Borrowing from Mark Twain’s famous line in 1897, reports of Turkish President Erdoğan’s death are greatly exaggerated. It looks like the source of this story was the Kurds breaking on to the Erdoğan article on the Hebrew language version of Wikipedia, stating that Erdoğan had died.
I wasn’t going to make a post on this topic but I’ve been contacted several times by readers on this story, so I thought I should. What follows isn’t meant to pick on certain news sites, but is to help you, my brothers and sisters become better at discerning what is true and what is false, and what is minor and what is major.
A pitfall for those watching the end times are news sites which have a habit sometimes of either exaggerating on a rumor (e.g. Israeli sites including news sites and DEBKAfile) or being misinformed and tending toward the sensational (e.g., end-time sites such as Trunews). When they do this, they lead people astray, making them worry more, or panic, for no reason. I believe they do the body of Christ a disservice.
A post on this site pointed out the reports of IRGC General Soleimani’s possible death. Interestingly, the only link I could easily find of a second occurrence in 2015 of the General’s exaggerated death today was this one.
Regarding sites such as Trunews that try to report sensational news, that site was swept up in the general hysteria (reported by many sites) of believing a 350,000-troop force was assembling in Saudi Arabia to invade Syria. I wrote about it here. Today, the only links I can find are on the Worthy Christian forum that the story ever existed, and here is another link on another news site that hasn’t taken the story down. The links to TruNews pages on those websites show the story has been taken down, so good for them. Again, this is not to pick on TruNews, but to show an example of fake news.
All that said, consider whether a story is generally reported—like the US drone being shot down by Iran—or is restricted to a few sites, especially those sites not including the general media. The general media get some things wrong, but generally they get Middle East geopolitics reported correctly.
Try to remember patterns or habits of reporting on particular sites.
Also ask yourself if a story could even be true. For example, the 350,000-troop force had 20,000 tanks. No nation or alliance – not even the US or Russia – can field 20,000 tanks today. This would be impossible.
Finally, regarding Erdoğan himself, if he were to die before the possibility of being the first prominent horn of the goat, another Turkish leader would become the next candidate. Though we cannot see another Turkish leader as imperialistic, as charismatic, and as power-hungry as Erdoğan, God will provide a candidate. The possible death of Erdoğan would be significant to Middle East politics, but the march of the Signposts would continue.
Categories: In The News, Signpost #3: Four Nations
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
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