To William Koenig, evangelical Christian author and White House correspondent, juxtaposition of events catastrophic events and pressure on Israel are related and show God at work
By Alan D. Abbey
TEL AVIV - In 1991, as then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush addressed an historic conference on the Middle East in Madrid, Spain, a 'Nor'easter' of such historic and unique proportions it was called the "perfect storm " gathered in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The storm sent 11-meter (35-foot) high walls of water crashing down on Bush's Kennebunkport, Maine, home as it lashed New England . In fact, Bush's first stop in the U.S. on his way home from Madrid was to the family compound to assess the damage.
To William Koenig, an evangelical Christian author and White House correspondent, the juxtaposition of the two events - the Madrid conference, which put pressure on Israel, and the "perfect storm" - was no coincidence. Koenig sees the hand of God in that incident and countless others he has gathered in his new book, "Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel."
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According to Koenig, nine of the 10 largest disasters by amount of insurance payout, six of the seven costliest hurricanes, three of the four largest tornado outbreaks and the two largest terror incidents in U.S. history all occurred precisely after the U.S. and other countries pressured Israel to make concessions on land and in other ways to the Palestinians.
Biblical perspective
"The question is why?" Koenig said in an interview in Tel Aviv, during a visit to promote the book, which he has also published in Hebrew and is trying to get into bookstores in Israel. "The wrath and fury is building in the God of Israel as he sees his people put in indefensible borders, as he sees the land of Israel he gave (to the Israelites) given up to Palestinian interests. Jerusalem is being considered for division. We see a Biblical significance that is transpiring that will all build up until the Messiah returns to Jerusalem."
Koenig said he came to view current events in a biblical perspective about eight years ago, during a period of intensive Bible study as he dealt with crumbling real estate investments during an economic downturn in his home state of Texas.
He said his pastor told him he should pay attention to events in Jerusalem, Israel and the Middle East if he wanted to understand what was happening in the world.
"I dug into the Bible, and saw signs of the Final Days in the Old and New Testaments," he said. "I developed an incredible interest in what is happening in Israel."
He left real estate and began producing a weekly and then daily newsletter he began faxing to evangelicals across the U.S. By 1996 he had purchased an Internet domain and transferred his operations to the web.
After George W. Bush's election as president in 2000, Koenig said he felt a calling to move to the U.S. capital and continue his operations there.
'Supersessionism'
"The need to stand by Israel came straight to my heart from the Lord," he said. "Not to grow my business, but to be a watchman on the wall, to stand by Israel."
A Texas connection at the White House helped Koenig get press credentials, and his news service expanded from there. His weekly fax became a news report updated seven days a week. He began collating what he sees as the evidence of God's hand in human catastrophes as they relate to pressure on Israel to make concessions.
That goes hand in hand with his efforts to educate Christians about what he sees as a longstanding error in mainstream Christian theology, the philosophy that Christ and Christianity have "replaced" Jews and Judaism as the apple of God's eye, and that Jews and the nation of Israel have been pushed to the margins of human history. Some reference sources call it "supersessionism ," and that belief is widely held among evangelicals.
From the third century CE, Koenig said, this theology has guided the Christian Church, including Roman emperor Constantine, and has led to the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust.
"One hundred million American churchgoers have no understanding of Bible prophecy," Koenig said. "They don't learn about it in church and consequently don't see the importance of what is going on in Israel today."
Koenig said he can understand the short-term, practical benefits being sought by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in initiating the impending disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank.
Bible verses
But Koenig preferred to rely on Bible verses to set out the current political situation. He cited Joel 3:2, which Christians believe suggests God's judgment will fall on those who have "scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land" and Genesis 15, in which God tells Abraham the boundaries of his future peoples' land will run from "the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River" (meaning the Euphrates).
"No Israeli Prime Minister and no U.S. president has the right to determine the boundaries of the covenantal land of Israel," Koenig said. "What is being negotiated is the biblical heartland of Israel - Judea and Samaria. There are practical benefits, but in the long term, it is a big mistake. The Bible speaks that there will be consequences."
He said he has had his self-published book translated into Hebrew because events here, of course, affect Israeli Jews, and he wants to "get them to feel the consequences of what they are doing." He and his wife Claudia are attempting to get the books into Israeli bookstores and will promote it on his website.
Koenig said the pace of global events, to his view, is accelerating to the point that these apocalyptic "consequences" may be on the horizon - and not on a galactic timescale.
"I sense it will be in our lifetime," he said. "There has been a rapid acceleration in the last seven to eight months with key biblical markers." |
