PORT OF BEIRUT EXPLOSION ENCODED WITH CORRECT DATE

STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MATRIX. As per my usual protocol, no statistical significance was assigned to the axis term, here the 3rd lowest ELS of PORT OF BEIRUT  in wrapped Torah. The smaller matrix was much more significant than the full 988-letter matrix with WAR and ARMY in the open text, so statistics given here for significance are based on the 713-letter matrix with a white background.  Before factoring in ELS rank 3 of the axis term, the most significant a priori term found was ELECTRICITY at the absolute skip of the axis term. It was found against odds of about 86 to 1. BLAST  is in the open text. It was found at skip +1 against odds of about 61 to 1. The Hebrew year of the blast 5780 (2020) was at a special case skip (that of the axis term) against odds of about 48 to 1 and the day and month (14 AV - AUGUST 4) of the explosion was at the same special case skip against odds of about 39 to 1. With respect to EVIL SICKNESS I only checked the odds for the a priori part (SICKNESS). It was also in the open text against odds of about 39 to 1. There was a WAR in the 713-letter matrix, but it was not in the open text or at another special case skip. It had about a 15% chance to be found this way.

       I looked for involvement of other countries - Russia, China, Iran and Syria. None was seen at a special case skip, nor was Putin or Hezbollah there, There was an ELS of RUSSIAN at skip -3 but it had about a 48% chance to be found this way. That's not significant. There was no indication that Israel was significantly encoded. In short, despite what President Trump said when he hinted at a possible terrorist attack, that theory is not supported by what I found. The encoded explosion appears to match what is presented by the news media - the product of incompetent handling and inaction to correct a known hazards since 2013. I did not see any indication that smoking caused the explosion. ELECTRICITY is the key word. The 713-letter matrix seems to scream electric fire! It was found against odds of about 1,689,282,988 to 1.

       Like so many of the best matrices found in the Code we see that the Encoder, over 3,000 years ago - or in the future - had precise knowledge of where, when and why this disaster would occur (or occurred). Yet nothing was done to prevent it. Lebanon, of course, is not an innocent country. I could argue about all its attacks against Israel, but then again the Encoder permitted the Holocaust to happen. He could have allowed Hitler to be killed when as assassin's bomb blew up under his table on July 20, 1944 inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators were behind the Operation Valkyrie attempt. But the Encoder allowed Hitler to survive and the failure of the assassination attempt and the intended military coup d'état that was to follow led the Gestapo to arrest more than 7,000 people, of whom 4,980 people were executed. Understanding this leads to major issues for my friends in DOD (and UK MOD- I see they are also here today (Hiroshima Anniversary Day) on 8/6/2020. If the Encoder did nothing to prevent so many diasaters, can we in the time travel research field do better than Him? Should we even try?

       The answer to the question just posed is a difficult one. My knee-jerk response is that we should try, and in fact I took action in 1999 to help prevent what appeared to be an encoded risk of a nuclear war in the Middle East (see the Survey in Egypt below for some details about my effort). However the answer to this issue depends upon the character and intelligence of the person or persons in command. Obviously we don't want Nazis or Communists running around changing our fate and opening up parallel universes. Having said that, in my opinion and that of a lot of my Republican friends, the Democrat Party has basically been taken over by Communists. They think we are Nazis. What about being religious? Religion has often been used to justify terrorism so we must make sure that the person in command has the right religion. But oops - throughout history we have fought many wars over this issue. IN the U.S. there is much praise for Judeo-Christian values, but when we put this term under the microscope we find that the opinion of many Christians is that the Nazarene 2,000 years ago was a deity, the Word who created the universe. But Orthodox Judaism believes he was only a false prophet. Frankly, from a Jewish point of view, if we could travel back in time we might be tempted to eliminate the Nazarene and Mohammed too.  There are probably quite a few people who given the chance to go back in time would like to eliminate Presidents Obama or President Trump. So we need to think long and hard about who gets the keys to any theoretical time machine.

SURVEY IN EGYPT

         After I had lectured at the First Congress of the International Torah Codes Society on May 10, 1999 in Jerusalem, I had first been to the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv on May 13^th, 1999.  Amim Mohsen and Yasser Abed had assured me that it would take them six or seven days to get a response from Cairo.  Amim also promised to call me frequently with questions about my report.

        There were no calls from him despite my unsuccessful efforts to get through many times until May 23^rd.  Concerned by the difficulty of the trip on my family and by the mounting costs of my expedition I left word at the Embassy that I would depart for Egypt the next day. 

   Amin finally returned my call.  He informed me that he had read my report and had forwarded a recommendation for government support to Cairo.  He had not yet received a reply, but would get back to me later in the day with further information.  This didn’t happen.

       The bus left for Egypt from the street that houses the Egyptian Embassy.  I stopped by the next morning before our departure to see if Amin or Yasser were in yet.  They weren’t so I left a Cairo contact phone number with one of the workers there.  The man had on a grin that left me with the impression that the last thing on his mind was to be cooperative.  I wondered whether or not this was the operator who was always so curt when I tried to get through.  If so, his English vocabulary seemed to be limited to the simple phrase, “Call tomorrow at 9 AM,” a demand that always translated into another $200 in waiting expenses.

         My wife has more courage than I.  She had the guts to ask our Egyptian bus driver to stop smoking. While the border crossing at Rafiah is generally closed now in 2020, in 1999 you knew you’d arrived  when the following events occured:

(1)    Arab adults and children were fighting over who gets to carry your luggage  into the customs building (thus earning a large tip by Egyptian standards);

(2)    Perspiration started to not just roll, but pour down your legs;

(3)    The flies were all over you;

(4)    The toilets in public areas generally had no seats (or toilet paper), and

(5)  You were waiting for unexplained reasons and periods of time for your bus to start rolling.

       After paying the exit tax on the Israeli side of the border at Rafiah (which had a separate Palestinian authority section), we proceeded to drive a few hundred feet to the Egyptian checkpoint. It’s easy to fly into Cairo, but this border checkpoint seemed deliberately designed to be as slow and uncomfortable as possible.  Surely Egypt could afford to air condition a building.  That they didn't do so here sent a distinct message that visitors were not encouraged to arrive in this fashion which mandates so much surface security. I had to deal with the border again in 2005, and it was actually much tougher to get through at that time.

       There were supposed to be just two buses to get to Cairo, but we found out there were more because you had to wait for other buses to finish loading before your bus could depart the two plus hour waiting area.  Our driver lacked the English skills to explain the reason for our delay, but it became manifestly obvious that buses from the Israeli border to Cairo could only proceed in a convoy with border police/military stationed both at the front and at the rear of the convoy.  That’s because a similar busload of passengers was slaughtered by terrorists at the Suez Canal crossing a number of years back. 

       The previous time that my wife and I took this twelve-hour bus ride was on a round-the-world trip in August, 1990.  We were going from Cairo to Tel Aviv when the bus suddenly stopped just past the Cairo airport.  Army men sporting machine guns surrounded us as we sat there for 45 minutes without explanation.  The air conditioning broke down in the summer heat while the driver pumped tobacco smoke into the stifling air.  Finally we were permitted to go and told that the guards were there for our protection as Iraq had just invaded Kuwait that day.

       The military escorts each led and followed us for approximately 20-mile intervals. Then a new group of guards took over for the next segment of the trip.  There must have been over a hundred men required to get the buses safely between the border and Cairo, and there are many roadblocks and barricades to get by along the way. 

       I don’t think my son was bothered as much by the smoke as he was by all the men who kissed him.  David was a cute six-year old then, and he quickly learned this is how Arab men show their appreciation of each other.  Fortunately, I’m not as cute as David.

       We had a fleeting glimpse of Bardawil Lake.  With respect to the suspected Ark site the nearest good-sized town appeared to be Bir-El-Abd (though Bir El Suleman is where to turn north to get to the site).  We stopped a few miles past it and I stepped off the bus to chat with tourist police and military personnel about the possibility of chartering a boat around there to proceed to the suspect area.  “Impossible,” I was told.  This also proved true when I returned in 2005  and the Egyptian Coast Guard would not allow a local boat skipper to take us to the site.  There were many signs along the sandstorm-swept highway that warned, “Foreigners not permitted to leave the road.”  This may have been for security reasons relating to the naval base that I later learned about, (though I only got close to  the salt works) but looking around at the huge dunes, it was also apparent that only the natives had the survival skills, camels, or trucks running on tires deliberately uninflated  - which is necessary to successfully navigate the sands.  “You must get permission from the military in Cairo to go to your destination,” I was informed.  Later we learned that the area still had some mines left over from previous wars with Israel.

       Entering Cairo we passed fortress after fortress along the main highway.  Each had numerous guard towers facing the road and each tower was manned with a soldier who held his gun in a manner clearly visible from the bus.  This was a city that seemed poised for the outbreak of war or revolution at any moment.  At the entrance to our hotel and restaurants nearby there were metal detectors with more tourist police to guarantee our security.  Egypt, apparently, was still reeling from a recent slaughter of other tourists at Luxor. 

       From my Cairo Sheraton hotel room I could see men with bullet proof jackets standing behind metal barricades with machine guns at the ready. If the goal of the Fundamentalists had been to turn Egypt into a nervous, armed camp, they’d clearly succeeded.

       By Thursday, May 27^th in Cairo I was beginning to ask myself, Do I stop for now or go on?  The bills were really mounting, but the desire to finish the (suspected Ark of the Covenant) site survey still dominated my actions.  I almost threw in the towel the night before.  It was quite frustrating when I’d repeatedly call information to get the phone number of the Egyptian Navy only to be told by the operator that Egypt has no navy!  This, I am certain, would be of great interest to JANE’S FIGHTING SHIPS who when I last checked indicated that Egypt had quite a few destroyers and submarines.  The language barrier was more of a problem than I had envisioned it would be.  We also got some initial dirty looks when I asked a hotel worker to heat up some kosher food.  The Hebrew lettering on the packages undoubtedly aroused suspicion.

     We wanted to take a bus straight to Tel Aviv that day, then thought we could sail directly from Egypt to Europe on an Adriatica line ferry.  The ferry idea sounded especially inviting when we were told that it would sail from Port Said, about 30 miles west of the suspect region.  The idea was that I could perhaps arrange for a quick site survey before sailing for home.

     In Egypt, I learned, be skeptical when told someone can do something for you in five minutes, and be careful about believing anyone who tells you about things they only think are true.  The ferry didn’t start sailing from Egypt to points north until July 2^nd.

     I bought our Tel Aviv bus tickets that morning and had a few hours to kill before our 3:30 PM departure.  Was there a good library in town that could provide better maps or charts of the area than I had so far?

      I hired a taxi driver.  His first two stops were a waste of time and money (conventional bookstores, not libraries).  But after my second rejection he finally caught on when I stressed the chart I had.  We were quickly off to a government chart office where the scene was truly reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie.  I had to temporarily surrender my passport to get into the place.  Old, musty, dusty, and poorly lit, the rooms were filled with ancient charts and scribe-like workers.

      To my delight, the worker pulled two 64 year old, vintage 1935 charts that exquisitely covered the area from El Arish to what I thought was El Zuaba ever since begining my search in 1997.  But not so pleasant, however, was that the prime chart spelled the area of concern as El Zuqba substituting a letter “Q” for the “A” sought throughout my experiment until that moment.  There was a Bir El Zuabatiya 20 nautical miles away at 31° North, 33° 25’ East so initially I had hope that there was just a spelling mistake present on the 1935 Cairo map.

      It quickly became apparent that the Bir El Qals area would move up a notch as the suspect site for Baal Zephon.  This is when I first learned of the fortress of Katib el Qals.  There was also (in 1935) a 60 meter mount (Mons Casius) on the coast within about 200 meters of what was then a 31° 13’ North, 33° 4’ East suspect coordinate.  There was also a fishing camp a few miles away on the lake side of the barrier island at 31° 12’ North, 33° 2.75’ East.  

     At 31° 9’ North, 33° 4’ East, the original (and current) entry latitude for the experiment, the site on the Zuaba (Zuqba) peninsula was seen to be only about 110 meters from a large body of water measuring approximately 1,100 meters by 100 to 200 meters in 1935. As there was realistically no way to obtain the Qatia chart without having gone to Cairo, the long bus rides were well worthwhile.

       There were two buses to Tel Aviv that day.  We had already missed the first departure at 5:30 AM.  The second one left at 3:30 PM with an arrival time of 2 AM or later.  The thought of arriving in Israel at that time with nine remaining pieces of luggage and a sleeping six-year old on my shoulder wasn’t a cheery one, especially because we had no hotel reservation.  Could we stop for the night in El Arish some thirty miles east of the suspect area? I wondered.  The answer was yes, then no, then yes again just before the bus arrived in El Arish.  The Oberoi hotel there was pleasantly located on the beach, and the bus ride took just five hours from Cairo.  All this meant that I would mount one last personal drive to get to the sites or to learn from the military or government what they knew about them.

       On Friday morning, May 28^th, I explained my need to meet with Egyptian military personnel to the hotel manager, Ragab Abd El Karim.  He told me that everything was closed for the Muslim Sabbath, but promised to call the military for me on Sunday.  I then agreed to stay a few days to give their military a chance to check me (and hopefully my coordinates) out.

       If you’ve got to be stuck someplace for a few days, El Arish was a wonderfully idyllic place to be (but it's plague by terroris in recent years).  Our room was located directly on a beautiful beach.  There we enjoyed the gentle song of waves rolling in at night, not the maddening blast of millions of fancy car horns that dominated the polluted Cairo air night and day.  El Arish probably is (if you’re not kosher) a nice place to retire.  The people are friendly and the guns of Cairo were not as apparent there then.

       The hotel was almost entirely empty, but the one American that I did meet (Richard Ainsworth) had GPS equipment in his room to help him navigate the desert sands while not working at his job in Cairo.  He was most helpful. 

       I was curious to see how his equipment matched up the prime suspect coordinates with more accurate Temple Mount coordinates that I’d received while in Jerusalem.  After working through the need to convert the equipment’s magnetic bearings to the True headings required, it became obvious that there was a problem with the course headings given on what was then the only map figure presented in my Experimental Report. 

       A marine equipment store in Florida had previously quoted the course from Jerusalem to the obstruction at 31° 16’ North, 33° 3.5’ East as being 261° True with a one-degree margin of error. The heading based on the positioning of the first letter of Jerusalem and the first letter of Bardawil was 260.3°.  But according to the GPS equipment used by Ainsworth, the course from Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the coordinates of the obstruction in question was 255° True.  That was a 5.3 degree error if Ainsworth’s equipment worked correctly.  Further, because the obstruction was a few miles north of Bardawil, the error was even greater.

       The course from the Temple Mount position to the 31° 9’ North, 33° 4’ East coordinates was, as stated throughout Chapter One of my Ark Code book, 252° plus or minus one degree.  I would not be able to come up with a correct ELS Map Figure 1 until four months after my return to the States in 1999.  Only then did I realize that with the tsadeh kof bet spelling of Zuqba, the extension of Figure 1 was an accurate map from Jerusalem to Zuqba.  It took nearly three additional years to realize that Figure 1 and ELS Map Figure 1 also indicated a bearing of 251.565° from Temple to Ark of the Covenant.

      After morning prayers on Saturday, May 29^th, I found a previously unseen Hebrew map of Egypt.  This is what indicated that the map located in Cairo was no fluke with respect to spelling.  Where I hoped to find Zuaba spelled zayin alef bet hey, there was Zuqba spelled ayin kof bet hey, though as mentioned before transliterations often vary widely.  There are two letters in Hebrew that may render a Z sound, the zayin (æ), and a tsadeh (ö) used on the corrected ELS Map Figure 1.

       Nobody in the area was familiar with Zuqba or Zuaba.  They erroneously told me the patch of desert in question was Zaraniq.   Although Zaraniq has ancient ruins, it and Lake Zaraniq are about 20 miles east of the entry coordinates for the Ark search.  Some of the posters seen in El Arish indicated it was a bird sanctuary popular with nature lovers.

       The discovery that 31° 9’ North, 33° 4’ East was probably Zuqba, not Zuaba, knocked some of the wind out of my sails at a critical time.  It seemed to undo plots not shown on this site for the sake of brevity.  These plots formed a substantial part of my findings prior to the foray into Egypt.

       Sunday morning, May 30^th, with a good chunk of my best finds temporarily sunk by the q in Zuqba, I went to the Northern Sinai Government office. The task was to concentrate on Figure 1 that had improved somewhat with one Zuqba transliteration, to focus on Baal Zephon, and the Treasures in the Sand plot (page 90 in my Ark Code Book).  I also had to show them why it was in their interest to either cooperate with me or to check out the site on their own. 

       I almost didn’t get into the North Sinai government office because I forgot to carry my passport, but my U.S. military ID card did the trick.  After four hours of meetings with Mahmoud Ayyad Alatrash, Gammal Mohammed, and Khalid Hassan, I left with the clear impression they would see to it that the prime site would be investigated. Mahmoud and Gammal spoke good English and repeatedly stated their fascination with what  they had seen.  They made copies of the news articles and asked the right questions.  Gammal informed me that he was a geologist.  He stated his belief that something supernatural was afoot at Bir Al Qals.  His reasoning was that the barrier island was surrounded by salt water (the Mediterranean and Lake Bardawil) but that, as the name implied, it was a well of sweet water.  He knew that saltwater intrusion should have ruined the taste, but this hadn't happened.  "As a geologist, I'm unable to explain it," he mareveled.  What he told me was matched in the Codes.

      Crossing Katib El Qals is the phrase He threw it into the water and the water became sweet.   This is the only time in the Torah that sweet water is mentioned.  Further, Katib El Qals is directly above Ark of the Covenant’s non-wrapped occurrence at Numbers 10:33.  This corresponds to a course of 180 degrees from the fort to 31° 9’ North, 33° 4’ East.  It matches what’s seen on a map.

      Both men confirmed that Bir Al Qals has the Katib El Qals military fortress.  As there are only camel trails leading to the area, it wasn’t too surprising when they informed me that Egyptian helicopters operated from the site (but when better satellite images became avaiable, it looked like the current base is just on the south side of Lake Bardawil).  The base information was particularly interesting to me because of an aircraft explosion encoded with the Ark site (discussed in my Ark Code book).  We then discussed the importance of not loading the Ark onto an aircraft if it is found at the site.

       My emphasis then was on the obstruction 2.9 nautical miles north of Katib El Qals.  Mahmoud and Gammal both appeared afraid to personally go near the site for a swim or “fishing expedition” without direction from Cairo, but both also seemed somewhat ambitious.  “Would either of you like to be Prime Minister or President one day?” I asked.  “To be a leader sometimes you have to be proactive.  I’m putting a lot of opportunity in your hands now,” I said as I put the Experimental Report in Mahmoud’s hands.  “Use it wisely.”

       After accepting the report (with my warning about the Zuqba problem), the men tried to introduce me to the regional governor.  He wasn’t in so I was next shown into the Minister of Tourism’s office.  There Minister Hassan was most interested in the atomic holocaust plots. 

       Hassan didn’t speak much English.  He required an interpreter, but the man summoned had English skills only a shade better than his.  “How many people believe in your idea in America?” he wanted to know.  I wasn’t sure if he wanted a big number to see if I was sane, or because it meant more tourist dollars coming into the area.

       “My ideas are just being published now,” I told him.  Then, to give him the large numbers that he seemed to demand, I added, “But there are many millions of Christian Americans who believe something awesome is about to happen within the next year or so (the year 2000 was big in Christian thinking then).  An Ark find would go a long way towards fulfilling their hopes.”

        “What is the name this war that is predicted?” Hassan demanded next. 

        “World War Three, Nuclear War,” I responded after he wouldn’t accept the idea that I had no other name for it.  He didn’t seem to understand the word nuclear until a picture of an atomic explosion was drawn for him. 

        “Islam is a religion of peace!” he declared.  “Why should we start a nuclear war?”  I explained that Michael Drosnin spoke of Libya starting the war with Syria joining in. “My findings suggested an Israeli retaliation that could involve Egypt.  None of my findings, however, mean anything unless you find the Ark.  If you can’t find it or at least a wall at the site indicated, you can rip up my report and forget about the threat.” 

       “Who else will be in this war?” he asked angrily.  “The United States, Lebanon, Hesballah, who?”  He was less than satisfied when told that I had only seen encoding pertinent to Israel, Libya, Syria, Ramallah in the West Bank, and Egypt.  There seemed to also be rage in his response towards those Arabs that might draw Egypt into such a conflict.  None of us discussed Iran.

       “Did the Israelis give you permission to come here?” he wanted to know.

       “Why should I ask them for permission?  I’m an American citizen.  I don’t have to ask the Israelis for anything,” I replied.  It wasn’t likely that the Israeli military would listen to me anyway, but they might listen to Rips and he had seen the nuclear plots and the link with my experiment.  I felt that I could count on him to relay the essential data to Mossad, the Israeli spy network if the quality of physical data uncovered in Egypt would be good enough.  Without such evidence, there was no sense in alarming them anyway.

       “Why didn’t you go to our embassy in Washington?  Why did you go in Tel Aviv?” the Minister asked suspiciously.  I told him that Egypt’s embassy in the U.S. was a thousand miles from my home, but that their embassy in Tel Aviv was a five-minute walk from my hotel.

       Hassan then tried to stress that the war I warned of was a war between Judaism and Islam.  I could have argued the point, but chose to focus on the idea that Allah had provided a way to prevent the war, that it would not, according to the Codes, actually be executed.

     While Hassan’s final response was that he could not provide any assistance without instructions from Cairo, he dragged out the interview for as long as he could to allow his secretary time to copy every single page of Drosnin’s Bible Code book.   He also made many enlarged Xerox copies of my maps and charts, personally labeling each of the suspect coordinates in order of my preference.

      “You must get the backing of your State Department or your embassy,” he insisted.  It took a while to get across the concept that this would probably not be forthcoming without the kind of evidence that only he or his military could obtain with a simple dive at the area in question - a dive that I am still personally attempting to get permission for in 2020. If I ever get though, I'll need younger partner. I'm 73 now.

       It was apparent that Hassan eventually understood that the site did need to be checked by Egyptian security forces.  Finding either a submerged fortress wall, or the gold box that I had told him about could prevent the war.

       Before departing from America I had been warned by Douglas Haldane at the Alexandria, Egypt Institute of Underwater Archeology that, “You can’t just come to Egypt and expect to work here.  It takes six months to get any project approved.”   The man is obviously correct.

        I didn’t reach my desired coordinates in 1999.  If I were a single man, I would have toughed it out.  But I’m a married man and at the time I was saddled with my six-year old son (now 27-year old Dr. David Roffman).  Decent hotel rooms there cost three to four times what they do in the United States and there is little available to eat that’s kosher.  I had to resign my teaching job to launch my expedition when the principal in my school  (Santaluces High in Lantana, Florida) denied my requested two-month leave of absence without pay.  But I was told by the Palm Beach County School Board that if, by June 1^st, 1999, I called in my intention to return by August 9^th the same year, I would be rehired at my old salary (though with a loss of tenure and job location).  Anytime after that I was warned that they would cut my salary by $10,000 (language that the CTA union had agreed to in contract talks).  Having piled up $16,000 in additional credit card debt, there was little choice but to return to America to reclaim my job before running out of room on those cards.  I got a bit closer to the site in question during a one hour 2005 tour of the area after bribing local officials many hundreds of dollars, but I was not permitted to use any equipment or to dive offshore at the potential Baal Zephon site.

       While the above was not my first choice, it was the only sane one for the time.  “I will hide My Face,” God wrote in Deuteronomy 31, the prime latitude chapter.  The area indicated by the Code is truly remote with access strictly controlled by Egyptian military forces who usually don’t speak English very well (if at all). 

       The ‘99 trip was never intended to be more than presentation of my Report in Jerusalem and a brief site survey.  With respect to the survey, much was accomplished.   Returning home then didn’t mean failure, it only meant “to be continued based on a more complete set of data.”  The Qatia map led to nearly all the ELS map figures seen on this web site.  Further, the suspect coordinates had been published widely with the prime site first printed on page 6A in the Palm Beach Jewish Journal North edition on April 7, 1998.  All suspect coordinates including 31° 9’ North, 33° 4’ East were put into the hands of the Egyptian government.  Amin Mohsen, Yasser Abed, Mahmoud Ayyad Alatrash, Gammal Mohammed and Khalod Hassan all knew the consequences of failure on the part of their government to investigate the site.  I was also debriefed by Major Woodmansee, Assistant Naval Attaché at the U. S. Embassy in Tel Aviv upon my arrival there.        

       Others who read my findings will eventually travel to the site even if it’s risky to do so.  There will always be treasure hunters and there is surely no greater treasure than the Ark.  The Egyptian government, I hope, has been pushed into investigating the sites before others do so for motives very different than mine. 

       Did I prevent a war on the ’99 trip?   Who can say?   Drosnin may have altered the time line by clueing in Netanyahu about his assassination risk in Amman in 1996.  The outgoing Prime Minister of Israel lived to lose his election, but not his life before his 50^th birthday.  Perhaps this is why he seemed to be drifting and lost for the last part of his administration.  He simply wasn’t supposed to be there, and yet, as discussed in my book, Netanyahu isn’t home free because he is, in 2020, still fighting to hold on to his job as Prime Minister.

       If the Egyptians did investigate the site and found the Ark or Baal Zephon underwater at 31° 16’ North, 33° 3.5’ East, they may well have acted to prevent the war in 2000, but opted to keep it their secret. 

       As the 9^th of Av (August 10^th) approached that year there was great anxiety for Codes buffs.  The summit between Yassir Arafat and Ehud Barak failed over the difficult issues of Jerusalem and refugees.  On that day religious Jews fasted around the world as they do ever year at that time.  But, by 5 PM, I didn’t mind the hunger.  Though the fast still had almost four hours to go in my Florida home, in Israel it was already over.  In Israel it was the 10^th of Av and there were then six more years of breathing room before another potential Ninth of Av war date would be upon us.  Drosnin found a plot that called for Armageddon Asad Holocaust (Figure 29).  But, Hafez Asad died a few months before the 9^th of Av in 2000 and there was no holocaust, or it turned out, in 2006 either.   So what do we know now and what don’t we know?

       It’s possible that the Egyptians found the Ark, took the Codes seriously, and then poisoned Asad to short circuit a joint Syrian-Libyan attack plan.  Or, it’s possible that Israeli or American agents checked out the site and they poisoned him.  Asad was afraid of such a death.  In fact he had stated his belief that it was the duty of loyal Syrians to poison him if he ever conceded even an inch of Syrian territory to Israel.  However, while proof of poisoning would make for a better finish to my story, I have no evidence or indication that his heart attack was sponsored at this time.  Nor can I say for certain that the Egyptians have ever checked my prime suspect sites for the Ark.  I had shown them all the suspect locations along the 33° 4’ East line including the one at 31° 9’ North, but my emphasis then was on the underwater obstruction at 31°16’ North that I still believe will be the Fortress of Baal Zephon.

       Although Hafez Asad is dead, we still aren’t out of the woods with respect to the Armageddon plot, because another Asad (Bashar) rules in his place.  Bashar Asad rejected all attempts at a settlement by the Barak government too.  Barak offered him return of the Golan Heights with Israel retaining only the northeastern corner of Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee). Bashar refused to compromise.  His demands threatened Israel’s fresh water supply and thus its survival.  Further, Bashar is probably just as paranoid as his father was when it comes to the personal consequences of making concessions.   Cautious Syrian leaders like his father can rule for a very long time.

       While Egypt may elect to closely guard the secret of the Ark, if they haven’t killed Hafez Asad they would do well to let the world know what they have found (if anything).  Today Egypt is wall to wall guns in tourist areas.  Their fear isn’t of Israel, but of Islamic extremism.  One thing good can be said of religious extremists.  They do believe in God.  If the Ark is in Egypt at the suggested coordinates, the discovery might lead the Bin Laden types to a new and less threatening understanding of Allah.  This would allow everyone to breathe a lot easier.