Eric Mandel, writing in the Jerusalem Post on March 16, calls Iran’s war “a war of attrition”.  The loss of its current leadership through targeted assassination is unlikely to affect this survival strategy. The March issue of Foreign Affairs carries an article by Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, entitled: “Why Escalation Favors Iran”.

In it Pape explains why Iran, despite its weaker conventional military power, paradoxically benefits from broadening and extending the current conflict.

The core of his argument is that Iran is pursuing a strategy he calls “horizontal escalation” — namely, expanding the scope, geography, and duration of the conflict, in order to shift it from direct military contest toward political endurance and strategic costs.

Pape contends that Iran knows it cannot defeat a US-Israel alliance in a direct military confrontation. Instead, it is changing the nature of the conflict. By using regional proxies, attacking economic targets and disrupting international commerce, Iran can vastly increase the political and economic costs borne by its stronger adversaries and their allies.

The strategy draws on historic precedents like the Vietnam war. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces out-maneuvered the US by escalating the war “horizontally” into towns and cities in the south. The US won every battle over 11 bloody years, but lost the war.

Pre Passover for Jews, and post Ramadan for Muslims, adds despair about the terrible state of the modern world. “Allah reveals this in a verse about the Torah: “We sent down the Torah containing guidance and light, and the Prophets who had submitted themselves gave judgment by it for the Jews–as did their scholars and their rabbis–by what they had been allowed to preserve of Allah’s Book to which they were witnesses. (Qur’an 5:44)

“In examining the portents of the End Times, we will also evaluate the related statements in the Torah and the Gospels in the light of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and present the sections that are compatible with the divine verses of the Qur’an and the hadiths of our Prophet. For that reason, Muslims can find in this book, the passages relating the End Times from the Torah and the Gospels as well as the Qur’an.”

“The subject of the Mahdi” is one that has always occupied an important place in the Islamic world. Hoping that Hazrat Mahdi (as) will be instrumental in making the afflictions Muslims suffered, the intellectual systems based on denial, unfair and unjust practices, conflicts and wars pervading the world will come to an end, believers have always awaited the coming of this blessed individual in their own times.”

As a Reform Rabbi who also believes that the world wide upheavals we see are part of the birth pains of the Messianic Age, I offer Muslims some insights from the Jewish Prophets and Rabbinic Sages that offer hope and faith in overcoming the terrible man made times we are going through.

Now many Jews, Christians and Muslims believe the war of Gog and Magog (Gog u-Magog in Hebrew and “Yajuj and Majuj” in Arabic) is coming in the 21st century.

It is true that human society changed more rapidly, violently and fundamentally in the last 250 years than ever before in history. Doctors saved the lives of millions. Dictators sacrificed the lives of millions. Populations are exploding in Africa and populations are declining in Europe. Technology produces both worldwide prosperity and worldwide pollution at the same time.

Should we look upon the future with optimistic hope or with fatalistic trepidation?  Is the world and our society heading towards a wonder-filled new age, or toward a doomsday? Or are both occurring almost concurrently because breakdown is always a prelude to breakthrough?

Jews, whose Biblical prophets were the ones who first wrote about a future Messianic Age, recognize that the birth of a Messianic Age must be preceded by its birth-pangs. But the prophets of Israel also emphasize the glories of a future world living in peace and prosperity with justice for all.

Ancient Jewish prophecies did proclaim that there would be an end to the world as we know it. But they did not prophesy that the world will come to an end, nor did the Prophets of Israel offer an exact date for the transition.

The exact advent of the Messianic Age is not knowable because humans have free will and thus the exact time and manner of redemption cannot be determined in advance. Much depends on what we humans do and do not do.

The beginning of the Messianic Age is a time of transition from one World Age into another. How we move through this transition, either with resistance or acceptance, will determine whether the transformation will happen through cataclysmic changes or by a gradual reform of human society; which will lead to a world filled with peace, prosperity and spiritual tranquility.

The Prophets of Israel conceived redemption as a transformation of human society that would occur through the catalyst of the Jewish community. This transformation, which will take place in this world at some future time, is called the Messianic Age. The transition to the Messianic Age is called the birth pangs of the Messiah.

The birth of a redeemed Messianic world may be the result of an easy or difficult labor. If everyone would simply live according to the moral teachings of his or her religious tradition, we would ourselves have helped bring about the Messianic Age.

But, if we will not do it voluntarily, it will come about through social and political upheavals, worldwide conflicts and generation gaps. The Messiah (Mahdi) refers to one or more human agents of God who help bring about this positive transformation.

The Jewish tradition teaches that this agent of God (together with several forerunners and many disciples) will be a human being, a descendant of Prophets Abraham and David, with great qualities of national leadership similar to Prophet Moses and Prophet Mohammed.

The arrival of the Messianic Age is what’s really important, not the personality of the agents who bring it about, since they are simply the instruments of God, who ultimately is the real Redeemer.

The Islamic 1400s we are now living in, is the age of the coming of Hazrat Mahdi. Prophet Jesus will also return to Earth in this century, Hazrat Mahdi will appear, and the moral values of Islam will spread worldwide.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense said Iran has launched at least 44 ballistic and seven cruise missiles and more than 600 drones toward the Kingdom since February 28. Here is a Mahdi job to bring the Gulf Arabs closer to Israel. Tehran’s Gulf neighbors face 83 percent of Iran barrage of missiles and drones compared with 17 percent launched at Israel. At the same time Israel admitted and confirmed that only about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal has been destroyed so far. The Muslim Mahdi also is active in doing this.

As Prophet Micah proclaims: “In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

“The Torah will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we (Jews, Christians and Muslims) will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.” (Prophet Micah 4:1-5)

And on the Temple Mount a small Jewish structure equipped to broadcast religious services worldwide could be built adjacent to the Dome of the Rock, over 600 feet north of the Al-Aqsa mosque, (provided Muslims cooperate) which would fulfill the words of Prophet Joel (3:16) stating: “The Lord broadcasts from Zion, uttering His voice from Jerusalem”

One of the signs of the End of Days is the arrival and defeat of Gog and Magog (Ya’juj and Ma’juj or Ajuj and Majuj). Gog and Magog appear in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Islamic Quran as individuals, tribes, or lands.

As German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig pointed out; when it comes to God’s creation we are totally passive creatures, i.e. nature is what it is. When it comes to God’s revelation we are more active, as receivers, transmitters, commentators and enactors. But when it comes to God’s redemption of the world and of humanity, we are full partners, for God will not redeem us without our free will participation.

Thus, humanity has so far passed through the most devastating era of human history. However, we have not yet reached the goal of the Messianic Age when “They (all nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken.” (Prophet Micah 4:2-4)

This era will come about when Israelis and Palestinians make a long lasting two state partnership for peace; thus fulfilling the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.

In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-5)

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