laden human missiles collapsed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and sustained massive damage to the world headquarters of the United States military machine at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. At this time, the eyes of all the world were opened to the Lord of hosts. Prophetic interpretation and as some suggest prophetic speculation could now turn a new chapter into the potential understanding of the events at the End of Times.

In the last fifty years, very few times have the ‘eyes of men’ and ‘all the tribes of Israel’, which include the scattered tribes across the face of the earth have been turned towards the Lord. After the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., there began a revival around the world. Churches, synagogues and mosques were packed with worshippers. Prayer services and vigils dotted the landscape as well as millions of home study groups began to sprout up across the neighborhoods of America. Our home study group, now working in its second year, became partners with at least three other groups in our neighborhood alone. All eyes were focused on the Middle East.

Under the banner of righteous indignation and moral revenge, a coalition of world governments, under the banner of the United States, sped to the Middle East to make war on terrorism. Ex-Saudi terror master Osama bin Laden was living in Afghanistan under the blessings of the Taliban regime. Bin Laden as the prime terrorist suspect was holed up in the Uruzga Mountains north of Kandahar and south of Hindu Kush, outside the reaches of western intelligence agencies.

On the defensive, bin Laden and his senior commando chiefs were preparing the next offensive against principal targets in the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, Egypt and Israel, the chief which is called Satan, the United States. Now almost a thousands years after the crusades of the medieval European countries to take Jerusalem away from the infidel, the Moslem Turks, we now saw the reincarnation of the 11^th century, Saladin, this time an Arabian, not a Seljuk Turk building an army around a small group of adherents and an international pool of reservists and with a dozen or more runners that could activated an international war in several countries by activating local couriers running in summons from towns and villages. With the simplicity of using small knives as weapons, the modern Saladin, bin Laden, was able to use commando sympathizers to commander three Boeing jets loaded with fuel for trans-continental flights and utilize them as missiles at the foremost icons of modern economic powers, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon of the United States.

The Oracle of Terror against the Palestinians,

the Lebanese and the Syrians.

What was this oracle about? It puzzled the BibleSearchers for months during the early months of 2001. It appeared to be earth shattering as in that all the inhabitants of the world would be drawn into or focused upon this event. Was it to be done by human agents acting under the direct Will of the Almighty? Would it be a direct Act of God, such as a major earthquake or tsunamis that would destroy and annihilate whole populations within these regions? The import was staggering for it appeared to be the opening scene into the final Drama of the Ages before the coming of Jesus.

Analyzing the entire Book of Zechariah, chapter one through eight were stage setting chapters. They could be interpreted as linear sequence events in time, or like the Book of Revelation, appear to be setting the stage of many various facets that would unfold during this final era in human history. But chapter nine through fourteen take on a new persona. The styling is different, the intent appears to be different. These chapters appear to have linear purposeful sequence. Some biblical scholars suggest that Zechariah did not write these chapters, but were written earlier by the prophet Jeremiah, whom Zechariah could have known personally. In any way, these chapters appeared to give a sequence of events that could occur during this final Drama of the Ages. Are we reading God’s revealed prophetic outline for our future?

This present chapter in Zechariah nine appears to be spelling out divine judgment or the wrath of God that will be rained down upon the nations surrounding or are ‘round about’ Jerusalem. This includes Lebanon, including Tyre and Sidon, Greater Syria, and the Palestinian controlled areas of Gaza and the Gaza Strip. In the Biblical times, these same peoples were opponents of Israel and Judah. David and Solomon’s military strength had to subdue these regions before peace could reign in the Land of Israel. Lebanon and Syria came under the long arm of the military might of David and Solomon, yet Gaza and the surrounding, though never subdued, eventually became peaceful elements to the United Monarchy of Israel. In the days of Zechariah, they were not a threatening force, only the antagonists within Samaria or the present day Shomron known as the West Bank were violently opposed to Zerubbabel’s rebuilding the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem in the days of Zechariah, the priest in the temple.

In chapter twelve, the same Lord of hosts identifies Himself with the unrivaled credential as the all-knowing Creator God and the Maker of the Spirit of man, and prophecies that Jerusalem will become as a “cup that causes reeling to all the people around”. When these nations finally surround Jerusalem in the final battle at the end, true Acts of God in cosmic or inter-dimensional events will occur. All the nations participating at that time will have to drink of the chalice of the Almighty, which will cause them to stagger like a drunken man.

Some scholars suggest that this chapter is a reference to the invasion and siege by the Romans in 68-70 A.D, as prophetically envisioned by Zechariah five centuries prior. That event, as well as future wars that will surround Jerusalem, God-Magog battle against Jerusalem, the invasion of the King of the North and the final Battle of Armageddon, these catastrophic events appears to be localized to Lebanon, the coastal cities of the Gaza region plus Tyre and Sidon and the region of Damascus and Syria. To suggest that these passages were fulfilled in the time of Rome misses the fact that Rome was not a nation that was about or surrounding Jerusalem. Also Rome did not stagger like a drunken man, but literally vanquished the city of Jerusalem, tore the temple down to bedrock and left the only symbol of ancient Jerusalem intact, the former Roman fortress of Antonia on what is now the Temple Mount. We have to conclude that there is no historical event that matches the events described in Zechariah nine and ten. This is not a final drama but appears to be a prelude to open up all the land of the entire inheritance of all the tribes of the Children of Israel initially given by God under the direction of Moses and Joshua.

And then, 9-11 occurred. Then America went into a paradigm shift as our secure and safe world under the nuclear umbrella of the formidable military might of the U.S. Armed Forces suddenly met an enemy as slippery and slimy as a salamander and as deadly as a viper. What was more profound, when the ‘enemy’ raised his ugly head, it was filled with venom and hatred against every institution that America and the western world held dear and sacred. Our culture was their enemy, our religious institutions were their enemies, our democracy was their enemy, and every economic institution in America was their enemy. Satan was not an other-dimensional force of evil, Satan was America. Terror took on a new meaning. In was now personal and real. What was more ominous, Americans did not know whether it lived or was harbored in the homes of their next door neighbors.

Terror? Theologians preaching on prophecy for decades have expounded on potential scenarios wrapping up the End of Days. None to my knowledge imagined a War against Terror, proclaimed by America to be a righteous act, to actually be the cutting wedge to bring our world to a One World Order. Isn’t it amazing how Tribulation may be brought into the End of Times on the coattails of a Christian moral crusade against “Evil” The White Horse of the First Seal may be riding by and its era may be over, inciting the beginning of Tribulation by an assault against the dominions of Satan.

The Lord of hosts lays claim to Lebanon and Syria

Let us look at this text again. The overwhelming meaning is that the Lord of hosts is laying claim to the regions of Lebanon and Damascus nestled below the Mountain of Herman in the present country of Syria. I thought Israel was the land in which the Lord of hosts claimed to be His own. Yet in the King James, it calls, “Damascus, its resting place”. Whose resting place will it be? It states it will be the resting place of the Lord of hosts. Other translations call it the “Burden of the Lord” or the “Word of the Lord”. Is God enlarging His region of influence? Is He setting His boundaries of what He will eventually call His Holy Land? This is an idea we must take very seriously.

Since the beginning of the War on Terror in the fall of 2001, the American diplomats have been putting considerable pressure on Syria, who is also playing host as the current president of the UN Security Council to turn against the infrastructure of terrorist organizations that use Syria as their main operational bases. President Bashar Assad was handed a blunt ultimatum that he close down the headquarter offices of the extremist Palestinian terrorist organizations operating under the guidance of the Syrian military intelligence services. The channel of intelligence command from the President to the terrorists groups was pinpointed to be Syria’s deputy chief of staff, General Ali Aslan. Eleven of these terrorist organizations call Syria home. These include: the Islamic Hamas and Jihad Islami, are the foremost planters of human suicide bomb against Israeli civilians, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine under the leadership of George Habash, Naif Hawatmeh’s Democratic Popular Front, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called the General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril and the PKP, the noted violent Kurdish Democratic Party. This Palestinian terror labyrinth weaves itself like an amoeba throughout the entire area of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. Refusal to comply could bring the full brunt of military force against the Syrian government.

On the eve of a potential strike against Saddam Hussein and Baghdad, Syria was backing down in the fall 2002 and issued direct orders for the radical Palestinian ‘fronts’ based in Damascus to break off operational ties. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, these include the Popular Front and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Hamas and the Jihad Islami had already turned against Yasser Arafat over the Gaza First initiative as Arafat was seeking to maintain hegemony over Gaza and possibly Bethlehem and Hebron. Also in the meantime, the fifth group operating out of Damascus, Ahmed Fibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command has swung under the power and control of Iran and was put under the Hezbollah’s operational command. . (See Ezekiels’ prophecy in Ezekiel 25:15-17.)

As warned in October, 2001 while under a cloud of political instability, an unnamed American diplomat warned that if Syria refused to sever its ties with the terrorist world, especially the Hezbollah, Damascus could find itself at the receiving end of a few Tomahawk missiles. Syrian president Bashar Assad has been walking a tight diplomatic rope.

Syria has been continuously charged with violating the UN embargo against Iraq by truck, rail and pipeline channels as weapons, military equipment and oil are transferred from predominately Eastern European countries. These include Russian made jet engines, refurbished tank engines and Czech anti-aircraft cannons.

Within a month after 911, the United States started amassive significant naval strength along the Syrian and Lebanese coastline. This included Marine invasion units on board an aircraft carrier and an air force and naval alliance with Israel and Turkey.

Another seismic rift was beginning to develop, this time between the United States and Saudi Arabia, long time military peace partners. Between September 19 to 22, 2001, the Saudi Royal family flew out of Saudi Arabia to their Geneva palace in anticipation of a bombing attempt by Osama bin Ladin on the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. It was bin Ladin’s stated goal to kill the 7000 members of the royal family. King Fahd Fin Abdulaziz was flown on the royal mobile hospital aboard a Boeing 757 HZ-HMED on September 19. The king’s family and entourage followed in suit in 10 royal aircraft and a group of princes were sent to a safe haven.

With the Saudi family in flight, Prince Abdullah representing the controlling faction of the Saudi family refused to allow the U.S. combined air operations to use the kingdom’s new air operations command center at Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh under the central command of Air Force Lt. Gen Charles Wald as a staging ground for the upcoming War of Terror against Iraq. Sensing the turning of the wind with the cold shoulder by the Saudi royalty to the Washington coalition, the United States began a deliberate attempt to ring Iraq and eventually Saudi Arabia with military bases friendly to the United States. This was to be the seismic turning point in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Almost a year later, the transparency of the Saudi relationship with the terrorist’s organizations in the Middle East is becoming real. The pipeline of money is funneled directly out of the oil fields of Saudi, through the bank accounts of the royal family, buying the allegiance of each terrorist group. The Karine A ship loaded with armaments, purchased and signed by the written order of Yasser Arafat from Iranian military brokers was financed by Saudi money. A majority of the men who commandeered the air flights that destroyed the Pentagon and the Twin Towers were Saudi. Saudi money is the ‘oil’ that fuels the engines of terror around the world.

How prophetic can one be! Time will only tell.

Zechariah 9:2 – Sidon (Tyre and Sidon are Lebanese coastal cities) has closed her frontier against Hamath (Upper Syria). For she is very wary.

Maggid ben Yoseif – “And Hamath (Upper Syria) also shall border thereby; Tyrus and Zidon, (Lebanese coastal cities) though it be very wise.”

Hamath is a city about 120 miles north of Damascus. This city will also feel the judgments or burden of HaShem as well as the cities of Tyre and Sidon, Phoenician coastal cities, along the coast of Lebanon. Hamath appear, according to the oracle, to be watching the initial wave as it sweeps across Lebanon from the Mediterranean Sea to the gates of Damascus. Is this a cleansing power of natural disasters, or are we seeing the first steps of the War on Terror as it sweeps across the Levant. The Biblical passages we must always conclude are narrowly focused on the Land of Israel or God’s people. Since the beginning stages of the Afghanistan invasion, the bastions of evil has centered on the Nation of Iraq. Here is the literal land of Babylon, an enemy to God and His people in the 5^th and 6^th century BCE and it continued to spiritually remain an enemy against God and the people He calls His own.

The Tyrinians and the Sidonian, plus the people watch with apprehension as the first wave of the Lord’s ‘burden” sweep across the landscape. Will they be next? These people are skillful, wise and will be very wary.

Since the proclamation on the War on Terror by President George Bush, it has been the position with the BibleSearchers that the first wave of military encounter around the Nation of Israel will come from the Mediterranean Sea. The focus of this war is against Saddam Hussein. Political pundits first saw it coming from Saudi Arabia, but the royal monarchy now under the control of Prince Abdullah have essentially severed their ties with the United States and forbid any use of the massive military bases built by the United States at the Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh which were used as the primary launching base by President George Bush Sr. in Desert Storm against Iraq. Are we seeing the final outcome of the war against terrorists finally resting upon the land of Syria, Lebanon with the coastal cities of Palestine watching in wariness and fear?

Zechariah 9:3 - Tyre has built herself a rampart;

She has heaped up silver like dust and gold like mud in the streets.

And Tyrus did build herself a Matzor (siege entrenchment),and heaped up silver as the dust, and Charutz (moats) as the outside mud.

The Hebrew for this word is a pun on the Hebrew for “Tyre” (meaning ‘rock’), which was centered on the ancient impregnable city in an island fortress. (Isaiah 23:4, Ezekiel 26:5) Tyre, as the center of commerce in the Middle East was proverbial for her wealth, so Beirut, Lebanon, once the commercial Mecca of the Middle East, still commands a lot of world economic respect. (Isaiah 23:2-3, 8,18; Ezekiel 26:12; 27:3-27,33; 28:4-4,7,12-13,16-18.)

Once again we see military defense perimeters being built in the form of siege entrenchment barriers and moats in protection of military forces. Yet the security measures may not be only earthen bunkers. The text states that they will heap up silver as dust. In nearby Beirut, they once were regarded as the premier economic banking capital in the Middle East. The banking industry is now the money laundering institutions of choice for all the military hardware traversing all along the northern border of Israel. Follow the ‘silver’ and you will find the sophistication of the siege military forces entrenched ready for assault. It is well known that the forces of Hizbullah are deeply entrenched all along the northern border of Israel and in two major camps in the Bequa (Becca) Valley between the Lebanese and Anti-Lebanese Mountain ranges. Here the forces have laid a military line from the coast all the way to Syria, with thousands of rockets aimed at the northern provinces of Israel. Are these the ramparts of Tyre the oracle is speaking about?

Zechariah 9:4 - But wait, the Lord will dispossess her and strike down the power of her ships,

And the city itself will be destroyed by fire.

Behold, Hashem will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. (This actually happened historically through an event that dropped the whole city below sea level so that it was covered by the Mediterranean, but note verse one above indicated the prophecy to follow occurs at a still later time.)

There were earlier judgments upon these lands, Tyre and Sidon (Lebanon), Hamath (a border region of Syria) and Hadrach and Damascus (land of Syria), which lies to the northwest and northeast of Israel.

The most notable was the fall of the city of Tyre by the military prowess of Alexander the Great when he built a causeway to the city in 332 B.C. (See the judgments on Tyre in Ezekiel 26-28) Yet with all the qualification, it is assumed that these judgments are still in the future.

This does not bode well for the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon and probably also the modern city of the capital city of Beirut. Mixed within these populations are terrorist cells that will eventually be destroyed one by one with the population all around. It has been the modus operandi of the terrorist within Palestine and without to center their cells of operations within dense populated areas. They have effectively played on the morality of the American public against involving any military operations which would involve the death of women and children. Judgment appears to be rained down upon these cities with destruction by fire.

The War of Terror against the Palestinians

Zechariah 9:5 - Let Ashkelon see it and be afraid;

Gaza shall writhe in terror,

And Ekron’s hope shall be extinguished;

King shall vanish from Gaza,

And Ashkelon shall be unpeopled;

Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also and be very sorrowful, and Ekron (the northernmost of the 5 cities of the Philistines); for her Ambit (hope or expectation) shall be Yves (withered or dried up), and the king shall Avid (die, give up or surrender) from Gaza, and Ashkelon Loathe (shall not be inhabited).

The judgments upon the northern lands will have an effect upon the regions to the west of Israel, the lands around the area of Gaza (Ashkelon, Gaza, and Ekron). These are the traditional enemies of Israel in the era of Samuel, Saul and David. This time they will be witness to the calamities upon the enemies and their hopes and expectation will vanish away. The Philistines and the modern day Palestinians are the same indigenous people, and recognized as such by most biblical scholars.

When the BibleSearchers in September 2000 first studied this passage, we sat with amazement. Were we seeing prophecy being fulfilled before our own eyes? Here we saw a potential prophetic statement to our era. A leader, a king from Gaza will either perish or surrender. Will this be Yasser Arafat? The question now needs to be asked, "Is there any record of any king of Gaza since the ancient days of the kings of Israel and Judah?" To my knowledge, there has not been and that this prophecy remains to be unfulfilled.

In the early nineteenth century the Palestinian Jewish refugees were frequently subject to waves of anti-Jewish violence. The British officials called these acts of violence as ‘disturbances’ feeling that they were related to the Arab nationalistic spirit. Yet, the Arabs in Palestine throughout the centuries never made any attempt to create a nationalistic state, a government or any form of governmental institutions.

One notorious Arab, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem in the early 1930’s allied himself with Hitler and the Nazi regime and went to live in Berlin to assist in the extermination of the Jews. After WWII he returned from Berlin in 1948 and briefly set us a “Palestine Government”, in Gaza, but historians note that this government was ignored. It has been also noted that in the era when Jordan occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, there never as any spectrum of ‘Palestinian Nationalism” and the PLO up until the 1970’s turned their entire focus on Pan-Arab issues and not issues on nationalism.

It would be safe to say that Yasser Arafat is the first person to espouse the nationalistic aspirations of the Palestinians, first in Lebanon when his terror machine was reputed to have killed thousands of Lebanese Christians and later in Jordan, where the king of Jordan had to forcibly expel him and thousands of his fighters at the threat of toppling the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan?

The Christians who believes in ‘replacement theology’ have to consider whether they want to consider that this is a valid prophecy. To them, many prophecies were conditional based on the fact of whether the Children of Israel were willing to keep their covenant with God sixteen centuries ago. Yet this is a prophecy against Gaza. Did God have a covenant with them, and if true, is this a conditional prophecy? With certainty, we would have to say no! Yet what about the other prophecies against Tyre, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, or what about the prophecies against the Amelakites and the descendants of Esau, which God promised to utterly destroy and eradicated forever? Are these conditional prophecies and are they dependent upon the conditional factors of God’s covenant with Israel? That fact is no one is worthy to live in the presence of the Almighty and the future promise of redemption is not dependent upon conditions related to our behavior but dependent upon the promise and grace of the Christ’s redemptive blood.

According to this oracle, this destruction will sweep over Ashkelon and the future of that area will be uninhabitable. As the northernmost city of Philistia, Ekron would be the first to feel the wrath of any military action. In the ancient days, Phoenicians and Philistines watched in terror as the western Greek coalition under the leadership of Alexander the Great sweep havoc across the northern borders of the Fertile Crescent. The modern military might of the United States and the western powers could very well bring this prophecy to an end time focus as they center their sites on Damascus the traditional safe haven for world terrorism.

In the meantime, the world has watched the roller coaster ride of Yasser Arafat. Every pledge he has made was meant to be broken, and every promise was to bid time to inflict more death and destruction upon any inhabitant in Israel. All the Damascus based Palestinian organizations targeted by the United States are all apart of the Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Front – the PLO. Within the PLO, they harbor, the operational chiefs of the Hamas and Jihad Islami, plus the Hizbullah cells in the West Bank and Gaza.

On January 23, 2002, Yasser Arafat, for the first time publicly ordered his 20,000 man police force to go to war against Israel. As such, Arafat burned his last bridge to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord, which gave birth to the Palestinian Authority and allowed it to establish a police force only for civilian defense purposes. Up until this date, Arafat had walked a fine line in keeping his forces clear of the Palestinian terrorist operations against the State of Israel. With the declaration by Arafat’s secretary, Abvdul Rahman, declaring that all Palestinian accord with Israel are null and void, he took the dramatic step to align himself fully with the sister terrorist groups such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad. With this declaration, he threatened the United States that cutting ties with the Palestinian Authority would “cause an earthquake in the region that no one will be able to stop.”

This threat by Arafat raised the war tensions another notch, for it was a declaration of war not against Israel, but against America. In essence, like ben Laden, Arafat was warning the United States that he was capable of plunging the entire middle east into a convulsing showdown with not only Israel, but with America, the big Satan.

Like a bird, trapped in a cage, Arafat, in virtual house arrest in Ramallah since December 3, 2001, was prepared to unleash the vast storehouses of military munitions that have infiltrated into his country. America became surprised at the amount of stocked military munitions Arafat had in warehouses. In 1983, before being driven out of Lebanon by then Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon, enough munitions were captured by the Israeli army to arm a million man army.

Using European and Islamic moneys to fund his Fatah, smuggled weaponry has traversed along the ancient Gaza tunnel system, used by David, the eventual heir to the throne of Israel, when he was still a paid mercenary for the Philistines. These smuggling operations will make the Karine A smuggling ship look like a dime-store purchase.

Within hours, the new media leaks revealed that Bush’s US presidential forum was prepared to sever relations with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, shut down the PLO’s Washington office, and add Arafat’s Fatah, his presidential guard, Force 17 plus the Tanzim and Aqsa Brigades to the State Department’s list of terror organization. The mediation of US envoy, Zinni ended and formal ruptures were beginning to break like a separating rift in a continental plate.

The continental plates under the European Union in the meantime were reeling because of the revelation of the vast funding that has been given to Yasser Arafat for the Palestinian Authority. These funds, from the European Union, were pocketed by every member of the military arm of the PA, the Fatah. In reality, the European Union was in collusion with the world of terror and with harboring and abetting the Palestinian terrorists. The largest population of Moslems in the world outside the middle-east was in Europe and it was dotted with nests of terrorists cells. The price of extortion was now becoming the long arm of those countries befriending the terrorists, who sought to destroy Judah and Jerusalem. What is particularly amazing is the unveiling of the normally cloaked and secret world of diplomacy and political alignments that have it has given birth. With the end of times, the transparency of diplomatic deceit will become apparent to all.

Within twenty-four hours after Arafat’s announcement, the 300 long-range missiles pointed at the north Israeli towns of Kiryat Shmoneh, Safed, Tiberias, Nahariya, Acre and Haifa’s environs and industry, including the oil refineries, came unveiled. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard contingents, who supposedly left Lebanon, when Tehran ordered them to break off contact with the Hizbullah, raised their concealed head unleashing a barrage of mortar and missiles against the Shaaba farm sector in northern Israel. The Syrian funnel of arms from Iran to Damascus and then to the Shiite extremists in Lebanon had been altered, when the Turkish warplanes penetrated through the Syrian and Iraqi airspace, while the Iranian cargo planes were still landed in Damascus.

When the political volcano erupted with the capture of the Iranian ship, Karine-A, that was captured in the Red Sea on January 3, carrying arms for the Palestinians under the signed orders of Yasser Arafat, the naval export arm of Iran, who negotiated as friends of the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan, was revealed to the world community. The implications were clear. After all the evidence was in and it had been circulated to all the regimens, especially Egypt, Saudi, Syria, Iran who were in a talking mode with the American president, the message became loud and clear. The Bush administration was committed to routing out terror everywhere, and Arafat was caught red-handed committing, aiding and abetting terror, so he is now to a target of the anti-terror war.

A virtual blockade was imposed on the western Mediterranean shores off the coast of Gaza and Lebanon since September, 2001, which included 70 ships of the 6^th US Fleet plus British, German, Turkish and Israeli warships. The combined forces were put under the US command with the umbrella of Turkish and Israeli jets overhead. They were looking predominately for fleeing al Quaida operatives. Since the Karine-A capture and intelligence information that Syrian merchant ships were smuggling parts and components for the Iraqi military and weaponry systems in a massive buildup preparing for a US invasion in its country, the merchant marine ships were targeted for inspection. With a virtual blockade by heavy marine presence in the Persian Gulf, the smuggling operations were being routed through the Mediterranean Sea, through Lebanon, Syria and into Iraq. Is it any wonder why this study group has since we began our study in the fall 2000, favored a Lebanon, Syria invasion route. Follow the smugglers and follow the money. Zechariah 9 is clear that something will happen along this route.

On January 30, 2002, Syria filed a formal protest to Washington with the US Charge d’affaires in Damascus of ‘sea piracy’ by the boarding and inspecting two Syrian-registered merchant ships with citrus off the coast of Cypress, the ‘Captain Mohammed’ and ‘Hajii Rahmeh’. This occurred two days after Britain accused Syria of committing the most serious violation of UN sanctions against Iraq, of importing and selling since 1990 of 200,000 barrels of oil per day of Iraqi oil to the tune of 1 billion dollars a year in revenue for Saddam Hussein.

By late winter 2002, Arafat had now come under the scrutiny of the United States and his own Tanzim militia and the Force 17; his presidential guard was designated as terrorist organizations. As noted, the chameleon of Palestinian politics, Arafat was one day giving blood for the victims of the World Trade Center and a week later maneuvering to keep his terrorist groups off the terrorist hit list.

In the meantime, in the West Bank, Yasser Arafat, the chameleon political terrorist, was being progressively isolated in Ramallah. This has led the BibleSearchers to continuously ask the question, who is the king of Gaza in this present oracle? All the Damascus based Palestinian organizations targeted by the United States were apart of the Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Front – the PLO. Within the PLO, they harbor, the operational chiefs of the Hamas and Jihad Islami, plus the Hizbullah cells in the West Bank and Gaza. One by one, each of these terror cells have been put by President Bush on the terrorists ‘Most Wanted’ list. Arafat alone was still protected, not by President George Bush, but by the liberals in the Sharon government. Even his own Tanzim militia and the Force 17, his presidential guard were eventually designated and targeted as terrorists, with Arafat knowing that his days were numbered.

For months, Arafat lay hostage in his own Ramallah headquarters, yet protected by Sharon, who pledged to President George Bush not to hurt Arafat even after the Passover massacre in Netanyahu, which 28 out of 400 Passover celebrants, sitting around the ceremonially laid tables of a Passover Seder on the eve of March 27, 2992, were killed by a Palestinian homicidal bomber from the West Bank town of Tulkarman. Another 170 were injured with shrapnel from spikes and screws.

On March 29, 2002, that protection was partially removed and the IDF sent tanks to Arafat’s Ramallah compound, partially destroying it and thereby beginning an offensive sweep of West Bank cities to destroy terrorist cells nestled among the populated housed in these towns.

One by one, towns throughout the West Bank: seven Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron and their satellite villages and camps were entered with air strikes and tanks to capture, kill or identify the Muslim militiamen and terrorist operatives. Each town was entered in a 'search and destroy' operation which included terrorists homes, factories for human bomb belts and ammunition supplies in a siege operation called ‘Defensive Shield’. Prime Jewish holy places, such as the famed Tomb of Joseph in Nablus were put back in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox and right-wing protestors. This tomb was rebuilt as a mosque after being destroyed and desecrated early in the intifada in the fall of 2000, while the guardian rabbi was killed trying to preserve the Torah Scroll.

One such raid into the Qalandiyah refugee camp, north of Jerusalem captured William Kadari, one of the murders of the Kahane couple, Rabbi Binyamin Ze’ev and Talia plus the terrorist who held up his blood covered hands celebrating the double lynching and murder of two IDF soldiers in Ramallah at the beginning of the Oslo War for all the world to see.

The most controversial was the Jenin operation in an area the size of a large football field that garnered UN sanctions when the Palestinians made alleged accusation that over 500 Palestinians were massacred and left in mass graves. Israeli sources countered that only 45-55 were killed. The legends of this mission will go down in military annals as a heroic battle. The accusation of a massacre was a well recognized Arab stratagem seeking to mold a diplomatic victory from a battlefield defeat. After an intense diplomatic struggle, on May 1, 2002, Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah released the final report of four Palestinian-appointed investigators that the death toll was 56 and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan backed down and agreed to disband the U.N. fact-finding mission.

The evidence and results of the Jenin operation as reported by DEBKAfile’s was significant in its geo-political implication. Evidence showed that the Jenin camp was secretly governed by Lebanese Hezbollah and al Quaida operatives who were actively training the local residents to not only are local but international terrorist. Within the files collected were real names, operative instructions and functions as well as their code names. The camp had been re-organized with a collective leadership in which all factions were represented like the Afghan Taliban model is sharp distinction to the rigid hierarchical Palestinian leadership of Yasser Arafat.

It quickly became obvious why the Jenin camp had been dubbed the Suicide Capital of the West Bank, known locally as the Palestinian Kandahar. The skill of the operation was growing strong as they were engaged to launch multi-casualty locally at nearby Netanya, where the Passover ‘massacre’ occurred and Tel Aviv, but were organizing large-scale suicide hits planned for American cities. The local terror activists were in preparation to visit relative in America via Amman or Beirut. Training included the manufacture of explosives extracted from readily available chemical substances and fertilizers and with fake passports and phony US visas, they were to become one man terrorist operations. Also photographed in the camp was a special torture room in Yasser Arafat’s headquarters used against Arab Christians, families who refused to give us their sons for terror mission and those suspicious of collaborating with Israel.

On the international terror scene and by any military standards, the Israeli operations were described as a “resounding success”. Israeli Air Force is noted to be the best air fighting group in the entire world. After Jenin, no country on this planet has the skills as the Israeli IDF in countering armed terrorist operatives in close encounters, narrow streets and in house by house searching. As a formidable land fighting force, the IDF has scaled to the top of the military ladder.

By the end of April, 2002, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, head of the military’s planning branch, informed The Associated Press that in the West Bank "almost the entire leadership" of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, had been killed or arrested.

The global implications were resounding. The winners of Defensive Shield were US President George W. Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli chief of staff Lt.-Gen Shaul Mofaz and his deputy and designated successor, Maj.-Gen Moshe Yaalon. The losers were Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his two leading sponsors, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz and Javier Solana, the foreign affairs executive with the European Union, who chose to anchor Europe’s Middle East policy on Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.

While the United States, Jordan, Israel and Egypt have used this victory to push their own political agenda, the Saudis were immediately going international to find new political partners.
With Yasser Arafat now branded himself as a terrorist, Islamic political states are in a dilemma. They must confront the hard reality that they must internationally go on record as sponsoring a terrorist organization or be willing to cultivate normal relations with Israel. Their relationship to oppose the largest and most advanced military force in the world, which is in partnership with the strongest and fiercest fighting force in the world is a serious decision to decide.

On Sunday, April 18, Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister to Crown Prince Abdullah was dispatched on an urgent mission to Moscow to talk with President Vladimir Putin days before encountering President George Bush at his Crawford Texas ranch on April 24. They were seeking a Saudi-Russian alliance as opposed to the Saudi-Iran-Iraq axis and to coordinate their oil policies with the Russian government. Yet the Saudi’s hands were already tainted. The Saudi-Iran-Iraq axis pact was already an accomplished fact.

Getting a diplomatic neit, a new force has now entered the fray. President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji were both making rounds in the Iran, Arab and Gulf emirate state capitals. Posing as the only major power siding with the Arab-Muslim league, they are bringing diplomatic, military and economic presents to the table. With the inability to supply only two thirds of its energy production in the next three to five years, China is going for the high stakes in the military-oil market. With only India standing in the way, herself bent on a mutual nuclear annihilation stratagem with Pakistan, the prophetic scholars now have an open road from Beijing to the Euphrates River.

Reviewing the intelligence briefing by DEBKAfile’s on October 17, 2001, “The likely targets of a military offensive in Syria and/or Lebanon will be Syrian bases and strategic points in the Lebanese Bekaa (Beqa) Valley, Baalbek, Beirut’s environs and even locations in northern Syria itself”, we now have our sights to watch the unfolding of the oracles of Zechariah. Events in the next few weeks and months could merge with Zechariah’s prophecy and eventually the Gog-Magog battle in the future. The end result will be the destruction of Ashkelon, with the Gaza strip coming under the wrath of terror of destruction and the hopes of Ekron will dry up. Which king of Gaza will vanish, die or surrender? The days of Yasser Arafat may be numbered.

The War against Terror and the Intifada

Basking in the brief moment of pleasure over a ‘job well done’ as the al Quaida network is in route, George Bush, and the fledgling alignment of world governments inaugurated their baby, a government modeled after the designs of the world court of opinion, the United Nations, and the birth of the New Afghanistan has emerged. With the completion of the Tokyo conference of Afghanistan donor nation, the interim and emerging Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, set out to restore his war torn country with $4.5 billion dollars for reconstruction. Ironically, it is not the United States who is the biggest contributor, but Japan and Iran, the latter now on the terrorist’ list of supporting nations, each contributed half a billion dollars compared to the modest 290 million by America, backing up the vast military effort of the war in Afghanistan and the continuing US presence needed to remain in the country to protect the emerging infrastructure of this model UN state.

By January, 2002, fifteen months after the rise of the Palestinian intifada by Yasser Arafat in Israel in October, 2000 and four months after the catastrophic announcement of the fundamental Islamic intifada by the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington by Osama ben Laden, the Islamic world was rapidly aligning herself against her stated enemy, Jerusalem. With President George Bush continuing to provoke decisions on the alignment of political power against the shadowy world of terror, the cuffs are being unleashed with threats of military retaliation against, not only nations directly involved with exporting terrorists, but those involved with funding and harboring terrorists. In the State of the Union message, on January 29, 2002, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were globally announced by US President Bush as the “Axis of Evil” and the focus of America’s special attention in the next step in the War on Terror.

In the meantime, US and Israeli intelligence source began to reveal the arrival of al Quaida escapees from Afghanistan into the refugee camps of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, plus into the coastal town of Tyre. These fugitives, from America’s War on Terror, are now being fed and supplied with weapons by the expeditionary force of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah operatives. So what are we seeing? Here we have an inflammatory mix of al Quaida, Palestinian, Hizbullah and Iranian revolutionaries, all trained to fight in combat against larger and superior military forces. The genie is out of the bottle and one of the resting spots is along the Israel’s Lebanese frontier border. This second front will be controlled by Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian president Muhammad Khatami and Syrian president Bashar Assad. The Palestinian-Hizbullah-Iranian-Syrian axis will be aligned along the northern border of Israel.

The shifting of these political continental plates was still progressively unfolding. With the Palestinian-Hizbullah-Iranian-Syrian axis now aligned along the Lebanese border, the rumblings of plate collisions were being felt along border east of the Jordan River.

Prince Abdullah, the de facto monarch of Saudi Arabia, was in the process of negotiating a secret mutual defense pack and trade agreements with the anti-American regimes of Iran and Iraq in late 2001. After half of a century of close inter-dependence with America, the aspirations of the Saudi military, religious leadership, younger members of the Saudi family and a majority of the Saudi tribal leaders, they felt it was time, for the mother country of Islam, who is the guardian of the two holiest sites of Islam, to separate itself from the U.S. and become the number one power in the Middle East-Gulf region.

Within hours, in the early dawn of 2002, like the speed of lightning, the heads of state, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, formalized a mutual pact and found mutual understanding with each of their kingdoms. With this, the trio also agreed to invite Syrian president Bashar Assad, whose country now sits on the Security Council of the United Nations to join the alliance and include the secret Iraqi-Syrian cooperation agreements signed in 2001. With this spirit of Islamic détente, a Saudi-Iraqi-Iranian-Syrian block has now emerged along the eastern border of Israel.

With the European countries in furor, caught naked in funneling money to the Palestinian Authority, they are threatening to cut the spigot of money, because it included the receipt of Arafat’s guarantee that no Palestinian armed force would take part in hostilities against Israel.

While the Saudi were preparing the exit map for the American military, they were also preparing the welcome map for al Quaida fighters from Afghanistan and funneling money to pay for the flow of smuggled weapons, including the smuggling ship, Karine A, from Iran to the middle eastern Palestinian and terrorist’ organizations. In the meantime, Arafat’s emissaries were scuttling around the Arab oil-producing states while Saudi Arabia was taking the radical step of assuming the mantle of shouldering the military cost of waging war on Israel. With this in mind, we now have the Saudi-Iraqi-Iranian-Syrian-Palestinian block now emerging not only along the eastern border but across the heartland of Israel.

What is interesting is the culpability of the United States itself. Military experts agree that the Palestinian Fatah and the Force 17 are not just a defensive police force but rather a regular organized military corps with a hierarchy command, an operations arm, foreign intelligence, a advanced communication network and considerable mobility. Its mobile deployment vehicles have been supplies mainly by donations from the United States, UK, Germany, France and Italy. In other words, America supplied the military vehicles, while other sources supplied the armaments.

In the meantime, Hosni Mubarek took a ‘sudden change of heart’ in late January, 2002, towards the Sharon government as he finally turned his back on the radical Islamic block. With the progressive demarcation and no middle ground remaining, with Arafat’s days numbered in the eyes of the Bush team, and with the threat of holding up deliveries of the latest and most sophisticated of US weaponry, Mubarek, two days before President Bush gave his 2002 State of the Union speech, sided with the US. This now set in motion a strong Arab-Islamic bloc still rallying behind the US War on Terror led by Egypt, Jordan, Oman, and Turkey with the military support of Israel and Israel’s secret military pacts with India, Turkey and Jordan.

This has set the European Union posturing as senior partner with the Iranian-Iraqi-Saudis and gleaning the economic rewards, but pitting themselves against the US in the economic, political, and military arenas.

What strange bedfellows are evident in the international game of political roulette. Over the weekend of February 3, 2002, a new revelation was unfolding as senior officials in the Palestinian Liberation Organization met with Ariel Sharon in early January. They included Abu Maze (Arafat’s unofficial deputy Mahout Abbes), Mohammed Rashid (Arafat’s top financial advisor) and Abu Ala (the Palestinian legislation Speaker, Ahmed Query. Out of this discussion came direct implication, being isolated out of the communication with American, because of Bush’s now direct attempt to dump his relationship with Arafat, they indicated the desire to come to some new terms. In reference to Shimon Perez, they indicated that no one in the PLO listens to him any more. From all appearances, the natives are becoming restless known that they have been taken down the prime-rose path to a dead end street. Who will be part of the future governors for the Arab Israelis existing and cooperating within the State of Israel? Only time will tell.

The War on Iraq

The Biblical passage describes an ominous event that will occur along the Mediterranean coast, Lebanon and Syria. The focal point is a portrayal of the events to come in which a Greater Israel will emerge as the powerhouse of the Middle East. The larger picture of this story is the War on Iraq.

While the world waits in anticipation on a telegenic invasion to take out the military government of Saddam Hussein, the intelligence report paint a different picture. Rather than massive waves of troops invading the country of Iraq, it appears that regime of Saddam may be dismantled piece by piece in ‘salami-fashion’ under clouds of disinformation and diversionary tactics. The leaders of the world from every corner are emitting is an increasing crescendo of deceptive utterances, warning, imploring, giving grave reservation while the infrastructure of military possession is being developed.

By the summer of 2002, US Special Forces had entered and taken possession of various regions under Kurdish control, training local militias into battle ready warriors. The big oil town of Mosul and Kirkuk has been quietly encircled by bases and special force troops from American, Britain, Australia, France and the Netherlands. Into these bases are armored ground units, tanks, air, navy and special missile forces and specialty medical units trained in anti-nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.

This ring of forces being in the north in Georgia and Turkey with Jordan, Israel and Egypt in the west, Eritrea and Kenya in the southwest, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain to the south. This is then augmented by a large armada of naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, which has been the focus of our discussion, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

On August 6, 2002, the first wave of aerial assault began. The Iraqi air command and control center at al-Nukhaib situated in the desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was destroyed. According to DEBKAfile’s, this invasion made military history as for the first time, the US air force used precision guided bombs with the capacity of locating and destroying fiber optic systems used to monitor and guide military fighting systems. Immediately afterwards, waves of jets flew out of the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia and from carriers in the Gulf and flew over Baghdad, 260 miles to the north. The hidden clue: the early warning radar system protecting Baghdad was inactive.

Two days later, Turkey made its first assault with commandos to seize the Bamerni airport just 50 miles north of Kirkuk and Mosul. With this airport, the giant American and Turkish transport planes can start unloading vast armament and heavy equipment to rebuild the base for allied support. With this the skies over the oil regions of Iraq are now under allied control, and in striking distance of the Syrian-Iraqi railroad, the illegal funnel of exporting oil and importing arms violating the UN sanctions. The pipe-line to the treasury of Saddam Hussein is about to be severed.

Seven hours before Saddam Hussein delivered his fiery address on television honoring the 14^th anniversary of the end of the bloody 8 year Iraq-Iran war. Here he threatened that Americans entering his country would return in coffins.

Air intelligence portray see increased activity by the elite Republic Guard units at the capital digging their way underground along the banks of the Tigris in what is assumed to be underground bunkers. In the meantime the Iraqi forces are concentrated on three fronts: the Kurdish region to the north, the H-3 and al Baghdadi air bases near the Jordanian border and along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border in the south.

The cover of verbal fog and deceit by American and allied forces are also suspected by Baghdad. Sudden and catastrophic rain of Iraqi missiles and attacks against Israel with warhead loaded with biological, chemical and radioactive material. The immediate threats feared are attacks on the oil fields of Saudi and Kuwait or a mass terrorist attacks against Israel and the United States.

The nation of Israel has been under high alert, the gas mask are being distributed, small pox vaccines given to health and emergency personnel, and potassium tablets are being given to the population at large in case of a nuclear attack. The warheads available to Saddam Hussein are unknown and their nuclear potential is still disputed. For a prophetic analysis, see the Flying Megillah in Zechariah 5

For the citizens of Israel, the clouds on the horizon are ominous. For the Israeli Defense Forces, instead of chasing and trying to pre-empt a cascading barrage of terrorist squads, it must now prepare to face medium size battles against military forces along its northern and eastern borders and also face the military enemy from within, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israelis have become somewhat immune to listening about Israeli air force bombardments against empty Palestinian police centers and tank assaults against to demolish these Palestinian police facilities, which are harboring nests of terrorist cells. A new specter of war is on the horizon, as they head about aerial assaults on mobile military units heading from the inside and outside towards Israeli targets and Israeli tanks positioning themselves not in pre-emptive assaults on empty Palestinian targets but assuming a defensive shield on the interior borders and the exterior borders against their enemies. In the meantime, Israel is in the process of setting up a full perimeter shield around the city of Jerusalem a total blockade of human and vehicular traffic coming in and out of the city.

What are we seeing but the full scale preparation for a regional war of Islamic states against Israel and also against their stated larger enemy, ben Laden’s Satan, the United States, which may or may not bring in the full umbrella of the United States War on Terror. Yes the Lord of hosts is about to hand His chalice of wrath to the nations surrounding Israel and watches them reel like drunken men.

The Destruction and Pacification of the Palestinians

Zechariah 9:6 - Half-breeds shall settle in Ashdod,

And I will uproot the pride of the Philistine.

And a Mamzer (halachically, this is a child of mixed population from a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father) shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the Ga’on (pride) of the Philistines.

A mamzer, according to Jewish purity laws is a child born as a half-breed, Jewish mother and a gentile or Palestinian father, a child born out of wedlock, or one of an alien birth. Yet here within this region, two peoples have intermingled for decades and Ashdod is known today for its mixed population

Yet something will happen to the Palestinian cause. Zechariah states, “And I will cut off the pride of the ‘Palestinians’. Will this be the end of the Palestinian era of ultra-Nationalism who is fighting for a Palestinian State?

This land may very well be the home in the future of Arab-Jews, or the settling ground of the tribe of Israel, still recognized as aliens in the land to find a place to assimilate into the population of Israel. Either way the arrogance and pride of the Palestinian Jihad will have been dwelt a fatal blow.

Zechariah 9:7 - I will dash the blood of sacrifices from his mouth and his loathsome offerings from his teeth;

And his survivors shall belong to our God and become like a Clan (governor) in Judah,

And Ekron (northern most of the five cities of the Philistines) like a Jebusites.

(The people who controlled the city site of Salem, when David conquered it and these people lived in peace with Israel).

“And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth: (a picture of blasphemy and violence being removed) but he who remains alive, even he, shall be for our God, (Hashem) and he shall be as an Aluf (docile or friendly element of the population) in Judah, and Ekron (northernmost of the 5 cities of the Philistines) as a Jebusite (the people who controlled the city site of Salem, when David conquered it, and these people lived in peace with Israel).

Whatever the context of this conflict, according to prophetic sources, the battles and the military setbacks against Syria and Lebanon will cause a change of heart in the Palestinians. The blood oaths and shouts and curses of hatred depicted as ‘blood taken from his mouth’ and the abominations (blasphemy) from between his lips, will suddenly make the Palestinians, the Arab-Jews and the Arab-Christians realize that their future is with an identity with the Jews. The blood oaths against the Jews will cease.

Will there be autonomy for the Palestinians? It appears so, for Zechariah states, the Palestinians will become like a ‘clan’, or like a ‘chief in Judah and Ekron’, or a ‘governor in Judah and Ekron. The word ‘governor’ in Hebrew, ‘alluph, , with a change in vowel pointing permits the translation of a ‘thousand’, ‘family’, or ‘clan’. See Num 1:16, 10:4, I Sam 10:19.

Remove the elements of evil, the ones who seek to assault the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants, and harmony can once again be present in the Holy Land. What is amazing is that the Palestinians in this prophecy will live as though they were a people who are friendly and in harmony with the Jewish people.

Remember prior to 1000 B.C., King David conquered Salem which was the Jebusite capital. As the former rulers of the stronghold of Zion, this Jebusite stronghold and renamed Jerusalem (Jebu-salem), the Jebusites were not destroyed but became bondsmen and allies to the Israelites. (I Kings 9:20,21) Here we see the absorption of the Philistine/Palestinians into the state of Israel. They will also seek to worship of the God of Israel.

Zechariah 9:8 - And I will post a garrison for my house so that one may pass in or out,

And no oppressor shall ever overrun them, this I have lived to see with my own eyes.

Here we see that Israel will be guarded and protected by the Lord, yet the borders will be open. For months the Nation of Israel has been building a concrete and wire fencing ‘Maginot Line’ On the Island of Cypress, a demarcation of the island between the warring factions of the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots have kept an uneasy peace for over a decade. Will this be the cure for the violence between the Palestinian and the Israelis? How can the promise of a new Palestinian state survive with a physical wall and barrier totally surrounding the perimeters of the proposed state? For many preventive diplomats, it was an idea that was stillborn at birth. Yet, the promise of HaShem will be that no oppressor will ever totally overrun their land, yet the borders will remain open.

Out of this current conflict, we may be seeing the seeds of a future period of safety and prosperity in the Land of Israel, at least for a few years. End time prophecy scholars have always envisioned a time of “Peace, Peace.” before destruction will befall this earth. Yet, Spiritual Israel advocates have usurped this prophecy to suggest that peace in America was a fulfillment of this time of peace. With an Israel-centric model, the peace must truly reign within the land of Israel. If so, within a few months or years, travel to Israel may be a pleasant experience and the holy sites in the Holy Land may once again be open to all nations and all people to experience and enjoy.

Zion’s Coming King

Zechariah 9:9 - Rejoice, rejoice, daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem;

For see, your king is coming to you, His cause won, (‘He is Just’ KJV) his victory gained,

Humble and mounted on an Ass, On a Foal, the young of a She-Ass.

The timing of this prophecy now appears to be the End of Times. The people of Jerusalem and Zion will now recognize their King, yes he is the one who is coming in the ‘clouds of glory’, this time as the King of Kings where he has been given the right of kingship by his Father, Hashem.

The word, ‘Just’, Heb saddiq, is a word occurring over 200 time in the OT. It is translated, ‘righteous’, or ‘just’, and triumphant (RSV). In Jer. 23:5, 6, we see “I will raise unto David, a righteous Branch,’ who was to be called ‘the Lord our righteousness (Heb. Sedeq, from the same root as saddiq. This is the same one, the son of man, who once lived in humility (lowly habitant) (Matt. 11:29), Phil. 2:5-8) , mounted on an ass. (Matt. 21:1-11) What a beautiful statement of identity and similitude of Y’shua.

The New Testament writers used this text as a messianic prophecy foretelling the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. (Matt 21:5, John 12:15). This portray was in conformity with the divine standards of morality and ethics, and characterized as the ideal king. (2 Sam. 23:3,4, Ps 72:1-3, Isa 9:7, 11:4-5, 53:2-3. 53:11; Jer 23:5-6; 33:15-16) The visual imagery of riding on the animal transport of peace, as opposed to the Arabian warhorse (vs. 10) was the reason the donkey was used as the princely and kingly mount of the ancient days, starting with the rule of David and his descendants. (2 Sam. 18:9, 1 Kings 1:33)

Zechariah 9:10 - He shall banish Chariots from Ephraim and War-horses from Jerusalem;

The warrior’s bow shall be banished

He shall speak Peaceable to every nation, and his Rule shall extend from sea to sea,

From the River to the ends of the earth.

If verse 9 is the Second Coming of Jesus, then verse 10 is the beginning picture of the Millennium. This is the chant of the southern ‘gospel’, “There’ll be war no more”. The war armaments, the military hardware of Ephraim and Jerusalem ( Judah) will be banished and destroyed. Why? The monumental military investments will cease, because the Land of Israel will be safe to live and to inhabit. Jesus will traverse the nations left after the Second Coming and bring peace to every nation on the earth.

The rulership of Jesus, with the sword out of his mouth, will extend from sea to sea. This will not be the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, but here we will have the return of Pangea, a one continent world, with the Holy Mount lifted up, the Sanctuary Eden, and River of Life flowing out of the Temple and his reign will extend the entire breath of Pangea.

What is the River? In ancient days, the River was the Nile River. Will the River which will flow from the Temple Mount connect with the Nile River? In a 4^th century document, called the Emeq HaMalekh, this river that will flow from the foundation of the Temple is called the Gihon River. Is it not a coincidence that one of the four rivers that flowed from the Garden of Eden was called the Gihon River. Is it also not a coincidence that the only spring that flows from the base of the eastern walls of Jerusalem is called the Gihon Springs, and some feel that this is the real site of the Temple of Solomon, about 1000 feet south of the Temple Mount. Will this new Edenic River flow to the ends of the earth? Welcome to the New Garden of Eden. Yet, this is the millennial picture of a kingdom that will not exist forever. The New Earth is still a thousand years in the future.

So we see here a progression of prophecy in action. The traditional view of Christian’s, who accept a millennial kingdom will accept an image of vs. 10 as being in the era after the coming of Jesus. If so, this is a prophecy within a prophecy. The writing of this verse came under the pen of Zechariah with partial fulfillment in the day of Zechariah and the inter-testament period of the Jews. The actual fulfillment is to be in the End of Times.

Let us assume, we are standing on the brink of the final days of this earth’s history. Zechariah 9 and verses 1-8, may be a living drama being fulfilled right before our eyes, yet verse 9 is a prophecy within a prophecy. The daughters of Zion in the 1^st century saw the messiah coming through the northern gate of Jerusalem on the Passover, riding on a donkey. But Jesus did not come as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He was proclaimed as such by the mammoth crowds waved the palm branches and laid garments upon the ground, yet He did not accept the mantle of authority. Jesus came to His people as the Suffering Servant, the moshiach ben Joseph not the Moshiach ben David as the King of the House of David. When this prophecy is replayed again at the end of times, it will become a prophecy fulfilled within a prophecy.

Rejoice, rejoice, daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem;

For see, your King is coming to you,

His cause won, (‘He is Just’, a Zaddik or Righteous One) his victory gained,

Humble and mounted on an ass, on a foal, the young of a she-ass.

According to the Lord of hosts, the daughters of Zion will again see the Son of Man, this time as the King of kings and Lord of lords come through the gates of Jerusalem on an ass. This will truly be an event of triumph and glory. Here in the future tense, with these events displaying the hand of God, they must now prepare to meet the messiah again, who will be coming in the future. Yes, the coming of the messiah is still future to this date. Even so, the daughters of Zion must rejoice.

The Covenant of the Blood

Zechariah 9:11 - And as for you, by your covenant with me sealed in blood,

I release your prisoners from the dungeon,

What is the ‘Covenant of the blood’. Is this the covenant of circumcision, sealed with the blood? Is this the covenant of the New Testament, sealed with the blood of the Lamb? Probably both! Here we see the covenant made with man in Eden (Genesis 3:15), which was renewed with Abraham (Genesis 22:18) and then became the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:8-12) Yet, here is the release to true freedom. Here the freedom of the lost tribes of Israel will be fully revealed. You and I scattered across the face of the earth, lost to our own Hebrew cultural identity could realize, it is me. For centuries, we have been captive within the cultures of foreign lands. Yet Isaiah brings it all into perspective:

Isaiah 66:20 - “And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon miles, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem.”

Zechariah 9:12 - Come back to the stronghold, you Prisoners who wait in hope.

Now is the Day announced when I will grant you two-fold reparation.

Isaiah 61:7 – “For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.

In an era with injustice in the past is now to be corrected by present monetary reparations, the Lord of hosts not only affirms this but promises double reparation. Will this be financial and monetary? Well maybe so, in that ‘in their land they shall possess the double’. Yet this verse suggests also double reparations in spiritual blessings. Many of the people returning to the Land of Israel have lived most of their lives as Spiritual Israelites. They believed, they felt, they had the yearnings for the Land in which they did not understand. For thousands of years, the true spiritual Israelite had only a mystical and spiritual attachment to an idea of redemption in which in their minds had no physical attributes left in it. They would have to leave their bodies behind, their beloved pets behind, their cherished books behind, and their physical friends behind and take an existential leap into a world in which all the sensory organs of our five senses will disappear and be thrown out into a cosmos on a stellar journey to an unknown sphere of ethereal living. Why would anyone not be scared. Yet the Lord of hosts promised that you would possess and experience everlasting joy. To have joy, you must still have command of your senses. Does it not suggest that our concepts of heaven need to be re-modified and re-anchored in the promises of the ancient prophets of Israel and Judah?

Judah, the Bow, Ephraim the Arrow and

the Sons of Zion as the Swords of the Lord

Zechariah 9:13 - For my bow is strung, O Judah; I have laid the arrow to it, O Ephraim;

I have roused your sons, O Zion and made you into the sword of a warrior,

The Lord, prepared for battle, as a warrior, will employ Judah as His bow, and Ephraim (Israel) as His arrow. Ephraim will be assumed to be recognizing their new identity as they separate themselves from the assimilation among the nations (Lost Tribes of Israel). Yet this may not be the case.

Looking at the geo-politics of the world today, we find one nation that has rallied its support for the Nation of Israel. This country is not in the Middle East and part of the Arab bloc or a people presently driven by a radical fundamentalism, who would rather see Israel exterminated and driven to the sea, than to let them have a land to live in peace. In 1948, even before the Nation of Israel could establish a cohesive identity, five Arab nations invaded the land with the sole purpose to drive the Jews out to the sea.

This supporting country cannot be found in the European Union, in spite of the evidence that a large part of the lost tribes of Israel came as part of the Cimmerian and Celtic invasions into early Europe. For the last decade, it has been the countries of Europe with the European Union that have been financing the terrorist organizations of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, allowing them to give each of their warriors a stipend, not for the self defense of their land, but with the sole purpose of terrorizing and exterminating the citizens of Israel.

This country is not Great Britain, for the reigning House of Windsor identify themselves as the legitimate monarchs to hold the scepter of the House of David. Israel, as with every other nationality, was given rights by the League of Nations to a piece of land on this globe, for them to have sovereign control. Before Israel could claim her own land and claim sovereignty to the land of their forefathers with the right to establish their own national identity, the ‘young lions’ of Israel had to drive out the British, with their British mandate who claimed the right to rule the land of Palestine. This is an era that has no past fulfillment and we are witnesses to its present fulfillment.

Yet America alone, stands beside the literal existence of the Nation of Israel. We have to ask why? Do we walk by a different morality than the rest of the world? Why are we supporting the only democratic nation in the Middle East, while all the other democratic nations support nations bend on international terrorism? What form of preventive diplomacy is it when the Palestinians, when working in alliance with the Nation of Israel were the most prosperous nationalistic sector in the Moslem world and now with the fundamental terrorists from Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Saudi, Afghanistan, and Egypt have now been reduced to the poorest Moslems in the region. Do we solve the issues by driving out the Nation of Israel and giving them a new holocaust? Where have the Christian Arabs gone? Statistics show they are either dead by their own Moslem Arab brothers or have fled to other Christian lands.

The question still begs the answer, why does America stand alone in her support of Israel? Why does the Congress of the United States pressure the President of the United States to maintain support of Israel? The answer that begs to be given, does the United States still have a plurality of people within her borders that, as a fact only known by the Lord of hosts, are genetic Israelites and will become a part of the Greater Exodus in the possible near future?

“I will arouse your sons.” And they were aroused. Judah and the sons of Zion were awakened in 1948 and with great fury as a pack of ‘young lions’ and did raise up a nation. They did suddenly ‘find themselves’ and their new identity was not only physical but a spiritual identity. They had experienced the great Ah-Ha.

Against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.

The land of Greece was the staging ground where the Children of Israel, driven from their land by Assyria, the sons of Omri, the Ghomerians, Cummerians, and later the Cimmerians, moved westward across the Bosporus Straits and entered the European Continent as the Celts, the Angle-Saxon (the Isakki – sons of Isaac) and the Vikings. It is the Greeks that the Jews have known in the past to have blood kinship.

The Angel of the Lord brings His Arrows of Lightning

and becomes Israel’s Shield

Zechariah 9:14 - The Lord shall appear above them, and his Arrow shall flash like lightning;

The intervention of the Lord, now as King of Kings, shines in all is poetic beauty. As Christians we tend to look only at the visual imagery of the New Testament passages on the coming of Jesus. Here again is a literal and very dramatic parousia, the coming of Jesus, called Lord, whose coming is likened to lightning which shines from east to the west. Many commentators fail to connect this passage with the Second Coming of Y’shua, yet its symbolism is so real. Jesus will come with power and might and great glory. The heavens will resound as He enters our stellar space. The seventh and last trumpet will produce a theophany around the globe as it shatters the airspace of our three-dimensional world. This will be one event that ‘every eye shall see Him.”, some quaking in fear and others in awe and transformation.

The Lord God shall blow on the Horn (Shofar) and March with the storm-winds of the south.

Here is the horn, the Great Shofar of the 7^th Trumpet Angel at the last Rosh HaShanah, who prepares the world to meet the real ‘Storm God’ –El Shaddai, Yet it says the Lord God will blow the horn. The resonance of the tone emitted by the vibrational frequencies made by the Creator Himself will shatter the fabric of the physical bodies of those living in a discordant life with the Eternal One. Those living in harmony with the Divine One will find their lives transformed and changed in a ‘twinkling of an eye’.

Zechariah 9:15 - The Lord of Hosts will be their shield; they shall prevail, they shall trample on the sling-stones.

They shall be roaring drunk as if with wine, brimful as a bowl, drenched like the corners of the altar.

Here we see almost hedonistic joy and jubilation as ‘The Chosen’ now are coming into their own as they dance over the military armaments of the other nations of the world who sought to destroy the national identity of the Israelite people. The poetic picture of the tantric dancing and drunken debauchery at blood sacrifices upon the horned sacrificial altars, will not match the ecstatic joy the former oppressed and downtrodden, now victors, who dance before their Lord, Who is their Protector and their Shield.

Zechariah 9:16 - And on that day the Lord their God will save them, His own people, like sheep,

Setting them all about his Land, like jewels to sparkle in a crown.

The Day of the Lord, the Coming of the Messiah, may be the day of salvation for those ‘bought by the blood of the Lamb’, but here we see a different picture. The Shepherd, who is searching for His lost sheep, is now coming to claim His won. He has found them, but they must find him. He will save them, and then will set them throughout ‘his land’.

What Land? For those who believe that during the millennial era the earth will be desolate, need to think again. The Shepherd will redeposit his people, the Chosen of the Children of Israel, not just the Jews, but all the tribes of Israel back within his land, the Land of Israel.

The Israelites will glitter like precious jewels in a crown, set, or lifted up as an ensign, literally to ‘glitter’ and ‘twinkle’

Zechariah 9:17 - What wealth, what beauty, is theirs;

Corn to strengthen young men, New wine for maidens!

Here is the Millennial Kingdom. Grain and new wine in abundance portrays a productive and bountiful land. The wealth is not measured in stocks and bonds, and vault of gold and silver bullion. This wealth comes with the finest of culinary delight. The latter rain has come, the land is fertile and abounds with the power of its terrestrial nutrient and beauty will be their. Are we seeing an ethereal non-substantial life of existence? The text does not suggest it. As Adam’s feet clung to this ground, Tierra firma, so this Land will be the receptacle of restoration for HaShem’s people.

Index for the Commentary on the Prophecies of Zechariah

The Redemption and Restoration of Jerusalem and Israel

Zechariah 1 - God remembers and God blesses at the Appointed Time

Zechariah 2 – God sets His sights to Rebuild Jerusalem

Zechariah 3 – The Priesthood is Re-consecrated for the Temple

Zechariah 4 – God sends Israel His Anointed Ones and His faithful Eyes

Zechariah 5 – The Flying of the Megillah and the Cleansing of the Land

Zechariah 6 – The Four Chariots, Temple is Built and Israel is a Theocracy

Zechariah 7 – Replace Feasts of Fasting with Obedience, Justice and Mercy

Zechariah 8 – Let us Feast with Joy – God returns to Dwell with His People

The Oracles and Judgments of the God of Israel

Zechariah 9 - Part One – The Burden of the Lord on the Fertile Crescent

Zechariah 9 - Part Two – The God of Israel wants Damascus to be One of His Zions

Zechariah 9 - Part Three – The Prelude to the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War – Global News

Zechariah 9 - Part Four – The Israeli-Hezbollah War in the Summer 2006

17 Tammuz to the 9^th Av 5766 – Global News

Zechariah 9 - Part Five – The Oracles of HaShem against the Palestinians

Zechariah 10 – Latter Rain - Restoration of the Houses of Judah & Joseph

Zechariah 11 – Part One – The Good Shepherd and the Oracles against Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinians

Zechariah 11 – Part Two – The Good Shepherd and the Unification of the Houses of Judah and Israel

Zechariah 12:1 – The Creator and the Throne of the God of Israel

Zechariah 12:1 – The Creator, the Worlds of Creation, the Spirit of God, and the Souls of Man

Zechariah 12:1-2 – Jerusalem, a Cup of Trembling

Zechariah 12:3-14 – Jerusalem, a Burdensome Stone

Zechariah 13 – The Gihon Fountain flows from the Temple of the Lord

Zechariah 14 - I will gather all Nations to battle at Jerusalem

The Lord’s feet will stand on the Mount of Olives

Message from BibleSearchers

BibleSearchers scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest. Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the God of Israel. In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah and the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament.

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