Crosstalk: September 20, 2019

For the second time this year, Israeli’s cast their vote for prime minister, however the outcome still hangs in the balance.  Leading up to the election, an American congresswoman indicated that the very existence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is contradictory to peace.  And while this is going on, oil fields in Saudi Arabia have been destroyed. The question remains: By who?  

To address these critical issues in the Middle East, Crosstalk welcomed back Dr. Jimmy DeYoung.  Dr. DeYoung is a student of Bible prophecy and expert on the Middle East. He leads a ministry, Prophecy Today, and has spent many years living in Israel as well as having led many trips there.  He’s a noted conference speaker and constantly monitors news regarding Israel and the Middle East in order to provide a unique blend of political, biblical and prophetic insight that is absent from the media today.

Dr. DeYoung began by describing how Israeli elections work when selecting a prime minister.  It’s not a direct election. He’s elected by a group of individuals from the 120 member Knesset.

It begins when Israeli’s go to the polls.  It’s like going into a congressional district.  There’s one purpose for the vote and that’s to vote for a political party.  The person that heads that party is their choice for prime minister.    

In addition, there are about 28 different political parties, 18 of which are key to any of the elections. 

There may be a third election.  Benjamin Netanyahu saw he wasn’t going to be able to form a government last time, so he dissolved the Knesset which meant they couldn’t vote on him and had to go to new elections.  Dr. DeYoung believes that could happen again if they’re not able to come up with a unity government. That would be a repeat of the April election and such a third election would be unprecedented in Israel’s history.

Conversation then moved to news regarding congresswoman Ilhan Omar.  She recently appeared on ‘Face the Nation.’ On that broadcast she communicated that the  existence, policies and rhetoric of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are contradictory to peace.  Jim played audio from that broadcast.

Concerning the recent attack on the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, Iran is denying that they are responsible.  Dr. DeYoung indicated that the facilities were fired upon from two different locations and that’s why there’s confusion and we don’t have a ‘bottom line’ answer just yet.  Fingers are pointing toward Iran, but Iran is saying if there is a military strike on them, there will be an ‘all out war.’

The Israeli government is upset as they are not seeing a response from either Saudi Arabia or the U.S.  Dr. DeYoung communicated that Prime Minister Netanyahu believes if U.S./Saudi leaders don’t do something quickly, Iran will believe they can fire at will and destroy a major portion of petroleum production in Saudi Arabia and target Israel as well.