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Does the Israeli-Hamas War Mean End of the World is Near?How could this happen?
Editor’s Note: This is PART 3 of our four-part series about the situation in Israel, what led to this catastrophe, and how it relates to end times prophecy. If you missed PART ONE or PART TWO access them here. As the conflict in Israel continues, the war is in a new phase: Israel’s retaliation. Reasonable people worldwide understand that the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) is left with no choice but to strike back in response to the atrocities committed by Hamas against unsuspecting civilians, including children and the elderly. As time goes on, the world will learn more about the war crimes committed by these brutal savages. As suspected, public support for Israel is quickly fading even though, unlike Hamas, The IDF is NOT targeting innocent civilians. The residents of the West Bank are fleeing in droves because they know what is coming next—unlike the innocent and unsuspecting women and children kidnapped or killed in their own homes. In addition to bombing strikes in Judea and Samaria (i.e., the West Bank), strategic operations are underway in countries surrounding Israel. “Disabling runways in Aleppo and Damascus will help prevent the transfer of fighters and weapons from Israel’s enemies, the surrounding nations of Iran, Iraq, and eastern Syria,” according to Amir Tsarfati on Telegram. News of Israel’s retaliation has once again stirred up hatred for the Jewish nation. The likes of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the coddled snowflakes of Harvard University, and even some members of Congress are defending the indefensible actions of Hamas and other antisemitic terror organizations.
What’s Next?As I stated previously, all roads lead to Iran and, consequently, down the path to nuclear war. It’s no secret that the predominantly Muslim nation of Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. “Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described Israel in 2000 as a ‘cancerous tumor’ that ‘must be uprooted from the region,” according to the United States Institute of Peace. Hamas, in and of itself, does not pose an existential threat to Israel. As we’ve seen in recent days, Israel is taking care of eradicating this group of terrorists. On the other hand, Hezbollah is much more sophisticated in its weaponry and has been building up its arsenal. They started with 33,000 rockets and missiles in 2006 and amassed to an estimated 150,000+ missiles—all pointed directly at Israel from Lebanon, its neighbor to the north! Hezbollah’s involvement could lead to next-level engagement by Iran that funds the criminal organizations. More on Iran in a minute. Why Now?As mentioned in earlier posts, there’s been an escalation in the past few years leading to where Israel finds itself today—on the brink of annihilation. Below are five reasons why, in my estimation, war is happening now. 5. Arab leaders want to normalize relations with Israel.Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was set to formalize a historic deal to normalize relations with Israel. However, after the Hamas attack, the Saudi Government faced pressure from the Arab world to back the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia then issued a statement blaming Israel’s policies for the attack, causing the Israelis to take the agreement off the table. Other Arab countries have recently signaled that they also wish to establish relations with Israel. Just last month, the Libyan Foreign Minister, Najla Mangoush, was forced to flee her country after riots broke out in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. What was her great crime that she now stands accused of grand treason? Talking to Eli Cohen, the Foreign Minister of Israel. Even hinting at normalizing relations with Israel is illegal in Libya and elsewhere.
Coincidently, The Libyan Foreign Minister fled to Turkey to escape her country. Turkey and Libya are two of the nations that join the alliance with Iran and Russia, according to Ezekiel 38. I encourage you to keep an eye on the country of Turkey in the coming months. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has been rumored to want to pull Turkey out of NATO and join an alliance with Russia and China. This will be interesting! 4. Global Elites are Relentlessly Pushing a Two-State Solution.On February 20, 2023, The United Nations Security Council formally denounced Israel for the first time in 18 years. Israel’s great crime? Building housing developments in Judea and Samaria, a region that Israel rightfully took command of during the Six-Day War in 1967. You can read more here. Two months earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” including the illegally annexed Syrian Golan Heights and “Judea and Samaria” [West Bank]. This bold and unprecedented move by the UN came after their council voted on the last day of December in 2022 to have the International Court of Justice (another organization of global elites) examine Israel's “illegal occupation.” We’ll discuss this more in a future post. The UN is the same body that refused to denounce Iran for its horrific human rights abuses after 100+ days of citizen protests after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, took off her hijab (head scarf) and was beaten to death by Iran’s “morality police.” You can read more about this here. Tragically, the United States allowed the UN to denounce its ally Israel (on paper only, apparently) for the first time in six years. What in the world is going on? More on that in my next post. 3. Iran’s Nuclear Program Has Recently Reached Break-out Capacity.Until earlier this year, Iran’s nuclear program was the biggest open secret in the international community. Not only is Iran no longer denying it, but the Islamic Republic is also now claiming that they have “the right” to enrich uranium to 90% for the purpose of generating electricity, in defiance of U.N. sanctions. As one reporter said, “Iran is enriching uranium at levels ‘only countries making bombs are reaching’.” Read more here. If Iran is now truly a legitimate nuclear threat, this will change the dynamics in the Middle East and the world. Do you want to know the top two conditions that led to war in Israel in 2023 and why a two-state solution in Israel will NEVER work? Check out Part 4 of Is This the End of the World? Coming soon! Amy L. Travis is the founder of the Stand Coalition and author of seven books on faith and conservative values including, The Truth About Love: How to Graciously Push Back Against a Godless Culture currently available on Amazon.
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Henya Chein has always been terrified of guns. The Orthodox Jewish artist and mother of two felt uneasy about her husband’s decision to buy a handgun after they moved to Florida from New York last year.
“I would just block it out of my mind that it’s in the house,” Chein, 26, said.
But after watching the events unfold in Israel, she’s taken steps she never imagined herself ever taking. Chein attended a gun safety seminar at her synagogue last week followed by a one-on-one session at a local shooting range.
“Even at the range, I just wanted to drop the gun and run back home,” Chein said. “I was so scared, and I’m terrified of it.”
But she said she felt “forced to do it because Jewish people are not safe anywhere now.”
The deadly terrorist attack in Israel and the torrent of social media threats that followed have forced many American Jews to reconsider their long held stances against owning or using guns.
Follow live coverage from NBC News here.
Firearm instructors and Jewish security groups across the country say they have been flooded with new clientele since Hamas assaulted Israel on Oct. 7. And gun shop owners in Florida say they have seen more Jews purchase firearms in recent weeks than ever before.
“We’ve definitely seen a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms,” said David Kowalsky, who owns Florida Gun Store in the town of Hollywood, and also offers firearms training classes. “I’ve seen a surge in interest in individual training as well as group training.”
Kowalsky, who is Jewish, said local synagogues had reached out to him to host gun training seminars and shooting sessions in the past week. At one gun safety seminar he hosted this past week, Kowalsky said most participants were new to guns.
“These are mothers, teachers, the majority of them are mostly people who have never interacted with firearms or thought about owning them,” Kowalsky said. “There’s a safety concern. I think people are nervous about what’s going on and what can happen.”
Rabbi Yossi Eilfort runs Magen Am, a nonprofit in Los Angeles that provides self-defense classes and firearm training to the Jewish community. He said they’ve received more than 600 calls in the last week.
“We can’t put down the phone without picking up the next one,” said Eilfort said. “The calls for self-defense training, situational awareness training — ‘How do I make my shop or my institution a harder target?’ — has just been really, really nonstop.”
It is not uncommon for targeted groups to seek out self-defense measures after public attacks or threats.
Some American Jews said they had first become interested in gun ownership after a 2018 shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. A 2022 study from the University of Michigan found that Asian Americans who experienced racism during the pandemic were more likely to acquire firearms and ammunition for self-defense.
But in many Jewish communities, gun ownership is a taboo subject.
“The majority of Jews in the country historically have been liberal on the left, pro-gun reform, pro-gun control, opposed to personal gun ownership,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran New York-based political strategist who is also an Orthodox rabbi. “Jews with guns were always seen as an odd event.” But now, Sheinkopf added, it seems the long held view — of the U.S. being the “one place in the world where Jews are safe — is coming to an end.”
Pro-Hamas extremists and neo-Nazis have inundated social media platforms with calls for attacks on Jewish communities and other targets in the U.S. and Europe, prompting U.S. law enforcement agencies to step up their readiness postures, NBC News reported last week. And there have been a smattering of hate crime incidents against Jews in the U.S., including an assault recently of a woman while she was standing on a busy New York City subway platform.
Muslim Americans have also been targeted in recent weeks. In the most high-profile case, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death in his Illinois home in what police described as an anti-Muslim hate crime; his landlord has been charged with murder in the attack.
NBC News spoke with more than a dozen Jewish Americans across the country who sought out gun ownership or formal gun training for the first time in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict. Many said they did not feel comfortable publicly sharing their identities out of fear they might be targeted. At least two people said they had received antisemitic death threats on social media.
Some also said they feared backlash from people in their communities who may be less receptive to gun ownership.
Endi Tennenhaus, a preschool director and mother of seven living in Hollywood, Florida, helped organize a gun safety training for women at her synagogue this past week. Her husband, who is the synagogue’s rabbi, had already organized a men’s group to go to a shooting range.
“I said, ‘What about the women? I’m sure some of the women would love to do that as well,’” recalled Tennenhaus, 41. “If all of our husbands are buying guns, we want to make sure we also know how to use them and also to be able to protect our children and be able to keep guns safe in our homes.”
She said 25 to 30 women attended the introductory class, and a shooting range session is scheduled for next week.
A 41-year-old Jewish woman living in Miami Beach said she is pro-gun control and had no desire to use a firearm. But she signed up for gun training sessions after receiving death threats from unknown accounts on Instagram, where she had previously posted about being Jewish.
The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her family’s safety, said the threats contained graphic images of dead bodies.
“It’s not like ‘Hey, I’m proud and happy and want to do this,’” she said of her choice to take firearms training. “I have no choice. It’s a very sad thing.”
Daniel Lombard, a Chicago police officer who also runs DAVAD Civilian Defense, a firearms training company, said he has seen a massive uptick in interest from local Jewish communities.
“We are definitely going to be adding classes. There’s no doubt about it,” Lombard said.
Eilon Even-Esh, a Marine veteran living in Florida, has hosted a series of emergency safety and gun training sessions for the Jewish community in his county over the past week. He said the calls have been nonstop and the majority of participants are first-time gun users.
“Some are concerned, and some are angry,” said Even-Esh.
On Monday, he hosted a hastily arranged, late night personal safety training at a local synagogue, which lasted from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
“These are regular people that want to feel safe,” he said.