“The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him:” Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. “And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.”In that day,” says the LORD, “I will strike every horse with confusion, and its rider with madness; I will open My eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. [Zech 12:1-4NKJV]
There is no doubt that one of the major problems in the Middle East is the Nation of Israel. In 1948 Both God and the majority of western nations wanted the Jews to settle in their homeland of Palestine. The Jews had lived there off and on for over 1500 years until the Roman’s expelled them in 70 AD. However still a remnant remained and lived there for a further 2000 years during which time the numbers steadily increased. When the nation of Israel was sanctioned and created by the United Nations in 1948, God was beginning to fulfil His promises for the restoration of Israel [Isa 11:10-15]. The surrounding Arab nations did not like it, and within days their armies sought to destroy the new land of Israel. This did not happen as the surrounding nation’s armies suffered devastating defeat. The Arab armies attacked again in 1967 and 1973. On both occasions the Israeli army defeated them and won back land lost in the 1948 conflict, enabling Israeli’s to obtain access to the Wailing Wall of the Temple Mount, the only piece of the old Temple left, and also secure their borders with greater strength. They also conquered parts of Jordon and Egypt which in a peace treaty they later returned. Another land area gained was the Gaza strip. In a future effort to accommodate the Palestinians and promote peace, they handed the Gaza Strip over to the PLO. As regards to peace-making it was not successful. Now Israel suffers a hail of rockets sent to them from the territory of Gaza. The rebel group Hamas took over from the more moderate PLO in Gaza and has since been antagonising Israel by sending rockets supplied by Iran into Israel, and also sending terrorists over the border to attack areas of Israel.
In the recent Gaza war, Israel sought to deter Hamas from sending rockets and sending raiding parties into Israel. All has been quiet for a little while, however, recently Hamas has resumed the hail of rockets. Nothing is ever said in the United Nations about these rockets or condemning their use. Recently Hezbollah, a rebel organization based in Lebanon, also started sending rockets into Israel. However unfortunately for them, one strayed into Saudi Arabia which did not go down at all well with the Saudi’s. It is amazing that the world seems blind in what the PLO, Hamas and Iran are up to. Although President Obama seems to side with the Palestinians, and by agreeing to a weak nuclear agreement with Iran, he either shows his bias or ignorance. Meanwhile we read that Israel and the U.S. Air Forces have signed an important strategic air force agreement. The ASNR agreement signed in June covers a full range of cooperation between the forces, under one roof, by building a joint agreement promoting the relevant interests of each force. Major General Lawrence Martin, U.S. Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary of Air Force International Affairs, said recently that it clearly serves as evidence of the deep and committed friendship between the US and Israel. It looks as though the USAF staff are not as blind as their President on the real state of things.
According to the United Nations Homepage the UN practices hypocrisy in their quest for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Knowing all that is involved in a peace treaty they still promoted the resolution 3236 which has been passed by the General Assembly. It reveals the goal is not peace with Israel; it’s to promote “the Palestinian people including: “National independence and sovereignty and the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted. This is indispensable for the solution of the question of Palestine.” This will not promote peace, far from it as it would allow something like 3 million Arab refugees to return to their homes in Israel which they, of their own choosing, left during a war in 1946-9 which they themselves started. This would finish Israel as a Jewish state. There is no mention of peace or the Arabs subjecting themselves to Israeli rule. It is an interesting fact that many Arabs living in Israel at present don’t want this to happen. They do much better under Israeli governance than they would ever do in a Palestinian run nation. There is also no real evidence on who the Palestinian people are. There was no nation, as such, called Palestine, and it was only a locality up until General Allenby took Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in 1915, when Gaza and the Jewish area came under the protectorate of the British. The area was divided by the United Nations after the 1939 to 45 war, Jordon becoming the Arab area and Palestine became the Jewish area. Some Arabs stayed however and when Yasser Arafat, who was an Egyptian by birth started causing trouble in Jordon, they threw him out of Jordon and he formed a following in Palestine called the PLO. This group made out they were fighting to take back Palestine for the Arabs. However none of them were of any real nationality which had long since gone under the auspices of first the Ottoman Empire, which ruled for 600 years, and then under Britain at the behest of first the League of Nations and then the United Nations. Yasser Arafat was good at propaganda and now the whole world seems to think Israel is the aggressor and the Palestinians are rightfully the citizens of the area. The Palestinians hate the Jews and seek to destroy Israel if given the chance. Yet the Bible states who the rightful population is; “In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them. “It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. [Zech 12:8-9 NKJV] ]
Brian D. Papworth