Home » November 2001

A message from a clear-eyed Arab Christian. — Zola

Immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, conventional wisdom suggested the dramatic turn of events would bring America closer together with its longtime Mideast ally Israel.

As usual, conventional wisdom was dead wrong.

In fact, very clearly now, you can detect Washington increasingly distancing itself from Jerusalem. There are even some within the U.S. State Department who are beginning to deny there is any Arab terrorism directed at Israel — at least not terrorism as defined by our so-called “war on terrorism.”

Here’s how State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained that those attacking Israel aren’t really terrorists at all — despite the suicide attacks, the bombings and the shootings of civilians: “Essentially, there are, on some planes, two different things. One is that there are violent people trying to destroy societies, ours, and many others in the world. The world recognizes that and we are going to stop those people. On the other hand, there are issues and violence and political issues that need to be resolved in the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians. …They are clearly issues that are different.”

In other words, attacks on the United States are terrorism. Attacks on Israel are attempts to “resolve political issues.”

But it gets worse.

STRATFOR, the global intelligence company whose reports are run exclusively on WorldNetDaily.com every weekday, is suggesting that U.S. Mideast policy is about to get much tougher on Israel as a direct result of the war on terror.

“Geopolitical realities after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon will force the United States to back away from its relationship with Israel and favor Muslim allies such as Egypt and Jordan, as well as old foes like Iran and Syria,” the report said.

STRATFOR said the change in thinking in Washington could represent a “sea change in U.S.-Israeli relations.”

Washington has become convinced it needs Muslim cooperation in its war on terrorism.

“But Washington’s close ties with Israel make such cooperation difficult,” reports STRATFOR. Therefore, the sellout of Israel is under way. STRATFOR claims there are only two reasons for 50 years of U.S. support for Israel: The Cold War and political pressure from Jewish groups within the United States. Well, the Cold War is over. And Muslim power within the U.S. is close to eclipsing the Jewish lobby.

“The danger of domestic political consequences for a tough policy on Israel has been alleviated to a certain degree by the emergence of a Muslim voting bloc in the United States,” STRATFOR reports dispassionately.

While Muslim political organizations do not yet match their Jewish counterparts in funding, they can match them in sheer potential voting power, according to the report. It cites estimates that there are 6 million Muslims in the United States — a number about equal to Jews.

The report says it has not gone unnoticed within the Bush administration that about 70 percent of the Muslim vote went for George W. Bush. That support made the difference in the election with 28,000 Muslim votes for Bush in Florida and only 6,000 for Gore.

Israel is about to be sold down the river, it seems, because it is politically expedient to do so.

It’s somewhat ironic. Back in 1948, support from the United States was crucial to Israel’s rebirth as a nation. President Harry Truman reportedly asked his aides how many Jewish voters there were in the United States and how many Arab voters. At the time, it wasn’t even a close call.

In other words, as far as Mideast policy goes, right and wrong have seldom entered the equation for the United States. It’s often been about counting votes, with a dash of self-interest thrown in for good measure.

It’s also ironic that it takes a Muslim attack of epic proportions on the United States to push the pendulum of U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world. Imagine if the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. closer to Japan.

But it’s more than ironic. It’s tragic.

If the Bush administration is determined to make foreign policy based on voting blocs, it’s time for 100 million Christians in this country to stand up in support of Israel. It’s not a matter of politics. It’s not a matter of expedience. It’s not even just a matter of right and wrong. It is, quite simply, a matter of survival for Western civilization.

Editorial

How Do You Spell Chutzpah? U-S-A

By Hal Lindsey
WorldNetDaily

The United States government has told the Israelis in no uncertain terms to withdraw their forces from the areas of the West Bank, which Israel entered following the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister.

[Cabinet Minister] Rehavam Ze’evi was gunned down outside his hotel room at the Jerusalem Hyatt hotel. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine… claimed responsibility for the killing. Ariel Sharon issued a statement in which he said that the Palestinians had “crossed a red line” when they murdered Ze’evi….

Israel responded to the incredible chutzpah of the U.S. demand by pointing out that, “Israel, like all democratic countries, is realizing its rights to self-defense and to protect the lives of its citizens.” Sharon neatly paraphrased the exact argument made by President Bush when the president announced our own war on terrorism.

Evidently, killing Israelis isn’t terrorism from Washington’s perspective. Imagine Washington’s reaction if a U.S. cabinet member — say, Condoleeza Rice — were murdered at the Washington Hyatt Regency by members of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party, who then proudly claimed responsibility? Do you think for a split second that we would not bomb Iraq back to the Stone Age? Or that the bombs would stop falling before Saddam Hussein were nothing but a greasy spot on the Iraqi landscape?

Not everybody in Washington has blinders on, however. Reps. Gary Ackerman, Tom Lantos and Eliot Engel called the policy “hypocritical.” Ackerman asked why the United States was pushing Israel to talk with the Palestinians if the U.S. was not willing to negotiate with the Afghan “authorities” — the Taliban.

Thomas Friedman, a long time supporter of the Arabs, is having a rude wakening! — Zola

Three cheers for Mayor Rudy Giuliani for returning the $10 million donation made by a Saudi billionaire, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, after he toured the World Trade Center ruins, handed the mayor a check and then declared that it was time to get at the “roots” of this terrorism — which the Saudi royal defined as the U.S. failure to push Israel to make peace with the Palestinians and to stop Israel from “slaughtering” Palestinians.

No doubt there is deep Arab anger over U.S. support for Israel. I’ve gotten angry myself over the failure of successive U.S. governments to restrain Israel’s voracious settlement building program. But to suggest that Israel is slaughtering Palestinians for sport, as if a war were not going on there, which Israel did not court, in which civilians on both sides are being killed — or to suggest that President Clinton didn’t spend the whole end of his term forging a real plan for a Palestinian state, which Yasir Arafat ran away from, with the Saudi government only a few steps behind him, because it required some fair compromises on Jerusalem — or to suggest that somehow Arab anger over any of this justified people blowing up buildings in New York — is just a lie.

Normally such casual lying doesn’t bother me. It’s a staple of Middle East politics, and in the end only hurts the liars. But this particular version is dangerous, because it masks a deeper lie that can hurt us. I call it “the virgin birth problem.”

To listen to Saudi officials, or read the Arab press, you would never know that most of the hijackers were young Saudis, or that the main financing for Osama bin Laden — a Saudi — has been coming from other wealthy Saudis, or that Saudi Arabia’s government was the main funder of the Taliban. No, to listen to them you would think that all these young men had virgin births: they came from nowhere, no society is responsible for them, and no Arab state need reflect on how perpetrators of such a grotesque act could have come from its womb.

Attention, Prince Alwaleed: These young men came from your country, and while the Palestinian issue no doubt angers them, it does not compare to their hatred of what Mr. bin Laden called the corrupt, “hypocritical,” “hereditary” Arab regimes, starting with Saudi Arabia.

So if you want to do something useful with your $10 million, then endow an anti-corruption campaign in Saudi Arabia, or endow American Studies departments in all Saudi universities, or endow a center of Islamic learning in Saudi Arabia that would focus on the teachings of reformist Islamic scholars. Or give the money to Seeds of Peace, which brings Arab and Israeli youth together, or invest in development inside Saudi Arabia or Palestine, so young Saudis and Palestinians can find fulfilling jobs. Or persuade King Fahd to say publicly that if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, Saudi Arabia would lead the Muslim world into diplomatic relations with Israel.

But whatever you do, stop lying to us and to yourselves. Because we’re sick of it, and we’re not alone. So many Arab citizens, seeking a better future for their kids, are also starved for the truth. Consider this letter, written by a Sudanese, Hashem Hassan. It was published last week in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and translated by the invaluable MEMRI research service. “We must stop presenting [Mr. bin Laden] as a stepson of American and Western hegemony. He is the lawful son of Arab-Muslim helplessness. He is a completely legal son, to whom we, with our rigidity, gave birth — we the supporters of pan-Arabism, you the Marxists, you the Islamists and you, the other educated individuals. We undermined our homeland and our peoples to the point where they became easy prey to the interests of America, Israel and others…. Renouncing these prodigal sons and attempting to lay them at the door of the West is shirking responsibility. It would be better to admit our paternity, and [admit] that our primary mistake in the education that we gave them was that we closed our societies, our schools, and our media to freedom and knowledge, to the possibility of learning from mistakes.”

If you really want to honor the terrorists’ victims, Prince Alwaleed, set up a newspaper and TV station in Saudi Arabia — not in London — that can freely publish such thoughts. Then we’ll start to feel that the roots of this tragedy are being addressed.

Until then, I’m with Rudy — here’s your money back.

Zola’s Spring Tour — March 2002

ISRAEL

Petra Extension Begins March 7
Add to our Israel tour and Greece extensions.

Israel Tour Begins March 11
Our deluxe Holy Land tour.

GREECE

Mediterranean Cruise Begins March 21
Begin your Greece tour here or as an extension of our Israel tour.

Biblical Greek Extension Begins March 26
Add to our Greece and Israel tours.

Dates are tentative

New Greek Extension

To our usual cruise of the Mediterranean isles, we plan to offer a New Testament tour of Thessalonica, Philippi and Berea, in northern Greece. The luxury cruise and land tour would make this 10-day package perfect for those who have already experienced Israel with us. To request a brochure, please contact Tony (214-696-9760) during office hours or our answering service (800-966-3377) anytime.

The Holy Land Experience

Zola is hosting periodic tours to The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, FL. Please let us know whether you would prefer the weekend of Nov. 23 or Nov. 30. If you would like to extend your stay to include the weekdays in between, then we will provide you with a list of other sites and attractions in Orlando. For more information, please call Tony at (214) 696-9760 during office hours. You may also call 1-800-WONDERS (966-3377) anytime.

You’re invited to a party

Join Sandra and the other guests on both November Holy Land Experience tours as they celebrate Zola’s birthday (Dec. 3) in Orlando. Happy Birthday, Zola!

Patriotism Passé

We have already detailed the seminaries tilting against Israel (see page 16). Here are some Americans tilted against our own country. Duke University shut down Professor Gary Hill’s web site because he linked to an article advocating war in America’s self-defense. MIT professor Noam Chomsky says that the only freedom America stands for is “the freedom to rob, to exploit and dominate.” Channel 12 News in Long Island, NY, ordered flags removed from the newsroom so as not to appear biased. Berkley, CA, bans U.S. flags being displayed on fire trucks to avoid offending anyone. Gulf Coast University in Florida ordered all “Proud to be an American” signs removed for the sake of international students.

Foreign Donors

Whether you’re in Canada, Mexico, anywhere outside of the U.S.A., we like you to know that our bank takes big chunk of your contributions by check. To make the most of your tithes and offerings from abroad, we ask that you consider using credit cards. We accept MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express. You can also send e-checks for free by using www.paypal.com.

Zola in Your Church

Beginning in late November and into the winter months, Zola plans to be in Florida leading groups to the new Holy Land Experience in Orlando. If you know of churches that would like to host him when he’s going to be “in the neighborhood,” they would save considerably on travel expenses. There are still some dates available, especially for engagements in Orlando proper. Please contact Cynthia in our office at (214) 696-8844.

How about NOW?!

NOW that the President has called us to pray.
NOW that the Congress has called us to pray.
NOW that our Governor has called us to pray.
NOW that the City Mayor has called us to pray.
NOW that the “liberal” media and most other branches of our American society have called us to pray…
AND NOW that our churches are assembling in special prayer…
“Honorable” Justices of the Supreme Court, I have only one question…
Would it be okay to pray in our schools???

Editorial

We Must Target Nations

By Charles Krauthammer

Yes, we need to get Osama bin Laden. Yes, we need to bring down the terrorist networks. But the overriding aim of the war on terrorism is changing regimes. And it starts with the Taliban.

Searching Afghan caves for Osama bin Laden is precisely the trap he would wish us to fall into. Terrorists can’t operate without the protection of governments. The planet is divided into countries. Unless terrorists want to camp in Antarctica, they must live in sovereign states. The objective of this war must be to make it impossible or intolerable for any state to aid and abet terrorists. The point isn’t to swat every mosquito but to drain the swamp.

The war begins in Afghanistan. The first objective must be to destroy the Taliban regime. Indeed, we must make an example of the Taliban, showing the world — and especially regimes engaged in terrorism — that President Bush was serious when he said we make no distinction between the terrorists and the governments that harbor them.

The Taliban are totally isolated. They are militarily vulnerable. On the ground they face a fierce armed opposition, the Northern Alliance, that is ready and eager to take Kabul.

The campaign, however, can’t stop there. Afghanistan is just stage one. A logical stage two is Syria. It harbors many terrorist groups, but the regime is as rational as it is cynical. Syria has no ideological or religious affinity with the terrorists it supports. It uses them to advance geopolitical aims. It, therefore, must be persuaded to abandon them.

Stage three is Iraq and Iran, obviously the most difficult and dangerous. Which is why it would be foolish to take them on right away. But changing regimes in Kabul and changing policy in Damascus already would have radically changed the regional dynamic by demonstrating American power in a region where power, above all, commands respect.

In Iran, where the conservative clerics are unpopular and a large Westernized middle class already is straining for a free society, change might come from within. In Iraq, although Saddam Hussein is detested, internal revolt is less likely. He will make his stand, and we will have to confront the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world.

The war on terrorism will conclude in Baghdad. How? No one knows. All we do know is that history, cunning and cruel, will demand that if this president wants victory in the war he has declared, he will have to achieve it on the very spot where his own father let victory slip away.

Todd Baker is one of two missionaries our ministry's Messianic congregation sends to Israel twice a year. I'm not sure why every church doesn't do this since the Gospel is supposed to go "to the Jew first" (Rom. 1:16). Invariably, these talented young men with a true gift of evangelism bring back fascinating stories from the land where the Messiah witnessed exclusively to the Jews. — Zola

Editorial

To the Jew First

By Todd Baker

On our most recent evangelistic outreach to the Jewish people of Israel, Kevin Parker and I learned the importance of the seed faith principle of witnessing. We sowed much Gospel seed in Israel to see some eventually come to the Lord when the reaping begins. We cannot reap Jewish souls for the Messiah Jesus until we first plant that seed and wait for its growth. Patience and persistence has been given to us by God and is needed when preaching the Gospel to the Chosen People. With that said, our sowing of the Gospel began the very day we arrived at our hotel in Jerusalem. As we were checking in, we got into a discussion with two of the desk clerks about God’s plan for Israel and the Messiah’s soon return.

Kevin and I briefly shared how the birth of the modern nation of Israel on May 14, 1948, was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in Isaiah 66:7-9 — an amazing prophecy that we often referred to in our witnessing on this trip. After we presented the historic and prophetic overview of God’s plan for Israel from Scripture, one of them, struck with amazement, replied, “That is heavy.” We left them with Gospel tracts detailing what we had shared. Throughout our stay at the Dan Pearl Hotel in Jerusalem, God gave us the opportunity to share the Gospel about Yeshua the Jewish Messiah with staff and guests staying there. They were open, appreciative, and received the Gospel tracts and Hebrew New Testaments we gave out.

On this trip we tried a new witnessing method on Jaffa Street that put us in a passive role, allowing the Holy Spirit to take the lead (as He always should in every evangelistic activity) in literally bringing Jewish people to us. After prayer one morning, prompted by the Holy Spirit, Kevin suggested we go and sit on a sidewalk bench along the street where Israeli pedestrians pass. When we arrived, we laid out our Gospel literature and Hebrew New Testaments. Several Jewish people came up to see what we had laid out and this afforded us several opportunities to share the Messiah with them. Before our very eyes God was drawing those He wanted to hear and ultimately believe (see John 6:44). While we were witnessing to an American-born Jew and an Ethiopian Jew, two young Orthodox Jewish adolescents who were from an anti-missionary group suddenly came riding up on bicycles to disrupt our conversation.

They began yelling in Hebrew and strictly charged the two men not to listen to us. We told them that Israel was a democracy and that we have the freedom and right to express our views there. Then to our amazement, Kevin and I stood back and watched how the Spirit of God waged and won this battle for us. Instead of yelling back at the anti missionaries ourselves, the two we were sharing the Gospel with came to our defense and we simply watched as they brushed them aside. Yes, our God does fight for us (Nehemiah 4:20). The anti-missionaries were frustrated and finally left while the other two remained behind to hear the rest of our message, receiving Gospel tracts and Hebrew New Testaments.

On Mount Zion we came across an Orthodox Jewish organization called The World Center for Peace. The group offers a free twenty-minute presentation on why Jesus is not the Messiah. Kevin and I felt led by the Holy Spirit to challenge and provide sound rebuttal from Scripture on why Jesus is the Messiah. We entered the place and listened to the twenty-minute presentation by an Orthodox Jew named Eliyahu. The sum of his argument, which was quite weak and unconvincing, was that Jesus could not have been the Messiah since He did not overthrow Israel’s enemies and establish a successful rule. We counter-argued that the Messiah came the first time to suffer and die for the sins of Israel and the world in order to bring redemption and reconciliation to all who accept Him. Our texts were Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. We said further that when He comes again, the Messiah will rescue Israel and establish His universal rule at that time (Zech. 12, 14; Psalm 2). The man could not answer the fact that the specific prophetic details about the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of the Servant of the Lord made in Isaiah 53 fit exactly with the manner in which Jesus suffered, died, was buried and then raised. He further had to admit when pressed from Scripture that the Messiah should have come before the second temple was destroyed (see Malachi 3:1; Haggai 2:9; Daniel 9:25-26), which Jesus as the Messiah did.

We argued our case well for Jesus as Messiah, and for every objection he gave, Kevin and I gave him ten reasons why He was, in fact, the long expected One. By doing this we simply followed the apostolic pattern by debating with the Jews to prove Jesus is the Messiah from their own Scriptures (see Acts 9:22; 17:2-3; 18:5). After an hour and a half debate, we left having planted a seed of doubt in his mind about his position. We pray that seed will yield faith in Jesus as the only true Messiah of Israel.

During the latter part of our stay in Jerusalem we decided one evening to go back to a restaurant called The Rosemary Café to follow up on a young lady we had shared the Gospel with in April. She no longer worked there. But the Lord gave us an excellent opportunity to share the Gospel with a new waitress — a young girl named Miach. We discussed with her about the special and divine destiny God has for the Jewish people revealed both in the Tenach (Old Testament) and Brit Hadashah (New Testament), both books written by Jews from cover to cover. She listened with great interest. We explained that God created her to have a personal relationship with Him through the Messiah Jesus, which is experienced through faith in the fact that Yeshua came as the Messiah to die for our sins on the tree so that we could have forgiveness and that He rose from death to give us eternal life and a home in heaven with His heavenly Father.

She responded by telling us that she was unsatisfied and empty going to the synagogue. She was visibly touched by what we said and told us, “You are both special.” In reply we told her that her people were truly special because God chose them to record His revelation to man and to redeem the world through the Jewish Messiah Jesus — the Jew of all Jews (John 4:22; Romans 3:2; 9:3-5; 15:8). As we left she said she would read the Gospel tract and Hebrew New Testament and seriously think about accepting Jesus in her life.

Everyone wants to believe that the free world’s leader is going to win the war against terrorism. I remain unconvinced, though I’d prefer to be wrong.

First, this is not a war against terrorism, but a war against the one terrorist group responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It isn’t even a war on anti-American terrorism, since all previous such acts are being forgiven in this process.

If you killed Americans or took them hostage in Lebanon — as did Hizbullah, with Iranian and Syrian help — this is forgiven.

If you killed Americans in Saudi Arabia, as did Iranian sponsored groups, this is also forgiven.

And if you blocked the investigation, making it impossible to punish the perpetrators, as did Saudi Arabia, this is forgiven.

If you helped Osama bin-Laden’s forces, making possible the September 11 attack — as Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan likely did — this is forgiven.

We are seeing, in effect, a blanket amnesty on all past terrorism.

The hint is that this appeasement is temporary, and that once bin Ladin’s group has been eliminated the turn will come for others. I doubt it.

For this operation is being run largely by those who conducted the Kuwait war and let Iraqi President Saddam Hussein survive to this day. At any rate, as the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald said in a different context, there are no second acts in American lives.

More likely, the scenario will be as follows:

Step one: Get bin-Ladin and a few dozen others.

Step two: Declare victory and go home, expressing gratitude to those who “helped” win this victory.

It should be noted that, except for the Afghan government, the United States has not criticized any other country since this crisis began.

Wait! I forgot. There is one country the U.S. has criticized: Israel, whose victimization by terrorism exceeds that of any other state in the world.

The problem is that current U.S. strategy encourages Yasser Arafat to believe he can get away with more violence and terrorism. Consequently, though Americans don’t understand this at all and are shocked to hear it, U.S. policy is getting Israelis killed by emboldening Arafat to let attacks continue, instead of using the September 11 tragedy to scare him into stopping them.

Actually, though, aside from this very serious reality, Israel need not worry very much about U.S. policy right now. The American statements are cynical, rhetorical, and there is no intention of demanding more Israeli concessions in exchange for Arafat’s empty promises.

At the same time, Arafat has landed himself in a familiar situation. On the one hand, he has again gotten off easily, forgiven by Washington for rejecting two major American peace efforts (the Camp David summit and the Clinton plan) and breaking four pledges to American leaders to implement a real cease-fire. In addition, he’s gained immunity as regards being declared a terrorist or being held responsible for the violence he’s provoked.

On the other hand, Arafat has thrown away a chance to benefit materially from the crisis. He could have implemented a real cease-fire and demanded that negotiations be renewed at a time the U.S. has an incentive to pressure Israel to give up more. Sharon’s (proper) refusal to go along with this would have engendered a real crisis in U.S.-Israel relations.

But as long as Arafat lets fighting rage and encourages selective attacks on Israel, the current situation — in which time is on Israel’s side — will continue. If and when it eliminates bin-Ladin, the U.S. won’t need Arafat any more and can return to its previous policy of doing nothing.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has created an unnecessary and painful domestic situation as politicians and the media compete in terrorizing the American public, albeit unintentionally. Lurid stories of additional attacks, including chemical and biological ones, pour from journalists’ overactive imaginations.

People in much of America, with no good reason, are as nervous about terrorist attacks as are any Israelis.

Here are four reasons I don’t believe there will be any major attack in the U.S. during the next 18 months or so:

• bin-Ladin’s forces have limited resources and put all their efforts into the September 11 operation.
• His remaining agents are currently too busy running and hiding.
• Staging a big operation in the U.S. takes a long time.
• Using chemical or biological weapons is far more difficult than people are being led to believe.

Instead of scaring the American people, U.S. leaders should inform themselves about the Middle East, a region many of them simply don’t seem to understand.

Seven brief tips:

1. Force is respected. People may say that if you use force they will be angry with you. Don’t believe them. They will be afraid of you, and will respect your interests more.
2. If you don’t do anything, people will know it. Daniel Pipes has provided a detailed list of past terrorist attacks after which the U.S. talked tough and did nothing. These failures contributed to the September 11 attack.
3. Pay attention to what’s being said in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Everyone may love America when they’re speaking English — but watch what they say to their own people. It is often the opposite.
4. Don’t be an apologist for those who injure you. If you demand that people prove themselves friends or enemies, why be afraid to point out when they are acting like enemies?
5. Appeasement doesn’t work. All Western officials know this truth, but then, time after time, they try to please terrorists, extremists and dictators in the false belief that it will make them act properly.
6. Being liked never won anyone a foreign policy crisis. As President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” To put it in Hollywood terms, there are times you need John Wayne instead of Jimmy Stewart. Middle Easterners don’t need to be convinced that America is nice. They perceive “nice” as meaning “weak.” Hasn’t America had enough proof of this over the past 20 years?
7. Finish the job. If you don’t get them, they will come back and get you. Remember Saddam Hussein?

Good luck, America, and please don’t blow this one. None of us can afford it.

A Note From Zola

Dear Friends,

With this “double-size” edition of the Levitt Letter, our ministry undertakes a new calling. It just feels to me at this time that we need to comment far and wide on what’s going on in this world. We very well may be moving to the “end of the age” as Scripture styles it, and that is extremely important where our outreach is concerned.

Many people look to us as an informed source of data on Israel and its various ramifications for our situation today: prophecy, terrorism, the coming world government, and so forth. We are glad to serve in this capacity. The Lord has guided us through more than 70 tours of the Holy Land in 30 years, and we’ve made friends on different sides over there in that time. I feel that we are prepared to comment on the times, and we’re going to do that, starting with this enlarged Levitt Letter.

First of all, let me answer a few criticisms that have come in the mail. As to my not being an “expert” on military matters, etc., I don’t see many others very knowledgeable on how to confront the terrorists. I won’t belabor the point, but I feel that our government is simply not doing enough and that chasing basically one terrorist leader in one small nation is counterproductive. I also strongly feel that our government is showing its lack of expertise by believing that it can gather up other terroristic nations as partners in some sort of coalition. As I write, President Bush is in China trying to match wits with the bloody dictator of that hopeless regime in order to curry his favor and, evidently, get some economic gain out of it. I don’t think you have to be an expert at much of anything to see that an approach to the problems the size we’ve got with that kind of “diplomacy” is likely to be ineffective or could possibly backfire.

We also consistently receive letters chastising me for implying that Israel is somehow superior to this nation. Let me make this very clear, I’m a born and bred American and a faithful citizen of this country. I do not ever say that Israel is “superior,” but recently I’ve had to point out that their security is tighter and their alertness to terrorism is much greater, and I think those things are obvious. In view of the fact that airport security is a whole industry created because Moslems hijack airplanes, I think a little familiarity with Moslems and their ways places a nation in a superior position where that issue is concerned. In Israel, security people are top-echeloned, controlled, and educated on a serious level by governmental authorities, whereas in this country they seem to be the folks who will work for the least pay. A situation like that, of course, has to be changed immediately. And if Israel has a better way, then I’m going to say so.

I was also criticized for using the term “amillennialist” in reference to Dr. J. Vernon McGee. That was indeed a step too far. It would mean that he didn’t believe in a literal earthly Kingdom. McGee certainly did believe in the Kingdom, but he did not believe that current events in Israel necessarily lead up to the end of the age. When he came on my radio talk show, he refused to say that Israel was of any importance. Rather, he took the positions taken by Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary that God will fulfill His promises to Israel when He returns, but is not necessarily working in that nation now. I could not agree less and it was a difficult hour. Still, I shouldn’t use a technical term like amillennialist. He simply was a Christian who did not regard modern Israel as important.

A host of other criticisms come this way (and an awful lot of compliments, and I thank you for these), and I thank you for all those opinions. It is humbling for an individual who was once the only Jewish person working with Campus Crusade for Christ to find himself in this position.

In certain sectors, we’re not free to give our opinions on television. Some stations or networks are sensitive about Israel and disagree with me (as did Dr. McGee) on its importance or relevance. Therefore, these letters are germane to our teaching, and since they are received only by volunteers, I will continue to speak my mind in this format.

So far as television networks go, the Arabs watch them, too, and they have directed anthrax mailings to those commentators who are in their disfavor, such as Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. Peter Jennings, of course, has not been troubled by such a mailing because he is a reliable Arabist who takes their side as he broadcasts the news. His past relations with Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi and sundry Palestinian friends in my mind disqualifies him as a spokesman on Middle-Eastern issues, but I never watch him anyway. Are the Arabs in their childish envy and anger trying to eliminate news sources they don’t prefer, thinking that we’ll stay with the one they do?

Obviously, problems with terrorism in Israel have cut back our tours by one-third to half of their normal size. That has not stopped us from going, of course, and neither has the relatively small amount of disturbance in that country, of which we are cognizant. We simply know where to travel and we have friends on the ground wherever we go, and we have successfully avoided problems for all the 30 years that we have been going. Still in all, I feel that the trips to Orlando, Florida, are helpful in picking up the slack for those interested in Israel, so I look forward to this after-Thanksgiving time when we’ll take two tours of the Holy Land Experience. Choose either November 23–25 or November 30–December 2. We also have tentatively planned a weekend after Christmas — December 28-30 — for a special visit to this Biblical theme park. We announced it earlier and have left off publicity in the meantime while we filled up the Thanksgiving tours. If you are interested in the after-Christmas visit, when kids are available and very welcome with their parents in our hotel suites, then please contact Tony at (214) 696-9760.

I’m also very heartened by the number of good churches that have come forward to hear me speak from Thanksgiving into mid-January. If your church would still like to sign up a date, we have a few Sunday spots and especially weekday and Saturday times available. Once I’m “on the road,” we visit churches for offerings only, plus minor traveling expenses. It would be quite a savings over bringing us all the way from Texas for a visit. If your church is interested, please contact Cynthia at (214) 696 8844.

Of interest to our many unsaved Jewish viewers, I was asked recently how many unbelievers were at our ministry. The question took me aback momentarily until it was clarified. What if the Rapture came? Who would run our ministry? Who would mail out materials? I answered this person that I knew of no one at our offices who wasn’t a believer. I was counting on the 144,000 to take over, but in any case, while we won’t make new TV programs, since I sure won’t be there, someone certainly ought to handle the mail and the orders until the Antichrist comes to close it up. It is interesting to note that there are many un-believers in our viewership and I would just urge anyone who happened to be left behind to accept Messiah as Savior. Then, come and open up the office and run the ministry throughout the Tribulation when our materials will be so vitally important for the harvest of souls during that frightening period of history.

If you like this double-edition newsletter, please write and let us know. It’s quite an undertaking for us since we mail over 32,200 of these every month. On the other hand, our newsletter is so well-received that we want it to be the best we can make it. Fundraising has never been very difficult in this ministry. For example, we haven’t mentioned our TV crew and travel people in Israel for some time and yet, we were able to send another donation recently, which they very much appreciated. Thank you for not forgetting these faithful workers in a tough time. Likewise, with our missionaries (see Todd’s article), I typically have to mention once what the need is. So I thank you for your faithfulness and your obedience to our Lord. Perhaps you could find it in your budget to help us with its production. We don’t need everybody to pay for their copy, but we do need our regular donors to perhaps add a little to get us over the hump.

We’re taking reservations now for the spring 2002 Holy Land tour, tentatively scheduled for March 7–30. We think the land will still be safe as always (perhaps safer than staying at home). Arafat needs to be on his best behavior in order to back up his pledge to our coalition. Consider joining us on an unforgettable visit to the Promised Land. If you sign up by December 31 with your refundable deposit, you will receive $100 in ministry materials when you take our tour. If we postpone the tour, then you will get a full refund and still receive the $100 in material when you go with us on a future Israel tour.

Your messenger,

Editorial

Netanyahu Saw it Coming

By Cal Thomas
The Washington Times

If there were such things as prophets in our day, as there were in ancient times, former (and perhaps future) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be one.

[Recently] Mr. Netanyahu, whose grandfather was a rabbi, was in Washington sounding vindicated. For years he has been prophesying about terrorism, but few would listen. Now everybody is listening.

Mr. Netanyahu testified before the House Committee on Government Reform and later met in private with senators. What he said should be required reading for every person who loves liberty and wants to maintain it.

“What is at stake today,” he warned the committee, “is nothing less than the survival of our civilization.” A month ago, that would have sounded alarmist, even extreme. Not anymore. “Our values are hated with an unmatched fanaticism that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of life,” he said soberly.

Mr. Netanyahu knows the neighborhood in which he lives and has been personally scarred by terrorism. His brother was killed in 1976 during a commando raid he led to free hostages from Palestinian terrorists who had hijacked a plane to Entebbe, Uganda.

Echoing President Bush, Mr. Netanyahu told the House committee that terrorism is sustained by nations, such as Syria, Iran, Iraq and Libya. “Take away all this state support and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse in the dust,” he said.

While Mr. Netanyahu spoke only of modern terrorism and gave a lesson in recent history, the fact is that Islamic terrorism has been an endemic element of the Middle East for 13 centuries. With the exception of Turkey, all modern Islamic regimes have come to power through violence. None has tolerated any challenge to its supremacy. They first terrorize their own citizens who fail to comply with all the regime’s political or religious beliefs, then they terrorize outsiders, claiming a divine mandate. Equal rights, especially for women, are unknown in such nations.

Terrorism is not an aberration, nor is it born primarily out of frustration to achieve economic parity with wealthier nations. Terrorism is a policy. It is embraced to achieve an objective its practitioners believe cannot be reached in any other way. It has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of Israel; otherwise there would have been no terrorism in the Middle East for so long.

It matters little that a majority of Muslims have not pledged themselves to the forced implementation of radical Islam. They do not have the guns or the fanaticism of the radicals, who seek, according to Mr. Netanyahu, to “roll back the West and install an extremist form of Islam as the dominant power in the world.” It makes one long for the good old days of communism.

In a telephone conversation before returning to Israel, Mr. Netanyahu told me he sees America’s tardy recognition of the terrorist threat as “the beginning of the beginning.” He worries, though, that not everyone has gotten the message, noting the continued “pressure on Israel” to meet with Yasser Arafat, an author and promoter of the very terrorism the U.S. opposes. Mr. Netanyahu wants us to know about a “terror museum” erected at Al-Najah University, in the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus. The grisly exhibit glorified the recent suicide bombing of a Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem.

Mr. Netanyahu says he believes most of the American public now understands what he and Israel have experienced for decades. “The liberals are smashed,” he says. “They must be quiet or join in the applause [for President Bush’s policies].” Not exactly. The “peace at any price” crowd is beginning to stir. But they are less likely to be taken seriously by the public, which gives President Bush a 90 percent approval rating.

In his appearance before the House committee, Mr. Netanyahu warned, “Some of you may find it hard to believe that Islamic militants truly cling to the mad fantasy of destroying America. Make no mistake, they do. Unless they are stopped now, their attacks will continue, and become even more lethal in the future.”

That sounds like the warning of a prophet.

“If we keep on doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep on getting what we’ve always gotten.” The insanity of our continuing to cultivate mosquitoes to help us with malaria goes on and on. Prime Minister Sharon was perfectly right when he accused President Bush of selling out Israel for better relations with terrorists. — Zola

Israel criticized Tony Blair for hosting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying the meeting would "bestow legitimacy" on someone who has not broken with terrorism.

“This certainly won’t be conducive to forcing Arafat to stop terrorism, which he has not done,” said Ra’anan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “We have stated clearly that we are against bestowing legitimacy on someone who has not yet passed the test of stopping terrorism.”

Underlining the message that terrorism is its issue, Israeli officials privately admitted yesterday that their soldiers had shot dead a Hamas leader on the roof of his home.

Abdul Rahman Hamad was hit by two bullets at long range. Israeli spokesmen claimed he organized the June suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv disco that claimed 22 lives. In a carrot-and-stick gesture, Mr. Sharon announced plans yesterday to ease the blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, removing barriers around Palestinian towns and villages and easing travel for workers.

But Israel’s growing nightmare is that the U.S., struggling to keep Muslim backing for its action in Afghanistan, will pile on the pressure for a deal with the Palestinians.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, America’s most important allies in the Arab world, are looking for signs that the West is doing something about the regular killings of Palestinians.

Israelis fear Mr. Arafat’s encounter with Mr. Blair will lead naturally to talks at the White House with U.S. President George Bush.

There is mounting anxiety over Mr. Bush’s recent statements backing a Palestinian state. And U.S. officials say Secretary of State Colin Powell will make proposals in a speech at the United Nations next month that would include Palestinian control of Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem.

That would spell the end of Mr. Sharon’s dream of a Greater Israel that includes most of the occupied West Bank. He has repeatedly vowed that Jerusalem cannot be divided.

Mr. Blair told a Sunday newspaper…that a period of peace was needed so that “Palestinians have some sort of ability to go about their daily lives”. He spoke of building a “security bridge” to move to “serious talks” and end the cynicism over the peace process.

Mr. Bush lavished unprecedented praise on Mr. Arafat, saying he should be applauded for efforts to implement a Middle East cease-fire.

“The effort right now is to pacify the Arabs,” Mr. Gissin said. “That is all well and fine but nothing will happen that will in any way compromise Israel’s security interests.” Israel’s sense that Britain is intent on courting the Muslim world at Israel’s expense became acute last month when the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, used the word “Palestine”, which does not yet exist, in an article he penned for an Iranian newspaper.

Mr. Sharon was so incensed that he refused to meet with Mr. Straw when he visited Israel, but then relented after approaches were made by Mr Blair.

Britain’s first Muslim MP [Member of Parliament], Mohammed Sarwar, yesterday warned Tony Blair that it was crucial to resolve the Palestinian issue. The Labour member for Glasgow Govan praised Mr. Blair’s efforts to broker peace, but said: “If we can bring a peaceful resolution to the Palestine dispute and deal with sanctions against Iraq, I believe we will be living in a better world, and the Prime Minister will take the credit. If he fails, he will be hated as much as the Americans.”

An article in the official Egyptian daily Al-Akbar called on Palestinians to carry out as many suicide attacks as possible. “Kill your enemies at every turn because this is a life and death conflict between you and them,” read the article entitled “A Message to the Palestinians.”

“The deeds of the martyrs will bring disaster upon the Jews. The only way that you Palestinians can defeat your enemies until they give up and accept your demands is to make this sacrifice.” Arab newspapers are praising and encouraging Palestinian suicide attacks more and more.

In the thought-provoking article below, the author lumps in Hal Lindsey, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson with a Moslem web site all under the label “extremists.” The sad part is, here’s an Israeli laughing at End Times prophecy taken from a Bible written and published in Israel by Jews and having everything to do with his own future and that of his nation. Hal Lindsey’s works will be highly influential in the Tribulation to come and I think they will not be a laughing matter at that time. — Zola

Along with the cell phone, the Internet has become the electronic hero of recent days. We need to know that other people are still out there; we need to talk, or type, it all out….

But the Web has fulfilled another function from its start: In its cacophonous anarchy, anyone can get his or her idea out — including preachers of doom, divine wrath and hate. Some expected the Internet to collapse back on January 1, 2000, but that hasn’t kept them from using the Net since — or from exploiting a real catastrophe to promise even worse.

One such message came from Hal Lindsey, Christian fundamentalism’s most successful popularizer of the idea that history is about to end, with unbelievers dying by the billions. He posted a message called “Where Was God September 11th?” (www.hallindseyoracle.com), asserting that God had previously kept evil under restraint, but now it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy: “What happened in New York and Washington was a wake-up call that the ‘last days’ are upon us.”

Another Christian fundamentalist site, www.bibleprophecy.com, cites post-Black Tuesday rumors that the U.S. will institute a national ID card, then proceeds to the fantasy that the government will demonically implant computer chips in everyone. That, in turn, would fulfill a key prediction from the Book of Revelation and herald bigger catastrophes about to hit all but born again Christians.

Jerry Falwell used old-fashioned TV to announce on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” that “God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve,” and put the blame on the ACLU, gays and “abortionists.” The reviews were poor, and you can read his apology at www.falwell.com. “I do not know if the horrific events of September 11 are a judgment of God, but if they are, that judgment is on all of America — including me…” he reassures readers.

Out at the apocalyptic edges of Judaism, there may be also those who greet horror as heralding divine judgment. If so, it appears they’re waiting until “after the holidays” to upload their exegesis.

As for the alleged perpetrator of catastrophe, it seems Osama bin Laden has not yet hijacked a Web site. But scholars tracking extremism pointed me to www.azzam.com, named for Abdallah Azzam, a spiritual mentor of bin Laden blown up in Peshawar in the late 80s. It provides a radical reading of Islam in the infidel’s tongue of English, including a post September 11 page on “The Monumental Struggle of Good versus Evil.” Offensive as these writings are, the Web does us the favor of letting us see how the extremists think, in first person.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has famously labeled Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat as “our bin Laden.” Actually, this is an exaggeration. Arafat is our Taliban. Though Arafat and the Taliban are obviously not cut from the same Muslim fundamentalist cloth, their relationship to terrorism is similar. The United States and Britain decided to start bombing the Taliban regime, because it was difficult for them to tell who controlled whom: Bin Laden or the Taliban.

Arafat’s relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad may be more complicated, but in the end no less intimate than that between the Taliban and bin Laden. Over the past year, Arafat and his supposed radical opponents engaged a tandem strategy of terror. Arafat’s forces, such as Fatah-Tanzim and Force 17, would gun down Israelis on the roads in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and controlled the manufacture and distribution of mortars that were fired on Israeli communities. Arafat’s “opposition” would focus on suicide bombing in Israel proper. When Arafat decided it was in his interest to call a cease-fire, he would convince his “opposition” that suicide attacks were not in the Palestinian interest.

Whatever power struggle there may be between Arafat and Islamic Palestinian forces, when it comes to terrorism there is a division of labor between them. In this respect, Arafat is worse than the Taliban: he does not just harbor and cooperate with terrorists — the organizations he leads engage in terrorism themselves.

In a “cease-fire,” ironically, Arafat’s connection to terrorism could actually become more obvious, since Arafat’s idea of a “cease-fire” has been, at best, stopping suicide bombings within Israel. Arafat has never said that he would stop terrorist attacks against Israelis living in the disputed territories. It is this form of terrorism, which has mainly been carried out by Arafat’s own forces, that the Organization of Islamic States just proclaimed is not terrorism, but “resisting occupation.”

It is in this context that British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s meeting with Arafat was particularly disturbing. Blair, in the great tradition of his country, has been America’s staunchest ally and among the most eloquent in explaining the need to defeat terrorism. As Blair said, “What happened in America was an attack not just upon the United States, but upon the civilized world.”

But Blair should know better that the war against terrorism cannot be fought by continuing to allow the terrorist to play divide and conquer. Both Britain and the United States have been drifting toward a distinction between two types of terror: “global” terror directed at the West in general and “local” terror geared toward achieving more limited local aims. A take-no-prisoners war is being fought against the former, but the world’s most prominent symbol of the latter — Yasser Arafat — is welcomed into 10 Downing Street.

It took the mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani — addressing the U.N. General Assembly this month — to remind us, including the Bush administration, that “the era of moral relativism on terrorism must end.”

In trying to forge a coalition against the widely interconnected scourge of terrorism, the Bush administration is enlisting, or trying to neutralize, some nations that encourage or allow indirect fund-raising for this murderous network. Among the latter, Saudi Arabia comes to mind. And when the U.N. Security Council lifted sanctions from Sudan — a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden from 1992 to 1996, and other terrorists — we remained silent and complicit.

In order to facilitate the coalition, the administration’s most persistent pressure has been on Israel to engage once more in negotiations with Yasser Arafat. I have long been for an independent Palestinian state; but for President Bush to summon this “vision” at this point in the war on terrorism without first notifying Israel, is to reward Mr. Arafat. We have increased pressure on Israel to trust a negotiating partner who has initiated new violence from his side every time there is a cease-fire, or has not effectively punished the terrorists.

The administration is operating under an illusion that a root cause of terrorism is hatred of the United States, because it is the ultimate supporter of Israel. Therefore, Israel must not only exercise restraint when it retaliates for the murder of its citizens, but it must do much more to accommodate Mr. Arafat’s demands.

However, as Fouad Ajami, director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, points out in the Oct. 8 U.S. News & World Report: “The Arabs tell us all would have been well, and our presence in their world would have yielded a sweeter harvest, had we cast Israel adrift…. But nothing could be further from the truth. A deeper anti-Americanism grips Arab and Muslim lands. It has been America’s fate to be caught in the crossfire of a war over Islam itself, a war between privilege and wrath, between the secular powers in the saddle and a nativist-pious opposition from below.”

For a long time, the terrorists’ fierce, abiding goal is to hijack the Muslim religion, which does not condone atrocities such as suicide bombing.

In the Oct. 5 New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman, hardly an uncritical analyst of Israeli acts, notes: “We know the Sept. 11 attack was being planned a year ago — exactly when President Clinton was proposing to Yasser Arafat” the deepest accommodations any Israeli government had ever made.

And Julie Sirrs, a journalist who…has interviewed prisoners of the Northern Alliance who had been fighting with bin Laden — tells Albert Hunt in the Wall Street Journal, “They see…America as a barrier to establishing an Islamic state. Even if the Israeli-Palestinian issue were resolved, that wouldn’t change.”

Ariel Sharon, under insistent pressure from Colin Powell, permitted Shimon Peres to meet with Mr. Arafat; a cease-fire was agreed on; and thereafter, as Mr. Sharon says, the attacks on Israeli citizens, launched each time by Palestinians, did not stop “for even one day.”

So, Mr. Sharon now tells the Bush administration — which will not even include Hamas, Hezbollah, or Islamic Jihad in its list of terrorists — “Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense. From now on, we will count only on ourselves. There is no such thing as good terrorism and bad terrorism. Terrorism blindly kills innocent people, and I instructed my security forces to take all the necessary measures to confront the Palestinian terrorists.” Now that the war on terrorism has begun, who is our more reliable ally: Mr. Sharon or Mr. Arafat?

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat: Salam al-eikem, Osama. How are you?

Osama bin Laden: I’m fine, habbibi. It’s difficult living on the run, but with Allah’s help I’ll survive.

A: Believe me, I know the feeling. But have faith. If you play your cards right, you might one day be running a state of your own.

bL: Yasser, I think you’ve been putting too much hashish in your pipe.

A: Hey, if I can go from terrorist to peacemaker, so can you.

bL: How?

A: Look, I founded my terrorist network in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson was the president of America.

bL: So what? He’s dead.

A: Exactly. So is Richard Nixon. Meanwhile Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Papa Bush and Bill Clinton are collecting their pensions. As for me, I’m still calling the shots.

bL: I’m not following.

A: Be patient, Osa. Presidents come and go, and democratic nations have short memories. We even had one of our boys knock off Bobby Kennedy, and today they serve me baklava at the White House.

bL: I’m still not following.

A: Listen. As crazy as it may sound today, you too can get an invitation one day to the White House and sign a “peace” agreement. You’ll promise to resolve your differences through a peaceful dialogue of civilizations [laughter], then they’ll give you a state of your own. Who knows, you might even win the Noble Peace Prize.

bL: Sounds great. But how do I do it?

A: So far, you’re doing fine. But eventually, you’ll have to lie before you can start bombing again. I bombed myself out of Jordan and Lebanon and then lied my way into Ramallah and Gaza. Now, I do both and they call me a statesman [laughter].

bL: So I should start lying?

A: No, first you have to kill thousands more in your jihad before you can be truly admired for your bravery.

bL: Admired for my bravery? But our brothers already revere me.

A: Try to pay attention. I was playing this game when you were still wetting your shalwar-kameez. Being revered by our brothers is easy. It’s being revered at the same time by the West that’s tricky. I’ve killed babies, children, mothers and fathers after Oslo, and the Israelis are still begging to talk to me. The Americans? They’re clueless. The British? They must be teaching courses in groveling at the Foreign Office. And the French? [laughter]

bL: How do you get away with it? How can you kill and still be loved by the West?

A: All you have to remember is the three Ls. Lie. Lie. Lie. People in the West are easy to dupe because they want to believe that leopards can change their spots. Besides, those idiots actually think we can afford to cut off their oil supplies — yeah, and concentrate on hi-tech [laughter].

bL: So what do I have to do besides lie?

A: First, deny that you were involved in the Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

bL: I did that.

A: Good! Now have your friends set up satellite organizations so that you can deny responsibility for further terror.

bL: Like what kind of organizations?

A: Like Fatah, Tanzim, PFLP, Islamic Jihad, Hamas — do I have to spell everything out for you?

bL: But how do I do all this and stay alive?

A: I can help with that. It’s the least I can do for you. After all, your recent statement of support made my job so much easier.

bL: How can you help me?

A: I can buy you time. I can make sure the whole Arab world insists that the problem of the poor depraved Palestinians yearning to be free [laughter] is resolved first. The Americans are going to be stuck. They’ll be scared to move against you without others in the Muslim world behind them. And if they try to support me, the Israelis and their friends in Congress will start screaming. Good old gridlock, habbibi.

This will wear them down, and give you time to escape to set up your satellite terrorist cells. This game can go on for months, if not years.

bL: Let me see if I got this right. You are going to continue lying to the West that you are seeking a peaceful solution with those Zionist pigs. That will delay their attacks against me and give me a chance to build my operation and protect myself.

A: You got it. But you really don’t have to hold out too long. Saddam and Khomeini will have nukes, and so the infidels will be bowing down to Allah in no time. Hell, if the Jews hadn’t blown up the reactor at Osirak in ‘81, we could be sharing a bowl of humus in the safety of downtown Baghdad right now. How is Saddam anyway?

bL: He’s great and he sends regards.

A: Trust me, Osama, we’ll bring the free world to its knees before you can say “Big Apple.” After all, if you can break it there, you could break it anywhere [laughter].

M.A. Muqtedar Khan has invited American Muslims to search their souls. His observations:

• Muslims, including American Muslims, have been practicing hypocrisy by protesting against discrimination in Israel but not in Muslim states.
• Muslims love to live in the U.S. but also love to hate it.
• Muslims should acknowledge that the freedoms enjoyed in the U.S. are more desirable to than superficial solidarity with the Muslim World. “If you disagree, than prove it by packing your bags and going to whichever Muslim country you identify with.”

A member of a secret order of Muslims who terrorized and killed Christian Crusaders and others. [French, from Medieval Latin assassnus, from Arabic, hashish user, from hashish. See hashish.]

Word History: At first glance, one would be hard pressed to find a link between pleasure and the acts of assassins. Such was not the case, however, with those who gave us the word assassin. They were members of a secret Islamic order originating in the 11th century who believed it was a religious duty to harass and murder their enemies. The most important members of the order were those who actually did the killing. Having been promised paradise in return for dying in action, the killers, it is said, were made to yearn for paradise by being given a life of pleasure that included the use of hashish. From this came the name for the secret order as a whole, “hashish users.” After passing through French or Italian, the word came into English and is recorded in 1603 with reference to the Muslim Assassins.

Source: Dictionary.com

Book Review

Storm Clouds on the Horizon: Is There a Silver Lining?

By Thomas S. McCall, Th.D.

Moody Bible Institute has just published a new book entitled Storm Clouds on the Horizon. It is an anthology edited by the recently appointed Vice President and Provost, Dr. Charles Dyer, and has a forward by the President, Dr. Joseph Stowell. It is a book on Bible prophecy and the Second Coming of Christ. How long has it been since the professors at Moody have produced a sound book on eschatology? It is refreshing to see this venerable school reassert its foundational position on classical Dispensationalism. The chapters are written by several professors at Moody on such subjects as the restoration of the nation Israel, the Rapture of the Church, the Tribulation and the Millennium. This is the kind of teaching many of the schools that were founded on Biblical Dispensationalism have been strangely silent on during the past decade.

From our perspective, the chapter by Professor Rydelnik was the most pertinent, because it describes the situation in modern Israel, with reference to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. One of the main problems we have had with Progressive Dispensationalism, apart from its poor hermeneutics (Bible interpretation), is the fact that it has minimized the significance of the modern nation of Israel. The Progressive Dispensationalists correctly believe in the future of Israel, when Christ returns to the earth, but they tend to dismiss the present of Israel as an unfortunate accident of nature!! The implication is that God will not begin to work with the Jewish nation until the Second Coming. That means that the entire process of the remarkable restoration of Israel over the past century is just some kind of misguided human effort. What a travesty of misinformation.

Rydelnik reverses this sad trend of interpretation and returns to the concept about Israel developed throughout most of the last century in classical Dispensationalism. He describes the restoration of Israel as the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, especially the Dry Bones prophecy in Ezekiel 37. In that amazing vision, the dry bones come out of the graveyards of the nations, gather together into skeletons, begin to put on flesh, and finally have the breath of God blown upon them and stand alive as a great army. The Lord Himself interprets this as pertaining to “the whole house of Israel” in the last days. Rydelnik presents this information much the same way as Zola and I, and a host of sound prophetic writers have done during the past century. There are many things that Israel must do to fulfill prophecy before the Lord returns to reign on earth, and most of them must be done while Israel (nationally) is still in unbelief. Among these are the return as “dry bones” (lifeless), confirming a seven-year treaty with the Antichrist, and the building of the Tribulation Temple. None of these developments will take God by surprise, and they all fit into the plan the Lord has arranged for the End Times. The restoration of Israel in unbelief is key to all of this, and that is precisely what we have observed in our lifetime.

The other chapters in the books are less controversial among Dispensationalists, but present in general the basic concepts of the pre-Tribulational Rapture of the Church, the Tribulation and the Millennium that are developed in the works of Scofield, Walvoord, Ryrie, Pentecost and many others. The forward by Dr. Joseph Stowell also presents this general theme, but it, alas, leaves something to be desired. He is to be commended for taking a forthright stand on the future of Israel after the Second Coming of Christ, but he seems to have drunk deeply of the Progressive Dispensational attitude about the present of the modern nation of Israel. Dr. Stowell likens Israel to Humpty Dumpty, citing the inability of the nations to put Israel back together again. He lingers on the frustrating nature of how elusive peace is in the Middle East, and the fact that all of this is doomed to failure until the Lord returns. There is an element of truth in this, but what he does not bring out is how all of this is part of the prophetic plan. As indicated above, the Jewish people had to return to the Land in unbelief, or else they could not fulfill the prophecies about returning as dry bones or making an agreement with the Antichrist. Dr. Stowell may believe modern Israel is the fulfillment of prophecy, but he certainly does not say so in his forward to the new book.

When Bible teachers imply that modern Israel has no relationship to Biblical prophecy, they encourage those anti-Semites who work against Israel in their efforts to undermine the existence of Israel struggling to survive in a very dangerous neighborhood. They echo the idea that there is no Biblical reason for the existence of Israel. Therefore, they see no reason why Israel could not be destroyed by their terrorist Arab enemies in the current framework, only to return again at the Second Coming. They fail to see the working of the Lord in this whole current process of the miraculous restoration of Israel. Although the forward leaves out this very important concept, it is good that Rydelnik’s chapter in the book brings out this truth very clearly.

Surely this new book is, on balance, a very welcome sight in the theological world. It has been some time since a major Bible college has produced from its current faculty and administration a positive publication supporting Bible prophecy, the Second Coming of Christ, the restoration of Israel and classical Dispensationalism. Has Moody made a decisive turnaround, with its faculty back on the firm path laid out by the school’s founders? This is the potential silver lining. Is there, however, any downside concerning this book? The biggest problem, as I see it, is the possibility this may be a cover-up of what is really happening among the faculty. As I discussed this matter with some of my colleagues, they felt the book is reminiscent of what happened at Dallas Seminary a few years ago. Not long after Progressive Dispensationalism began to become evident among the faculty there, and there was a negative reaction from the alumni and others, Dallas Seminary produced a series of works on prophecy. This was not from the current young faculty, but rather an anthology by a number of the emeritus professors like Walvoord, Pentecost, etc., who had set the course of the Seminary in classical Dispensationalism. The series was intended to demonstrate that there was no significant doctrinal shift in the Seminary, and that all was the same as before.

The problem at Dallas Seminary was that Progressive Dispensationalism was gaining ground among the faculty in the classrooms, older sound professors were retiring, and no new classical Dispensationalists were being hired. All of this was more or less hidden from the supporting public, and when anyone brought attention to the doctrinal defection, as many did, including this newsletter, we were denounced by the administration as being disloyal dissidents and making a mountain out of a theological molehill. Nevertheless, the proponents of divergent views have now grown strong enough so that they are coming out of the closet, and no longer hiding the fact that the Seminary has made a “paradigm shift.” The book served its purpose, though, in providing theological cover for the upcoming faculty while the transition was in progress.

Is that what is happening now at Moody? Perhaps only time will tell whether this book represents a renewed determination of the school to assert its original commitment to classical Dispensational, or if it is an effort to cover the already pronounced shift of the school toward Progressive Dispensationalism and other aberrant doctrines that have plagued so many Bible schools and seminaries.

Under pressure, Moody will teach accurate prophecy and Arafat will donate blood. — Zola

Cape Town, South Africa (AP) — Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflka pledged his support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but questioned Tuesday whether Western nations were truly committed to eliminating all forms of it.

On the first day of a state visit to South Africa, Bouteflika said the world only seemed concerned about the effects of terror when it affected the rich.

Terrorism in Algeria had reached “unsuspected peaks,” but had not sparked “the interest and the reaction of international opinion,” he told South Africa’s Parliament. An Islamic insurgency in Algeria has left more than 100,000 people dead since 1992.

“Another change of heart…”

“Arafat is at the end of the road. Why don’t we just admit that Arafat is no leader?” wrote Professor Edward Said, a prominent Palestinian-American intellectual, in the London-based Arab magazine Al-Hayat. “Arafat’s strategy benefits only himself and his close colleagues, and no one else. Yasser Arafat is the main obstacle to the welfare of his own people.”

Said, a political science professor at Columbia University in New York, blames Arafat for the suffering of the Palestinians. “As long as Arafat and his gang govern the Palestinian people, there will be no hope for us,” he wrote. “Arafat should worry about his people and use the donations he has received to benefit the Palestinians and not just himself.” According to Professor Said, the sooner Arafat and his cronies pack their bags and disappear, the better off everyone will be.

Susan Binford, executive vice president of CNN public relations, writes, “For the record, CNN has, since the morning of Sept. 11, called those responsible for the attacks exactly what they are, terrorists” [letters, Oct. 11].

Ms. Binford apparently is referring only to terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, because whenever a Palestinian blows himself up in a disco, bar, restaurant or bus in Israel, killing babies, children, teens and other civilians, CNN always refers to these terrorists as “militants.” Why the double standard?

Joseph Yudin, Moshav Nir Yafe, Israel

By declaring a cease-fire, Yasser Arafat indicated that he may be willing to accept the gradual termination of the intifada. Now he faces the challenge of keeping a cease-fire within an intifada. The intifada has lost its way and is failing to produce any tangible gains. Arafat has been looking for a dignified exit strategy from the intifada. Washington’s declaration of a war on terror helped solve Arafat’s dilemma.

What is on the agenda is a sort of precarious cease-fire regime which tolerates a fluctuating amount of “violations.” Arafat has to act quite slowly and try to scale down the violence gradually, to avoid open clashes with his opponents. Arafat will now be waiting to see how the next phase of diplomacy evolves. He also wants to see whether the U.S. indeed intends to strike at the sponsors of terrorism.

A foul wind had been blowing in Arab lands. The rulers had snuffed out endless rebellions and the populace had succumbed to a malignant, sullen silence. It prayed and waited for the rulers’ demise. It dreamt of an avenger and a band of merciless followers who would do for it what it could not do for itself.

We were “walk-ons” in this political and generational struggle playing out in Araby. America and Americans have a hard time coming to terms with those unfathomable furies of a distant, impenetrable world. In truth, Atta struck at us because he could not take down Mr. Mubarak’s world, because in the burdened, crowded land of the Egyptian dictator there is very little offered younger Egyptians save for the steady narcotic of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. The attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center was Atta’s “rite of passage.”

The military campaign against bin Laden is prosecuted, and will surely be won, by the U.S. But the redemption of the Arab political condition, and the weaning of that world away from its ruinous habits and temptations, are matters for the Arabs themselves.

A darkness, a long winter, has descended on the Arabs. Nothing grows in the middle between an authoritarian political order and populations given to perennial flings with dictators, abandoned to their most malignant hat-reds. Something is amiss in an Arab world that besieges American embassies for visas and at the same time celebrates America’s calamities. Something has gone terribly wrong in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only to be hailed as “martyrs” and avengers. No military campaign by a foreign power can give modern-day Arabs a way out of the cruel, blind alley of their own history.

While preparing to unleash their twisted “holy war” on America, some of the suicide hijackers set aside strict religious beliefs to whet their lusty appetites, partying with a high-priced hooker in Hub hotel rooms. In the days before the attack, the driver brought the same woman to the Days Hotel on Soldiers Field Road in Brighton where some of the hijackers are known to have stayed. According to Days Hotel manager Adam Sperling, one of the hijackers was a registered guest at the hotel from Sept. 8 through Sept. 11. Sources told the Herald that more than one of the terrorists stayed there those nights. The FBI has interviewed the driver and the call girl and has seized records from the two escort services, the driver said.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz would not confirm or deny whether any of the hijackers rented hookers in the days before the attacks. She also would not comment on whether agents have questioned workers at the city’s many escort services.

The dirty Hub dalliances of the terrorists are just the latest link between the Koran-toting killers and America’s seedy sex scene. In Florida, several of the hijackers — including reputed ringleader Mohamed Atta — spent $200 to $300 each on lap dances in the Pink Pony strip club. The group ran up drink tabs, spewed anti-America sentiments and talked of impending bloodshed a few days before the attacks, according to published reports. The group left behind a copy of the Koran — the Muslim holy book — at the Florida bar.

For those who were watching the MSNBC cable station… there was one moment when even the most dedicated news junky might have questioned the value of time devoted to absorbing the plethora of broadcast news options.

That was the moment when Ashleigh Banfield, MSNBC’s correspondent in Pakistan, interviewed the mufti of Islamabad. Kneeling in front of the cleric, the network’s Christianne Amanpour wannabe asked him what he thought about the fact that many people in his city believed that it was Israel, and not Islamic fundamentalist terrorists under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Without missing a beat, the mufti took this as a cue to not only repeat this slanderous rumor but to amplify it. Saying he had heard this “on the news,” he claimed that thousands of Jews had been warned by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service, not to show up for work that day.

Humorously, he also added that since the attacks were so sophisticated and well-planned, it must have been the work of Israel, since Muslims could never have managed it!

…Banfield failed to follow up on any of these monstrous comments and let them go uncontradicted. Nor was her mistake corrected by MSNBC editors or anchorpersons. The lengthy and outrageously false attack on Israel and the Jewish people went on the air without context or correction.

The U.S. Army has dropped use of the venerable term “dog tag,” out of respect for service women. “We don’t call them dog tags anymore,” said Bonnie Bell, warrant officer at the National Guard Bureau. “They’re ‘ID tags.’” Seems women found the term offensive, since “dog” is also a derogatory name for an unattractive woman.

But the term “fox holes” also has been officially banned — even though “fox” is a complimentary name for an attractive woman. “Fox holes are now called ‘fighting positions,’” Bell said.

• Men are superior to women (Surah 2:228).
• Women have half the rights of men: in court witness (Surah 2:282) and in inheritance (Surah 4:11).
• A man may punish his wife by beating her (Surah 4:34).
• A man may marry up to four wives at the same time (Surah 4:3).
• A wife is a sex object for her husband (Surah 2:223).
• Muslims must fight until their opponents submit to Islam (Surah 9:29).
• A Muslim must not take a Jew or a Christian for a friend (Surah 5:51).
• Stealing is punished by amputation of the hands (Surah 5:38).
• Adultery is punished by public flogging (Surah 24:2).
• Resisting Islam is punished by death, crucifixion or the cutting off of the hands and feet (Surah 5:33).
• Fate decides everyone's eternal destination (Surah 17:13).
• Every Muslim will pass through Hell (Surah 19:71)
• Heaven in Islam is the place where a Muslim will be reclining, eating meats and delicious fruits, drinking exquisite wines, and engaging in sex with virgins (Surah 55:54-56) & (Surah 52:17, 19).

A Muslim quoted in the Hebrew publication Ha’aretz: “Bush and Hitler are the same thing. You can write what I’m telling you, but don’t mention my name….”

A sheikh characterizing Arab leaders who must be overthrown: “Cowardly kings, princes, and prime ministers who act like slaves of the American overlord. These leaders are the whip of the Americans and the British and they know that their time has come. The day will come, and soon, when the Arab puppet governments will vanish along with the darkness. The Muslim peoples are about to win the glory they have been awaiting thanks to the war in Afghanistan…. There’s nothing in the world stronger than a shahid who is not afraid to die.”

Meanwhile, the head of intelligence for Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority yesterday denied there is any Arab terrorism in Israel — despite Arafat’s public claims to be trying to clamp down on attacks on Israeli civilians. “There are no terrorists,” said Tafik Tirawa. “We will arrest no one. Those who open fire on Israelis are not terrorists. It is the Israelis who are terrorists.”

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I strongly approve of the steps taken last night to freeze the funds of various terrorist groups. However, it was very disturbing to note the absence of Hamas and Hezbollah from the list. These are two of the best known international terrorist organizations in the world, receiving money from international sources. Both groups publicly embrace and exalt suicide bombers who kill innocent civilians and are symbols of terrorist violence.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah have recently repeated their commitment to suicide bombing and to terrorism. To ignore them will be to weaken the moral basis of our efforts. Furthermore, it will signal to much of the world that the United States abandons its friends to appease some of its enemies. Finally it will embolden both groups to return to the use of terror against Israel which will further enflame the region.

Please reconsider and add these two groups to the list immediately for both the moral and the practical impact such a step will signal.

Your friend respectfully,
Newt Gringrich

CNN News has changed the quote of the doctor who operated on the bus driver attacked in [a] fatal Tennessee bus crash…. A reported six people, including the suspect, died in that crash. Greyhound shut down operations for several hours, while the FBI investigated.

During a live interview…Dr. Ralph Bard, the physician that operated on the injured driver, reported that the driver told him: “The man came up this last time and cut his (the driver’s) throat with what he described as either a razor or a box cutter and then he actually grabbed the wheel and forced the bus across the median to the oncoming traffic.”

…Bard told CNN that the driver told him the man appeared “Mid-Eastern” and spoke with an accent. However, CNN reported on its website that the quote was “foreign,” not “Mid-Eastern.”

Edna Johnson, a spokesperson for CNN, told the Lightning that the quote used on the web page was from an earlier interview and had not been corrected. Johnson said she would look into the matter further, and would report back to the Lightning. She never did. The web page has not been corrected.

CNN has been slammed for its view of the Taliban as “freedom fighters,” and for what has been perceived as its “second guessing of the President.”

George W. and Tony Blair have pushed the Hug-a-Muslim campaign, accompanied in some quarters by campaigns to Criticize-a-Christian and Jostle-a-Jew, about as far as they need to.

A head of state, particularly in wartime, always has to hold his nose and say things he may or may not actually believe. Winston Churchill cautioned in the dark early days of World War II that truth would sometimes be defended by “a bodyguard of lies.” We’ve been told over and over since Sept. 11 that Islam everywhere but in certain precincts of Afghanistan is just like Methodism, only different, and it’s unpatriotic and maybe even un-Christian (if we may use that word in polite company) to think otherwise.

The president has achieved remarkable success in building his coalition of 40 nations…. Nevertheless, it is a fragile coalition, and it’s no good to pretend that the forces arrayed against the West are not what they actually are.

President Bush is correct when he says that America’s war on terrorism is not a war against Islam, but Osama bin Laden is correct as well, that resurgent Islam is hostile to the secular West, proving once more that even the devil can quote scripture. The distinction that gets lost is the distinction between Islamists of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to destroy everything that is not Islamic, and the millions of Muslims who intend unbelievers no harm or ill will. But the Islamic world is far more sympathetic to the Islamists than we want to believe it is. We indulge naivete at our deadly peril.

Recognizing complexity is not something Americans always do well, and we often let the impulses of a good and generous heart lead us into gullibility. This war began long before Sept. 11. Islamist militants, if not necessarily Islamist militants, murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics nearly 30 years ago, and since then we’ve seen the attempted murder of the pope by a Turkish militant, the Libyan plot that brought down Pan Am 103 over Scotland, the massacre of U.S. Marines in Lebanon, the bombing of a nightclub in Germany and a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, a deadly ambush in Somalia, the attack on the USS Cole, and finally the unspeakable horrors of Sept. 11, all done in the name of Islam.

…If the first casualty in war is to be the truth, the politicians must be careful lest they fire the shot that wounds it. They cannot expect us to fight the war they say we must fight if they disguise what the war is actually about.

The following was sent to the New York Times “Letter to the Editor.” None of this stuff is a joke, although to one country it may very well seem like one.

Editor:

Let’s see. I want to make certain that I have this correct. It is very confusing.

If Israel pinpoints and executes terrorist leaders who have aided in planning attacks on innocent civilians, that is bad.

If the United States declares war on terrorist leaders who aided in planning attacks in New York and Washington, that is good.

If Israel has to compromise some civilian rights of Arabs in order to protect its citizens from murderous assault, that is bad.

If the United States must take cautionary steps that limit immigration and other freedoms in order to protect its citizens from murderous assault, that is good.

If Israel will not negotiate with terrorists or their governmental supporters until all acts of terrorism stop, that is bad.

If the United States will not consider any deals that do not include the surrender of bin-Laden and his thugs, that is good.

If Israel, with its international isolation, must work with less than pure regimes, then that is bad.

If the United States works with terrorist sponsors such as Iran, Pakistan and Syria to win its own security, then that is good.

If Israel tries to become part of the coalition against terrorism, it is bad. (Could offend some Moslem states.)

If the United States counts on Israel, in spite of the rejection, to provide it with major information about terrorists, then that is good.

If Israel protests the wanton destruction of Jewish artifacts and shrines in Nablus and the Temple Mount, it is annoying, seemingly petty and, therefore, quite bad.

If the United States reacts with justifiable anger at the wanton destruction of symbols of America’s achievements and power, it is right, moral and good.

When Israel’s civilian population was attacked by murderous scud missiles from Iraq, it was warned not to retaliate by the United States, that would be bad.

When the United States’ civilian population was attacked by murderous missiles, commanded by immoral automatons, and vowed massive retaliation, that was very, very good.

You must admit: it is confusing.

Rabbi Gerald I. Wolpe
Rabbi Emeritus, Har Zion Temple

In a disgraceful act of pandering to the seven million Moslems in the U.S., the National Cathedral “Day of Mourning” featured a speech by the Imam who heads up the Islamic Council in this country. Only a month ago, this Moslem clergyman led a demonstration in front of the White House screaming, “Jew, Jew, we’re coming to get you.” This was part of a demonstration supporting the works of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, the leading overt terrorist organization operating out of Lebanon and financed by Iran.

A delegation of key Israeli Defense Force tacticians has come to the United States to share with its counterparts in the Pentagon some of the IDF’s rich experience in waging protracted wars against guerrilla insurgency and low-intensity conflicts.

“At any given moment, the amount of manpower and energy devoted just to maintain Israel’s security existence is phenomenally greater than any other country in the world. No other country puts so much into the routine security for its very existence,” said a senior IDF officer…. “The IDF in general feels Israel is in a unique security reality such that it really doesn’t have much to learn from other armies. On the contrary, it feels it is writing the Bible, so to speak, on various forms of welfare….”

The bottom line is this: Muslims should have long ago been exclusive rulers of the world, or at least a good portion of it, if Islamic religious teachings are correct. The Koran states without equivocation that Islam is the final revelation of truth that supercedes Christianity, Judaism and all other faiths. If so, neither the United States and the European Union, nor Russia or China for that matter, should be running the international show. But these non-Muslim nations, and especially America, are plainly calling the shots. Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture.

Many Muslims — obviously including Osama bin-Laden — see oil-state rulers as mere lackeys to the dominant West, and excessively greedy ones at that. But who does much of the menial work in Great Britain today? Largely Muslim immigrants from Pakistan and other former British colonies. Who fills that role in France? Mostly Arab Muslims from the former French colony of Algeria. Who does the dirty work in Germany? Muslims from Turkey. Who in Italy and Greece? Mainly Albanian Muslims. Until the Al Aqsa uprising began just over one year ago, that role was filled in Israel by Palestinians who were mostly — you guessed it — Muslims.

Apart from poverty-stricken Roman Catholics from the Philippines and Hispanic America, most menial workers serving better-off nations around the world today are followers of the faith of Muhammad. To any Muslim who sincerely believes in the fundamentals of their fast growing religion, as most Mideast Arabs do to a large degree, this simply should not be.

America’s world dominance was the real reason they carried out their suicide assaults. Its backing of the despised Jewish State — which should not exist at all in the Middle East if Islamic doctrines are correct — is just another, but major, irritant. Western dominance over the entire Muslim world, and especially its powerful influence over the Arab rulers of Arabia, would be reason enough for their holy war even if Israel had never been reborn in 1948.

The Jews are responsible for the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the imam of New York’s Islamic Center said in an interview with an Arabic language university website.

“All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that,” Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Muhammad Al Gamei’a, the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque of New York City, told the website alazhargaza.edu, an unofficial Al-Azhar University site. “They are the only ones capable of planning such acts.”

The interview was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“First of all, it was found that the automatic pilot was neutralized a few minutes before the flight, and the automatic pilot cannot be neutralized if you don’t have command of the control tower,” Al-Gamei’a explained. “Second, the black boxes were found to contain no information; you cannot erase the information from these boxes if you do not plan it ahead of time on the plane. Third, America has the most powerful intelligence apparatuses, the FBI and the CIA…. How did [the perpetrators] manage to infiltrate America without their knowledge? Fourth, Jews control decision-making in the airports and in the sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon. Fifth, to date America has presented no proof incriminating Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.”

These five “facts,” said Al-Gamei’a, prove that “only the Jews are capable of planning such an incident, because it was planned with great precision of which Osama bin Laden or any other Islamic organization or intelligence apparatus is incapable….”

Our September Levitt Letter, which went to press before the terrorist attacks on September 11, provided FBI data demonstrating that violent crime in America is substantially higher than murders in Israel, and Jerusalem, in particular (see “FBI Data Confirms Dangers of U.S. Cities”). We stated that America was not experiencing terror attacks at the time. Regrettably, this is no longer the case. As a result, and with further attacks from biological weapons, our safety in America is now at risk on two fronts — domestic crimes and foreign terrorist attacks. The number of deaths in Israel, whether due to domestic crimes or terrorism, still pales in comparison to Washington, DC, or any other city similar in size to Jerusalem. In the midst of the raging year-long Intifada in Israel, the number of deaths country-wide are ten times fewer than the deaths in New York.

Some letters have been edited for space.

Zola:

Bush has said he will freeze terrorist assets — he’s working on doing that against Osama bin Ladin now. Will he also freeze the assets of Yasser Arafat? OR, will he join in the nations that turn against Israel? He’s a mason; that worries me. — MO

Zola:

I just happened to catch your TV show last night, and I almost fell out of my chair! Finally, someone was telling what I felt like was the TRUTH about what is going on. You were saying what I had been thinking. I hope you don't let anyone stop you from telling the truth. — LK

Brother Zola:

To neutralize, or eliminate terrorism is not a viable achievement. I am surprised you don’t realize this with your wisdom & experience. Even if every male & female terrorist were killed or apprehended, what would you do about the indoctrinated youth? They would eventually retaliate with even more hatred. — DJ

Dear Brother Zola and Staff:

I have enjoyed and prospered from the Levitt Letter and your TV show now for many years. Truly it has been a spiritually enriching experience. I have even learned my first Hebrew language from you. I have been disturbed by the frequent use of the word “Palestine” to describe the Holy Land of Israel. In the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, there are four-and-a-half pages of explanation for the origin and use of the word Palestine. They even claim that “Palestine” preceded Abraham and say that “Canaan is the older name of Palestine.” Is this true or is this somebody reaching for an explanation? — JB

Zola:

For the most part, I agree with your views. However, you are not a “rid the world of terrorists” strategist. Pray for the U.S. President and his advisors, but don’t scold them. When the hour comes for military action, we should nuke ’em ’til they glow and shoot ’em in the dark. But let’s be patient. Zola, you would have had Joshua frustrated on the second day at Jericho, and by the seventh, he would have exiled you. But we love you anyway. — SJ

Mr. Levitt and Readers:

At one time, “The Jews were the Chosen People,” but their False Worship of Gold, and Power, Their Greed, Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth, Disobedience, Disrespect, Ungratefulness, and Lies demoted Them from Allah’s (God Almighty) favor.

The right of the “First Born” makes Ishmael the legitimate owner (and his bloodline) of The State of Israel. That land given to The “First-born.” Esau was tricked the same way out of his inheritance by his brother. Lies and tricks will not make a wrong right.

This is what the fighting is all about, and of course the shooting to death of Palestinian children and the daily parasitic displays of cruelties perpetrated on the Palestinian People. We didn’t like it when Hitler did it to the Jews, and we don’t like it when the Jews are following in Hitler’s footsteps, and do it to the Palestinians. This must stop! — DZ

Dear Zola:

[We] are both German and Polish by ancestry and should be anti-Semitic by rights. Yet, we are more Jewish or should I say Hebrew, ‘cause we have “crossed over.” We love all you fellows, no matter what language you speak or where you were born. We recognize you as God’s chosen, and we are very happy to be part of you and to stand beside you in worship or in battle. We just don’t understand what is happening with our circle of supposedly born-again, Spirit-filled believers, Zola. We are both licensed, trained psychiatric nurses. We recognize schizophrenia when we see it, and we see it now. It’s as if the whole world, secular and Christian, has gone stark-raving mad. Keep on going, Zola, because you and others like you keep us afloat. — DGW

Dear Zola Levitt Ministries:

My small gift [$2] is not intended to be a joke. It is all I have to give your ministry at this time. I dearly appreciate the newsletter you send me. I also tape your program and enjoy the message. What a pity that our world jerks God’s Word out of sight for all to hear at a more convenient time.

I can only pray for your ministry that it will prosper and that God will meet and exceed all your needs. Thank you once again for your kindness and generosity that God has placed in your hearts. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High” (Psalm 92:1). — V

Dear Zola:

We love you; we love Israel, and we thank you for your kindness that you have shown to us by sending us the Levitt Letter even though we have failed to contribute to your ministry so far. I want to correct that right now and humbly ask you to accept our $200 contribution. Thank you for telling us the truth about Israel. — CF

Mr. Zola Levitt:

I don’t know how to start this letter. There are so many evils and cold things about you and your “ministry.” It’s very sad. You remind me of the verse in the Bible where Jesus stated that the wolves among us will try to attack the true Church.

Remember the whole church until the 1500s AD was Catholic in the West and Orthodox in the East. Until a heretic named Martin Luther (a Monk) wrongly and unintentionally caused the straying away of millions of innocent Christians into “Lutheran” and later “Protestant” “Baptist” branches, etc., each of which made up its own new interpretations.

I can assure you that you TRULY do not understand the CATHOLIC CHURCH. Your bitterness, anger and probably your hate come from your ignorance but more importantly from your lack of true FAITH and LOVE in Christ. WE truly pray that you, just like St. Paul, be truly converted soon by Christ Jesus, so that you may be a True witness to your Jewish people. The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. — CP

Dear Zola:

In your newsletters, I was disturbed to see written that Catholics are still creating problems for Jews and are a marginal denomination. What do you mean by that? Also, there was another letter stating that Catholics don’t know the Bible.

I like your show but please don’t slam other religions. I have had enough of that from all pastors. I am truly a lover of Israel and stand with you and your ministry. — M

Dear Zola:

I am a college student and an ardent supporter of your ministry. My parents and I are Jewish believers in Christ and have been attending a local Methodist church for the past six years. We were shocked, dismayed, and hurt when we found out last year that our denomination supports the PLO.

We exposed this to our congregation, which supported our stand against this vile and anti-Semitic policy of the Methodist Church. We also contested a pro-PLO flyer for World Prayer Sunday that was being circulated by the Methodist Church. We tried to convince our Southwest Conference to at least take a neutral position on Israel rather than supporting the cruel and barbaric PLO. This met with little success.

After reading your July Levitt Letter, my parents and I almost decided to leave the church, but some fellow friends of Israel in the congregation showed us that God wanted us to stay and fight this injustice and corruption rather than run from it. Any suggestions you have to help us reach the Methodist leadership would be greatly appreciated. (We are designating our tithes to the “local church only.”) — BG

Dear Zola:

After visiting your web site and reading the various printed materials you have sent, I realize that you are the prophet of our times. I am grateful to the Lord for bringing someone like you into the lives of we who seek for truth and light. — PM

Dear Zola:

Concerning Cal Thomas’s article in your Levitt Letter, all I can do is repeat the title: “Eviction [of the Palestinians] is a Better Way to Peace, Stability.” — RL

The time is rapidly approaching when America is going to have to reach the obvious conclusion that this is as much a war against the radical Islamic ideology of the Middle East as it is against terror. The West continues to stifle Israel’s efforts to fight terror so that it doesn’t interfere with our own. But Israel’s anti-terror response works. Kill them first. And fast. And without warning.

Ministry Report

The State of the Ministry — Part I: “A Scout is…”

By Mark Levitt

“A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” If you meet my father Zola and ask him to recite the scout law, you might be surprised how quickly he can rattle it off. His Boy Scout training from his teens has been apparent in his abilities to apply his gifts and think for himself.

After the Rapture, we Christians will all live in the Holy Land for a thousand years. I wonder how many of us will wish we had experienced Israel as mortals. Having wasted much of the time I could have invested in scouting as a boy, I now realize more than ever that I wouldn’t trade anything for my memories of sitting in the Garden Tomb, gazing from the Mount of Olives, or strolling through the Garden of Gethsemane.

Zola is loyal, helpful and thrifty enough to lead tours to Israel when others can’t. He is brave enough to go there when most Bible teachers won’t. He is also trustworthy enough to say when it is safer to stay home, which may not be anytime soon. Our tours used to go to Egypt, but haven’t since Zola decided it was unsafe. If you know someone who smokes, drives fast and buys lottery tickets, then please tell him he is taking monumental risks compared with getting on an airplane.

The state of the ministry is strong. With “Boy Scouts” in management who bless Israel with on-location Bible teaching, tour groups, missionaries (please see Todd’s article) and reminders of its importance to all who will listen (please see Tom’s book review), this ministry is being upheld and blessed by God. Next month I will discuss the nuts and bolts of our television, newsletter and Internet outreaches.

Our ministry artist, Deborah Crites, has donated the charcoal portrait of Zola and the one of Mark on this page. She plans to contribute more drawings of Zola so that we’ll have some variety for our newsletters, books and other teaching materials. If you would like to ask her about doing portraits for your family and friends, which she accomplishes from photographs, then please write to our office, Attn: Deborah.

Rarely would we offer two articles from the same journalist in one issue, but the following piece by Charles Krauthammer is so relevant right now, as you will read. — Zola

Editorial

Not Enough Might

By Charles Krauthammer
The Washington Post

The war is not going well. The Taliban have not yielded ground. Not a single important Taliban leader has been killed, or captured or has defected. On the contrary. The Taliban have captured and executed our great Pashtun hope, Abdul Haq. The Joint Chiefs express surprise at the tenacity of the enemy.

The war is not going well and it is time to say why. It has been fought with half-measures. It has been fought with an eye on the wishes of our “coalition partners.” It has been fought to assuage the Arab “street.” It has been fought to satisfy the diplomats rather than the generals.

Thirty years ago in Vietnam, we fought a war finely calibrated to win “hearts and minds.” Bomb today, pause tomorrow. That strategy met with nothing but pain and defeat. One of the products of that war was Colin Powell. He and his generation vowed that never again would American lives be sacrificed, their missions compromised, their objectives distorted to satisfy purely political objectives.

And yet for three weeks in Afghanistan we held back from massively bombing the Taliban front lines facing the Northern Alliance. Why? Because Pakistan does not like the Northern Alliance. So we calibrate the war to produce a precise ethnic balance, satisfying our various allies, for a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

But you don’t get to post-Taliban until you’ve defeated the Taliban. And you don’t defeat the Taliban with antiseptic attacks on fixed installations and pinpoint raids on front-line positions. You do it by scaring the living hell out of the enemy, producing in him the rational calculation that you’re going to win and he’d better change sides.

The president repeatedly emphasizes that this is not a war against civilians. We are expending enormous effort on dropping food. The Pentagon feels obliged to respond to every Taliban claim of civilian casualties — diverting reconnaissance and other resources to investigate stories that are often fabricated.

Why have we turned this into an operation for the liberation of Afghanistan? Afghanistan will be liberated if we succeed. But that is not why we are there. We are there to avenge 5,000 murdered Americans and to protect the rest by killing those preparing to murder again.

That defines our mission: destroying al Qaeda and the Taliban. What comes after will be an interesting problem. But it comes after. To restrain our military now in order to placate the diplomats is a tragic reprise of Vietnam.

The error began in the very naming of the mission. It started out as Infinite Justice. But we could not have that, we were told, because it might offend Muslims, who believe that infinite justice comes only from God. (Don’t Christians and Jews believe that too? Were they offended?) So we changed it to Enduring Freedom. Very nice. Too nice. We should have called it Righteous Might, the phrase Franklin Roosevelt used in his Pearl Harbor speech to describe what the enemy would now be facing.

Instead, the enemy today is facing calibration and proportionality. The “Powell Doctrine” once preached overwhelming force to achieve victory. Yet we have held back. Why have we not loosed the B-52s and the B-2s to carpet-bomb Taliban positions? And why are we giving the Taliban sanctuary in their cities? We could drop leaflets giving civilians 48 hours to evacuate, after which the cities become legitimate military targets. We know our enemy is planning more mass murder. Every day of urban safety for them is another day of peril for innocent Americans.

Restraint has already cost a lot. An important element of winning is psychological shock, the key to demoralization, defection and disintegration. We have squandered it. Now that the first wave of American power has come and gone, the Taliban are ever more convinced of American uncertainty and of their own indestructibility.

Our solicitousness knows no bounds. The president urges the children of America to each send a dollar to feed Afghan children. He now urges American schoolchildren to find Muslim pen pals. After the carnage of Sept. 11, should not our Muslim allies be urging their people to seek out American pen pals? We were the ones attacked, by Muslims invoking Islam. Why are we are the ones required to demonstrate religious tolerance?

Nice is nice but this is war. We cannot fight it apologetically — the very talk of holding our fire during Ramadan is beyond belief — with one hand tied behind our back. Half-measures are for wars of choice, wars like Vietnam. In wars of choice, losing is an option. You lose and still survive as a nation. The war on terrorism, like World War II, is a war of necessity. Losing is not an option. Losing is fatal. This is no time for restraint and other niceties. This is a time for righteous might.

The Palestinian Authority has issued a large stamp, valid for international mail, featuring images of the Canaanite god Ba’al as an idol and a bull. In the Bible and in the Koran, Ba’al is an idol and a false god who is in opposition to the one and only true God. Ba’al has also been referred to as the devil (Satan) through the names Ba’ali’za’bub and Iba’lis. Thus, most Christians and Jews would consider this stamp offensive.

Jews, Christians and Moslems hold the Holy Land, where many of their holiest sites are located, to be very important to them, and many come here as religious pilgrims to visit their sites of worship. The fact that this stamp was issued by a government that controls parts of the Holy Land implies a lack of respect for both tourists and inhabitants of the land who hold deep religious beliefs.

Editor’s note: At the web site www.jerusalemite.com, you can view this stamp in color. It is interesting to read at this site that when an Islamic follower asked if it was sin to use such a stamp (referring to a passage in the Koran), Mufti Ebrahim Desai told the brother-in-Islam that if one doesn’t have any other stamps to use, then use the idol stamp and Allah will understand.

“We are announcing a war against the sons of apes and pigs (the Jews) which will not end until the flag of Islam is raised in Jerusalem.”

— Hamas leaflet

“Israel must not demand that the PLO alter its covenant, just at the PLO does not demand that the Jewish nation cancel the Bible.”

— Ziyad Abu Ziyad, PLO moderate

“…the PLO was created for the specific purpose of destroying the Jewish state and replacing it with a Palestinian state. In its brief history, the PLO has achieved an extraordinary record of murder and mayhem against Israeli diplomats, athletes, soldiers and ordinary civilians, and has mobilized a remarkable successful attack against Israel in the US and among the world’s diplomats…. Yasser Arafat is a man made for war. His kingdom is an army that has made war on all from whom it could hope to profit — Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Hamas and on other factions of the PLO…. Rabin knows that Arafat is a specialist in violence, conspiracy, and deception and that his forces are well trained in the arts of war — and little else. A miracle would be required for such men to become peaceable citizens of a peaceful community.”

— Jean Kirkpatrick

“Our first goal is the liberation of all occupied territories and return of all refugees, self-determination for the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem.”

— Yasser Arafat

“The impetuous rush to embrace an enemy [Yasser Arafat] who uses the language of peace for the purposes of war, in the long term, will be seen as a historic blunder.”

— Benjamin Netanyahu

American flag: $25

Gasoline: $2

Cigarette Lighter: $2.50

Catching yourself on fire because you are a terrorist looney: PRICELESS