According to a report in Reuters on line four days ago in Istanbul Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Islamic countries should form an alliance against what he called “the growing threat of expansionism” from Israel, drawing a rebuke from the Israeli foreign minister.
He made the comment after describing what Palestinian and Turkish officials said was the killing by Israeli troops of a Turkish-American woman taking part in a protest on Friday against settlement expansion in Judea and Samaria. At an Islamic schools’ Association event near Istanbul he said “The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries.”
Recently Erdogan has taken steps to improve Turkey’s ties with Egypt and Syria apparently with the aim of what he called “forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism,” which he said also threatened Lebanon and Syria. Clearly his reference to “expansionism” was a reference to Israel. In response to this statement Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Erdogan’s remark was “a dangerous lie and incitement,” and that the Turkish leader has been working for years with Iran to undermine the region’s moderate Arab regimes.
Ties between them started thawing in 2020 when Turkey began diplomatic efforts to ease tensions with estranged regional rivals, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Erdogan said back in July that Turkey would extend an invitation to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “any time” for possible talks to restore relations between the two neighbours, who severed ties in 2011 after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
There is no doubt that the man form Turkey is seeking to rally the Islamic nations to his war banner as his forebears the Turkish Ottoman Caliphs did. His absolute adherence to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood is well established with its commitment to a global Islamic empire. For years his rhetoric and tirade against Israel and his desire to resurrect the Turkish Ottoman Caliphate has been public knowledge.
Erdogan has now approached BRICS for Turkey to enter this alliance of nations. The BRICS alliance was designed to bring together the world’s most important developing countries, to challenge the political and economic power of the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe. Possibly Erdogan sees this as an opportunity to further promote Turkey on the immerging economic international stage knowing that the alliance is a challenge to western international economic dominance, and possibly a means to turn the nations involved against Israel while covertly working towards his global caliphate? Time will tell of course.
We know from scripture that ultimately the Islamic nations will on mass invade the Holy Land with the militant malevolent intent of destroying Israel as a nation and establishing Islamic rule in Jerusalem. The nations specifically named in Ezekiel 38:1-6 are all Islamic nations today. Added to this, there will be armies of many other nations joining the Islamic armies in the invasion of Israel (vs.6). We are also told in scripture specifically that the Islamic armies that come against Israel will all go down into the pit of hell in wholesale lots. (Ezekiel 32:18-32).
As we see Israel fighting for its survival against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Iranian forces in Syria, and now militant Arabs in Judea and Samaria upping the ante on their hostility and militancy against the Jewish settlements in the heartland of Israel, we can clearly see a coming conflagration occurring throughout the whole Middle-Eastern region. We see American British and European naval vessels patrolling the Red Sea to keep the shipping lanes open and free from Houthi missiles and drones being launched from Yemen against commercial merchant shipping in the Red Sea shipping lanes.
As yet the Islamic world is still divided; however, if they have a common goal established by a powerful leader that can unite them, then they will follow his war banner as the Turkish Ottoman Empire followed its successive Caliph’s for around 600 years. Historically, when Muslims are not fighting a common enemy they fight amongst themselves, however, in a time of Jihad against non-Muslim nations, they will unite for the expansion of Islamic ideology which in reality is the ideology of conquest by the sword; hence we see the emblem of crossed scimitars pointing upwards on Islamic flags and banners.
From the human perspective then, Israel is in reality fighting for its very survival, however, from God’s perspective He is bringing His people back to Himself through applied pressure coming against Israel from these hostile anti-Semitic nations, not to destroy Israel, but to bring them as a His Covenant people to the point where they will look upon their Messiah, Him whom they have pierced with their sin and weep with tears of repentance and joy, and who will say with all of their entire being “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” No longer will the House of Israel and the House of Judah be desolate! (Zechariah 12:10-13:1) (Matthew 23:38-39).
As yet Israel has to pass through the Time of Jacob’s Trouble but will be saved out of it by the LORD and the Messiah will reign over His brethren from David’s throne at Jerusalem (Jeremiah 30:1-7). What happens to Israel will also happen to her spiritual offspring the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel, ‘The Olive Tree’ which in scripture represents Israel.
In Revelation Chapter 12 we see ‘the dragon’ Satan, seeking to annihilate ‘the woman’ Israel which he will not be able to do, and so in a rage because he cannot destroy Israel he goes after ‘her offspring’ the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel, those who obey God’s commandments and hold fast to the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 12:13-17).
When the Lord Jesus comes back He will gather His elect saints to Himself from the four corners of the earth to meet Him in the air at His Second Coming as they gather around Him and accompany Him back to earth (Matthew 24:30-31) (Mark 13:26-27) (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
However, because of His covenant with our forefathers in the faith, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, when He has accomplished His sanctifying work in Israel and with her spiritual offspring, He will come again in the person of His Son the Messiah our Lord Jesus, and in that day for Israel it will be “salvation from their enemies and from the hand of all who hate them, to show mercy to their fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath He swore in sacrificial blood to the father of faith Abraham; to rescue His people from the hand of their enemies, enabling them to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all of their days” (Luke 1:71-75).
God has not finished with Israel! The whole land of Israel from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates and everything in between belongs to the Jewish people, the decedents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 15:17-20), to be for the whole nation “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8).
Israel as a nation may be hard-pressed, despised and maligned by the nations of this world and their political leaders, and looked down upon by them with distain, however, Isaiah tells us what will happen to Israel and her spiritual offspring after the Messiah our Lord Jesus has come back and has completely destroyed all opposition, having dismantled and dismembered every kingdom established by man that was an affront to God. See also (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45). In that Day the Messiah will establish Israel as the chief nation and Jerusalem as the capital of the whole world. David’s decedent the Messiah will sit on David’s throne and rule the nations with a rod of iron and with justice, with righteousness and with mercy. As Isaiah prophesied…
“The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains (Kingdoms), And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it” (Isaiah 2:1-2).
Indeed did not Rabbi the apostle Paul write; “…a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be My covenant with them when I take away their sins… For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25b-27, 29).
The man from Turkey may well be the man of sin, whose military forces will lead the invasion of Israel, as we saw foreshadowed in the invasion by Antiochus Epiphanes the Seleucid Greek General. He was the one Daniel prophesied would stop the sacrifices and perpetrated the abomination of desolation in the Jewish temple. This occurred around a 160 before the birth of the Messiah our Lord Jesus.
In His discourse recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Messiah spoke of this past event and said it would happen again in the future, and especially in Matthew’s gospel account it is clear that our Lord Jesus was not only referring to 70AD which occurred 40 years later, when the Romans sacked the city of Jerusalem and completely destroyed the Temple with fire, but also telescoping to the end of the age when once again the temple will be defiled by the man of sin, “the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendour of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
