Review of 2003
(Signs of the Time - December 2003)
As we move toward a new year and leave an old one behind, this month’s article looks back at the year, reviewing pertinent events leading up to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gulf War II
The current occupation of
Iraq is reshaping this entire dynamic political region giving the United
States increasing influence.
The Stratfor-on-line web site illustrates the changing dynamics in the region: “For the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Tehran and Washington have common interests that could allow for detente. A U.S.-Iranian alliance, however improbable at this stage, could soon become a reality.
“Arab states -- including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria -- have limited options in their bilateral relationships with Washington. The United States is the largest trading partner for both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Cairo receives more than $1 billion in military aid each year, and Riyadh -- though no longer Washington’s most favored Arab partner -- still has billions tied to the U.S. economy. Syria, impoverished in comparison to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, has been in the U.S. sights since the invasion of Iraq and thus far has been unable to gain Washington’s confidence or trust.
“Other Arab countries -- such as Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- are in Washington’s back pocket. Even Libya, a stalwart schizophrenic that seemed to relish its rogue status, has reached an agreement with the United States over the Lockerbie bombing and is mostly keeping mum about the U.S. occupation of Iraq.”
Another point of interest is that it has recently been revealed that in 1994, Iran engineered the bombing of the Argentinean Jewish Center. The November 7, 2003, New York Times reported: “Testifying in a public setting for the first time, a defector from Iran’s intelligence agency has accused a group of senior government officials in Tehran of having ‘led, orchestrated and executed’ a bomb attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina that killed 85 people and wounded 200 almost a decade ago.”
Diminishing Jewish
population
The Jewish population in the
United States has traditionally had much impact on the direction of the
nation. However, in the past decade, the Jewish population has not only
decreased it has also diminished as a result of intermarriage. As a result,
the Jewish vote does not count as much as it did ten years ago. On October
9, 2003, the National Jewish Population survey was released (as reported in
USA Today). The survey found that the American Jewish population has
declined from 5.5-million Jews in 1990 to 5.2-million Jews in 2001. One of
the most startling facts of the survey indicated that some 47% of the Jews
who have married since 1996 were married to a non-Jew. The drop in the
Jewish population is most notable in the New York City area. In 1957, the
Jewish population in New York was more than 2 million, meaning one in four
New Yorkers were Jews; today, it’s about one in eight.
While we are right in the middle of the events of the last days, it is often difficult to see the forest for the trees. Yet more than ever the Mid-East is at center stage in world events, which it will be immediately prior to our Lord’s return. Even so come Lord Jesus.
George Rayner