Worldwatch

Tens of thousands of Gazans turned out in Gaza City on Wednesday for an anniversary rally of the ruling Hamas. It was a show of strength for the Islamic movement ahead of Palestinian general elections, tentatively set for the spring.

Speaking at the rally, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh spoke about the Palestinian desire for all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, including what is now Israel.

“We affirm that armed resistance is our strategic option and the only way to liberate our land, from the sea to the river, until the expulsion of the invaders from the holy Palestinian land,” he said in Arabic.

These are the people with whom the Palestinian Authority has just agreed to form a unity government. Clearly, with such thinking on the Palestinian side, a peace agreement with Israel is impossible. The question is, how long before an explosion in violence? Biblical prophecy foretells a violent clash that rips East Jerusalem away from Jewish control.

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Thousands of residents of Fallujah, the Iraqi city that was once a hotbed of insurgency against U.S. forces, took to the streets on Wednesday in support of the U.S. withdrawal from their country.

All U.S. troops are to be out of Iraq by December 31, though U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged the U.S. will continue to help Iraq as it faces an uncertain future in a volatile region of the world.

Those who demonstrated in Fallujah on Wednesday made their stance clear that they want U.S. troops out of Iraq sooner rather than later.

As America’s presence there shrinks and disappears, Iraq’s neighbor to the east is more than willing to fill the void. Based on scriptural prophecies, the Trumpet has forecast a dramatic increase in Iran’s influence over Iraq for nearly two decades.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday defended his decision to veto an EU treaty seeking greater fiscal oversight of national budgets.

“I make no apologies for standing up for Britain,” Mr. Cameron said.

Cameron has faced criticism from within his own Cabinet, with his deputy Nick Clegg warning that Britain risked being “a pygmy in the world,” and isolated from key decisions.

Anti-British feeling within the European Parliament after the decision has reached a new level of intensity.

The shake-out of this event will be extremely interesting. Watch for a break between Britain and Europe, something Trumpet readers have been expecting for years.