By Dr. Jürgen Bühler, ICEJ President

The nation of Israel has awoken this morning to the new reality of a direct war with Iran that will have major regional and global consequences. The Israeli military launched a wave of attacks against prime Iranian targets overnight, including military leaders and installations and sites known to be involved in Iran’s renegade nuclear weapons program. Iran is retaliating with its first barrage of drones and likely ballistic and cruise missiles.

The Israeli strikes on Israel came after decades of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, as well as the Iranian regime’s official, open and persistent genocidal threats to wipe Israel off the map. Israeli leaders have known of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms to target the Jewish nation since at least the time of the Rabin government in the early 1990s. Yet even then, Israel was clear in its firm policy never to allow a regional adversary to acquire weapons of mass destruction to use against the Jewish state born out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Israel proved its will to uphold this declared policy by striking the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, and the secret Khyber nuclear plant in Syria in 2007. Israeli leaders have now demonstrated their determination once again to strip any regional foe of the means to perpetrate a genocidal attack against the Jewish nation and people.

Iran has been intransigent in the recent talks with the Trump administration regarding its right to enrich uranium (there is no such right). The International Atomic Energy Agency also has just found Iran in serious violation of its commitments and obligations to the world community concerning uranium enrichment activities and safeguards against nuclear proliferation.

Israel’s overnight strikes on Iran come as the Islamic regime has accumulated enough enriched uranium at near military-grade levels to build at least ten nuclear warheads, thus it is lurking perilously close to the nuclear threshold. Israel’s actions also come amid a long and bitter war against Israel waged on Iran’s behest by its many radical proxy terror militias in the region. Iran built up these regional proxy militias for the express purpose of acting as a first line of defense and deterrence to protect its ever-burgeoning nuclear facilities. Yet these proxy militias have been severely weakened by Israel over the past 20 months, and thus Israeli leaders assessed that now is the time to deal with the real source of the current conflict and regional instability – the Islamic regime in Tehran. Even the fate of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza is being dictated from Tehran. Jerusalem’s decision to strike now also comes when it can rightly expect critical backing from the Trump administration, which tested Iran’s nuclear intentions in recent talks, only to hit a brick wall.

The leadership of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem urges our global family and all Christians and others around the world, to please pray for the protection of the Israeli people and wisdom for Israeli leaders during this time of conflict and uncertainty. Also pray for a swift end to this escalation with a clear result of ending once-and for-all the Iranian nuclear threat over Israel and the entire Middle East.

Main photo: Israeli Airforce Pilot (Photo: IDF)