After yesterday’s vote in Parliament recognising Palestine, as in The Independent, it’s time to recall the Lord’s opinion about the heart of that land. Then we’ll consider a news round-up indicative of our whereabouts on His prophetic timetable.

First, here’s what the prophet Zecharia was told about the future ‘Day of the Lord’ – ie. a specific period in which the Lord deals with humanity’s rejection of and rebellion against Him, and its focal locality in and around Jerusalem:

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  shall strike…

“It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”  (Zecharia 12:1-3, 12, NKJV courtesy Blue Letter Bible)

Let me quote examples of relevant current events so we can check this out.

First, the header to Bill Koenig’s World Watch Daily this morning:

The nations of the world are on a collision course with the God of Israel.

Bill’s website provides the following subheads with brief covering comments, followed by some on the conflict with ISIS:

• UN chief demands Israel scrap East Jerusalem settlement plan
• British parliament votes in favor of recognising ‘Palestine’
• Israel says UK Palestine vote undermines peace prospects
• France to host Palestinian unity government
• PA: enough UNSC votes to force Israeli withdrawal to 1967 lines
• Kerry to call for renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks
• Kerry calls for renewed peace push, slams unacceptable, unstable status quo

Koenig’s fellow watcher and past co-author, John McTernan, reports on these Biblical issues and unequivocally states his opinion in yesterday’s posting. Under the header The Battle for Jerusalem Has Begun, he quotes Zechariah 14:2 “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle…” and comments:

“The world is now gearing up to force a Palestinian state upon Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. November 16, 2016, is the target date set for this.

“Based on this, there is NO doubt, in my mind, that awesome wars are upon us, and God is about to unleash incredible judgments upon the earth. Look how this threat to Israel is taking place at the exact time Ebola is loose amongst the nations! (Emphasis RB)

“The judgments will match the pressure and attack on Israel. This is not off in the future it is here NOW.  The time to judge the nations is about to begin.”

John covers the latest material under As the Nations Have Done to Israel and refers to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call to scrap settlements, plus his claim that the ‘occupation’ of territories led to the recent Gaza war!

He also blogs As the EU Has Done to Israel stating,

“The European Union is aggressive against Israel as Jew hating seems to be in most of the Europeans’ DNA. They are now following the path of the Nazis in the 1930s while this time it is the Hard Left united with the Muslims.

“Europe right now is on the verge of an economic meltdown at the very time the EU is trying to economically destroy Israel.” (Emphasis RB)

To back-up his claims John cites:

• EU prepares to impose crushing sanctions on Israel
• Dam breaks in Europe as deflation fears wash over ECB rhetoric
• Euro-zone on cusp of triple-dip recession as German exports crumble
• EU to ban dairy products from over pre-1967 lines as of January 2015
• Swedish PM’s recognition of ‘Palestine’ violates law, says legislator

Readers keeping abreast of these matters will recall I often quote Elliott Abrams’ take on the Middle-East. He’d supervised US policy there under the Bush administration and served as the president’s deputy advisor on the region.

Elliott’s latest blog, A word from Mr Erekat, ably demonstrates that the top Palestinian negotiator with Israel, Saeb Ereket, cannot get his facts straight – not the first time his integrity has been called into question.

The Independent’s report upon yesterday’s parliamentary vote is well-balanced and covers some important points, but the completely clueless naivety of UK politicians is mind-boggling. It is utter folly!

Sweden

There again, as Michel Gurfinkiel taunts in an article on Sweden’s vote, maybe it’s, “far-fetched to expect most political leaders to be thoroughly knowledgeable of the issues… of international affairs; or to expect them to be particularly rational and ethical”.

Michel is founder and president of a French think-tank, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, and his paper came to my attention through the same source as yesterday’s post on Phyllis Chesler’s interview with Ibn Waaraq – Middle-East Forum.

He makes valid points about the nature of this ‘state’ that all parliamentarians should have born in mind (emphases added):

1. To be recognized, a state needs a clearly defined population, a clearly defined territory, and an effective government that can maintain law and order. None of the above is true of “Palestine,” whatever the current meaning of that word.
2. The Palestinian Authority (PA) — an autonomous authority established in 1994 according to a Declaration of Principles between the state of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (the Oslo Accords), and the closest thing to a “state of Palestine” – does not effectively rule the West Bank and Gaza, the two distinct territories that pass as “Palestinian territory.” As an effective government, the PA should be able to maintain law and order there. Everybody knows this is not the case in Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad since 2007. Yet this is hardly the case in the West Bank, either.
3. One must ask how the two-state solution can work if one of the considered states – the Palestinian state-to-be — is openly opposed to it. Hamas and Islamic Jihad clearly say they will never recognize Israel. The nominal PA government and Fatah say they will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state – implying their strategy is to turn Israel into a bi-national state.
4. Abbas’ PA has never directed education towards a pro-peace attitude. The PA was explicitly requested to do so by the Oslo Accords and the subsequent road map to peace in 2003.

His short paper also looks at the pivotal effects of an increasing Muslim population in Sweden and he concludes,

“Doubtlessly, similar situations will arise in more EU countries, including major countries like France, bringing about further confusion and further political and geopolitical nonsense.”

The United States

The once world-leading nation has sown its own undoing through the anti-Israel stance of its president Barack Obama. With her adroit analysis Caroline Glick surgically dissects Netanyahu’s statements and policies. After extracting and revealing Obama’s game-plan with Iran as inimical to Israel’s best interests, she looks at Secretary-of-State John Kerry’s continuing treachery.

Machiavellian Kerry, as ever dangerously incompetent, ignores and seeks to scuttle the new Middle-Eastern alliance of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other anti-jihadist Sunni states established to protect themselves. Deaf to what Netanyahu repeatedly stressed at the UN General Assembly (as here), according to ‘ne-plus ultra’ analyst Caroline,

“…by bringing Qatar, Hamas’s principal Sunni state-sponsor, into the mix. Kerry is reportedly trying to organize a regional peace conference that would coerce Israel into accepting the so-called Saudi Peace Initiative from 2002. That initiative would require Israel to surrender to all the PLO’s territorial demands and accept millions of foreign, hostile Arabs into its shrunken, indefensible territory.

“In light of Obama’s absolute commitment to the anti-Israel, PLO-centric policy model for dealing with the Palestinian rejection of Israel, for the next two years there will be no change in US policy on the issue.”

Readers who are particularly interested in the finer nuances of the Israel-Palestinian issues will find her article is well worth reading.

It will be interesting to see how USA’s plans for the ‘peace process’ will unravel – even so far as the US falling away and being excluded as its authority and power vanishes – for I believe the Lord will bless and encourage the new regional alliance as a means not only of protection from ISIS, but also of peacefully resolving the Palestinian situation.

These events get even more interesting in the light of scripture and the urgency of the words given to Neville Johnson about changes for this new Jewish year over 2014 to 2015 (see point 7 here).

Indubitably, we’re living in Biblical days as they accelerate to fulfil holy prophecy.