The Resurgence of the Israeli Military - Israel in Bible Prophecy  By Dr. David R. Reagan

https://christinprophecy.org/articles/the-resurgence-of-the-israeli-military/

 

Israel is the focus of end time Bible prophecy. That’s the reason that the re-establishment of the nation on May 14, 1948 is so important. That event signaled the fact that we are now living in the end of the end times.

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Prophecies Concerning Israel

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During the 20th Century, we were privileged to witness God beginning to fulfill in whole or in part seven prophecies regarding the Jewish people:

1. The regathering of the Jews from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:10-12). This was prompted by Theodor Herzl’s book, The Jewish State, which was published in 1896. There were 40,000 Jews in Palestine in 1900. Today, there are slightly more than 6 million in the land of Israel.

2. The re-establishment of the state of Israel (Ezekiel 37:21-22). This prophecy was fulfilled on May 14, 1948 when the Israeli declaration of independence was proclaimed in Tel Aviv.

3. The reclamation of the land (Ezekiel 36:34-35). When the Jews started returning to the land in the early 20th Century, it was a malaria-infested swampland that had been denuded of all its forests. Today, it is the bread basket of the Middle East, and the forests have been replanted.

4. The revival of the Hebrew language (Zephaniah 3:9 and Jeremiah 31:23). When the Jews were scattered worldwide, they stopped speaking Hebrew. But in the 19th Century, God raised up a man in Lithuania named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who devoted his life to resurrecting the language from the dead. In 1922, the British declared biblical Hebrew to be one of the three official languages of Palestine, together with English and Arabic. Ben-Yehuda died one month later.

5. The re-occupation of the city of Jerusalem (Zechariah 8:4-8). When the Israeli War of Independence ended in 1949, the Old City of Jerusalem was under Jordanian occupation. The Israelis conquered the city on June 7, 1967 during the Six Day War.

6. The resurgence of the Israeli military (Zechariah 12:6). Despite the fact that Israel is one of the smallest nations in the world, its military is regularly ranked among the top ten to fifteen in the world.

7. The re-focusing of world politics on the nation of Israel and its city of Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:2-3). Today the whole world is focused on trying to force Israel to surrender all or part of Jerusalem.

 

Military Power in Prophecy

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Let’s take an in-depth look at how one of these prophecies was fulfilled in the 20th Century and continues to be fulfilled to this day — the resurgence of the Israeli military.

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The prophet Ezekiel referred to the revival of Israel in the last days as producing “an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10). Zechariah was more specific. He prophesied that God would make “the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves,” enabling them to “consume on the right hand and on the left” all their enemies (Zechariah 12:6). He proceeded to state that in the end times, the nation will be so strong that the “feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them” (Zechariah 12:8).

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Let’s look now at the evidence of the fulfillment of these prophecies.

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The War of Independence (November 1947 – March 1949)

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On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted a resolution providing for the ending of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, replacing British rule with a partition of the land that would result in the creation of two states, one for the Jews and the other for the Arabs.

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The Jews worldwide were elated, even though the piece of territory they were provided was minuscule compared to what they had been promised by the British in the Balfour Declaration in November of 1917. But the Arabs were outraged because they wanted all the land of Palestine. The result was the immediate launching of a civil war as the Arabs began to attack Jewish communities. This bloody conflict continued right up to the day that the Jews issued their declaration of independence on May 14, 1948.

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As that epic day approached, the Arabs issued repeated warnings that they would launch an all-out war if the Jews proceeded to establish a nation. For example, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, declared, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”

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On the Jewish side, there was considerable concern that such boasting could become a reality. Thus, on the eve of the war, Yigael Yadin, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli forces, told David Ben-Gurion, the Jewish leader, “The best we can tell you is that we have a 50-50 chance.”

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The trepidation on the part of the Jews was more than justified. Within hours of the declaration of independence on the afternoon of May 14, 1948, five Arab armies began invading the new nation (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq). The Israeli forces consisted at most of 30,000 rag-tag underground fighters who were ill-trained and poorly equipped. (The Israeli Defense Force, known as the IDF, was not organized until after the invasion.)

 

The Arab armies, particularly the Jordanians, were well equipped and trained. Egypt, Iraq and Syria had air forces. Egypt and Syria also had tank forces. All had modern artillery. The troops of Transjordan were led by a British officer, General John Glubb.

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Although the United States recognized the new state of Israel immediately, the Truman Administration did not provide any aid. Instead, Truman declared an arms embargo under the naive assumption that it would help avert bloodshed. Meanwhile, the British gladly supplied arms openly to the Arabs, while Israel had to smuggle weapons purchased in Czechoslovakia.

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But despite the overwhelming odds against them, the infant Jewish state prevailed. The cost was enormous. A total of 6,377 Israelis were killed, representing nearly one percent of the population (equivalent to an American loss today of three million!). But the Israelis ended up not only with the territory that had been allotted to them by the UN, but also with control of 60% of the area that had been proposed for an Arab state. Arab casualties totaled between 8,000 and 15,000, and they ended up with only 22% of the total territory of Palestine.

 

The only key area that the Israelis were unable to conquer was the Old City of Jerusalem. Overall, the war resulted in an incredible victory for Israel.

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During the war there were many miraculous events. One occurred at a kibbutz (collective farm) called Yad Mordecai, located 36 miles south of Tel Aviv near the northern border of the Gaza Strip. The kibbutz was located on the coastal road from Egypt to Tel Aviv.

 

The Egyptian army, composed of 5,000 troops, divided as it moved north. Half the troops headed for Jerusalem, the other 2,500 continued north toward Tel Aviv. The latter unit arrived at Yad Mordecai on May 19. They were heavily armed, and they were backed up with tanks, artillery and air support.

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The kibbutz evacuated all its children and most of its women as they prepared for the Egyptian attack. They were left with 130 defenders (110 kibbutzniks and 20 fighters from Tel Aviv). They dug trenches and reinforced them with sand bags. Their armament consisted of 37 rifles, one anti-tank gun, two light mortars and two machine guns.

 

There was no hope for the kibbutz, and its defenders were well aware of that fact. But they bravely dug in and prepared to take what appeared to be a suicidal stand.

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The Egyptians attacked furiously with ground troops, tank assaults, artillery barrages, and air sorties. Incredibly, the Yad Mordecai defenders held out for five days! The Egyptians were not able to overrun the kibbutz until the defenders decided to retreat under the cover of darkness due to the fact that half of them had either been killed or incapacitated.

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Over 300 Egyptian soldiers died in the battle, and the five days gave the defender of Tel Aviv time to prepare their defenses. Also, during that time, four Messerschmitt airplanes had arrived from Czechoslovakia and had been hastily assembled. They were used on May 29 to stop the Egyptian army before it could reach Tel Aviv.

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How could 130 untrained civilians with only rudimentary armament hold off the Egyptian army for five days? No one has ever been able to explain it.

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The Six Day War (June 1967)

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In the early 1960s, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, decided to try to establish his nation as the leader of the Arab world. Part of that strategy was the demonization of Israel in his public speeches. He also encouraged terrorist attacks against Israel.

 

In 1965 Nasser asserted, “We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand; we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood.” A few months later, Nasser declared that he had two aims. “The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel.”

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On May 15, 1967, Nasser started moving Egyptian troops into the Sinai desert, massing them near the Israeli border. He then ordered the UN troops in the buffer zone between Israel and Egypt to leave. When the UN readily complied, he announced:

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As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.

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The Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Assad, replied enthusiastically: “The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united… [and] I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

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On May 22, Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran to all Israel shipping — an action considered to be an act of war under international law. At that point, Nasser began to challenge Israel daily to fight. On May 28, he declared, “We will not accept any… coexistence with Israel.”

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King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt on May 30, and Nasser announced:

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The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel… while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation… the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.

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President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq joined in the war of words, declaring, “Our goal is clear — to wipe Israel off the map.” The Arab rhetoric was matched by the mobilization of forces. Approximately 465,000 troops, together with 2,800 tanks and 800 aircraft were assembled for the attack on Israel.

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The Israeli leaders decided it would be suicidal to wait for the attack, and so, on June 5, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol gave the order to launch a preemptive attack on Egypt. The entire Israeli Air Force, with the exception of 12 planes assigned to defend Israel’s air space, took off in the early morning, and in less than two hours they destroyed over 300 Egyptian aircraft sitting on the ground. A few hours later, they destroyed all the Jordanian air force and half of Syria’s on the ground.

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These overwhelmingly successful surprise attacks guaranteed an Israeli victory before the ground war could get started.

 

After just six days of fighting, the Israeli forces on the ground had captured the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Most important, they were able to conquer the Old City of Jerusalem and regain control of the sacred Temple Mount.

 

After breaking into the Old City, the Israeli troops rushed to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount to pray. No Jew had been allowed access to that area for 18 years, ever since the Jordanians had taken the city in the War of Independence. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the Israel army (and later the chief rabbi of Israel) rushed to the wall. He had a torah scroll under one arm and a shofar in the other hand. He blew the shofar and announced: “We have taken the City of God. We are entering the Messianic era for the Jewish people.” He said that because he knew from prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures that when the Jews are back in the land and back in their capital city, the Messiah will come.

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Once again, the tiny nation of Israel had prevailed against unbeatable odds, just as prophesied in the ancient Hebrew scriptures. The victory had been achieved with lightning swiftness, in only six days, proving to be one of the most miraculous wars in history.

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The Yom Kippur War (October 1973)

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The situation proved to be quite different in 1973 when the Arabs enjoyed the element of surprise. Egypt and Syria launched an all-out surprise attack against Israel on October 6, which happened to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.

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The Egyptians suddenly crossed the Suez Canal, quickly overran the Israeli outposts along the canal, and then drove deep into the Sinai before the Israelis could mobilize their forces, deploy them, and launch a counter-attack. Meanwhile, the Syrians had simultaneously attacked the Golan Heights.

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The war was prompted by a desire on the part of the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, to avenge the humiliation the Arab world had suffered in the 1967 Six Day War. Although Sadat warned repeatedly in 1971, 1972 and 1973 that he was going to renew the war with Israel, most observers remained skeptical.

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It was not until a few hours before the attack began that the Israeli Chief of Staff, David Elazar, recommended a full, immediate mobilization and a preemptive air strike. But he was overruled by Prime Minister Golda Meir who feared that striking first would anger the United States and motivate President Nixon to refuse to support Israel.

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The news of the attack also caught the U.S. by surprise because the very day before, the CIA had reported to President Nixon “that war in the Middle East is unlikely.”

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Once again, as in all its previous wars, Israel faced overwhelming odds:

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On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only 3 tanks were attacked by 600,000 Egyptian soldiers, backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft.

 

Furthermore, at least nine Arab states provided aid to the Egyptian-Syrian war effort, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who served as the financial underwriters. Most important, the Soviet Union was heavily involved, providing military supplies, intelligence and diplomatic support.

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Israel prevailed because of massive aid from the Nixon Administration and because of brilliant generalship in the marshalling of its armies.

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The U.S. supplied $2.2 billion in emergency aid that totaled 22,000 tons of equipment that was transported to Israel in 566 flights.

 

The Israeli military leaders utilized this aid to stop the Syrians dead in their tracks on the Golan Heights, while General Ariel Sharon led the Israeli tank forces in the Sinai in a counterattack that resulted in the greatest tank battle in history.

 

By October 15, the Egyptian tank force had been destroyed, and Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal. He quickly surrounded the Egyptian Third Army, immobilized it, and started marching toward Cairo.

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Meanwhile, in the north, the Israeli forces had cleared the Golan Heights, recaptured Mount Hermon and started driving toward Damascus.

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Israeli forces were 25 miles from Damascus and 63 miles from Cairo when the Soviets decided to pressure the United Nations into calling for a cease fire.

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Once again, Israel had prevailed when there seemed to be no hope.

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Operation Thunderbolt (July 1976)

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On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris made a stopover in Athens where it unloaded some passengers and picked up others. Among those who got on the flight were four terrorists, two Palestinians and two Germans. They hijacked the flight as soon as it took off, and they then diverted it to Benghazi, Libya where it was refueled. From there they headed to Entebbe, Uganda, where the President of the country, Idi Amin, was waiting to welcome them.

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Upon landing, four more terrorists joined the group, and they proceeded to separate the hostages. All the Jews were herded into a recently abandoned terminal building. The rest of the passengers were released and flown to Paris. The Air France crew decided to stay behind with the Jewish hostages. The number of hostages, including the crew, totaled 106.

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The hijackers immediately issued an ultimatum: Either release 53 terrorists held in Israel and four in other countries, or all the hostages would be killed on July 1. The Israeli government launched negotiations with the terrorists while considering a military alternative. As a result of the negotiations, the hijackers agreed to extend the deadline to July 4.

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A military alternative was considered by most to be unthinkable, mainly because of the great distance involved — 2,500 miles from Tel Aviv to Entebbe. Nonetheless, the Israeli Cabinet ordered the preparation of a rescue mission while they used the negotiations to stall for time.

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As it turned out, the Israelis had two advantages working for them. They were able to interview all the passengers who had been released, and from them they got detailed information about the captors and the hostages. They also discovered that the abandoned terminal building had been built by an Israeli company, so they were able to get the blueprints of the building!

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Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu was selected to lead the commando assault team. He was the older brother of the man who would later become the prime minister of Israel — Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Although Yoni was only 30 years old, he had accumulated an outstanding record of military leadership and daring. To prepare his team for the attack, he came up with the idea of using hay bales to lay out the exact floor plan of the terminal building, and his commando team began practicing mock assaults.

 

Four Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, plus two Boeing 747s were used in the raid. More than 100 personnel were recruited and divided into teams. Yoni’s assault group consisted of 29 elite commandos. A second group was assigned the job of encircling the new terminal building and immobilizing the Ugandan soldiers attached to it. A further group was given the task of destroying all the MiG fighter planes on the ground at the airport. A fourth group was given the task of refueling the airplanes, and a fifth squad was put in charge of evacuating the hostages.

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The mission was launched on the afternoon of July 3. The planes flew most of the way at an altitude of only 100 feet in order to avoid radar detection. The flight took 7 hours and 40 minutes. They arrived one minute behind schedule at 11:01pm Israeli time — but just after midnight in Uganda, the beginning of July 4, 1976.

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The surprise blitz attack proved successful beyond any expectations. It took a total of only 53 minutes. During that time, all seven of the hijackers who were present were killed, together with 33 to 45 Ugandan soldiers, and all 8 MiG fighter planes on the ground were destroyed.

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Three hostages died in the crossfire, and ten were wounded. One was left behind because she had been taken to a hospital in Entebbe. A total of 102 hostages were taken back to Israel alive.

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Five Israeli commandos were wounded. Only one was killed — the leader of the raid, Yoni Netanyahu.

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The entire raid, including the refueling of the planes and the evacuation of the hostages, took a total of only one hour and 39 minutes. To this day, this amazing raid is considered to be one of the most outstanding examples of military planning, coordination and execution in the annals of military history.

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Operation Opera (June 1981)

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In 1976 Iraq purchase an “Osiris-class” nuclear reactor from France. The site chosen for the reactor was about 10 miles southeast of Baghdad. It was given the name of Osirak.

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While both France and Iraq claimed that the Osirak reactor was for peaceful scientific research, the Israelis viewed the whole project with great suspicion. When both American and Israeli intelligence sources confirmed Iraq’s intention to use the reactor to develop nuclear weapons, the Israelis launched an intensive diplomatic effort to try to halt the French financial and scientific support for the project, but all diplomatic efforts failed.

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In early 1981 when the Israeli Cabinet received word that a shipment of 90 kilograms of enriched uranium fuel rods was expected to be supplied by France any moment, they decided to prepare for an immediate attack. This decision was, of course, prompted by a desire to prevent the reactor from being activated. But it was also motivated by a concern that if the attack occurred after activation, it would pose a radiation threat to the inhabitants of Baghdad.

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The mission to destroy the Osirak reactor was launched on June 7, 1981. The attack squadron consisted of eight F-16s, each with two 2,000 pound bombs, and six F-15s, which were assigned the task of providing fighter support.

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The planes flew low over Saudi Arabia to avoid radar detection. They caught the Iraqis by complete surprise and completely destroyed the reactor in an attack that took less than two minutes. All the Israeli planes returned home safely.

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In a weird coincidence, King Hussein of Jordan was vacationing on his yacht in the Gulf of Aqaba at the time. Since the Israeli jets took off from the Etzion airbase in the southern Negev desert, they flew directly over the King’s yacht, and when he saw them, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were headed to Iraq to bomb the Osirak reactor. He called his office in Amman and asked them to send an urgent warning to Iraq, but for some unknown reason, the warning was never received by the Iraqis.

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Also, it was learned after the attack that half an hour before the Israeli planes arrived, the group of Iraqi soldiers manning the anti-aircraft defenses for the reactor had left their posts for an afternoon meal, and they had turned off their radar detectors.

 

The leader of the attack force, Ze’ev Raz, was interviewed in 2007 by the Jewish Press. As he was recounting the events, the interviewer said, “The way you are describing it, it sounds like an outright miracle.” Raz responded, “Absolutely. Of course it was a miracle. How is it possible that even after we bombed the reactor not one plane tried to down us?” He then continued with an amazing observation:

 

I’ll tell you something else: It takes an hour and a half to get back from Iraq to Israel and we were flying 40,000 feet above the ground.

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The General Staff originally wanted us to carry out the bombing after sunset so it would be harder for the Iraqis to attack us on the way back. But I was opposed to that. I thought if we did the bombing after sunset there wouldn’t be enough light and our planes would miss their target — so I insisted that the bombing take place before sunset.

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As a result, we flew back as the sun was setting. But since the planes were traveling [so high and] at such a fast speed, the sun was out all the time and never set. It was as though it remained standing in the middle of the horizon.

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At that time we pilots all radioed each other reciting the same exact biblical verse — Joshua 10:12: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Ayalon.”

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Conclusion

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I am convinced that the examples cited above prove beyond a doubt that God has His hand on Israel, protecting the Jewish people from assault after assault, and enabling them to achieve miraculous victories — all in fulfillment of Bible prophecies about Israel in the end times.

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Nor can there be any doubt that God’s supernatural protection will continue for the immediate future.

 

Currently, a major war looms over the Middle East as Arab secular leaders are being replaced by Muslim fundamentalists who are determined to “liberate” Jerusalem and annihilate Israel. It could well prove to be the worst of all the wars Israel has experienced because missiles are going to rain down on the nation from all directions.

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But if Psalm 83 is a prophecy about this war, as I think it could well be, then Israel will once again be overwhelmingly victorious, defeating all the Arab nations with whom it shares a common border. This will pave the way for the subsequent war of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, when Russia, accompanied by certain Muslim nations, will come down against Israel and will suffer supernatural destruction at the hands of the Lord.

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Israel has some very difficult days ahead, but God has made some wonderful promises to them that they can rely on. In Psalm 121:4 He says, “Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” In Isaiah 54:17 He promises, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” And in Joel 3:2 He states that He will severely judge all nations in the end times who get involved in trying to divide up “My land.”

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Another of God’s powerful promises to Israel is found in Isaiah 41:8-16 which reads as follows:

8) “But you, Israel, My servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
Descendant of Abraham My friend,

9) You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
And called from its remotest parts
And said to you, ‘You are My servant,
I have chosen you and not rejected you.

10) ‘Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

11) “Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored;
Those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish.

12) “You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them,
Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent.

13) “For I am the LORD your God, who upholds your right hand,
Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’

14) “Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel;
I will help you,” declares the LORD,
“and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

15) “Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges;
You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, And will make the hills like chaff.

16) “You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away,
And the storm will scatter them;
But you will rejoice in the LORD,
You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.”

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Our nation needs to pay attention to these promises of God. In recent years, we have put enormous pressure on Israel to follow a path of appeasement by “trading land for peace.” In the process we have increasingly given encouragement to Israel’s sworn enemies. If we continue to manhandle Israel, we will end up guaranteeing our own destruction.