US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz (2nd-R) in Tel Aviv on January 9, 2024 during his week-long trip aimed at calming Middle East tensions as Israel and Hamas war. (Photo by EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (CC) - On January 2, 2024, his first day back on the job after a previous stint, Israel's newest Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared that another world war is here and Israel is at the forefront.
“We’re in the middle of World War III against Iran-led radical Islam, whose tentacles are already in Europe,” Katz said.
Moderate Arab states including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim realms, are opposed to Iran's Shiite Muslim terror alliance.
By categorizing WWIII as a war between the democratic world and undemocratic radical Islam, Katz echoed the sentiments of France's leaders, including former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
“This is not just a war declared by Hamas against Israel,” Valls said in October 2023 while visiting Israel. “It is a battle between the democratic world and totalitarian radical Islam, the jihadism. Look at what happened in the French city of Arras the other day [a teacher was stabbed to death by a radicalized Muslim]. Think of the killing of Samuel Paty exactly three years ago, the attack last Tuesday in Brussels, where two Swedish nationals were murdered. This battle between democracy and jihadism is already here in Europe.”
Mr. Valls told the Jerusalem Post that he was there to see first-hand in Israel what he had already seen happen in France.
He was France's interior minister in 2012 when a Muslim terrorist attacked children and teachers at a Jewish School in France's cities of Montauban and Toulouse.
Valls was France's Prime Minister in 2015 when the terror attacks on Charlie Hebdo, Hyper-Cacher, and the Bataclan concert hall were perpetrated by the Islamic State.
He traveled to Israel last October, as part of a delegation, including 10 of France's Parliament members, to show unity with Israel after the October 7 terrorist attacks that sparked the Israel-Hamas War.
“We have several goals in coming here,” he said. “The first, to express our solidarity with Israel, to make it clear that we stand by Israel and its people after this unprecedented deadly attack by Hamas. Israel, a democracy, has been attacked. It has now the right, even the obligation, to defend itself and its citizens.”
“But apart from expressing solidarity, we are also here to see for ourselves,” he continued. “We visited Kfar Aza and Sderot. We have seen with our own eyes all that had happened here. I have been coming to Israel for many years – since 1982. In the encounters that we had here, we saw and felt the pain and the horror.”
Mr. Katz put the blame for the horrifics squarely on Iran for backing Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, claiming that Tehran's axis of US-designated terror groups wants to stop the reportedly almost completed Saudi-Israel normalization deal.
“We were in the middle of a dream” of regional peace and “that is why Iran did what it did,” he said.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Saudi's Prince Khalid bin Bandar recently implied that said deal was near completion before the October 7 attacks. The envoys agreed that the deal is still on the table.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Katz said that he was determined to advance regional peace, as he noted that he had brought with him from his past office as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure a map of the plan he had initiated, years ago, for a rail line that would connect Israel to the region.
Christians are connecting, keeping a vigil for the prospects of peace between Israel and the Arab world. They are also watching for the official start of WWIII.
These historic events could possibly lead to the much-discussed fulfillment of what is known as Daniel's 70 Weeks Prophesy, as well as to the Battle of Armageddon and the imminent triumphant return of Jesus Christ.
Very interesting article.