The prince of the air waves

Tov Rose arab, conflict, hamas, israel, palestine, palestinians - 1344 Views

12Jun

Jun 12, 2018

(Original Article Link at the end)

Had you picked up any number of newspapers in May you would have seen headlines such as “BLOODBATH: Scores dead, thousands wounded as Israel fires on Palestinians protesting over Trump’s new embassy” [1], “Mother’s agony as baby dies in Gaza gas horror” [2]. You would have read, for example, that “The South African government condemns in the strongest terms possible the latest act of violent aggression carried out by Israeli armed forces along the Gaza border…Given the indiscriminate and grave manner of the latest Israeli attack, the South African government has taken a decision to recall [its embassador] with immediate effect until further notice” [3], You would have learned of the call by the UN secretary general for an “independent investigation” of the IDF for disproportionate casualties against peaceful civilians demonstrating for the right of Palestinians to return to their villages [4].

You would not have known, unless you went to sources other than the mass Media that “The Great March of Return”, billed as a peaceful protest, was anything but. Gazan terrorists, under the leadership of Hamas, planned, under cover of 10s of thousands of demonstrators, and bellowing smoke from burning tires, to storm the border fence with Israel, breach it and carry out massacres and abductions in nearby Israeli villages [5]. They had firearms, knives and machetes, and had been given maps of neighboring villages. The protestors, who had been picked up and bused to the site, were promised money for participating, and more if wounded [6]. They were incited by statements, like Yahya Sinwar’s, head of the Hamas military wing, “We will tear down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies… and eat the livers of Israelis [7].” When Israeli snipers were able to contain the rioters from breaking into Israel, they added to their rocks and Molotov cocktails incendiary kites which they launched over the fence to burn thousands of dunams of forest and farm land, causing millions of shekels of damage [8]. The only reason we now know that 52 of the 62 “demonstrators” killed on May 14 were terrorists is because Hamas official Salah Bardawil admitted so to answer the Gazans who were furious at being pushed towards the fence by Hamas while the terrorists stayed behind [9]. The papers didn’t retract their “baby dies in Gaza gas horror”, although it was later admitted by medical authorities that the baby was born with a life-threatening heart condition [10].

You can expect that Israel will continue to be demonized and slandered by the mass Media, by world leaders and institutions because of the spiritual powers that deceive and guide them. That’s what scripture teaches us. Ephesians 6:12 explains “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” These evil spirits, under the leadership of Satan, exercise influence over the thoughts and attitudes of people without even their awareness. “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4: 4). Eph. 2:2 elaborates further, “in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”. “This world” is the world system: governments, media, educational and cultural institutions, philosophical and religious systems, etc. The “god of this world” is Satan. The “children of disobedience” is every member of the human race who has not been born of the Spirit of G-d, and walking in His truth.

Satan was once Lucifer, the most beautiful of G-d’s created order, until he became proud of his own beauty, wanted to be worshipped, and consequently deceived 1/3 of the heavenly host into rebelling against the Lord. Jesus tells us what Satan is like and what he wants. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies”. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 8:44, 10:10); “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18) Isaiah tells us why Satan fell from heaven: “ You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’. (Isaiah 14:12-14). G-d replies to Satan’s aspirations, “therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub”.(Ezek 28:16). There is an ongoing war between G-d and Satan, and man has been drawn into it. Satan hates G-d with a fierce passion, and wants to destroy the human race, whom G-d created in love, for His good purposes. G-d created the Jewish people to be a vehicle of blessing to the nations, and Satan, the Father of Lies, is at work to thwart G-d’s purposes, and rally the nations against them. That is why the whole world will lay siege against Israel according to Zechariah 12, and even after a thousand years of peace and prosperity, once Satan is released from the bottomless pit he deceives the nations into surrounding and attacking the Holy city of Jerusalem. He is very persuasive.

A glance at the history of the Jewish people will demonstrate how zealously Satan manufactures the most outlandish lies and calumnies against them. This is not to say that Jewish people do no wrong, but that there is a spiritual conspiracy at work to demonize them and inculcate people with ferocious, irrational hatred towards them. Here are some examples from the Bible. Pharaoh says of the Children of Israel, who were such a blessing to Egypt “if war breaks out, they [will] join our enemies and fight against us.” (Exod. 1:10); although Israel was careful to conquer only the land of Canaan, the Moabites warned ““This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.” (Num. 22:4); Israel conquered none of the Land of Ammon, yet their king made war against Israel, claiming “Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land” (Judges 11:13); Although Cyrus, king of Persia, ordered the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, the enemies of Israel wrote letters of complaint to Persia, and also slandered Nehemiah, saying “It is reported among the nations … that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king.” (Neh. 6:6); because Mordechai would not bow to Haman he plotted to annihilate all of the Jews, and approached the King with these words – “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom…they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed” (Es. 3:8); during Yeshua’s ministry He was accused of being “a winebibber and friend of publicans”, a “blasphemer”, and “it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” (Matt. 12:24)’

We know that the early believers in Yeshua were accused of atheism and cannibalism by the Romans [11], and that the Emperor Nero viciously persecuted them under the false charge of burning Rome. Greco-Roman society often harbored anti-Semitic views, referencing their “base origin, misanthropy, superstition, impiety and sacrilege, and rebellious conspiracy nature [12]”. The ancient Greeks believed that the Jews annually sacrificed a Greek, or other foreigner, to their G-d, and “tasted his flesh [13]”. The Church itself was used by Satan to slander the Jews. John Chrysostom, one of the early Church fathers, wrote “The synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theatre; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals… if a person call it a brothel today, or a criminal’s hangout, or a resort of demons, or a Citadel of the Devil…he would speak more kindly than the place deserves [14].”

Jews were later charged by the Church of sacrificing Christian children to use their blood in preparing the Passover Matzoh [15] (Blood Libel), stabbing or mistreating the transubstantiated body of Jesus used in the Eucharist service (Host Desecration [16]), poisoning wells to spread the Black Plague, and deicide. Even the great reformer, Martin Luther, turned on the Jews calling them ‘these poisonous envenomed worms’ and advocated burning their schools and synagogues as well as confiscating their property and money [17].

In modern times many patently absurd characterizations and slanders were directed against them from secular sources. After the 1905 Revolution in Russia the Czarist secret police began circulating “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”. This booklet, purported to be the minutes of a secret international meeting of Jewish leaders to take over the world, was found to be a forgery, but never-the-less was used by the Czarists as well as the Nazis to justify murdering Jews [18].They have been accused of working for Germany to defeat France, and of also causing the defeat of Germany. They have been stigmatized in Capitalist societies as being Bolsheviks and Communists, while accused by Communists of being Capitalists, and accused by others of controlling the world banking system. Antisemitism in the Arab world has both denied that there was a holocaust, and at the same time characterized the Jewish state as being Nazis [19,20]. They have appropriated the history of the Jewish people for themselves. The holocaust is replaced by the Nakba, the genocide carried out by the Nazis has been repackaged as directed against the Palestinians, the Jewish Right of Return to Israel has become the Palestinian Right of Return, the racism perpetrated against the Jews throughout history has been changed to Israel as an apartheid state. On June 8 they are reported to be preparing to march to the border “wearing clothing made to resemble uniforms worn by prisoners in concentration camps in the Holocaust” [21], and attempt to cross over, as if breaking out of the death camps.

Satan has deceived the whole world in his efforts to isolate and annihilate G-d’s covenant people. Only when He is consigned to Hell will the people see Satan and his lies for what they really are. In Isa. 14:12-16 “They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof…?”. As Paul urges in Romans 12:2 ,” be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”. We must not rely on the Media and public opinion for our world view, but rather renew our minds by seeing through the lens of Holy Scripture, which will dispel the lies of the enemy.