Jerusalem: A Cup of Trembling

Jerusalem:
A Cup Of
Trembling
Behold, I will make Jerusalem
A cup of trembling unto all the people
Round about ... In that day will I make
Jerusalem a burdensome stone
For all people...
Zech 12:2-3

    As we prepare this issue of Hebrew Roots, the news is once again full of the Israeli/Palestinian peace process. The White House has invited both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasser Arafat to Washington to begin the ‘final status’ phase of the so-called peace talks.
    Arafat is ready and has his plane ticket, but Netanyahu has decided not to attend, but will fly in later in the week for talks with U.S. Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.
    Of course Arafat is willing to attend. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose. So far his Palestinian Authority has taken control of about 27 percent of the ‘occupied’ territory without doing much of anything. Oh yes, he has created a small army under the umbrella of a ‘police force.’ Occasionally he arrests someone who commits terror against the people of Israel, and then releases them after the furor has died down. But how many have noticed, or said anything about the fact that Arafat has not even bothered to have the PLO charter changed, which calls for the destruction of Israel. That was supposed to be the very first thing the Palestinians were to do as their part of the Oslo accords.
    So life goes on just as it has for many years in the Middle East. The only difference is that Israel is expected to keep giving back more and more territory to the PA, while receiving none of the security guarantees they were promised. And if they do not give back territory they are painted by the world’s media as being the bad guys.

    The idea of Israel giving up land they had captured during wartime, in order to obtain a promise of peace from their Arab neighbors, stems primarily from the Camp David accords of the late 1970’s, when Egyptian leader, An-war Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin reached agreement to give the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt.
    Israel had taken the Sinai in 1973 after being attacked on Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) by both Syria and Egypt. So Egypt, the aggressor, got their land back after having received no real punishment other than loss of face for losing the territory in the first place.
    To date, the Egyptian/Israeli peace accords have held, although Egypt has never really accepted Israel as a legitimate country. Meanwhile, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Egyptian Islamic extremists for his role in trying to bring a realistic peace to the Middle East. However, lately there has been increasing pressure within Egypt to forsake the peace treaty they signed with Israel, and begin another campaign to "push the Jews into the sea."
    What did Israel gain from giving back the Sinai? Well, they have not been back at war with Egypt, but neither have they been in direct conflict with Syria, even though there has been no peace treaty with them. Israel does have a peace treaty with Egypt, even though it is not the same kind of peace that exists between Canada and the United States, where people freely move back and forth on a daily basis with little more than a cursory check at the border by the countries customs agents.
    What did Israel give up to come to peace terms with Egypt? Well, a number of Jewish settlers in the Sinai had to give up theft homes, see them bulldozed, and move north. Also, a large security territory was given up so that the Egyptian/Israeli border is now much closer to Israel’s major population centers, making it much easier for Egypt to bring a fast attack on Israel should war again breakout.
    As things now stand, Israel has had to patrol that border very closely over the intervening years, despite the treaty that was signed about twenty years ago.

Meanwhile, US first lady, Hillary Clinton went on record as supporting a Palestinian state, cut out of the territory that YHVH gave to the children of Israel. Her remarks, televised widely across the US (and probably also in other countries around the world) have set the Israeli people on edge. If the first lady is fully supporting a Palestinian state before the final discussions have even begun, does Israel really want to become involved? Once again it looks as though the deck has been stacked against them. It is this writer’s observation that often President Clinton uses his wife Hillary to float his own views before he is ready to state them publicly himself.

    Meanwhile, PA Chairman, Yasser Arafat, continues to talk to his own people more like a man of war instead of a man of peace. He and his henchmen continue to spout words of incitement and violence to the Palestinian people. Consider some of the following quotes from PA leaders over the last few months, which are taken from a advertisement purchased by the organization FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East), and printed in the May, 1998 issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine.
    "‘Oh Allah, destroy America for she is ruled by Zionist Jews.. Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs...’ PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri (In a sermon at Al-Aksa Mosque, July 11, 1997)."
    "‘We must confront them, we must confront them. We must confront them in every sense of the word.’ PA Chairman Yasser Arafat (Palestinian Television, August 9, 1997)."
    "‘I now see the walls of Jerusalem, the mosques of Jerusalem, the churches of Jerusalem. My brothers! With blood and with spirit we will redeem you, Palestine!’ Yasser Arafat Addressing a crowd in Tulkarem, April 28, 1997)."

We could go on and on, but you get the picture. Arafat has no intention of stopping once a Palestinian state has been formed. He will use it as a springboard to the next step in the loathsome plan of the Islamic Arab community to destroy Israel.
The tiny nation of Israel truly does stand alone against the rest of the world. While the United States claims to be Israel’s ally, when the chips are down we have not responded very well. If the US media succeeds in its plan to bring US public opinion to the point where there is great pressure from the American people for a Palestinian state, then US support of Israel will melt away like ice on the equator, for every decision made in Washington is the result of political expediency, not reasoned principle.

    "Number of fatal terrorist attacks by Palestinians against Israelis since the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993: 76.
    "Number of suspected terrorists Israel has asked the PA to extradite, in accordance with the Oslo agreements: 36.
    "Number of suspected terrorists actually extradited to Israel: 0.
    "Number of Hamas and PFLP terrorists sought by Israel who, in viola-lion of Oslo, are serving in the Palestinian police force: 25."
            (From CAMERA media
            report, Vol. 7, No. 2,
            Winter, 1997.)

    While most of the attention in the Middle East is focused on the Israel/PA peace talks, Iran is quietly becoming the major Arab power in the Middle East. Documents obtained by the Jerusalem Post purport to show that Iran does have nuclear weapons. Now they are working on a missile delivery system that can reach Israel.
    "Iran received several nuclear warheads from a former Soviet republic in the early 1990s and Russian experts maintained them, according to Iranian government documents relayed to Israel and obtained by The Jerusalem Post....
    "The documents appear to bolster reports from 1992 that Iran received enriched uranium and up to four nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan, with help from the Russian underworld."
    (from The Jerusalem Post International Edition, April 18, 1998.)

Recently Mochi a-Din Sharif, a bombmaker for the terrorist group Hamas, was killed when a bomb exploded in Israel. At first it was thought that he had accidentally killed himself while in the process of trying to plant a bomb in Israel. However, investigation revealed that he was actually assassinated by dissident members of his own terrorist group, Hamas.
Of course, Hamas is blaming Israel for his killing, and they vow revenge, even though their own people did it and Arafat’s Palestinian Authority police agrees. Middle East political watchers say there is an increased amount of in-fighting going on within the Hamas organization, and no one knows which wing of this extremist group will eventually prevail.

Keep your eyes focused on the Middle East if you want to know what is happening concerning age-ending prophecies. For it is here that the major events will take place that will eventually effect every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.
But also remember, that while Almighty God may allow the suffering of war to once again come upon His people Israel, as punishment for their sins, he will never allow them to be punished beyond what He has decreed. Certainly He will not allow them to be destroyed, which is what the entirety of the Arab world would like to see happen. Consider what God has to say to the Assyrians, those people whom He has used in the past and will use again to punish Israel, when they go to far:

Pick your friends
but not to pieces.

A man that beareth false witness
against his neighbor
is a maul, a sword, and a sharp arrow.
Proverbs 25:18

From: Gods Little Instruction Book
pub. by Honor Books,
Tulsa, 1993