IDF forces enter Gaza on anniversary of Sharon stroke

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Written by Chris Perver

Sunday, 04 January 2009 15:19

Three years ago today Ariel Sharon was rushed into hospital following a massive brain haemorrhage that was to leave him permanently incapacitated and incapable of carrying out his duties. Just a few months previous to this life-threatening illness, the former Prime Minister had presided over Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government felt at the time that they had no partner for peace with the Palestinian Authority, and began the process of unilaterally withdrawing from the territories captured during the Six Day War. The disengagement plan was intended to bring a measure of peace to Israel's south in the vain hope that Palestinians would end their attacks on Israeli civilians if they were no longer under Jewish 'occupation'. Israel withdrew from Gaza on the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second Temples, prompting many religious Jews to believe that the nation was being Divinely punished for their refusal to take back the Temple Mount following the defeat of the Arab nations in 1967, some thirty eight years previous. On the same day that Israel withdrew from Gaza, a storm by the name of Hurricane Katrina was forming in the Atlantic ocean, which would make landfall in New Orleans just as the Gaza disengagement was coming to a close. After nearly 10,000 Israeli civilians were forcibly evicted from their homes in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Americans were forcibly evicted from their homes as the most destructive storm in US history was bearing down upon them. And as the Palestinian Arabs were tearing up one of Israel's most productive regions, Hurricane Katrina was wiping one of America's most productive cities off the map. But the 'Divine retribution' didn't end there. Ariel Sharon, who had claimed the Gaza disengagement as his own initiative, suffered a massive brain haemorrhage just a few months after its completion. Sharon was rushed into hospital on the 18th of December, 2005 after complaining of feeling ill. Doctors revealed that Sharon had suffered a minor stroke, and was subsequently discharged from hospital. But on the 4th of January, 2006 the former Prime Minister was to suffer a major stroke which would leave him brain damaged and in a coma. Three years to the day, Israeli forces entered Gaza to deal with the continuing terrorist threat, causing some Israelis to speculate on whether or not Sharon's original decision to disengage from the territory was right and whether or not there is any significance in the two dates.

Quote: "Eyal Arad, one of Sharon's close advisors, said to Ynet on the connection between the dates, "I don't believe in the irony of history; we are looking for connections, but they're not there. We aren't going back to Gaza, just like how in Operation Defensive Shield we didn't return to Hebron. Sharon intended to leave Gaza once and for all, but the Disengagement wasn't a contract with God – that everything you do will hold forever. If they shoot at as, are we going to turn the other way and say that they're not?"

Sharon never wakened from his medically-induced coma. His experience was perceived by religious Jews as Divine retribution for dividing God's land. At the time I mentioned verses in the Scriptures that my friend Lawrence Russell often quoted in relation to Ariel Sharon, even before the Israeli Premier fell ill.

Isaiah 29:1-4, 9-10, 15-16
Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust...
Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered...
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?

These verses seem to accurately describe someone who has suffered a stroke and is in a coma, who has a spirit of deep sleep and who's speech is badly slurred. While they appear to be personally applicable to Ariel Sharon, they can also be applied to the political and religious rulers of the nation, who are seeking to divide Ariel (Jerusalem) in the hope of gaining peace with their enemies. The tying together of all these dates in relation to the division of God's land may prove to us that we are now living in the last days. But that is not the only noteworthy thing concerning these remarkable events. A Jewish Kabbalist Rabbi by the name of Yitzchak Kaduri, who revealed to his stunned followers the true name of the Messiah of Israel following his own death, also predicted that the Messiah would not come until Ariel Sharon died. Is it possible that we are this close to the fulfilment of end time prophecies? Could the last chapter of man's history be nearing completion? As I said in the last article, I think the signs of the times would indicate that. The time is short. "It is time to seek the LORD", Hosea 10:12. Do you know the true Messiah? I'm not talking about just knowing His name. Do you know Him as your personal Saviour? He died for you, so that your sins might be forgiven. Trust in Him for salvation today.

Source YNet News