Do you get the feeling lately that you’ve boarded the bullet train to eternity?

Everywhere, people are having conversations about global events that threaten our way of life. A few weeks ago, I had dinner with an Israeli friend who is a secular businessman. He probably doesn’t have a religious bone in his body.

The first thing he said as he leaned forward at lunch was, “Do you get the feeling that something’s going on?” He meant, of course, in a cosmic sense, a “big” sense.

“Yes, I do,” I replied. We then had a discussion about the biblical “end of days.”

Now, what with economic doom predicted, and the Japanese trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactors…it seems the world is reeling. All of a sudden, we are knocked off our feet by the cascading events from Asia to New York. There is a common thread in all this, though, and that is the international community’s treatment of Israel.

Although the events in Japan certainly should take center stage right now, I was truly shocked at the lack of coverage or empathy over the ghastly murders in Israel last week. The Fogel family, living in a “settlement,” were butchered by Palestinian terrorists who stabbed the parents and three children. Two others miraculously survived, undetected, in another room. A daughter found the nightmare scene when she came home.

I ask, where is the outrage?

Meanwhile, it seems things are falling into place: earthquakes in diverse places, the plunge toward a global currency, even an interesting analysis in the Jerusalem Post about Syria (Isaiah 17, anyone?).

It seems amid the turmoil in the Middle East, Syria’s dictator-for-life, Bashar Assad, is relatively stable. The regime is oppressive and the police state rules by fear. Because his father before him so deeply enmeshed his ruling Alawite party into every sphere of Syrian life, it is difficult for opposition groups to have the success they are devouring in neighboring Muslim countries.

It just seems interesting to me that as the Gog-Magog scenario seems to be coming into focus (Turkey now turns from being an ally to attempting to bully Israel), Syria also seems poised to fulfill prophecy as well, able to make mischief even as it goes unwittingly toward the destruction of Damascus. I’ve never had any doubt at all that Israel would launch preemptive strikes should they feel threatened with annihilation.

But it is the nations’ treatment of Israel and the Jews in general that gives me cause for alarm…for the world.

Voice of America, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the L.A. Times were among those media outlets discussing the murder of the Fogel family in the context of “settlement” building. My lord, Jews are fulfilling prophecy set in motion by the living God, and the world not only misses the significance, they ramp-up the Jew-hatred.

The Jews have settled a sliver of land in the Middle East; look at the gargantuan size of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq. The Sinai. The issue isn’t a Palestinian state; it is Jew-hatred.

Concluding an article on the murders was this from France’s Agence France Presse:

"The international community considers illegal Israeli settlements built in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and 14 of the 15 Security Council members recently backed a resolution condemning Israel for continuing settlement activity. The United States vetoed the resolution, saying it did not think the UN was the right forum to address the issue, but reiterated its opposition to Israeli settlement building.”

Here is what I believe: there is a minority of people in this rotten world who truly support the Jews. Much of the feedback I get each week comes from laypersons who are passionately pro Israel, who love Scripture. Time and again I hear from them that their pastors never discuss such from the pulpit, and that fellow parishioners often break fellowship upon finding that one supports the Jews.

Originally published in Rapture Ready, Israel Watch. March 21, 2011

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