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From The Mailbag

20 years

Did Antichrist quietly arrive in the Mideast with the coronation of King Abdullah II of Jordon on June 9, 1999? Or, was he born into the soul of a charismatic Kenyan-American Muslim Barack Obama, whose pseudo-celebrity status has given him messianic standing with American idiots with hat-size IQs who worship iconic sports-figures and Hollywood trash-celebrities, and who can't distinguish the difference between a leader and a glib-tongued snake oil salesman? Every day I get at least one piece of e.mail that asks the question: "Is Sen. Barack Obama the Antichrist?" Hopefully, from a Biblical and historic perspective, this article will answer that question to your satisfaction.

Author's Note: An unedited, slightly longer and somewhat different version of this article first appeared on this website on November 25, 2001, two months after 9-11. Much of that article contains information about the attack on the World Trade Center and the subsequent events that are not pertinent to the question, "Has Antichrist arrived?" For that reason I decided to pull this article up to a current section of my website, edit out those portions dealing with 9-11 (unless those details were specifically needed to support my argument that, as of that date—before anyone except Illinois graftmongers knew of the existence of State Senator, Acorn lawyer and civil rights activist Barack Obama existed—to show the readers why Barack Obama, as corrupt and dishonest as he is, is not Antichrist) and why I believe the facts, the Bible and history, suggest that King Abdullah II of Jordan fits the Biblical resume of Antichrist. (NOTE: amidst the lawsuit, Berg v. Obama, in which Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg challenged Obama's claim that he was born in Hawaii, arguing that a second birth certificate raises the question that Obama may have been born in Kenya. While insisting on his website, Fight The Smears, that he was born in Hawaii, Obama now admits that he is a citizen of Kenya based solely on his father's status as a citizen of that country. (This was pretty much the claim Berg made in his lawsuit concerning Obama's status, also, as a citizen of Indonesia. Only, in Indonesia, dual citizenship is not allowed, and Obama's US citizenship was forfeited by his stepfather. With respect to Kenya, Obama's website says: "Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his US citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982."

cripture tells us that Antichrist will appear on the world scene as a diminutive, benign man of peace (Isa. 14:7-21). He will arrange a peace accord between the Arabs and the nation of Israel. He will be recognized as the man who brought peace to the world, and the Jews, at the urging of their own religious clerics, will view him as their “savior.” When Antichrist first exerts his will in the Mideast, the leaders of the tribes of Ishmael and Esau will grudgingly bow to his demands only because the Muslim world knows he is the most direct ancestor of the prophet and founder of Islam, Mohammad. The peace, arranged by Antichrist, will last 42 months before he breaks his word to the Jews, seizes Jerusalem, and desecrates what the Bible refers to as the Millennial Temple (which will be constructed on the Temple Mount beside the Dome on the Rock. [Ezek. 40; Rev. 11:2].)

A stunned nation watched a real life tragedy unfold before their eyes on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Those watching TV at 8:46 a.m. as American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and 17 minutes later as United Airlines Flight 195 hit the South Tower, knew the American age of innocence had ended and their world had changed forever. Even before Wahabbi extremist Osama bin Laden acknowledged himself as the mastermind behind the attack, conspiracy theorists laid the blame at the doorstep of the big white house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC and at the Knesset at Givat Ram in Jerusalem. Even before the smoldering ashes had cooled, the New Yorker Magazine chose to publish a cover, on Oct. 29, 2001 that depicted a six-year old boy holding up a "school" drawing of the World Trade Center on fire. In the drawing, the WTC was about to be hit by the second jet airliner. Only, the second plane—as indicated by the Star of David on its wings—was purported to be an Israeli aircraft. The New Yorker stoked the rumor that Jews, aided and abetted by the Bush-43 Administration, and not Islamic terrorists as the government claimed, caused 9-11 to happen.

Reams of antidotal documents were examined by the National Commission on Terror (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission) (which was anything but a Bush-43 cheerleader squad), and published in its final report, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Anyone looking at the political credentials of the Commission members clearly understands they are not, nor were not, members of the Bush-43 Rah-Rah Club: Chairman Thomas Kean, Sr., a Republican former New Jersey governor; Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic Congressman; former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey; former US Attorney and Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, who was a vocal critic of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; Jamie Gorelick, a former Gore aide who became a Deputy Attorney General under Clinton and who, most recently, was an executive of Fannie Mae who was brought on board by Al Gore campaign contributor Franklin Raines. Gorelick was the bureaucrat who tightened the Carter-era regulations that made it a crime for members of the CIA and FBI to share data on domestic and foreign terrorists that resulted in the blindfolding of the US intelligence community. Only one commission member, Fred Fielding, could be construed as a Bush-43 loyalist. He was appointed by Bush to replace Harriet Miers as White House Counsel. John F. Lehman, who served as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy. Currently he is an advisor to Sen. John McCain. Commission member Timothy Roemer is a former Democratic Congressman from Indiana. James "Big Jim" R. Thompson, a liberal Republican, was the longest-serving governor of Illinois. And lastly, Slate Gorton was a US Senator from Washington. Also a Republican, neither Gorton nor Thompson were Bush allies.

The consensus of the 9/11 Commission was that 19 Islamic extremists hijacked four jumbo jet airliners. Two of them, 757s, were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, a third 757, Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon. The report claimed that passengers in the fourth plane, Flight 93, commandeered by passengers brought Flight 93 down themselves at 10:06 a.m, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Quite possibly, Flight 93 was shot down by the US military, which is what the debris field suggests (although the Commission does not suggest that). That would explain why witnesses were shown a large furrow in the earth outside Shanksville but no shattered fuselage nor any bodies.

Unlike his Democratic predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who believed that acts of war against the United States and its people should be answered not with military force but with an investigation by the FBI or an inquiry from the United Nations, Bush-43 recognized an act of war when he saw it. Clinton failed to recognize the 1993 attempt to level the World Trade Center as an act of war—even when it was accompanied by a Declaration of War against the United States of America by Osama bin Laden in 1993.

The Mild-mannered Muslim Messiah
On Monday, November 19, 2001 The Washington Times reported in a front page story that King Abdullah II of Jordon had embarked on a secret peace-building mission designed to elicit public guarantees from all of the Arab States that would obligate them to accept Israel as a legitimate nation-state in the Mideast. Had Abdullah II succeeded, his advocacy would have allowed the Israelis to become fully and peacefully integrated in the economy of the region as an equal trading partner.

In a radio talk show emanating from London that day, and during news briefings with European media that followed the program, Abdullah outlined a strategy that, if accepted by the Arab states and other Muslim nations, will constitute the Muslim world’s most dramatic shift towards peace with Israel—with Jordan functioning both as the peace broker and as the guarantor of the peace. Shocking most of the European journalists, King Abdullah’s position on the current Mideast crisis conflicted with the vitriolic views expressed by his closest ally in the Mideast, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who succeeded slain Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Mubarak, who fears the same type of fatwa that caused the death of Sadat, publicly blamed the Jews for the climate of hate in the Holy Land. But no Islamic clerics—neither Sunni or Shi'ite—have ever issued a fatwa against King Abdullah II of Jordan. And, other than Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, who attempted to assassinate Jordan's King Hussein on June 9, 1970, no other Islamic group or person has attempted to take the life of any member of the Jordanian royal family since the assassination of Hussein's father, Abdullah I. He was killed by an Arafat loyalist, Palestinian Mustapha Shukri Usho on July 20, 1951 at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Fearing Abdullah was planning to sign a peace treaty with Israel, Usho shot him three times in the head. Prince Hussein, who would become king was also shot attempting to save his father's life.

With the death of King Abdullah, Arafat fell from grace in the Muslim world. The only sanctuary he could find anywhere in the Mideast was in Egypt. To curb Arafat, Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO] to rebuff Arafat. Privately, Nasser ordered his intelligence service to arrange Arafat's liquidation. Unfortunately, the Six Day War happened in June, 1967 and the Muslims were soundly defeated by the Jews, nearly destroying Nasser's political base in Egypt. Arafat managed to wrest control of the PLO from Nasser at that time, which probably saved his life. With the assassination of Anwar Sadat on Oct. 6, 1981, the Palestinians—a nation without land—were evicted from Egypt and became gypsies of the desert once again. They were rescued by King Hussein of Jordan who gave them refuge in the West Bank.

The Hashemites trace their ancestry from Hashim ibn Abd al-Manaf (died c.510 AD), the great-great grandfather of the prophet Mohammad (even though today, the genealogies are traced to Fatimah, Mohammad's daughter). As we will discuss later, King Abdullah II is now the most direct ancestor of Mohammad alive in the world today. As such, he is the leader of the Muslim world, and heir to the theological throne of Mohammad.

The Arab world has an almost ancient contempt for the Palestinians because they view them as the ancestors of apostate Jews who were left behind during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. The Palestinians, for the most part, are the offspring of the Assyrians and Babylonians who sent by their kings to replenish the lands of Israel and Judah. Some are the offspring of ancient mixed marriages between Assyrians, Babylonians and Jews, and have Jewish blood coursing through their veins. Although they are Islamic, and claim to be Jewish blood-free, they remain semi-outcasts in the Muslim world. It was for that reason that whichever Muslim leader agreed to share their land with the Palestinians, ultimately became targets of assassination plots since Arafat and the gypsy Fatah desperately wanted a homeland called Palestine which they had never possessed. By 1969, the Palestinians had amassed enough political clout through terrorism to make demands in the Arab world since Fatah, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda are equal opportunity terrorists.

When Jordan's King Abdullah II spoke to his London radio audience in November, 2001, he said that the problem lays on both sides of the theological divide, with Jews and the Palestinians equally at fault. Abdullah told the radio audience in London that efforts to bring about a Palestinian state could not happen unless Israel received sufficient guarantees to assure its security. That would happen only if there were public guarantees from each of the Arab Gulf States that obligated them, before the world, to protect Israel from Islamic extremists who might try to perform terrorist acts against the Jews—and that the Arab world keeps their word.

Premillennial Christian conservatives with more than a cursory knowledge of Bible prophecy know that when Antichrist appears on the world scene [Rev. 13:1-10], he will initiate a peace accord with the Jews [Dan. 9:26-27], guaranteeing the security of the Jews for a period of seven years. While many of those same Christians believe that Antichrist must necessarily be a Jew for the Jews to accept him as their Messiah (and others because of the description of the Harlot of Babylon [Rev. 17:1-14] have wrongly construed the Harlot to be the pope of Rome), Scripture clearly identifies Antichrist as a Muslim [Isa. 9:14-15, 30:31; Dan. 8:9-25, 11:21-25; Hosea 9:7-8, 13; Rev. 13:1-10]. The False Prophet, who directs the Jews to the foot of the throne of Antichrist, will be a Jew. He is scripturally described [Rev. 13:11-18] as the second beast, rising out of the Earth. (Antichrist rises from the Sea. In Scripture, the "land" always denotes Israel. The "sea" denotes the Gentile nations.) Unlike the first beast which has 10 horns, the second beast has two. The horns of the second beast represent the Jewish tribes of Dan and Ephraim who led the Jews into idolatry as Israel settled the Promised Land at the end of the Egyptian captivity.

Could King Abdullah II be the Antichrist?
On March 26, 1979 President Jimmy Carter witnessed the signing of what became known as the Camp David Accord between Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin—a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Bible conspiracy advocates alternately labeled first Begin and then Sadat as Antichrist; and then first Begin and then Carter as the False Prophet. Needless to say, the Biblical pundits of the 1970s were wrong. Neither Sadat nor Begin were Antichrist, and neither Begin nor Carter proved to be the False Prophet. When the Camp David Accord was signed, Muslim clerics issued a fatwa on Sadat. When he was assassinated by his own security guard on October 3, 1981, many unlearned and misguided Christian prophecy buffs believed he would rise from the dead in three days and assume his role as Antichrist. He did not.

Clearly, at this moment, only God knows the identity of Antichrist. Suffice to say, not even the Muslim leader who will assume the trappings of Antichrist knows he has been selected for this ungodly role. In other words, there is not a man in the Mideast who has pledged his allegiance to Satan in exchange for power. Antichrist will be a devout Muslim. The False Prophet will be a devout Jew. Since Scripture describes Antichrist as a man of peace it is clear that none of the old generation of Muslim leaders fits the bill since all of them ascended to power through bloodshed.

There were three “new generation” leaders—all economists—whose resumes appear to fit the bill. First is King Abdullah II, the Hashemite king of Jordan; Bashar Assad, the “president” of Syria; and, finally, the youngest son of Saddam Hussein who died in a shoot-out with the US military in Baghdad. Scripture describes Antichrist as a small, meek-looking man. The prophet Isaiah wondered how such a diminutive, wimpish-looking man could have frightened the whole world. Of the three most likely candidates, only King Abdullah II has the politically-correct, certifiable credentials. He is likewise the only Muslim leader who possesses the right “bonafides” to avoid having an angry Muslim cleric issue a fatwa on him for his pro-Israeli views.

Unlike Saddam Hussein, who claimed (but could not prove) to be a direct ancestor of Saladin (and through Saladin to Nebuchadnezzar) simply because he was born in the same village where the Muslim conqueror of Europe was born, the Hashemite king is the most direct ancestor of Mohammad the Prophet of Islam—even though the Saudi royal family also claims that distinction through one of Mohammad’s other wives. While Antichrist must have “first born” direct linkage to Mohammad (in order for the Muslims to accept his peace initiatives towards Israel), Antichrist must have one other thing. He must have direct ancestral linkage to Abraham through Ishmael. It is that tie that links Antichrist to God—a necessary ingredient for him to be linked to the creation of mankind and therefore tied to Satan’s efforts to thwart God’s plan from the beginning.

For that reason, the recording and certification of ancestral genealogies is as important to the Muslims as it is the Jews. In the Holy Bible, the Book of Numbers is the record of the genealogy of the Jews by a census that was taken every seven years. In fact, Numbers begins with such a census. “Number the whole Israelite community...” In the text, the Hebrew word separ is used. Separ means census. In the King James Version of the Bible, the term “...number of their names...” is used in verses 1:2, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42. Verse 45 records taking the census by number.

The Jews, like their Muslim counterparts, placed much store on ancestral lineage because to them, a man was judged not by who he was or who he was able to become through his own sweat equity, but rather, who his father was—and more important—who his father’s father was.

While Saddam claims direct ancestral linkage to Saladin, it is a lineage that he knows—and most Muslim clerics know—would not withstand the scrutiny of an ancestral census. Antichrist will be Scripturally confirmed as the Beast when his ancestral tree is run after he assumes global power.

That census is noted in Revelation 13:14. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and that number is six hundred three score and six.” In the Greek text, we see the word number is arithmos, which means “a specific number.” The “number” of the beast, 666, is not a general term. It is the specific census number of a specific person. Just as your social security number, or your US government personal identifier (that will appear on your personal National ID Card in the near future) will specifically identify only you, 666—used as a census number—will specifically identify only Antichrist.

Tracking the identity of Antichrist through his theological census number must necessarily pass through a handful of key historic people who are symbolically used in prophecy to identify Antichrist. And that genealogy must end up establishing the man's direct lineage to Abraham.

If Antichrist is not directly related to Abraham through Ishmael, the Arabian peninsula, which is the land given to Israel by God, can be claimed only by someone else. Prophetically, when Antichrist is acclaimed as the savior of the modern world, he will become so popular that artifax honoring him will be sold around the world. As his genealogy is run, the world will learn that among his ancestors was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid ruler who ascended to the Seleucid throne in 175 B.C. and conquered Egypt in 171 BC.

Antiochus IV, who is described by Daniel in Dan. 8:23-25, is the subject of 1 Macabees (which appears only in the Catholic version and the apocraphyl writings which are found in the Pseudopigrapha of the Holy Writ). In addition, the history of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, through whom Antichrist is viewed by the prophet Daniel, is adequately recorded in the Antiquities of the Jews. (It would not surprise me too much to discover that this lineage included Sargon and Sennacherib the Assyrian King.) The 666th direct, first-born descendant of Antichrist will prove to be Abraham.

The Genealogy of King Abdullah II, the Hashemite King
The Hashemite Kings have proudly displayed their pedigree for all the world to see and examine for the entire 20th century, and likely before. (Sample below, left, is the genealogy of the Hashemite kings found on King Abdullah II’s website.) None in the Arab world have disputed it. And, regardless of the pro-American views of King Abdullah II or his father, King al Hussein, no Muslims clerics have issued fatwas in their names.

The reason is the direct link of the Hashemite dynasty to Mohammad. While the genealogy of Abdullah II goes farther back than shown here, genealogy of the Hashemite kings goes back to the prophet Mohammad: Abdullah II, al Hussein, Talal, Abdullah I, Ali, Muhammed (Emir of Mecca), Abdul Mu’een, Auon, Ra’i al-Hadala, Muhsin, Abdullah, al Hussein, Abdullah (Emir of Mecca), al-Hassan (Emir of Mecca), Muhammad Abu Numayy II (Emir of Mecca), Barakat II (Emir of Mecca), al Hassan (Emir of Mecca), ‘Ajlan (Emir of Mecca), Rumaytha (Emir of Mecca), Mohammad Abu Numayy I (Emir of Mecca), al-Hassan (Emir of Mecca), Ali, Qutadah (Emir of Mecca), Idris, Muta’in, Abd al-Karim, Issa, al-Hassein, Suleiman, Ali, Abdullah, Mohammad, Abdullah, Muhammad, Musa, Abdullah, al-Hassan al-Muthanna, al-Hassan, Fatima az-Zahra (the daughter of Mohammad the Prophet), Mohammad (the Prophet of Islam), Abdullah, Abd al-Mutalib, Hashem (the ancestor of the Hashemites), Abd Manaf, Qusai (King of Mecca). It is important to note that from Fatima, the daughter of Mohammad back, the genealogy assumed by the Hashemite kings was the genealogy of Mohammad’s wife, not Mohammad. Mohammad came from an impoverished background. His father, Abd Allah, although a Hashemite chieftan, died before his birth negating any possible claims to an inheritance by his son. His mother, Amina, died when he was 6 years old. Mohammad was raised by an uncle, but without any inheritance since whatever wealth was possessed by his father was assumed by his father’s brother. When Mohammad was in his early 20s he met and married a wealthy widow, Khadijah who financed his “discovery” of the Koran (Qu’ran) through visitations by the angel Gabriel on Mount Hira just outside Mecca.

Mohammad—who preached one god to a polytheistic culture—promoted himself as God’s only prophet (or Apostle—a word Mohammad used often to describe himself). Mohammad’s monotheistic views were antithetical to the pagan society in which he lived. As long as the local ruler, Abu Talib was living, Mohammad was protected. When Abu Talib died, Mohammad and a handful of his followers were driven from Mecca. Mohammad migrated from Mecca to Medina. Medina had an extensive Jewish community. Mohammad’s early converts were largely Jews or Palestinians whose ancestors were Jews left behind in Palestine during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. It would not be until Mohammad returned to Mecca with an army of Islamic converts and subdued the city that Arabs became converts to Islam. It is important for Christians throughout the world who believe that the Jews will not follow an Arab, believing him to be their Messiah, that around 630 AD Jews and Gentiles by the thousands did just that.

The American Peace Process
While Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton expended much effort trying to create a peace treaty in the Mideast, Clinton’s efforts were largely centered around Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat who is not recognized by any Arab leader (not even those like Saddam Hussein or Hafiz Assad of Syria before he died) as the head of any state. In point of fact, Arafat is not even recognized as the Palestinian “head of state” by most Palestinians. He is largely viewed as a Clinton stooge since Clinton legitimized Arafat in the eyes of the world community by acknowledging him as the “leader” of the Palestinian homeland movement. However, Arafat remained a regional character with a mongrel pedigree until his death. Once he was no longer a threat to the Arabs, Arafat was hailed as a great leader in the move for peace in the Mideast.

In the eyes of the Sauds who can trace their own pedigree back at least 100 years, and in the eyes of King Abdullah II who can trace his ancestry back to 200 AD, if not earlier, Arafat was merely a terrorist who held power through bloodshed—much like Saddam Hussein, Abdul Nassar of Egypt (in the 1950s), Hafiz Assad of Syria and Moammar Gadhafi of Libya. Their pedigrees all came from the ammo clip of a AK-47. They ascended to power by killing their predecessors, or by creating such a reign of terror that ascension to power was easy.

Why the timing is right now for peace in the Mideast
Theologically, the timing could not be better for introduction of Antichrist to the world. Why? Because the world, which is singularly focused on the global economic meltdown (Rev. 18), will probably choose not to notice, or will halfheartedly watch as the industrial nations of the world struggle to stem the losses of their hemorrhaging stock markets as new threats of wars and rumors of wars slide from the front pages of the world's newspapers and geological earthquakes are replaced with the massive quakes of stock markets colliding on the way to the basement. And, even if the world's leading theologians told them, most Christians would not believe that Antichrist had actually arrived and he was someone the world already respected. In the minds of most Christians, while they acknowledge that Jesus Christ could return at any time (because the Bible says so), Antichrist , on the other hand, is a character that most were convinced would not show up for decades or centuries—at least, not in their lifetime.

Clearly, if the Christian community, which will be as spiritually blind as the unchurched on this issue, recognized Antichrist as Antichrist when he appears as the global savior of peace, they would all rededicate themselves to Christ, knowing that the end had arrived. Instead, they will collectively admire the diminutive little man from the Mideast who solved the hottest political issue in the world; an issue that has plagued the world since the recreation of the State of Israel in May, 1948—an issue so complex that not even the United Nations could solve it.

As Palestinians and Israelis continue to kill each other in record numbers along the West Bank of the Jordan River as the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas seeks a Palestinian homeland within the State of Israel, the United States and the Muslim nations in the Mideast and around the world are facing a new quandary created by the World Trade Center tragedy. And, while his term of office has almost expired, George W. Bush made it clear not only to the G-20 industrial leaders of the world but to the Islamic nations in the Mideast, Africa, and the Asian subcontinent that the United States will wage a War on Terrorism until the last terrorist is dead—wherever that terrorist is found. And, while GOP presidential nominee John McCain shares Bush's view on security, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama does not. In his book, Audacity of Hope, Obama made it amply clear where his loyalties lay when he said: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political wind shift in an ugly direction."

Thus, we can expect the next presidential administration to do a military about-face if Sen. Barack Obama prevails in the national elections on Nov. 4. He will follow the Vietnam era far left from the Carter era—he will hoist the white flag and surrender a war already won while claiming victory as morally defeated troops return home, heads hung in shame. And the United States of America will have lost the second war in its entire history. Both times, wars won by those who fight will be lost by those who run.

As much as the Muslim nations in the Mideast hate both the Jews and the infidels who support them, they still face the question of whether or not they can escape the wrath of the American people with or without either Bush or McCain in the White House because the American people will never tolerate a coward or an appeaser in the White House. Much of the monetary support received by Sen. Obama for his presidential campaign is coming from the Muslim world, specifically from Palestinians who view Obama as an Islamic brother-in-arms. Within the last few weeks the Obama Campaign has been forced to return two contributions, one for $35,000 and one for $21,000 because the McCain Campaign learned both had come from Muslim donors in Palestine.

At the time of King Abdullah II's peace advocacy, the Jordanian monarch received assurances from President Bush that the United States would back his diplomacy, adding that the military clout of America to put some “bite” behind Abdullah’s “bark.” The Abdullah Initiative offered Israel, for the first time, the collective guarantees from 22 Islamic nations stretching from the Mideast to Africa. In his historic declaration, Abdullah called for his fellow Arab leaders to “...recognize the world’s new realities after September 11...” and acknowledge that what has happened in America has made the Arab-Israeli conflict secondary to battling terrorism worldwide. The pan-Arab declaration would provide the underpinning for the “...integration and security of Israel into the [Mideast] region.”

The idea of integrating Israel into the Mideast economy as an equal trading partner has always been an anathema to the leaders of the Arab States who envision a world in which Israel no longer exists—as it appears in the geography books used by Muslim children throughout the Islamic world. Nor does the United States nor the industrialized nations of Europe have anything to offer that would make the deal palatable to the taste buds of the Islamic world. In the past, the US was their largest customer for oil and natural gas. Today, China and the emerging consumer-rich, investment-poor third world nations have replaced the United States as the world's largest consumer of oil—and none of them have political alliances with the Arabs ancestral enemy, Israel. As the economic and military might of the United States continues to be like the strength of Samson after Delilah chopped over his locks, Bush's pledge to use military diplomacy to put a "bite" in Abdullah II's "bark," will not happen under in an Obama presidency. Nor was that something King Abdullah II thought he needed, or wanted, in November, 2001. If King Abdullah II of Jordan proves to be the man who brings peace to the Mideast, it will not happen because of the military might of the United States. It will happen solely because God has ordained it as part of His final plan for Planet Earth.

Even Egypt, which was pressured by the United States and the Carter Administration to sign a peace accord with Israel in 1979—an act that caused the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981—has refused to promote a continuing dialogue with Israel.

The Israelis refer to the Camp David Accord as “the cold peace” (as opposed to the Cold War). Every peace initiative that has been offered to Israel has been a proposal in which the Jews were promised peace in exchange for the land taken by Israel during the Six Day War in June, 1967 when Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan in six days. During that brief war, Israel took all of the West Bank—including Jerusalem—and a large portion of the Sinai Desert from Egypt as well as a large section of land from Syria. When the war concluded, Israel refused to give back any of the land it had taken from its Arab neighbors.

Neither the United States nor the UN—which has been trying to force Israel to surrender land for peace—realizes that the land God gave to Israel was an inheritance [Numbers 34; Joshua 1:2; Ezekiel 47:13-23] given in perpetuity. The Jews have no authority on their own to surrender that land to anyone. In fact, Scripture mandates that if a Jew sells his land, he must sell it to another Jew. During the Year of Jubilee (every 50 years), the land reverts back to the original family, thus maintaining the integrity of the tribal identity of those land owners.

It was because former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to engage in a land swap for peace with the Palestinians that the Clinton Administration decided to interfere with Israeli politics. At the urging of Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak hired Clinton spinmeister James Carville to manage his campaign and to topple the Netanyahu government. Carville sliced and diced Netanyahu, bringing about the downfall of the Lukid Party’s candidate in the general election. Barak, who had pledged to do the land swap for peace for Clinton, found himself at odds with the Jewish people who knew you can’t bargain with terrorists. Barak quickly lost favor, and his government collapsed.

Since Israel would much rather go to war with the Arabs than cede more land for empty promises of peace and security, the peace talks remain at an impasse. King Abdullah II seems to be the only Mideast leader who understands that hollow promises will no longer work. All of the real issues surrounding the security of Israel must be solved before the issue of a Palestinian state can even be addressed. In a discussion with King Abdullah II over the prospects of a Palestinian state on the West Bank, with East Jerusalem serving as a Palestinian capitol, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Abdullah II that Israel will never disappear and, in his opinion, it remained to be seen if a Palestinian state would ever appear. Talking on British radio, Abdullah II admitted that “...as an Arab, I don’t know whether or not there’ll be a Palestinian state.”

While it appears that King Abdullah II has taken on an impossible task, there were only three Muslim nations standing in the way of him accomplishing his objective in 2001: Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moammar Gadhafi, the king of terrorism in the 1970s, announced at a 2001 Arab Summit in Cairo that he joined King Abdullah II in favoring a pan-Arab declaration such as the one promoted by Abdullah II—providing that any treaty with Israel contained a condition that would grant the Palestinians a capitol in East Jerusalem. Since Iraq, Iran and Syria were high on America’s list of nations who sponsor terrorism, logic suggested, when the original article was written, that they might well be in George W. Bush’s crosshairs as targets that had to be crushed before America’s War on Terrorism would be construed as being over. If Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad were eliminated from the power equation—and Sunni moderates were able to take control of the Persian theocracy in Iran—it is likely that King Abdullah II’s plan to create a lasting peace in the Mideast could then be accomplished.

Since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, many of the Muslim heads of state, out of fear of American retaliation, have moderated their rhetoric. Privately, out of fear of their own clerics who control the fatwa, they support the radical extremists who use terrorism as a political tool only because they lack weapons of mass destruction to end the Israeli debate. Within their borders, America remains the Great Satan and the Jews remain a people that must be eradicated.

President George W. Bush was reluctant to publicly back King Abdullah’s grand play too loudly or too openly until he was convinced that the Hashemite king could not fail. “You can’t play that card,” Bush told Abdullah, “if there’s a chance for failure. What happens if it fails? You are going to have to wait for years...It must be 99% clear...”

A Christian world view notwithstanding, neither Bush nor his predecessors did, nor still do, realize that God has already decreed that, ultimately—in His timing— it will work. After all, it is part of God’s master plan in the end times. The plan will succeed. It appears, at least today, that the emissary who will guarantee the peace and security of Israel—and fulfill Daniel’s prophecy—will be King Abdullah II of Jordan. But, we must wait and see if some other Mideast ruler rises to the occasion and assumes that lead role. However, none of the other leaders of the Mideast have Abdullah’s pedigree...and, in the Mideast, everything has to do with who your father’s father was.

We can be certain, however, that the man—regardless how corrupt and evil he may be—will not be the Kenyan Muslim Barack Hussein Obama. While Obama is definitely a Muslim, his ancestral roots do not give him the lineage through Mohammad to Antiochus IV Epiphanes to Esau to Ishmael and, finally, to Abraham to claim the birthright to the deed of inheritance of the Promised Land. And that is, after all, what 3,919 years of conflict between the descendants of Abraham has been all about.