February 2001: Volume 23, Number 2

Contents With Teeth and Tongue ("Enter the Antichrist" Part I) Faithful Through Thick and Thin Zola's Bulletin Board A Note from Zola Letters to Zola Quotes from Palestinians Taliban Says Converts Will Get Death Sentence Why Travel to Israel? Palestinians have no right to land in Israel Guilty of Christianity in Bethlehem What's in a Name? At this writing, the problems in Israel have simmered down to "normal," which means a certain amount of mischief in the West Bank and Gaza, but that's it. Naturally, the TV networks, the New York Times, etc., will make all they can out of what is everyday friction between peoples in Israel (and in our country, as well as all other democracies). But the confrontations at checkpoints and so forth have subsided, as many Palestinians are tired of making sacrifices for nothing but attempts at "public relations." They don't seem to be getting the land of Israel for the casualties they have taken, and they're tired of the casualties. At the same time, they are well aware that Arafat has failed them, both as a peacemaker and a war-maker. I was invited to contribute a chapter for an upcoming prophecy book to follow in the series starting with Foreshocks of Antichrist. My chapter turned out to be a kind of history, not only of the present problems, but the entire situation that has prevailed in Israel since 1948. Seen in context, the present uprising is a very small one indeed, regardless of how our media have portrayed it. We'll present about half of the chapter I wrote in this newsletter and go on with the prophetic significance of these events in the next letter. With Teeth and Tongue ("Enter the Antichrist" Part I) Zola Levitt The violence of October 2000 was a clear sign that the peace process was a fake from the beginning. If false peace is the theme of the Tribulation Period, then the 1990s and the so-called peace process for Israel aptly predicted the Tribulation. Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, certainly a Jewish admirer of Arafat and all other Arabs, had to admit that ...for the first time in a long time, Mr. Arafat no longer has the moral high ground.... Instead of responding to Mr. Barak's peace-making overture, he and his boys responded to Ariel Sharon's peace-destroying provocation. Imagine if, when Mr. Sharon visited the Temple Mount, Mr. Arafat had ordered his people to welcome him with open arms and say, "When this area is under Palestinian sovereignty, every Jew will be welcome, even you, Mr. Sharon." Imagine the impact that would have had on the Israelis. Obviously, Arafat and the Palestinians could have had peace any time since the Madrid conference in 1991 or the Oslo agreements in 1993. But they were busy gathering up as much land as possible under the "land for peace" principle, and they refused to close the deal. The terms offered by Prime Minister Barak in the Camp David meetings of the year 2000 amounted to a very serious offer to conclude the endless negotiations. Arafat should have taken the deal; he at least should have treated it with the serious consideration it deserved. He would have gained practically all he ever dreamed of, including part of Jerusalem, practically all of the West Bank, and a new Palestinian state. Instead, the Palestinians opted for some ghetto rioting they called the "War for Independence" or the "Battle for Jerusalem," which was over in a few weeks with some 300 casualties, mostly on their side. They demonstrated that they were no better than the Somalians when they murdered prisoners and dragged bodies through the streets. They attacked the mightiest power in the Middle East with rocks and assumed the world would jump in and help them. A Palestinian father suspiciously placed his 12-year-old child between himself and the gunfire, and after the boy was riddled with bullets which the Israelis ultimately established were Palestinian bullets, asked the world for vengeance against Israel over the death of his son. The father survived. CNN desperately tried to foment a war in view of the fact that they're in the war business, so to speak. During the Iraqi war, they dramatically increased the prices of their commercials. They became wealthy covering the Bosnian war, but now, try as they would, they couldn't make a major war out of what amounted to the same casualty rate as any American city endures on a constant basis. WFAA, the ABC affiliate in Dallas, called me during that week and urged me to testify that the Israelis were in grave danger and that the whole place was going up in smoke. I told them I wouldn't say that, and I said that what was going on in Israel amounted to the sort of rioting we had in Los Angeles and Detroit in past times. They, of course, did not use my thoughts on the news. The media bias against Israel is overwhelming and ubiquitous throughout the world. There seems to be a bias toward the Arabs, mostly based on the fact that commercials are purchased by petro-dollar products on a large scale. Plastics, cosmetics, and the like represent a very profitable business sector for all media, and they respond like any business, catering to their best customers. We've said all this before, but it certainly isn't getting any better. This time, CNN looked almost ridiculous, desperately trying to broadcast a war when there was truly little happening in the way of real hostility. The only true action worth reporting was the Israeli response to the murdering of prisoners in Ramallah. They demonstrated their skills to the Palestinians with razor-sharp surgical strikes on the police station where the prisoners were killed, a radio station, and, in effect, Arafat's front yard in Gaza. Even the Palestinians could appreciate that they had a formidable enemy—patient but deadly. With Teeth and Tongue In reality, the Arabs have been trying to dig the Jews out of Israel since 1948, when Israel declared its independence. It seems that it is intolerable for Arabs to have any other people anywhere in the Middle East, a territory they regard as "the Arab world." They wouldn't make very good Europeans, because they can only stand their own company and consider all others as intruders. And so, in every decade of Israel's existence, the Arabs have attacked, sometimes with the teeth and sometimes with the tongue. For example, in the '40s when Israel declared its independence, five Arab nations attacked from all sides to conquer and annihilate their new neighbors. Even though the UN had sanctioned Israel's right to recover its ancient land, the surrounding Arab nations would not put up with the idea and attacked immediately. One can only contemplate how different a Middle East we would have today if the Arabs had simply said, "Welcome back. We know you were here in Biblical times, and we know that we have lived together previously. You have only a small tract of land. And we appreciate the fact that, like some Arabs, you have been displaced, and you deserve your own country." By this time, with Arab money and Jewish brains, the Middle East might well have been the paradise of the world. But instead, there was a short and bloody war in which somehow the new Israelis held their ground. Refugees from Europe, they could hardly find common languages, and they were armed basically with handguns and hunting rifles, but they defeated five Arab armies and defended their new state. In the '50s, Israel received generous Jewish immigration from all parts of the world and grew in stature and strength. In 1956, there was a battle primarily with Egypt, in which Israel quickly prevailed. So the Israelis triumphed in a second war and solidified their tenuous position as the only democracy among the sea of Arab dictatorships. The '60s were a decade of destiny, so to speak, since the Arabs came up with a new idea. They began to call themselves "Palestinians," though this term previous to 1948 had referenced only the Jews of what was then called Palestine. The Jewish newspaper known today as The Jerusalem Post was then called The Palestine Post. It bears repeating that the term "Palestinian" has nothing to do with Arabs, either historically or in modern times. Israel's name was changed to Palestine by Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD in another of those "final solutions to the Jewish problem." He chose that name because it harked back to the Philistines who lived along the coast of the Gaza region centuries before and who were a perennial enemy of Israel. But those Philistines themselves were not Arabs, but Greeks. They were people from the Adriatic Sea who settled along many coastlines in the Middle East to pursue their fishing and other marine enterprises. There is no connection whatever between Arabs, who were not yet known in the world at the time of the Philistines, and the Philistines themselves. But the term was effective on the uneducated media of the world. Palestine somehow became an Arab nation with a long history. In truth, it was a Roman, then Moslem, then Crusader, then Marmaluke, then Ottoman-Turkish, then British Mandate country, from 135 AD to 1948, but it was never controlled by an organized, internal government. There are no "Palestinian" documents or currency or government records such as any bona fide nation leaves behind. The land of Israel, with its rightful owners away, was simply a backwater territory for whomever might settle there. But with the founding of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, in the 1960s, the Arabs began to think of themselves as a people with a long heritage in the land. Also germane to the '60s and to what is happening today was the Six-Day War of 1967, in which the Jews recovered all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and virtually the entire Sinai Desert over to the Nile River. In truth, the young nation totally routed its enemies, humiliating the much larger powers of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, in a war so quickly over that the networks hardly had time to raise prices on their commercial advertisements. After three consecutive defeats, it might be thought the Arabs would be wary of attacking Israel, which was becoming stronger militarily with each experience. And yet, the decade of the '70s was characterized by a new assault on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a cowardly blow on the holiest day of the Jewish year, when soldiers were not at their posts and all were at prayer. In this manner, they got in a first punch, but were defeated in two to three weeks in any case. The Israelis consolidated their gains, and the Arabs turned to using diplomacy, propaganda and other weapons of the tongue. Later, in the '70s, we began the process of false peace, which ultimately led to the street riots of fall 2000. The Camp David Accords were first, returning the Sinai to Egypt in what has proved to be a cold peace but at least a non-shooting arrangement with Egypt. The boycotts of oil, begun in the late '70s, were very effective in persuading the West that the Israelis were somehow the bad guys. The message was that the Arabs would withhold oil because Israelis did things which frustrated them, and therefore Americans would wait in line for gas. This began the blaming-of-the-victims stage in Israel's affairs. Though they were the assaulted party in every case, they began to seem like the bullies of the Middle East. Helped by general anti-Semitism and the ignorance of the popular media, the image stuck, and today, the five million Israelis are regarded as enormously stronger than the 200 million Arabs! One small nation is somehow oppressing 22 big ones! In the '80s, the bad-mouthing of Israel continued unabated, and the "Palestinians" hit upon the Intifada. Schoolchildren would throw stones at Israeli policemen and soldiers and, when the Israelis would respond with megaphones, rubber bullets, and sometimes real bullets to hold their ground, the news media would portray them as heartless and brutal. It was unbelievable that a single viewer would buy it, but it was bought lock, stock and barrel, and now tiny Israel, one of the world's smallest democracies, was being thought of as an overwhelming, imperialistic power! At the same time, in Christian circles, seminaries in Europe and America turned away from the idea of the new Israel being a fulfillment of prophecy. Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, Biola College, Talbot Seminary, and many other evangelical schools in the states began teaching various forms of End Times prophecy that somehow excluded Israel. Progressive Dispensationalism, an idea that holds that Christ is already sitting on the throne of David, thus placing a Kingdom event in the Church age, took hold and made normal Dispensationalism seem unimportant. Graduates from these seminaries began pastoring churches which de-emphasized Israel. And today, as God works furiously in that land, the most "educated" evangelicals know little about the subject. Ironically, these graduates will, in the Kingdom, be the least equipped among Christians when living in the land they know so vaguely for 1,000 years. With the defection of a portion of American Christianity, Israel was rapidly running out of friends in this world. The media was endlessly critical, and even the American government began to, at least for public consumption, turn against its former ally on the issue of the Intifada. The rioting—noisy but almost harmless—was touted to the world as a dangerous war in the offing and, therefore, in the style of the '90s, a peace conference was called to order in Madrid, Spain. The '90s were entirely a decade of false peace treaties, whether in Israel, Ireland, South Africa, India or anywhere else. Rather than finding true solutions to conflicts, government officials got together in fine hotels and were photographed toasting each other for brilliant peace-making initiatives. Nobel Peace Prizes were given to the most unworthy recipients, most notably Yasser Arafat, a lifelong terrorist who had murdered or ordered the murders of large numbers of innocents. Phony peace was thought to be better than no peace, and although the public was slow to buy it, the media cooperated with various governments in promoting things like the Middle East "peace process." It was likely called a "process" because the sides never agreed on anything— not from the first session to the present moment, and not one inch of progress has been made toward peace in Israel. False peace is a very important point in prophecy. It is the Antichrist's prime weapon in dominating the nations and controlling the world. He is able to promote the same myth on a global scale so that nations everywhere feel they are at peace even while they are mobilizing for Armageddon. How he does this is a mystery, but it is elucidated somewhat by how pretentious the peace conferences of the '90s have been. People evidently are willing to consider officials toasting each other with champagne and handshakes over complex documents to be an adequate substitute for real peace, and so, as the prophet Daniel said of the Antichrist, ".. . by peace shall he destroy many" (8:25). Thus, modern Israel's fifty-odd years can be divided into decades, and that tempts one to imagine the Tribulation is just around the corner. After all, false peace was established in the '90s, and it would seem rational that the Antichrist would capitalize on this theme in the first decade of the new millennium. That part we really don't know, but all that has happened since the 1940s in Israel and the rest of the world certainly gives us food for thought on that subject. And thus Israel, ever God's timepiece, is again the prime indicator for the progress of events in prophecy. In the next issue, Zola begins with "Enter the Antichrist" and follows with an analysis of how the present situation leads us to the Tribulation. Return to Index Editorial Faithful Through Thick and Thin By Patricia Golan From the Jerusalem Post It's morning in early November at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. This beautiful, serene garden outside the Old City walls is venerated by many as the tomb of Christ, and is a favorite spot for Protestant groups to hold quiet prayers away from the bustle of the tourist sites. On a normal weekday there are a dozen or so groups at the Garden Tomb. But these are not normal times, and this morning there is only one. Sitting together singing hymns is a 10-member group from Glory Tabernacle, a non-denominational church in Washington, D.C. As a result of the present crisis, the overwhelming majority of tourist and pilgrim groups have cancelled their trips to Israel. This is hardly surprising in the face of nightly television news broadcasts portraying violence and travel advisories discouraging tourists from visiting Israel. Nevertheless, a few tourists are still coming, and most of them are Christian groups. "You'd think we were in outer space compared to what's been said and portrayed in the news media," declares Dennis Pisani, pastor of Glory Tabernacle, who has been leading groups to Israel since 1983. "We know it's a difficult time for Israel right now," he says, "and for the Palestinians," adds his wife and co-pastor, Donna Pisani. "It's grievous to see what's happening, but we felt that right now is the time when we need to be here and support Israel." Following the surge of violence in mid-September, the hotels in Israel have emptied out. Who are these faithful few who are determined to visit the Holy Land no matter what? Tour organizers here say that those Christians who are coming now either have strong personal connections in the country or are passionately pro-Israel. Oni Amiel of the Tel Aviv-based Amiel Tours, which specializes in Christian groups, explains that experienced tour guides, especially in the Christian market, tend to encourage their groups to come whatever the situation. "These are people who have been coming here for years," he says, pointing out that people don't know that the pictures of violence being shown on the media are not taking place in the areas where tourists would be going. "The more people are acquainted with Israel, the easier it is for them to come. And the more charismatic, or [devout] they are, the more they are seeing reasons to come now, when it is difficult." Mark Khano, manager of the veteran Palestinian travel agency Guiding Star, says about 90 percent of his agency's groups have cancelled. "Those that do continue to come are the priests or the tour leaders with whom we have a very strong personal relationship," he says. "Based on our personal connections, they are willing to accept our assessment of the situation. These are our friends, and we tell them that they can come and will be safe." Khano says the groups that are coming are both Catholic and Protestant from the Far East and North America. Both Khano and Amiel admit that the one problematic site for Christian pilgrims is Bethlehem, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. "You can get to Bethlehem, but because of the blockade, visitors have to get off the bus and walk through the checkpoint and get on another bus," explains Khano, although he says the tourists seem remarkably tolerant. Oni Amiel puts the general cancellation figure at around 65 percent, but maintains that most of the groups are not canceling but "postponing" their trips. "They are hoping that in February and March there will be better conditions and everybody is waiting to see what will happen." He points to the success in hosting a group of 1,600 Japanese tourists earlier this month. He believes that as soon as the U.S. State Department warning is lifted, "normal" tourism will resume. One institution that has been actively trying to persuade Christian groups to come is the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. Spokesman David Parsons says the embassy has been getting a stream of phone calls from people from the U.S. asking for advice. "We tell people that they can get in and out of the country safely, and visit most of the sites, and that this is an important time for Christians to come and show their solidarity with Israel. A lot of Christian groups have turned to us for information, and we're still encouraging groups to come," he states. Astonishingly, perhaps, during the organization's annual major event, the Feast of the Tabernacles, which took place in mid-October, there was only a five percent cancellation rate — and that at a time when the general visitor dropout rate in the country was over 75 percent. "Everything went on as scheduled," says Parsons. "All our people came. We're very proud of them." Garden Tomb administrator John Rowe says there are 75 percent less visitors coming to the site since the crisis began in September. "People keep coming, I can't explain it, but people keep coming," he says. "Because of the media, people think the whole country is aflame. Our own families are calling in from England and they're very worried. But generally speaking, there's no problem and we all feel quite safe." Of Dennis and Donna Pisani's original group, about half the participants dropped out. But they were determined to come anyway, and combined forces with a church group from Colorado Springs. "We made a lot of phone calls to our friends here in Israel, and everyone said it is not what it appears to be on the news," explains Pisani. "On that premise, we decided we were coming because we love Israel and we want to stand with the land. In the nine days we've been here, we haven't seen one bit of violence or anything unusual." Nevertheless, say the Pisanis, it is clear to the group members that this is no ordinary tour. "It is different from other trips. We use more caution with our group this time. We don't have our members wander off by themselves, and we keep away from the trouble spots. But it really hasn't deterred us and it shouldn't deter other groups," maintains Dennis Pisani. Return to Index Zola's Bulletin Board Israel Bonds On variable bonds, Israel is offering 7% interest — five years minimum. For more info, please contact: State of Israel Bonds 9660 Hillcroft, Suite #316 Houston, TX 77096 ¥ (800) 676-3101 www.israelbonds.com "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matt. 6:21) Terrorism Ranks Nil Many people taking tours to Israel worry needlessly about the dangers of terrorism or unrest there. "Statistically it's a joke," says Rochelle Sobel of the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT). ASIRT became appalled that most people who go abroad are totally unaware of what to be concerned about when travelling the roads of other countries. "One percent of people who die abroad die from a combination of terrorism and disease." Road accidents account for the vast majority of travel casualties. ASIRT offers Road Travel Reports (RTR) on roughly sixty nations, and you can request one by calling (301) 983-5252 or visiting their web page at www.asirt.org. ASIRT has said that Israel's buses are among the safest. Web Site of the Month www.palestine-info.net/hamas/mainframe.htm gives you the Hamas' point of view about their Jihadi (fighting for a holy purpose). Their general introduction describes their efforts as "a popular national resistance movement which is working to create conditions conducive to emancipating the Palestinian people, delivering them from tyranny, liberating their land from the occupying usurper, and to stand up to the Zionist scheme which is supported by neo-colonist forces." You might also want to see the picture captioned" posing for cameras" at www.honestreporting.com. With an Enemy like Israel who needs friends?! Despite time-outs in the "peace process," Israel continually assists the Palestinian Authority with millions of shekels per month, millions of cubic meters of water per year and all of its electricity. Cool Climate, Hot Speaker Zola has doctor's orders to avoid the summer heat of Dallas and is therefore reducing honorariums for summer speaking engagements. If your community enjoys cooler summers than Texas, please call Cynthia at 214-696-8844 to have Zola at your church from June 15 through August 31. Thanks. Airing Updates Please note our TV program's schedule changes below: Cleveland, OH — WGGN-52 — 7:00 AM Sunday Columbus, OH — WSJF-51 — 2:00 PM Sunday LaSalle, IL — WWTO-35 — 7:00 AM Monday Pensacola, FL — WHBR-33 — 1:30 PM Friday For their telethon, the WTCT Network, including the stations below, will preempt our two weekend airtimes on Saturday, Feb. 24, at 6:30 PM Eastern Time and Sunday, Feb. 25, at 2:30 PM. Allendale, MI — WTLJ-54 Detroit, MI — WDWO-18 Dyersburg, TN — WDYR-33 Greensboro, NC — WNYB-26 Lynchburg, VA — WDRG-2 Marion, IL — WTCT-27 Orchard Park, NY — WNYB-26 Saginaw, MI — WAQP-49 We'll be back on the following weekend. Zola Levitt Presents airs in England on The Christian Channel at 2:30 PM Friday. Let He Who is Perfect cast the first stone In the testimonials section of www.goisrael.com, Israel tourist Dr. Ray Freeman writes, "Our people saw firsthand a staged rock-throwing incident right outside the hotel that ended up on CNN two days later and was nothing like depicted." Return to Index A Note From Zola Dear Friends, I'm getting tired. I am tired of all the errors out there. I'm tired of the almost total darkness about what the Scriptures say in regard to our modern state of affairs, prophecy, doctrine and even Christian living. I'm tired of picking up the religion section of my home-town newspaper and finding it to be nothing but a bunch of stories about loony cults, learned discussions of homosexuality and the like by liberals, Sacramental mumbo-jumbo, and praises of Ramadan and other Islamic activities. I'm tired of pointing out to seminaries their bald-faced Bible errors and having them tell me lies about how it doesn't matter or how few professors are teaching them. And I'm totally tired of the media and its ridiculous bias against Israel. All things spiritual are scoffed at in the press and on television, and most certainly Israel and the Chosen People are defamed, slandered, libeled and cursed as they have not been since the Nazi years. Telling CNN and the other media organizations to quit making up lies about Israel and the situation there is like telling Hollywood to quit making dirty, violent movies. The bottom-line answer from both would be, "It's what the public wants, and that's how we make our money." In view of the fact that the unbeliever's love of money cannot be satisfied any other way, the abuse will go on. William Randolph Hearst stated, "You get me the pictures, I'll provide the war." But in the case of the violent or sexy movies, they are dealing with people's hearts and visceral responses to almost psychological stimuli. In Israel's case, they're simply giving a false picture and dealing with people's brains. It is a lot easier to switch to the truth about Israel, which can be made just as dramatic with all that's really going on in that land. And I'm sick to death of the Palestinians and their protestations. They are not victims, they are not truthful, they are not owners of the land of Israel, they are not even a nation or an indigenous people. And with all of that, I am tired of our government bowing and scraping before the likes of Yasser Arafat and other Middle Eastern tyrants as though these feudal Arab dictatorships were real nations or that they had anything to offer us but oil. The fact is there is a similarity between what the Arabs and the media are up to. They share the characteristic that they tell lies and that they know they are lies while they tell them. While not every Arab person is educated in history or politics, the leadership well knows that there was no such culture as a Palestinian one, and the media knows that there is no war in Israel. But everyone has to believe in something, and the media believes in cash profits, and the Arabs believeingrabbingland. Both have a long history of compromising every ethic to those goals. If one does not know God, one tends to worship earthly gods of one's own. And so the British have their monarchy, the communists have their controlling politburos, and the Arabs and the media have their icons as well. The peculiar part is that in all of those cases the great mass of people know that what they "believe in" is simply not true. The British monarchy is invariably ineffective and disappointing, the communist dictators are incompetent and bloody, etc. The worship of lies reminds me of a program called Top Ten which ran recently on the A&E channel. The top ten television commercials were being celebrated, and among those was a picture of two men, supposedly named Bartles and Jaymes, who claimed that they had a vineyard and a soft drink company and had teamed up to make something called a wine cooler. The commercial was praised, the actors were congratulated, and the advertising gurus were interviewed and commented sagely on the entire display. But it was a lie from start to finish. There really was no Bartles, there was no Jaymes; they did not own a vineyard or a soft drink company. Gallo Brothers of California, a gigantic winery, made the product but didn't sign it on purpose. The myth needed to be carried out because people"believed." After all, the truth about a product (or a country) comes out by itself; you have to pay to create a lie. The unbeliever lies all the time and virtually worships his own lies. But our Lord said,"Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice" (John 18:37), and He taught His disciples how privileged they were to know the truth (Matt. 13:11-13). He is, after all, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). The key to any solution to Israel's problems is understanding the psychology and motivations of the Arab people in the land. This is where western ideas fail. It is not a question of giving them compensations or even parcels of land or control of holy sites that will get them to stop rioting. The truth is, they will be unhappy as long as they remain in backward dictatorships and are uneducated and barely a part of the 21st-century world. What the Arabs need more than anything else (besides true faith in the Messiah) is democracy. All the chest-thumping indignation, all the violence, all the cursing and everything else that comes out of them would cease if they were only free people. There is nothing intrinsically the matter with them; I know many Arabs, and they are intelligent, normal people on every subject except their religion and their "government." Some changes need to be made. And I am tired of being criticized for insisting that seminaries simply teach the plain Word of the Bible as written. I do not hold to arcane doctrines or anything unusual. To say that Israel is important is to speak the obvious. To say that the Jewish people are to be loved is again to speak the obvious. To say that seminaries ought to teach what the Bible says is, a third time, to speak the obvious. Why do I have to speak the obvious over and over again? Is there anybody out there (apart from our viewers and readers) who will at least say, "Well, you're right, you know. But what you say is not convenient." Will any person at any seminary or any reporter at a newspaper or any Palestinian Arab or any Roman Catholic or Episcopalian or liberal Protestant open their mouth and say, "By gosh, you have a point!" Is that going to happen in my lifetime? Mostly, I guess, I'm almost growing weary of waiting for the Lord. Why doesn't He come now that things are really prepared? I am getting old, and I've been waiting for Him for almost half of my life. I guess we could all say that, along with the church of Thessalonica, who pointed out to Paul that some believers in their congregation had even died while waiting. Can He be far off? I doubt it. The way the situation looks to real Bible readers today, the Lord's prophecies are working out precisely for the Tribulation Period in our near future. That one salient fact about everything going on around us today picks me up again. I'm not tired of that, I can tell you! I pray with John of Revelation, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus" (Bible, last verse). We so long for our Kingdom! If you can take the opportunity to see the land of our coming Kingdom in this life, our spring tour will present a wonderful time for a pilgrimage. The weather will be perfect, the crowds will probably still be thinned out due to the media's false presentation of the situation in Israel, the shops have had to slash prices to keep business coming in, and that's not even to mention the spiritual richness of a visit to the Promised Land. Our Deluxe Tour, April 16-26, takes you to all the major Biblical sites such as: the future battlefield of Armageddon, Mount Carmel, Nazareth, the Western Wall, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Garden Tomb, Masada, the Dead Sea, and the Golan Heights. See the original Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the caves of Qumran where they were discovered. Take a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee, just as our Lord did with his Apostles. Visit the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, and pay tribute to the more than 6,000,000 Jews who were killed by the Nazis. Tour the Old City of Jerusalem, and walk the very streets our Lord walked during His time on earth. Come to the Promised Land and see the beautiful nation God gave the Jews and those of us who are "grafted in" to God's Chosen People! You may choose to join us on our Grand Tour, April 11-26, adding an extension cruise to the Greek islands of Mykonos, Patmos and Rhodes, traveling aboard a luxury liner following the path of Paul through the Mediterranean. Tour Athens, with its incredible Parthenon, Acropolis and Mars Hill, as well as the ancient cities of Corinth and Ephesus, Turkey. Call Tony or Becky during office hours at 214-696-9760 for more information, or call 1-800-WONDERS anytime for a full-color brochure. And remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem! Your messenger, Return to Index Dear Zola and Staff, This letter is not meant for you or your staff but for all those who read the Levitt Letter. I am amazed at the attacks against Zola Levitt Ministries, and I wonder what these people with such deep concerns are doing themselves to bring the Gospel of Christ to this world? I am a pastor of a church in East Texas, and as a pastor it is my responsibility to make sure that God's people in my care are taught the truth found in God's Word. I would never allow anyone into the pulpit who would do injury to God's Word or His people. It has benefited us greatly to have both Zola and Dr. McCall teach and preach here. I have made three trips with Zola to the Holy Land. Each trip was the same in that the tour was dedicated to teaching, prayer, praise and worship, and experiencing each Biblical site to the fullest. This is not a tour but a walk through the Bible. No pastor or Bible teacher should miss it. Your Bible will never be the same after you have been on the Sea of Galilee or prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. When I first began to teach that the Bible, the early church, and of course Jesus were Jewish, I upset a lot of people in my church. A pastor and a music minister this week said to me, "Didn't you know that the church has replaced Israel?" I thought God was the original "Promise Keeper," didn't you? Well, this preacher still believes that God means what He says. The church body is not the authority we obey. The Head of the Church is that Authority—Christ, and Christ alone. I am happy to report that, as a church, we are on track now, thanks to the Holy Spirit opening our eyes and our Bibles and for using Zola and Dr. McCall to bring this to our attention—even though it hurt our feelings at first! What is Zola Levitt Ministries? Romans 1:16 seems to describe their work. People of all denominations benefit from the television series. People come home from the tours with a greater knowledge of the Word of God and share it with everyone. It multiplies. I may sound like I am saying how great this ministry is. Well, I am guilty of that. I always get excited when someone will stand up for God's Word and not back down. Perfect? No, not hardly, but serving a Perfect Savior. — Pastor T.T. Dear Zola, I have been reading the Levitt Letter for several months, though I was aware of your ministry for a number of years and have appreciated it. I recently changed institutions... I have been at Moody Bible Institute for 15 years in the External Studies Division (Evening School, Extension Sites, etc.) so have been interested in your analysis of the goings-on with the undergraduate faculty, etc. In July of 2000, I came to Calvary Bible College and Theological Seminary, Kansas City, MO, where I am functioning as the Dean of the Seminary. I wanted your staff to know that our school is solidly premillennial, pretribulational, classic dispensational (a la Charles Ryrie) and has not moved away from these positions. Since there is much concern about Moody, Dallas, Talbot, and others embracing progressive dispensationalism, among other issues, I wanted you to know that we have not. If you have any questions about Calvary Bible College and Theological Seminary, feel free to contact me or our President, Dr. Elwood Chipchase. In His service, Thomas S. Baurain, Dean Calvary Theological Seminary We are eager to recommend institutions teaching Scripture correctly. Their administrators are welcome to write to us. — Zola A Jewish Child in Bethlehem Letter to the Editor of the Jerusalem Post Sir, Two thousand years ago, a child was born in Bethlehem into a family which claimed a Jewish presence dating back nine centuries to King David and his son Solomon. The child was circumcised and raised in Judaism, later to attend and even preach in the synagogues of Jews. All of this occurred over 600 years before the first Moslem was born in a foreign land to the south. If this same child were to enter Bethlehem today, chances are that he would be lynched as a Jew, and his "right-wing settler" parents condemned in the world media for provoking the local population. He would discover that all vestiges of Jewish culture, language and religion in Bethlehem had been systematically erased by descendants of that foreigner from the south. Stephen A. Berger Ramat Gan, Israel Of Non-Gods and Non-Peoples Letter to the Editor of the Jerusalem Post Sir, In "Has peace had its chance?" (October 20), Ofra Cohen shrewdly comments, "Maybe the majority of Palestinians aren't interested in freeing themselves from hatred. Maybe it's become a part of their identity, something that gives meaning to their life. Give it up and they're left with a great void." In the Torah portion of Ha'azinu (Deuteronomy 32:21), it says, "They provoked me with a non-god, angered me with their vanities; so I shall provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them." The Biblical commentator Rashi says, "Israel angered God by worshiping deities that had no power or no value. "Measure for measure, God will let them be defeated and subjugated by nations that have no cultural or moral worth, nations that exist solely to exact retribution against Israel." Secular nationalism is, for Jews, the ultimate "non-god," late Western idolatry. The Palestinians are the ultimate "non-people." They never were a nation; their collective emergence exactly parallels the creation in Palestine of a Zionism divorced from Torah authority. The Palestinians lack any positive claim to nationhood—no national literature, art, scientific or industrial achievement: the world knows them only by their terrorism and their anti-Zionism. Mark Braham New South Wales, Australia Letter to the Editor of The New York Times The 101 rabbis who issued a statement suggesting that sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem could be shared by Jews and Muslims have done a disservice to the cause of Middle East peace by giving credence to the propaganda that sacred Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount are not adequately protected by Israel (news article, Dec. 7). They have also done a disservice to the cause of theological integrity by citing, according to your article, "a well-known scriptural passage from Isaiah that refers to the Temple Mount as a 'house of prayer for all nations' as proof that Islamic holy places belong on the site." Isaiah's prophecy does not envision any kind of spiritual strip mall on the Temple Mount but rather the eventual rebuilding, with the arrival of the Messiah, of the Jewish Holy Temple that will serve as a place for all humankind to worship the one and only Creator. (Rabbi) Avi Shafran Director of Public Affairs Agudath Israel of America New York, Dec. 8, 2000 Return to Index Editorial Quotes from Palestinians Sent in by a reader, printed in Friends of the Galilee Experience "All we ask is that the [Arab] countries stand by our side, give us weapons, and we, on our own, will prevail; we'll kill them on our own, murder them, slaughter them, all of them. We ask only for weapons, and we won't spare a single Jew" (a young Palestinian woman demonstrator interviewed on October 22, 2000). "There is no room for compromising. Israel's days are numbered" (Ikrimi Sabri, Arafat-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, quoted in Palestinian newspaper, October 5, 2000). "The Israeli criminals have fired missiles into the homes of innocent Palestinians! Palestinian blood is flowing in the streets! Oh God, God, how can the criminals kill our innocent children?!?" (one of many frantic interruptions on the Voice of Palestine radio station, this one claiming Israeli jets had bombed Bethlehem, totally untrue). Return to Index Editorial Taliban Says Converts Will Get Death Sentence The supreme leader of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan has announced that Muslims who convert to other religions—and those who seek to convert them—will face the death penalty. During an address Monday on Taliban-run Radio Shariat, Mullah Mohammad Omar said that Christians, Jews and other religious groups were targeting Muslims for conversion. "The enemies of Muslims are trying to eliminate the pure Islamic religion throughout the world," he said. He also announced that those who sell books and other materials that promote "wrong beliefs" or are found to be offensive to Islam would be imprisoned for five years. Since seizing control of the Afghan capital of Kabul in 1996, the Taliban has brought about 95 percent of Afghanistan under its strict interpretation of Islam. The movement hopes to spread its version of Islamic law across all of Afghanistan. Return to Index Editorial Why Travel to Israel? From Bridges for Peace Dear Friends, Recently my family and I went to Israel (Dec. 19-31). I would like to share some of our experiences with you and my thoughts on the travel there. When we got to Jerusalem, we were initially nervous and cautious everywhere we went or walked. It eventually appeared to be safe, but we were fairly resigned that we would not be able to visit the Kotel (Western Wall). Finally, it seemed safe enough, and absolutely nothing was happening in Jerusalem, just maybe in the territories, settlements and Arab areas of the Old City, so we decided to go to the Kotel. This, too, from a safety standpoint, became a non-event. We subsequently went to the Kotel several other times and stopped worrying as we walked. There was just nothing happening in the areas we were likely to be visiting. We also hired a guide for three days and went all over the Galil (north). The guide took us through the extreme north right to the border with Lebanon and showed us where the situations were more tense. We went through the Golan Heights, along the borders with Syria and Jordan, visited Rosh Hanikra and some of the very northern kibbutzim and towns, everywhere wholly without event. We also, on returning, drove on the highways on which some of the more pro-Palestinian, Israeli Arab towns had been agitating, blocking traffic and participating in some of the stonings of Israeli troops. Well, by the time we were there, this activity had completely ceased, and driving through also became a non-event. We had a completely wonderful trip, enjoyed having our whole family together for such a good time and blew lots of money as tourists—happily, since it was Israel. If you were planning a visit or [are] otherwise predisposed to go to Israel, don't cancel the visit for safety concerns. Go. It is completely routine everywhere, outside of the obvious areas you would logically avoid. We all are huge, outspoken supporters and donors of and to Israel. This is the time Israel needs the support, not in cash sent, but in cash spent. You can also enjoy yourself in the process. We were in a large restaurant called Decks in Tiberias. The restaurant was relatively full, but all with Israelis; we were the only tourists. At one point, they turned off the lights in the restaurant, and a waitress came over to our table carrying desserts with sparklers shooting out of them, and an announcement came over the loudspeaker, "We would like to welcome our friends from Boston. We thank them for coming to visit Israel at this very difficult time for our country." If you think that simple act was not an emotional experience, you don't understand the connection between yourself and Israel. An American Traveler to Israel Here is our December tour group, which had a perfectly peaceful tour and could not find "World War III" even though they drove right up to the gates of Gaza looking for it. We take Holocaust survivors free on our tours, and our survivor this time is the lady on the far left. Kneeling in the center in the front row is our driver, David, and to the far right side, also kneeling, is our chief guide, Zvi. Behind Zvi is Sandra Levitt, my wife and the Tour Hostess in December. I will personally be leading the upcoming April tour. — Zola Return to Index Editorial One of Arafat's most remarkable demands is the so-called right of return of Palestinians to Israel. He claims that citizens of the Palestinian nation were made refugees by the War of 1948 and are sojourning in other Arab lands waiting to return to their homeland. None of that is true. There was no Palestinian nation at that time. In fact, the Jews were called Palestinians in 1948. (That is the only error in the article below. The author speaks of a "Palestinian leadership...in 1948," but the Palestinians did not have an organized leadership until 1964 when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed.) The extraordinary demands seem to be simply a copy of the Jewish "right of return" law, which welcomes immigrants from all lands to what the Bible calls the Promised Land. They, of course, have a natural right of return to a land in which their people resided for thousands of years as a bona fide nation, Israel. The Palestinians, having no history and no Biblical foundation, simply copycat what the Israelis say, and so Arafat hopes to bring God knows how many Arabs to Israel for his usual purpose: the decimation of the Jews and the stealing of the land. The following column, run remarkably enough in the Dallas Morning News (usually a critic of Israel), discusses this right of return in the clearest of terms. — Zola Palestinians have no right to land in Israel By Kenneth C.W. Leiter Yasser Arafat's insistence that Palestinian refugees return to Israel is further evidence that he has been using the Middle East peace process to destroy Israel. Palestinians have no right to return to Israel. The majority of them fled their homes to get out of the way of a war that the Palestinian leadership started in 1948. Together with the Arab states, that leadership chose to fight rather than accept a U.N. partition plan that would have created a Jewish and an Arab state. Palestinian militias attacked Jewish towns and villages, while the armies of Israel's Arab neighbors invaded with the purpose of annihilating the Jewish state. Cloaked in human rights rhetoric, the issue of the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel actually is demographic warfare designed to eradicate the Jewish state. The return of 3.5 million Palestinians would catastrophically alter the makeup of Israel. Palestinians would become the majority, and Jews would find themselves a minority in their own state. As a minority, Jews would lose the right of self-determination and self-defense. That makes a mockery of the Palestinian claim to want a two-state solution to the conflict. In the peace process, Israel has sacrificed land to which the Jewish people have a historical claim. Israel already has a heterogeneous population made up of peoples of every color and creed. Israel has a better religious mix than any of its neighbors, some of which (Saudi Arabia and Jordan) prohibit Jews from being citizens or owning land. The Palestinian Authority makes selling land to Jews a crime punishable by death. Jews have purchased their right to self-determination with more than 2,000 years of persecution. Palestinian refugees returning to Israel also would constitute a grave security risk to Israel. They wouldn't be returning to be peaceful citizens in the Jewish state. As the current rioting shows, many Palestinians hate Israel and the very idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Those Palestinians would return to incite the present Arab minority to seek autonomy and eventually independence from Israel, thus carving Israel into little pieces. The peace process wasn't supposed to lead to the demise of Israel. Rather, Israel is to remain a viable Jewish state within safe and secure borders. Once the Palestinian Authority becomes a state in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians will have a homeland. There is no need for them to return to Israel. It is time for the Palestinian Authority and the Arab states to step up and integrate the Palestinian refugees into their countries. They have a moral obligation to do so: If they hadn't invaded Israel in 1948, the Palestinian refugee problem wouldn't exist today. Return to Index Editorial Randy Price, who has appeared on our program, is a good friend and a fine Bible teacher. His story below illustrates the Palestinian view of freedom of religion. — Zola Guilty of Christianity in Bethlehem by Dr. Randall Price We often hear the Palestinian media say that they are especially tolerant of Christianity. This was the promise of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat when he took over Bethlehem several years ago as the "birthplace of the Palestinian Jesus." However, since his Palestinian Authority has been in control of the city drastic changes in this Christian-Arab enclave have occurred. Of the 100,000 Christian-Arabs that occupied the city, more than 30,000 have been forced to leave because of pressures to convert to Islam. Tourist buses have been banned from the once-peaceful Manger Square where pilgrims previously entered to visit the holy sites, and the entire area has been transformed into a segregated plaza for Islamic prayers adorned by a mosque. It has regularly been the meeting place for Palestinian demonstrations following anti-Israeli sermons blasted from loudspeakers each Friday. I have several Christian-Arab friends who own shops around Manger Square whose businesses have been ruined by huge posters of Arafat blocking their stores from the view of tourists or from the forced closures the Palestinian Authority has mandated in response to Israel's closing of borders. And this year, for the first time in history, official Christmas celebrations in the city were abandoned. However, I had never personally experienced Palestinian aggression in Bethlehem until this past November when I was arrested in the Church of the Nativity (the traditional birthplace of Jesus) by the Palestinian Tourist Police. I was in Bethlehem as part of a film project with Dr. John Ankerberg and the Inspiration Network. Our purpose was the production of a television documentary responding to the ABC special with Peter Jennings: The Search for Jesus. This blasphemous special, viewed by an estimated 22 million people, denied the Biblical and historic truths of Jesus' birth and deity. By contrast, our film was to show that the Christ of faith was indeed the Christ of fact. In order to refute the ABC film's statement that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, we had taken a Christian scholar from Jerusalem to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to present the Biblical position. We had paid for and received written permits to film at the site by the Catholic and Armenian authorities who share with the Greek Orthodox control of the Church. However, we only had a general permit from the Greek Orthodox officials in Jerusalem. Upon reaching the Church we were greeted by both Catholic and Armenian clerics who accepted our permits and welcomed us to film. To provide an introduction to our scholar's statements, Dr. Ankerberg read from cue cards on camera in front of the church concerning the false view that Jesus had not been born in Bethlehem. Unbeknownst to us, Palestinian spies were busy copying down every word from the cue cards as Dr. Ankerberg recorded his introduction. Copies of these were then circulated to Greek Orthodox officials at the church who were supportive of the Palestinian Authority. In fact, just that week the Greek Orthodox Bishop had given a public address condemning Israel and praising Yasser Arafat! When we began filming in the church, Greek Orthodox clerics accosted us and demanded permits. When we showed them our permits from the Catholics and Armenians they threw them on the floor and called them trash. When we showed them the general permit from the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem, they at first seemed to give permission but shortly returned with the Palestinian police and copies of the words from the cue cards and demanded we stop filming and confiscated our film. The Greek Orthodox clerics claimed our film countered the official views of their church, misunderstanding that our film was in fact refuting heretical views. When I attempted to explain to one of the Palestinian policemen, I learned that another charge was at issue, at least for the Palestinians. He said that he was a student at the Bethlehem Bible College and that he recognized me as a Zionist because he had seen a film I had done on the Jewish Temple. When I stated that I was a Christian involved with a Christian television program, he replied: "Christians are Zionists!" The police then arrested and detained our entire film crew, interrogated us, and then took us to the Palestinian police station. As we passed through a crowd of Palestinian demonstrators gathering in Manger Square, I began to fear a repeat of the previous month when two Israelis had fled from a similar crowd to a Palestinian police station in Ramallah seeking refuge (as per the Oslo Accord). They, however, were turned over to the mob by the police and lynched, their bodies being hurled from the very windows of the police station while the police stood by and watched. Fortunately, because we had with us a well-respected Palestinian merchant who vouched for us, we were released. However, our confiscated film was later burned. Our exit from Bethlehem was blocked by the Tanzim (Palestinian army) firing on the nearby Israeli town of Gilo from Beit Jala, a Christian-Arab suburb of Bethlehem. When the shooting seemed to subside we took a taxi through Beit Jala to our bus and passed by scores of the Tanzim lining the street in firing position with rifles and machine guns in hand. The taxi driver literally shook with fright stating that the Tanzim would not have respected one taxi if the Israelis had at that moment returned fire! Two weeks later I found myself at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. The theme of the annual meeting this year was Israel: Past, Present and Future. To my chagrin, one of the general sessions was a presentation by none other than the President of the Bethlehem Bible College, Bishira Awad. His speech was both a defense of Replacement Theology and a diatribe against Israel, extolling the political positions of Yasser Arafat. He lamented that evangelical Christians often support political Israel when they were occupiers and aggressors against the rightful heirs of Palestine. However, he talked about Christians showing compassion and acting in brotherhood toward one another. After his talk I spoke to him and told him of my encounter with one of his students in Bethlehem, asking him if his school taught the compassion and brotherhood of which he had just spoken or the intolerant attitude I had experienced as a Christian-Zionist! He had no answer, but it was clear from both his speech and the actions of his student that the Christian message at Bethlehem Bible College has been compromised by Palestinian politics. May we as believers pray for Bethlehem's return to Israeli control where all Christians, and especially Christian-Arabs, can once again proclaim in the birth-city of Messiah His soon coming as the Prince of Peace. Dr. Randall Price is President of World of the Bible Ministries, Inc. Call Zola Levitt Ministries for information on subscribing to his free newsletter. Return to Index What's in a Name? How many times do the Bible and the Koran each mention Jerusalem? Bible: 667. Koran: 0. 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