Transcript [00:00] Well, hello and welcome to the weekly [00:02] update of Israel and Christians today, [00:05] the 26th of August, 2026. [00:10] Today, we're going to talk about the [00:11] nations trampling on Jerusalem. [00:15] Three separate international deals moved [00:18] forward this week on three separate [00:20] fronts, and in each case, Israel was [00:23] either excluded from the room or [00:25] overruled inside it. A new Sunni nuclear [00:29] defense block is being formed without [00:31] Israel at the table. [00:34] Palestinian faction began began [00:36] assembling a coalition that for the [00:40] first time may seat Hamas and Islamic [00:43] Jihad inside a legitimate [00:47] recognized Palestinian parliament. [00:51] And the Gaza disarmament process has [00:55] remained insisting the gaps with Israel [00:58] were closing even as the IDF kept [01:01] finding Hamas weapons in mosques. [01:06] All of these developments remind us of [01:08] the words of Jesus concerning the end [01:10] times. Jerusalem will be trampled on by [01:14] the Gentiles until the times of the [01:16] Gentiles are fulfilled. [01:18] He said in the gospel of Luke chapter [01:22] 21, [01:24] indeed today we see the Gentile, that is [01:26] the non-Jewish nations making all kinds [01:29] of plans and agreements that affect the [01:31] future of Jerusalem. [01:34] We know this trampling will come to an [01:36] end and that the Lord will overcome the [01:38] plans of the nations that seek the [01:40] destruction of Israel. Psalm 33:10 [01:45] reminds us, "The Lord foils the plans of [01:48] the nations. He thwarts the purposes of [01:51] the peoples, but the plans of the Lord [01:54] stand firm forever, the purposes of his [01:56] heart through all generations. [02:00] So let's look at these three uh [02:02] developments each in turn. First, the [02:05] new defense pact in Mecca. Saudi [02:09] [snorts] Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan [02:11] signed a mutual defense agreement in [02:14] Mecca early August. This agreement [02:16] treats an attack on any one sign is an [02:20] attack on all three. A kind of NATO [02:23] article 5 style commitment among a block [02:26] that combines Saudi money, Pakistani [02:30] military experience, and nuclear [02:31] weapons. [02:33] and Turkeykey's army, one of NATO's [02:37] largest. [02:39] It was announced as a defensive [02:41] arrangement and it is already being read [02:43] as something else. Writing in [02:46] Gatesstone, journalist, Israeli Arab [02:49] journalist Khaled Abu Tama [02:52] traces the pact back to a trust deficit [02:56] years in the making. [02:59] He refers to the 2019 Iranian strike on [03:02] Saudi Aramco facilities and Washington's [03:06] underwhelming response to it reportedly [03:10] virtually eliminated any Saudi [03:13] confidence in the US security [03:15] commitment. [03:17] That reading, allies hedging because [03:20] they no longer believe the American [03:22] security umbrella will hold, [03:24] is now a familiar refrain in this weekly [03:28] newsletter, and it fits a pattern from [03:30] Gaza to hum of Washington managing [03:33] crisis with statements [03:35] rather than follow through. [03:38] What makes the pact more than a Gulf [03:41] insurance policy is who's in it. [03:43] Jonathan Spire of the Middle East Forum [03:46] describes the rhetoric coming out of the [03:48] Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi grouping as [03:51] jointly and extremely anti-Israel. [03:54] He flags Turkey and Qatar specifically [03:57] as practical supporters of Hamas, not [04:00] merely sympathetic bystanders. [04:03] Abu Tuama goes further raising the [04:06] pointed question of whether the [04:07] Pakistan's nuclear umbrella, the only [04:10] one in the Muslim world, could in some [04:13] future scenario extend cover to Turkey [04:16] against it Israeli retaliation. [04:20] Nothing in the agreement text says so, [04:22] but then again, nothing in the region's [04:24] recent history makes that question [04:27] unreasonable to ask. [04:30] Ellie Pod, a Hebrew University professor [04:33] writing in the Jerusalem Post, sees a [04:35] subtler danger than a shared nuclear [04:38] umbrella. He argues the old block [04:40] system, [04:42] that is, the Iranian-led axis of [04:44] resistance against a moderate sunny Arab [04:47] camp, is dissolving into a messier set [04:50] of overlapping, sometimes contradictory [04:53] alignments. [04:55] Pakistan notably maintains its own ties [04:58] with Iran even as it's now joining a [05:01] Saudiled pact aimed in part at hedging [05:05] against Iran. [05:07] New platforms like the group of eight [05:10] and the uh quartet R4 are proliferating [05:14] alongside it. Egypt telling Lee is not [05:18] party to this latest latest Mecca [05:20] agreement. [05:22] POT's concern for Israel isn't milit [05:24] military, it's exclusion. In his [05:28] analysis, Israel has been quietly [05:30] written out of the region's new [05:32] architecture altogether, [05:34] treated as a diplomatic pariah in the [05:37] post October 7 landscape, even as former [05:40] rivals build new frameworks around it. [05:45] There's a third strand to this that um [05:49] [snorts] [05:50] that must be uh must be acknowledged. [05:53] Alam of the Jerusalem Center for [05:56] Security and Foreign Affairs has written [05:59] arguing that the PC's real beneficiary [06:02] is not Riyad or Ankora or Islamabad, but [06:06] it's Beijing. China gets to expand its [06:09] footprint across the region without [06:11] taking on a single security commitment [06:13] of its own. He says, quote, "China does [06:16] not need to become the region's security [06:18] provider. It's enough for Beijing to [06:20] sell the cameras, drones, missiles, [06:22] ports, and factories." Close quote. [06:26] Pakistan's decades deep relationship [06:29] with Chinese weapons systems makes it a [06:32] built-in gateway. [06:35] The commercial numbers dwarf anything [06:36] military. Chinese trade with Saudi [06:39] Arabia and the UAE each ran roughly 108 [06:43] billion in 2025. [06:47] Islam's Reed is patient rather than [06:49] alarmed. He says China is not looking. [06:52] It is waiting. And his prescription for [06:55] Israel isn't to chase Saudi favor, but [06:57] to deepen ties with the UAE. So no [07:00] single outside power ends up holding [07:03] holding uncontested leverage over the [07:06] region. [07:08] Jonathan Spy himself has since gone [07:10] further in a separate article [07:13] for Middle East Forum on exactly what [07:15] the block is and isn't. He's skeptical [07:18] of the pack's formal military value. [07:21] There is in his assessment less than [07:23] meets the eye to the mutual defense [07:25] clause itself. He argues that this [07:28] undersells what actually matters. The [07:30] agreement formalizes and hardens a [07:33] conservative Sunni Islamist block that [07:35] already existed in practice built on [07:38] Turkey, Pakistan and Qatar as the true [07:41] core [07:43] with Saudi Arabia more reluctant hedging [07:46] participant [07:47] and Syria's new al-Shar government [07:50] folded in as a fourth. Turkey spy notes [07:53] is already building a 200,000 strong new [07:56] Syrian army controlled and staffed by [08:00] Sunni Islamist commanders. Not a [08:03] symbolic gesture, but a standing [08:05] military fact on Israel's [08:09] northern border. [08:11] Spire names three specific dangers for [08:14] Israel. first unified anti-Israel [08:17] rhetoric backed by real action since [08:19] Turkey and Qatar are alongside Iran [08:22] practical supporters of Hamas rather [08:24] than mere sympathetic voices. [08:28] Second, Jerusalem self as the blocks [08:31] unifying symbol which he warns is likely [08:34] to form the symbolic element that knits [08:36] the emergent group together. [08:39] And thirdly, the possibility that [08:41] normalization talk from some of these [08:44] same states is cover rather than [08:47] sincerity. He cites an Israeli Channel [08:49] 11 report suggesting unnamed governments [08:53] may be advising Israel toward agreements [08:56] as a delaying tactic ahead of future [08:59] conflict, not a genuine peace track. The [09:03] rhetoric backing this up is not subtle. [09:05] He quotes Erdigan of Turkey declaring [09:08] quote Zionism threatens not only me, it [09:10] threatens everyone. Close quote. And [09:13] Pakistani defense minister Kawaja Aif [09:17] openly calling for a quote unified [09:20] military front against Israel. [09:24] So putting all these arguments together, [09:26] the picture is not reassuring. a block [09:29] formed partly out of distrust of [09:32] American guarantees [09:34] and stocked with declared anti-Israel [09:37] rhetoric and practical support for Hamas [09:40] forming at the exact moment Israel is [09:43] losing a seat at the table in the [09:46] region's new diplomatic architecture and [09:49] in doing so in a way that hands China a [09:52] foothold it didn't have to fight for [09:54] while its core members build militaries [09:57] and rhetoric [09:58] explicitly aimed at Israel and rally [10:01] around Jerusalem is a unifying cause. [10:05] Whether it hardens into [10:08] the security threat that Abu Tuama and [10:11] Spy both warn of, the diplomatic [10:14] isolation Pa describes or the quiet [10:17] Chinese entrenchment that Alam sees [10:20] coming. [10:21] All four authors point the same [10:24] direction. Fewer options for Israel, [10:26] fewer allies willing to underwrite them, [10:30] and rivals who may be talking peace in [10:32] public while [snorts] planning otherwise [10:35] in private. [10:38] So, we'll move on now from that regional [10:42] uh picture to look at the Palestinians. [10:47] Uh the Palestinians are heading towards [10:49] a vote with Hamas and Islamic Jihad on [10:52] the ballot. [10:54] In 1993, Israel under Yak Rabbin and the [11:00] PLO under Yasa Arafat entered into the [11:03] Oslo Accords, creating a series of [11:06] Palestinian institutions, including the [11:09] Palestinian Authority [11:11] and the Palestinian Legislative Council. [11:15] Important to note that this did not [11:17] create a state of Palestine [11:20] simply institutions which were intended [11:23] to form the basis of Palestinian [11:27] independence and self-determination [11:30] for the past three decades. These [11:33] institutions have been controlled by the [11:35] Fatak party headed since the death of [11:38] Arafat in 2004 by Mahmud Abbas. [11:42] The exception is the Gaza Strip where in [11:45] 2006 Kamas defeated Fata in elections [11:49] and in 2007 took control of the strip in [11:52] a bloody civil war. [11:56] Since then, Abbas has managed to hold [12:00] control in the uh so-called West Bank. [12:05] [snorts] [12:05] Uh now the Palestinian Legislative [12:09] Council is due to have elections [12:11] scheduled for November the 28th. These [12:14] are the first elections since 2006, [12:18] 20 years. [12:20] And the maneuvering ahead of that date [12:22] should worry anyone tracking Israel's [12:24] security, not just Raala's politics. [12:28] Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Donna Ben [12:30] Shimon reports that rival factions met [12:33] in Cairo to build a nw wide national [12:37] list coalition [12:39] aimed squarely at unseating President [12:43] Mahmud Abbas and the official Fatah [12:46] slate. The intent was not subtle. One [12:48] Palestinian source at the talks put it [12:51] as, "We want to bring Abas down. We want [12:53] to end his dominance." [12:56] The push is led in part by Muhammad [12:58] Dalan, the exiled former Fatak security [13:01] chief who broke with the party. And this [13:04] matters structurally as well as [13:06] politically. Under Palestinian law, the [13:08] largest block in the new parliament gets [13:10] the right to form the next government. [13:13] Abas is not seeding the field quietly. [13:15] His de deputy Hussein al-Shik has led a [13:20] counter delegation to Cairo [13:23] of his own. [13:27] What turns this from an internal power [13:30] struggle into a security story is who [13:32] else is reportedly inside that [13:34] coalition. [13:36] Gate's Khaled Abu Tuame reports that [13:39] Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad [13:43] PIG are joining the anti-abbas alliance. [13:46] The first time that the PI has ever [13:51] taken part in a Palestinian [13:54] parliamentary election. Abu Tuama's [13:57] argument is that nothing about either [13:59] group's ideology has changed since they [14:02] last had power. Hamas won 74 of 132 [14:07] seats in the 2006 election, the last one [14:12] that the Palestinians have held, and [14:15] used the mandate it followed followed to [14:17] violently seize Gaza from the uh Fatar [14:21] by force in 2007. [14:24] pushing aside the Palestinian Authority. [14:27] Running inside a coalition list rather [14:29] than as an outright party does not [14:32] rewrite that history. He argues it risks [14:34] doing the opposite, handing [14:37] organizations that reject Israel's [14:39] existence outright a fresh claim to [14:43] democratic democratic legitimacy. He [14:46] quotes Palestinian American analyst [14:48] Ahmed Fawad al-Katib who argues that [14:53] Hamas must never again be trusted with [14:56] Palestinian politics and should face a [14:59] postdefeat reckoning before any return [15:02] to the table and closes on his own line [15:05] in the sand. Unless the answer to all [15:08] these questions is unequivocably yes, [15:12] terrorists should have no role in [15:14] elections, government or Palestinian [15:16] decisionmaking. [15:19] These articles almost read like two [15:22] halves of the same file. Ben Shimon's [15:25] reporting is the mechanics. [15:28] Abos against Dalan. Cairo is the venue, [15:31] the legal lever of the largest block [15:33] forms government. Abu Tuama supplies the [15:36] warning underneath it that 2006 is the [15:39] president that nobody seems to be [15:41] reckoning with. An internationally [15:44] blessed election handed Hamas a [15:46] parliamentary majority and a year later [15:49] that majority became a bloody takeover [15:51] of Gaza. If [snorts] Hamas and Islamic [15:55] Jihad end up inside a winning coalition [15:58] this November instead of sitting outside [16:01] it, the question is not only who runs [16:04] the Palestinian Authority, it's whether [16:06] the same script that produced the [16:09] tragedy in Gaza in 2007 is now being [16:13] written for the West Bank. In other [16:16] words, Hamas may take control under this [16:19] scenario of Judea and Samaria and [16:22] potentially even East Jerusalem. This [16:24] would be an enormous [16:26] security [16:28] risk for Israel. Not only for Israel, [16:31] but for many, many other countries. [16:36] So, we move on now to look at the Gaza [16:39] Strip. The diplomatic track on Gaza is [16:42] running on a familiar script. an [16:45] American broker plan that gets announced [16:47] as a breakthrough and the details [16:49] underneath do not hold up under [16:51] scrutiny. [16:54] You'll recall that uh under the [16:56] ceasefire so-called ceasefire that [16:59] President Trump announced [17:02] uh the board of peace was established [17:05] headed by the Russian Nikolai Mladenov. [17:10] This has most recently produced a [17:13] 15-point road map for Gaza's post-war [17:16] governance and reconstruction [17:19] built on Trump's late July announcement [17:21] of what he called a historic agreement [17:25] on Hamas disarmament to unfold in [17:28] carefully structured phases. By the way, [17:32] we've seen this rhetoric of carefully [17:34] structured phrases phases before. We saw [17:37] it in the Oslo agreements [17:40] was also intended to be rolled out in [17:42] phases and that has produced disaster [17:47] uh by embedding Hamas and other [17:51] radical Islamist terrorist groups within [17:54] Palestinian [17:56] uh areas. [17:58] US envoy Jared Kushner met Hamas [18:01] delegates in Cairo on August 16 [18:05] alongside Tony Blair and Vladengh [18:08] reportedly telling them flatly that [18:10] there is quote no room for negotiations [18:13] on the disarmament close quote while [18:16] also thanking Hamas for returning the [18:18] remains of deceased hostages and pushing [18:21] back on their complaints about ongoing [18:23] Israeli operations. The core demand is [18:26] total. Hamas must surrender governing [18:28] authority and all weapons and military [18:31] infrastructure under the ceasefire [18:33] agreement. A board of peace source [18:36] described the gap between the board's [18:38] position and Israel's as trivial. No [18:42] significant gap, but [18:45] Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu does [18:47] not see it that way. On August the 9th, [18:50] he publicly rejected the 15-point plan. [18:54] His government's line has been [18:55] unambiguous since then. The IDF, he [18:57] said, will not carry out any withdrawal [18:59] until Hamas is genuinely disarmed. [19:03] That's a direct contradiction [19:06] of the Board of Peacees claim that there [19:08] are no gaps between Israel's position [19:11] and that of the board. On the ground, [19:14] Israeli IDF [19:16] 188th Brigade has been dismantling Hamas [19:20] weapons infrastructure hidden inside [19:22] mosques and humanitarian sites east of [19:26] the yellow line in southern Gaza, [19:29] including Kalashnikov rifles concealed [19:32] inside mosques. [19:34] Israel's envoy in Washington later [19:38] called the discovery a violation of [19:40] international law and put it plainly. [19:41] This is not disarmament. He said [19:44] [snorts] [19:44] Jonathan Spire's latest analysis written [19:47] for the Middle East forum supplies the [19:51] explanation for why the diplomatic and [19:54] ground truth pictures do not match and [19:56] it's not reassuring. [19:58] Spy argues that Hamas has run a [20:01] deliberate delay strategy from the [20:04] start. building on the one lever. It [20:06] knew Israel could not ignore the safe [20:09] return of civilian captives is a [20:11] non-negotiable part of the state of [20:13] Israel's contract with its citizens. [20:15] Hamas was aware of this and exploited it [20:17] to buy itself time. [20:20] 2 years and roughly 1,250 Palestinian [20:23] deaths since the October 25 ceasefire [20:26] later. [20:29] According to the Gaza Health Ministry, [20:32] Hamas remains [20:34] inspires assessment the dominant force [20:36] in Gaza, battered but still intact. His [20:40] read on the current phase is that Hamas [20:42] is playing for time, announcing its [20:44] acceptance of the 15point plan while [20:47] disputing the sequencing of its [20:49] implementation, aiming to shed the [20:51] appearance of exclusive governing [20:53] authority while quietly preserving its [20:56] core structures. as a political movement [20:58] backed by a clanderstein armed wing in [21:01] the Gaza Strip. He's equally unsparing [21:04] about the American side of the process, [21:08] describing the Kushner Blair Menardonov [21:12] diplomacy is engineered to quote rapidly [21:14] enable a declaration from Trump that the [21:17] conflict in question is at an end all [21:20] the while ignoring the underlying [21:22] dynamics that triggered them in the [21:23] first place. Close quote. Spy states [21:28] directly that the plan's exchange of [21:30] Hamas disarmament for a phased Israeli [21:33] bullback is a li to a limited buffer [21:35] zone contradicts Israel's security [21:38] interests as perceived by the current [21:41] government. [21:43] So read together, the pattern is hard to [21:45] dismiss. A board of peace insisting that [21:49] gaps are closing, an Israeli government [21:51] publicly rejecting the very plan that [21:55] claim rests on. An army finding weapons [21:58] in mosques, and an analyst on the ground [22:01] arguing the entire sequencing exists to [22:04] let Washington declare victory rather [22:06] than to actually disarm Hamas. If Spire [22:10] is right that Hamas is negotiating on [22:12] the calendar rather than the substance, [22:15] then no significant gaps is not a [22:18] description of where the two sides [22:20] stand. It's a description of how badly [22:22] the diplomatic framing wants to get [22:24] there before reality in the Gaza Strip [22:28] does. [22:30] All of these developments continue to [22:33] remind us that the nations in their [22:36] ignorance and pride continue to trample [22:39] on Jerusalem as Jesus predicted. [22:42] This is a continuing sign of the future [22:45] gathering of the nations against [22:47] Jerusalem when the Lord himself will [22:48] intervene to protect his people and [22:50] destroy those nations. [snorts] Amidst [22:53] these threatening developments, it is [22:56] important not to forget that the Lord [22:58] continues to work to fulfill his [23:00] purposes. As promised through the [23:03] prophets, he is restoring the people of [23:04] Israel to the land, especially [23:07] Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria as a sign [23:10] to the nations that he alone is God. In [23:13] doing so, he's dealing with his people [23:15] turning their hearts of stone into [23:17] hearts of flesh. It's a complicated [23:21] process looked at from a worldly [23:23] perspective. [23:25] Um, but from God's perspective, [23:29] everything moves towards the fulfillment [23:32] of his goal. Pray this week for Israel [23:38] and for her leaders in the weeks leading [23:40] up to elections in Israel. [snorts] Pray [23:42] that discernment would prevail over the [23:44] diplomatic pressure to declare peace [23:47] before peace is real. [23:50] Pray for the enemies of the Jewish [23:52] people, for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, for [23:55] the architects of new alliances built on [23:57] old hatreds. That hearts of stone will [24:00] be turned to flesh. [24:04] Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for [24:06] the Jewish people who are asked again [24:08] and again to trust agreements that keep [24:11] proving hollow. [24:13] and pray for the speeding coming of the [24:15] Messiah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who [24:17] alone can deliver the security and peace [24:19] that no pact, no coalition, and no board [24:22] has yet managed or can manage to [24:25] provide. [24:27] So, we come to the end of this week's uh [24:30] update. Thank you so much for listening. [24:34] We wish you um blessed days and weekend [24:39] ahead and [24:41] look forward to seeing you next week. [24:44] Thank you so much. God bless.
