Should we negotiate peace with Iran and its proxies?

In recent weeks the media has been flooded with reports and rumors about negotiations and ‘imminent deals’ intended to bring about a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the Times of Israel today (25 Nov), “Israel has agreed in principle to a US-backed ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon” but other news outlets including Kan, Ynet and Haaretz, citing officials in Jerusalem, Washington and Beirut, noted that “approval of the proposal was not final, and that several issues must still be ironed out”. Last week, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said that the terror group had reviewed the truce proposal and submitted a response, and that the ball was in Israel’s court. Today U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein warned Israeli officials that if they did not accept and move forward with the deal on the table, he would give up his mediation efforts. 

What does all this mean? Reading between the lines, it means that there are still serious points of disagreement on which neither side is willing to compromise. A ceasefire deal seems unlikely at this stage, though should one be brokered, at best it would only be a temporary pause of hostilities as long as the root cause of the issues are not recognised and addressed. 

This current war is not a battle for land, nor for the fate of the Palestinian people: it is something much bigger and much deeper. It is not a religious war either, but a spiritual and ideological battle between Truth and the Lie. It is a war between a civilization based on a Judeo-Christian world view and a jihadi Islamic ideology which has the destruction of western civilization as its most fundamental aim.  

A friend recently pointed out the similarities of our current situation to that of Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18). Elijah assembled the 450 prophets of Baal and said to them, 

 “ ... you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord (YHWH). The god who answers by fire - he is God...” 

And Elijah said to the people (of Israel), “How long will you waver between two opinions? If YHWH is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

“Then the fire of YHWH fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

“When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “YHWH - he is God! YHWH - he is God!”

I Kings 18: 36-39

I believe this current war is a showdown, not between YHWH and the pagan god Baal, but rather between YHWH and Allah. I have long prayed that the religion of Islam would be revealed for the hate-filled, death-honoring and violent ideology it promotes, and that the Muslim peoples would be set free from its deception. Perhaps they will recognise the true God when the Islamic armies are seen to be defeated, and turn from Islam, be set free from its oppression, and find salvation through Yeshua. This is already happening on a small scale, but there are still many millions captive to Islam’s deception. 

There are some who claim that Allah and the God of Israel are the same, and that Allah is just the Arabic form of El or Elohim (the plural form of El in Hebrew). There is much scholarly debate about the linguistic origins and meaning of the word Allah, but there is no way that the god of Islam (whatever his name means) is the same as the God of Israel, as revealed in the Bible. I would go so far as to say that Allah is an imposter, a false god shaped and empowered by Satan in opposition to the true God, YHWH. Allah is the antithesis and sworn enemy of YHWH. 

I believe today’s war between Israel and Iran and its proxies, the Axis of Evil, is at its core a battle between Good and Evil, and a ‘contest’ to determine who is the true god, YHWH of the Bible or Allah of the Quran? We cannot negotiate an answer, nor should we attempt to. There is no middle ground and no room for compromise. 

The allies of the Second World War did not negotiate a settlement with Nazism; they fought until they won. Greg Denham put it this way, “Then there’s Winston Churchill, who understood the nature of evil which gaslights, deflects, and desensitizes in order to destroy, much like a deadly cancer. Churchill had the moral clarity to recognize what is good versus what is evil, which empowered him to refuse to negotiate with Hitler, unlike his predecessor Neville Chamberlain. You cannot negotiate with evil; it will only morph and metastasize. It must be destroyed!”  

This raises the question; is there any possibility of a long-term negotiated peace in the Middle East, and should we even try? Of course, we long for there to be a lasting peace for all the peoples of the Middle East, but to achieve that we should not negotiate with evil and we should continue to fight until it is clearly shown that the God of Israel, YHWH, is greater and stronger than the imposter god of Islam. Only then will all the people of the Middle East, Jew and Arab alike, be released from bondage to the lie and find true peace.

Negotiation presupposes a common desire for peace, a common moral code, and that both sides are willing to compromise. Meaningful dialogue also requires a common language. Muslims may use the same terminology as Jews and Christians, but the meaning of those words for them may be very different.

If you ask the average westerner when Islam began, they will tell you it began in the 7th Century AD, with the Prophet Mohammed. However, if you ask a Muslim, you will get a very different answer. They will tell you that Islam began with Adam and Eve, that Abraham was a Muslim as were all the prophets, King Soloman, King David and even Jesus. The word ‘Islam’ in Arabic means ‘submission’. A Muslim is simply someone who submits to, that is obeys, Allah and his teachings. They believe that the Jews strayed from the worship of the ‘true God’, Allah, and thus were disinherited from the Land and the covenants, and therefore are considered infidels and heretics. The Bible, including the Old and New Testaments, is believed to a corrupted version of God’s revelation and has been superseded and corrected by the Quran and the Hadiths (the later commentaries of Islam). 

According to this theology, a Muslim would agree that the chosen people are the ‘children of Israel’ and the inheritors of the Promised Land, but to them the ‘children of Israel’ are not the Jews for they disobeyed Allah, but the Muslims, those who submit to Allah. For this reason, a Muslim will believe that the Jews living in the State of Israel today are not the real ‘children of Israel’, and therefore are ‘occupiers’ and have no legitimacy in the Land. This is not something they can possibly compromise on since it is a fundamental element of their whole belief system and world view.

One of the central ideas in Islam is that of ‘Jihad’, which literally means struggle. It can be an internal struggle with oneself, or an external struggle. It does not necessarily mean an armed ‘holy war’ against the enemies of Islam, yet for many extremely fanatical Muslims it has come to mean just that. These jihadi Muslims see it as their God-given duty and mission to purify the world of Jews and Christians (the Little Satan and the Big Satan) and ultimately to bring the entire world into submission to Allah (Islam). 

Such a world view and theology makes defeat or a negotiated compromise with the ‘infidel Jews and Christians’ anathema for jihadi Muslims. Any ceasefire or negotiated settlement would be made only if and when it is strategically beneficial to the cause of Jihad. Such an agreement can therefore only be temporary, and usually for the purposes of regrouping and rearming. According to the Quran, it is acceptable, and even encouraged, to lie to the enemy in order to gain advantage in war time. Peace and the welfare of their civilian population is not seen as a high priority in Jihadi eyes. All that matters for them is ultimate victory and the subjugation of the world to Allah. 

Muslims are indoctrinated with the Islamic world view from the cradle. It is their entire life and governs their every action, just as our own world view determines our beliefs and actions. It is a great mistake to try and understand the Muslim world through the lens of a Judeo-Christian world view, and our moral and ethical standards. 

For these reasons, there are some things, sadly, that are non-negotiable and can only be settled by force. I do not want war, I hate war, but even the Bible says that there is a time for war (Ecclesiastes 3:8). Throughout their history the people of Israel often went out to war against their enemies and defeated them with the help of God. 

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating genocide, but merely pointing out that sometimes war is necessary. Imagine if the allies had not gone out to war against Nazism or the Japanese during World War II. I believe the current war is of the same importance. Israel is in the vanguard of the war for our Judeo-Christian- based western civilisation, our freedoms and our values. 

So, should we engage in negotiations for a ceasefire with Hamas and Hezbollah? We have had many ‘ceasefires’ in the past, in which we ceased and they fired. I cannot think of one instance when these terror organizations did not very quickly, sometimes within hours or days, violate the terms of the agreements. Not only that, they used the ‘ceasefires’ as opportunities to regroup and rearm, so that they could come back even stronger than before to attack Israel. They will only agree to a ceasefire when it is to their strategic advantage. What is needed is not ceasefire but surrender, and that means that we need to keep fighting until they can fight no more. 

You may be wondering, “What about the Abraham Accords?” Are these not negotiated agreements? Yes, but I believe these so-called ‘moderate’ Sunni countries are only willing to ‘make peace’ and cooperate with Israel as long as we are fighting against a common enemy, Shiite Iran and its fanatical proxies, and in order to take advantage of economic benefits. These are essentially pragmatic arrangements which will fail the minute they are no longer seen as necessary or beneficial.

I conclude therefore that the war currently taking place between Israel and Iran and its proxies, is a contest between the true God, YHWH, and the false god, Allah. This dispute will not be settled with dialogue, negotiation and compromise, at least in the long term. It will only be solved by a demonstration of power. The true God will win this battle. This is why Israel must win this war, and why YHWH will never allow His enemies to ultimately defeat Israel. 

I would strongly recommend that everyone listen to this interview between Caroline Glick and Moriel Bareli in which Bareli clearly exposes the spiritual basis of the conflict between Israel and the Muslim world.