The streets of Western capitals fill with keffiyehs and chants of “from the river to the sea.” University campuses treat the existence of the Jewish state as a moral scandal.

The intensifying hostility toward Israel—visible in Western street protests, campus occupations, online campaigns, and the diplomatic recognitions of a Palestinian state by leaders in France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia—is commonly treated as a political reaction to events in Gaza and the West Bank. A literal reading of the King James Bible supplies a different explanation. Satan wants people to wage war against the nation of Israel because that is the most efficient means of placing them on the losing side of the final battle against the returning Lord Jesus Christ.

Zechariah 14 describes the gathering that ends the present age. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,” the prophet writes, “and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.” The Lord’s feet stand upon the Mount of Olives, which cleaves in two. Those who have fought against Jerusalem are struck with a plague that consumes their flesh, eyes, and tongues while they stand. The residue of the people in the city is not cut off. Survivors of the nations later go up year by year to worship the King.

Revelation 19 records the same confrontation from the perspective of heaven. John sees the Rider on the white horse, called Faithful and True, the Word of God, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and who bears the name King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The armies of heaven follow Him. An angel calls the fowls to the supper of the great God so they may eat the flesh of kings, captains, and mighty men.

Then the text states: “I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.” The beast and the false prophet—who wrought miracles by which he deceived those that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image—are cast alive into the lake of fire. The remnant of the armies is slain by the sword that proceeds out of the Rider’s mouth.

These passages describe one war. The nations are gathered against Jerusalem, and the same nations, under the beast and false prophet, are gathered to make war against the returning Christ. The armies consist of those aligned with the system that enforced the mark. Revelation 19:20 ties the false prophet’s deception directly to the mark-receivers. In the preceding chapters, those who refused the mark were killed; the living forces capable of marching as the kings of the earth and their armies are therefore those who submitted to it. The battle ends with their destruction and the establishment of the Lord’s rule.

Satan’s purpose in promoting war against Israel follows from the character Scripture assigns him. He is the dragon, the old serpent, the devil who deceiveth the whole world. Revelation 12 shows him persecuting the woman who brought forth the man-child—Israel, the people through whom the Messiah came—and making war with the remnant of her seed. Once cast to the earth, his time is short. His consistent aim is to oppose God’s covenants and redemptive purposes, which are bound to Israel, and to bring as many human beings as possible into the judgment that awaits him.

The practical instrument for assembling large numbers of people for the war of Zechariah 14 and Revelation 19 is hatred of Israel and of the Messiah who returns to defend her. That hatred supplies the motive. Once it is widespread, the unclean spirits of Revelation 16 can go forth to gather the kings of the earth to Armageddon with far less resistance. Populations already prepared to view Israel as uniquely illegitimate require little additional persuasion to take the mark, worship the image, and join the armies that will be destroyed.

The outcome is not in doubt. Those who fight against Jerusalem are consumed by the plague of Zechariah 14:12. Those who gather with the beast against the Rider are slain and, in the case of the beast and false prophet, cast into the lake of fire. Satan himself is later cast into that same lake. He seeks company in that judgment. The only reliable way to recruit multitudes for the battlefield is to turn them against Israel first.

Contemporary campaigns that normalize hostility toward the Jewish state—whether through eliminationist slogans, the glorification of attacks on Israeli civilians, or the progressive diplomatic isolation of the nation—advance that recruitment. They do not themselves constitute the final battle. They prepare the disposition of the nations that the prophets and the apostle say will be gathered against Jerusalem and against the Lord who fights for it.

The texts leave the reader with a clear alternative. Those who refuse the mark and remain faithful do not join the doomed assembly; they stand with the armies of heaven. Those who have been brought into active war against Israel have already chosen the side that Scripture declares will be destroyed. Satan wants the world to wage war against the nation of Israel for the simplest of reasons: that is how he gets people onto the battlefield against God.

Antisemitic incidents have remained elevated across major platforms and cities. Western leaders, including those of France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, have recognized a Palestinian state and joined General Assembly majorities that further isolate Israel. These steps are framed as support for peace and international law.

In the prophetic framework of the cited texts, they contribute to the accumulating disposition of the nations to burden themselves with Jerusalem—the very condition Zechariah 12:3 says will leave them cut in pieces when the final gathering occurs.