Israel: In the eye of the storm

With the recent turmoil in the north, as Hezbollah assumes control of Lebanon, and now in the south with Egypt's uprising and even in the east with newly formed protests in Jordan, Israel is indeed in the eye of the storm. The Jerusalem Post puts this situation in perspective - but to add to that, we see a huge opening now for the EU to assert their border control military troops - an unexpected finding in the midst of this rioting:

Analysis: Egyptian chaos and the Palestinian question

For instance, a recurring topic – and a source of disagreement – was whether an international force or Israel would monitor the eastern border of a future Palestinian state, with the Palestinians insisting on a third party, and Israel angling for a presence along the Jordan River.

There it is again, an "international force" to monitor the eastern border.

One of these issues was the notion of an Israeli presence both on the Jordan River, and also on the West Bank hills immediately overlooking Jerusalem and the coastal plain.

If Netanyahu was insisting on an Israeli security presence along the Jordan River before the events in Cairo, he will assuredly be even more adamant about it now.

And the next paragraph confirms this idea:

The instability gripping Israel’s neighbor in the south, as well as Lebanon in the north, will only strengthen Netanyahu’s default setting – that any peace accord must be preceded by ironclad security arrangements on the ground, and that those security arrangements can’t be a reliance on any third party. Israel must be present.

We also see the potential for expansion of this unrest in the Middle East and the ensuing violence:

But what if it is? What if the events in Egypt, as worrisome as they are for Israel, spread to Jordan, and massive demonstrators threaten the Hashemite Kingdom? What if King Abdullah II is overthrown, and replaced not by Jeffersonian democrats, but Iranian-backed Islamic radicals peering through gunsights on the other side of the Jordan River?

Who is Israel going to want on the west bank of the Jordan, US-led NATO forces, or Israeli ones? While a few months ago this scenario might have been readily dismissed as the paranoid ranting of the extreme right wing, times have quickly changed.

Mr Netanyahu provides us with a history lesson:

“We left Lebanon, Hizbullah came in,” Netanyahu said. “We left Gaza, and there was an Egyptian army that was there and is still there, and Iran walked in. And we need to have some safeguards that we don’t repeat this a third time, because obviously the security of the nation is at stake, and the security of our people, the security of peace, is at stake.

“There’s a country with which we had tremendously close relations,” Netanyahu said. “We had the exchange of the leaderships; there were exchanges between our security forces; economic trade. That country is called Iran. And that changed overnight.

“There’s another country with which we had flowering peaceful relations: meeting of leaders; joint military exercises; 400,000 Israeli tourists a year – that country is called Turkey.

Then the article closes with the same thoughts that we saw in its opening:

Which all doesn’t bode particularly well for the diplomatic process, because if the Palestinians were not willing to accede to an Israeli presence in Efrat two years ago, how likely are they to now agree to an Israeli armed presence in the Jordan Valley?

No, but I am betting that everyone will agree to the having the new Roman Empire involved in sending these forces which will make up the "armed presence" which is sought - and thus "confirm" the covenant.

Background: Who are the Muslim Brothers

As the Egyptian popular uprising enters its seventh day on Monday, all eyes are on the Muslim Brothers, the country’s largest and best-organized opposition movement, to see how it will try to leverage the crisis to further its goal of rising to power.

Founded by Hassan al- Banna in the smoky coffeehouses of Cairo in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood believes in the establishment of a fundamentalist state ruled according to the strictest interpretation of Shari’a (Islamic law).

The Brotherhood views secular Arab regimes as the foremost obstacle to setting up a state it believes has been ordained by the Koran.

That backdrop takes us to the present situation:

The Brotherhood’s ideology has placed it on a collision path with the Egyptian state for more than 60 years, forcing it to come up with a pragmatic, slowmoving tactical road map

As the Brotherhood evolved in Egypt and then spread to other Arab countries, and beyond, its ideologues came to believe that instant jihad was useless so long as the masses were not “properly” following Islam.

There would be no point in establishing an Islamic state, they reasoned, if an Islamic nation following their ideology did not first exist to populate it.

Should free elections ever be held in Egypt, the Brothers have a reasonable chance of winning, he said. “Clearly this is a possibility.

This is the most organized opposition in Egypt. The rest of the opposition groups are are a rabble.”

And of course, these last comments are completely expected in these last days:

In addition to representing a sea change within Egypt, a Muslim Brotherhood government would obviously spell bad news for relations with Israel.

In 2009, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt published a draft charter on its website, in which it said that the peace treaty with Israel would be “reviewed” if it came to power.

It is a given that when the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power (formally) - any agreements with Israel will be taken off the board. We can never forget the ultimate goal by Middle Eastern Islamists - and that is the complete destruction of Israel.

Prophetically we know where all these events lead as well. All of this will ultimately result in the invasion of Israel as described in Ezekiel 38-39. Radical Islam is on a collision course with Israel and with God. We are just seeing the pieces of the puzzle assembled.