RUSSIA, SYRIA, UKRAINE, AND ISRAEL: EZEKIEL 38, THE CENTER OF THE CYCLONE
 

By Paul McGuire
June 9, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

The subject of Israel and the role of the Jewish people is a topic that elicits strong emotions whenever it is brought up. In addition, with America, EU, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, and Israel converging in both economic and geopolitical conflict, Israel is once again at the center of the geopolitical cyclone. The European Union, Russia, Syria, Iran, and Israel are all nations prominently featured in various Old Testament prophecies, especially those in Ezekiel Chapter 38, foretelling a last day’s invasion of the nation of Israel led by Russia and Iran, along with an alliance of Middle Eastern nations. This invasion is also known as the War of Gog and Magog.

It is interesting to note that Bible scholars who have researched Russia and the nations that come against Israel believe that the nation of Russia is clearly identified in the Bible, and specifically the nation of Ukraine and the nations surrounding the Ukraine. Right now Russia is involved in a conflict with the U.S. and NATO over the Ukraine. This is a strategic conflict that goes back to Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, who created one of the world’s fiercest military forces inside of the Ukraine, in order to strike Russia. The military infrastructure inside of the Ukraine that is being financed by NATO and U.S. interests to fight Russia consists of a Neo-Nazi military force. The Ukraine throughout history has been a key nation in the control of Eurasia, and Brzezinski and other leaders have often commented that the empire or nation which controls Eurasia controls the world. Some of Russia’s most important oil pipelines cross the Ukraine, and Russia
 has partnered with Iran to sell oil to China and to Western Europe.

And Russia, Iran, China, and a growing list of nations are no longer using the U.S. dollar as the defacto world currency. If the U.S. loses the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts this would accelerate the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency and hit the U.S. economically like a tsunami. The Russia and Ukraine conflict is all about oil and the U.S. dollar and the Syrian conflict is about the control of oil in that region along with the power of the U.S. dollar.

Other forces that are at play in these conflicts are the rise of both Neo-Nazi and right wing political groups who oppose the European Union in favor of national sovereignty. In the Ukraine the U.S. and NATO are partnering with Neo-Nazi groups to fight Russia. In Greece and Cypress there is the rise of Neo-Nazi groups like O.T.O. and Golden Dawn. In addition, Western interests are partnering with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in fighting Russia and the competing Muslim forces of Iran. It was Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, who was instrumental in raising up Osama bin Laden and the Mujahedeen, later known as Al Qaeda, to fight Russia in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

Anti-Semitism has continued to spread throughout Europe and the Roman Empire since the time of Jesus Christ. Adolph Hitler blamed the Jews and the alleged Jewish banking elite for Germany’s problems when he wrote Mein Kampf, where he referred to an alleged world conspiracy in a document known as “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” that was first published in Russia in 1903.

“The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” outlined a brutal plan by a secret conspiracy of Jews to take over the world; scholars and historians debate the authorship of the document. Hitler and others believed it was a legitimate document written by an evil Jewish elite. This is still a belief held by millions of people in Russia and in many Islamic nations. Critics of the document believe that it was not authored by the Jews, but that it was a forgery written to instill hatred against them. Others believe that if it was written by Jews, that it was written by a tiny fanatical cult. When you travel in Islamic nations you see copies of the book prominently displayed in the windows of bookstores. The problem in believing that the document represented the consensus of a Jewish elite is that its contents are a total rejection of the Torah and the entire Old Testament. “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” is Satanic in nature and if it
 was written by Jews, it would have to have been Jews who had completely rejected the Law of Moses and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.



Going back to the time of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem and the soldiers of the Vatican and Europe attempting to control Jerusalem, both Muslims and Catholics have promoted anti-Semitism, passed on to the Protestant Church through the reformer Martin Luther. It is this anti-Semitism which provided fertile soil for the hatred of the Jews by Adolph Hitler and led to the Holocaust.

In Ezekiel 38, Russia, Iran, and an alliance of Muslim nations invade Israel due to a “hook placed in the mouth of Russia” to bring Russia down to invade Israel. That hook could very well be the oil discovered off the coast of Israel.In Ezekiel 38, God supernaturally destroys all the nations invading Israel. The basis for God’s defense of Israel escapes Israel’s critics,although some are aware of the everlasting Abrahamic Covenant where God specifically grants the geographic land of Israel to Abraham and his physical descendants. The argument by those who challenge Israel’s right to the land is that the current Jews in Israel are not actually the genetic descendants of Abraham and thus the covenant is null and void. From a scientific standpoint that is a highly speculative argument because a large percentage of the Jews in Israel are genetically the descendants of Abraham.

The second argument is that the unbelief and secularism of the Jews in Israel disqualifies them from a right to the land. However, Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah specifically predicted that in the latter days the Jewish people would return to the land in unbelief. During a Tribulation Period, known as “The Time of Jacob’s Trouble” the Jewish people would regain their belief in God and in Israel’s Messiah.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is stirred up by groups who exploit the tendency of some Jews and Jewish groups to target Christian groups as being the source of hatred of the Jews. This targeting comes from the experience of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany where Christians and Christian churches joined Hitler in what eventually became known as the Holocaust. I remember meeting the grandparents of my friends in New York City who still had the tattoos put on them in the concentration camps.

However, the greatest support for the land of Israel outside of the Jewish community is among Bible believing Christians, especially those who take the subject of Bible prophecy seriously. Yet it is these very same groups who have been targeted by some Jewish organizations. The charge has been made by some leaders in the Jewish community that these Christians who believe in Bible prophecy see the Jewish people as little more than cartoon characters in some kind of end time’s comic book. In some cases that may be true, but in most cases it is not. It is this demographic of Christians who are Israel’s strongest defenders. When they are targeted and mocked, it only serves to empower other groups who are Anti-Israel.



Whether or not you believe the prophecies regarding Israel are literal or allegorical, it is important to understand them in order to comprehend the global geopolitical situation. The prophet Zechariah said that “Jerusalem would be a cup of trembling in the last days,” and, indeed, Israel is the center of a fearful struggle on a geopolitical level. Economic, geopolitical, and military forces are converging upon Israel, drawing in Russia, Ukraine, EU, America, Iran, and Syria.