Modern Israel turns 60

Christian and Jewish leaders are gathering at the United Nations this evening to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the modern state of Israel.

The Jerusalem Prayer Banquet will give participants a chance to declare their continued support for the nation of Israel. Those scheduled to participate include publisher Stephen Strang (Strang Communications), attorney Jay Sekulow (American Center for Law & Justice), and Pastor John Hagee (Christians United for Israel).
 
Robert Stearns is executive director of Eagles' Wings Ministries, which is co-sponsoring the event. He believes evangelicals must stand behind Israel. "... [I]n an hour when anti-Semitism is raising its ugly head around the world, we think it's important for Bible-believing Christians to stand up and remember the scriptural admonition, that God said, 'I will bless those who bless thee.' And we want to be those who bless the sons and daughters of Abraham," Stearns contends.
 
According to Stearns, the Holocaust is still a recent memory. "We believe that it's important for us as Christians, in the face of rising anti-Semitism, to lift our voices, really just 65 years after the Holocaust when the church was silent and it resulted in the genocide of six million innocent Jews. We believe that it's time that the church raise [its] voice and declare that we stand with God's covenants, we stand with God's people, and with God's land," Stearns explains.
 
The modern state of Israel was created on May 14, 1948, when General Assembly Resolution 181 deeded the Jewish homeland to a tiny remnant of Jews who escaped Hitler's Nazi Germany.
 
The event continues Friday with a series of lectures and ends with a citywide prayer rally.

1. Former German Diplomat: Israel Readying Strike on Iran

A prominent political observer is predicting that Israel is likely to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before President Bush leaves office.

"The threat of another military confrontation hangs like a dark cloud over the Middle East," declared Joschka Fischer, who was Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005.

Writing in the Beirut-based English-language newspaper The Daily Star, Fischer notes that a nuclear-armed Iran would be "Israel's worst security nightmare," and the Jewish state takes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to annihilate Israel very seriously.

He points to several factors that indicate Israel could be readying a strike on Iran:

• When President Bush recently visited Israel as the country celebrated its 60th birthday, it was expected that Palestinian-Israeli relations would be the chief topic discussed. Instead, it was Iran.

  It has been speculated that during his visit, Bush gave Israelthe green light for an attack on Iran.
   

• Political pressure is mounting in Israel for action to halt the Iranian threat.
   
• The outgoing commander of the Israeli Air Force has said that the air force is capable of any mission, no matter how difficult, to protect Israel's security.
   
• With the Bush presidency approaching its end and uncertainty about his successor's policy toward Israel and Iran, the "window of opportunity" for an Israeli attack is potentially closing, and that window "is now, during the last months of Bush's presidency."

Fischer observes: "Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course."

As Newsmax reported in December, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and senior adviser to three presidents, said after talks with Israeli officials that the Jewish state would launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on its own if the rest of the world does not take action.

Fischer concluded: "Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin."