Perhaps one of the most significant
Biblical events since the six-day war in Israel ended
in failure on Tuesday, July 25. Ironically, its
failure may actually enhance its long-term Biblical
implications and the return of Christ.
After fourteen days of intensive
negotiations, Barak accepted a proposal Monday, July
24 by the U.S. to divide the city into administrative
units with some degree of sovereignty over certain
parts of the city. "It's about
administration-plus, perhaps also with signs of joint
sovereignty, in the [Arab] neighbourhoods outside the
Old City, in the neighbourhoods at the edge of
Jerusalem such as Shuafat," said Rabbi Michael
Melchior, Minister for Diaspora Affairs on Barak's
cabinet. In the compromise, Palestinians would be
given authority over several Arab neighborhoods in
east Jerusalem as well as some form of authority over
the Moslem and Christian quarters of the Old City.
Israel, in turn, would annex several large Jewish
areas on the outskirts of the city, which would be
recognized as Israel's capital.
Nonetheless, Arafat told Clinton
Tuesday, July 25 that since Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak was not going to give the Arabs total
sovereignty over East Jerusalem, there was no need to
continue the talks at Camp David.
Who’s to blame?
Not surprisingly, on Wednesday,
July 26, Israel and the Palestinians blame each other
for the failed peace talks. However, most analysts
believe the blame lies squarely on Arafat's refusal to
not accept anything except full sovereignty over
Jerusalem.
While Clinton praised Barak for his
willingness to compromise Wednesday July 26,
Palestinian Authority Minister of Justice Freih Abu
Medien said Arafat became a "national Arab
hero" for not accepting any compromise on
Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees forced from
Israeli-occupied lands. "I would be making a
mistake not to praise Barak, because I think he took a
big risk," the president said. At the same time
Medien said "The failure of the summit means a
massive destruction for the Palestinian people,
because we had lived on a hope to have peace, and
Israel killed this hope."
Why the Squabble over Jerusalem?
Jerusalem is the major obstacle
preventing a peace settlement. To the secular world it
makes no sense. Why are the two sides squabbling over
a piece of ground as if the fate of the entire world
depends on it? According to Bible prophecy, the fate
of the world does depend upon Jerusalem and Israel.
Hence, President Clinton said on Tuesday, July 25 that
"I think [the problem of Jerusalem] will be
bridged because I think the alternative is
unthinkable," he added. Yet, if the Bible is
being correctly interpreted, the Palestinians will
never again have sovereignty over Jerusalem. They are
seemingly demanding something that God will not
permit. As would be expected, however, the
Palestinians and their Arab-Nation supporters are
allowing this seeming intransigence by Israel to
harden their hearts, just like God's miracles did to
Pharaoh when God was telling Pharaoh to "Let my
people go."
The seriousness of this probability
was voiced on Monday, July 24 by a top Egyptian
military commander who said that war with Israel is
inevitable. Field Marshal Abd Al-Halim Abu Ghazaleh
made the comment in a media interview where he
outlined what he sees as Israel's vulnerability to a
concerted Arab attack. Israel's anti-missile systems,
Abu Ghazeleh added, would be ineffective against a
"missile attack coming from several
directions," indicating a united Arab effort
against Israel.
This sudden intensification of
hostilities from Egypt has come from out of the blue.
Egypt and Israel have been living together in relative
peace since Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a
peace treaty with Menachem Begin in 1979 at a similar
peace summit in 1978 at Camp David with Jimmy Carter.
It would suggest that the Arab nations are once again
uniting against Israel for war.
Likewise the Hamas, one of the
militant factions fighting for Palestinian sovereignty
of Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, also
claimed on Monday that they will not recognize any
peace agreement until all their conditions are met. If
Israel refuses, as it must, then Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
claims "Hamas has only one option: what has been
taken by force can only be returned by force."
Barak in Political Trouble
We were also reminded on Tuesday,
July 25, that Prime Minister Ehud Barak is on very
thin ice in Israel. Before he left for Camp David he
lost his governing coalition and barely survived a
no-confidence motion just before he boarded his plane
to the US. The conservative factions in Israel,
especially the religious conservatives, believe Barak
was willing to give too much away to achieve a false
peace. Also on July 25, Israel's Chief Rabbi Meir Lau
waded into a theological debate with Pope John Paul II, telling him that Jews have a historic and
religious right to rule Jerusalem.
On Tuesday, August 1 Barak again
narrowly escaped a no confidence vote in the Knesset.
Although Barak survived, opposition party Likud MK
Moshe Katsav was elected the country's eighth
president by the Knesset, defeating Minister of
Regional Cooperation Shimon Peres by a vote of 63 to
57.
A last ditch effort to save his
position failed when Barak consulted with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak Thursday, August 4 to attempt
to convince Mubarak to intervene with a middle ground
position regarding Jerusalem. Mubarak said he squarely
backs Arafat's position on Jerusalem and is ready to
recognize a Palestinian state should Arafat declare
statehood on Sept. 13. By Monday, August 7, a
poll reported that 56 percent of the Israeli public
believed Barak was not credible, against 42 percent
who still had faith in him. The Likud party is making
"immense efforts" to topple the Barak
government. Although the Knesset does not officially
meet again until late October, every effort is being
made to hold a special meeting to call for an
election.
Arafat fighting for His Life
Barak is not the only leader in
trouble. On Wednesday, August 9, Stratfor Intelligence
noted "Arafat’s claim to leadership is tied to
the peace process and depends upon securing a final
deal." Arafat has reportedly been told he would
be assinated if you agreed to anything less than full
Arab control over East Jerusalem. Israel will not
permit this. "Hard-line Palestinians will now
mount a serious challenge to the longtime Palestinian
leader’s power," claims Stratfor. "Arafat
must get some major concessions and find peace or he
loses his justification for leadership. Hamas, a
radical militant faction comes out the winner if
Arafat cannot secure peace. And peace now seems a
distant hope," says Stratfor. Over two-thirds of
all Palestinians now believe that violence is the only
way they will gain sovereignty and statehood.
Arafat proposal of a unilateral
declaration of statehood, was turned down cold when he
visited several European nations following the
collapse of the peace talks at Camp David. Worse, he
received mixed messages when he visited Arab nations.
Only Saudi Arabia and Egypt seemed willing to support
Arafat in a September 13 declaration of statehood.
Arafat’s trouble was made obvious
on Tuesday, August 9, when Arafat insisted another
summit could take place within 10 days. Both Barak and
the United States insist that no summit had been
planned. By Friday, August 11, it became obvious to
even Arafat that another summit was not possible in
the time-frame he needs to save himself.
When he was in Iran, Arafat
declared that "We are victims of aggression by
the Zionists and their oppressive actions against holy
Jerusalem," and declared the peace talks
"dead." Arafat had not been in Iran for 20
years because Iran had boycotted him. But, he went
because he wants Iran to convene the Organization of
the Islamic Conference to define the future of the
emerging Palestinian state and its capital in east
Jerusalem. Arafat was hoping Iran's supposedly
moderate President Mohammed Khatami would support him
since Iran had launched an initiative for a solid
Islamic bloc against Israel's demands for recognition
of its control of Jerusalem.
At this point Arafat may not even
have the power to decide whether to declare statehood
on September 13. Salim Zanoun, chairman of the PLO's
Central Council, announced on Thursday, August 10,
that the 129-member Central Council would convene in
the first week of September to make the decision. It
would not be Arafat's to make.
The smoldering cauldron of Israel
is reaching critical mass. The chance that Arafat
would be able to get any concessions from Barak now in
another peace summit is slim to none. "The only
way for Arafat to secure a peace deal would be to make
heavy concessions, which in turn would jeopardize his
position as Palestinian leader," claimed Stratfor
Intelligence on Wednesday, August 9. Whenever the
deadline for statehood is established, September 13 or
later, Arafat and the Central Council will have
painted themselves into a corner. Israel must respond
and violence will likely erupt. And, as Stratfor
states, "If violence erupts, Arafat will have
effectively handed over the reins of power to Hamas to
proceed with holy war."
Clinton forcing a Holy war?
In the meantime, some Palestinians
are already calling for a "holy war" in the
wake of the summit collapse. Both sides are beginning
to prepare for war. On Monday, July 31 the London
Telegraph reported "Jewish settlers and
Palestinian extremists were stepping up preparations
for war on the West Bank." Both sides were
positioning weapons and preparing their people for
skirmishes or war. DTT has long predicted this was the
likely result of the ill-fated Clinton sponsored Camp
David peace meetings.
It is almost as if President
Clinton is now deliberately throwing gasoline on the
fire. Supposedly playing the role of the neutral
party, he first accused Arafat of being inflexible
during the negotiations. Then Clinton weighed into the
crisis when he told Mr Arafat that a unilateral
declaration of statehood on September 13 would
constitute "a big mistake", and emphasized
that the Palestinian leader could not expect "to
walk away from the consequences" if he went
ahead. Clinton even suspended the ongoing $100 million
aid package to the Palestinians. Finally, he threw the
match on the gasoline soaked tinderbox by threatening
to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem.
The Palestinians and Arabs were
predictably outraged. ''We regret this flagrant
American bias toward Israel,'' said Jordan's second
largest newspaper on Monday, August 1. Ad-Dustour, in
an editorial entitled: ''The dishonest referee unveils
his bias.'' Clinton has deliberately blown his
advantage of being the "neutral" arbitrator.
Although the week before Arafat seemed to be softening
on the September 13 deadline, after Clinton made his
threat Arafat's position hardened and he announced on
Tuesday, August 2 that ''Never, never. There is no
retreat on the fixed timetable of the declaration of
the state. It will be declared on the fixed time,
which is September 13, God willing, regardless of
those who agree or disagree." Israel, of course
cannot permit this and will take military measures to
prevent it.
The Temple Mount Becomes Flash
Point
The Chief Rabbinical Council nearly
precipitated a crisis on Tuesday, August 8
when it announced that it was setting up a committee
to "realise our rights and sovereignty on the
Temple Mount". Shaar-Yeshuv Hacohen, the Chief
Rabbi of Haifa "rejected suggestions that the
issue should be debated only after a peace accord has
been reached with the Palestinians. 'I think that it
should be negotiated before an agreement is reached,'
he said. 'To the Jewish faith, the Temple Mount is the
holiest place and we all pray towards that place and
we should not give it away to any other people and any
other religion.'
Not surprisingly, Ikrema Sabri, the
Mufti of Jerusalem, fired back that building a
synagogue on the hill would start a holy war that
"only God knows where it would lead". To
Muslims the Temple Mount is known as al-Haram al-Sharif,
the "Noble Sanctuary", housing the Dome of
the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosques. It is the third most
holy place in Islam. Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the most
senior Islamic administrator at al-Haram al-Sharif,
appealed to Israel: "Don't play with fire, this
is not politics, this is religion, and if something
happened, God forbid, you will find millions of
Muslims willing to sacrifice their souls for our holy
places."
The Temple Mount is not only sacred
to Muslims and Jews, but is holy also to Christians.
Pope John II renewed his appeal on Sunday July 30, as
the summit entered its final phase, for an
"internationally guaranteed special
statute," an "international city," for
Jerusalem to safeguard the city's sacred character.
The Pope's call was once again
rejected by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
But on Thursday, August 17 the BBC reported that when
Arafat met with Indonesian Muslim leader Abdurrahman
Wahid, Wahid said that while Israel should have
administrative control of Jerusalem, he also added
that political sovereignty of the holy city should
fall under an international body of six neighboring
countries and the United Nations. Wahid may have
revived the Pope Paul's drive to declare Jerusalem an
"international city."
If such a deal were worked out, it
would mean that Jerusalem would no longer be under the
direct sovereignty of Israel, as it has since it took
control during the June 1967 war. There is
disagreement among Bible scholars whether Jerusalem
will ever leave the sovereign control of Israel, now
that Luke 21:24 has seemingly been fulfilled. On the
other hand, such a move would be a giant step towards
the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27.
A New Role for Egypt
The Palestinians continue their
panic efforts to get back to the negotiating table at
Camp David. Arafat got nowhere with Iran, so he went
to Egypt. While supporting the need for Palestinian
control over Jerusalem, Egyptian president Murbarak
told the Jerusalem Post on Monday, August 14 that the
September 13 deadline for declaring statehood may be
delayed. "I think it [the September 13 deadline]
may be postponed. We don't like any clash between the
two parties. We would like to find a solution."
Mubarak's statement came after Arafat received a
decidedly chilly reception in various European
capitals to his intention to unilaterally declare a
state.
Palestinian authorities grabbed
onto Mubarak's shirttail by calling on the US to
coordinate its peacekeeping efforts with Egypt.
"The Palestinians need the backing of Egypt to
reach an agreement on Jerusalem and other
issues," one Palestinian Authority minister said
in a report by the Jerusalem Post on Friday, August
18. By allowing Egypt to take the lead on statehood,
Arafat and the Palestinians have brilliantly shifted
responsibility for making this explosive decision to
Egypt. Egypt seemed "warm to the idea," said
the Jerusalem Post.
Where to now?
There will likely be another peace
summit after the UN Millennium Summit, September 6-8.
Either it too will fail, or the concessions that lead
to an agreement will be too much for the people on
either side to accept. Either way, war is almost
inevitable in Israel. Worse, president Clinton seems
to be doing all he can to precipitate such a war. In
any event, the international community must respond to
this threat to international peace and will almost
certainly enter the fray to find a peace settlement by
guaranteeing Israel's security in exchange for
territory to be given to the Palestinians. For the
first time in history we will be seeing evidence of
the covenant to be signed by the Prince and his people
as prophesied by Daniel 9:27.V
