Russia Drops The Mask - Reveals Itself As Israel's Enemy

The Mask Drops: Russia Reveals Itself As Israel's Enemy

By Chris Schang

This past week I came across an interesting analysis article from Arutz Sheva that gave a run down on a MEMRI article titled “The Mask Drops: Russia Reveals Itself As Israel’s Enemy”. As the title suggests and students of Bible prophecy know Russia is really not Israel’s friend. While Putin has long kept this hostility for Israel out of the public eye by maintaining visibly friendly relations with Israel, there appears to be evil intentions that have now become more apparent with the Russian delivery of the S-300 missile systems to Syria after the recent downing of a Russian military plane. As I mentioned in the last Rapture Report, Russia has been very upset in what it believes is Israel’s fault as it relates to the 15 lives lost in the missile strike last month. As a result, it appears that Russia’s true ambitions and plans have come out now that they have provided Syria with the S-300 system. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Russia’s actions have helped Israel’s enemies at their expense. I expect to see more of this in the future.

The MEMRI did a very interesting daily brief article on the situation this past week. The MEMRI article reports:

“A year ago, Russia’s mask of non-hostility towards Israel was still in place, in the form of strategic coordination with Israel regarding the latter’s bombings in Syria. This allowed it to conceal that it fully sided with Israel’s enemies – Syria and Iran. Even as it refrained from trying to stop Israel from bombing Iranian targets in Syria – as if it could have prevented this – it was at the same time enabling and sponsoring Iran’s expansion into Syria.”

Further:

“Following the September 18 downing of an Ilyushin-20 plane by Syrian missiles, Russia’s mask dropped, and the true anti-Israel face of its policy was fully revealed. Indeed, Putin first attempted to conceal it by refraining from fully blaming Israel for the tragedy. But soon enough he joined his subordinates in blaming Israel, and announced that Russia would equip Syria with S-300 missile systems, which would, inter alia, protect Iranian forces in Syria from Israeli attacks.

Now the picture is crystal clear: The Russians, who originally enabled and sponsored the Iranian expansion in Syria as an anti-U.S. measure, will now also protect the Iranians in Syria from Israeli attacks. This constitutes an undeclared act of war against Israel by an enemy, i.e. Russia – since it will not be the Syrians operating the S-300s against Israeli aircraft, because they yet face a long learning curve to do this; it will, for an indeterminate time, be Russian officers.
But with Russia’s equipping Syria with S-300s, and their inevitable operation by Russian officers against Israeli aircraft, the Russians risk a major military and technological debacle. They will learn, if they haven’t yet from the Ilyushin tragedy, that Israeli-American technology is far superior to Russia’s – and that goes not just for the S-300s now being shipped to the Syrians, but also for the S-300s and S-400s that Russia already has in place in Syria for its own defense. Perhaps only an internal Russian military investigation can show what these systems were doing when the Ilyushin was shot down.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu rejects the Israeli version of events, according to which the Israeli planes were already back over Haifa when the Ilyushin was shot down. The Russians argue that the radar picture showed an Israeli plane using the Ilyushin as a shield. A possible explanation for this, revealed by the Israeli daily Haaretz, is that the radar picture available to the Russians was not actual, but was the product of Israel’s electronic warfare. Given that this will continue to be part of any future Israeli bombing, the advanced Russian missile defense systems will be rendered no longer marketable. Perhaps this is why the Russians, upon announcing that they will deliverer S-300s to Syria, simultaneously announced their willingness to negotiate with the U.S. on this delivery, in order to avert any possible clashes with Israel and their ramifications.”

Finally:

“Russia’s true face has been revealed not only in the military/strategic sphere – by providing S-300s to Syria – but also by its reversion to the old Russian/Soviet antisemitism that not even Russian President Putin’s “special relationship” with Chabad can camouflage. Former Israeli Ambassador to Russia Zvi Magen noted: “The media blamed Israel on the day of crisis in a well-timed orchestrated manner, filled with antisemitic elements. This wasn’t random.”[2] Given Russia’s actual policy towards Israel, this should come as no surprise.”

I believe the sudden downing of the Russian spy plane forced Russia into a “slip of the mask” whereby they made a move to try to put Israel in check by the delivery of the S-300 system. Perhaps the Russians found it in the spy plane incident and decided not to waste a good crisis, so they moved in with the S-300 system that Israel has practically begged them not do. Why Russia even boasted that it gave the system to Syria for free.

The Arutz Sheva article had some interesting commentary and analysis on the situation. They went on to report:

“Last week, Russia delivered the S-300 to Syria in the middle of the night but said it would take another three months before Syrian army officers would be able to operate the missile shield independently. It appears Israel is now working in tandem with the United States to counter the threat posed by the new Russian-made Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. During his meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly almost two weeks ago Netanyahu said he had “got everything he wanted from Trump” regarding the crisis with Russia over Syria.

Russia’s latest actions in Syria show once again that Putin is trying to establish himself as the main regional power at the expense of Israel and the United States, even if this means harming Israel’s vital security interests.”

I believe this last paragraph is important to students of Bible prophecy as it shows that Russia is moving closer and closer to leading the Ezekiel 38-39 conflict as spoken about by the prophet Ezekiel some thousands of years ago. Russia is definitely positioning themselves in the region and joining forces with the other countries mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39. While it remains for Turkey to become closer to Russia and Iran, there have been some movement at times in that direction. I think all we need are a few more “incidents” and things will fall into place. I can’t help but think about the Bible mentioning Gog getting an “evil thought” as it relates to Israel. While the Bible does not give an exact timing of the Ezekiel 38-39 scenario except that it happens in the last days, I believe we can see that things are definitely moving into that direction as the alliances being made between Israel’s enemies these days are unprecedented in history.

I think we would all do well to keep an eye on Syria and what is going on there. I am looking for Turkey and the other Ezekiel 38-39 allies to come into the picture sooner rather than later. We need to keep watch and as always to keep looking up!