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
2) The prospects for war with Syria and Iran
On November 29, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade the status of the Palestinians at the UN from an ‘observer’ to be a ‘non-member state’ based upon 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. 138 nations voted ‘yes’. 41 abstained. 9 voted ‘no’. Within the 27 countries of the EU, 14 nations voted ‘yes’, 12 abstained, 1 ‘no’.
While not officially a full-fledged member state of the United Nations, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas declared that the UN General Assembly vote was the “birth certificate” of a Palestinian state. As a result, Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority will officially change its name to a Palestinian state. The new name will appear in the letterhead of official forms and documents and on all government websites. Furthermore, a new “State of Palestine” name plate was put up in the UN General Assembly by Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour. Abbas dedicated the UN “victory”as being a gift to the “soul of the late leader Yasser Arafat.” He went on praising Arafat, saying “this is the day you dreamed of and fought for.” Abbas said that the Palestinians would continue to march in the footsteps of Arafat. Yasser Arafat was the leader of the PLO. He died November 11, 2004. The PLO was founded in 1964 by Egyptian President Gamal Nasser. Its stated aim was to work to reclaim the state of Israel from the Jewish people. Arafat become leader of the PLO in 1969. In speaking about the results of the UN General Assembly vote, Abbas said the world said ‘yes’ to Palestine’s freedom and independence and ‘no’ to the occupation and settlements.” As a result, Abbas declared Palestine is “a country under occupation.”
In speaking to supporters in Ramallah during a rally organized by the PA to celebrate the UN General Assembly’s vote, Abbas said he would focus his efforts now on “restoring unity of the Palestinians and their lands and institutions.” The Palestinian faction Hamas who governs the Gaza Strip responded to Abbas’s call for unity by calling for “urgent meetings” between the two sides to solve their differences.
Israel believes that the UN General Assembly vote was intended by the Palestinians to gain recognition of a PLO state with East Jerusalem as its capital by the international community while by-passing direct negotiations. As a result, the Israeli Cabinet voted to reject the UN General Assembly vote because the 1993 Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority mandated that all final status issues were to be solved through direct negotiations. The Israeli cabinet passed a resolution which stated the following: “The Jewish People have a natural, historical and legal right to its homeland with its eternal capital Jerusalem. The State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People has rights and claims to areas that are under dispute in the Land of Israel.” Furthermore, the Israeli Cabinet declared that the UN General Assembly resolution will not become the basis for future negotiations between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Before the cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that Israel will increase and hasten settlement activity in response to what he labelled “an attack against Zionism.” Netanyahu said: “Israel will not allow Judea and Samaria to become a terror base from which rockets will be launched into Israeli towns.” He also said that there would be no Palestinian State until Israel is recognized as a Jewish State and their would be a signed document wherein the Palestinians would agree to end the conflict.
Netanyahu said that Israel has the right to respond in a way that it chooses when the Palestinians take ‘provocative’ action against Israel. So, as a result of the UN General Assembly vote, Israel Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz announced that tax money that Israel collects for the PLO on a monthly basis will not be transferred to them. Instead, those funds will be used to pay part of the PA’s electricity debt to Israel which has been in arrears for some time. The Palestinians electricity bill debt amount to about 2 months of tax money. The Palestinians responded to the Israeli decision by calling it an “act of piracy and blackmail.”
In further reaction to the UN General Assembly vote, Israel decided to approve the construction of an additional 3,000 housing units in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In addition, the planning procedures of thousands of additional Jewish homes in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs will be advanced including in the segment connecting the Jewish West Bank city of Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem known as the E1 project. Building in E-1, which would create contiguity between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim to the northeast beyond the 1967 borders known as the Green Line. Prior to the UN General Assembly vote on November 29, the United States urged Israel to not allow construction in the area known as E-1 between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim as a possible response to the Palestinian UN bid. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned Israel’s announcement, saying it was “defying the whole international community and insisting on destroying the two-state solution.
In speaking about the decision, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel will continue building in Jerusalem and every place on the State of Israel’s map of strategic interests.”The international response to the Israel decision to announce building plans in the West Bank and Jerusalem including E-1 was swift and harsh. For years, US and European officials have told the Israelis that E1 is a red line. The United States said that they were blindsided by the decision and that it was “counterproductive” to achieving a two-state solution. British foreign secretary,William Hague, said: “Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and undermine trust between the parties.” Britain, France, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Brazil and Australia summoned their Israeli ambassador to protest the decision. Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting between them to renounce their plans to build additional Jewish homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem or face international isolation.
In a press conference with Merkel, Netanyahu defended the Israeli decision to go forward with plans to build Jewish homes in the E-1 area. Netanayu said that E1 is a “small corridor” between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. “Successive governments from Yitzhak Rabin on down to my predecessor, Mr. [Ehud] Olmert, have also said that this will be incorporated in a final peace treaty between Israel,” Netanyahu said. “The curious thing is that most governments who have looked at these suggestions, these proposals over the years – including the Palestinians themselves as revealed in leaked documents – understand that these blocs, these arrangements are going to be part of Israel in a final political settlement of peace.” “So I have not changed the policy. This is a consistent policy.
Israeli officials believe that the United States approved the summoning of Israeli ambassadors by various European nations. These officials said: “We would not be mistaken to say that Europe was acting with the encouragement of the United States. The United States authorized Europe to put political pressure upon Israel and seek to punish it for their decisions following the UN vote. The European move is essentially a US response as Britain asked the United States how they should handle the situation.”
The US decided that it would not punish the Palestinian Authority for submitting their upgrade bid at the UN General Assembly on Nov 29 although they voted against the measure and strongly condemned it after the vote. The US Senate was considering imposing restrictions on the $600 million in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority but in the end decided to not impose any restrictions.
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel made comment about the Obama administration attitude toward Israel as reported by the New Yorker magazine. It is reported that Emanuel had spoken angrily and bluntly about the way Netanyahu has repeatedly betrayed the friendship of the United States,” pointing to his “embarrassing the Obama administration by taking punitive actions against the Palestinian Authority” – after the administration voted against the Palestinians at the UN, supported Israel during the recent Gaza fighting and funded the Iron Dome missile defense system. He also criticized Netanyahu for “lecturing” Obama during a meeting in May, 2011 after Obama said that a PLO state should be established based upon 1967 borders with agreed land swaps. Emanuel said Obama would no longer tolerate this type of behavior.
Israel reacted to the international pressure with grit and greater resolve. An Israeli spokesman said: “There will be no change in the decision that has been made.” In fact, Israel advanced an additional building project in East Jerusalem which is expected to have about 2,600 homes. In truth, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contended that the conflict with the Palestinians is not about land but our the existence of the state of Israel. Netanyahu explained: “Israel has left various areas captured in the 1967 wars like the Gaza Strip but yet Hamas has fired missiles into Israel towns and cities. The root of the conflict is the very existence of the State of Israel and the refusal by the Palestinians to recognize the State of Israel in any borders whatsoever. He noted that Palestinian maps consistently show “Palestine” as the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean illustrating a lack of acceptance of Israel’s right to exist.
Despite all this, Netanyahu says that he is still committed to a two-state solution which is negotiated and results in a demilitarized PLO state that recognizes Israel as a state of the Jewish people.
However, despite a promise before the Nov 29 vote that if the UN General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians to become a ‘non-member state’ that he would enter into direct peace talks with Israel with no preconditions, after the vote Abbas took the following position: he is willing to restart negotiations with Israel right away but on the condition of what he said were UN resolutions that brand Israel’s West Bank settlements as illegal. Abbas said: “The Fourth Geneva Convention now applies to the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. The lands of the State of Palestine are occupied and it is forbidden to make any demographic changes in them. It is forbidden to transfer the citizens of another country to our state. The presence of Israeli settlers is in violation of international law.” In the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council, the Palestinians accused Israel of ‘war crimes’ by expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and that Israel was behaving “in a rogue, hostile and arrogant manner, contravening all principles and rules of international law and reacting with contempt to the will of the international community. What is important now is that the State of Palestine and its capital, east Jerusalem, are under occupation. We will never accept a Palestinian state without Jerusalem.” In the letter, the Palestinians insisted that “a clear message must be sent to Israel that all of its illegal policies must be ceased or that it will be held accountable and will have to bear the consequences if its violations and obstruction of peace efforts.” The Palestinians have called continued Israeli building of Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem especially plans to build in E-1 is a “red line” which the internationally community cannot allow Israel to cross.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar on called on Fatah, the faction headed by Mahmood Abbas, to join his movement in the fight against Israel and to stop wasting time and effort with the peace process. Speaking at a rally for Hamas supporters in Gaza City, Zahar said, “Our hands are extended to Fatah to join the program of [armed] resistance and the liberation of Palestine. Let’s join hands and carry the rifle together.” Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh thanked the 138 countries at the UN General Assembly who voted in favor of the Palestinian bid. He said his movement welcomed the bid and that it was continuing its policies of not recognizing Israel and not conceding “an inch of Palestinian land” to Israel. Meanwhile, Abbas told reporters in Ramallah that his top priority now was to end the rivalry with Hamas, and said he saw no reason why the two sides could not reach an agreement on holding presidential and parliamentary elections. Nabil Sha’ath, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, expressed optimism regarding the prospects of achieving unity with Hamas. He said that the Palestinian Authority had released a number of Hamas members from its prisons in the West Bank. The PA has also decided to reopen Hamas institutions in the West Bank that had been closed for security reasons, Sha’ath said. He said that the PA leadership was prepared for “full partnership” with Hamas in any political move in the future and added that the two sides would meet in Cairo soon to discuss ending their dispute.
Based upon the current situation, British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged the United States to take a more active role in seeking a lasting settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a “final chance” for a two-state solution. “The United States needs to show the necessary leadership on the peace process over the coming months because they have crucial leverage with Israel and no other country has,” Hague said. In addition, according to a Palestinian official, European countries are discussing a new peace plan led by Britain, France and Russia that envisions a Palestinian state alongside Israel. After the UN vote, Turkey hosted 15 countries, represented at foreign ministers level, who celebrated the upgrade of the PLO status at the UN with a special “Palestinian flag” cake. They also called for the Palestinians to become full members of the United Nations which can only be done through the UN Security Council.
The Catholic church approved of the UN General Assembly vote and called for Jerusalem to be regarded as an international city.
Israel declared Jerusalem its “united and eternal” capital in 1980 after annexing East Jerusalem. The international community has not recognized the annexation. In response to the international siege against Israel’s right to build Jewish homes in Jerusalem, Samaria regional council head Gershon Mesika called on Israel to annex the West Bank. Israel Knesset Member Yariv Levin (Likud), chairman of the Knesset’s House Committee, said that he has a bill ready that calls for Israel to annex the West Bank and it is ready to be submitted for Knesset approval. Furthermore, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan of the Likud also agreed that Israel needs to annex the West Bank. Finally, Moshe Feiglin, a candidate to be in the next Israeli government as member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has been praying and is encouraging other Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. He is also calling for Israel to rebuild the Temple.
Reporter Christiane Amanpour will be giving a special report on the history of the land of Israel on ABC starting on December 21. Undoubtedly, the report won’t accept the covenant that the God of Israel made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as being the solution to the Israel / Palestinian conflict. International pressure upon Israel over Jerusalem continues to build. Benjamin Netanyahu has a critical decision to make now and in the near future. Will he continue to stand for Jewish rights to live in the West Bank and Jerusalem or will he bow to international pressure which view Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as being illegal under international law? His decision will help determine the course of world and Biblical history. That decision must be made and continue to be made in the near future. Only time will tell what it will be.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Text of Resolution for Palestinian upgrade to ‘non-member state’ at the UN General Assembly
2) How the Nations Voted at the UN
3) Palestine gets a ‘birth certificate’
4) Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah: Now, we have a state
5) Abbas says Palestine now ‘a country under occupation’
6) Palestinian Authority officially changing its name to Palestine
7) Palestinian envoy gets ‘state’ name plate in UN assembly
8) Abbas: World said no to occupation
9) World embraces Palestine; snubs US, Israel
10) Israel Cabinet ‘rejects’ Palestinian UN statehood vote
11) ‘Israel has the right to respond to ‘provocative’ PA moves’
12) Israel Withholds One Month’s Tax Revenues from PA
13) No More Tax Funds from Israel to PA
14) PA denounces gvn’t decision to withhold tax revenues
15) 3,000 homes beyond Green Line okayed
16) Israel okays building of 3,000 units in J’lem, W. Bank
17) Netanyahu: We’ll continue building in Jerusalem
18) US reportedly blindsided by Israel’s move to approve settlement building
19) Clinton and Hague attack Israel decision to build new settlements
20) For first time, Britain, France may recall ambassadors in protest at Israel’s settlement construction
21) Australia summons Israeli envoy to protest settlement plans
22) UK threatens to revisit EU trade agreements with Israel
23) Europe threatens to withdraw Israel support over East Jerusalem plans
24) Merkel to warn Netanyahu: Promote peace process or face world seclusion
25) Merkel, Netanyahu ‘agree to disagree’ on settlement plans
26) US: Israeli settlement plan ‘counterproductive’
27) US issues 3rd, 4th censures of Jerusalem settlement plan
28) Palestinians call on US to imitate European rebuke of Israeli envoys
29) Britain to Israel: Reverse settlement expansion or Europe will consider further steps
30) Sources: US behind European protest measures
31) Israel accuses US of backing European settlement backlash
32) Obama punts to Congress over repercussions for UN Palestine vote
33) US Senate doesn’t pass penalties for Palestinians
34) Ottawa softens position on Palestinian aid
35) Analysis: Rahm Emanuel and electoral interference
36) Netanyahu, citing Rabin precedent, says Israel will continue to build in settlements
37) Israel to approve new Jewish community in e. J’lem
38) Civil Administration advances E1 construction plan
39) PM’s office says Israel won’t back down as more envoys summoned over settlement building plan
40) ‘U.S. angered by claim that new building at E-1 aimed at Obama, not Palestinians’
41) Netanyahu: Conflict with Arabs is Not About Settlements
42) PM says Israel still committed to 2-state solution
43) ‘Incitement against Israel in the PA is bad, getting worse’
44) Hamas tells Fatah: Let’s fight Israel together
45) Hamas: State needs armed struggle with Israel
46) Abbas willing to restart talks with Israel, but only on basis of UN resolutions that brand settlements illegal
47) No peace talks with Israel without settlement freeze: Palestinian official
48) PA: Israel must be held accountable for settlements
49) Abbas says settlement plans are a ‘red line’
50) PA hints it may turn to ICC over settlement plans
51) PA threatens ICC action over settlement plans
52) U.K. to U.S.: Take more active role on Mideast peace
53) Europe mulls new Mideast peace plan: Palestinian official
54) ‘Turkey wants Palestine to become full member of UN’
55) Vatican Hails UN Palestinian State Vote, Calls For Special Status For Jerusalem
56) Mesika: PA Killed Oslo, Time for Annexation
57) Levin: Bill to Annex Judea and Samaria is Ready
58) Likud hopeful prays on Temple Mount, breaking taboo
59) Feiglin leads minyan on Temple Mount
60) The World against Netanyahu
61) Join Anti-Israel Journalist in Exploring Jewish Roots?
62) Yachimovich cancels meeting with Peretz
63) Analysis: Playing into Netanyahu’s hands
DEBKA reports that unusual activity has been taking place at Syrian chemical weapons sites which suggest that the Assad government may be preparing to use them. In recent days, the Syrian rebels have made major strategic gains against Assad’s forces and begun to turn the tide of war. There are rumors that Assad has left Damascus. On December 4, DEBKA reported that convoys of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons units headed out of Damascus under cover of dark and turned north up the road to Aleppo. White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “We have an increased concern about the possibility of the regime taking the desperate act of using its chemical weapons.” Such a move “would cross a red line for the United States.”
High-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command as saying: “The coming hours and days are extremely critical for Syria. The situation on our northern front could blow up any moment.” In response, the USS Eisenhower Strike Group transited the Suez Canal from the Persian Gulf on Dec. 1, sailing up to the Syrian coast with 8 fighter bomber squadrons of Air Wing Seven on its decks and 8,000 sailors, airmen and Marines. The USS Eisenhower group joins the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group which carries 2,500 Marines. Facing Syria now are 10,000 US fighting men, 70 fighter-bombers and at least 17 warships, including the three Iwo Jima amphibious craft, a guided missile cruiser and 10 destroyers and frigates.
Meanwhile, it is being reported that the Syrian military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers. The nerve agents have now been locked and loaded inside the bombs. At this point, the sarin bombs haven’t been loaded onto planes and that Assad hasn’t issued a final order to use them. So, the situation is quite critical.
A war with Syria where Damascus is destroyed (Isaiah 17) is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) Unusual activity at Syrian chemical weapons sites amid rumors Assad is dead or fled
2) U.S. “planning to take action” if Syria crosses chemical weapons “red line”
3) Assad’s chemical weapons units head out of Damascus toward Aleppo
4) USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier arrives off Syrian shore
5) Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad’s order
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said that Iran will continue enriching uranium “with intensity”, with the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating to increase substantially through the spring, 2013. Meanwhile, US diplomat Robert Wood said that “If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States … would urge the board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the UN Security Council.”
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) ‘Iran will press on with uranium enrichment’
2) US sets deadline for Iran to cooperate with IAEA
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