Sunday, November 26, 2017

Global SITREP D9-17: Paradigm Shattering Changes Reshaping the Middle East - Part I

IDF Merkava MkIV MBT on the Golan border with Syria

UPDATE 
28 November 2017: This SITREP has turned out to be one of the more "panoramic" when it comes to hitting the key notes of the imminent flood of fulfillment. And, without question, this is the most popular SITREP to date averaging over 600 pageviews per day. So, you can probably guess what this means - Global SITREP D9-17 will be continued with SITREP D10-17 serving as Part II. SITREP D10 will begin where the final comment made this morning left off. Thanks for reading!

26 November 2017: While American's were giving thanks to the Lord for our blessings, in the Middle East our enemies were not only cursing us, but declaring their intention of attacking the U.S. and Israel. 

The below mentioned Iraqi brigades fighting in Syria made a pair of declarations this weekend. The first was the swearing of an oath to liberate the Golan and all of "Palestine" from Zionist occupation. The second was to declare all American forces "direct enemies" whether they be in Syria or Iraq, and their intention to attack them. 

This follows a publication by the IRGC's daily newspaper Javan last week of their intention of using force to achieve an American military departure from Syria and Iraq. This announcement therefore is a thinly disguised declaration of war against the Coalition Joint Task Forces - Operation Inherent Resolve which includes the Kurdish and Syrian Arab forces of the SDF in northeastern Syria.

On the other side of the coin, Israel has made clear that it will attack and destroy without further notice any and all Iranian facilities or bases within 25 miles (40 km) of the Golan border. 


Standing by...

24 November 2017: In reviewing the post history of the past five years I ran headlong into one from July 2012 titled "Psalm 83 Verse 8: Assur - Syria or Iraq." In that post the Assur that existed in 925 BC was firmly identified as Iraq for the reasons detailed. Also, in the last paragraph of that post Eschatology Today concluded with this statement that links directly to this current SITREP:


"It would seem that something also needs to occur respective to the cohesion of the present Iraqi nation. Perhaps that something is related to Jeremiah 49:34-39, or perhaps to the Sunni-Shi'a civil war that is ongoing in Aram-Syria at this time, or both. In any event, the Lord specifically identified Assur in verse 8 and the expected paradigm-shifting events are likely more widespread that we currently are able to envision."

In following the Eschatology Today coverage of the war occurring in Iraq and Syria, and now linked directly to Lebanon, the "paradigm-shifting events" being "likely more widespread" than we were able to envision five years ago are now, and have been, staring us square in the face in a truly consolidated form. One of the formerly unforeseen occurrences is the presence in Syria, on the Jordanian border, as well as being within very a short drive of Israel's border, several brigades of Iraqi militia fighters. Take careful note that the prophetic Scripture of Psalm 83 makes no distinction between nor does it even mention any sect of Islam, only ethnic identities. 

This therefore begs a question: Could these Iraqi brigades be the Assur of Psalm 83:8? They are in the right place at the right time, just as they were in 1948 and again in 1973, so it is very difficult as this point to not fully acknowledge this fact. Once again there is nothing coincidental or incidental to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

22 November 2017: Once again Eschatology Today is going ahead of the curve. If you're following the comments section of this SITREP then you were given some info yesterday on the overwhelming conventional military capability of "Sheba and Dedan" (the Saudi-led GCC) over the Islamic Republic of Iran. But what of their proxies such as Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'a militia? Well, this is what allies are for. Strategic allies like the U.S. and regional allies like Israel. (Yes, Israel, the key to ALL end times events.) There's also a nuclear umbrella which is provided to Sheba and Dedan by "Tarshish and its young lions," but also by their Pakistani ally. The Saudi's paid for Pakistan's nukes; they are obligated. Keep this in mind in the future, it'll come in handy in understanding events as they unfold.

Do not think, however, that 'Sheba and Dedan" will tackle the Iranian threat by going solo. The  Lord is bringing the "four winds" against Elam, which is modern-day Khuzestan province, an Iranian crown jewel; foremost of the Ayatollah's military might. (Jeremiah 49:34)  This is where the U.S.-led coalition (mostly NATO) will pick up any slack, irregardless of the strategic Iran has in Magogland to the north. There's also unfinished business in Afghanistan and 2018 will be a decisive year in the OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) war now in its 16th going on 17th year. You remember the troop "surges" of years past? There's one more (big one) coming. 

Long story short, the view in the periscope says that securing Afghanistan secures Iran's eastern border or flank. The Gulfs (both Persian and Arabian) are Iran's soft underbelly and contain a pair of choke points which can be closed by allied naval forces thereby stranding and surrounding the Shi'a Houthi's in Yemen. Then there's Iraq where domination by Tehran over the government in Baghdad should be described as temporary. Prophetically, Iraq was part of the ancient Roman Empire and it will be part of the fourth and final Beast Empire again. Current and near future events will see to that. The Iranian western border or flank would thus be secured. This is also known as a "containment" strategy.

And then there's Syria and Lebanon. We've covered the prophetic angle in Syria per Jeremiah 49:23-27 and Isaiah 17 fairly extensively, and Lebanon per Joshua 13. This theater of war will be sudden, extremely violent and and almost certainly involve weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological. chemical). The prophecies all speak of great suffering and whole regions of sudden mass depopulation. This speaks directly to the use of WMD. 

We know the end-game from a plethora of prophetic Scripture, and now this blog seeing and has just spoken about very probable pathways to that state of affairs in the near future which leads directly to the pre-70th Week culmination of Ezekiel 38/39. 

How much of this we get to witness as residents of this planet is unknown, but we can certainly discern with acceptable clarity because we saw the Great Sign of Revelation 12:1-2 occur just two months ago. Surely the blessed hope of our Lord coming to catch us up in the clouds to be with Him forevermore is palpably near. Marana'tha!

20 November 2017: In most recent memory when the Sunni Arab League convened an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo, Egypt it would have been to condemn Israel for one perceived offense or another. This was not the case in yesterday's emergency session. At the insistence of Sheba and Dedan (Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab Gulf States) this session was called to order and focused upon the threat posed by the Shi'ite Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy Lebanese Hezbollah to the whole of the Arab League.

Within the Arab League, two nations which were founding members, Lebanon and Iraq, held their membership because when the Arab League was founded both were ruled by Sunni Muslim governments. Today this is not the case as both are completely under the domination of Shi'a governments controlled by the Iranian (Persian) Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

No surprise, but these are the two Arab League member nations which prevented a unanimous vote condemning the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations which pose a direct threat and are guilty of interfering in the internal affairs to all of the other sovereign member nations of the Arab League. It would be impossible for the Sunni-majority nations of the Arab League to condemn Hezbollah as being a terrorist organization and not also condemn its parent, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force, as a terrorist organization. They are twins raised together by the Shi'a Hojjatieh regime that took control of Tehran and founded the Islamic Republic in the 1978 revolution that overthrew the late Shah Reza Pahlavi.

Unanimous or not, this declaration of the Arab League is what's necessary for the action which logically should follow -- a formal declaration of war between the members of the Sunni Arab League and the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthi and Iraqi Shi'a militia proxy forces. This battle has been joined for quite some time now, but the difference in the aftermath of this emergency Arab League meeting it that its become a formalized war with legal status.

While secular Jewish and other western media have not cited the Shi'a apocalyptic eschatological ideology driving the actions of Iran and its proxies, this critical fact is not lost on the Sunni Arab states who are actively in the midst of destroying the extremist Wahhabi and Salafi ideologies in their own midst. 

This leads us to a key and very forward-looking point mentioned on this blog from time to time regarding a critical religious aspect of the 70th Week. One of the primary goals of the Globalists has been to establish a unified religious world order. This order will be built upon a merging of the major "Abrahamic religions," (i.e. Christianity, Judaism, Islam). 

Sunni Arab states which divest themselves of the extremist elements within Islam would fold nicely into what we'll call a "Covenant Among Many Abrahamic Faiths." Add to this all that is prophesied by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Daniel in chapters seven through nine of his book, as well the prophetic word revealed in Revelation 13. This amounts to the bigger interpretive picture of the 70th Week as long proposed by Eschatology Today. We are well down this prophetic road, with the key dominoes falling all along the way. 

All of this only serves to reinforce what is written below and in the original 2010 Eschatology Today interpretation of Jeremiah 49:34-39 and its leading edge position of prophecies requiring at least partial fulfillment prior to the prophetic events of the 70th Week. Following Jeremiah 49:34-39 modern-day Persia is not specifically mentioned in any other pre-70th Week prophecy save for the secondary or reduced military role it plays in the events of Ezekiel 38/39. 

17 November 2017: For a couple of weeks now there have been significant I&W (Indications & Warnings) of one or more conflicts erupting around the planet. It's as if the earth was a pressure cooker and occasional whiffs of escaping steam gave notice that boiling was occurring within. I&W are duly noted, but finding corroborations of what they might mean as a potential imminent fact are extremely hard to nail down with any specificity. We dealt with this to some extent in SITREP D7-17 and in the integral comments section, but nothing concrete emerged, except for what is expected per Bible prophecy. And that's where the proverbial rubber meets the 'Prophetic Road to Revelation.'

As is always true, the Bible interprets the Bible. It was this fact coupled with what can only be described as a "how could this have been missed" moment of insight that occurred just one day ago. That moment has convinced yours truly that preconceived notions about exactly how the final act of Psalm 83's  'unfinished business' scenario will manifest required an immediate jettisoning in favor of a new and likely corrected interpretive view. 

For a specific example let's look at the sequencing of these prophecies. Does the ultimate prophetic fulfillment of Psalm 83 precede or follow that of Ezekiel 38/39? 

Stop! Before you answer that question consider the lightning bolt the Lord hit me with just yesterday. Ezekiel 38:13, which begins with "Sheba and Dedan," has long been considered a critical part of Ezekiel's post-Psalm 83 prophecy. And a critical part it is, but do you see the problem it creates in a sequential interpretation of these prophecies if the descendants of Ishmael are to be completely vanquished as a result of Psalm 83? 

How are "Sheba and Dedan" - the entire Arabian Peninsula - to remain such a prominent force politically and militarily along with the "merchants of Tarshish and all their young lions" as the Magog military confederation appears descending upon a peaceful and secure Israel in a post-Psalm 83 world?

The best clue we have to this riddle is what is occurring at the present within Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman (i.e. the GCC). And what is occurring at present is nothing short of paradigm shattering changes. Without these paradigm shattering changes even thinking of a war fought against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies by a military coalition that includes the Saudi-led GCC and Israel would have been, well, way out on a limb.

And that is precisely where Eschatology Today went a little over seven years ago (September 2010) in the interpretive theory looking at Jeremiah 49:34-39. Eschatology Today presented the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy as one of a grand coalition going to war against the Islamic Republic. 

Remember this paragraph?
"In the next verse we read that the judgment comes in the form of "the four winds" (i.e. all points on the compass and intimating many nations) as being the "sword" the Lord sends after them. Also looking at the map of Iran, it does appear that Arab nations, the principle of which is Saudi Arabia, would be among those coming against Elam from the southern "wind" along with many other nations constituting the other three directions. This includes Israel and many other nations such as the NATO alliance, and clearly invokes the modern day notion of a warfighting coalition of nations such as we saw in the early 1990s Operation Desert Storm against Iraq and the present day Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan."
So, here we are in the latter weeks of 2017, and Saudi Arabia and the GCC are changing before our very eyes in ways that had we been prescient enough to elucidate it seven years ago would have resulted in copious amounts of laughter if not outright ridicule. 

Nevertheless, there were in several mostly European and Middle Eastern newspapers, published yesterday morning reports of Saudi Arabia and the GCC being allied with Israel for direct military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran and it's Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon and Syria. This joint Arab-Israeli military action is identified as one of the nascent Saudi Arabian king Mohammed bin Salman's highest priority objectives upon his ascension to the throne next week. This follows the unprecedented publication in Saudi Arabia just yesterday of an interview with Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the subject of which was Iran being the biggest common threat in the Middle East to Sunni Arab nations and Israel. 

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Israel from Space

Evening

and Morning
14 November 2017: Found these (clickable) International Space Station (ISS) photo's online, and they're worth a couple of thousand words each. Besides, all that, they're just plain cool to look at such as yours truly has done in-depth. Interesting footnote, the ISS will observe its 20th year in orbit a year from now.

Top Photo: Looking to the north at night over Israel. Not only can you see all of Israel, but also a very large portion of the Greater Middle East as well. Notice in this image you can see the curvature of the earth, even the outline of the earth's atmosphere is visible. That's due to the altitude of the ISS being approximately 251 miles (404 km).

What struck me is how bright all of Israel is, and Lebanon in the immediate north. Bright lights on the east is Amman, Jordan. Damascus, Syria is seen east of Lebanon and north of Amman. Look closely and you can see all the way into Iraq. Cyprus and Turkey are on the left-hand margin of the image.

Bottom Photo: This ISS view is from the north looking south. The entire Nile Delta region of Egypt is seen at the top. Notice the lush greenery of Israel as compared to the in land and Sinai deserts. 

If you read Bible prophecy you might be thinking the same thoughts that I had thought while looking at these images. My thought was that most of the visible land in both images will be part of Israel proper in the not too distant future.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Global SITREP D8-17: Military Force To Pluck Euro Nations Out By Their Roots

Bundeswehr
7 November 2017: Eschatology Today has been referencing a specific event in Bible prophecy for some time now. It is an unambiguous series of signs given by God in the form of a dream to the prophet Daniel. All of these signs are detailed in what we know as chapter seven of the book which bears his name. The most critical of these signs occurs in verse eight which informs that upon the Antichrist's rising (as a little horn) among 10 already established horns (kingdoms) he will pluck up by the roots three of the 10. In other words, the newly emergent leader who will be the Antichrist, the leader of the fourth and final beast empire, will seize by some force (pluck up by their roots) three of the 10 kingdoms.

In the news yesterday, as reported by the U.K.s' Telegraph newspaper, we see the German Army (Bundeswehr) war-gaming scenarios related to the potential break-up of the European Union. These are scenarios envisioning the use of military force to prevent a BREXIT-type departure or the outright seizure of one of more sovereign nations seeking independence from a European Superstate such as the EU. The timeline for this is envision by EU military leaders as being at some point between the present and the year 2040. The underlying doctrine, known as "Strategic Perspective 2040" for the recent scenario-driven exercises of the Bundeswehr, is classified as confidential information. The direct connection between Daniel 7:8 and these type of military exercises in Europe is no coincidence.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Global SITREP D7-17: The Psalm 83 Scenario - Unfinished Business

Israel Defense Forces
1 November 2017: While the end-game plays out in both Syria and in Iraq, and probably as a direct result of those events, the past month has seen ever increasing Indications and Warnings (I&W) that the IDF will find itself involved in full-scale war in the Southern, Central and Northern Front sooner rather than later, and almost certainly during the year 2018. This assessment derives from the following link-heavy collection of recent open source news items.

The so-called "Palestinian unity" or reconciliation deal between HAMAS and Fatah of three weeks ago made clear one thing over all other considerations, and that is that all of the factions within both camps, whether in Gaza or Judea and Samaria, are in lock-step with the openly and oft-repeated goal of destroying the State of Israel. 

As we all know, this Palestinian goal is Psalm 83:4 verbatim, and that makes it a Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian, Palestinian, Israeli-Arab and Gazan goal.

Even overseas Palestinian diplomats are calling for Israel's destruction as was made clear in a 20 October Times of Israel report on a tweet by the Palestinian mission chief (Fatah) in Colombia who quoted Yasser Arafat: "Our goal is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations…. We don’t want peace. We want WAR and victory — Yasser Arafat,"  This call for Israel's destruction was merely an echo of a call made the day before by HAMAS, as was demanded of HAMAS by their Iranian overlords. Make no mistake, Iran is seeking to engage Israel in a war involving its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Judea, Samaria and Gaza. 

If I were the Iranian Ayatollah, I'd be worried about the potential for a pretty significant Israeli preemptive action.

These very recent newsworthy tidbits were reported on prominently in Israel and in the Brooklyn, New York-based The Algemeiner.  These important reports were completely ignored by ALL major, corporate American news organizations - including the network formerly known as "we report, you decide" FoxNews.

Today, Israeli attack aircraft (possibly F-35I Adir's) struck, apparently with impunity, an arms manufacturing plant in the area south of Homs, Syria.

Yes, there's probably more to come, so please stand by, there's a lot of unfinished business to take care of with respect to Psalm 83.