Welcome back friends!  Have you been praying about the things you are studying?  Why not start today’s lesson on your knees, praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and that the Spirit of the Lord will bring illumination to the things you study today.

We’ve had opportunity to discover who the Palestinians are and what their objectives are regarding Israel.  It seems their plan is to take away bits and pieces of the Land of Israel until there is no Israel left!

Others share the same ambition to annihilate Israel, but they approach it in slightly different ways.  Over the next few days we will look at terrorism and the threat to Israel.  So, clear away the distractions and let’s jump into today’s study!

Though we will get a glimpse of ISIS at the end of this week’s study, we’re going to explore the madness behind two other highly recognized terrorists groups: Hamas and Hezbollah.  There are certainly dozens of other terrorists groups we could include in the discussion, but these two have exhibited prolific hatred toward Israel, and they are constantly in the news!  Once we nail down some details of these two groups, you will have a basic understanding of the mindset behind most other terrorists groups as well.

Hezbollah is consistently one of the most dangerous threats to Israel. Let’s find out a bit about their history and some general facts.  To do so, we’ll access Wikipedia and search for “Hezbollah.”  (For those of you unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it is a secular online encyclopedia.  Thus, we are gleaning data here, not necessarily Biblical truth!)

In the first two paragraphs:

• What does “Hezbollah” mean?
• Where is Hezbollah based, primarily?
• Who supports Hezbollah financially and politically?
• Who inspired Hezbollah’s leaders?
• How are Hezbollah forces trained and organized?

Knowing those few facts, what concerns you regarding Hezbollah?

Scroll down to “History” to find:

• In what types of warfare does Hezbollah wage? (Second paragraph of “1980s”)
• According to the last paragraph in the “History” section, what are some other names that Hezbollah uses?

Now, scroll to “Ideology”:

• Based on Hezbollah’s manifesto, to what other religion group do they claim connection?
• Based on what you find in “Attitudes, statements, and actions concerning Israel and Zionism,” what is Hezbollah’s primary goal?

Scroll down through “Organization” to “Funding”:

• From what two nations does Hezbollah receive … “substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid?”
• What are the estimates of financial aid?

From here, scroll down through “Social Services,” “Political Activities,” and “Military Activities,” until you get to “Alleged suicide and terror attacks.”

• Is Israel Hezbollah’s only target?
• Who else is targeted?

Finally, scroll down through “Conflict with Israel” to “2006 Lebanon War.”  This is perhaps Hezbollah’s most familiar conflict with Israel.  Though the war was officially with Lebanon, Hezbollah played a major roll in that 34-day conflict.

In a future lesson we will learn more about two factions in the Muslim world: Sunnis and Shiites.  However, it is important at this point to note that Hezbollah is supported predominately by Iran.  Though 90% of Muslims are Sunni, Iran is a Shiite stronghold and Hezbollah follows suit.

Great job plowing through the details today!  We’ll do the same tomorrow with Hamas, before meeting a real Hamas insider.  You won’t want to miss the following lessons of this week’s study!