I have never believed the World would End in a Nuclear Holocaust!
September 8, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The excerpts from the Haaretz article by Reuven Pedatzur echo what I have been trying to get across to anyone who would listen for the last 32 years. It is simply this – Man is not going to destroy himself with his own nuclear creations – God is going to destroy mankind with his own creation. We are not facing a nuclear worldwide holocaust – We st and
at the brink of a worldwide tectonic holocaust.
Because of Zechariah 14:12, prophetic buffs have had a field day using it to prove we will definitely have a thermonuclear burning of flesh, eyes and tongues during the tribulation period. I certainly agree that we will, but not by nuclear radiation.
Please click back in our Birth Pang Archives to Numbers 16, 17, and 18 to see what causes the burning.
Zechariah 14:12 – And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
And please read the excerpt from Archive Prophecy Update Number 187A, which follows the Haaretz Article.
Begin Excerpts from Haaretz Article
Let Them have Nukes
September 7, 2006
Haarutz News Service
By Reuven Pedatzur
For the more than four decades of Cold War, the human race was not destroyed due to mutual deterrence between the two superpowers.
The strategic stability was based on a balance of fear and on what was called MAD – mutual assured destruction. It was clear to both sides that even if one managed to surprise its rival and strike it with all the nuclear weapons in its arsenal, the victim would still have enough bombs to wreak total destruction on the attacker.
The theory of nuclear deterrence, which was developed mainly by American academics, underwent quite a few changes from the mid-1940s until MAD was formulated in the mid-1960s, mainly by then-U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara. However, from the moment McNamara convinced the Soviet leadership that the willingness of both sides to expose themselves to total destruction was the only way to achieve stability, this viewpoint became the bedrock of nuclear deterrence – and the principle that ensured the survival of the world.
The addition of other countries to the nuclear club did not lead to a change in the theory. Britain, France and China did not challenge this viewpoint, and it was clear that fear of total destruction by the Soviet Union (in the case of Britain and France) or by the United States (in the case of China) deterred them from using nuclear weapons.
The nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May 1998 gave rise to a fear that the theory would fail. There was talk about the two countries’ cultural differences, the religious element of the conflict and the extremism of the Pakistanis. And in fact a year later the Kargil crisis erupted between India and Pakistan, and threatened to lead to war. As it turned out, it was actually the two countries’ nuclear capabilities that caused their leaders to exercise restraint. The fear that the crisis would deteriorate into nuclear war prevented an escalation.
This belief that nuclear weapons were the ultimate deterrent also led David Ben-Gurion to become the architect of the Israeli nuclear program. Even the most radical Arab leaders who aspired to destroy Israel would be deterred if they knew it possessed nuclear weapons. The lessons of the Cold War only confirmed Ben-Gurion’s thesis, and made it clear that at the moment of truth, Israel’s nuclear capability would deter anyone aspiring to destroy the country.
Past experience shows that the radical Iranian regime, headed by the most extreme of them all, Ayatollah Khomeini, behaved with absolute rationality at the moment of truth. That was the case during the Iran-Iraq war.
Khomeini declared he would never sign a cease-fire agreement with Iraq until it surrendered. However, after dozens of Iraqi missiles began striking Tehran and thous
ands of residents were harmed, Khomeini changed his position and signed a cease-fire agreement with Saddam Hussein.
In that case, the missiles were conventional. It is almost certain that when the threat of Israeli reprisal involves nuclear missiles, the Iranian leaders will refrain from using nuclear weapons.
There is no Iranian national interest that could justify the country’s total destruction. The claim, that the destruction of Iran could be justified by an apocalyptic worldview, does not accord completely with the assumption that the Iranians, in spite of being Muslims, are not fundamentally different from other people in the world.
We can assume it is possible to build a stable system of future nuclear deterrence between Israel and Iran. This will of course require changes in Israel’s nuclear policy and a transition to open nuclear deterrence. In addition, Israel will have to build a reliable second-strike capability, which has to a great extent been completed with the acquisition of the Dolphin submarine.
Mutual deterrence will be based on new rules of the game, with Israel making its red lines clear to Iran. For example, Iran will be made aware that the moment a missile is detected heading westward from its territory, the Israeli nuclear response will be automatically activated – without waiting for the missile to land, and without examining whether it is nuclear. Moreover, it will be clear to Iran that even if it were to surprise Israel and strike it without being detected in advance, Israel would still have enough nuclear missiles to destroy all of Iran.
End Excerpts from Haaretz Article
More than three years ago I issued Special Prophecy Update Number 129C, titled “Atomic War in Israel, Yes or No?” I would like to reaffirm my belief in its validity in Number 2. The original Update 129C, issued July 23, 2003, was as follows: (BEGIN QUOTE OF 129C)
“One of the main reasons I wrote three books on prophecy in the late seventies and early eighties was to establish a case advocated by teachers of the pre-World War II era. It was, simply stated, that man would not destroy the earth with his weaponry, but rather that God would destroy the earth by the use of this own power. I am certain that the horrifying changes in the topography of Israel, as well as the terrifying destruction of the antichrist’s forces at Armageddon, are by the awesome power of God, not atomic, chemical, or biological weapons of man. The lifting of the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem, the breaking up of Jerusalem into three sections, the splitting of the Mount of Olives, and the consuming of the flesh, tongues, and eyes of the antichrist’s men are natural phenomena unleashed by God, not by man. All the Scriptures dealing with these phenomena unleashed by God are covered in Birth Pang and Prophecy Archives.
There are many advocates of a great atomic, chemical, and biological war in Israel when the antichrist attacks 1260 days before Armageddon. I don’t believe it will happen even as a desperation move at the final battle of Armageddon, and the initial attack will start what amounts to a non-nuclear, non-chemical, and non-biological war. So why am I so confident and outspoken about this being the case?
Israel has more than 200 extremely well concealed missile silos in the Negev between Beersheba and the Gulf of Aqabah.
(1) It has more than 300 nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads to mount on Jericho missiles.
(2) The Jericho is a very accurate missile, and can hit a target in any Islamic country from Morocco to Pakistan and from Turkey to Yemen.
(3) Israel has an excellent anti-missile defense to protect its array of silos, warheads, and missiles. It is able to pick up an incoming enemy missile launched from Syria before it reaches it maximum altitude.
(4) So why do I believe this array of WMD will not be unleashed by Israel when it is attacked? Because the Israeli War Contingency Plan of Israel directs that WMD will never be launched against a foreign nation unless they are first launched against Israel.
(5) So how do I know the Islamic countries will not launch WMD in their initial attack
? All of them are well aware of what is listed in (1) through (5)!
The former Soviet Union, which it existed, shared Israeli intelligence information with Syria, which it collected over a long period of time from its hundreds of spy satellites it launched from pads between Moscow and the White Sea, and on the eastern side of the Aral Sea. Syria, in turn, has shared it with some of the other Islamic countries around Israel. Only a leader possessed of rank insanity would ever launch WMD first against Israel, which is why I was so relieved when Saddam Hussein was taken out of the way.
Many believe the United States will quickly rush to the aid of Israel, and, as the world’s greatest power, will immediately deliver her from any kind of attack she can’t handle. There are two problems with this idea: (1) The United States believes Israel can defeat any Islamic attack on its own without any help from us. After all, Israel has easily done so in three previous wars and, (2) This will be a lightning Jihad, and better coordinated than any of the previous wars, and this time Israel will have a Palestinian state attacking it from within, while the other Islamic nations come in from outside its borders. It will probably last less than a couple of weeks, and Jerusalem is likely to fall within four days. By the time we decide they must have our help it will be too late, because they will have occupied most of the land from Dan to Beersheba. It would take months, as it did in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Freedom Iraq, to get enough American troops on the ground to do any good.
What was the character of Israel’ s pa
st three wars? They were all very short in duration, and they all ended abruptly in a truce.
That will be the case in this war. The United States knows that the Negev is the place where Israel will flee. When we believe they are safely in the Negev, we will be more than willing to accept a truce to give us time to think about what to do, and Israel will remain trapped in the Negev for some three and one-half years.
The part played by the United States during this period of three and one-half years is interspersed throughout our Prophecy Archives, with some of it in Prophecy Updates 5 through 11, 32 & 33, and 74 & 75.” (END QUOTE OF UPDATE 129C).
Since Update 129C was issued, several noteworthy things have come to pass that reduce the likelihood of a nuclear war in the Middle East. The area is headed toward a situation where both sides will realize a nuclear war would leave the victor, or victors, in such a powerless state, that any future they might have
would be desolate, and leave them in a position of great vulnerability to the rest of the oil consuming nations. Some of these noteworthy recent events, which would tend to create a standoff, such as the one that developed between the United States and the once mighty Soviet Union, are as follows:
(1) Syria now has a better Scud than the Scud B. The Scud D missile, considered to be the most sophisticated weapon of its kind, is now in the hands
of the Syrian military.
It is able to deliver nuclear, chemical, or biological multiple warheads to their targets in Israel from Syria.
(2) The jointly developed American-Israeli Arrow 2 missile successfully launched an Arrow 2 missile that destroyed a Scud B over the Pacific Ocean earlier this year. The Arrow 2 is designed to intercept an enemy missile before it reaches its peak altitude, far from Israeli territory. However, in a recent test against the Scud D, it failed to intercept the detached warhead. It was not a complete failure, and the results are in the process of being analyzed. Israel says it can still effectively destroy the Scud D.
(3) Syria also maintains a sizeable ballistic missile arsenal and, like Iran, is active in upgrading and expanding its capabilities.
(4) In June Iran announced it is building its first stealth missile, a rocket that can evade electronic detection. The missile was named Kowsar, in honor of the Kowsar river
in paradise, which is found in the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam.
Iran announced it would be capable of hitting ships and aircraft.
(5) Iran is continuing to steam toward development of its own nuclear bomb, which many believe it could develop as early as next year. It is now going underground, and spreading out its nuclear development sites in order to limit the damage that could be incurred by an Israeli air strike, like the one carried out on Iraq’ s nuclear facility in 1981.
(6) Iran is manufacturing various missiles, chief among them being the Shahab-3, whose range of 1300 km (793 mi) allows it to reach Israel. It is designed to carry up to a 700-kilogram conventional warhead. But the Iranians are currently developing the Shihab 4 and 5, with ranges of 3000 km (1830 mi) and 6000 km (3660 mi), which puts all of Europe in its sights, and these both missiles will be able to carry chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons.
(7) At the same time that Iran and Syria are attempting to manufacture weapons of mass destructions, and the missiles to deliver them, they are also building up their conventional arsenal of weapons. Iran has been making its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, and fighter planes, inside its own borders for some time. They have been guided by the designs of weaponry supplied to them by North Korea, Russia, and even China in both their conventional and non-conventional programs of weaponry development. The huge payments from the Iranian oil money have, for some time, helped to keep the Russian Economy afloat, and the North Korean economy from completely collapsing.
I do not believe there will be a nuclear, biological or chemical war in the Middle East. I have long been convinced of this. It will be a great war, but only conventional weapons will be used.
I will not rule out the possibility of some being used at Armageddon, but I really don’t believe they will be launched even then. Please consider the following quote from Special Prophecy Update 135B. (BEGIN 135B QUOTE).
“I was rather surprised by some armor decisions made recently by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now the Treasury Minister in Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet. He believes Israel faces two threats – The Palestinian terrorist groups, and the weapons of mass destruction that are being developed by Arab states in the Middle East, notably headed by Iran. Of course, both of these are real threats, but I do not agree with his statement that followed. He does not believe the threat of an invasion by Arab states against Israel on the ground is a feasible reality and, because of this, favors the decommissioning of old war systems, like the Merkava tanks, at an accelerated rate. Netanyahu attributes great importance to the strategic view, which would provide answers to the Iranian nuclear threat and to other state’s weapons of mass destruction. He favors the continuation of the security fence to its completion, but desires to see the discontinuation of Merkava 5 tank production. If Israel does follow this program, believing they are secure from an external ground attack at the present, then once they finally get the Palestinians fenced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it will give them a sense of “peace and safety” regarding their being overrun from the north. Scripture indicates it will happen. Without the conventional old war systems, such as the Merkava 3 and the new Merkava 4 tanks, Israel would be much more vulnerable to a conventional attack like the one launched against them from Syria in the 1973 Yom Kipper War. The deterrent to non-conventional weapons, now being developed by the Arab states, lies in the Negev wilderness in the form of nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads on the hundreds of Jericho missiles found there. The mass destruction weapons possessed by Israel in the Negev are more than a sufficient deterrent to cause the Arab states not to launch theirs against Israel. When Israel truly believes it has attained peace and safety, then a conventional war attack will be launched against it from the north.
I Thessalonians 5:3,4 – For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. [4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ezekiel 38:14,15 – Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? [15] And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:” (END 135B QUOTE).
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