Israel Faces Multiple Threats From a Variety of Directions

There has been recent talk about how Israel is now dealing with multiple threats coming from a variety of directions. For instance, The New York Times had an article a few days ago about how “Israel senses a wider siege” than the siege of their embassy in Cairo last week. Another example is a recent comment by King Abdullah II of Jordan about how he thinks “Israel's situation today is more difficult than ever before".

Today I want to provide a summary of several threats Israel is facing from a variety of geographical directions and briefly discuss where I think this Middle East situation involving Israel is heading.

I’ve categorized the threats Israel faces by the direction the threats are coming from geographically vis-à-vis Israel.

North
Syria: Although the Assad regime is dealing with its biggest challenge in many years, the Assad regime still possesses an anti-Israel stance. Recall, the Assad regime helped pro-Palestinian protesters infiltrate into Israel earlier this year. Do not be surprised if Assad tries to instigate a crisis with Israel to divert the attention of unhappy Syrians away from domestic problems.

Lebanon: Five years ago Israel waged war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is not only still intact after the war, but has rearmed in preparation for another conflict with Israel.

• In fact, Hezbollah has recently received Scud missiles from Syria which can hit targets in Israel and other Middle Eastern countries with a large degree of accuracy.

Lebanon is likely going to remain a threat to Israel as long as Hezbollah continues to have a strong presence in the country.

Turkey: Diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated dramatically recently and appear that they won’t be repaired anytime soon. Here are a few recent developments between Israel and Turkey which demonstrate that relations have deteriorated dramatically:

• Turkey formally downgraded its relations with Israel to a secondary level of relations earlier this month after Israel did not provide an apology that Turkey felt it deserved following last year’s flotilla incident. As a consequence, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey was expelled from the country.
• Turkey may soon no longer allow the free entry of Israeli citizens into Turkey.
• Turkey suspended "defense industry ties" with Israel last week.
• Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed on Thursday that “Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean” and that Turkey could send warships to the eastern Mediterranean at any time.

Turkey could soon become an adversary of Israel if relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate at its current rate.

South & West
Egypt: The fall of the Mubarak regime has raised some questions about whether Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt will remain intact in the long-run. Egyptian and Israeli officials have publically stated that it is in their interest to maintain peace, but it’s unknown whether a democratically-elected government in Egypt would opt to keep the treaty (especially when a majority of Egyptians prefer to see the current treaty cancelled).

We’ve seen a recent deterioration in relations between Egypt and Israel. Egypt is unhappy that Israel has not issued an apology that they deem sufficient for the recent deaths of five Egyptian security forces as Israel tried to strike militants along the Egyptian-Gaza border. Meanwhile, Israel is unhappy that Egyptian protesters were not stopped before they destroyed a wall protecting Israel’s embassy in Cairo, infiltrated the embassy, and removed the Israeli flag from the embassy. Israel had to ask the U.S. for help to pressure the Egyptian government to do more to protect Israel’s embassy.

As an aside, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered those constructing a security fence along the Egyptian-Israeli border to complete the project sooner than originally scheduled. Netanyahu says the main goal of the security fence is to prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Israel from the Egyptian border.

At the minimum, it does not seem that Israel can consider Egypt an ally anymore. I would not be surprised if relations between Egypt and Israel deteriorated to the point where Israel will need to consider Egypt an adversary.

Libya: Libya is geographically far away from Israel, but the country is at risk of being taken over by Islamic extremists who would likely adopt a hostile foreign policy stance towards Israel.

• U.S. Intelligence officials have recently voiced concern that religious extremists are plotting an overthrow of the transitional government of Libya. NATO’s secretary general also raised the possibility of extremists taking over Libya earlier this week.

Gaza: There was a major escalation of hostilities between Israel, Hamas, and Gaza militants during the month of August. The tensions between the sides involved have cooled somewhat after a shaky ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was agreed to in late August. However, there has still been rocket attacks coming from Gaza despite the ceasefire being in place.

• I don’t think this current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is going to be permanent, especially when considering that there are still rockets being sent from Gaza into Israel while this ceasefire is in effect.

Jordan: Jordan’s stability is important to Israel because it has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1994. The problem now for Israel with regards to Jordan is that Jordan may not be stable for much longer. In fact, Israeli officials describe Jordan as “hanging by a thread”.

• The Jordanian Monarchy’s is being challenged by labor groups, youth groups, and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of these people protested outside of the Israeli embassy in Amman on Thursday. The protesters called for Jordan to end its peace treaty with Israel and to close down Israel’s embassy in Amman.

The nature of these protesters’ demands suggests that Jordan would likely become an enemy of Israel if the Jordanian Monarchy is toppled and replaced by a government representing those challenging the monarchy.

Iran: Iran remains an enemy of Israel and a threat to Israel’s security. Israel is still concerned that Iran is working towards the development of a nuclear weapon.

The West Bank: The biggest challenge Israel faces at the moment is the Palestinians’ U.N. statehood bid. The Palestinians want a state formed along the pre-1967 borders. Israel would have to relinquish control of the West Bank to the Palestinians if it were to agree to the Palestinians’ demands. By doing so, Israel’s security situation would deteriorate dramatically as many more of its citizens would be put in range of artillery fire.

As an aside, demonstrations supporting the Palestinians’ bid at the U.N. begin this weekend in some areas of the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces are on a high state of alert because they are concerned about the possibility for violence to take place during these demonstrations.

Where Is This Situation Heading?
I believe important events happen for a reason, especially when it comes to the Middle East. What is striking about many of these recent Middle East events and developments is that they have contributed to an overall deterioration of Israel’s security and diplomatic situation. In other words, it seems like there is a trend towards Israel facing a more difficult diplomatic and more difficult security situation. Indeed, a recent comment made by Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey, about the situation that Israel faces really caught my attention. Cagaptay noted that Israel now faces a strategic situation that it has not faced since 1948:

"For the first time since 1948 none of the three major regional powers is an ally of Israel: Egypt, Turkey and Iran. This is a major strategic change."

Given that I believe important Middle East events happen for a reason, I suspect that these events and developments are leading to something important in the future.

I suspect that the eventual outcome of all these changes in the Middle East will be a major war in the Middle East involving Israel since the ongoing trend in the Middle East is moving towards Israel seeing an overall deterioration in its security and its diplomatic situation.

• I do not believe this particular war will be waged by the Antichrist. However, I think this particular war could potentially be a significant catalyst towards making conditions in the Middle East more conducive for the eventual arrival of the seven year “covenant with many” mentioned in Daniel 9:27.

Regardless of what happens, it is important to recognize that Israel cannot be completely destroyed because the Lord will not allow Israel to be completely destroyed. The Lord will preserve a remnant of Israel even when Israel endures its most difficult time in its history during the seventieth week of Daniel (the seven year period that most people refer to as the “tribulation”). The Lord will preserve a remnant of Israel and will eventually restore them.