In this week’s update, we share with you the history and background of Hanukkah. What applications are there for today? How is it prophetic of the end of days?
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
1) US Secretary of State, John Kerry’s speech at the Saban conference on the Israeli / Palestinian peace process
In this week’s update, we share with you excerpts from US Secretary of State, John Kerry’s recent speech at the Saban conference in Washington D.C. where he discussed the current situation of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
1) The ramifications of Turkey shooting down a Russian military jet near the Turkey / Syria border
On November 24, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Turkey said that the Russian jet had violated its airspace. Footage from a private Turkish TV station showed the warplane going down in flames with a long plume of smoke trailing behind it as it crashed in a wooded part of an area the TV said was known by Turks as “Turkmen Mountain”. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the warplane crashed in a mountainous area in the northern countryside of the Syrian Latakia province. Footage from Turkey’s Anadolu Agency showed two pilots parachuting out of the jet before it crashed. The incident left one pilot dead; another was rescued. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the body of the dead pilot has been flown back to Russia.
Turkey said that the jet had flown more than a mile into Turkey for 17 seconds, despite being warned 10 times in five minutes while approaching to change direction. A senior Turkish official said: “The data we have is very clear. There were two planes approaching our border, we warned them as they were getting too close. Our findings show clearly that Turkish air space was violated multiple times. And they violated it knowingly.” Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan said: “Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders.”
In contrast, the Russia’s defense ministry said that its Su-24 fighter jet that was downed in Syria was “for the entire duration of the flight exclusively over Syrian territory.” In fact, it released a video showing that its SU-24 fighter jet never entered Turkish airspace. Furthermore, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “The American side, which leads the coalition that Turkey belongs to, knew about the location and time of our planes’ flights, and we were hit exactly there and at that time.”
However, Turkey’s military released its own audio recording of what it says was its warning to the Russian warplane. In one portion, a voice is heard saying: “This is Turkish Air Force speaking on guard. You are approaching Turkish airspace. Change your heading south immediately. Change your heading south.”
The people known as the Turkmen, a rebel group, sympathetic to Turkey who live near the Turkmen mountain claimed to have killed one of the Russian pilots who was trying to land safely on the ground after parachuting from the evacuated jet. The Turkmen minority who reside in northern Syria have strong ties to the Turkish government who wants to give them military protection. Turkish President Erdogan said: “Anyone who bombs that area attacks our brothers and sisters — the Turkmen.”
In retaliation, Russia began to bombard the mountainous area where the Turkmen live. Russian warplanes carried out heavy raids in Syria’s northern Latakia province in the Jabal Akrad and Jabal Turkman regions. Furthermore, Syrian government forces, supported by the Russian air campaign, started a military ground operation in an area where there are about 50 Turkmen villages. Syria sent tanks that marched through the area including heavy firing from cannons. Russia provided cover from the air and fired missiles as far away as the Mediteraniean sea.
A Turkmen rebel leader said: “For us it cannot get any worse than this. We are under a very intense, heavy campaign from the Russians and the Syrian government.” As a result, the Russian wrath began to pour out upon the Muslim terrorists who were being aided by American provided Taw Missiles as well as their own tanks they captured from the Syrian government military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Russian plane had been attacked when it was 1 km inside Syria and warned of “serious consequences” for what he termed a stab in the back administered by “the accomplices of terrorists”. He continued: “We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today.” Putin said: “We have not heard either an apology from Turkey’s top politicians, or proposals to compensate us for the damage, or a promise to punish the criminals. The impression is that the Turkish leadership is willfully driving the Russian-Turkish relations into a deadlock. We regret it,” he said.
In addition, Russia blamed Turkey for supporting ISIS and accused Turkey of buying oil from the Islamic State jihadist group, whose financing heavily relies on the sale of energy resources. Putin said that there was “no doubt” that oil from “terrorist-controlled” territory in Syria was making its way across the border into Turkey. “We see from the sky where these vehicles [carrying oil] are going,” Putin said. “They are going to Turkey day and night. These barrels are not only carrying oil but also the blood of our citizens because with this money terrorists buy weapons and ammunition and then organize bloody attacks,” he added.
At a joint press conference with Russian President Putin and French President Francois Hollande, Putin revealed that aerial surveillance shows “lines of oil tanker trucks, as far as the eye can see, taking oil across the border from Syria to Turkey.” Putin went on to reveal “The trucks empty the oil in Turkey then return to Syria to refill.” He described the line of trucks as “appearing to be a living pipeline” which operates almost 24 hours a day. This selling of stolen oil results in over one million dollars per day in cash to ISIS, which funds the terror group. As a result, Putin said that ISIS oil smuggling into Turkey should become a high-priority target in order to cripple the terrorist group. Sales of oil from ISIS are in direct violation of international law.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “We think it highly cynical when some of the countries speak about their commitment to the corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions and declare themselves members of anti-terrorist coalitions but in reality are playing a game where terrorists [meaning ISIS] are allocated the role of secret allies [of Turkey],” Lavrov stressed. “We have more and more questions about Turkey real plans and the degree of its readiness to exterminate terrorism, in particular in Syria, and its commitment to the normalization of the situation in Syria.”
As a result, a Russian defense ministry spokesman said: “Russian aviation continues to strike refining facilities in the territories controlled by the ISIS terrorist organization.” In the past few days, Russian aircraft has destroyed oil trucks, refineries, and oil storage facilities in the Syrian provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa. Finally, Russia said that it soon plans to launch operation ‘Total Destruction’ against ISIS in Syria using fighter jets, bombers, submarines as well as warships deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.
In order to further harm ISIS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is ready to coordinate practical steps to block the Turkish-Syrian border in cooperation with Syria. He said: “We are open for coordination of practical steps, certainly, in interaction with the Syrian government,” he said. “We are convinced that by blocking the border we will in many respects solve the tasks to eradicate terrorism on Syrian soil.”
Russia trying to cut off ISIS access to Turkey
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark went on television and admitted that oil from ISIS is “probably going through Turkey”…
Asked whether he agreed with Vladimir Putin that Turkey was aiding ISIS, Clark responded, “All along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way,” before going on to accuse Ankara of funneling ISIS terrorists through Turkey and buying ISIS’ stolen oil in the black market.
“Someone’s buying that oil that ISIS is selling, it’s going through somewhere, it looks to me like it’s probably going through Turkey,” said Clark, before also going on to accuse Putin of supporting terrorists through his allegiance with Bashar Al-Assad.
US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said that the Russian warplane was shot down in Turkey airspace. US President Barack Obama said that Turkey has a right to defend its airspace and blamed Russia for supporting the Assad government in Syria. Obama said: “This points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations. They are operating very close to a Turkish border and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries.”
Turkey President Erdogan said: “If the same violation occurs today then Turkey would react in the same way. The country which violates another should question itself and take necessary action to prevent a repetition of the incident.” Because Turkey gave no apology for downing the Russian jet, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law sweeping economic sanctions against Turkey. The sanctions bill targets Turkey’s tourism industry, cancels visa-free travel between the two countries, bans many Russian companies from hiring Turkish citizens and blocks imports of some Turkish goods. This includes stopping importing vegetables listing Israel as a possible alternative. “Turkish vegetables account for 20 percent of the total Russian imports of vegetables. Import of vegetables, tomatoes in the first place, will be substituted with those from Iran, Morocco, Israel, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan,” a spokesman said.
In addition, the Russian Finance Minister said the sanctions would also freeze some prestige projects between the two countries, including a joint venture to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant and a Russian-Turkish gas pipeline called Turkstream. Putin signed the gas deal with Turkey in December after the European Union blocked the pipeline. Furthermore, Russia decided to cut all military cooperation with Turkey. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said: “Today, in accordance with a previously made decision, all cooperation channels have been cut between the Russian Defense Ministry and the Turkish Armed Forces.”
The Russian Defense Minister said that Russia would deploy S-400 defense missile systems to its Syrian air base near Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. The deployment of the highly advanced Russian S-400 anti-air missiles combined with Russia electronic jamming and other electronic warfare equipment has effectively transformed most of Syria into a no-fly zone under Russian control. The S-400 uses multiple missile variants to shoot down stealth aircraft, UAVs, cruise missiles and sub-strategic ballistic missiles. The S-400 can engage up to 36 targets simultaneously. There range covers at least three-quarters of Syrian territory, a huge part of Turkey, all of Lebanon, Cyprus and half of Israel. The missiles have a range of 250 kilometers (155 miles). The Turkish border is less than 30 miles away.
Turkey is responding to Russia by initiating a defacto naval blockade solely of Russian Naval Military Vessels between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. In order to travel from one sea to the other, vessels must transit the Strait of Istanbul which has two components: The Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is a narrow waterway between the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmora. The Bosporus is another narrow waterway between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea.
Both the Dardanelles and the Bosporus are under the military control of Turkey and the use of those waterways is governed very strictly by a Treaty known as “The 1936 Montreux Convention.” In that Treaty, Turkey must allow merchant (cargo) ships from every nation to pass to and from while engaged in commerce. Military vessels however, are subject to a slightly different standard. In the Treaty, military vessels from nations bordering the Black Sea are unrestricted as to size or weight, but non-Black Sea nations are limited in the weight of their vessels. This has the effect of preventing aircraft carriers from non-Black Sea nations from entering the Black Sea.
Russia says that Turkey is not permitted to block the transit of other nations’ military vessels unless Turkey is “threatened with aggression” or “at war.” Despite this Treaty restriction, Turkish newspapers have publicly discussing the possibility that Turkey would “close the throat” of Russian naval access to the Dardanelles and to the Bosporus. According to the AIS tracking system for the movement of maritime vessels, only Turkish vessels are moving along the Bosphorus, and in the Dardanelles there is no movement of any shipping at all. At the same time, both from the Black Sea, and from the Mediterranean Sea, there is a small cluster of ships under the Russian flag, just sitting and waiting.
Turkey Blockading Russia in the Black Sea
Because of all of this, Russia is preparing for a greater war with NATO which could be nuclear as Russia announced that by the end of December, it will deploy the latest version of its giant command and control aircraft designated for use during nuclear war or national disasters. The flying command center will be able to coordinate the worldwide operations of its ground, naval, air and missile forces, including nuclear weapons, as well as the country’s satellites. Russian military sources said that the Ilyushin-80 jet would be used when the command infrastructure is disrupted due to a nuclear war, or when ground communication systems are absent. The sources said the plane will be permanently staffed with senior generals, operational commanders and technicians.
Meanwhile, Israel said that will not take action against Russian fighter jets that encroach into its air space. A senior Israeli military figure said: “Russia is not an enemy,” he said. “We are trying to avoid tension with the Russians. This region is made up of common boundaries, and there are a lot of players on the ground and in the air,” the official said. “If a Russian plane crosses the aerial boundary, we will not launch a missile and we won’t down it.”
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
