From the Desk of Jeff King

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

A mysterious, disembodied hand inscribed those words on a palace wall during a Mideast banquet in 539 B.C. The prophet Daniel, an exiled Jew, was summoned to interpret the message for the Babylonian king, who was engaged in drunken and pagan revelry with goblets removed from the Jerusalem Temple almost 70 years earlier.

President Bush drank from a goblet at a Mideast banquet Monday night. Sitting before him were Israeli and Arab leaders who, by morning, would open negotiations in Annapolis to dismantle and destroy the Jewish state. After Bush raised a toast to Israel's enemies Monday, I shuddered at this thought: the finger of God writing in the halls of the Naval Academy (Daniel 5:26-27 interpretation included):

MENE – God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL – You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.

Addendum - News snippets from Annapolis:

• Bush linked Israelis to terrorism in his Tuesday address: "We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict . . . to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis." Mr. Bush, when did a Jew ever lob a Kassam rocket into a Palestinian schoolyard or strap on dynamite to maim and kill neighbors?

• Tamar Yonah of Israel National Radio calls the summit a fake and a farce: "We, in Annapolis, are sitting down at a table with wolves. It's a gang rape against Israel. Nobody at this conference likes Israel. Nobody at this conference wants peace with Israel. . . . America is Rome. America, unfortunately, its leaders are Esau (brother of Hebrew patriarch Jacob who settled in Seir, which is present-day Saudi Arabia)."

• "The striking thing about the conference is the weakness of the central participants," writes Noah Pollak at Contentions. "Mahmoud Abbas purports to represent the Palestinians, but arguably is a less authentic representative than Hamas. On the Israeli side, Ehud Olmert, having failed miserably during Israel's war with Lebanon, is hugely unpopular and clings tenuously to power. The spectacle of these two trying to play Sadat and Begin would be funny, if it were not pathetic."

• A day after Bush announced an agreement by Olmert and Abbas to work toward peace, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat waged a war of words against the U.S. president. He said Bush does not negotiate in the Palestinian's name, does not represent them and his words are not relevant to the Palestinian cause, DEBKAfile reported. On the issue of recognizing Israel, he said Bush is not competent to determine how Palestinians act, and if he wants to exchange land he should engage Mexico.

• Michael Freund uses a line from Alice in Wonderland to describe the folly at Annapolis: "Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

• Palestinian TV airs a Mideast map with the Jewish state missing.

• Yoram Shiftan claims Bush's Road Map is illegal.

• The U.S. sponsored-summit coincided with two record-breaking weather disasters.

• Kassam rockets continue to rain on the Negev. More than 2,000 rockets this year have targeted the Israeli town of Sderot.

• The IDF might send ground forces to clean out terrorists in Gaza, the very land Israel surrendered in 2005 to foster peace (see item below).

Addendum – Overlooked by the media blitz is the fruit of Israel's last peace concession. Jews evicted by force from their Gaza communities in 2005 live in sqaulor. Their beautiful homes and synagogues were demolished. Palestinians now use the land as staging areas for terrorism. A Jewish commentator wrote "the scope of the tremendous Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d's name) is almost too great for words." Watch what happened in this short video entitled Never Again.

Saving Zion

The corrupt Israeli government, backed by the Bush administration, will hold a fire sale at Tuesday's peace summit in Annapolis, Md. It is ready to give away the store – East Jerusalem, Temple Mount, Judea and Samaria – in exchange for pseudo peace with its Arab neighbors. Israel's only hope is a figure it rejects and mocks, Yeshua of Nazareth. When He returns as Davidic King He will smite the nations and rule from Jerusalem with a rod of iron (Rev. 19:15).

Christian zionists like John Hagee go out of their way to befriend and support non-Messianic Jews – which I salute – but keep the Good News veiled. They refuse to share Messiah, something the apostle Paul, an Israelite, exhorted us to do with great urgency. That heart for Jewish evangelism is captured beautifully in the song "Good News" by the Messianic group Lamb, featuring Joel Chernoff and Ted Pearce. I listened to the cut repeatedly on my drive to work yesterday. It's that good (listen to audio clips here and here.) Notice the transition in the lyrics: first the Good News comes out of Zion, as it did in the first century, then returns to her when she is asleep spiritually:

O Zion, who brings good news
Get up into the high mountain(s)
O Jerusalem, who brings good news
Lift up your voice in strength

Lift up your voice, be not afraid
Say to the cities of Judah
Lift up your voice, be not ashamed
Behold your God!

The grass withers, the flowers fade
But the word of our God will stand forever,
The grass withers, the flowers fade
But the word of our God will stand, O Zion

O Yisrael, we've got good news!
Hey Haifa, hallelujah!
O Tel Aviv, we've got good news, yea!
Tiberias, hallelujah!
Jerusalem, we've got good news!
All nations, we've got good news, hallelujah!

That last chorus boomed from my Honda speakers as I drove into the late-afternoon haze of downtown Seattle. My heart was breaking. Israel seemed so far away, yet so near. Hey Haifa, hallelujah!

News item – The road to Annapolis is getting bumpy. Christian journalist and Israeli resident Stan Goodenough was awakened by a minor earthquake in the Hinnom Valley early Saturday, hours before catching a flight to Maryland. He will attend the three-day peace conference at the Naval Academy. It was the third quake in Israel this week as international leaders lobbied for a Palestinian state on Jewish land.

Two days earlier, Goodenough gave America this Thanksgiving Day wake-up call on his Jerusalem Watchman website: "While you are thanking God for your land and His bountiful provision in it, your elected leaders will be brainstorming for the most effective way to take another nation's land away from them. . . . The U.S. will be leading the charge – a charge against the will and purpose of the same God who established your country, and who is working to re-establish His country for His people – Israel. I am praying for you, America. For I fear for you."

News item – California is burning again. Malibu's worst wildfire in 15 years has destroyed 49 homes, scorched 4,700 acres and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Interesting timing if you follow world events. The blaze began Friday, four days before the Bush administration hosts a peace conference which, if successful, would divide Israel and uproot Jews from their homes. Wildfires last month in Southern California burned 518,066 acres, caused more than $1 billion in property damage and displaced nearly a million people. The fires erupted a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left Jerusalem, where she had rallied support for the Annapolis summit. Most of the 49 countries invited to the event are hostile to Israel.

News item – Goodenough filed a dispatch Monday from Annapolis, which included this snapshot: "The midshipmen stroll by, and I gaze past them into the academy grounds. There, too, all is peaceful, quiet, almost asleep. Peaceful, peaceful. Peace - that’s why I’m here, right? Hard to believe, then, that a demon-fest is planned for this place; that in just 48 hours, hell itself will be running amok here."

My prayer to the LORD on the eve of Annapolis: In wrath remember mercy (Habakkuk 3:2).