March 29, 2014: Weekly 5 minute update (Audio Only)

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

The Arab League announced its support for the Palestinian refusal to meet Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state by saying: “We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state.” Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called for the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish character of Israel as a requirement for a peace agreement. At the meeting, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reiterating his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and said that the Palestinians want an independent state on “all the territories that were occupied in 1967.” The London-based Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper quoted western diplomats as saying that US Secretary of State, John Kerry was trying to overcome the impasse over the recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” by changing the definition to “the homeland of the Jewish people.” In return, the Palestinians would have to agree to a Palestinian capital in a part of East Jerusalem and not all of it. According to the report, the Palestinians have rejected that proposal as well.

In response, a senior Israeli official said that the Palestinians are destroying any chances of reaching a peace agreement. The official said: “President Abbas’s stubborn refusal to discuss mutual recognition between two nation-states stands in stark contrast with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s willingness to recognize a Palestinian state and his agreement that all of the core issues can be raised in the talks.” By clinging to his position, Abbas “could well torpedo the peace process,” the Israeli official said. Israel’s former national security advisor said that the Palestinians “have not moved one inch” in their negotiating positions since 1994 while the Netanyahu government has made dramatic concessions unacknowledged by world opinion. In fact, in certain areas, they even moved backward.” The retired Israeli general highlighted two issues where Israel made a dramatic move towards the Palestinians: accepting a Palestinian state, while former Israeli Prime Minster Yitzchak Rabin only agreed to “less than a state”; and limiting the Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley to the Jordan River, while Rabin envisioned the entire valley under Israeli control. On the latter issue, “The Americans didn’t even notice the difference until we turned their attention to it. In the past, Israel has accepted the principle of land swaps with the Palestinians in the ratio of 1:1 for inhabited areas in the West Bank annexed by Israel, a principle Rabin never envisioned, he said. Tactically, Israel has agreed in the past years to undertake goodwill measures intended to advance negotiations, such as a freeze on settlement construction in 2010 and the release of Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands. “From a diplomatic point of view, I know of not one Palestinian concession since the start of negotiations until today,” he said. “They [the Palestinians] have a clear line: They want a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. Everything else is secondary. Why? Because they feel as though they’ve made their big concession already by settling for 22 percent of what they regard as historic Palestine. The more I speak to Palestinians, the more I understand that the real issue for them is 1948, not 1967,” he said. “It’s clear to me that if the agreement with the Palestinians does not include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to prevent the negotiating process from falling apart. While Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are busy blaming each other for the failure of the talks, the tireless Kerry is searching for a creative solution to the issue specifically with regard to the possible release of Israeli-Arab prisoners.  UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry said that “March 29 [the original date set for the prisoner release] is of immediate concern, much more urgent than April 29, when negotiations are supposed to come to an end. If a solution to this issue is not found in the coming days, it is doubtful that it will be possible to complete the nine months of talks. I hope that, in the end, Kerry will offer a framework consistent with the relevant UN resolutions and the Road Map. In my view, it is important for both sides to continue negotiations on that basis. If the political process succeeds, we need to think how much we can gain. The alternative to two states seems particularly bad.”

Meanwhile, Israel told the Palestinians it will not free the final batch of prisoners initially expected to be released on March 29. Tzipi Livni, the justice minister and the top negotiator with the Palestinians, said that there was never an “automatic commitment to release prisoners unrelated to making progress in negotiations.” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel won’t release additional Palestinian prisoners without receiving something of value in return. The prisoner issue will be resolved within a few days, when it “will be closed or it will blow up,” Netanyahu said. Any deal involving a further prisoner release would be brought to the government for approval, Netanyahu added, and said the deliberations around the prisoners release could go on for several days. In addition, Israel made a proposal to the Palestinians that they hope will lead to an extension of their peace talks beyond an April 29 deadline. According to a Palestinian official, Israel presented Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with a draft agreement to relaunch talks. Abbas was to examine the proposal during the night, he said. Israel offered to release a new group of 400 Palestinian security prisoners, in addition to the fourth and final group of longtime terrorism convicts who were set to go free on March 29, if the Palestinian Authority agrees to extend peace talks for another six months. Israel is said to be holding close to 5,000 Palestinian security prisoners. Some sources claimed Israel was holding off on freeing the prisoners because of rumors that the PA would back out of peace talks once the fourth round of convicts were released. The US is demanding that Israel show flexibility and have raised several options to do so, among them a “gesture” release of prisoners who have been imprisoned for a very long time, or those who are similar to other prisoners previously freed. At present, it is still unclear how many prisoners would be included in such a “gesture.”

Furthermore, imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard may be released from American incarceration as part of a deal being negotiation by the US to release Palestinian prisoners and extend peace talks. According to the report, Pollard could be released by mid-April in return for Israel releasing a final wave of 27 prisoners from its jails. Further, Israel would release an additional batch of detainees and peace talks would be extended past the April 29 deadline agreed to in July. Pollard, a US naval analyst, was imprisoned by the US in 1987 after being caught spying for Israel. Successive Israeli governments have lobbied Washington for his release, with no success. He is due to be paroled late next year.

The Palestinians rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the crumbling peace talks beyond April 29, saying it was akin to “blackmail,” said a Palestinian official. “Israel is practicing a policy of blackmail and linking its agreement to releasing the fourth batch of prisoners with the Palestinians accepting to extend the negotiations,” the official said following a meeting between the two sides and US envoy Martin Indyk. The Israeli proposal included a partial settlement freeze, but not in East Jerusalem or for tenders already launched, the sources said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to discuss the American framework accord for the continuation of peace talks with Israel until the fourth and final group of Palestinian prisoners is released, a Palestinian source said. If the releases of the Palestinian prisoners do not go ahead as scheduled , Palestinian leaders are threatening to renew their diplomatic push at the United Nations. In any event, the Palestinian leadership presented an offer to American mediators – that Israel release 1,000 more prisoners, of the Palestinian Authority’s choosing and in exchange, peace talks would be extended until the end of 2014. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also demanded that Israel freeze settlement construction and transfer some Area C regions to the Palestinian Authority’s control.

The United States cannot stop a Palestinian campaign to the United Nations for statehood should peace talks with Israel fail, American diplomats said. An editorial published in The New York Times warned Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “think carefully” before they pass up this opportunity for peace, because they will have to shoulder the blame should the talks fail. If the two sides can’t reach an agreement on a framework to continue talks, the US should stick to its principles by setting the borders according to the 1967 lines, and recognizing Jerusalem as the joint capital of both states, the Times’ editorial said.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Arab League declares ‘total rejection’ of Jewish state recognition
2) Israel: Abbas refusal to discuss ‘Jewish state’ torpedoing talks
3) Outgoing security adviser: ‘Palestinians haven’t budged’
4) UN special envoy to talks: This is moment of truth
5) As deadline passes, PA says Israel has made clear it will not release prisoners
6) PM: No new prisoner release without something of value in exchange
7) Israel hands Palestinians proposal to extend peace talks
8) ‘Israel offers to free 400 more prisoners if Abbas extends talks’
9) Pollard may be released as part of negotiations deal — report
10) Palestinians reject Israeli proposal as ‘blackmail’
11) Abbas refuses to discuss framework accord before prisoner release
12) PA: Talks can go on if Israel frees 1,000 prisoners
13) US officials: We can’t stop Palestinian UN statehood bid if talks fail

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

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