Mark Hitchcock - Iran and Israel: Wars and Rumors of Wars

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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IRAN AND ISRAEL

Copyright 2013 by Mark Hitchcock

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hitchcock, Mark, 1959-

Iran and Israel / Mark Hitchcock.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-5334-4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5335-1 (eBook)

1. IslamIran. 2. IranSocial conditions1997-3. IranPolitics and government1997-4. IranEconomic conditions1997-5. Nuclear weaponsIran. 6. IranForeign relationsIsrael. 7. IsraelForeign relationsIran. 8. BibleProphecies. I. Title.

BP63.I68H58 2013

220.1'5dc23

2012031798

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

To Tim LaHaye

Thank you for your friendship and encouragement. You are a blessing to me and my family and the body of Christ .

A country that builds underground nuclear facilities, develops intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactures thousands of centrifuges, and that absorbs crippling sanctions, is doing all that in order to advancemedical researchLadies and gentlemen, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then what is it? Thats right, its a duck. But this duck is a nuclear duck. And its time the world started calling a duck a duck.

B ENJAMIN N ETANYAHU

If they arrive at military nuclear capability, at a weapon, or a demonstrated capability, or a threshold status in which they could manufacture a bomb within 60 daysthey will achieve a different kind of immunity, regime immunity.

E HUD B ARAK

The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war with Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Iran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion. War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who dont yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all. It feels like the eve of some creative destruction.

N IALL F ERGUSON , Newsweek

Its 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs. Believe him and stop himThis is what we must do. Everything else pales before this.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and discover that during the night, Israeli planes had conducted a bombing raid on Iran. How would your world have changed?

Gary Sick, CNN.com

A uthors Yaakov Katz and Yoaz Hendel set the scene for what we might see unfold in the near future:

The briefing room will be packed when the prime minister takes his position at the podium and asks everyone to sit down. As the young pilots stare up at their nations leader, the prime minister will gaze right into their eyes, searching for one more confirmation that he has made the right decision.

While clearly nervous, the pilots are ready. They have been prepared for this day for the past few years, some of them from the beginning of their Israel Defense Force service. The prime minister does not have much to say.

This is a historic day for our small nation, he will announce. Some seventy years ago Nazi Germany tried to destroy our people, but we survived and succeeded in establishing the State of Israel. It is now up to you to ensure that we will continue to survive and live here.

Then the rabbi for the Israeli Air Force will stand up at the podium, and all of the pilots will cover their heads. Together they will say the Travelers Prayer, a short plea to God written at the time of the Talmud, to ask that they make it to their destination and return safely.

At once, the pilots stand and salute the prime minister, the defense minister, and IAF commander. Minutes later, they climb inside their aircraft and begin lining them up along the runway.

The prime minister had actually made up his mind to attack Iran several months earlier but had waited, hoping to coordinate the operation with the White House. While the president tried to persuade Israel to back down and even threatened to cut military aid, the Israeli leader explained that he was not asking for permission. Instead, the prime minister asserted, he was doing what allies do and informing the president of his governments decision ahead of time. The Israeli cabinet had spoken: Irans nuclear program had to be stopped.

One thing is clear. If Israel launches a preemptive strike against Irans nuclear sites, things will never be the same. Not for Israel. Not for the Middle East. Not for the world. The attack will trigger a cascade of events that could bring strong retaliation from Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, all of whom may pound Israel with rockets and missiles. Israel could find itself fighting fierce onslaughts on the northern front, the southern front, and the home front. Such a war could spark a wider regional conflict, with Iran attacking American forces in the Persian Gulf and Saudi oil fields. The question of what America will do is unclear. Some fear that an Israeli preemptive assault could even start World War III.

No one knows the nature and extent of the immediate fallout. There will undoubtedly be many twists and turns. But is it possible that these events are part of a larger drama scripted long ago? Can we know how these events correspond to the pattern of events foretold by the ancient prophets to know where its all headed? In the uncertain storm of the days in which we live, we all yearn to look into the darkness of the future to see whats aheadbut can we?