Blog From Israel April 30, 2008, Syria in the News
Billye Brim’s Blog From Israel, April 30, 2008
I’ve been here since March 28. And much of this time, Syria has been THE headline off and on, in one way or another. April 4, in an early morning call, my daughter, Brenda told me that all the news at home was warning that Syria was massing troops on Israel’s northern border and that Israel was responding. She knew the tour was going to the Golan that day and wanted me to be sure we were supposed to go. The news here said the same thing. I prayed. Nothing troubled my spirit. So we went. We prayed in the north concerning the situation. And in one day, everything seemed to calm down. Whether or not our prayers had anything to do with it, I can’t say for sure.
On the day we go to the Golan, we also go to the Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Here at Kibbutz Misgav Am we stand high on a mountain side where only a fence separates the countries. We’ve been going to this wonderful vantage point for almost 20 years. We’ve watched the border come so close after Israel gave up the buffer zone with Lebanon. Where we used to see villages, separated by their religions, but inhabited by families, we now see houses where only the Hezbollah dwell. Families still live there all right. But different families. Families who are dedicated Hezbollah warriors from the children to the adults. This is southern Lebanon.
April 28, I read in The Jerusalem Post: SYRIA UPPING TRAINING TO PREPARE FOR WAR WITH ISRAEL. …Thousands of young men are being sent to training camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, in order to prepare for war…. An international official stated that the south of Lebanon was “empty of men… they are all gone training in Bekaa [Valley], Syria and Iran.
Of course, you’ve been aware at home that the U.S. recently briefed Congress on the September 6, 2007 Israeli Air Force bombing of a nuclear facility in Syria which the Syrians built with the aid of the North Koreans. Well—our tour was there when it happened. Not this tour, but the tour we brought last September. We happened to be at a site near Israel’s northernmost air base. The fighter jets in the air drew our attention. Now, I’m not saying they were the planes that did the job. Probably they were not. But we took note. And we knew something was up. That night Israel and the U.S. began a keep-quiet-about-it policy that did not stop until this week.
I can’t help but think about how Baron’s comments on Zechariah point out that things would begin with Syria.
HAMAS Today’s headlines in the Jerusalem Post are: HAMAS PLANNING A MASSIVE HOLIDAY ATTACK. “Hamas will do everything it can to spoil Israel’s 60th birthday bash next week with a high-profile terror attack, OC Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet on Tuesday.”
Years ago when my son came to Israel for the first time he said, “Considering Israel’s enemies who surround it, it is a miracle that it exists.”
Yes, and we can be sure she will continue to do so, for the Bible says in those two wonderful chapters, Jeremiah 30 and 31, which tell God’s will for Israel, “Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, AND KEEP HIM, as a shepherd does his flock” (Jeremiah 31:).
