Will NATO soon invade Jerusalem?
The UN Set A Precedent In Kosovo
Consider the Alarming Parallels in Two Regional Conflicts
Setting the Stage for Armageddon
By Ken Raggio
Originally written May, 1999, Updated 2009 (and still convincing)
Will the NATO handling of the Serbian crisis serve as the precedent for a NATO resolution in Jerusalem? The question begs an answer, because it may define the Antichrist strategy for the takeover of Jerusalem.
My purpose here is not to pass a political judgment of the Serbian conflict. I am certainly no authority on the history of the Balkan region. However, there are some fundamental global precedents being set here that I believe anyone who is interested in the Middle East crisis should take a warning from.
This regional crisis is a disturbing example of international interference and dominance over local people and nations. By examining the trends here, we can fairly speculate on the trends we are very likely to see develop in the Middle East, particularly in Jerusalem, Israel.
NATO's invasion of Yugoslavia was a major historical event that few people are aware of, much less of the global impact on sovereign nations everywhere, and furthermore, on the implications for the future of Israel.
The crisis centers on the region of Kosovo. Most Americans know very little, if anything, about Kosovo. It is impossible to appreciate the significance of these events without comprehending some basic important historical facts about that region.
HISTORY OF THE KOSOVAR REGION
In its oldest history, Kosovo, Yugoslavia was sparsely inhabited by Latins of the Roman Empire and Slavic people (Indo-European). The religion of the people was mostly pagan.
THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH
Serbs began to settle in and dominate the region of Kosovo in the sixth and seventh centuries AD.
From the ninth century, it was proselytized by two "Holy Brothers" Cytil and Methodius, followed by five of their disciples in the tenth century.
Eastern Europe soon became a strong-hold for the Orthodox Eastern Church, which had broken away from Rome as early as the fifth century.
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the strongest local churches of all Eastern Orthodoxy. A Serbian Kingdom was finally born in the mid-thirteenth century, and it was the strongest of the Balkan states.
Kosovo is a holy region for Serbians. Hundreds of impressive churches and monasteries were built all over Kosovo over a period of about
eight hundred years. Orthodoxy was the heart and soul of the Serbian people.
One historian declares, "For Serbs, Kosovo is holy ground. It is the cradle of our nation. It was the centre of Serbia's empire of the Middle Ages, at one time the strongest empire in the Balkans."
OTTOMAN MUSLIMS
Then, in 1389, the MUSLIM Ottoman Sultan Murad 1 defeated a European coalition of Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Wallachian armies. The Orthodox Eastern Church began to be attacked and persecuted by its new Muslim oppressors.
Muslims ruled Serbia from 1389 until 1829, when it regained its autonomy and its religious freedoms.
Later in the century, the Ottoman Empire was dismembered, and the Balkan states experienced continual upheavals as various rulers struggled for power in the newly independent states.
In spite of political changes, however, the Muslim element was never fully displaced.
The entire region entered into more than a century of violent upheavals between Orthodox Christians and Muslim warring factions. It has all culminated in the modern conflicts we have read and heard about in our daily news.
ORTHODOXY VS ISLAM
The modern crisis in Kosovo is merely the continuation of hundreds of years of strife between Orthodoxy and Muslim forces. The Serbian culture viciously defends its native heritage and never ceases to attempt to remove all Muslim and non-Serbian influence from its region.
Many people believe that the Kosovo Liberation Army is strongly supported by Iranian-backed terrorist organizations. It is because of the relentless feuds between Serbians and Moslems that international intervention (including the United Nations and NATO) has become a
reality.
UN/NEW WORLD ORDER TO TAKE OVER, INTERNATIONALIZE REGION
A very frightening precedent has been made in the NATO attacks of Kosovo, that every freedom-loving citizen should be aware of.
Yugoslavia wanted to remove all (mostly Muslim) Albanians from Kosovo, but NATO FORCED President Milosovich to yield to an International
Peace-Keeping Force (under the auspices of the United Nations) to operate in Kosovo, to assure that additional civil wars and strife could be averted. In the end, Yugoslavia LOST ITS SOVEREIGNTY over Kosovo.
NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was founded after World War II for the DEFENSIVE purpose of protecting Eastern Europe from any possible Communist Soviet aggressions.
NATO has NEVER engaged in a military OFFENSIVE prior to the war in Kosovo. The news reports told us that Yugoslavia was REDUCED TO SHAMBLES by NATO aggressions. That is not a happy development for lovers of national sovereignty.
PARALLELS BETWEEN KOSOVO AND JERUSALEM
In many ways, Kosovo is to the Serbians what Jerusalem is to the Jews. The parallels between these two regional conflicts is disturbing at the least.
In both cases, a region with ancient Judeo-Christian roots had been invaded by Muslim forces in the middle ages. In both cases, the Judeo-Christian forces went to war to take back their ancient homelands. In both cases, the United Nations (predominately Muslim) is acting to intervene in behalf of the Muslim factions to prevent the retaking of these regions by Judeo-Christians.
There are countless political dynamics at work in this international conflict which cannot be addressed here. One particular issue, however, seems to be noteworthy.
Regardless of the atrocities that now-deceased Yugoslav President Slobadon Milosovich committed against Kosovar Albanians (which no decent person should approve of), we are observing a frightening precedent being set as NATO has taken upon itself the power and authority to impose its will upon the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia.
NATO IS EXPANDING ITS MILITARY INFLUENCE
We now have a European aggressor (NATO and its allies) who will more than likely continue to expand its authority and military jurisdiction again and again in future conflicts within that particular region of the world.
NATO IS THE UNITED NATIONS' DE FACTO MILITARY ARM
Additionally, there is a virtually silent partner in the United Nations who mysteriously has done precious little to prevent NATO from operating unilaterally against Yugoslavia. One might have plenty of reason to believe that NATO is actually exercising its military muscle with the United
Nations' tacit approval. If that is correct, then one might further conclude that NATO is now functioning as the de facto army/navy/air force of the UN/NWO! There are many observers who have already reached that conclusion.
Palestinian Authority Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman told reporters in 1999 that "the war in Yugoslavia is a sign of a new development in international relations, by which the international community uses force to impose international agreements."
NATO CONSIDERS INTERVENING IN JERUSALEM?
The significance of this operation in the light of Bible prophecy is that NATO might soon be called into another conflict of very similar proportions. THE MIDDLE EAST.
While Ariel Sharon was Foreign Minister of Israel, he expressed concerns that the West would intervene against Israel as it did in
Yugoslavia. Journalist Bradley Antolovich reported that Italy's ambassador to Israel, Gian Paolo Cavarai, raised such a possibility during a meeting of diplomats with Mr. Sharon. Sharon admitted that Israel's Arab minority might call for autonomy in the future, and, as a senior government source put it, "the West would consider Yugoslavia a precedent to intervene in our part of the region." So, there you have it.
THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF JERUSALEM
The European Union does NOT consider Jerusalem to be under Israel’s jurisdiction. The EU says that Jerusalem is an "occupied territory." The EU, from early days, supported the idea of an independent Palestinian State, and support for the late Yassar Arafat and the Palestinian Authority has continued to receive preferential treatment from Europe. But Arafat and all his successors demand that East Jerusalem, if not
ALL of Jerusalem, must be its capitol.
In the final showdown between Israel and Palestine over the "Jerusalem issue," the world community is already on record as supporting the INTERNATIONALIZATION of Jerusalem. In other words, we have an international war in the makings. Neither Israel nor Palestine will be given authority over Jerusalem.
Much like the Kosovo crisis, where neither the Serbians nor the Albanians will ultimately win, Jerusalem is going to be embroiled in an international war, where either the UN or NATO will become the superpower in control.
PALESTINIANS CALL FOR NATO'S INTERVENTION
In my article, "Is Ezekiel's War Armageddon?" I stated on December 18, 1998 that I believed that Yassar Arafat might actually call on NATO to intervene in the Middle East crisis. Then it happened. Palestinian Authority Cabinet Secretary Abdul Rahman said in 1999 that "we must make
it clear that what is happening in Yugoslavia must serve as a lesson to Israel to withdraw from its current policies before something similar happens to it as is now taking place in Yugoslavia."
Rahman then added, "We will ask the international community to intervene to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and to expel the settlers from it."
When the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia was over, Abdel Rahman said, the West will be confronted with the question: "What about the Palestinian people. What will you do for them?" (ICEJ) (From News from Jerusalem, 4/17/99, Bradley Antolovich).
According to Israeli news Arutz 7, Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, commander of the Saudi Arabian army during the Gulf War, called on Washington to take the same tough stance against Israel that it was taking against Serbia.
Barry Chamish, a controversial Israeli author and commentator, observed that shortly before NATO began its attack on Kosovo, Israeli Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Berlin meeting with members of the European Union. He was warned in that meeting not to stand in the way of a PLO state with East Jerusalem as its capital. So what will happen if Israel does stand in the way? Remember Kosovo.
Now, as of March, 2009, Netanyahu is back in the lead role in Israeli politics, and the European Union, via Javier Solana and the Czech President have issued new and fresh public ultimatums against Netanyahu, warning that he had better not stand in the way of declaring Palestinian Statehood, at the risk of grave consequences, beginning with harsh EU sanctions.
Kosovo was only the beginning. Since that time NATO has established a major military offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which they appear to be losing. Lose or win, however, the precedent is set. NATO will go wherever it wants to go, and do whatever it wants to do, and sovereign nations will have little recourse to do anything to prevent it.
BIBLICAL IMPLICATIONS
We are witnessing the making of the long-prophesied conflict between the nations of the earth and Jesus Christ Himself. The Bible plainly describes the upcoming Battle of Armageddon. Revelation 19:19,
"And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army."
At some point in this conflict, Jesus Christ will return to defend Jerusalem when this stunning international military aggression takes place.
Joel 3:2 describes the gathering of armies:
"I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, [which runs through Jerusalem] and will plead with them
there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land."
Friends, we are seeing the early stages of this very war taking place before our eyes. The United Nations and NATO will soon turn their attention to Jerusalem. We are likely to see several small military "peace-keeping" exercises in Jerusalem in advance of the final showdown at Armageddon.
Additionally, Ezekiel prophesied that God would put a HOOK in Russia's jaw, and draw them into this battle as well.
This is a strange development in modern times, because prior to the war in Kosovo, NATO existed to defend Eastern Europe against Russian aggression. But in the end game, Russia will play along beside NATO in establishing Palestinian/Arab/Muslim intentions against Israel. This should be convincing evidence that both Russia and NATO are operatives of the New World Order.
The Associated Press reported on April 21, 1999, that former Russian Ambassador Vladimir Gougev told Egypt's Middle East News Agency, "There is no choice but to declare a Palestinian state. Russia will strongly support the declaration of a Palestinian state at any time the PA chooses."
Alliances with and commitments to the Palestinian Authority appears to be the HOOK in Russia's jaw (Ezekiel 38:4) that will draw them down into the Battle of Armageddon.
Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin negotiated with NATO to bring an end to the NATO-Serbia conflict. Could it be that NATO and Russia will soon stick their noses into the NATO - Jerusalem crisis for a definitive conclusion?
In 2008, Russia aggressively moved southward into the state of Georgia, planting its troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia provinces, establishing a dominant military presence there. I believe that Russia is right now staging the battle of Armageddon.
Please read my online article, "Is Ezekiel's War Armageddon?"
The headlines in coming months are destined to be more Biblical than anything we have seen before this time.
As I write this, the G-20 is scheduled to meet in two weeks, where observers expect to hear a strong call for a new global currency - a predecessor to the Mark of the Beast. All these developments perfectly fit Biblical warnings dating back thousands of years. We are living in the most significant times in the history of the world. If you are not a true Bible believer, and born-again Christian, I urge you to consider your eternal fate and make preparations now for the greatest upheavals the world has ever seen.
Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is in complete control of the outcome. Be certain that He is in complete control of your future as well.
God bless you,
Ken Raggio
