In the years preceding the World War II there was a worldwide underlying and growing anti-Semitism. As the World War spread so did the fever to do away with the Jews. While the epicenter was Berlin, the Jews everywhere experienced this fermenting hatred. We may not remember the ship Saint Louis and its ill-fated voyage; nonetheless many ports in North, South, and Central America turned its 1100 Jewish passengers who had valid entry visas to America, away. Their fate was to be returned to the work camps of Germany and death at the hands of the Nazis.

Neutral Switzerland hands were bloody with the death of Jews having been the bankers to the Nazis and having turned many Jews away from their boarders and sanctuary. The countries of Europe were infected with this same fever, Greece 67, 000 killed or deported, Poland two and one-half million killed or deported, Yugoslavia 64,000, Latvia 93,000, Hungary 350,000 and on and on. The Middle East or Arab states were delighted to be infected by this fever and participated wholehearted in the slaughter of the Jews. Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia all were dedicated to the "Final Solution" of 100 of thousands of Jews.

One of the chief inspirers of this hatred in the Middle East was The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini also known as "Fuhrer of the Arabic World". Husseini showed gratitude to his inspiration (Hitler) by traveling several times to Bosnia where he recruited the notorious "Hanjar trooper" which slaughter 90 percent of Bosnia's Jews and burned countless Serbian churches and villages. Also Iraq, following the lead of Husseini had it's own Krystallnacht night in 1941 on June 1st and 2nd uprooting, looting and killing of the Jews who had lived basically undistributed for over 2,400 years.

Even the Roman Catholic Church was not immune from this fever. Pope Benedict XV in a 1919 speech against any homeland for the Jews and the unfounded fear the Christian Holy places would be desecrated by the political takeover of Palestine by the Jews, the Roman Catholic Church worked to ally itself with the rising anti-Semitism. Young Cardinal Gasparri, along with Cardinal Eugenio Parcelli (later Pope Puis XII) and many other Roman Catholics worked feverishly internationally to stop the coming Jewish State and to help raise up the Fascist state of Germany and ultimately cause the destruction of six million Jews. Cardinal Gasparri is quoted as telling a Belgian representative after the Pope's speech, "The danger we fear the most is the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine." Gasparri was also instrumental in helping to fund the establishment of the Nazi party from the start while he was the Vatican representative to Germany. The Roman Catholic involvement and attraction with the Nazis is well documented beyond doubt in Edmond Paris' book "The Vatican against Europe."

Now this same spirit or mystery of iniquity is again at work in the world and the fever is again racing across the world. And again, the world is falling silent to the disease or participating in its effects. The newspaper headlines calls Israel's defense of its people a siege against the Palestinian people. France conspires to hide the name of Arabs that are razing and burning Jewish synagogues and business. Protests against the Jews are rampant throughout the world, Milan, Australia, Morocco, America, Turkey and Paris to name a few. The United Nations whose main concern has been Israel and it's destruction has cast over one-third of all of its votes on resolutions against Israel, yet Israel only represents 1/1000 of all the people in the world. It now extends pressure against Israel calling for its destruction by assimilation back into Arab lands. UN bases in Lebanon have long been used for training camps for terrorists and yet the UN has never condemned the terror against Israel by its Arab neighbors. The world says nothing and turns it's head!

Just hours before Pope John Paul II visits the Temple Mount in the year 2000 and kisses a Koran and calls it holy, a book that calls for the destruction of both Jews and Christians and denies the Father-Son relationship of Christianity making it anti-Christ, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri gave a series of press interviews calling "the figure of 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust is exaggerated and is used by the Israelis to gain international support" ¦ Muslims didn't do anything on this issue. It's Hitler who hated the Jews." The Pope calls in his catechism the Muslims are "first place among those who hold to the faith of Abraham" (Section 841).

The world has taken the Palestinians and their cause to heart, seeing it as some sort of David and Goliath struggle, and it's leader Yarsir Arafat as an example of what a man struggling for peace and liberation should be like. The world awards him it's Nobel Peace Prize and all the while he funds terrorists to strap on explosive belts to go and kill Jewish civilians while they celebrate a Passover Seder. Yet on his PLA (Palestine Liberation Authority) radio station we heard a broadcast by a Mullah instructing it listeners, "First we kill the Saturday people then we kill the Sunday people." Yassir's real name is Husseini, his uncle and mentor was the same Haj Amin el Husseini "Hitler's Fuhrer of the Middle East". On a side note it should be stated that Saddam Hussein is the nephew of Khayrallah Tulfah of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq. Also, even Anwar Sadat a man the world viewed as a moderate wrote to Hitler lamenting his downfall, "Germany will be reborn in spite of Western and Eastern powers." Yes, the Arabs have picked up and are carrying the torch of Hitler. Every major ruler in the Middle East has at one point called for the destruction of the Jews or made efforts to establish that end. The world is blind and deaf.

Even though the news media report the excesses of the Islamic faith, a faith that repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel, the Jews, America and the west, nobody pays any mind to the growing fever. People are becoming numb to this message of hate and have even starting thinking that maybe the Jews are responsible for the current problems in the world. We see our political leaders calling Islam a religion of peace. The spineless Christian leaders say nothing about this evil of Islam in our midst or take a doctrinal stand against it. The infection spreads. So much so that Christian leaders set up Islamic centers in their churches. Bill Hybels, Robert Shuler both have these centers and let Islamic mullahs preach in their pulpits to the disgrace of the true Church and true followers of Jesus Christ.

What are true Christians to do?

• Pray for the peace of Israel
• Pray God will protect Israel and the "Chosen People"
• Pray for Christian leaders to take a stand against this rising "fever" of anti-Semitism.
• Pray for our "enemies" the Arabs that they would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ
• Equip yourself to be able to show the difference between Islam and Christianity
• Be equipped to show the rising anti-Semitism in the world and the "mystery of iniquity" behind it
• Be willing to take a stand

Jerusalem is being made a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around it, a heavy stone for all peoples and whoever lifts it will be severely injured the prophet Zechariah tells us. Israel is being made a fire to consume all those around it and all those that set their face against this people and this land are in for wrath and are defying the God of Israel. Every time a political leader, a nation, or anyone turns against Israel or calls for giving up Jerusalem or even one inch of their land to Anti-Semites they have set their face against God. The Jews were promised the land of Israel in Genesis 13 and nothing will change that promise. It is theirs by God's Word! The question is where will you stand, on the Rock or will you try to lift that rock and be injured? May God have mercy on us.

David E Lister