You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
In a Bloomberg article, US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg who is closely affiliated with the Obama White House reported that US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a widespread campaign to delegitimize Israel — in Kerry’s words — “on steroids” if renewed peace negotiations fail. In moving forward with the peace process, Netanyahu has made some of those who make up the base of his own political party, Likud, to be quite nervous. According to Goldberg, Kerry believes that the only thing that Netanyahu fears more than the Iranian nuclear program is international isolation of Israel.
Meanwhile, DEBKA (an Israel intelligence and news gathering service) reports that the formal Israel / PLO peace negotiations are only an outer shell of the secret hard-core negotiations that have been taking place for weeks between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The real private talks between Kerry, Netanyahu and Abbas are approaching a climax on the fundamental issues of borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements. Every afternoon in past few weeks, Kerry has called the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian leader on secure phone lines. Any incoming calls from the two leaders are switched directly through to the Secretary of State. This procedure is unheard of within the State Department. DEBKA sources report that there has been dramatic progress made in the private talks between Kerry, Netanyahu and Abbas such that Kerry was asking Netanyahu for specific information on the Jewish settlements he was willing to remove in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Abbas was giving his own list.
Although Secretary Kerry has stated publicly that his objective is a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, his expectations are more realistic in his behind-the scenes negotiations. All three parties believe that the most they can achieve now are interim accords. Outstanding issues will have to be set aside for an unknown future round of negotiations. For now, the officials assigned with conducting the formal negotiations are not privy to the progress made secretly by their principals. US special envoy Ambassador Martin Indyk, Justice Minister and senior negotiator Tzipi Livni and Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat and are therefore still in the dark. However, progress is substantial enough by now to have prompted Kerry to convene a meeting of Jewish American leaders for a briefing on August 8 at the White House. He told them there was a “strategic imperative” to arrive at a deal soon, and said he understood the difficulties Netanyahu faced in dealing with a coalition that included hard right parties and figures. He was described as appearing “bullish” about the talks but also “nervous” about the Israeli prime minister’s ability to overcome the resistance in his own Likud party and government coalition to sweeping concessions on settlements.
In addition to US special envoy Ambassador Martin Indyk, Kerrry invited National Security Adviser Susan Rice to join him at the meeting of American Jewish leaders to signal President Barack Obama’s approval. The meeting lasted for 90 minutes. Kerry’s motive in summoning American Jewish leaders to the White House was his belief that progress in the negotiations has brought the Israeli prime minister close to a crossroads. He will soon face a decision to whether to reshuffle his cabinet and replace ministers who would oppose the terms of the interim accord shaping up with Palestinians. For this step, he would find the support of American Jewry helpful. Netanyahu will soon need to present the leaders of the pro-settlement parties Israel Beiteinu and Jewish Hom parties with the choice of backing him up all the way with an accord with the Palestinians or quit the government coalition. The same question will need to be put to Netanyahu’s own Likud party members who oppose a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, the first round of Israel / PLO peace negotiations were held in Jerusalem on August 14. They last for five hours. The meeting was secret in an attempt by both sides to prevent leaks to the media and maintain trust. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that the first session of talks with Israel dealt with all final-status issues, including borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, security and prisoners. Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah after meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Abbas said: “Palestine, according to the international law, has become a state under occupation. This occupation must end on the basis of a two-state solution on the 1967 borders with a slight swap of land, UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.”
As talks began, there is anger in Israel over the leak from US Secretary of State John Kerry’s circle of his threat that Israel would face a campaign against its legitimacy unless it gives way to pressures on West Bank settlements. “The Secretary would be better advised to focus on the hardening of the Palestinian position,” said Israeli sources. They also pointed out that although Kerry had insisted on the talks be kept secret, his own people were pouring out confidential data to the media. “This can only be explained,” said the Israeli sources, “by the talks having run into crisis before they begin.” Recently, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas made a statement that in any future Palestinian state, it must be free of every last Jew whether it be civilian or military. In doing so, Abbas takes an even more extreme line than Yasser Arafat did in 2000. In the trilateral talks he held with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, under the auspices of US President Bill Clinton in the summer of 2000, the Palestinian leader accepted the right of the Israeli Defense Forces to rapidly deploy on the West Bank and Jordan Rift Valley in the event of a security crisis threatening Israel from the east. Furthermore, Abbas has also backed away from the Palestinians’ original consent for Israeli security forces to be posted at the border crossings of the future Palestinian state.
As talks were beginning, Israel authorized construction of around 800 new housing units in East Jerusalem and around 400 in the West Bank. The Israel Housing ministry said: “We will continue issuing tenders for construction in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs.” However, the plans are in the early stages and the construction could take as long as two years to begin. Palestinian negotiator, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said that these announcements prove that Israel “wasn’t serious about negotiations” and was rather trying “to topple the foundations of the solution, which is establishing a Palestinian state in the ’67 borders. Furthermore, it is a slap in the face of the United States who is trying to restart direct peace talks” he said. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry charging that Israel’s latest settlement plans were an indication of “Israel’s bad faith and lack of seriousness” in the talks. Erekat urged Kerry to “take the necessary action to ensure that Israel does not advance any of its settlement plans and abides by its legal obligations and commitments.” He said the Palestinians see the move as direct defiance of the US role in facilitating negotiations adding that it was difficult to see how peace talks could move forward while settlements expand.
In a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the refusal by the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish state “on any border” and has nothing to do with Israel’s settlements. He remarked that until recently the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was commonly cited as the root of instability in the Middle East but that this was no longer the case in the wake of unrest in the Arab and Muslim world. Addressing the Palestinian issue, the prime minister said that the conflict began before even one settlement was established. He noted that attacks against Israel continued despite the Gaza pullout and that this was because of a fundamental rejection of the Jewish state. He stressed that construction in areas such as Gilo or in settlement blocs, which he said everyone including the Palestinians knows would stay under Israeli sovereignty in a future agreement, should not be the main issue of discussion. The main issue should be how to achieve a demilitarized Palestinian state that will recognize the one and only Jewish state, Netanyahu said.
In the wake of the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat’s angry letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry about Israel’s new settlement building amid the resumption of peace talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his own letter to Kerry over the weekend, lambasting the Palestinians for failing to curb incitement against Israel. Netanyahu wrote to Kerry that leading Palestinian Authority officials were calling for Israel’s destruction even after peace talks resumed on July 31. “Incitement and peace don’t go together,” Netanyahu wrote, explaining that new generations of Palestinians were being taught to hate Israel, further fueling the cycle of violence. Netanyahu asserted, for example, that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s comment that a future Palestinian state wouldn’t have a single Israeli in it — which Abbas made as peace talks kicked off in Washington two weeks ago — was a form of incitement. He also pointed out that an anchor on the PA’s official news channel stated recently stated that the state of Palestine would extend from Rosh Hanikra to Eilat, i.e. the entire length of Israel, constituting another statement of incitement.
Finally, in another example of Palestinian Authority (PA) denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the very legitimacy of the State of Israel, the Presidential Guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas claims that the Western Wall is an Arab and Islamic site. Last week, a picture of the Western Wall was posted onto the PA Presidential Guard’s official Facebook page with a PA flag superimposed on it.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Report: Kerry warned Israel of negative results of talks failure
2) Israel Faces Deepening Isolation, Kerry Warns
3) US-sponsored Israel-Palestinian interim peace talks near moment of decision
4) US-led Israeli-Palestinian talks get off to confused start. Palestinians shun security issues
5) Secrecy veils first round of Israeli and Palestinian peace talks
6) Abbas: First round of peace talks dealt with final-status issues
7) Israel, Palestinians agree to meet again ‘within days’
8.) Israel approves 900 additional homes in East Jerusalem
9) Minister: 1,200 new homes to be built in J’lem, West Bank
10) Palestinians say Israeli settlement plans ‘destroying negotiations’
11) Palestinians: Peace talks face collapse over settlement expansion
12) Bibi to Ban: Settlement is not the main issue
13) Netanyahu to Kerry: Abbas is inciting against Israel
14) Palestinian Authority Denies Jewish Right to Western Wall
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l