A Teaching for Relevant Revelations | Updated February 28, 2026
By Rev. WL Trumbo
For years I’ve watched prognosticators tie themselves in knots trying to explain the Middle East conflict. News anchors, professors, and politicians speak about it as though it were the most impossible conundrum in all of human history. But strip away the politics and one truth becomes impossible to ignore. The Middle East consists of a tiny nation needing peace to survive while it’s surrounded by enormous nations wanting it erased and “pushed into the sea” — literally wanting Israel dead.
Today, February 28, 2026, that conflict reached a turning point that no one alive will forget. The United States and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the Supreme Leader of Iran and for decades the world’s chief financier of terrorism against Israel — is dead. President Trump confirmed it on Truth Social: “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead.”
Let’s sit with that for a moment — And then let’s try to better understand how we got here.
A Brief Walk Through History
In 1947, the United Nations voted to divide the land of Palestine into two states — one Jewish, one Arab. The Jewish people accepted the agreement. The Arab nations did not. British rule ended on May 15, 1948. On the very next day when Israel declared statehood — the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt attacked. Israel was one day old. One author noted that at the time the war began, Israel had only one airplane and almost no standing army. See the map above and find the little red strip in the middle of all the green. That’s Israel in a sea of Islamic Arab countries.
By the grace of God, tiny Israel survived. A fledgling Jewish community of only 650,000 people were attacked by nations with a combined population of 30 million — and survived. That has the fingerprints of God all over it.
Nearly two decades later, in 1967, Egypt’s leader publicly announced his intention to destroy Israel and moved troops to its border with the battle cry of “push Israel into the sea.” Surrounded and outnumbered, Israel struck first in what became known as the Six-Day War. Israel even pleaded with Jordan not to enter the conflict. Jordan did anyway — and because of that, Israel ended up controlling the West Bank.
Afterward, the Arab states issued what became known as the “Three No’s”:
- No recognition of Israel
- No peace with Israel
- No negotiations with Israel
We in America need to let that sink in. How would the United States respond to being surrounded by hostile neighbors whose mantra was that we had no right to exist?
In fact, the second map above gives a visual perspective of the physical relation to Iran who has sponsored terror throughout the region at the cost of thousands of lives of both civilians and military. Iran financed and sponsored terror while denying its own people of much needed eonomic and social support. Below is a list of Iran’s Proxies through which much of the needless bloodshed that results from terrorism has been perpetuated.
- Hamas → Gaza
- Hezbollah → Lebanon
- Houthis → Yemen
- Islamic Jihad → Gaza and West Bank
- Assad regime support + weapons corridor → Syria
- Shia militias → Iraq
Israel Has Repeatedly Made Attempts at Peace
Here is something the evening news rarely pauses to highlight: Israel has consistently traded land for peace whenever a genuine partner appeared.
In 1978, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt — land larger than Israel itself, rich with oil — because Egypt’s new leadership was willing to sign a real peace agreement. Israel gave it back.
In 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians a sovereign state covering more than 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza. The Palestinian leadership rejected it — and responded with waves of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians.
This is not a misunderstanding. This is the behavior of murderous evil. The barbaric attack of October 7, 2023, reminded the world of the uncivilized, irrational hatred that drives these efforts. Their own manifestos state plainly that they want all Jews dead.
The Hidden Hand Behind the Violence — Iran
What the mainstream media has consistently underreported is this: behind Hamas, behind Hezbollah, behind the Houthis, behind Islamic Jihad — there has always been one regime pulling the strings and writing the checks. Iran.
For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatollah Khamenei served as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran funded Hamas, which carried out the October 7 massacre. Iran funded Hezbollah, which terrorized northern Israel for decades. Iran armed the Houthis, who fired hundreds of missiles at Israel and international shipping lanes. Iran directed Islamic Jihad’s operations inside Gaza and the West Bank.
While Arab nations surrounding Israel perpetuated the “pay for slay” program (Millions spent by Jordan in 2025)— actually rewarding terrorists who kill Jews, with higher payments for higher-ranking victims — Iran was providing the ideology, the weapons, and the funding that made it all possible.
Remove Iran from the equation and the entire terror network begins to collapse. That is not speculation. That is strategy. And that is precisely what happened today.
A Hypothetical Question To Consider
If Israel laid down its arms tomorrow and declared, “We will fight no more” — groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would drive them into the sea as they have publicly declared. Israel would be destroyed and its people brutally killed.
Now reverse it. If the nations and Iranian proxies surrounding Israel laid down their arms and declared, “We will fight no more” — what would happen? The next day, there would be peace. History tells us this is true.
Today’s events are a dramatic illustration of exactly that principle. The regime that funded, armed, and directed the war against Israel’s existence is gone. Netanyahu said the strikes aimed to “create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.” Trump addressed the Iranian people directly: “The hour of your freedom is at hand.”
The Land and Its Story
There are twenty-two Arab states in the world, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. There is one Jewish state. It is roughly the size of New Jersey — smaller, in fact, than El Salvador.
And here is a historical footnote that deserves far more attention than it receives: there has never EVER been a Palestinian state, an Arab state, or a Muslim state in that geographic region. And conversely, Israel is actually the third Jewish state to exist there. The land has a Jewish history that Scripture itself bears witness to — from Abraham’s covenant in Genesis to the promises carried through the prophets.
Modern politics are not simple, and not every decision Israel makes is above critique. But we should view the situation from a factual perspective if we hope to make sane assessments.
What Scripture Says About This Moment
God declared in Genesis 12:3 that He would bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her. History is littered with the wreckage of empires and regimes that made Israel’s destruction their central purpose — Egypt, Babylon, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and now the Islamic Republic of Iran as we have known it. None of them succeeded. None of them will.
Zechariah 12:3 told us that Jerusalem would become a “burdensome stone for all people” in the last days, drawing the nations into confrontation. We are watching that prophecy unfold in real time. And Zechariah 2:8 reminds us that whoever touches Israel touches the apple of God’s eye.
This is not politics. This is theology. This is the Word of God moving through history.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:6, “See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” The chaos we see is not evidence that God has lost control. It is evidence that the story is moving exactly as He said it would.
What This Means for Us
As followers of Jesus, we are called to be peacemakers — and genuine peacemaking requires seeing clearly. We cannot pray effectively for peace if we misread who the parties are and what they actually want.
Proverbs 18:17 reminds us that “the first to state his case seems right, until another comes and cross-examines him.” The media often presents a skewed case. Our job, as people who love truth, is to dig deeper.
We must pray for all those suffering — and there is real, heartbreaking suffering on all sides, including among the ordinary people of Iran who did not choose this regime. But we must not call evil good or good evil. This is not a conflict between two sides equally committed to the other’s peaceful existence. They are not.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, as the Psalmist urges us. Pray for the Iranian people, who may be standing on the threshold of freedom for the first time in a generation. Pray with open eyes. And teach those around you to do the same.
We are living in one of the most prophetically significant moments in human history. Don’t sleepwalk through it.
This article reflects the author’s teaching and perspective, developed through years of study, speaking on biblical prophecy, and close observation of the Middle East conflict. Updated February 28, 2026 in light of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and the reported death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Rev. WL Trumbo | Relevant Revelations | wltrumbo.com