Israel Defense Force, National Police on High Alert; Trump Orders FBI ‘Boots On the Ground’  

It’s become almost a cliché that the Middle East is increasingly getting out of control, causing uncertainty and fear not only in Israel and the Arab nations, but also in fundamentalist Muslim nations such as Iran. Recent actions taken by President Donald Trump are increasing the amount of pressure for the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stop their anti-Israel condemnation for that small country’s police and military anti-terror operations.

The announcement by President Trump — that the United States would move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — appears to have sent shock waves throughout the Middle East as well as the world. It led to many nations condemning Trump’s recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and building the U.S. embassy away from the diplomatic legations still located in Tel Aviv.

Even numerous Jews living in the United States, Europe and other countries openly condemned Israel for alleged “war crime” or “overkill” and supported the limp-wrist diplomacy espoused by former President Barack Obama and many Democratic Party politicians.

“Why is there such hatred against Israel? Why do nations want to see Israel annihilated? Why does what happens in Israel have such global impact? Will the United States continue to stand by its longtime ally?” asked radio talk show host Jim Schneider of the Christ-centered show CrossTalk.

To answer the questions posed by Schneider, Crosstalk contacted Ron Rhodes. Ron is the president of Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries. He’s a keynote speaker at conferences across the United States. He’s the author of over 70 books with over 1 million copies sold. Crosstalk has interviewed him about his numerous writings concerning Bible prophecy, apologetics and other topics. He joined Jim to discuss his latest book, ‘Israel on High Alert: What Can We Expect Next in the Middle East.’

Why would Ron consider Israel to be on high alert? First of all, it’s not exactly sitting on a very large chunk of real estate. As Ron pointed out, it’s just 8,000 square miles which is quite small when you compare it to the more than 5 million square miles of hostile Arab real estate that surrounds them.

Ron believes it’s important that everyone, especially Christians, understand that this isn’t merely a political or geopolitical issue. It’s also a religious issue, a conflict between the Jewish people and Islam.

He then mentioned Israel’s neighbors. This includes Russia which has been working with Iran in overcoming Syria. This is important because the Bible does speak about a future invasion into Israel by Iran, Turkey, Sudan and a variety of other Muslim nations. This is to take place in conjunction with Russia, and what better route to take to get to Israel than through Syria, since they are right on the border with Israel. 

“Liberal Christians typically seek to adapt religious ideas to modern science. Their goal is to make Christianity “relevant” to modern man. By elevating science to supreme authority, they assume the Bible is a fallible human document, approach Scripture with an anti-supernatural bias, and dismiss miracles as the fantasies of ignorant people in biblical times who did not understand the laws of nature. They also view humanity as fundamentally good, with no real sin problem,” notes Rhodes. “Jesus is not viewed as God incarnate or as a divine Savior. Rather, He was a man supremely full of God and was characterized by ethical and moral excellence. He is an example to–and moral teacher of–the human race. He didn’t die on the cross for our sins, but His death nevertheless has an uplifting “moral influence” on people (setting an example of sacrifice).”

According to Ron, it appears that the stage is being set for this future invasion. The Russia/Syria, Russia/Sudan and Russia/Libya alliances have been coming together and in recent days, Turkey has been swinging away from the West and its commitment to NATO and instead appears to be looking to Russia.

Why is there so much animosity toward Israel? Israel is considered to be the lesser ‘Satan’ while the U.S. is considered to be the ‘Great Satan’ because the U.S. has been the military and financial ally of Israel for so many years. When President Trump announced the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Ron likened that to the pouring of gasoline on an already hot fire. Since that decision was made, various leaders from Islamic lands, including Iran, have stated that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Palestinian state.

This all goes back to 1948 when Israel took the land. He believes that the entire Middle East conflict is rooted in what took place then. This is because Muslims believe that once land comes under Islamic domination, it can never go out of their control. This means Israel’s taking of land was an insult to Allah.