The enemies of Israel in Lebanon who launched thousands of rockets over the past month into northern Israel have plenty of sympathizers south of the Lebanese border. A Near East Consulting poll this month found that Arabs living under the administration of the Palestinian Authority (pa) in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem almost unanimously support Hezbollah—to the tune of 97 percent.

Reported on in two separate articles (here and here) by IsraelNationalNews.com, the poll had several telling results:

Among Christian Arabs in the pa, 95 percent said they support Hezbollah. Over 90 percent said the kidnapped Israeli soldiers should not be freed unconditionally, while 6 percent said they should never be returned.Fifty-five percent of those polled said they identify with Hezbollah’s goal of destroying Israel—11 percent more than in a previous poll a month earlier. … A majority of 54 percent of pa Arabs think that Israel controls the U.S., while 46 percent think that Israel is controlled by the U.S.

These numbers provide powerful evidence of the spillover effect of this war: Hezbollah, the best fighting force in the Arab world, has taken on mythic heroic status among Muslims for evading defeat by Israel; the Muslim community has used the war as an excuse to become more radical.

It is also worth pondering the outspoken majority support in the Palestinian Authority (55 percent, according to the poll) for the goal of destroying Israel. This is the entity to which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continuesplanning to gift significant parts of the West Bank—as Israel did the Gaza Strip last year by completely evacuating the area. The prospect of a deadly Hezbollah-type attack emanating not from Israel’s northern border, but from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, becomes all the more real.

Piece by piece, trends and events appear to be leading inexorably to the destruction of the State of Israel—an event prophesied in specific detail in the Bible. For a thorough scriptural explanation of where events are heading, consult online or order a free copy of our booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy.