WorldWatch
Middle East
Yemen’s Houthi terror group has been ramping up attacks against its neighbors. Bloomberg reported that the Houthis engaged with Saudi forces in Saudi Arabia’s southern province of Jazan late October 2023, killing four Saudi soldiers. This was the first time since last April that Saudis died fighting the Houthis, after which both sides began peace negotiations.
The Houthis also entered the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 19 when they launched three cruise missiles toward Israel. On October 31, the Houthis formally declared war and launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel’s Red Sea coast. This was the first time ballistic missiles have been fired at Israel since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did so in 1991.
Whether against Saudi Arabia or Israel, the Houthis are getting bolder and pushier. The Houthis are backed by Iran. When their power increases, Iran’s power in Yemen and the Red Sea increases.
“The Houthis’ takeover of Yemen was not just a grassroots revolution,” editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote for the April 2015 Trumpet issue. “It was a part of a deliberate and calculated Iranian strategy to conquer the Red Sea. … Iran is aggressively securing its foreign holdings along the Red Sea—and boasting about how it could use them!”
Qatar brokered a “humanitarian pause” between Israel and Hamas on November 22. The pause involved Hamas releasing 50 Israeli civilian hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. The agreement included a pause in fighting for four days. Israel also promised extra days in the pause for every 10 extra hostages released. This was the first successful diplomatic agreement between Israel and Hamas since the war began on October 7. That temporary ceasefire ended on December 1.
Before the war, Qatar had been giving Gaza hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of supplies for years. Israel knows Qatari financing is one reason Hamas has become as powerful as it has. It is unlikely Israel will see Qatar as a friend anytime soon. But as the war drags on, Qatar has become one of the few outside parties that both sides are willing to listen to. Israel’s end goal is to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. Once this happens, Israel may let Qatar step back in to reconstruct the territory.
Psalm 83 is a prophecy of an end-time alliance formed to “cut [Israel] off from being a nation” (verse 4). The Ishmaelites (the ancestors of the Qataris and other Gulf Arabs) and the Philistines (the ancient inhabitants of Gaza today) are listed as members of the alliance (verses 6-7). Israel may look to “moderate” Arab states like Qatar to assist in bringing peace with the Palestinians today. But Israel is walking into a trap. Read “A Mysterious Prophecy” to learn more.
Europe
The issue of migration has been on Europeans’ minds in recent months. Geert Wilders, known for speaking out against the Islamification of Europe, shocked the world in November 2023 by winning 37 out of 150 parliamentary seats and a shot at becoming prime minister of the Netherlands. The Associated Press characterized it as “one of the biggest political upsets” in the country since World War II. The Washington Post reported it with the headline “Europe’s Far Right Goes Mainstream.” This came after the Swiss People’s Party won 62 out of 200 seats in October, solidifying its dominant majority in Switzerland’s parliament.
Meanwhile, Denmark is addressing 15 communities that have a majority of non-Western residents and that have low income, low education, high unemployment or high crime. It is resettling residents who are mostly Muslim, and renovating, selling or even demolishing taxpayer-funded housing in an effort to keep these “ghettos” from developing into parallel societies where inhabitants refuse to assimilate into European culture. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden signed an agreement on Oct. 31, 2023, to work together to deport migrants. France announced the same month that it will no longer wait for permission from the European Court of Human Rights and is even willing to break European Union human rights laws if necessary in order to deport potentially dangerous immigrants.
In countries that have not taken action, anger is rising. Riots erupted in the city center of Dublin, Ireland, on Nov. 23, 2023, after a man who was originally from Algeria stabbed three schoolchildren ages 5 and 6, as well as an adult. About 500 people rioted, burning vehicles and looting shops.
Immigration was also a top headline in Germany after a Nov. 18, 2023, soccer game between the visiting Turkish national team and the German national team in Berlin. The crowd of tens of thousands booed when German players touched the ball. Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, wrote that “in our capital, it was not a home game but an away game. This ‘away game’ unfortunately says so much about us in 2023! About our embarrassing reticence when it comes to passion for our country. About our sluggishness when it comes to being proud: of our democracy, our values, our prosperity.”
Migration is a genuine problem in Europe, but Europeans’ reaction to it will have far greater consequences. (Read “Europe’s Altered Personality.”)
At the same time, Germany published a new military strategy paper on Nov. 9, 2023. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “Today, nobody can seriously doubt what we in Germany have been avoiding for a long time, namely that we need a powerful Bundeswehr.” Using a word denoting the major changes in German military spending and policy announced last year, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, “With the zeitenwende, Germany becomes a grown-up country in terms of security policy. … As the most populous and an economically strong country at the heart of Europe, Germany must be the backbone of deterrence and collective defense in Europe.” The strategy aims to reverse “decades of neglect” and overcome “bureaucratic sluggishness” to make German and European militaries “war-ready.” Read our Trends article about Europe militarizing.
Asia
The nations of Asia continue to rally behind Russia. Russia and Myanmar rehearsed for war from Nov. 7 to 9, 2023, with the first-ever joint drills between their navies. The two nations have been comrades for over a decade, and ever since Myanmar’s military ousted its democratically elected government in 2021, Russia has increasingly supported the junta leadership with weapons deals and diplomatic backing. Myanmar’s generals have returned the favor by often endorsing Russia’s foreign-policy objectives. Analysts believe November’s war games, involving both airborne and naval units, demonstrate Russia’s determination to make Myanmar a close military partner.
As the war games were underway, Kazakhstan hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin for a November 9 visit intended to better align trade and foreign policy. A bombshell report by the Diplomat two weeks earlier showed that Kazakhstan is helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions by boosting trade with proxy companies of sanctioned Russian businesses. Through these companies, Kazakhstan supplies militarily useful items to Russia. Kazakhstan also allows Russia to convert its currency to the Kazakh currency for free, equating to nearly unrestricted Russian access to Kazakhstan’s currency market. “Essentially, Kazakhstan is becoming a kind of ‘piggy bank’ for Russia that can be broken open at an opportune moment,” the Diplomat wrote. This arrangement causes the Kazakh people to suffer rampant inflation, but the nation’s leaders are under tight control from Russia, and they are getting tighter.
A Nov. 15, 2023, report by the Atlantic Council showed that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is being supplied by a surge in China’s exports to Russia, including huge numbers of excavation equipment useful to the military, such as digging trenches. China is also sending unprecedented quantities of large trucks, non-agricultural tractors, semiconductors, ball bearings and commercial drones.
On November 14, Russia signed a major deal with India to significantly increase Russian weapons sold to the nation. As part of the deal, Russia will supply India with Igla-S man-portable air defense systems and allow Indian firms to manufacture the weapons under license. India strives to portray itself as an ally of Western democracies, but like Myanmar, Kazakhstan, China and other Asian states, it did not allow its relationship with Russia to deteriorate when Russia shredded international law by invading Ukraine and committing atrocities there. These nations are still willing to cooperate closely with Moscow, even in sensitive defense matters.
The Bible prophesies that Russia will unite Asia under its rule and form the largest military alliance in history. To learn more about this extraordinary biblical forecast, request your free copy of our booklet The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia.’
Anglo-America
If anyone needed more proof that America’s corporate media is motivated by animus against Donald Trump, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco on Nov. 14, 2023, highlights the Democrats’ sympathy for Communist dictators.
Three days before China’s dictator arrived in America, President Trump promised to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” The leftist media equated the statement to the dehumanizing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Even when leftist Joe Biden admitted publicly that Xi is a dictator, the media sided not with Biden but with Xi, a literal Communist dictator whose one-party regime interferes with American governance abroad and currently operates at least 380 actual concentration camps.
The Prophet Isaiah foretold that God would send a foreign nation against America and Britain because of their double standards and moral hypocrisy (Isaiah 10:5-6). Another example of such hypocrisy is Joe Biden’s pick for America’s new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Sept. 29, 2023, Gen. Charles Brown succeeded Gen. Mark Milley as America’s top military officer. Like the top news executives, he supports the neo-Marxist movement Black Lives Matter, which has called for quotas to limit the proportion of white male officers to 43 percent.
No wonder so few Americans want to join the military. Isaiah also prophesied that God would deprive end-time America’s armed forces of the “mighty man,” the “man of war” and “the captain of fifty.” The Wall Street Journal now predicts that the U.S. military will fall drastically short of its enlisting goals this year—15,000 short in the Army, 10,000 in the Navy and 3,000 in the Air Force.
America’s leaders are too caught up in their own perversions to solve these crises. On November 8, federal prosecutors charged three Asian men with prostituting women to professionals and politicians leading the nation. “This commercial sex ring was built on secrecy and exclusivity, catering to wealthy and well-connected clientele,” said Joshua Levy, acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. “They are doctors; they are lawyers; they’re accountants; they are executives at high-tech companies, pharmaceutical companies; they’re military officers, government contractors, professors, scientists. Pick a profession, they’re probably represented in this case.”
America’s depravity runs deep. Several scriptures prophesied this extreme immorality, but Ezekiel 8:10-12 singled out the abominable things done by the elders “of the house of Israel” in the dark corridors of power.
