Dear Friend:

In the spirit of encouraging Christians to be “wise as serpents,” some of my commentary about turns of events sounds negative. It is possible, however, to rejoice in the downward trend of society as a fulfillment of prophecy. In other words, the more mankind goes to hell in a hand basket, the closer we are to the Rapture! Sad but true. And the same idea holds for Israel, too.

It’s not difficult to find criticism of the Holy Land in the great Israel-bashing media like The New York Times, CNN or the broadcast networks. Our sister democracy, a peaceful nation running like clockwork, is simply a punching bag for these ignoramuses who don’t even know the place.

But I was very disappointed with The Washington Times National Weekly Edition (January 17–23), since it is generally a very truthful newspaper. It had a lead paragraph for an editorial that we all might read any day in an American newspaper, and I want to deal with the statements in that paragraph.

The editorial was titled “A potential step toward Mideast Peace,” and it starts like this:

The January 9 election, in which Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, has the potential to become an important milestone on the road to a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. To his credit, Mr. Abbas has called on Palestinians to end armed struggle against Israel. Another positive development was the fact that the election went off without any violence or disruption.

Those three sentences are loaded with all sorts of misinformation and bias. First of all, no milestones are needed for any “Road to Peace,” despite what the U.S. government, the UN, the European Union, or anyone else might think. The fact is that there is no war in Israel and there never has been. No Arab army ever succeeded in crossing the borders of modern Israel. All we have is a relative handful of murderers of innocent civilians and legions of biased reporters, various anti-Semites, and Arab propagandists who pump it all up into something “important.” The fact remains that a far greater proportion of citizens are murdered on the streets of America than on the streets of Israel, and that’s all there is to that. Every democracy has a problem with crime. If you want to avoid murder in the streets, move to Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, etc.

Then, saying that to his credit Abbas has called on the Palestinians to end “armed struggle against Israel” is a very biased statement. Is it really necessary to give credit to a dictator (who calls himself a president) because he claims to tell local murderers to desist from killing innocent civilians? Is this really worth a commendation? When President Bush remonstrates against violent crime, do we say that “to his credit” he’d rather see fewer people killed? Never mind that Abbas is not even going to do that; the very next paragraph of the editorial states: “Mr. Abbas suggested that he would not act against terrorist groups like Hamas.” So the whole thing is made up in the first place.

Also made up is the term “armed struggle against Israel.” This is not a “struggle” — it is simply the murder of unwary civilians who get too close to Arab enclaves. The monsters who launch rockets into peaceful settlements and kill women and children in schools and synagogues are not in any “armed struggle against Israel.” They are simply what I’ve always called them: bloody murderers.

And the final statement in the paragraph, “the fact that the election went off without any violence or disruption, is no piece of news at all. Why would anyone interfere with a Palestinian election? Their dictator of 40 years passed away (good riddance!) and now they want a new dictator. The Israelis have probably prayed every night since 1948, or perhaps since Mohammed was born in 570 AD, that these Arabs would somehow at least pretend to elect a freely chosen leader rather than to simply pass the sword of tyranny from father to son, or, in the case of Abbas, from terrorist mentor to terrorist protégé. The Israelis weren’t going to disrupt anything and neither were the Palestinians. The misinformed editors of The Washington Times are equating Palestine with Iraq and those are very different situations. For example, there is no occupation in Palestine, no matter if 1.2 billion Muslims scream it from their rooftops every morning. It is, in fact, the Arabs who are trying to occupy Jewish land in Israel.

And there was certainly no threat at all against Palestinian “voters” from anyone in this world. Even their own gunmen, always glad to kill anybody at all, favored the automatic “election” of their newest tyrant. And, after all, the party receiving the most votes was the terrorist group Hamas.

The article goes on to specify that Abbas refers to Israel as “the Zionist enemy,” will not drop the ridiculous “right of return” claim of millions of Palestinian “refugees,” will not stop demanding Jerusalem as the PA capital, etc., etc, and blah, blah, blah. He’s Arafat reincarnated as far as those words go, except that Abbas was originally chosen by Arafat for his ineffectiveness and will, in the end, be ineffective. Arafat selected a second-in-command who he thought would never take his job; but now, unfortunately for the Palestinians and everyone else, he has that job.

I am not surprised that Abbas acts the way he does, but I’m surprised that one of our normally reasonable newspapers is fooled by it.

As we went to press, I was distressed to see Condoleezza Rice trying to, as the newspapers put it, “spur Middle East peace.” If we fall for the idea that creating a Palestinian state will cause terrorists everywhere to put down their arms, we’re much more foolish than I thought. By this principle, we ought to give Taiwan to China. We ought to give any dictator any land he pleases to have, even if it’s never been his land. We ought to give a few of our fifty states to Iran or North Korea or Red China in order to be consistent. Does anyone believe that would make them lay down their arms?

Rice is also using the dangerous phrase “contiguous land,” which means that Gaza and the West Bank would be connected, and there’s no way to do that other than splitting tiny Israel in half.

The whole idea of a Palestinian state in 2005, promised by our administration since the onset of this awful Roadmap, leads us to three upcoming invasions of Israel: the first by the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, the second by Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38, 39), and, finally, Armageddon. Fortunately, Israel wins all three with God’s help, and will survive. But there’s no reason to promote all this bloodshed.

I never tire of giving the Levitt Letter solution to peace in Israel: the “Palestinians” should not leave their homes tomorrow morning to kill a Jewish man, woman or child. Same thing the next day, same the next, etc. There will be peace for a thousand years! Peace in Israel will come when the Palestinians stop murdering their neighbors.

As Washington Times editor Wes Pruden pointed out recently:

“Mahmoud Abbas, the new man in Palestine, looks better to the Americans than he probably is, but after Arafat, a horned toad would turn heads at the White House. He’s saying most of the right things, and though talk is cheap, there’s a certain happy anticipation … This happy anticipation might lead the White House to cut the Palestinians more slack than they deserve. This is the fear of many of Israel’s friends in the United States, both Jewish and evangelical Christian, who are otherwise among George W.’s warmest friends. They’re aware of the State Department’s traditional eagerness to excuse and embrace whatever endearing despots the Arabs throw up to torment Jews.

Many of these American friends lifted an eyebrow when Condi, playing the smiling but stern schoolmarm, told the Israelis they must make “hard choices” in the pursuit of process. (Peace comes later.) This smelled a lot like the familiar routine of demanding ever more concessions from Israel, necessary to keep the process moving since the Palestinians never, as a matter of principle, keep their word.

Maybe everything’s different this time, but Mr. Abbas is more beloved in Foggy Bottom than in the Palestinian precincts. Hamas, the collection of thugs and killers who have never renounced their ambition to throw the Jews into the sea, soundly trounced Mr. Abbas’ ruling Fatah movement in municipal elections only a fortnight ago. Fatah, confused and distracted much in the way of our own Democrats, now wants to postpone parliamentary elections scheduled for the summer. Hamas will no doubt try to exploit this confusion and distraction if the civilized Palestinians make any meaningful agreement with Israel.

It’s all very complicated. Welcome to the Middle East.

The last comment is a popular cliché, but if our media would cover our own troubles, it would find that 300 million arguing Americans, including as many as 15 million hostile Muslims, make a situation which is far more complicated than with Israel’s 6 million citizens. It must always be borne in mind that there is no war over there, terrorism has largely subsided, and, at this point, we’re just trying to get rid of Israel. Almost any excuse will do.

Our very popular Kibbutz Tour is scheduled for June 14–24. We offer this tour at a time when teachers and students can travel. This is our least expensive tour of the year, but actually provides the additional educational advantage of an archaeological dig. Why not spend a portion of your summer vacation with a real “hands on” experience? Call Tony at (214) 696-9760 during business hours or 1-800-WONDERS (1-800-966-3377) anytime.

And please remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Your messenger,

Zola

P.S. My Christian birthday is March 14, 1971. I was reflecting recently while speaking in a church, that when I was saved I thought I knew all the Jewish believers in America. I could have had them all over for dinner. As it is now, there is wonderful revival among that remnant, and some claim that there are 100,000 Messianic Believers in the U.S. In any case, a gift to this ministry is always the nicest birthday present for me. Thanks.

Zola Levitt Ministries is ECFA approved and has Charity Navigator’s top rating of 4 stars.

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