The Israel-Hezbollah conflict has convinced many premillennialists that God, working through Israel, is steering the world toward its final days and the return of the Messiah, Jason Boyett says in Salon.com.

Meanwhile, Shiite Muslims believe the time is now for the return of the Hidden Imam and a final battle, possibly on August 22 this year, Iranian President Ahmadinejad has hinted, Princeton professor emeritus Bernard Lewis points out in The Wall Street Journal. He explains that this date is celebrated by many Muslims as “the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back.

“This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world.”