Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Pete Garcia: Syria, Damascus, Israel, Russia, & Rumors Of Wars

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Pete Garcia: Syria, Damascus, Israel, Russia, & Rumors Of Wars · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Hey, friends. Guess what? Retired military aviator, speaker, and teacher of Bible prophecy.
• 0:06
  Pete Garcia is back with us to do another episode. We'll hear from him next.
• 0:14
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues,
• 0:19
  discerning current events, defending biblical Christianity. No topic off limits.
• 0:27
  And now here's your host, David Firazzo. God bless you and Merry Christmas season,
• 0:33
  friends. The website is rev310.net. That's rev310.net. Pete Garcia is our guest today after
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  more than 50 years in power. The Assad regime controlling Syria fell a couple of weekends ago.
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  And Israel has been busy. Pete, welcome back. Thanks for doing another show with us.
• 0:58
  Hey, it's good to be back again with you. Yeah, sounds good. Now, first of all, your response to
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  what's been happening in the Middle East. We're going over there to talk about geopolitics this
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  episode. And we can also talk about how the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump might
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  impact what we're going to see happening policy wise over there. So start wherever you want. We'll
• 1:23
  just take it from there. Well, yeah, Netanyahu. I'm sure is very glad. It was very glad on November
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  6th to see who came out on top in the presidential election. He's been friends with Trump for a very
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  long time. So their friendship has gone well beyond the confines of political office.
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  But with that said, I can see Trump has already laid out some of his wish list that Netanyahu
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  do what they have to do to get the job done, to get their hostages back and to neutralize the
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  threat, but yet at the same time not let this drag on for throughout the rest of his administration.
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  I think he would rather see this get done quickly rather than this be something that hangs
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  over his head for like an albatross around his neck for the next four years. So I think that's
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  given Netanyahu the requisite momentum to get things going. And then you throw in a thing like
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  the collapse of the Syrian government, the Bashar Assad government. I think Netanyahu has taken
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  the prudent measures to go ahead and take the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and create a buffer
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  zone in there so that whoever comes out on top with all these different rebel groups that are
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  fighting that they don't, that the Israelis make it a lot harder for them to ever get back on
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  their border. And the one group, the HTS, I can't say the name of it, but they're basically the
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  Al-Nuzra Front that's revamped and very much ISIS-like have already made their future intentions
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  known that they are not only going to just take over Syria, but they're also going to take over
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  the temple mount in Jerusalem. So their intentions don't seem friendly. Therefore Netanyahu
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  and the rest of the nation of Israel are justified, in my opinion, for creating a buffer zones to
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  make it that much harder for whichever group takes over. Not only that, but they're also taking out
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  Bashar Assad's massive weapons chemical chemical biological and otherwise weapons depots and
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  facilities as well as probably knocking out a lot of their missile silos and bunkers and depots
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  where they have things staged in the event of a war with Israel. So, Israel's taking those things
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  out, taking out the tunnels, trying to prepare themselves as best they can for whichever government
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  comes out on top there in Syria. This is, it's really unprecedented, really what we're seeing.
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  There is an article over at prophecynewswatch.com. Israel just sank the entire Syrian navy, crippled
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  the Air Force, Israel attacked 1,400 targets in Syria, destroying chemical weapons facilities,
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  missiles, aircraft, even submarines, anti-aircraft systems. So Pete, they've been busy. This is not
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  just some overnight thing and some reactive campaign. This is something that had to be planned.
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  And as you said, I don't know, most fair minded people hopefully are thinking, yeah, I think maybe
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  they're justified, but there's someone the left that obviously they're going to blame Israel
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  for everything. So, just your thought on just how of a massive undertaking this had to be.
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  I think they've known for a long time. You know, their intelligence is really
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  second to none when it comes to knowing what their the neighboring threats, what their capabilities
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  are, whether weapon depots are where their attack sites are, are going to be at and things
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  like that. So, I think that one thing that surprised Israel the most aside from the actual attack
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  on October the 7th was the extensive tunnel networks that they found underneath Gaza.
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  They knew Hasbola had a, you know, Hasbola was in power there for a long time, so they've had
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  at least two decades to do all these tunneling. They didn't, I think they underestimated Hamas and
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  their abilities to tunnel to the extent that they did. And the same thing could go with Syria.
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  I think they probably have better intelligence on Syria given that given the fact that Bashar
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  Assad's been in power there for, you know, well, since his father, you know, his father took over in
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  I think 1970 and then Bashar, Bashar the Sun took over I think in the year 2000. So,
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  Israel's had a long extensive running list of things that they've been keeping track of within Syria.
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  But, you know, so yeah, I think they're trying to prepare themselves the best they can.
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  They've also got to keep in mind that the Lebanese government is on the fritz with Hasbola being such
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  the power broker that they were. Now, now they're not that creates a power vacuum, which is what
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  allowed for this Al-Nusra front group to come in and take advantage of the chaos with Russia being
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  tied up in Ukraine with Iran being tied up fighting Israel and also having, you know, lost basically
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  every engagement they fought with them on with the death of Abraham Reisi back in May.
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  There's been a lot of turmoil for Iran themselves. So, things are not going very well for them and
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  the Sunni radicals there in Syria just took advantage of the situation. And so now Netanyahu is doing
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  the prudent thing and making sure that if they ever decided that attack is real, it's going to
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  be a lot harder for them to do it. The further back, you know, on the other side of this buffer zone
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  with a fraction of the weapons that they would have had. So, Pete, I want to go to another angle here
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  briefly and that would be, well, you know, persecution, Christians in the area, minority groups
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  in the area. There's a Harbinger's Daily article we'll get to in a minute, but over at faith wire,
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  they talked with Joel Veldkamp. He's an international communication officer for Christian
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  Solidarity, Christian Solidarity International. It's a persecution watchdog and he's sounding the
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  alarm about what could happen as a result of toppling Assad's regime in Syria and the rise of
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  terror groups there. And he said it won't be good for Israel and it won't be good for Christians
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  and for anyone except Turkey, really. So this is the head of a watchdog group, persecution watchdog
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  group. And over at Harbinger's Daily, it says the headline is in the wake of armed, the armed take
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  over of Syria, religious freedom groups urge prayer for Christian populations. So let's shift
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  briefly to this perspective of minority groups and Christians in the area that will be affected
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  by this. Pete, your thoughts? Well, like Lebanon, I mean, there's a huge, there's a very diverse
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  group of people's there in communities. You got everybody from the Sunni Muslims, to the Shia
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  Muslims, to the Druze, to the Christians. And then the Christian side, you may have Eastern
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  Orthodox, you may have Coptic Christians, there may be different flavors of Christians there,
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  different sex within the Shia groups and the Sunni groups. And then you have the Kurds who are
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  a flavor of Sunni, but different, I couldn't tell you what the difference is, but they've been at
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  long at odds with both Iran and Turkey for decades now and have many grievances against both of
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  those entities. And Saddam Hussein, you know, any rock with him gone now. So the Kurds are definitely
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  an issue that probably the biggest factor here in terms of who's going to be persecuted the most
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  in my opinion. There's not a whole lot of Christians there. There are Christian minorities groups
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  in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, but not as numerous as we might think. Well, that said, I would expect
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  that just like ISIS did back in 2014, 2015 time frame, they're going to come in, they're going
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  to try and stand up some type of Islamic theocracy. And if you're not Muslim, at first they may
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  just say, okay, well, you just pay taxes, but we soon find out that the gloves come off, the mask
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  comes off, and they'll end up persecuting and killing anybody that doesn't agree with them 100%.
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  So if I were not that particular flavor of Sunni Islam that the terrorist groups are, I would be
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  worried, even if I were Shia, if I were Kurd, if I were Jews, if I were Christian, anybody that's
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  not their their brand of crazy is going to get. It's going to find an early exit.
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  Yeah, according to open doors, they went from the Christian population in Syria from 1.5 million
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  about a decade ago to fewer than 300,000 because of these ongoing wars between Islamic factions.
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  And it looks like there's a lot of Christian thousands have fled to refugee camps and others
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  are trapped in their homes. And so friends, this is a good time to remember our brothers and sisters
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  in Christ there who are going to be suffering and persecuted. As Pete was saying, Islam is no
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  respect of persons when it comes to those not submitting to Allah. So one thing I wanted to ask you,
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  so we don't hear enough about the relationship between Assad and Russia. So the Russian state media
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  reported that Assad flew to Moscow. He escaped to Moscow with his family. He was granted asylum
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  by Putin. And this is really interesting. I didn't realize how strong of allies apparently Assad
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  and Russia were. Could you speak to that for a little bit or share whatever thoughts or angles on
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  that? Yeah, I mean, strategically speaking, Syria has been very, very strategic location for Russia.
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  They they don't have a whole lot of warm water ports. And that what that means is like a lot of
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  the ports for their ships and submarines. In Russia, in territorial Russia, our frozen half
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  the year so it makes it difficult to use them. So having a place like Lacti or was it Tartarus, Tartus
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  in Syria is a nice place for the Russians to be able to station their navy at just like we have
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  the navy at Valrain. I think the seventh fleet is based out of there. They have their ships
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  based out of Tartus. They're in Syria on the coast stays warm all year long. That gives them a lot
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  of mobility. So that's been a very advantageous relationship between Bashar Assad and the Russian
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  government for the last couple of decades. Now Syria has been since the Arab Spring have had to
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  have had to been creative in how they make money. So aside from, you know, because of all the
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  the sanctions that are on them and being blacklisted from basically doing any kind of normal
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  business anywhere in the world, Bashar Assad has turned to the elicit side of money making
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  through the production of drugs. I'd kept it gone with the transmission of weapons systems,
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  missiles, things like that. And they allow fighters from Iraq and from Iran to transit Syria. They
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  obviously have to pay the tolls, pay that kind of stuff. There's cuts and kickbacks to
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  all variant flavors of people that allow these missiles and weapons that are ultimately destined
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  for Israel to be pointed at Israel to transit through Syria. So there's been some good
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  strategic advantageous relational benefits that both sides have taken and used for their advantage
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  over the last 20 years. Bashar Assad has allowed, you know, had the Russians backing him militarily,
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  which is why this didn't happen, you know, 10 years ago. But now with Russia, it's so bogged down
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  with Ukraine and with everything else going on. They just, and with the collapse of Hezbollah,
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  the collapse of Hamas, you know, that this has been the perfect opportunity for this HTS
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  slash newsroom group to go ahead and take advantage of the chaos. So
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  Russia has definitely lost that. I don't think they're going to want to have lost that for long.
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  I think they're going to try and recapture this once they're done in Ukraine. So this
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  this seems to me to want a couple of things. One, it's going to be, it would be advantageous for
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  for Putin to go ahead and finish up things with Ukraine. And it seems advantageous. I use that word a
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  lot with Trump coming in, but it seems advantageous for for Trump wanting to push a peace treaty
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  or some kind of a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia, which would free up Russia,
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  if this does happen on day one of his administration, would allow him to go ahead and re-double
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  or double his efforts down back down in Syria. Trump's already indicated, hey, we don't want
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  anything to do with Syria. We don't want to be there. It's not our fight. We don't care about Syria.
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  It is, it's Israel's problem, and we will support Israel, but we're not putting U.S.
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  boots on the ground in Syria anymore. I know that there's boots on the ground now, and I
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  feel it's over there right now. So it seems like all that's, the U.S. is going to pull out of there.
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  That will draw Russia back in there once things are buttoned up with Ukraine. And I think that
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  this may be what sets the stage. Not for Isaiah 17, necessarily, but for a God-may-God conflict
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  in the future, because I guarantee you this, I promise you this, whatever government comes out
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  of this is going to be far worse than what Bashar Assad had been running. As bad as he was,
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  this is going to be worse. The international community is not going to tolerate it for long,
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  but I think that gives Russia the impetus to go ahead and move fully back in. And they may
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  divide it up with Turkey, you know, the borders there. But I think that this is a huge game-changer
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  for that. Ezekiel 38, build up. That's a pretty big statement, very interesting. By the way,
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  friends, we're with Pete Garcia. We've got to take a brief pause. He mentioned Damascus.
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  We're going to talk briefly about that. There's different perspectives, biblically, on Isaiah 17.
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  So we'll talk about that on World View Matters next.
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• 17:41
  So let's talk about Isaiah 17 briefly. It says a day is coming when serious capital will be
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  destroyed in its entirety. It says the burden of Damascus behold Damascus is taken away from being
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  a city and it shall be a ruinous heap. And I remember Amir Sarfati I think years ago used to say
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  the world is watching Israel and Israel is watching Damascus. I'm just paraphrase that. But
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  Eric Stackelbeck's got a great show and podcast and he underscored that the latest civil war in Syria
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  makes the prophecy all the more relevant. He said this and I'll get your response Pete. He said
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  all of a sudden there's a bullseye on Damascus. The prophecy laid out in Isaiah 17 that Damascus
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  will become a ruinous heap. Damascus has never been completely destroyed even during the civil war
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  that broke out in 2011. But the Bible is very clear that a day is coming when Damascus will cease
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  to be a city and quote that was Eric Stackelbeck. And Pete Garcia just so many interesting
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  aspects to this to share your thoughts on Damascus and that prophetic word.
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  So when the US or when rather when the US fought Saddam Hussein back during the Gulf War
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  shortly thereafter after he pulled out of Kuwait we put a no-fly zone over the the northern
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  and southern tips of Iraq and I think it was during the 90s during this time frame is that when
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  Saddam Hussein began to transition a lot of his weapons of mass destruction whatever the flavor
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  that was into Damascus or into the hands of Bashar Assad's father who him and Saddam were both
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  bathist from the bathist political party. So it was during these 10 years I think that a lot of
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  that stuff began to get stored underneath Damascus. We've seen from what's been exposed with the
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  conflict in Gaza and with Hezbollah on the north. In the age of satellites you have to bury
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  things you have to put things underground because nothing is safe on the surface. So it seems to me
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  that at some point here in the not too distant future something happens that Damascus gets destroyed.
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  It doesn't say who destroys it. It could be Israel. It could be the Americans. It could be
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  something that Bashar Assad left behind like a like a booby trap as it you know as it were
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  he could have booby trapped the city. He's been there for decades. His father was there for
• 20:30
  30-40 years before him. So I think that when we know there's extensive tunneling subterranean
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  infrastructure underneath Damascus so it could be that he rigged it or he has it so rigged that
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  when if he was ever thrown out of power he could always detonate that thing remotely. So we don't
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  know what causes the destruction of Damascus but there's enough bad stuff down there to make a dirty bomb.
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  Certainly the most logical result is that whatever blows up there is going to be a mix of so
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  many different things. It could be that nobody can physically live there any longer. So that is not
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  outside the realm of possibility. What we don't know is who actually destroys it. I mean God could
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  destroy it. The Israelis. We just don't know. It doesn't say who it is. It just says that it's
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  taken away and generally speaking when God does something he's going to claim responsibility so
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  I don't think it's God. I do think that there may be a chain of events that happen like
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  abdominals that start falling that something triggers a reaction underneath the city and it just
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  things kind of get cascade from bad to worse. So I want you to respond to what Benjamin Netanyahu
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  said and I'm quoting he said we're going to follow events very carefully if we can establish
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  neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria that's our
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  desire but if we do not we will do whatever it takes to defend the state of Israel and the
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  border of Israel. He said we gave the Israeli army and the order to take over these positions to
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  ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a
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  temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found. Pete, your thoughts?
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  I think that suitable arrangement is going to be Russia coming back in once they're done with Ukraine
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  and I do think that this group may make a ill-fated attempt to march on Israel or something and then
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  that's going to end up bad for them and then you have the whole thing we can ask us. I do think
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  ultimately I think ultimately what happens is Turkey and Iran are Turkey and Russia come in and
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  try to stabilize what's left after like this ISIS like government takes over or Taliban like government
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  takes over and I do think that this this will happen here in the not too distant future probably
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  within the next couple of years it'd be my guess but it's going to set the stage for Ziko 38
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  in a big way. So what the big the the big unknown is right now is what happens with Iraq because
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  Iraq is right in the middle between Iran and all of all of their goals is over there you know with Syria
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  Lebanon and Israel. So I would think that the Iraq government collapses too in the process between
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  now and then so something happens it's going to give access and give the ability for militants to
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  become radicalized in Iraq. It's going to have to have access for Iran to make it over to Israel
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  and basically set the stage for Gog and Megog and ultimately I think I think Gog and Megog the reason
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  is called that is because it's pulling people from all corners of the earth right so it's like
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  it's like the crusades except in reverse instead of the Christians marching on Jerusalem now it's
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  going to be Muslims from all over the world. I don't mean men, women, children I mean like military
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  age males radicalized they are going to they're going to want to join this huge last ditch effort to
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  get rid of Israel and they're going to come from everywhere from Africa from Europe from Asia
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  from the stands you know from Eurasia and they're all going to come and it seems like they're
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  massing in Syria so Syria has got to be a friendly place for them to come together and that means
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  there may be some displacement with the Kurds the Kurds may end to being pushed back into Kurdistan
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  which is in what used to be northern Iraq so that made me that if Turkey begins to move into Syria
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  those Kurds are going to be moving the other direction so they're not going to stay there and let
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  the Turks come in and abuse them so that's what I see happening and I remember last thing just
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  you know all these countries over there they're all young they're all young Egypt 1922
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  murky 1923 Saudi Arabia 1932 Lebanon 1943 Syria 1944 Jordan 1946 Iraq 1947 Egypt 1947 Israel
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  1940 Israel has been the most stable country in this whole last 100 years and yet we're constantly
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  in all of those countries I just mentioned her Muslim and yet we're trying to take the one
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  little tiny sliver of Judaism in the world and the only nation state that's Jewish and trying to
• 25:26
  divide that up and I end up I honestly think that Israel is going to somehow during the next four
• 25:32
  years if we're still here throughout the whole time it's going to annex all of Judea and
• 25:36
  Samaria and make that all Israel and they're going to have to move these Arab Egyptians or whoever
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  claiming to be Palestinian they're going to have to move them out to another country or turn
• 25:45
  to the location and it may be that the U.S. incentivizes that move it may be that there's no there's
• 25:53
  no strategic way or logical way to secure Israel without securing the West Bank in Judea with
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  with what the world calls the West Bank but what we call Judea and Samaria there's no way to
• 26:05
  secure Israel without securing that first so I think a lot of these things this this thing with
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  Syria's kicked a lot of things into motion now so yeah we're going to have to just watch it play
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  out but I expect things to continually continually pick up and become more and more
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  prophetically accelerated yeah my goodness we're already living in such prophetic times and more to
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  come right Pete Garcia thanks so much I wanted direct people you wrote a blog early in December called
• 26:35
  the art of almost living great perspective on that we don't have time to get into it but I'd
• 26:39
  encourage people to go to rev 310.net look up look up that because you say many of the takeaways
• 26:46
  recognize that we can only find true peace in Jesus Christ yeah that's it the art of almost living
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  you make some great points in there and you just wrap it up with some great thoughts on eternal
• 26:59
  perspective and how we will go through trials Jesus said in this world you will have trouble but
• 27:04
  take heart I've overcome the world in me you will have peace in the world wars rumors of wars and
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  we don't want to you know get people upset by talking about these things but from a biblical
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  perspective this is why we like to bring them up and just you know share what's going on and
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  remind people to keep their faith in God Pete I love you brother thanks for doing an extra
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  podcast with us and we'll be in touch Mary Christmas hey Mary Christmas and great to be on with
• 27:32
  you get any time amen well good we got you on tape saying that so good thanks Pete all right
• 27:37
  friends again Mary Christmas season God bless you keep standing for the truth of Jesus Christ and
• 27:44
  as always keep speaking the truth about things that matter see you next time