Is Gog On The March?

By Daymond Duck

 

I have been saying that I think the battle of Gog and Magog (a great battle that will take place when Russia, Iran, Turkey and others attack Israel; Ezek. 38:8, 16) is getting close for about 40 years and it hasn’t happened yet.

It is obvious that I don’t know when this war will break out, but it is my honest opinion, and I am still going to say that I think it is getting close.

The reason for this is the fact that what the Bible says about that world changing battle is taking shape on the ground with each passing day (Ezek. 38-39).

The “land of Magog” (Ezek. 38:1, 15; Gen. 10:2) is clearly Russia.

“Gog” of the land of Magog (Ezek. 38:1) is the “dictator” over the land of Magog (Russia). Russia has a “dictator” (Pres. Vladimir Putin at this time). Russia has troops in Syria right now.

“Persia” (Ezek. 38:5) is definitely modern day Iran. The Iranians have troops in Syria right now.

“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands; and many people with thee” (Ezek. 38:6) is definitely Turkey and others (perhaps Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). Turkey has troops in Syria right now.

“Be thou prepared” (for this war; Ezek. 38:7) is clearly a God-given instruction for Russia’s leader to prepare to attack Israel on the mountains of Israel (Ezek. 38:8; 39:2).

“Be thou a guard unto them” (Ezek. 38:7) is clearly a God-given instruction for Russia’s leader to protect her allies (Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah, etc.).

“Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land” (Ezek. 38:9) appears to be air power.

“Sheba and Dedan (cities in Saudi Arabia), and the merchants of Tarshish (probably Britain), with all of its young lions (probably the U.S. with perhaps Canada and Australia), will question Russia’s motivation for this war (Ezek. 38:13).

I will “cause thee to come up from the north parts” (Ezek. 39:2) can only mean that God will cause Russia and her allies to pass through Lebanon or Syria or both on the way to Israel. Both nations share a border with Israel in the northern parts of Israel.

Concerning God’s instruction to “be thou prepared” Russia has been moving troops and weapons into Syria since the fall of 2015. Iran, Turkey and Hezbollah (headquartered in Lebanon) also have troops and weapons in Syria.

On May 4, 2017, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Hezbollah prepared even more by agreeing to create four de-escalation zones (also called “safe zones” or “no-fly zones”) in Syria. One of these “safe zones” is on Israel’s border in the mountains of Israel. Russia and the others decided to have the “safe zones” monitored by Iranian troops.

Israel and the U.S. refused to accept Iranian troops near Israel’s border on the mountains of Israel (Golan Heights) so Russia and her allies altered their preparations by deciding to place Russian troops instead of Iranian troops on Israel’s border.

Israel and the U.S. also refused to accept a no-fly zone on Israel’s border with Syria because that would prevent Israeli jets from attacking foreign troops that are assembling in the mountains of Israel (Golan Heights).

On May 14, 2017, troops from the U.S. (probably a young lion), Britain (probably the merchants of Tarshish) and Jordan entered Syria and took up positions along the border of Israel.

On May 16, 2017, Hezbollah moved 1,000 troops into position to block the advance of the U.S., British and Jordanian troops.

On May 18, 2017, a twenty-vehicle convoy of troops and weapons (probably Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah) got close to a U.S. base and the U.S. scrambled several jets to fly over the convoy as a warning. Fifteen vehicles stopped, but five continued to advance so the U.S. destroyed them.

On May 20, 2017, Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah advanced again and actually took about 60 square kilometers of territory.

At the time this article was written, it was reported that U.S. jets will probably strike the attackers again.

Concerning Russia “being a guard” to her allies, Russia called the U.S. attack “absolutely unacceptable.”

Concerning “like a cloud to cover the land,” Russia and her allies have planes and helicopters in Syria and they can quickly increase the number that they have.

Concerning Sheba and Dedan (cities in Saudi Arabia) just questioning the motivation of these invaders, the Saudis will question it because they are enemies of Iran, but they won’t help Israel because they would like to see Israel destroyed.

Pray for the tiny nation of Israel because she will suffer damage. But understand that this war will be the doing of the Holy One of Israel and many will acknowledge His existence when He reveals Himself by destroying Russia and her allies on the mountains of Israel.

Having written these things, and finally, this article is about the battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38-39), but it could easily be preceded by the war between Israel and Syria that leads to the destruction of Damascus in one night (Isaiah 17:1).

Prophecy Plus Ministries, Inc.
Daymond & Rachel Duck

What Time Is It On God’s Calendar? Watch Jerusalem

By Barry Elkin

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In the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus is found God’s giving of the Jubilee to the nation of Israel.

“And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

Every seventh year was a Sabbath year and after seven Sabbath years numbering forty-nine years in all, they were to proclaim the following year, the fiftieth year a jubilee.

One of the primary functions of the jubilee was to return every possession unto its original owner. The institution of the Jubilee Year became the means of fixing the price of real property and moreover, it excluded the possibility of selling any piece of land permanently.

In verse 23 God furnishes the motive:

“The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”

And so the primary object of the jubilee was of course, the reversion of all hereditary property to the family which originally possessed it, and the reestablishment of the original arrangement regarding the division of the land.

Now, lest you think that the jubilee year is no longer of importance to God if not the nation of Israel, let me give you a fairly recent illustration.

In the New Testament in prophesying about the coming destruction of the Great Temple and the dispersion of the people Jesus said in Luke 21:24,

“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”.

In accordance with this prophecy Jerusalem has been oppressed by one heathen power after another all down thru the centuries since Titus destroyed the Temple, took hundreds of thousands as slaves in 70 A.D.

Then in 131 A.D. after the Bar Kochba revolution Hadrian drove the Jews from Palestine in what is called the diaspora until its final Islamic ruler, The Ottoman Empire of the Turks.

In 1914 WW I began and God caused the Turks to make a deadly error in judgment having them side with Germany in WW I.

Few people are aware of the divine planning in the deliverance of Jerusalem and that it was so explicitly foretold by Isaiah about 2500 years earlier.

In Isaiah 31:5 he wrote, (Now read carefully the words that the Lord our God spoke thru the prophet).

“As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it”.

In December of 1917 the British Commander General Allenby and his army approached the city of Jerusalem held and strongly fortified by the Ottoman Turks.

A long and bloody battle was anticipated to wrest the city from the Turks with much damage being done to the city by the British shelling.

In order to gain information about the Turkish defenses he had two British airplanes fly in low at high speed to and fro, back and forth over the city.

This scared the Turks, many of whom had never seen an airplane and to their untrained ears the name of Allenby, the British commander took on the sound of “allah’s bey” meaning god’s will and so they fled their positions, surrendered the city to Allenby without firing a single shot nor was a single structure damaged.

Now there were a number of British air squadrons stationed in the Middle East at the time but a particular one was chosen to fly that mission.

In detailed fulfillment of Isaiah, the Number 14 bomber squadron of the Royal Flying Corps (Now the R.A.F.) took Jerusalem just as God had said,

“As birds flying they defended it, defending it they delivered it and passing over it, they preserved it”

That’s a pretty good fulfillment of bible prophecy by itself but the part of this event that will really give you shivers just thinking about it is to be found in the motto of the bomber squadron chosen for the task.

A motto that was chosen two years earlier in 1915 when the squadrons were first formed. Inscribed on the shoulder patch and painted onto the side of each bi-plane were the words,

“I spread my wings and keep my promise.”

When I first read this, though I do not doubt Our God in any way, it just seemed so incredible that I had to find out on my own whether this was actually true or the fanciful writing of someone wanting to put together a nice story for we believers to enjoy much later.

After all, you have to admit that that scripture coming together so many years later with that particular squadron with that particular motto on the planes that just happened to be chosen for that mission IS pretty incredible.

So with the now ease of using the computer as a tool of research I was after many attempts able to track down records of the 14th bomber squadron as part of the Royal Flying corps.

It no longer exists as such but is now a part of the RAF since the end of World War I but I was able to find a page of information on it including its insignia and its motto.

I wasn’t that surprised to find that the insignia and motto bore out the original story but being able to locate it after all these years was pretty amazing but there was something more amazing that I discovered after examining it closely.

It was the source of the motto that was just as amazing as the entire story considering who it was that held the city when it was taken by the British.

As we all know now it was the Turks of the Ottoman Empire who were obviously Islamic and had as their holy book the Quran.

Here is what the squadron insignia looks like and what it says right in the center of the page. Look closely at the writing under the words RAF Lossiemouth:

No. 14 Squadron RAF
Active	February 3 1915
Role	Strike/attack
Garrison/HQ	RAF Lossiemouth
Motto	In Arabic (an extract from theQur’an): “I spread my wings and keep my promise”
Equipment	Tornado GR4
Battle honours	Egypt 1915-1917, Gaza, Megiddo, Arabia 1916-1917, Palestine 1917-1918, Transjordan 1924 (Origin of motto), Palestine 1936-1939, East Africa 1940-1941, Mediterranean 1941-1943, Egypt and Libya 1941-1942, Sicily 1943, Atlantic 1945, Gulf 1991, Kosovo
Insignia
Identification symbol	A winged plate charged with a cross throughout and shoulder pieces of a suit of armour

Can you even believe that the motto is from the Arabic Quran? How ironic is that? WOW! Do we have an awesome God or what?

So the city was delivered from the Turks and fell back into the hands of Christian nations in 1917 but it was governed by the British and half of it was still held and controlled by the Arabs.

So what has that to do with the Jubilee years?

Well, that event occurred in 1917 and in the following year the Balfour Declaration was issued which declared its intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

As was previously shown, Israel became a nation when it had matured thirty years later in 1948 but she still had not acquired complete governance and control of Jerusalem.  It was still a divided city.

Then, exactly FIFTY years later, after it’s return from the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, in 1967 in a war not planned by Israel but most definitely by Our God, the Jews captured the Arab portion of Jerusalem and annexed it to keep and so in the Jubilee year of Jerusalem, the property of Israel reverted back to its original owner.

This has really gotten me wondering what may be in the works for this next jubilee of Jerusalem

Let’s see; FIFTY added to 1967 is, ah…..2017.

Numbers That Are Getting My Attention

By Daymond Duck

 

Last week, my article was titled, “Words That Are Getting My Attention.” This week, I thought that I would write about numbers that are getting my attention.

I have never had a desire to study the significance of Bible numbers, but I have long believed that everything in the Bible is significant.

I have always been leery of going too far in the study of numbers, but I have recently seen some amazing things that other prophecy teachers (Bob Mitchell, Dan Goodwin, etc.) have pointed out.

I don’t agree with everything they say, but I will try to take some of the amazing things these prophecy teachers say that seems right to me and pass it on in my own words.

Notice these six (the number of man) historical facts:
1897—A Zionist conference was held to find a homeland for the Jews.
1917—War: England capture Palestine (Israel, Jerusalem and more).
1947—A UN conference was held to find a homeland for the Jews.
1967—War: Israel captured West Bank (including East Jerusalem).
1997—An Arab conference was held to take the homeland of the Jews.
2017—War: threats from Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, some Arabs, etc.

Notice that these six historical facts run 20 + 30 + 20 + 30 + 20:
1897 + 20 = 1917
1917 + 30 = 1947
1947 + 20 = 1967
1967 + 30 = 1997
1997 + 20 = 2017

Notice that the conferences run in 50-year cycles:
1897—1st conference; find a homeland for the Jews.
1947—2nd conference; establish a homeland for the Jews (1897 + 50 = 1947).
1997—3rd conference; take the homeland from the Jews (1947 + 50 = 1997).

Notice that these 50-year cycles were held by three different groups.
1897—The 1st conference was a Jewish conference.
1947—The 2nd conference was a Gentile (UN) conference (1897 + 50 = 1947).
1997—The 3rd conference was an Arab conference (1947 + 50 = 1997).

Notice that three of these 50-year cycles are about war.
1917—War: England captured Palestine (Israel, Jerusalem and more).
1967—War: Israel captured West Bank (East Jerusalem and more).
2017—War: Remains to be seen, but very possible.

Notice that three of these 50-year cycles involve Jerusalem (the end of the age cup of trembling and burdensome stone for the whole world; Joel 3:2).
1917—War: Gentiles took Jerusalem.
1967—War: Jews took Jerusalem.
2017—War: Remains to be seen, but Arabs and or Muslims (the Iranians are not Arabs) may try to take Jerusalem.

But let’s go a little deeper and I honestly don’t know what to make of this.

We are looking at six events between 1897 and 2017, a period of 120 years. In the days of Noah (a sign of the Second Coming) God said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3).

Based on God’s six days of creation and one day of rest (a total of seven days) plus the Scriptures that teach that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years (Psalm 90:4; II Pet. 3:8; Heb. 4:4) some church fathers (Barnabas, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Lactantius), scholars (Dr. J. R. Church) and prophecy writers (Dr. Noah Hutchings and others), have taught that mankind will go through six God days of 1,000 years each (a total of 6,000 years) plus a Millennium of 1,000 years rest (now a total of 7,000 years).

6,000 years is 120 of 50-years each or 6,000 years (120 X 50 = 6,000).

Let’s go one final time and quit.

It is common knowledge among most students of the Bible that Jesus told His disciples “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt. 16:28).

Then, six days later, Jesus took Peter (the same Peter that said a day is with the Lord as a thousand years) plus James, and John up on the Mount of Transfiguration and revealed His Second Coming to them (Matt. 17:1-9).

The question is “Why did Jesus wait six days instead of three or five or ten days or whatever?” Why six days?

I recently heard Dan Goodwin say those six days represent 6,000 years. I knew that six days of God’s time are like 6,000 years of Man’s time, but I don’t think I have ever heard that one day of man’s time ((Peter, James and John’s time) can be like 1,000 years to God. It just didn’t seem right to me.

Then, I read what Moses said, “A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday” (Psalm 90:4). To God, 1,000 years seems like yesterday or one day.

I went back to II Pet. 3:8: “But, beloved, don’t be ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

I went to my King James Bible Commentary and read that “God does not count time in the same way that we do. To Him a thousand years may count as one day” (II Pet. 3:8).

This is the point: God is an eternal being. Time does not exist for Him. There is no difference between 1,000 years and one day to God and no difference between one day and 1,000 years to God.

So, each person should decide for his or her own self if Jesus waiting six days to reveal His Second Coming to Peter, James and John means His Second Coming will be after 6,000 years of human history.

In summary, I don’t know what to think of some of this, but in light of the talk of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the talk of a peace treaty this 2017, it being 50 years since 1967, it being 70 years since 1947, the upcoming total eclipse of the sun, the Revelation 12 sign on Rosh Hashanah, etc. These amazing numbers are getting my attention.

The Undeniable Sign

by Britt Gillette

The signs of the Second Coming are all around us. When His disciples asked Jesus to describe the signs, He gave them several. The Jewish people back in possession of Jerusalem (Luke 21:24-28)…  the gospel preached throughout the world (Matthew 24:14)… the arrival of the exponential curve (Matthew 24:3-8)… and more. The Old Testament prophets also pointed to a number of signs. An increase in travel and knowledge (Daniel 12:4)… the rise of a united Europe (Daniel 2:42)… the rise of the Gog of Magog alliance (Ezekiel 38-39)… and more.

Today, all these signs are either present or in the process of being fulfilled. Yet for 1,800+ years, none of these signs were present. Think about that. None of the signs. But today? Today, they’re all around us. Nevertheless, most of the world remains ignorant of the soon return of Jesus Christ.

While I can understand why some people might overlook some of these signs, I don’t understand how they could miss one sign in particular. It’s a clear and unmistakable sign. I believe in and of itself, it not only shows the return of Jesus is near – I believe it proves the existence of God beyond all doubt. So what is this sign?

Israel. That’s right. The existence of modern day Israel is a clear and unmistakable sign Jesus is about to return.

Israel Back in the Land

Centuries in advance, God foretold the modern day nation of Israel. He promised to bring the Jewish people back into the land and re-establish the ancient nation. Moses declared God’s promise when he said God would gather the Jewish people back from the nations where He scattered them and bring them back into the land of Israel (Deuteronomy 30:3-5).

Jesus also foretold the rebirth of Israel. He said Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Jewish people taken away to serve as slaves in all parts of the world (Luke 21: 24). He then said non-Jewish people would control Jerusalem until the Jewish people come back into possession of it (Luke 21:24).

The prophets also foretold the re-emergence of Israel. Hosea said the people of Israel would go a long time without a king, sacrifices, sacred pillars, or priests. Then, in the last days, they will return to the land (Hosea 3:4-5). Joel said God will judge the world at the time when He restores Judah and Jerusalem, bringing His people back from among the nations where they were scattered (Joel 3:1-2).

This regathering of the Jews back into the land of Israel is repeated over and over by the prophets. Jeremiah said God would gather them back in the land just before His return (Jeremiah 23:7-8) and restore them to the land of Israel from distant lands (Jeremiah 30:2, 10).

Ezekiel said God would call them from “among the nations” (Ezekiel 39:28) and welcome them home from the lands where they were scattered (Ezekiel 20:34). Isaiah said God would call them from “the farthest corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). King David said God would gather them from “north, south, east, and west” (Psalm 107:3). And Zechariah said, though “scattered among the nations,” God will bring his people back into the land of Israel (Zechariah 10:9).

Jeremiah said a day will come when people will no longer refer to the God of Israel as the one who rescued His people from the land of Egypt. Instead, they will refer to Him as the one who brought His people back into the land of Israel from all the countries in the world where He had exiled them (Jeremiah 16:14-15). Everyone alive on earth today is a witness to this fulfilled prophecy. It’s an undeniable sign of the Second Coming.

Israel in the Last Days

The regathering of the Jewish people in Israel is a miracle in our time. But the prophets had much more to say about this monumental sign of the last days. They said Israel would be reborn in a specific way. Not only would the people be regathered, but the nation would have specific traits.

1) Born in a Single Day – Isaiah said the reborn nation of Israel would come forth in a single day. He likened it to a woman “who gives birth in an instant without labor pains” (Isaiah 66:7-9). Written more than 2,500 years ago, Isaiah’s prophecy seemed ridiculous. No nation had ever come into being in a single day. But Israel did. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion read the Israeli Declaration of Independence, a document which declared Israel to be an independent state. That same day, the United States recognized Israel as an independent and sovereign nation.

2) One, United Nation – When Solomon died almost three thousand years ago, Israel broke into northern and southern kingdoms. It remained divided throughout the lifetimes of both Isaiah and Ezekiel. Yet both proclaimed the regathered nation of Israel would be a single, united nation – just as we see today with the modern day nation of Israel. Isaiah said Israel and Judah would no longer be rivals (Isaiah 11:13). And Ezekiel said the regathered people would be unified into one nation (Ezekiel 37:22).

3) The Desert Will Bloom – Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised Israel would blossom agriculturally and fill the whole world with its fruit (Isaiah 27:6). He repeated this promise eight chapters later when He said the desert will bloom (Isaiah 35:1). Through Ezekiel, God said His people would re-enter the land, produce much fruit, and be more prosperous than ever before (Ezekiel 36:8-11).

Do we see this today?

Yes. In a 1869 visit to what is today known as the nation of Israel, author Mark Twain described the land as “barren,” “dull of color,” and “unpicturesque in shape.” All he saw were “unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation.” Yet today, the tiny nation is an agriculture giant. The land is fruitful and prosperous, and Israel is one of the world’s leading fresh citrus producers and a net exporter of more than forty varieties of fruit.

4) Surrounded by Enemies – The Bible said the regathered people of Israel would be surrounded by enemies. “Come, let us wipe away the nation of Israel. Let’s destroy the memory of its existence,” they’ll say (Psalm 83:4). “Let us take for ourselves these pasturelands of God” (Psalm 83:12). Ezekiel said Israel’s neighbors would say “God has given their land to us” (Ezekiel 11:14‐17), and “Israel and Judah are ours. We will take possession of them. What do we care if their God is there?” (Ezekiel 35:10). This is what we see today. Ever since the rebirth of Israel in 1948, the daily headlines have included these Bible verses. The surrounding Muslim nations claim the land of Israel for themselves. They have no regard for the God of Israel. The prophets foretold this exact situation more than 2,000 years ago.

5) A Small, Powerful Military – Centuries in advance, the Bible said the reborn nation of Israel would be a great military power. Ezekiel said the regathered nation of Israel would field an exceedingly great army (Ezekiel 37:10). Zechariah said it would be like a fire among sheaves of grain, burning up the neighboring nations (Zechariah 12:6). It would be so successful even the weakest Israeli soldier will be like David (Zechariah 12:8). Since 1948, Israel has fought no less than four conventional wars against its neighbors. Despite being outnumbered more than 50 to 1, and despite being surrounded on all sides, Israel has experienced overwhelming victory every time.

A Miracle in Our Time

The reappearance of Israel on the world stage is a modern day miracle. More than 2,000 years ago, God promised over and over again to bring the Jewish people back into the land He gave Abraham. For 1,878 years, the nation of Israel did not exist. For all those years, the Jewish people were scattered throughout the world. Yet they remained set apart for God. Unlike the Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites, and other conquered people, they did not assimilate into the nations where they lived.

Then, in 1948, God fulfilled His promise and made Israel a nation once again. It was reborn in a single day (Isaiah 66:7-9). It was unified as one nation (Ezekiel 37:22). It transformed a desert wasteland into an abundant land of fruit (Isaiah 27:6). And in the face of many enemies, God has given Israel military victory after victory just as He promised (Zechariah 12:6).

We are all witnesses to this miracle. How could anyone see the nation of Israel and not give glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? How could anyone deny this is anything less than God’s doing? God promised to bring His people back into the land, and He did.

The rebirth of Israel as a nation is more than just a fulfilled prophecy. It’s one of the biggest events in world history. Why? Because it’s an undeniable sign of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Next to the convergence of all end times signs (Luke 21:28), it’s arguably the biggest sign of all. For 1,878 years, Christians could not point to this sign. Since 1948, they can.

Isaiah said Jesus will return and establish His everlasting kingdom after the Jewish people return to the land of Israel (Isaiah 11:11-12). Joel said, after the restoration of Israel, God will gather the armies of the world into the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:1-2). This is a direct reference to Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) which occurs just before the return of Jesus Christ. Micah said God will gather His exiled people and make them a strong nation, and then, God will rule from Jerusalem as their King forever (Micah 4:6-7). The message is clear. It’s undeniable. Israel is back, and Jesus is coming (Revelation 22:20)!

Britt Gillette is author of the free ebook Coming to Jesus: One Man’s Search for Truth and Life Purpose as well as Signs of the Second Coming: 11 Reasons Jesus Will Return in Our Lifetime. Receive his book 7 Signs of the End Times for free when you sign up for his monthly newsletter.

 

Israel or Palestine: Who Does The Land Belong To?

To whom does the land rightfully belong has been a question argued over for living memory. Even within the Church, where you might expect the biblical narrative on the matter to be accepted by all, there are those who exploit the ignorance of that narrative to promote an anti-Israel agenda.

The article and links below will lead you to the biblical facts that every Christian should know…

Home – Elementor

 

by Dr. David Reagan.

Do the Jewish people have any right to the land of Israel? Did they steal that land from the Palestinians? Did they create the modern day state of Israel in violation of international law? Is there any hope for real peace in the Middle East between the Jews and the Arabs? And what does the Bible have to say about these questions?

The focus of world politics today is the nation of Israel in the Middle East. And that focus is one of many signs that we are living in the season of the Lord’s return, because all of end time Bible prophecy focuses on Israel, just like today’s newspaper headlines.

The world condemns Israel for stealing the land of the Palestinians. But, is that true? I can tell you without hesitation that it is not true.

The Bible says that God has given the Jewish people an eternal title to that land. The Bible also says that in the end times God will regather the Jewish people to that land and re-establish their state.

So, the bottom line is that the presence of the state of Israel in the Middle East today is in accordance with God’s will.

The Land Title Covenant

The controlling passage for everything I have to share is found in Genesis 12 beginning with verse 1. It reads as follows, “The LORD,” (and in your Bibles whenever that is capitalized it always means Yahweh, the name of God) “Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and will bless you, and make your name great. And to your descendants I will give this land.'” The land is Canaan.

This promise was reconfirmed to Abraham six more times. In Genesis 17:7, God declared the promise of the land to be an everlasting covenant, not a temporary one — everlasting! The promise was reconfirmed to Isaac and to Jacob. It was reconfirmed through King David in Psalm 105, which reads as follows:

“Oh, give thanks to Yahweh, for He has remembered His covenant forever. The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. And then He confirmed it to Jacob, and to Israel as an everlasting covenant. Saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance.'”

The Land Use Covenant

There were actually two covenants related to the land of Israel. The first one, the one we just discussed, is the Land Title Covenant. This was given through Abraham and it was an unconditional covenant. God’s saying, “I’m giving you the land with no conditions attached. It’s yours. It’s yours forever!”

The second was the Land Use Covenant. This was given by God through Moses right before the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Just before they entered the land, God spoke through Moses.

In Deuteronomy 28-30, God gives the Land Use Covenant. This is a covenant in which God makes it very clear to Israel that when they go into the land they are to abide by certain rules. One of the most important rules being not to intermarry with the women of the land, because He said that would lead to idolatry.

There were many rules and regulations God gave the Israelites. He told them that the enjoyment of the land would depend upon their faithfulness to God. If they were faithful, He would give them blessings. If they were unfaithful, He would put curses upon them.

There is a whole chapter concerning the different kinds of curses. Curses included bad weather, losses in wars, domination by foreign governments, rebellion by teenagers, divorce epidemics, crop failures, cattle dying, and on and on. All sorts of curses God would put upon the Israelites if they were unfaithful to Him.

Then Moses warned his people that if they refused to repent, if they continued to sin against God, that it would ultimately lead to the greatest curse of all. Deuteronomy 28:64 reveals the greatest curse would be:

“Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. And there you will serve other gods. And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there Yahweh will give you a trembling heart and failing of eyes, and despair of soul.”

What would be the ultimate curse? The Jewish dispersion to the four corners of the earth.

So, the crucial point to keep in mind is this: the gift of the land was irrevocable and unconditional. The Jewish people were given an eternal title, but their use and enjoyment of the land was conditional. It depended upon their obedience to God.

Let me illustrate it this way. Let’s suppose that you buy a car for your teenage son. You put the car in his name, and it belongs to him. But, you sit down with him and you say, “As long as you live in my house you are going to live under my rules and regulations. The car is yours, but here are the rules. There’s going to be no spinning of the tires, no racing, and no speeding.” So, you go through all the rules, and then you say to him, “If you violate those rules, depending upon the severity of the violation, I am going to take away your car and I am going to lock it up in the garage and you are not going to be able to drive it for a week, or two weeks, or for a month.” The car is his. It belongs to him. But, his use of it depends upon his obedience to his father’s commands, which he can lose the use of it for a period of time.

That is the situation with the children of Israel when it comes to owning their land. They were given an eternal title to the land, but their possession of the land was conditional upon their obedience to God.

The Israelites dwelled in the land for 750 years, with 400 years under the Judges and another 350 years under the kings. During that time, the Israelites were constantly falling into idolatry. They began to intermarry with the Canaanite women. They began to violate all the rules of God.

In response to their rebellion, God placed remedial judgment after remedial judgment after remedial judgment on the Israelites, but they would not repent. And so, the time came when God began to raise up prophetic voices like Elijah who called them to repentance. Yet again they refused to repent, until finally the time came when God decided that He had to eject the Israelites from the land. The northern nation of Israel was ejected from the land by the Assyrians in 722 BC. The Babylonians captured Judah 136 years later in 586 BC.

By God’s grace and mercy, He allowed the Jews to return to the Promised Land after 70 years in Babylonian captivity. They rebuilt their temple in Jerusalem. But still, Israel continued in their rebellion against God. They continued to reject God. And when they finally rejected the Messiah — the Lord Jesus Christ — God allowed the Romans to come in, conquer the city of Jerusalem, burn the Temple, and begin to exile the Jewish people all over the world.

The Jews were exiled to the four corners of the earth so that by the beginning of the 20th Century there were Australian Jews, there were African Jews, and there were Latin American Jews. There were Jews dwelling in every country of the world, just as God said He would do if they persisted in their rebellion.

Again, the crucial point to keep in mind is that the Jews were dispersed from their land in discipline, but they were not disposed of their land. It was still their land. The Jews still hold the title to that land. That stands as a crucially important fact to keep in mind. The title to the Holy Land remains in the name of Israel, and it remains in their name to this very day.

The Real Palestinian State

Regarding the so-called Palestinians, it is very interesting that from 70 AD until 1948 AD, the year when Israel was re-established, Jerusalem had never been the capital of any Arab state. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab state, only of the Jewish state.

Also, there has never been a Palestinian state. Anti-semetics will tell people that all the problems in the Middle East are tied to the day that the Jews returned and “ran all the Palestinians out and took over their homes.” What a lie! There has never been a Palestinian state. The Arabs who lived in the Levant considered themselves to be Syrians.

Historically proven, there never has been any Palestinian identity. There has never been a Palestinian culture. There was never any Palestinian language. It just simply doesn’t exist! The idea of a Palestinian state, a people who were illegally displaced by the Jews, is pure propaganda developed by the Arabs after the Six Day War in 1967.

It is very important to keep in mind that the Palestinians already have a state and it is called Jordan. Some 75% of all the people who live in Jordan consider themselves Palestinians. So, when the Palestinians cry out to the world that they need a state, the truth is, they already legally have a state, and it’s called Jordan.

For further information on this topic, read my article The Land of Israel or watch Christ in Prophecy.

The Nakba

By Matt Ward

 

Each year, on May 15^th, the Muslim world commemorate a day known as Nakba Day, or “Catastrophe” Day. Nakba Day commemorates the “catastrophe” that the establishment of the modern State of Israel was to the Muslim world in 1948. Nakba Day represents, according to the popular and developing western narrative, the biggest crisis of modern Palestinianism to date; the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

This day, inaugurated by Yasser Arafat in 1988 as a day of solemn remembrance, mourning and protest, is the day in 1948, one day after Jewish Independence was declared, when Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq collectively invaded the fledgling Jewish State with the intention of wiping her from the map.

The Arab world was determined to carry out a “war of extermination” and follow through with the threatened “momentous massacre” declared for the newborn Israeli State by then Arab League Secretary General, Azzam Pasha. In this attack, the Arab Muslim world had nothing short of another Jewish Genocide on their minds.

In the war that immediately followed, and despite being horrendously outnumbered and outgunned, the tiny Jewish State managed to push the invaders back and establish the countries provisional boundaries. This came at quite some cost. 6,373 Israelis were killed in the act of defending their new country, the equivalent of about 1 percent of the Jewish state’s population at that time. This would be the equivalent of about 3 million American dead today.

Israel had decisively won its first major war for survival; but it would be the first of many. It was in this first war with Israel that the Arab Muslim world learnt something important. These Jewish men and women, many who had limped lame, bent double, starving and lice ridden from Dachau, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz just two years before, were not the same broken men and women in 1948 that they were in 1945. They were united by a single desire and goal, one summed up in two short words, “never again.”

They had meant it.

Since that first fateful war in 1948, Israel’s existence has been one of almost continual war, battle or asymmetric conflict. To date, Israel have been dragged into no less than thirteen significant conflicts or wars, all against implacable enemies whose only motivation is her utter destruction.

Each war that Israel faces is a war of annihilation; if Israel lose just once, they will lose everything for all time. There would be no magnanimity shown to Israel in defeat, only wrath and destruction.

None of us, in 2017, should be under any illusion about the threats Israel face. The wars and conflicts Israel finds itself frequently contesting, the barrage of condemnation Israel continuously fields from the United Nations and its various organizations within, the harsh unending criticism Israel absorbs day after day from the mainstream media, and the vilification of groups like BDS; they are but for one reason only, these groups and organizations want Israel to be no more.

The perceived end game these groups have in mind for Israel is not to carve out a Palestinian state from Israeli land, it is to carve Israel out from the face of the Middle East.

After the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, Israel was quickly plunged into war once again in the Sinai War of 1956 with Egypt. This war resulted in the demilitarization of the Sinai, thus enhancing the fledgling Israel’s southern border and creating a buffer zone between Israel and Egypt.

Eleven years later Israel was to face another existential threat to its existence in the Six Days War of 1967. This war pitted Israel, standing all alone, against the full forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. The result of this war was nothing short of miraculous. By its conclusion, Israel had gained full control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the remainder of the Sinai and the Golan Heights.

Crucially, Israel once again, after two thousand years, had gained control over Jerusalem, her ancient capital city. God was blessing Israel and despite being completely surrounded, without help and grossly outnumbered, they were expanding and solidifying their territory.

This war led to the four year War of Attrition (1967 – 1970), which saw the rise of the infamous Black September group who were responsible, amongst other atrocities for the Munich Olympics Massacre of Jewish athletes in 1972.

The Yom Kippur War, just three years later in 1973, represented perhaps Israel’s biggest threat to date and was without question the closest Israel has come to losing a major fixed war in the modern era. Catching Israel completely by surprise, on the Holiest Day of Judaism – Yom Kippur, a coalition of eight nations simultaneously attacked Israel. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Cuba all moved at once with the singular intent of bringing the Jews to their knees and removing Israel from the Middle East.

In the 1982 First Lebanon War, Israel faced for the first time a combination of nation states and transnational terrorist entities within the context of the same broad war. They faced attack from Syria and the terrorist groups Hezbollah, the PLO, the Lebanese National Resistance front and the Amal Movement of Lebanon.

This war continued for many years and eventually drew to an official close in or about 2000. It was during this time that Israel also had to face both the First Intifada (1987-1993) and the Second Intifada (2000 – 2005). Both these Intifada’s saw intense uprising and violence through general and wide scale Palestinian violence and homicide bombings.

In very recent times, between 2008 and the present day Israel have been involved three wars, all against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Operation Cast Lead, (2008-2009), Operation Pillar of Defense, (2012) and Operative Protective Edge, (2014). All were victories for Israel, but at a cost of international vilification for Israel.

Israel has never enjoyed real or lasting peace. Since the very first moments of her existence, Israel has been fighting for her life. That Israel has simply survived the past seventy years is miraculous.

Yet, surprisingly, contesting war for her survival has not been Israel’s biggest challenge to date. Israel’s biggest threat today is posed by one simple, baseless and false lie, one which Nakba Day seeks to promote. This lie has been so successful that it threatens the legitimization of Israel itself. It is one that we hear repeated often, especially on the anniversary of Nakba Day, or Catastrophe Day.

It is the ever so subtle lie that the reason the Palestinian people still do not have a state of their own, and therefore why there is no peace in the Middle East more generally, is not because of their own intransigence, or the blatant corruption and violence of their own leaders, but because of Israel.

It is a lie from the pit of hell itself and next time, in the week commemorating the birth of the modern state of Israel, we will examine the facts of the matter, and see where the blame for the lack of peace really lays.

We will try to answer the question that has baffled all comers to date as to why, in 2017, do the Palestinians still not have a state of their own in my follow-up article.

Why Do the Palestinians Not Have a State of Their Own?

By Matt Ward

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” —Joseph Goebbels (Nazi Minister of Propaganda)

On Monday, May 15^, the day after Jewish Independence Day, the Muslim world will commemorate a day known as Nakba Day, or “Catastrophe” Day. Nakba Day commemorates the “catastrophe” that the establishment of the State of Israel was to the Muslim world in 1948.

In 1988, Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat decided that whilst the Jewish State was celebrating its Independence with joy and gladness on May 14, the Palestinian people the next day should also mark the occasion formally and solemnly. They therefore began the commemoration of their own anniversary, the Nakba. To this end he declared May 15^th, the day after Israeli independence in 1948, as Nakba Day.

Nakba Day has been commemorated and noted ever since by the Palestinians, and increasingly by the wider world. Some years pass more peacefully than others, some years see an explosion of extreme violence. But with each passing year, the demand for the establishment of a Palestinian state grows and grows. It is a pressure that, I believe, will be pivotal in Israel finally sealing an agreement God describes as “a covenant with death” and “an agreement with Hell” itself (Isaiah 28:18).

But why is it that the Palestinians do not have their own state? It is a genuine question. The truth, unknown by most, is that the Palestinians should have their own state by now. In 2017, the Palestinians should have their own fully functional, autonomous state. Yet they don’t, and they are nowhere near attaining it.

Why is this? The answer most give is as basic and simple as it is wrong: it is because of Israel. The perception many wrongly have is that Israel prevents the Palestinians from attaining their own statehood. It is inaccurate, it is perverse and it is entirely uninformed.

Yet this lie persists, and grows stronger with each passing year. It is the same old lie often stated by diplomats and politicians alike, and it goes something like this, “…if Israel just allowed the Palestinians to have their own state, there would then finally be peace in the Middle East.”

Yet this lie is as subtle in its trickery and deceit as it is dangerous to the state of Israel. If one follows this line of argument through to its logical conclusion then it means that the fault, and all the blame for the lack of a Palestinian state, and consequently for a lack of general and widespread peace in the Middle East, rests exclusively with Israel.

Not with Syria or Bashir al-Assad, not with IS, not with radical Islamism, not with Russia and her blatant expansionist aspirations, not with Saddam Hussein when he was still alive, not with the Muslim Brotherhood, nor with Iran or her proxy Hezbollah, not with Hamas or the Palestinians – but with little Israel. All the historical and current problems in the Middle East can be laid exclusively at the feet of Israel.

It is a lie from the very depths of Hell itself. It is heinous, it is untrue, it is factually incorrect and pushed exclusively by one of two types of people; the ignorant and historically uniformed or by anti-Semites. There is no third category here.

The simple and irrefutable truth is that the Palestinians should have a state of their own right now. Israel have already offered the Palestinians statehood on no fewer than five separate occasions, and on each occasion the Palestinians turned it down.

On the evening before the first Nakba Day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented that “Israel was not responsible for the Palestinian tragedy, their leadership is.” He was right. The long and difficult history of the Palestinian quest for statehood, and the failure thereof, can only rightly be blamed on, and apportioned to one group, the corrupt, illegitimate leadership of the Palestinian people.

Facts simply do not lie, nor does the historical record.

The Palestinians have rejected offers for the creation of their own statehood on five distinct occasions. On a number of those occasions Israel even conceded to each and every Palestinian precondition they set for a state. Yet they still refused the deal that would have seen the establishment of their own state and homelands.

History verifies it, past U.S. presidents have attested to it, world leaders know it, yet the masses—including many within the church, are wholly uninformed and unaware of it. So let’s take a minute and actually examine the historical record, without comment and without judgment and let it tell us what actually happened.

Opportunity One – 1930s

Beginning in 1918, with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, Britain took control of most of the Middle East region, including the area we now know as Palestine and Israel. In 1936, the Arabs living under this British mandate rebelled.

As a result of this rebellion, the British formed a task force known as the Peel Commission. Its aim was to understand the causes of this rebellion and seek solutions for the future. The conclusion of the commission was simple. The Peel Commission concluded that two separate people, the Jews and the Arabs, both wanted and were intent upon ruling the same land. The Commission therefore recommended a simple solution; a two state solution.

Two states living side-by-side, one a Jewish state, the other an Arab state. The two state solution is nothing new, it’s older than most of our grandparents. The Jews jumped at this chance to establish their own state in the 1930s, even though the land they were being offered was miniscule compared to the offer forwarded to the Arabs. The Arabs were offered 80% of the disputed land, the Jews a mere 20%. The Jews said yes, the Arabs gave a resounding no.

Opportunity Two – 1947

In 1947, the United Nations came to the conclusion that the only way to resolve the ongoing animosity between the Jews and the Arabs was to divide the land formally. The UN therefore voted to formally create two states, living side by side – another two state solution.

Again, the Jews jumped at this opportunity, the Arabs Muslims responded by launching war against Israel, and were joined by Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. They were soundly defeated. Critically, it was at this point that the land set aside for the creation of an Arab state by the United Nations, mainly the West Bank and east Jerusalem, become for the first time occupied territory.

This was not an Israeli occupation though, the land was occupied by Jordan, not Israel.

Opportunity Three – 1967

It was in 1967 that the Arabs, who had just begun referring to themselves as “Palestinians” sought to destroy Israel, alongside Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Israel soundly defeated all comers and found itself at the conclusion of conflict controlling additional large amounts of territory, all of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, the West Bank and Gaza.

This amazing Israeli victory provoked widespread discussion within Jewish society. Many wanted to give this land back in exchange for peace, many more wanted to give this land to the Arabs, now calling themselves “Palestinians,” so that they could fashion and build their own state, in exchange for what Israel hoped would be a lasting peace.

This offer led to the infamous “three no’s” of the Arab League, who met in Sudan to discuss Israel’s magnanimous offer; “No!” to peace with Israel, “No!” to any recognition of Israel and “No!” to any future negotiations of Israel. The longed for Two State solution was now well and truly dead and would remain so for over thirty years.

Opportunity Four – 2000

In the year 2000 new leaders and new optimism abounded. There was genuine hope from Israel and Western leaders that either peace, or some other form of wider agreement was genuinely within reach. To that end, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David to conclude a new agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

At Camp David, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians a deal that had never been on the table before. It was such an offer that US President Bill Clinton, quite understandably, believed there were genuine prospects for a negotiated and permanent settlement between the two peoples. Clinton believed history was beckoning.

Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank and, crucially, east Jerusalem as its capital. Clinton was sure the Palestinians would jump at the chance. But he was wrong. Arafat refused every concession and every offer tabled by Barak. He said no to everything. So intransient was Arafat that afterwards, Clinton went on record as saying that Arafat was, “here fourteen days and said “no” to everything.”

The Palestinians responded to Israel’s generous offer by launching an intifada against them, and over 1,000 Israelis died as a consequence.

Opportunity Five – 2008

Despite serious misgiving, in 2008 Israel so eager for peace with the Palestinians that they went even further in their offer than they had in 2000. This time, the Jewish State, confirming the terms of the 2000 negotiations were still on the table for the Palestinians (including having east Jerusalem as their capital), also adding the extra promise of ”additional lands” as an incentive for the Palestinians to finally say yes.

Mahmoud Abbas, like all of his predecessors, flatly refused all the tabled offers, to the utter amazement of all.

So why is it, in 2017, that the Palestinians still do not have their own state? Is it, as Nakba Day portrays, because the Israelis are oppressing and denying the Palestinian people their rights or the opportunity for their own state, up until this present day? Or could there be a different reason?

The simple truth of the matter is that Israel have offered peace and statehood to the Palestinians on five occasions. On each occasion they have been met with abject rejections and often extreme violence in return.

Looking at the historical record I can only conclude that the Palestinians do not have a state of their own because they do not want one. This opinion seems to be verified by Ismail Haniyah, Hamas’ own Prime Minister of Gaza. Haniyah is an outspoken critic of Israel, and of peace with the “illegal Jewish entity.” On January 15^th, 2014, Prime Minister Haniyah said the following about the Palestinians under his leadership with regards to the peace process,

“This is a generation which knows no fear. It is the generation of the missile, the tunnel and suicide operations.”

Later, on March 23 of the same year he said, “Stop negotiating with the enemy. We will not recognize Israel.”

The acquisition of a state is not the end game the Palestinians seem to be seeking. The ultimate end game for the Palestinians is not two states, living side by side, but rather a Middle East that exists without Israel in it.

The Palestinians do not have a state for one very simple reason; it is not a state they seek, it is the destruction of Israel. And this is why, short of the arrival of the Messiah Himself, there will never be a genuine or lasting peace in the Middle East.

Trumps Ultimate Negotiation – Israel/Palestinian Peace Deal

By Sean Savage/JNS.org

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President Donald Trump and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas met for the first time at the White House Wednesday as Trump’s nascent administration ventures down the road of its predecessors, making a fresh bid to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

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“We want to create peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We will get it done. We will be working so hard to get it done,” Trump said alongside Abbas during a press conference.

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Later, in a luncheon with senior advisers, Trump expressed even greater confidence in achieving peace.

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“It’s something that, I think, is frankly maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years,” he said.

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Trump made a similar claim in an interview last week with Reuters.

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“I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians,” the president said. “There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians–none whatsoever.”

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In his remarks at Wednesday’s press conference, Abbas flattered the American leader, expressing confidence in Trump’s “great negotiating ability” and saying he looks forward to working with Trump to “come to that deal, to that historical agreement to bring about peace.”

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Yet Abbas also reserved some airtime for criticizing Israel, saying, “It’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and our land.”

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Abbas proceeded to lay out familiar negotiation parameters that most Israeli leaders have dismissed, including a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem and borders based on the pre-1967 lines.

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Grant Rumley, a research fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, told JNS.org it was apparent in the language of Trump and Abbas how far apart the two leaders might be on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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“I think it’s noticeable that Trump referenced peace, while Abbas referenced the two-state solution,” Rumley said.

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“I think fundamentally, the two sides are going to have divergent views on just where they see this relationship going,” he said. “Trump wants a deal, however that may look. Abbas wants the traditional two-state solution peace process.”

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Ahead of the Trump-Abbas meeting, senior administration officials, including CIA Director Mike Pompeo and international negotiations representative Jason Greenblatt, had what many viewed as surprisingly positive meetings with Palestinian officials in Ramallah, with Abbas telling Greenblatt he believes a “historic” peace deal is possible under Trump’s guidance.

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Meanwhile, in State Department documents published last month by Foreign Policy, the Trump administration is planning a 4.6-percent increase in American aid–amounting to $215 million for the fiscal year of 2018–to Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza.

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Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled since 2014, when peace talks brokered by the Obama administration collapsed, marking the latest setback for American involvement in the Middle East peace process.

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“Here we go again. The same old pretense that the Palestinians are morally equal with the Israelis, the same ignoring of Palestinian rejectionism, the same illusion that another signed agreement will end the conflict, another president believing he can succeed where his predecessors failed,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum think tank, told JNS.org after Trump and Abbas met Wednesday.

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During his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, Trump expressed openness to Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolutions other than a two-state solution, breaking with American presidential administrations’ longstanding exclusive support for two states.

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“I’m looking at two state and one state, and I like the one that both parties like…I can live with either one,” Trump said at the time.

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Hamas’s political maneuvering

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Amid the Trump-Abbas meeting, Hamas has also been stepping up its political maneuvering. Earlier this week, the Gaza-ruling Palestinian terror group released a policy document indicating its willingness to accept the premise of a future Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders.

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In an interview with CNN following the document’s release, Hamas’s outgoing political leader Khaled Mashaal said Trump has a “historic opportunity” for peace, mirroring Abbas’s language.

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“This is a historic opportunity to pressure Israel…to find an equitable solution for the Palestinian people,” Mashaal said. “And it will be to the credit of the civilized world and the American administration to stop the darkness that we have been suffering from for many years.”

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Experts have dismissed Hamas’s policy document as a smokescreen by the terror group to gain greater appeal among the international community and the Palestinian population.

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“This is not a sign of moderation so much as a ploy to end the faction’s international isolation,” the FDD think tank said in a policy memo. “The other element of this new document is the internal Palestinian political angle. In acknowledging the 1967 borders and dropping its call for Israel’s destruction, Hamas is making a play at the rival party Fatah’s supporters.”

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Hamas drove Fatah forces loyal to Abbas, the latter faction’s leader, out of Gaza in 2007. Since then, the Palestinian factions have waged an ongoing struggle as repeated reconciliation efforts failed.

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The latest tensions between Abbas and Hamas flared Wednesday, when Abbas’s PA announced it would stop paying for electricity Israel sends to Gaza, worth at least $11 million per month. Hamas leaders accused Abbas of attempting to “dry up” the terror group’s financial resources.

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The Israeli government also dismissed Hamas’s stated policy changes, with Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes saying Hamas is “attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed.”

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“Daily, Hamas leaders call for genocide of all Jews and the destruction of Israel,” he said. “They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. Schools and mosques run by Hamas teach children that Jews are apes and pigs. This is the real Hamas.”

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There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians–none whatsoever.

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Yet Abbas also reserved some airtime for criticizing Israel, saying, “It’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and our land.

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And that is the very reason why there is no peace. Nor can there be any peace with this Arab/Egyptian group that occupies Judea, Samaria and Gaza and hijacks a name (Palestine) invented by the Romans to hide the fact that it has been Jewish land for over 3000 years.

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There is only a one state solution to this conflict. And it will only arrive with the arrival of the Messiah – Jesus Christ.

ISRAEL MUST DEFEAT THE PALESTINIANS!

Article from Flame

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As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day (1967) War, in which Israel defeated its Arab attackers-Egypt, Jordan and Syria-the time is ripe to nail down some lessons from that experience. First is that in order for there to be peace, enemies must be defeated.

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It was definitive defeat that eventually brought Egypt and Jordan to peace negotiations, and though Syria never agreed to peace, it has practiced peaceful coexistence ever since its defeat.

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Ironically, the one Arab group that wasn’t defeated in the 1967 war was the Palestinians, who, because they were (and are) not a state, had no mechanism to fight in the war, nor to lose the war, nor to make peace.

Palestinians were actually Jordanian citizens from the time of Jordan’s seizure of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), following Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, until Jordan’s decisive defeat in 1967.

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Before that, the Palestinians were a stateless Arab group that wasn’t even known as Palestinian.

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The fact that the Palestinians paid no price for the 1967 Arab invasion and loss has been a problem for Israel ever since . . . but it’s also been a problem for the Palestinians. Because the Palestinians were never defeated, they actually believe they have rights-not only rights to lands lost by Jordan (and won by Israel), but they also persist in believing, as Jordan, Egypt and Syria once did, that the Jewish state must be driven from all of Palestine, including present-day Israel.

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Thus Palestinian Arabs stubbornly nurture a set of tragic, self-destructive beliefs: They deny Jewish ties to the Holy Land, deny Jewish rights to self-determination and deny Israel’s viability as a state, believing that it can be defeated. While Israel has thrived over the past 69 years, Palestinian society has been mired in waging a futile war against Israel, causing the Palestinians to sink into economic bankruptcy and political dysfunction.

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The solution to this problem-for both groups-is for Israel to decisively defeat the Palestinians, which would allow both groups to make peace and get on with productive life. However, as this week’s FLAME Hotline featured article clarifies, defeating the Palestinians-even the violent terror group Hamas-cannot be achieved by the kind of bold, definitive military measures that won the day in June 1967.

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As founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Efraim Inbar asserts, Israel must defeat its non-state enemies through attrition. President Trump can assist this effort by supporting Israel’s rigorous defensive measures against its enemies and by making clear to the Palestinians that they will never-ever-have a state unless and until they face reality.

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I hope this piece will help you in your conversations with friends to make clear that the only thing standing between the Palestinians and their own state is Arab willingness to make a realistic deal with Israel. Realistic means acknowledging that the Arabs lost all their belligerent wars with Israel so far, and they are fated to lose all future wars, whether diplomatic or military.

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You’ve no doubt often read in the N.Y. Times and other mainstream media of “Israeli settlements on Palestinian land” or “settlements regarded as illegal by the international community.” Yet these objective-sounding phrases represent malicious propaganda-disguised lies told so often that millions of Americans believe them. 
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In order to make Americans-especially college and university students-aware of this media treachery, FLAME has just begun publishing a new position paper: “Israeli Settlements: Obstacle to Peace?” This paid editorial, exposing the five greatest myths about the settlements, is appearing in magazines and newspapers, including college newspapers, with a combined readership of some 10 million people. 
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In addition, it is being sent to every member of the U.S. Congress and President Trump.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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Considering the ways Israel’s opponents have changed over the decades, the collective yearning among Israelis for a decisive, 1967-style victory is unrealistic. 
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The false hope for such success impedes clarity of thinking and causes the Israeli public to lose confidence in both the military and the political leadership. The only approach that can succeed in Israel’s current conflicts is a patient, attritional, repetitive use of force. Israelis should take comfort that time is on Israel’s side.

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In June 1967, the Israel Defense Forces waged war alone against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It achieved a stunning victory in six days. The military skill demonstrated by the Israelis was remarkable-so much so that battles from the Six-Day War continue to be studied at war colleges around the world.

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Israel’s military achievement had another extremely important effect. It went a long way toward convincing the Arab world that Israel cannot be easily destroyed by military force; Israel is a fact the Arabs must learn to live with. Indeed, 10 years later-after Egypt had lost another war to Israel, this one in 1973-its President, Anwar Sadat, came to Jerusalem to offer peace.

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The swift and decisive victory of 1967 became the standard to which the IDF aspired-and the kind of victory expected by Israeli society in future engagements. This is problematic, considering the ways Israel’s opponents have changed and the means they now deploy.

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The unrealistic anticipation that victories on the scale of 1967 should be the end result of any military engagement hampers clear thinking and impedes the adoption of appropriate strategy and tactics. Moreover, it encourages what is often an impossible hope for a quick end to conflict. In the absence of a clear-cut and speedy outcome, Israelis lose confidence in the political as well as the military leadership.

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Israelis, most of whom have some military experience, still long for decisive victories in the Gaza and South Lebanon arenas. The wars in which the IDF has participated so far in the twenty-first century, which appeared to end inconclusively, left many Israelis with a sense of unease. They miss the victory photographs of the 1967 war.

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Slogans of the Israeli Right such as “let the IDF win” reflect this frustration. Similarly, the Left claims that Judea and Samaria can be safely ceded to a Palestinian state because these territories can be reconquered, as they were in 1967, if they become a base for hostile actors. The calls for the destruction of Hamas also bear witness to a lack of understanding of the limits of military power.

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But grand-scale conventional war, in which the IDF faces large armored formations and hundreds of air fighters as it did in 1967, is less likely today. The 1982 Lebanon War was the last to display such encounters. Since 1982, Israel has scarcely fought any state in a conventional war.

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To a significant extent, the statist dimension in the Arab-Israeli conflict has itself disappeared. Egypt and Jordan are at peace with Israel. Syria and Iraq are torn by domestic conflict and are hardly in a position to challenge Israel militarily. Many other Arab countries, such as the Gulf and Maghreb states, have reached a de facto peace with Israel, an orientation buttressed by the common Iranian threat.

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For the past three decades, Israel has been challenged primarily by substate actors, such as Hamas (a Sunni militia) and Hezbollah (a Shiite militia). Such organizations have a different strategic calculus from that of states. Because of their religious-ideological zeal, they are more difficult to deter than states, and their learning curve is much slower.

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It took Egypt three military defeats (1948, 1956, and 1973) and a war of attrition (1968-70) in the span of 25 years to give up the goal of destroying Israel. In contrast, Hezbollah has been fighting Israel for a longer period and remains as devoted as ever to its goal of the elimination of the Jewish state. The heavy price inflicted upon Gaza since 2007 by the Israeli military has not changed the strategic calculus of the Hamas leadership, which still aspires to Israel’s demise.

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Hamas and Hezbollah do not possess arsenals of tanks and air fighters, which would be easy targets for Israel. The decentralized structure of their military organizations does not present points of gravity that can be eliminated by swift and decisive action. 
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Moreover, their use of civilian populations to shield missile launchers and military units-a war crime-makes IDF advances cumbersome and difficult due to slower troop movement in urban areas and the need to reduce collateral damage among civilians.

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Urbanization among Israel’s neighbors has greatly reduced the empty areas that could have been used for maneuvering and outflanking. The use of the subterranean by Israel’s foes, be it in Gaza or South Lebanon, is another new element that slows advances.

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It is naive to believe that the IDF can or should win quickly and decisively every time it has to flex its muscles. Late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned several times during his long career against the expectation of a “once and for all” victory. The defeat of Israel’s new opponents requires a different strategy: attrition.

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Israel is engaged in a long war of attrition against religiously motivated enemies who believe both God and history are on their side. All the IDF can do is occasionally weaken their ability to harm Israel and create temporary deterrence. In Israeli parlance, this is called “mowing the grass”-an apt metaphor, as the problem always grows back.

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The patient, repetitive use of force is not glamorous, but it will eventually do the trick. Unfortunately, many Israelis do not understand the particular circumstances of the great 1967 victory. They have lost patience and do not realize that time is, in fact, on Israel’s side.

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The defeat of Israel’s enemies will happen, but will ultimately be by the hand of their Messiah – Jesus Christ. In the meantime the way forward is to stop allowing the dogs to bite the hand that feeds them. Stop funding the PA!