Zelensky calls for creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’

He warns Trump not to deal with Putin ‘behind our backs’ over Ukraine’s futureBy OLIVIA CHRISTIE   Published: 2 07:58 AEDT, 16 February 2025

President Zelensky has dramatically called for the creation of a European army – as he warned countries on the continent now needed to fight for ‘their own sake’. 

The Ukrainian leader said on Saturday that Europe must take the threat of further war seriously amid concerns the US would negotiate a peace deal with the Kremlin. 

Meanwhile, Zelensky warned President Donald Trump not to deal with Vladimir Putin ‘behind our backs’ when it comes to Ukraine’s future. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he said: ‘I believe the time has come to create an armed forces of Europe. Money alone will not stop an enemy assault. 

‘It is not just about budgets, it is about people realising they need to defend their own home.’

We need this so that ‘decisions about Europe are made in Europe’, Zelensky added. 

The Ukrainian leader was alluding to a phone conversation between Trump and Putin, after which the Republican president said the two would likely meet to negotiate a peace deal. 

Trump later assured Zelensky that he, too, would have a seat at the table to end the war that was sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This is not a new call, President Marcron of France has said this a number of times before that Europe needs to be able to defend itself withou relying on the United States of America.  President Emmanual Macron has also been on record saying that he wants to bring Russia back to the negotiating table and begin dialogue on some form of a Security Pact with Russia, NATO’s existence in its current form will be an issue even more so now.

The Bible has long revealed that Russia and an EU Army will enter into a final conflict with Israel and the Middle East.  Germany is the key country in what Bible Prophecy refers to as the land of “Magog”. They are spoken of militarily as the “King of the North”.  Together the Bible says that Russia and the EU will invade the Middle East in the Last Days.  So Bible Students expect to see Germany and France taking a greater role in leading Europe.  It is also interesting to see Germany taking greater control of a continent they tried to take by war and failed.

Yet again we see in Todays News Headlines words that show how the Nations are fulfilling the latter day alignment of Nations as Prophesied by the Bible. 

See this article to learn more about this and the latter day prophecies of the Bible.

See this article for more on this subject: WHAT IS NEXT FOR EUROPE

President Trump’s “ultimate deal” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Martin S. Indyk  February 14, 2017

In Unpacked, Brookings experts provide analysis of Trump administration policies and news.

THE ISSUE: President Trump wants to make the “ultimate deal” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has put his son in law Jared Kushner in charge of achieving it.

Kushner will have a real challenge when it comes to being effective especially because the objective circumstances for Israeli and Palestinian peace making are very, very dismal.

THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Because Kushner is seen as President Trump’s trusted confidant, the whole region will understand that he speaks for the president.
• Both Arab and Israeli leadership could take advantage of Kushner’s lack of experience in Middle East policy by employing tactics that will make it extremely difficult for him to move forward with a deal.
• The dismal circumstance surrounding Israeli and Palestinian peace making and failures on both sides to fulfil their commitments to the two-state solution will also make it challenging for Kushner to be effective.
• There are three ways President Trump, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas could help pave the way for a negotiated agreement:
• Settlement activity would need to be constrained.
• The Israeli government could help the Palestinian economy grow in the West Bank by enabling construction and development in areas that have been off-limits for the Palestinians.
• The Sunni Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (the “Arab quartet”) – could be encouraged to join the process to provide cover and support for Palestinian concessions.
• These efforts might bear fruit because these four Arab states and Israel share a common interest in combating the threat from Iran’s hegemonic aspirations in their part of the Middle East.

This will be an interesting development to watch.  Bible Prophecy says that Israel will be a land dwelling in Peace so we must yet see things develop to allow for this.  The removal of all Terrorists is vital to allowing this to happen.

We also know from Bible Prophecy that Israel and its neighbours especiall Eqypt will be an area not only dwelling in Peace by also very prosperous, a place where goods and gold have increased to the point the the King fo the North will want to come to take a “great spoil”.  This is what we read in Ezekiel Chapter 38 the chapter that describes the King of the North led by Russia coming down into the Middle East.

⁷ “ ‘Get ready; be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you, and take command of them. ⁸ After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety. ⁹ You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.

¹⁰ “ ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. ¹¹ You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people—all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. ¹² I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land.” ¹³ Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, “Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize much plunder?”

This ensuing Battle will constitute the Battle of Armageddon as described in the Bible.

See this article to learn more: The Battle of Armageddon

And this one on the development of the “King of  the North and the King of the South”

Saudis want peace with Israel, don’t care about Palestinian state

December 17, 2024

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP)

Netanyahu believes that the Saudi Crown Prince is not particularly interested in a Palestinian state. 

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Saudi Arabia may drop its requirement that Israel make an absolute commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian State as a pre-condition for a normalization agreement, according to a report in Haaretz. 

Instead of requiring Israel to promise to establish a Palestinian state, the wording of the agreement now requests that Israel merely “create a pathway” to a two-state solution. 

The talks began after the ceasefire with Lebanon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducting the negotiations with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman through Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. 

According to the report, Netanyahu believes that the Saudi Crown Prince is not particularly interested in a Palestinian state, but feels he must address the issue to deal with public pressure. 

Therefore, the open-ended wording that Israel should “create a path towards statehood” will likely garner political support. 

In addition, a normalization agreement is likely to facilitate a hostage release deal since Riyadh has expressed interest in the reconstruction of Gaza, a positive for Israel since it would involve a more moderate Arab State. 

Interestingly Joel 3 which is about the lead up to Armageddon says that Saudi Arabia shall be on control of the Gaza and Southern Lebanon areas where these terrorists are.

⁴ “Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon (southern Lebanon = Hezbollah) and all you regions of Philistia? (Gaza = Hamas) Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done. ⁵ For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. ^{m 6} You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.

⁷ “See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done. ⁸ I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, (Saudi Arabia, see below) a nation far away.” The Lord has spoken.

‘Sabeans’ = שְׁבָא (compare Æth. ሰብእ፡ man), [Sheba],—(1) Sabœans, Sabœa, a nation and region of Arabia Felix, rich in frankincense, spices, gold and gems, 1 Ki. 10:1, seq.; Isai. 60:6; Jer. 6:20; Ezek. 27:22; Ps. 72:15; carrying on a celebrated traffic, Eze. loc. cit.; Ps. 72:10; Joel 4:8; Job 6:19; but Job 1:15, carrying on depredations in the neighbourhood of Ausitis. The genealogies in Genesis mention three men of this name—(a) the grandson of Cush, and son of Raamah, Gen. 10:7;—(b) a son of Joktan, Genesis 10:28 (which accords with the Arabic traditions);—(c) a grandson of Ketura, Gen. 25:3; and in two of the places (a, c), Shebah is coupled with Dedan his brother; this I would thus account for, by supposing that there were two Arabian tribes of this name, the one descended from Joktan in southern Arabia (letter b), the other dwelling by the northern desert of Arabia, near the Persian gulf and the mouth of the Euphrates (letters a, c, and Job loc. cit. [But a and c were of different ancestry]).  = Modern day Saudi Arabia

So yet again what we are seeing develop here is in direct fulfilment of Bible Prophecy and further evidence of the King of the South emerging in the Middle East.

See this article: King of the North and South Emerging

Donald Trump wins election in historic comeback

By Olivia Rinaldi, Jacob Rosen

Updated on: November 6, 2024 / 7:52 PM EST / CBS News

Former President Donald Trump with former first lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump during an election night event on Nov. 6, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images / Getty Images

Donald J. Trump’s projected victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election marks a historic and improbable comeback for the former president, who left office in 2021 after failing to overturn the 2020 election results. Afterward, he became the first former president to be charged with either state or federal crimes, with four separate indictments, one of which resulted in conviction. 

“We overcame obstacles that nobody ever thought we could,” he said on election night after a bitter, bruising campaign. He vowed to fight for every family and for their futures. “This will truly be the golden age of America,” he vowed.

Trump was projected by CBS News to have won the battleground states of North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — surpassing the electoral vote threshold of 270 by 21 votes with a total of 291. Votes were still being counted in the other battleground states of Nevada and Arizona. 

These are the Election Results as they stand on 8th November, but Trump is forecasted to win 312 Electoral votes and the Republicans have won a majority in the Senate and expected to remain in control of the House of Representatives giving Trump an apparalled mandate from the American people to bring change.

This is truly a remarkable result and one no one fully antisipated, all the polls were wrong and all the so called experts did not see this coming.

Let the Most High Rule in the Kingdom of Men

Donald J Trump has achieved an historical political comeback that most thought was impossible.

Donald Trump termed this election, “The most important election in the history of America” and recently added, “It is the most important election in the history of Israel.”

Donald Trump is the man God has chosen to accomplish what needs to be done to advance His purpose both in Europe and the Middle East.

A Divided State

There is no doubt about it: American society is about as polarised as it gets. The woke left has run rampant during the reigns of Obama and Biden. The leftist agenda has been pushed forward, supported by politicians, the media and Universities. The “right” side was asleep at the switch for a while until Trump showed up and turned mainstream politics on its head.

God used Trump and his former administration, including Jared Kushner, to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and put into place the Abraham Accords, the most radical shift in world politics, breaking from the “accepted” narrative and bringing huge dividends to the nations that participated.

Both Trump and Netanyahu were forced out of office during the year following the Abraham Accords.

The momentum they had begun didn’t advance under Biden. Iran was boosted by Biden policies to use its proxies, starting with Hamas, then Hezbollah and the Houthis, to scuttle the warming of relationships between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Biden Administration did not know what to do with the Hamas attack on Israel, vacillating between initial support and then pressure to make peace and the withholding of weapons for Israel to defend itself.

The Biblical Prerogative

As Bible believers, there is an over-arching principle that we must recognise:

“…the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

It is God and the Angels that are in control of who assumes the mantle of power in America. We cannot know the direction God wants the world to go in, but God does know and works behind the scenes to keep His purpose on track.

Based on Bible Prophecy we expect to see the following during President Trump’s term:

• Peace in Israel prior to the Russian invasion, as was discussed last week
• A Resurgent Russia in control of Europe
• America and Britain in full support of the emerging King of the South around Israel, Egypt and the Gulf Arab Countries as described in Ezekiel 38

How these are achieved, and in what order, we do not necessarily know, but  that they will happen we can be assured based on Bible Prophecy.

SEE: The King of the North and South Emerging

SEE GOD’S PLAN FOR THIS WORLD

Israel is Projected to be the Future of the Middle East

Abysmal demographics and tribal traditions mean the Muslim world will fall while a more modern Israel rises.

by Spengler Published: August 15, 2024

United Nations’ demographers project that, by the end of this century, Turkey’s labor force will fall by half and Iran’s will fall by two-fifths while Israel’s will double.

Turkish women in 2023 were estimated to have an average of just 1.5 children over their lifetime, half of Israel’s total fertility rate of 3 children per woman. The World Bank puts Iran’s  2022 fertility rate at 1.7.

Improbable as it may seem, the core scenario according to present trends will make Israel the economic center of the Middle East sometime toward the end of the century.

The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, Damon Runyon offered, but that’s how the smart money bets. Any number of things could upend a linear projection of present trends. The exercise nonetheless leads to striking conclusions.

Chart: Asia Times

Israel’s per capita GDP is now about US$55,000, or five times Turkey’s $11,000. One might quibble about the yardstick, but there is no doubt that Israelis produce more than Turks do. If these trends continue, Israel’s GDP will exceed Turkey’s by sometime in the middle of the present century.

The largest Middle Eastern country by population, Egypt, has a GDP per capita of just $3,500. Its problems are of a different order than Turkey’s or Iran’s and its chances of becoming an economic power are minimal.

Chart: Asia Times

There is no question as to the cause of declining fertility in Muslim countries. Female literacy disrupts the norms of traditional society. Once Muslim women achieve a certain educational level, they reject the constraints of tribal society along with marriage and motherhood.

The link between female literacy and fertility is well documented by academic studies in the case of Iran, as I reported in my 2011 book “How Civilizations Die, and Why Islam is Dying, Too.”

In the case of Turkey, the evidence is overwhelming. The chart below compares the female literacy rate as reported by the World Bank (left-hand axis, inverse scale) and the total fertility rate.

Chart: Asia Times

The same pattern emerges from a comparison of female literacy rates and total fertility rates in countries where female literacy is less than 60%:

Chart: Asia Times

The poorer countries of the Global South are repeating the so-called demographic transition of the West (from agricultural traditional society to modern urban society), but in a fraction of the time.

That leaves Iran and Turkey in a dilemma. Turkey now makes more cars than France and has built its own modern fighter plane. Iran has demonstrated its prowess in missiles and drones and is close to, if not past, the point of a nuclear breakout.

Both can educate scientists and engineers at world standards in significant numbers, but they can only do so by giving their people an off-ramp from traditional society.

In different ways, the Iranian and Turkish governments seek to preserve traditional Islamic mores – Iran in a far more pervasive and oppressive way, to be sure. But their efforts to impose Islam from the top prompted many of their most talented to emigrate.

“For many, the way out is through education visas to study abroad or work permits,” the Associated Press reported last year in a study of Turkey’s brain drain. “TurkStat, the government’s statistics bureau, said 139,531 Turkish citizens left the country in 2022, compared with 103,613 in 2021. Those aged 25 to 29 formed the biggest group,” the AP report said.

Studies of Iran’s brain drain estimate the annual loss to the country’s economy at between $50 billion and $150 billion a year. Gallup’s Potential Net Migration Index, taken between 2015 and 2017, found that more than one-quarter of highly educated Iranian residents would leave the country if they could. By some estimates, 80% of graduates of Sharif University, the country’s top engineering school, have emigrated.

The fastest decline in fertility has occurred where fertility was highest. In the case of Turkey, the biggest drops in fertility between 2010 and 2022 were registered in the provinces that had the highest fertility rates in 2010.

Nine Turkish provinces had total fertility rates (TFRs) higher than 3.0 in 2010. In 2022, there was only one. In 2010, not a single Turkish province reported a TFR below 1.5.

By 2022, 43 provinces showed a TFR below 1.5. These are the most urbanized parts of Turkey with the highest economic growth. The Kurdish-majority southeast of the country includes all the provinces with TFRs above 2.0.

The most modern and economically buoyant provinces of Turkey, that is, show extremely low fertility rates.

Without a drastic increase in productivity, Turkey, Iran and other countries will face catastrophic retirement crises. Assuming constant fertility, Turkey and Iran will have 70 retirees for every 100 workers in 2100, compared with just 14 today.

Both countries have the potential to raise productivity, at least in principle: Iran’s labor force participation rate is estimated at just 46% by the World Bank, and Turkey’s at 56%. The female labor force participation rate in Iran is just 14% and just 36% in Turkey. The corresponding data point for the United States is 58%.

In Israel, 60% of women are in the labor force, including 80% of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) women. Haredi women on average have six children, and nonetheless find employment (the labor force participation rate for Haredi men is 55% because a large proportion of ultra-Orthodox men devote themselves to religious studies).

Computer programming is a favorite occupation; it draws on skills in language and logic that are cultivated by religious education.

Israel is unique in adjusting traditional life to the modern economy. It is the only industrial country with a fertility rate above replacement, and it has succeeded – albeit partially and with considerable friction – in integrating most of its growing ultra-Orthodox population into skilled occupations. The trade-off between female education and fertility doesn’t exist.

Among the world’s major religions, Judaism has a special affinity for science. Not by accident Jews have earned a fifth of all Nobel Prizes in physics and an even higher proportion of Fields Medals in mathematics. I summarized the religious issue here.

Regarding the two most powerful Muslim countries of the Middle East, we can only say that they are far from resolving a deep social dichotomy between pre-modern and post-modern life. Turkey and Iran may succeed, but present trends point instead toward stagnation.

It is entirely possible that Israel may emerge as the largest economy in the region, which would have been seen as an improbable outcome for a small country that began with a Jewish population of just 600,000 in 1947.

Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will form a prosporus King of the South with Israel’s economy benefitting all.   This is not surprising to Bible Students as we fully expect to see this development based on Bible Prophecy that has foretold the alignment of Nations in the “latter days”.  The Bible describes a King of the North and a King of the South Geo-political Alignment of Nations in the last days prior to the last battle of mankind and the intervention of Christ to established God’s Kingdom on Earth Forever.  We read of this in Daniel Chapter 11:

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

You can read more about this in this article: Alignment of Nations in the Latter Days

Putin’s next conquests are already in his sights

Putin said that Russia has no plans to attack any Nato country and, as such, too many Western leaders rest easy in the belief that Russia’s war is strictly confined to Ukraine because Nato’s Article 5 is “watertight”. But if Moscow is allowed to prevail in Ukraine, other countries –  including Nato members – will be at far greater risk. Conversely, Western support for Ukraine demonstrates to Putin that he will pay an “even greater” price for an attack against Nato, and is preparing accordingly.

This fact is not lost on the countries closest to Russia. The Baltic nations, first of all, have warned that Russia could “pivot quickly” from Ukraine to invade their territory. Moldova, too, which hopes to break free of Russia’s influence and join the West, fears it would be next if Putin emerges victorious in Ukraine. 

Crucially, Russia does not need to send tanks and jets to such places. A victorious, emboldened Russia, engorged on Ukraine and with spare capacity, could rely on hybrid warfare tools, utilising “little green men” both on the ground and in the information space to convince the West that a conflict in there is internal and, therefore, in the case of the Baltics, does not trigger Article 5. This is what German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius meant when warning that Russia could attack a Nato member state within “five to eight years”. It need not be as obvious as tanks rolling across a Nato border. 

  CREDIT: Andrey Rudakov

In fact, Russia is already working to destabilise Europe. In May, Nato warned that Russia is waging an “intensifying campaign” of cyberattacks and other “hybrid” operations against its members. British intelligence has cautioned that Moscow is even planning “physical attacks” on the West. 

We know Russia is recruiting far-Right extremists to carry out attacks on individuals, and European intelligence agencies say that Moscow, seeking to weaken us, has staged violent acts of sabotage across Europe and is planning more. The Russians are already attempting to interfere in this month’s European Parliament elections, and the U.S. elections in November are no doubt on Putin’s menu, too.

Meanwhile, Russia is using its hybrid warfare machine to foment chaos in Nato’s soft underbelly: the Western Balkans. Using information operations and corrupt influence, Moscow aims to stoke ethnic tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and within Bosnia and Herzegovina. As Georgia faces massive protests triggered by a proposed law that targets civil society and its aspirations to join the EU, Russia is calculating security assistance. With the elections in Moldova and its vote on EU membership this year, Russia will likely not miss an opportunity to sow further discord in the country.

A Russian victory over Kyiv would also carry serious implications in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. If Moscow is able to outlast the West in Ukraine, Beijing may conclude it would face feeble resistance to Chinese military aggression against Taiwan.

Furthermore, Moscow’s aims to strengthen its military footprint in Africa, which it has already worked to do with the assistance of the remnants of its Wagner mercenary group. Fundamentally, Russia and China believe the decline of US global power is essential and have been advocating for a multipolar international system not led by Washington.

CREDIT: Andrey Rudakov

The West can only win this war if leaders understand Putin’s game. Since Putin first came to power, he has conducted an offensive aimed at gaining “reflexive control” of the West. “Reflexive control” is an old Soviet concept, foreign to most Western nations. It encompasses interfering in another country’s decision-making until the government is compelled to take actions in the Kremlin’s interest. In the words of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Russia’s war game works through “massive psychological manipulation of the population to destabilise the state and society”.

This is what Moscow did with some success in Ukraine before its Maidan Revolution in 2014 when the people fought back.

President Zelensky said “we can and should think only about how to win”. Alas, this sentiment is not shared by many in the West, leaving ambiguous what victory means and promising to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” This is a dream come true for Putin giving him the ability for a protracted war.

Make no mistake: the West has the power to ensure Russia’s defeat. Collectively, Western countries dwarf Russia economically and outclass it militarily. But they must translate that potential into reality. This requires patience and determination to stand by Ukraine and provide it with the weapons and training its forces need to win on the battlefield. Otherwise, Ukraine will just be the first domino to fall.

A somewhat startling headline, it will be interesting to see this thought continue to develop within the EU as the EU is challenged to deal with its future security post the Ukraine war and a second term for TRUMP.  President Emmanual Macron wants to bring Russia back to the negotiating table and begin dialogue on some form of a Security Pact with Russia, NATO’s existence in its current form will be an issue even more so now.

The Bible has long revealed that Russia and an EU Army will enter into a final conflict with Israel and the Middle East.  Germany is the key country in what Bible Prophecy refers to as the land of “Magog”. They are spoken of militarily as the “King of the North”.  Together the Bible says that Russia and the EU will invade the Middle East in the Last Days.  So Bible Students expect to see Germany and France taking a greater role in leading Europe.  It is also interesting to see Germany taking greater control of a continent they tried to take by war and failed.

Yet again we see in Todays News Headlines words that show how the Nations are fulfilling the latter day alignment of Nations as Prophesied by the Bible. 

See this article to learn more about this and the latter day prophecies of the Bible.

See this article for more on this subject: WHAT IS NEXT FOR EUROPE

How ancient hatreds are reshaping the Middle East and forging unlikely alliances.

The rise of Iran – and its chilling proximity to a nuclear weapon – has driven old foes closer, explains STEPHEN POLLARD

By STEPHEN POLLARD

PUBLISHED: 10:51 AEST, 17 April 2024 | UPDATED: 21:47 AEST, 17 April 2024

The competition is strong, but for my money the most important geopolitical statement so far this year came on Monday from an obscure Israeli news site.

A member of the Saudi Arabian royal family had reportedly told the broadcaster Kan that, in his view, Iran had started the Gaza war by instructing its proxy group Hamas to massacre Israelis on October 7.

Tehran’s intention, according to this nameless royal, was to thwart the imminent normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Saudis.

Why is that so important? Because it symbolises the extraordinary transformation under way in the politics of the Middle East. For a Saudi royal to express such a view – that a Muslim country instigated the conflict for the purpose of spreading discord – would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. But that’s not the only way in which the winds of change are resettling alliances in this volatile region.

Iranians gather in Tehran to demonstrate in support of their government’s attack on Israel

On Saturday night, the ayatollahs of Iran inflicted their first direct attack on Israel since they came to power in the 1979 revolution.

For 45 years, the Islamic Republic has plotted the destruction of what its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls ‘the evil Zionist regime’. But it has left the actual attacks to its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

This fresh assault did almost no damage, thanks to the defensive coalition that shot down almost all the weapons directed against Israel.

Allies such as the US and UK played a role in this. But they were joined by two other countries for whom defending the Jewish state would have been fanciful until recently: Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

For most of the time Israel has existed, Saudi, as one of the world’s leading Muslim nations and home to the holy city of Mecca, has been its implacable foe. But now it is on the verge not just of tolerating Israel but becoming an ally.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini served as Iran’s supreme leader from 1979, following the Islamic Revolution, until he died ten years later

Supporters of Khomeini march in Tehran in 1979, when the mullahs had seized power

Similarly, back in 1967, Jordan actually invaded Israel – a disastrous move which lost it the territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Yet now Jordan, too, has stood alongside Israel to protect it from Iranian bombs. This newfound co-operative spirit continues: just yesterday it emerged that both the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates had passed helpful intelligence to America to use in Israel’s defence, with Jordan further agreeing to let the US and ‘other countries’ warplanes’ use its airspace, as well as sending up its own jets.

One thing is clear. The rise of Iran – and its chilling proximity to a nuclear weapon – has driven old foes closer.

Iran now dominates a vast region from its borders with Iraq, through Syria and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean. Through its Yemeni proxies, the Houthis, and its own navy, it is causing chaos in the Red Sea, one of the world’s key maritime trade routes.

And it has turned the Palestinian cause into a strategic vehicle for its own ambitions through two other proxies, Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon). This chaotic and meddlesome statecraft has appalled other Muslim countries.

The story of the Middle East used to be ‘Israel versus everyone else’. As a result of Iran’s behaviour, however, that is no longer true. And this means the long-term prospects for peace are, though you may be surprised to hear it, bright.

To understand how all this has come about, you need to go back to the very roots of Islam – and the schism within it. In 610AD, Mohammed unveiled a new faith. By the time he died in 632AD, he and Islam were all-powerful in Arabia, and within a century it had subjugated an empire stretching from Central Asia to Spain.

For most of the time Israel has existed, Saudi, as one of the world’s leading Muslim nations and home to the holy city of Mecca, has been its implacable foe, writes Stephen Pollard

But Islam was split over who should succeed the Prophet.

One faction argued the leadership should be passed through his bloodline. They became known as Shias, from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for ‘partisans of Ali’, who was Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law.

The others, the Sunnis (followers of the ‘sunna’, or ‘way’ in Arabic) said leadership should be determined on merit.

Ali was elected as ‘caliph’ (spiritual leader) in 656AD but within five years was assassinated, enshrining an enduring split. Fast forward to 2024, and about 85 per cent of the world’s 1.6billion Muslims are Sunni, while 15 per cent are Shia.

Two countries now compete for the leadership of Islam: Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Since the mullahs seized power in Tehran 45 years ago, the sects’ mutual hatred has only grown.

As a minority within Islam, the Shiites have historically been treated as subordinate in Sunni-dominated countries. But there has been a significant growth of the Shiite population in Gulf nations, to the extent that in some they are almost a majority. This has increased anxiety among Sunni rulers over the growing power of Shia Iran. In Gulf states such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and especially Saudi Arabia, the Shia threat – in other words the threat from Iran – is seen as existential.

Egypt, too, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1979, is also an enemy of the mullahs. In Israel’s 2006 Lebanon war with Hezbollah, Sunni countries were, behind the scenes, willing Israel to triumph, just as it is said now that Jordan, Egypt and especially Saudi Arabia want Israel to destroy Hamas in Gaza.

The growing rapprochement of some Sunni countries was embodied in the 2020 Abraham Accords which normalised relations between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, and later Morocco and Sudan.

There is a logic, then, to the gradually deepening alliances between Sunni states and Israel. The Arab nations understand that while Israel has no ambitions to dominate its neighbours, Iran seeks to control all of the Middle East.

It needs to be stressed that the vast majority of Sunnis and Shias would rather just get on with their lives than embroil themselves in these disputes. But it’s also true that if you don’t understand this split, you can’t understand the Middle East at all.

This has been an ongoing development since the efforts of former President Donald Trump to bring about Peace in the Middle East.  This is not surprising to Bible Students as we fully expect to see this development based on Bible Prophecy that has foretold the alignment of Nations in the “latter days”.  The Bible describes a King of the North and a King of the South Geo-political Alignment of Nations in the last days prior to the last battle of mankind and the intervention of Christ to established God’s Kingdom on Earth Forever.  We read of this in Daniel Chapter 11:

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

You can read more about this in this article: Alignment of Nations in the Latter Days