Tensions in the Middle East escalated this week, and it appears that a full-blown war has now started with the attacks in Israel earlier today.
Attacks that have killed hundreds of people started before the attacks in Israel today, however.
Earlier this week, at least 100 people in Syria were reportedly killed in a deadly attack at a military college in Syria’s Homs province. The Syrian Government said it was a terrorist attack by “known international forces,” which implies they were funded by the U.S. who has had a military presence in Syria for over a decade now opposing the current Syrian Government.
A drone attack on a military college in Syria’s Homs province during a graduation ceremony has killed at least 100 people and wounded 240 more, a war monitor and the Syrian health minister have said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 100 people were killed and 125 injured. An official in the alliance backing Syria’s government said the toll was about 100.
Syria’s military earlier said drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony on Thursday as it came to an end. In a statement, the military accused fighters “backed by known international forces” for the attack.
Syria’s defence minister attended the graduation ceremony but left minutes before the attack, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a Syrian security source and a source in the regional alliance backing the Damascus government against opposition groups.
“After the ceremony, people went down to the courtyard and the explosives hit. We don’t know where it came from, and corpses littered the ground,” said a Syrian man who had helped set up decorations at the ceremony.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, who has reported extensively on Syria, said that that attack represents “a major security breach, a blow to the Syrian regime”.
“It has been years since the forces of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been targeted in such an operation in the heart of government-controlled territory,” she said. (Full article.)
This news was barely mentioned in the U.S. media, which instead focused on another attack that happened at the same time in the northern part of Syria, where Turkish forces attacked Kurdish military installations in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Ankara, Turkey.
The U.S. actually shot down a drone that was reportedly operated by Turkey, a NATO ally, and this is what was headline news in the U.S. media that day.
Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) targeted military facilities of the terrorist PKK’s Syrian offshoot YPG in Syria, security sources said Thursday.
The strikes targeted the PKK/YPG’s facilities and the terrorist group’s senior cadres, sources said.
The facilities included weapons and ammunition storage warehouses, sabotage units and more.
MIT launched the operation after finding out that Sunday’s attack on the Interior Ministry in Ankara was planned in Syria and the terrorists who participated in the attack came from Syria.
The sources noted that counterterrorism operations will continue until Türkiye reaches its goals in the region.
Türkiye battles the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq and its Syrian affiliate the YPG in northern Syria. (Full article.)
And then today, Saturday, October 7th, all of the news headlines are concerning a “surprise” attack by the Palestinian group Hamas against Israel, and the Israeli response, where hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians are reported as killed.
Unfortunately, the U.S. media, BOTH the corporate media as well as most of the alternative media, are strongly pro-Israel and very one-sided in their coverage of what is currently happening in Israel.
So what I want to do in this article is quote non-U.S. media sources to give the other side of the story that you are not likely to read in the Western Media.
And just a reminder for some of our newer readers who may not know much about me, I have spent a significant portion of my adult life, in my earlier years, living in the Middle East. I was fluent in Turkish at one time and spent many years in Turkey, including working with Kurdish refugees after the Gulf War, and I have also lived in Saudi Arabia for several years where I taught English at the university level.
Most Americans have never even met or befriended a Muslim, let alone visited or lived in a Muslim country, and have bought into the propaganda that lumps all Muslims into one category (Jihad terrorists), and also vilifies anyone who dares to mention anything negative about Israel, and the Zionist agenda which most Evangelical Christians (wrongly) believe is a fulfillment of prophecy.
I have a BA from one of the top Zionist Evangelical schools in America, so I know the Zionist view very well, having been trained in it. But I have been studying the Bible for over 40 years now, and have never embraced the Zionist view, even while a Bible School student back in the early 1980s, because the modern day Zionist views are not taught anywhere in the Bible. In fact, the opposite is actually taught.
I want to state up front here that I do NOT support either side in this conflict currently unfolding in Israel. The killing of innocent lives through war is a real tragedy, regardless of political or religious views.
But because the U.S. media is so biased in favor of Israel, I will be focusing on the “other side” here.
As always, I encourage our readers to look at alternative media sources to try and understand all sides, especially those that are censored in the U.S. Media.
To understand what prompted today’s actions in the Middle East, these are the News sources I looked at, and I encourage you to develop your own newsfeed through RSS and include sources like these also to get the non-U.S. perspective on current events in the Middle East.
For the pro-Israel view I used The Times of Israel and CNN (almost all of the U.S. corporate news companies are run by Jews).
Al Jazeera interviewed Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qadomi to find out what prompted these attacks on Israel:
Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qadomi has told Al Jazeera that the group’s military operation is in response to all the atrocities the Palestinians have faced over the decades.
“We want the international community to stop atrocities in Gaza,against Palestinian people, our holy sites like Al-Aqsa. All these things are the reason behind starting this battle,” he said.
“This is the day of the greatest battle to end the last occupation on Earth,” Mohammed Deif, the Hamas military commander said, adding that 5,000 rockets were launched.
“Everyone who has a gun should take it out. The time has come,” Deif said, according to reports.
Hamas called on “the resistance fighters in the West Bank” as well as “our Arab and Islamic nations” to join the battle, in a statement posted on Telegram. (Source. Emphasis mine.)
Regarding “atrocities against Palestinian people,” MintPressNews published the following article a few weeks ago that probably sheds light on this Hamas statement:
Israeli soldiers’ humiliation of Palestinian women in the occupied city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on July 10 was not the first such episode. Sadly, it will not be the last.
Indeed, the stripping of five women in front of their children, parading them naked around their family home and then stealing their jewelry by an Israeli military unit was not a random act. It deserves deep reflection.
Palestinians rightly understood the event – investigated at length by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem in a report published on September 5 – as an intentional Israeli policy.
Several attacks by Palestinians in Jericho and Jerusalem have already been linked to the call for revenge made by Palestinian groups, including women collectives.
We are expecting the Resistance “not to stand idly by in the face of this heinous (crime),” a spokesperson for a women’s group in Gaza said on September 5.
The B’Tselem investigation was damning. “Dozens of masked soldiers, with dogs” raided the ‘Ajlouni family in southern Hebron, B’Tselem said. They “handcuffed three family members,” including a minor, “separated men from women and children, and began an extensive search of them and their home.”
The humiliating episode was yet to follow, as “masked female soldiers” threatened a mother with a dog and forced her to strip completely naked in front of her children.
The degrading treatment was repeated against four other women, as they were forced to move, naked, from room to room. Other soldiers, meanwhile, were busy stealing the family’s jewelry, according to the report.
Left, the children of the Ajlouni family. Right, Damage left by Israeli soldiers at the home of Diala and Harbi ‘Ajlouni. Photos | B’Tselem
Corporate Western media ignored the investigation, although it enthusiastically reported on the retaliatory attacks on Israeli occupation soldiers by Palestinian youth in Jericho and Jerusalem, providing little or no context to what they perceived as ‘Palestinian terrorism.’
But the Hebron women and the ‘Ajlouni family are the actual victims of terrorism – Israeli terrorism.
Regarding the “holy site Al-Aqsa” referred to by the Hamas statement, this is the Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem that is regarded as the 3rd holiest site in the Muslim world. It was the site of the second Jewish Temple built by King Herod the Great that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Zionist Evangelical sect of Christianity believes that a 3rd Jewish temple will be built on this site as a fulfillment of prophecy.
So what has happened in recent days with this site to upset Muslims so much?
Again, MintPressNews gives us some possible insight into the reasons that Muslims around the world are becoming upset over what is happening in Jerusalem regarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque with an article they just published last month:
Since 1967, non-Muslims have been allowed to visit Al-Aqsa but not pray at the holy site. Yet that status quo is rapidly eroding in recent years as Israeli Jewish settler groups work alongside the government to take control of the compound.
Under Jewish law, the ashes of a red heifer (young female cow) must be scattered across Haram al-Sharif before Jews can ascend it and rebuild the Third Temple. While the hunt for a red heifer has long been considered a fringe initiative touted by Temple Mount activists, new research reveals the Israeli government is now involved in this endeavor.
According to Jerusalem-focused non-profit Ir Amim, the Israeli government authorities helped the temple mount activist group, the Temple Institute, and Boneh Israel, an Evangelical organization, import five cows from the United States last year to be used for the red heifer sacrifice.
The Ministry of Agriculture allegedly assisted in bypassing standard regulations in order to import the live cows from the U.S., which is prohibited. In a press release, Boneh Israel and the Temple Institute claim they received permission to import the cows through the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage also assisted in the project. The Ministry’s Director General, Netanel Isaac, disclosed in a speech at the cows’ welcome ceremony in September 2022 that the agency has been funding the development of the Mount of Olives area where Temple Mount activists plan to initiate the red heifer ritual sacrifice.
Additionally, the ministry is involved in transferring the cows to a visitor center and farm created for the red heifer project at the Tel Shiloh archaeological site in the occupied West Bank. Currently, the cows are being held at a kibbutz (Jewish commune) in the Jordan Valley. One of the cows is reportedly already at the Israeli settlement research center, however.
Despite the Israeli government’s vow to keep with the status quo at Al-Aqsa, settlers involved in the red heifer project underscore the aim is Jewish ascension on Haram al-Sharif in order to reconstruct the Third Temple — implying the destruction of the Dome of the Rock.
While Jewish settlers are increasingly storming Haram al-Sharif, many rabbis today forbid this as ancient Jewish law dictates the red heifer’s ashes are required to purify the area before Jews can ascend. Because of this, most religious Jews don’t even enter the compound, and those who do may only walk on certain parts. With the red heifer ritual, the number of Jews storming Al-Aqsa may then multiply.
“It could lead to maybe hundreds of thousands of Haredis [ultra-Orthodox Jews] or Sephardis [Spanish Jews] who might actually break into the mosque and cause a real religious war,” Dr. Abdallah Marouf, an Islamic history professor at Istanbul 29 Mayis University and ex-media official at Al-Aqsa Mosque, told MintPress News. (Full article.)
So this is a summary of the “other side” of the current conflict that is making headline news today, where so many people are being killed.
It is truly a tragedy, and there is enough blame on both sides to go around.
It is also a convenient “coincidence”, because as funding has dried up to continue sending $billions in weapons to Ukraine at the moment as the House of Representatives waits for a new Speaker of the House, now the U.S. Government will have another reason to pass emergency funding to enrich the pockets of the Pentagon and U.S. Corporate Defense contractors by sending military aid to Israel, which I am sure will happen very soon now.
Much like how a U.S. politician can NOT be “anti-vaccines” and get elected to a national political office or a State Governorship, so too no U.S. politician can be against supporting Israel’s militarization at the expense of American taxpayers (similar to Jewish-run Ukraine) and have any hope of holding a major political office in the U.S.
This “surprise” attack is also a timely boost for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who has been facing a possible mutiny among his military leaders, but will now be able to rally the country around a common enemy in the Palestinian military attacks.
This is why I am choosing to put quotes around “surprise” in describing this Hamas attack today.
We will also see a plethora of articles now coming out of the Right Wing Christian media that supports Zionism claiming that this is all part of end-times prophecy, because in their views the Muslim Mosque needs to be destroyed in order to build the 3rd Temple that they believe is part of biblical prophecy.
I have previously exposed this Christian view as Demonic and not biblical at all:
Here are some of the verses in the Bible that refute Zionism and the future construction of a new physical Temple in Jerusalem.
Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”
But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:18-22)
Jesus actually prophesied that Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, which it was in 70 AD. But he also stated that the new “temple” would be his “body,” after he was raised from the dead and his Spirit resided in the “body of believers,” a spiritual “temple.”
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:4-9)
The believers in Jesus Christ are now the “chosen people”, not based on ethnicity or religious affiliation, but by our faith in Jesus Christ. See:
The second coming of Jesus Christ is presented in the New Testament portion of the Bible as “imminent,” meaning that it could happen at any time, which contradicts the Zionist teaching that a 3rd Temple needs to be built first, before Jesus can come back.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:10-13)
That’s what I am waiting for, a NEW earth, ruled by King Jesus, and not an old earth with a “new” physical temple.
If indeed a new physical temple is built in Jerusalem where there is currently a mosque, you can be sure that it will be a Freemason masonic temple that will glorify Satan, and not Jesus.
See Also:
Understand the Times We are Currently Living Through
