It’s more than two decades since it happened: the morning of September 11, 2001, when we were sucker-punched by terrorists guided by the Saudi Islamist Osama bin Laden. I was checking email and scanning headlines as I waited for my car-pool to work in New Orleans.

A news bulletin caught my eye – no details, just a brief report that a small plane may have crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan. I mentioned it to my wife, telling her that something similar happened in 1945, when a World War II bomber flew into the Empire State Building. Just a bit of trivia to show off my encyclopedic knowledge of useless facts. She wasn’t that impressed. She headed to the living room, where the kids were waiting for the school bus, watching TV. In a short time, she called me to the living room in alarm. We were instantly focused on live coverage of the World Trade Center attack. Cameras showed the North Tower wreathed in a plume of roiling smoke. It wasn’t just a bit of decades-old trivia, but real breaking news of an expanding assault on the United States. And as we watched in horror, we saw a second jetliner crash into the South Tower. Stunned reporters gasped as they watched people leaping to their death, choosing a fatal fall, rather than burning to death. 

It was just the beginning of a long, traumatic day. As my news editor and I drove across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, I got a call from my oldest daughter, letting me know that one of the burning towers had collapsed. Incredulous, I pressed her for updates. It was unbelievable. In 1945, the Empire State Building was seriously damaged, but structurally, it shrugged off the crash. Soon we heard of the Pentagon attack, and the Pennsylvania crash of a fourth hijacked plane. And the president was on Air Force One, flying to an emergency refuge.  

Shortly after we reached our newsroom in a downtown New Orleans tower, we were ordered to evacuate: officials around the country were concerned about possible attacks on other skyscrapers. We quickly planned to do our jobs via remote internet, then eventually headed home.  Above us, fighter jets from the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station patrolled the New Orleans skyline in wide patterns. It was a coordinated terror attack on faraway New York City and Washington, D.C., but it quickly consumed us locally.

That evening, we huddled in our church for a prayer meeting timed around a national address by President Bush. As we discussed the attacks and comforted one another in the sanctuary, I pointed out that America had been attacked specifically because of our longtime support for the nation of Israel. No one wants to be attacked. But I can’t think of many better reasons; sometimes there is a price to be on the right side of history.  

I remember the day I first learned about the Holocaust. As a 9-year-old boy, I was spending the night with a friend when I found an illustrated coffee-table book about the Nazi genocide. As I read the text and viewed the shocking photographs in this book, I was sickened. Especially at how America and the world in general just let the tragedy happen. From then on, I treasured stories about Corrie ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who sheltered and protected persecuted Jews. Anne Frank became my big sister. Even today, I am stirred by Schindler’s List and learning of the Nazi concentration camp officer who hid and saved Jews.

And it’s not ancient history. The murderous anger against Jews is alive and growing today. The recent bestial attacks by Hamas on Israelis were bad enough, but the hatred spewing from mob to mob around the United States and the rest of the world is simply apocalyptic.

In his work “The Book of Signs: 31 Undeniable Prophecies of the Apocalypse,” Dr. David Jeremiah says this:  

Before the end, Satan will mount an all-out assault on God’s people, the Jews, launching a tsunami of anti-Semitism over the world like nothing yet seen in human history … Satan hates Israel because it is the nation that birthed Christ. He is bent on destroying the Jews to prevent fulfillment of Israel’s role in prophecy, when Christ returns to establish his kingdom. 

Satan knows his days are numbered, but like a spiteful child who breaks a playmate’s toy because he can’t have it, he will go all-out to crush Israel. 

(Quote from Chapter 24 “The Dragon”)

The Bible is clear. The end times unfolds as a series of calamities that reaches a climax at the battle of Armageddon, with the forces of Heaven and Hell clashing around Israel.

I’ve read to the end of this drama. And I want it to be said that I was on the side of the light. And many Jews are wondering which of their Christian “friends” would dare to speak up for them or protect or hide them. On Twitter, the hash tag #IWould is being used by Gentiles who are committed to being a true friend of the Jews. 

#Iwould