‘To Jerusalem We Go …’

Awad Awad/AFP/Getty Images

‘To Jerusalem We Go …’

The Trumpet has long identified Jerusalem as radical Islam’s ultimate prize. One million protesters recently agreed.

When news broke last week that a female cbs reporter had been beaten and molested in Tahrir Square, the Western world reacted with justifiable rage and sympathy.

Marginalized amid the ruckus, however, was an important and telling tidbit of information: Lara Logan’s traumatic ordeal, which including being stripped, groped, punched, pinched and beaten with flagpoles, was accompanied by chants of “Jew, Jew” and accusations that Logan was an “Israeli spy.”

This is not an insignificant detail.

From the moment the protests in Egypt began, the narrative has been spun that this was a secular, democratic, non-ideological uprising. It’s also been widely touted as a peaceful revolution. “What has been most striking about the protests in Tunisia and Egypt is their non-ideological character,”wrote Stephen Grand, a director at the Brookings Institute. “[I]t is greater freedom and democracy, and not Islam, that [the protesters] have been calling for …. For years, many Western commentators have asked … where are the moderates? Well, here they are, marching peacefully in numbers larger than had ever been seen in the Arab world” (emphasis mine throughout).

Perhaps many were “marching peacefully”—but clearly not the sadistic mob that brutalized Lara Logan to chants of “Jew, Jew” in a dark corner of Tahrir Square!

Logan’s beating not only begins to expose the lie that this was a non-ideological, secular event, it provides a candid glimpse at the ideology and religious undercurrent at work in Egypt’s streets. As Aaron Goldstein noted, “The fact that Logan is not Jewish only reinforces how deeply saturated anti-Semitism is in Egypt [and] demonstrates how little it takes for this ancient hatred to show its face even in the midst of jubilation.” The hatred this mob of angry Muslims had for Jews was so intense, it turned a blond reporter working for a leftist American television station into an “Israeli spy.”

And Logan’s horrible episode was only one of at least three violent episodes amid Egypt’s uprising where anti-Semitism raised its ugly head, according to Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

Not convinced that deeper, more insidious religious and ideological forces are at work in Egypt? Then consider the speech in Tahrir Square last Friday by Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi.

Before we review Qaradawi’s message to the masses, recall who this man is. Youssef al-Qaradawi is not merely the spiritual guide of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which some experts have called the mother ship of Islamic terrorism. Qaradawi cuts a prominent figure way beyond Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. He’s written at least 100 books and his weekly television program is viewed by 60 million Muslims on Al-Jazeera. Today, he’s one of the most popular clerics among mainstream Muslims. Morally, spiritually and ideologically, Qaradawi is a reflection of a significant segment of the Muslim world.

This explains why last Friday more than 1 million Egyptians—more than turned out on any day during the protests—showed up in Tahrir Square to listen to Qaradawi deliver Friday prayers. Naturally, being an intelligent man and a veteran of the Western media, Qaradawi’s speech contained requisite praises of democracy, democratic values, and even Egypt’s Coptic Christian population. Qaradawi’s words along these lines gelled nicely with the Western media’s narrative, and were swallowed hook, line and sinker. Reporting from Cairo, the New York Times’ David Kirkpatrich wrote of how Qaradawi “struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching.”

But there was another theme to Qaradawi’s message, one also long a hallmark of his writing and preaching—and one that set off prolonged chants among the million of Egyptians present.

In a subtle statement crafted for Muslims the world over, and specifically for those in Israel, Qaradawi stated, “I harbor the hope that just like Allah allowed me to witness the triumph in Egypt, he will allow me to witness the conquest of the al-Aqsa Mosque and will enable me to preach in the al-Aqsa Mosque.” At this point the crowd of 1 million burst forth with enthusiastic chants: “To Jerusalem we go, for us to be the martyrs of the millions; to Jerusalem we go, for us to be the martyrs of the millions.”

For those who have been reading the Trumpet, 1 million Muslims chanting in unison “To Jerusalem we go” is chilling!

For two decades now, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has taught that East Jerusalem is the primary goal of the radical Islamists, and that events in Jerusalem will touch off the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Early on in the Egypt saga, Mr. Flurry once again reoriented our attention on Jerusalem. In his Key of David program that aired February 6, he told viewers that Jerusalem is the primary goal of Egypt’s protesters. We must remember that radical Islamists “want to control Jerusalem,” he stated. Further on he said that for radical Islam, obtaining Jerusalem “may be more important than even the oil,and I think itIS.”

Mr. Flurry also recalled the history of the Crusades, the historic struggle between Catholics and Muslims for control of the Holy City. “Let’s not forget the Crusades,” he warned. “I tell you, that was all about Jerusalem, and there have been wars over Jerusalem in the past hundreds of years, and there’s going to be another one that’s going to have a big focus on Jerusalem, and it’s going to lead to the return of Jesus Christ to this Earth! And I’m telling you, there are over more than a hundred prophecies that talk about that!”

This program was recorded in our studio on January 27—more than two weeks before Mubarak left office!

In the Key of David program the following week, Mr. Flurry explained the prophecy in Zechariah which says that immediately before Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, half of Jerusalem will fall to radical Islam. Speaking about the fall of East Jerusalem, Mr. Flurry told television viewers, “It could happen any day! If you see how suddenly violence is erupting in the Middle East, you know that is the case. So one half of the city of Jerusalem is about to be taken back from the Jews.”

Again, that statement was made two weeks prior to Qaradawi asking Allah before 1 million Muslims to allow him to “witness the conquest” of East Jerusalem, and to allow him to “preach in the al-Aqsa Mosque.”

As events march on in the Middle East, our Bible-based forecasts are being validated. Our forecast that the uprising in Egypt will result in radical Islam gaining significant influence over Egypt, and eventually pave the way for the fall of East Jerusalem to radical Islam, is sounding less preposterous than some would have once thought.

And besides, the 1 million Muslim Egyptians who recently gathered in Tahrir Square and chanted “To Jerusalem we go” agree with us.