“Do not keep silent,O God! Do not hold your peace, and do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said: “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” (Psalm 83:1-4 NKJV)
This month the onslaught against Israel will intensify as the UN General Assembly meets in New York from 17–20 June over the issue of the so-called ‘Two-State Solution’. This UN conference, which effectively bypasses the disastrous Oslo Accords, follows on from the deeply flawed International Court of Justice Opinion of July 2024 that declared that Israel’s presence—or any Jewish presence—in its historic walled capital city, Jerusalem, and its Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria is a violation of international law. Since then, the UN has adopted resolutions to push for the establishment of a potentially terrorist Palestinian state in the entirety of those territories. UN General Assembly Resolutions ES-10/24 (September 2024) and A/79 L/23 (November 2024) sought to compel Israel to withdraw its military and civilian presence to bring about the speedy realisation of the ‘Two-State Solution’. This upcoming UN conference is the intended next step in achieving that aim. So, what does this have to do with Psalm 83?
Many Bible teachers on end-time prophecy believe that Psalm 83 (the first few verses of which are quoted above) refers to a specific latter-day conflict against Israel which has yet to be fulfilled. For many years I have questioned that understanding. When Asaph penned this Psalm, possibly during the reign of King David, the Israel-haters listed in verses 6 to 8 would have represented the extent of those known to him at the time, and today there are descendant Israel-haters living in all those areas. After Asaph’s day others arose with the intention of erasing Israel and its people. Haman the Agagite was one. Another was the Roman Emperor Hadrian who changed the name of the Lord’s Land to ‘Syria Palestina’ with the specific intention that the name of Israel would be erased from history. And then, of course, there was Adolf Hitler.
“Currently Israel has very few genuine friends who will watch her back. The Trump White House is the most obvious one.”
Although the Philistines were ethnically extinct within 500 years of the Psalm being written, today there is a people who bear their name and bear the same murderous spirit against Israel. It is this people who are now at centre of the onslaught against Israel. Both the Palestinian Authority in the PLO Charter, as well as Hamas in their charter, call for the eradication of the Jewish State, and even the murder of all Jews. They are being aided and abetted by others. Almost every week the Ayatollahs in Teheran threaten to wipe Israel off the map. Even the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for the destruction of the Jewish State.
Since the Simchat Torah massacre of 1,200 Jews in October 2023, we have seen the mass pro-Hamas demonstrations across almost every major city in the West, calling for exactly the same thing.
Could it be that there is actually another way of understanding Psalm 83? Rather than referring to a specific end-time conflict, could this Psalm be a model for prayer to the God of Israel in dealing with widespread hatred against Israel and the Jewish people across the world through the ages, and such as we are witnessing today?
Currently Israel has very few genuine friends who will watch her back. The Trump White House is the most obvious one. There are a few Latin America countries, including the current Argentinian President. Also, a few small nations in the Pacific, and a handful of European countries, notably Hungary and Czech, who stand with Israel in the United Nations.
While the United Nations as a whole does not openly call for the destruction of Israel—as some of its member nations do—the obsession with Israel and the highly disproportionate condemnations of the Jewish State in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and especially the Human Rights Council, speaks for itself. By contrast, none of these UN bodies has condemned the invasion led by Hamas on 7 October 2023, the murder of 1,200 people which included rapes, beheadings, burning people alive, as well as the abduction of 251 people into Gaza—all with genocidal intent. They have failed to condemn the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, as well as the thousands of rockets fired by Hamas and PIJ against Israeli civilians, from densely populated areas in Gaza— both war crimes. Moreover, the UN does not officially recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation, which many Western nations do. One UN agency—UNWRA— actually cooperates with Hamas, and some of its employees took part in the massacre, and held Israeli hostages in the aftermath.
Shortly after the 7 October massacre, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, did personally condemn the Hamas atrocities, but effectively excused it by saying the attack “didn’t happen in a vacuum”. He said that it was mainly provoked by Israel’s ongoing ‘occupation’ of ‘Palestinian territory’. That was certainly untrue of Gaza which Israel had evacuated 18 years earlier, but it is also untrue of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria according to established principles of international law (see Whose Land? Part Two: www.whoseland.info)—there this no occupation, and there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian Territory’. These are falsehoods generated by Israel’s enemies, including the UN.
However, there is a sense in which what Guterres said was right: it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because of the Palestinian/UNRWA indoctrination of generations of children to ‘liberate Palestine’ and murder all Jews and—if need be—become martyrs in the process. This is just part of the death-cult brainwashing that is being swept under the carpet by the UN. This, to my way of thinking, makes the UN party to massive child-abuse. Moreover, those nations who fund UNRWA are complicit in that child abuse.
In May 2021, as Hamas was firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians, the UN Human Rights Council set up a permanent open-ended Commission of Inquiry under the supposed impartial Chairmanship of Navi Pillay, who had a previous record of social media posts demonstrating her hatred of Israel. With Francesca Albanese—the recently re- appointed UN Rapporteur on the so- called Palestinian territories—they represent just two prominent UN officials who use blood-libels and outright lies to delegitimise and demonise Israel. So, while the UN as a body does not directly call for the elimination of the Jewish State, they are certainly taking crafty counsel together towards that end.
Then there is the political ‘sacred cow’—the so-called ‘two-state solution’. After the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, which was endorsed by over 70% of Arabs living under the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, anyone with an iota of understanding would realise that the idea of two states living side-by-side in peace would be well and truly dead. But no. Instead, the UN is doubling down on it. Clearly, the lessons from Gaza count for nothing. Is this not a fulfilment of the opening verses of Psalm 83? The end game is to cut Israel off from being a nation.
Israel is not about to commit suicide by complying. The Lord will indeed have the last laugh (see Psalm 2)— indeed He has promised that the nation of Israel shall continue before Him forever (Jeremiah 31:35-37). So, what does all this tell us? It tells that the final onslaught by the nations against Israel, as described in Zechariah chapters 12 and 14, is not far away. We should look up, for our redemption draws nigh! Psalm 83 is a wonderful example of how intercessors can cry out to God to intervene for Israel at such a time as this.
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