1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process revealing secret negotiations for a regional peace plan discussed in the early part of 2016 between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took part in a secret summit in Aqaba, Jordan a year ago where then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presented a plan for a regional peace initiative including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and a renewal of talks with the Palestinians with the support of Arab countries. Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi were also present at the meeting in the Jordanian city.
Netanyahu did not accept Kerry’s proposal and said he would have difficulty getting it approved by his governing coalition. Still, the Aqaba summit was the basis for the talks that began two weeks later between Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) on establishing a unity government. Details about the summit and the plan emerged from conversations between the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, and former senior officials in the Obama administration who asked to remain anonymous. It was Kerry who initiated the conference. The history of the process is as follows:
In April 2014, the peace initiative led by Kerry collapsed, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians entered a deep freeze and U.S. President Barack Obama declared a time-out in U.S. attempts to restart the peace process. Over the next 18 months Kerry focused on attaining an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program; an agreement was reached in July 2015 and ratified by Congress in mid-September.
In October 2015, Kerry renewed his work on the Israeli-Palestinian process following an escalation of tensions over the Temple Mount and a wave of violence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. At the end of October, Kerry was able to achieve understandings confirming the status quo on the Temple Mount by Israel, the Palestinians and Jordan. As part of these understandings, Israel and Jordan launched talks over the placement of closed-circuit cameras on the Temple Mount, an idea that was never implemented. Two weeks later, Netanyahu came to Washington for his first meeting with Obama in more than a year – a period when the two leaders badly clashed over the nuclear deal with Iran.
During his meeting with Obama in the Oval Office on November 10, 2015, Netanyahu said he had new ideas for renewing talks with the Palestinians. Obama, who no longer believed that Netanyahu had serious intentions, asked him to discuss the matter with Kerry. The following day Netanyahu met with Kerry and proposed a series of significant gestures to the Palestinians in the West Bank, including permits for massive construction by Palestinians in Area C, the area of the West Bank under Israeli military and civilian control. Netanyahu asked that in exchange the USA recognize that Israel could build in the large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank but did not make clear whether this meant construction outside the blocs would cease.
Two weeks later, Netanyahu held two long meetings with the security cabinet in which he tried to drum up support for the steps he planned for the West Bank. But a number of terror attacks at that time, along with staunch opposition by his coalition partners on his right – the political party, Jewish Home ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked – cooled Netanyahu’s enthusiasm.
When Kerry came to Israel on November 24, 2015, Netanyahu informed him that the proposals he had presented just two weeks before were no longer on the table. Kerry, who was shocked at Netanyahu’s backtrack, met with Herzog the same day to explore whether the possibility of Zionist Union joining the government was a realistic one. Herzog’s reply did nothing to improve Kerry’s mood. “There are zero signs of a change in Netanyahu’s policy or approach,” Herzog told Kerry. Under those circumstances, Herzog said there was neither a chance nor a reason for Zionist Union to join the coalition.
Kerry left the region frustrated and angry. In a speech to the Saban Forum in Washington a week later, he was severely critical of Netanyahu, saying the policy of Netanyahu’s government would lead to a binational state. After the failure of Kerry’s mission, the Palestinians reverted to their steps against Israel in the United Nations, including a draft resolution at the Security Council on the settlements. In Israel, the security cabinet began discussing the possibility of the fall of the Palestinian Authority. In Europe, France began to prepare for a meeting of dozens of foreign ministers on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Despite the dead end, Kerry did not intend to give up. With his advisers in December and January, he crafted a document that included principles for the renewal of talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the framework of a regional peace initiative with the participation of the Arab countries. The plan he formulated in early 2016 was identical to the one he presented at the end of that year – three weeks before Donald Trump entered the White House. The following are the six principles.
* International secure and recognized borders between Israel and a sustainable and contiguous Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with agreed-on exchanges of territory.
* Implementation of the vision of UN Resolution 181 (the Partition Plan) for two states for two peoples, one Jewish and one Arab – which recognize each other and give equal rights to their citizens.
* A just, agreed-on, fair and realistic solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees that conforms to a solution of two states for two peoples and will not influence the basic character of Israel.
* An agreed-on solution for Jerusalem as the capital of both countries, recognized by the international community and ensuring freedom of access to the holy sites in keeping with the status quo.
* A response to Israel’s security needs, ensuring Israel’s ability to protect itself effectively and ensuring Palestine’s ability to give security to its citizens in a sovereign, demilitarized state.
* The end of the conflict and of demands, which will allow a normalization of ties and increased regional security for all, in keeping with the vision of the Arab Peace Initiative.
On January 31, 2016, Kerry met with Netanyahu in the resort town of Davos, Switzerland. During the meeting, with only the two men present, Kerry presented the document of principles and the regional-peace initiative to Netanyahu along with a tempting idea – a first-of-its-kind summit with King Abdullah and Sissi to discuss ways to push the process forward.
On January 31, 2016, Kerry told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of his discussion with Netanyahu in Davos. After Netanyahu agreed to the meeting, Kerry and his people began to organize it. In the lead was Kerry’s adviser and confidant Frank Lowenstein, the special envoy for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. After behind-the-scenes talks with the Israelis, Jordanians and Egyptians, it was decided that the summit would take place on February 21, 2016 in Aqaba, Jordan. The summit would remain secret and no side would release details about it.
Abbas did not take part in the summit, but was aware that it took place. On the morning of February 21, 2016, he met with Kerry in Amman, Jordan. From the statements released by both sides at the end of the meeting, not even a hint could be gleaned of what was to take place a few hours later. Kerry ended his meeting with Abbas, and together with a few of his advisers and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, boarded a small Jordanian Air Force plane. They landed in Aqaba, Jordan 45 minutes later.
Before the four-way meeting, Kerry met separately with each of the leaders. A former senior U.S. official said Kerry asked during his meetings with Abdullah and Sissi to show support for his plan. He asked that they persuade additional Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to support the plan as well, and take part in a regional diplomatic move that would include a renewal of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Kerry sought to have Abdullah pressure Abbas to agree to renew the talks based on the American plan, and Sissi would do the same vis-a-vis the Israeli government. The former senior U.S. official noted that Abdullah and Sissi agreed to express support for the plan even though it included recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Nevertheless, the official added, Sissi, who did not want a confrontation with Netanyahu, made clear to Kerry that he thought persuasion would be more effective than pressure and compulsion.
Former senior U.S. officials noted that at a meeting with Netanyahu in the context of the summit, the prime minister evaded a clear answer on the proposed plan. They said Netanyahu presented a series of reservations, arguing that the principles were too detailed and that he would have difficulty winning support for them in his coalition government.
The four-party meeting was highly dramatic. Even though the subject was the regional peace initiative, a substantial chunk of the discussions related to the situation in the overall region. Abdullah and Sissi took Kerry to task for the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East, both regarding Iran and Syria. Still, the two reacted positively to his proposal and tried to convince Netanyahu to accept it.
The former senior U.S. officials said Netanyahu was hesitant. Instead of relating exclusively to Kerry’s plan, they said he presented a plan of his own at the four-party meeting, which he called his five-point plan. Through the plan, Netanyahu expressed a readiness to take the steps regarding the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that he had spoken with Kerry about in November 2015. He also said he would release a statement relating positively to the Arab Peace Initiative. According to a former U.S. official and an Israeli source familiar with the details of the summit, Netanyahu requested in return to get American recognition of construction within the settlement blocs. In return, Netanyahu asked that the negotiations with the Palestinians be resumed and that a regional peace summit be convened that would include attendance by senior representatives from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni Muslim countries.
According to the two, the prime minister’s plan included the following clauses:
* Approval of massive construction for the Palestinians and the advancement of economic projects in Area C of the West Bank, where Israel has both security and civilian control; advancing infrastructure projects in the Gaza Strip and the tightening of security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, including allowing the entry of additional weapons needed by the Palestinian security forces.
* The Israeli government would make positive public references to the 2002 Arab peace initiative and express readiness to negotiate its components with the Arab states.
* Support and active participation by the Arab states in a regional peace initiative, including a public summit that senior officials of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni states would attend together with Netanyahu.
* A request to get American recognition for construction in the large settlement blocs in return for freezing construction in isolated settlements east of the separation barrier. Netanyahu did not clearly define what he meant by settlement blocs. In addition, he spoke of reaching quiet, unofficial understandings regarding recognition of the construction in the blocs, and even more so regarding the freeze outside them.
* A request for a guarantee from the Obama administration to block anti-Israel moves in UN institutions and to veto resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the UN Security Council.
After several hours of talks, the leaders returned to their capitals agreeing to consider the various proposals. But the secret summit in Aqaba had an almost immediate effect on domestic Israeli politics. It provided the basis on which two or three weeks later Netanyahu and Herzog discussed a national unity government.
During the contacts, Netanyahu briefed Herzog on the summit in Aqaba. Herzog, who was skeptical, tried to clarify whether there was anything to it. He spoke by phone with Kerry, Abdullah and Sissi on the details. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan were skeptical over Netanyahu’s ability to advance a genuine diplomatic process with his governing coalition. The two viewed the entry of Herzog or Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid into Netanyahu’s coalition as “earnest money” on the part of Netanyahu that would justify their pressing the Palestinians, or an effort to enlist the participation of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in a regional summit.
The information that Herzog received in March 2016 regarding the secret summit in Aqaba as well as the Kerry plan and the positions taken by Abdullah and Sissi are apparently what convinced him to enter intensive talks with Netanyahu and to publicly state on May 15 that a rare regional-diplomatic opportunity had been created that might not recur.
Recently, opposition leader Isaac Herzog confirmed reports that he entered negotiations to join a unity government last year in the framework of a secret regional agreement that was discussed at the time and argued that the potentially historic deal fell through because Prime Minister Benjamin eventually caved in to domestic political pressures. In those talks, Herzog had demanded a total freeze on settlement construction as his condition for entering a national unity government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I demanded a full veto on settlement construction beyond the 1967 border,” Herzog, chairman of the Zionist Union, told participants at the annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization. “In return, I said I would work proactively to get international consent of sorts for construction within the settlement blocs.”
In addition, Herzog said that he and Netanyahu agreed on several principles regarding a national unity government’s policy on the Palestinians, which included support for the Arab Peace Initiative, building the separation barrier, disengaging from the Palestinians and freezing construction outside the settlement blocs.
The agreement between him and Netanyahu started to unravel, Herzog disclosed, when members of the prime minister’s right-wing coalition refused to acknowledge a distinction between the major blocs and other isolated settlements and demanded that the term “blocs” not be used. Likud ministers Yariv Levin and Ze’ev Elkin — senior members of Netanyahu’s Likud party — pressured the prime minister to abort the process, Herzog charged. Levin insisted the word “blocs” not be used, Herzog said, and so the opposition leader agreed to speak about “construction in the main urban areas.”
But as pressure from his right-wing coalition partners mounted, Netanyahu eventually went back on the idea of freezing settlement construction outside the blocs according to Herzog. Netanyahu said he could speak about it but was no longer willing to commit to the plan in writing. Netanyahu told me it would break up Likud. At that point, the deal broke down, and Herzog aborted the talks to join a unity government, he said. Jewish Home lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich tweeted that the revelation of the Aqaba summit illustrates his party’s important role in the coalition. “We will continue to safeguard the State of Israel and Zionism and prevent entering into adventures.”
Having promised to keep the entire process secret, Herzog could not speak about it in public before now. In mid-May, 2016, the talks over a unity government broke down because Netanyahu “simply reneged on basic understandings we had,” Herzog charged. “These understandings, had they been fulfilled, would have prevented the catastrophe of the UN Security Council vote” on December 23, 2016, which harshly criticized the settlements, according to Herzog. When the coalition negotiations with Herzog failed, Netanyahu decided to abandon the talks with Herzog in favor of having Yisrael Beiteinu join the government, along with the appointment of the party’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, as defense minister. On May 31, minutes after Lieberman was sworn in at the Knesset, he and Netanyahu told the cameras that they supported a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. They added that the Arab Peace Initiative included positive components that could help revive the talks with the Palestinians.
In lamenting the failure of the national unity government talks, Herzog said: “I worked with the prime minister on a draft of our agreement, which included steps which were quite dramatic, and had he agreed, it would have changed the region. “I wanted to prevent more rounds of killings and coffins,” said Herzog. “I accepted the request of the prime minister because the most important leaders of the world and the region clarified to me personally how much they wanted me to enter the government because they saw that as proof that Netanyahu was serious about the process.” But he started to get pressed by his peers, and he started melting.” Had the national unity talks succeeded, Herzog said, he would have been appointed foreign minister and put in charge of the peace process.
Recently, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted the existence of a secret summit with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah which took place a year ago in the Jordanian city of Aqaba. In doing so, Netanyahu told the ministers that he was the one to initiate the summit. Herzog, who was told about the summit only a few days after it occurred said that as far as he knew the summit was Kerry’s idea, not Netanyahu’s.
An Israeli source familiar with the summit’s details said that although it was initiated by Kerry, Netanyahu played an active role in convening it. The Israeli source said Netanyahu wanted the meeting so he could personally present his alternate initiative to the Jordanian king and Egyptian president, and to make sure that Kerry wasn’t taking advantage of him. “Kerry worked on a parallel and competing initiative that included the … principles for renewing negotiations,” the source said. “Netanyahu didn’t want to be Kerry’s adjunct and certainly didn’t want his principles. He didn’t trust him and feared that Kerry would ruin the regional program.”
The Israeli source continued: “Netanyahu wanted a regional initiative that he would lead, together with the leaders of Jordan and Egypt, and only at a later stage add the American administration, and Kerry personally, to the process as a supporting actor. The Arabs weren’t so excited about Kerry’s initiative either, even though the U.S. secretary of state repeatedly claimed that all the Arab states backed his initiative.”
What are the current views within the Netanyahu government being advocated? Israel Our Home political leader, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “A two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict must include exchanges of people and land to ensure the two sides are completely separated. I believe that what is necessary for us is to keep the Jewish state,” he said. “My biggest problem is that today on the table we have a proposal (which) will establish a very homogeneous Palestinian state without even one Jew and we will become a bi-national state with more than 20 percent of the population Palestinians,” he said. “I think the basic principle of a solution must include (the) exchange of land and population. It does not make sense to create one homogeneous Palestinian state and a bi-national state of Israel.”
The future of Israel’s growing Arab population is hugely sensitive amid fears it will eventually dilute the Jewish nature of the state. Lieberman has previously said Arab towns in Israel near the border could be transferred to a future Palestinian state, while Israeli settlements including in the occupied West Bank would become part of Israel.
Lieberman emphasized that he was not endorsing the traditional formula of land-for-peace promoted by advocates of a two-state solution. Rather, the Defense Minister says he favors an exchange of territory and population – bringing the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria under Israel sovereignty while transferring large Arab population centers inside pre-1967 Israel to the Palestinian Authority. The Defense Minister also argued that an arrangement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would only be a small part of a larger regional agreement with moderate Arab states.
The principle of Lieberman’s ideas have begun to gain some traction within the current Israeli government as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presses the idea of an overall peace settlement based on a deal with moderate Sunni Arab regional powers such as Saudi Arabia in the interests of countering a shared enemy, Shiite Iran. Lieberman said that there were three challenges in the region: “Iran, Iran and Iran.”
Meanwhile, Jewish home political leader, Naftali Bennett said: “My solution is to apply sovereignty in Area C of the West Bank (currently 60% of the West Bank under Israeli military control) and give the Arabs a choice of permanent residency or Israeli citizenship (in Area C).” Bennett does not want to apply Israeli sovereignty in Area’s A and B in the West Bank where there is a larger Palestinian population than a Jewish one. In an interview with CNN, Bennett said: “There’s 2 million Palestinians that govern themselves. They have their own parliament, their own government, their own elections, their own tax system. I don’t want to govern the Palestinians, no one does. They already govern themselves.”
MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin (Zionist Union) has decided to issue a challenge to the current government coalition and plans of Jewish Home leader, Naftali Bennett, to apply Israeli sovereignty over all of Area C of Judea and Samaria. The bill would require members of the coalition, such as Education Minister Naftali Bennett, to take action on their statements calling on the government to extend its sovereignty over parts or all of Area C.
According to a report in an Israeli newspaper, “the bill seeks to annex all the territory defined in the Oslo Accords as Area C. Area C includes all settlements in Judea and Samaria, the access roads leading to them, and the majority of non-populated areas in Judea and Samaria. The purpose of the bill is to challenge and hold a mirror against the way in which the coalition operates, with methods of creeping annexation in the absence of real political activity,” the explanatory notes to the bill state. “The government has not presented since its inception any political vision or path and the paralysis has led, inter alia, to the latest UN Resolution, which once again put Israel’s back against the wall.”
”We have to expose the face of the government, which is paralyzed politically, and ask it: does the Israeli government want to control two million Palestinians or to to maintain a Jewish and democratic state? If the government and its ministers support the applying of [Israeli] law over Area C, or even more, to all of Judea and Samaria, it should take the trouble to do so.”
There is a desire for sovereignty in the West Bank among the Jewish Religious Zionist movement. The Jewish Religious Zionist movement had its 4th West Bank Sovereignty Conference in Jerusalem on February 12.
In the nine months that have elapsed since, there has been no progress on the diplomatic front. Recently at a White House press conference with US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu again called for the advancement of a regional peace initiative. “For the first time in my lifetime, and for the first time in the life of my country, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but, increasingly, as an ally,” Netanyahu said. Addressing Trump directly, he added: “I believe that under your leadership, this change in our region creates an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen security and advance peace. Let us seize this moment together.”
Will the Trump administration be able to put together a regional peace agreement between Israel, the Palestinians and moderate Sunni Arab nations that will include recognition of a Palestinian state? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) Explaining the details behind US President Barack Obama fulfilling the prophetic “Kiss of Esau” through his support of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which condemns the existence of Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem making it international law that these areas are “illegally occupied Palestinian lands” (effectively calling for the dividing of the land of Israel and Jerusalem) wherein from the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 now makes Jews living in the areas which include the Mount of Olives, the Western Wall and the Old City of Jerusalem even regarded as being “illegally occupied Palestinian lands” and a violation of international law.
WHAT IS THE PROPHETIC “KISS OF ESAU” ??
What is the prophetic “kiss of Esau” ? It is a “kiss of betrayal”. Historically, it is associated when Jacob was instructed by the God of Israel to return to the land of Israel after living with Laban for 20 years (Genesis 31:1-2, 41). When Jacob returned to the land of Israel, he encountered Esau. Being afraid that Esau wanted to kill him, Jacob tried to appease Esau. In Genesis 32:3-6 it is written:
KJV Genesis 32:3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to
Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom
KJV Genesis 32:4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall
ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have
sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now:
KJV Genesis 32:5 And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and
men servants, and women servants: and I have sent to tell my lord,
that I may find grace in thy sight.
KJV Genesis 32:6 And the messengers returned to Jacob,
saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he comes to
meet thee, and four hundred men with him.
When Jacob saw that Esau had with him four hundred men, Jacob was afraid for his life and the life of his family. In Genesis 32:7, it is written:
KJV Genesis 32:7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed …
It is from Jacob’s encounter with Esau and Jacob being afraid for his life and the life of his family in which Jeremiah speaks about the events associated with the end of days using the prophetic term “Jacob’s Trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7).
It is when Jacob meets with Esau and they embrace is where we learn about the “Kiss of Esau”. In Genesis 33:4, it is written:
KJV Genesis 33:4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced
him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.
You cannot see the significance of the “kiss of Esau” by reading the verse in English. However, the “kiss of Esau” is seen in the Hebrew. In a Torah scroll, over the phrase, “and kissed him”, there are special dots over the word. In a Torah scroll, it looks like this:
As explained by the Rabbi’s, the dots are meant to be a WARNING regarding Esau’s embrace of Jacob. It is PROPHETIC. The dots are meant to represent “teeth marks”. The “teeth marks” represents a heart attitude of HATE toward Jacob. It represented insincerity and betrayal. Outwardly, it looks like Esau was being friendly toward Jacob. However, in the heart of Esau, he HATED Jacob and wanted to betray him and even eventually kill him.
The “kiss” of betrayal is PROPHETIC of what Esau’s seed would do to Jacob in the time of the coming of the Messiah and in the end of days.
WHAT HAPPENS TO ISRAEL HAPPENS TO THE MESSIAH AND VICE-VERSA
Next, we are going to explain another very important Biblical principal to help us gain an even deeper insight into the PROPHETIC “Kiss of Esau”. It is based upon the principal that what happens to Israel happens to the Messiah and what happens to the Messiah happens to Israel.
After Yeshua made covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15), this covenant was extended to Isaac and Jacob and then to Jacob’s family. Because of a famine in the land of Canaan, Jacob and his family went to Egypt. Based upon the covenant promise that Yeshua made with Abraham, Jacob was redeemed from Egypt. In Genesis 15:13-14 it is written:
KJV Genesis 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety
that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and
shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
KJV Genesis 15:14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve,
will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great
substance.
In Egypt, Yeshua redeemed his first born son, Jacob. In Exodus 4:22, it is written:
KJV Exodus 4:22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith
the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
So, what happened to Jacob / Israel is prophetic of what happened to Yeshua the Messiah. Yeshua was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1). When Herod heard that the Messiah of Israel had been born, he was troubled. In Matthew 2:3 it is written:
KJV Matthew 2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things,
he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
As a result, Herod wanted to kill the baby Yeshua so that he would not be a threat to him in later life. However, an angel of the LORD instructed Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt until the death of Herod. In Mathew 2:13-14, it is written:
KJV Matthew 2:13 And when they were departed, behold, the
angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise,
and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and
be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young
child to destroy him.
KJV Matthew 2:14 When he arose, he took the young child and
his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
When Herod died, Mary and Joseph returned to the land of Israel. When they did, we are told it was in fulfillment of Hosea 11:1. In Matthew 2:15, it is written:
KJV Matthew 2:15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.
Hosea 11:1 doesn’t literally speak about the Messiah. It speaks about Jacob’s family who went to Egypt and was redeemed from Egypt. In Hosea 11:1, it is written:
KJV Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and
called my son out of Egypt.
However, Hosea 11:1 does apply to the Messiah because “in the volume of the book” it is written of Him (Psalm 40:7). It is taught by the Rabbis that the entire Torah is written about the Messiah. Therefore, what happened to Israel when Jacob was redeemed from Egypt happened to the Messiah.
Furthermore, what happens to the Messiah happens to Israel in the end of days. After Yeshua had his “last supper” (a Passover meal), He was betrayed by Judas with a kiss. In Matthew 26:47-49 it is written:
KJV Matthew 26:47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of
the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and
staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.
KJV Matthew 26:48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign,
saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
KJV Matthew 26:49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said,
Hail, master; and kissed him.
The betrayal of Yeshua by Judas was by a kiss. This is the PROPHETIC “Kiss of Esau.” After the prophetic “Kiss of Esau”, Yeshua was put on trial and falsely accused. From being falsely accused, he was sentenced to death. So, what happened to Yeshua is prophetic of what will happen to Israel in the end of days.
ISRAEL PUT ON TRIAL AND FALSELY ACCUSED
Currently, Israel is being falsely accused by the Palestinians, the United States and Europe over the issue of Jews who they claim are living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegally. The world regards the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied Palestinian territory.” For many years, the United States protected Israel from one-sided resolutions at the United Nations Security Council. They would do so by using its veto when any nation wanted to impose a solution regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This included when any nation wanted to condemn Jewish building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by declaring them to be illegal. In February, 2011, the US vetoed such a resolution condemning the Jewish settlements. In December 2014, the United States used its influence to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council.
OBAMA BETRAYS ISRAEL AT THE UNITED NATIONS
However, on December 23, the United States failed to prevent a UN Security Council Resolution which specified that Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were illegal. In doing so, these lands were labeled as “occupied Palestinian territory”. In doing so, the United States reversed its policy to veto any UN Security Council resolution which made a final judgment over disputed issues intended to be resolved through direct negotiations. As a result, the United States failed to protect Israel. Therefore, Israel felt betrayed by the United States. This betrayal is the fulfillment of the PROPHETIC “kiss of Esau”.
As a result, Israel is seen by the international community as being in violation of international law because of the existence of Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel is being put on “trial” on the world’s stage over of the issue. Israel is being falsely accused by the nations and will continued to be falsely accused. Judging Israel to be guilty, the nations will want to punish Israel in a harsher way in the future. In effect, the modern day state of Israel is being “crucified” by the nations.
OBAMA’S BETRAYAL OF ISRAEL LEADS TO THE GREAT TRIBULATION
By being falsely accused, the punishments and isolation from the nations upon Israel will create the greatest crisis in the modern history of Israel. It will bring about the events of the great tribulation. In the natural, this crisis will begin to look like the end of the modern day Jewish state.
THE MESSIAH WILL JUDGE THE NATIONS AND END THE EXILE OF HIS PEOPLE
However, just when it looks hopeless, the Messiah of Israel even Yeshua HaMashiach will intervene and judge the nations. While judging the nations, Yeshua will gather the twelve tribes of Israel and end their exile. In doing so, Yeshua will unite Joseph and Judah upon the mountains of Israel (Ezekiel 37:15-28).
With the coming of the Messiah and the end of the exile of the twelve tribes of Israel, Israel will experience the final redemption. In doing so, Israel will be “resurrected” and “raised to glory” just like Yeshua. Glorified Israel will reign with Yeshua after He sets His feet upon the mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). Afterwards, Yeshua will set up His Kingdom and teach His Torah to all nations from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2-3).
HOW DID THE PROPHETIC “KISS OF ESAU” HAPPEN ??
So, what were the recent events which led to Obama’s betrayal of Israel and the fulfillment of the PROPHETIC “Kiss of Esau” ?
The Israeli government has publicly accused the Obama administration of “colluding” with its drafters of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which condemned Jewish homes being built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to ensure that the resolution had just the right language so that the United States would not veto the measure.
THE PROPHETIC CONSPIRACY BY ‘JUDAS / ESAU’
KJV Matthew 26:14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests
KJV Matthew 26:15 And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
KJV Matthew 26:16 And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.
THE PROPHETIC CONSPIRACY BY ‘OTHERSWITH JUDAS / ESAU’
KJV Matthew 26:4 And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him
THE ‘ESAU CONSPIRACY PLAN’: US SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN KERRY, VISITS NZ TO DISCUSS THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION
Kerry visited New Zealand on November 13, shortly after the US presidential election, and took part in “deep” conversations over how its government– which holds a non-permanent seat on the Security Council until the end of this calendar year– could engage in a UN-related initiative on the Middle East peace process. After the talks, NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully even raised the possibility of the US or New Zealand sponsoring together a UN Security Council resolution. McCully said: “It is a conversation we are engaged in deeply and we’ve spent some time talking to Secretary Kerry about where the US might go on this. It is something that is still in play. I think there are some very important decisions that the Obama Administration is going to have to make in its lame-duck period on this issue.”
THE ‘ESAU CONSPIRACY PLAN’: THE PALESTINIANS MET WITH OBAMA AND JOHN KERRY IN THE USA ON DECEMBER 12
Meanwhile, a high-level Palestinian delegation led by senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat met with Kerry at the US State Department on December 12. The delegation included the future Palestinian ambassador to the United States as well as a number of high-level officials from Abbas’ Fatah party and from the Palestine Liberation Organization. The main item on the agenda was a UN Security Council Resolution initially written by the Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority was interested in coming to an understanding with the outgoing administration of U.S. President Barack Obama that would avoid an American veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. Before the meeting, a senior official in President Abbas’ office said that the Palestinian Authority sensed that the Obama administration will not accept the existing Palestinian draft resolution as portions of it will have to be amended in an effort to avoid an American veto in the Security Council. He said: “The key question will be the position of the outgoing [U.S.] administration. We are hoping that Obama will take one real decision on behalf of the Palestinians before he leaves the White House,” he said. It was believed that if the Palestinians were prepared, in contrast to the past, to be pragmatic and to soften some sections of the draft, then there was a real chance that Obama would refrain from casting a veto of the resolution, the diplomat said. “If the Palestinians act wisely and rationally they have a chance,” he said. A “senior Western diplomat” said that the most contentious clause in the UNSC resolution calls for sanctions against Israel, provides a timetable for negotiations, and mentions the 1967 borders but makes no mention of the potential for land swaps between Israel and Palestine.
After the meeting, a joint statement by the US-Palestinian Political Dialogue said that PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat and US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart E. Jones met to discuss a number of issues related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the broader Middle East. The delegations reportedly discussed “the PLO’s long-standing commitment to non-violence” and the two-state solution, which they described as “the only way to achieve an enduring peace that meets Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, end the occupation that began in 1967, and resolve all permanent status issues.”
MAKING ‘THE CONSPIRACY PLAN’: NEW ZEALAND PARTICIPATES IN A UN SECURITY COUNCIL BRIEFING REGARDING THE ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN PEACE PROCESS ON DECEMBER 16
New Zealand has for several months been considering a draft resolution focused on preserving the two-state solution. In early December, New Zealand shared a new UN Security Council draft text with Council members which was discussed at an informal meeting on December 13.
The draft reiterates the vision of a region where Israel and Palestine live in peace within secure and recognized borders and declares that the two-state solution is the only way to achieve an enduring peace. It calls upon both parties to establish a firm timetable for their early return to negotiations, and to refrain from setting preconditions for the resumption of negotiations. It further calls on the parties to take action related to the three major impediments to a lasting peace and two-state solution outlined by the July 2016 report of the Middle East Quartet: settlements, violence and incitement, and Gaza.
New Zealand has been consulting with the parties, as well as the US, on the draft, and hoped to allow the Palestinians to pursue their own draft resolution on settlements prior to presenting their initiative. However, with New Zealand and several other interested members leaving the Council on December 31, New Zealand decided it could no longer postpone a discussion on action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These members also view the period before the inauguration of the new US President on 20 January as a rare window during which the outgoing President, Barack Obama, may allow the adoption of a resolution on this highly contentious issue.
This draft, also seen by the Post, declares that the two-state solution is the “only way to achieve an enduring peace that meets Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation that began in 1967 and resolves all permanent status issues.”
The proposed UN Security Council draft by New Zealand calls for a “firm timetable” for an early return to negotiations, and for refraining from setting “preconditions for the resumption” of talks. Likewise, it calls for a “cessation of Israeli settlement activity” as well as “active and sustained Palestinian leadership to deter incitement to violence against Israeli civilians.” Regarding terrorism, the New Zealand draft calls for “an end to all acts of terrorism being perpetrated against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.” It also calls for “an end to hostile actions and rocket fire from Gaza.” Likewise, it calls for both parties to refrain from “questioning the integrity or commitment of the other party or its leaders.”
THE PROPHETIC SEARCH FOR ‘FALSE WITNESSES’
KJV Matthew 26:60 … though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses
THE FIRST ‘WITNESS’ / AGENT: EGYPT SUBMITS A UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION CONDEMNING JEWISH SETTLEMENTS FOR THE PALESTINIANS ON DECEMBER 22
The original Palestinian draft of a potential UN Security Council Resolution condemning Jewish settlements was amended. The Egyptians coordinated on the language of the submitted resolution with the Palestinian Authority. The amended version was presented by Egypt on behalf of the Palestinians on December 22.
EGYPT PULLED ITS DRAFT RESOLUTION DUE TO PRESSURE FROM ISRAEL AND PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP
Just hours before the scheduled vote, the Egyptian government pulled its own draft– due to pressure from the Israeli government. After Israel was not able to get assurances from US President Barack Obama that he would veto the resolution, Israeli officials approached US President-elect Donald Trump to assist them in thwarting the anti-settlement UN Security Council resolution. Israel “implored the Obama administration not to go ahead (and allow the Egyptian-drafted anti-settlement resolution to pass by not using its veto) and told them that if they did, Israel would have no choice but to reach out to President-elect Trump,” the source said. In response, President-elect Donald Trump called publicly and privately for a veto of the UN Security Council Resolution. An Israeli official said: “We did reach out to the president-elect and are deeply appreciative that he weighed in, which was not a simple thing to do.”
Trump wrote on his Facebook account: “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations. This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”
Trump also spoke to Egyptian president Abdel Fatah el-Sissi about the UN draft resolution, an Egyptian official said. “During the call they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East and in that context the draft resolution in front of the Security Council on Israeli settlement,” the official said. “The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new US administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added. An Egyptian diplomatic source said that Egypt may have withdrawn the resolution in order to maintain positive ties with the incoming Trump administration. “We [Arab states] are all looking for a way to ensure constructive relations with this new administration. It’s not clear if this (resolution) helps that, or if it might even hinder,” the source said.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said his government was deploying “diplomatic efforts on all fronts to ensure that this disgraceful resolution will not pass in the Security Council.”
Therefore, given the Israeli pressure, Egypt requested a delay in the vote to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording.
THE PROPHETIC ‘SIGN’ OF BETRAYAL
KJV Matthew 26:48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a SIGN, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
THE ‘SIGN TO BETRAY’: THE USA SENDS SIGNALS THAT IT WILL NOT VETO A UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
The United States intended to allow the U.N. Security Council to approve a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, two Western officials said. The two Western officials said President Barack Obama had intended to abstain from the vote. Israeli officials said that Obama wanted to abstain from the vote because of his frustration over the stalled peace process. NBC news in the USA and Reuters also reported that Obama planned to abstain from the vote.
THE SECOND ‘WITNESS’ / OTHER AGENTS: WITH GREEN LIGHT FROM THE USA, FOUR SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBERS SUBMIT THE ORIGINAL EGYPTIAN RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal asked Egypt to clarify by midnight of December 22 whether it planned to call a vote on the anti-Israel settlement resolution. The four states said: “In the event that Egypt decides that it cannot proceed to call for vote on 23 December or does not provide a response by the deadline, those delegations reserve the right to table the draft … and proceed to put it to vote ASAP.” They said “the proposal for other delegations to take the lead … would also help Egypt by relieving it of the burden of carrying this draft alone.” The four states met on the morning of December 23 to decide how to proceed, diplomats said.
NETANYAHU LOBBIES OBAMA TO VETO THE ANTI-ISRAEL SETTLEMENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION
Just before the originally scheduled vote on the Egyptian anti-Israel settlement resolution on December 22, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the US to veto the resolution. In a video statement, the Israeli prime minister implored the Obama administration to “stand up in the UN and veto anti-Israel resolutions,” designating that position “one of the great pillars of the US-Israel alliance.”
“I hope the US won’t abandon this policy,” he said. “I hope it will abide by the principles set by President Obama himself in his speech in the UN in 2011: That peace will come not through UN resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties. And that’s why this proposed resolution is bad. It’s bad for Israel; it’s bad for the United States and it’s bad for peace.”
THE PROPHETIC PILATE (ESAU / USA) SITS ON THE JUDGMENT SEAT AND MAKES A DECISION
KJV John 19:13 When Pilate (Esau / USA) therefore heard that saying (the anti-Israel settlement vote is being put on the table by the ‘other witnesses’ (New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal), he (Esau / USA) brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat (it became time for Esau / USA) to vote) …
KJV Matthew 27:22 Pilate (Esau / USA) saith unto them (the other 14 UN Security Council members), What shall I do then (we will decide how to vote) with Jesus (Israel) …
PILATE (USA / ESAU) MAKES A DECISION: THE ANTI-ISRAELI SETTLEMENT BILL IS VOTED UPON ON DECEMBER 23 AND PASSES 14-0
The United Nations Security Council voted on December 23 to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as illegal and demanding that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the ‘occupied’ Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem”.
Fourteen out of the 15 voting members of the Council voted in favor of the resolution while none voted against it. The United States chose to abstain instead of casting its veto while simultaneously declaring Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal. The passage of the resolution was met with applause by UN Security Council members.
HIGHLIGHTS: UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 2334 – A FULFILLMENT OF (Joel 3:2, Zechariah 14:2, and Daniel 9:24, 27) ???
Dec 23: UN Security Council Meeting
The highlights of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 is as follows:
Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem … Reiterating its vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.
1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law
3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations
——>>> These measures call for thedividing of the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem
5. Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967
——>>> This measure makes it possible to permit boycotts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem
8. Calls upon all parties to continue, in the interest of the promotion of peace and security, to exert collective efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process and within the time frame specified by the Quartet in its statement of 21 September 2010
——>>> This calls for a final status agreement to be agreed uponin one year
The Quartet statement of September 21, 2010, said the following:
The Quartet expressed its strong support for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which can resolve all final status issues within one year. The Quartet reaffirmed its full commitment to its previous statements, which provide that negotiations should lead to an agreement that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.
12 REASONS WHY THE USA SHOULD HAVE VETOEDUN RESOLUTION 2334
The resolution dangerously disincentivizes Palestinians to come to the negotiating table. This will feed into the Palestinian strategy of preferring to deal with international institutions over bilateral talks with Israel. Contrary to its stated objective, therefore, the resolution will only push negotiations further away.
In this regard, we recall that in 2011, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, vetoed a similar resolution on the grounds that it risked “hardening the positions of both sides,” and “could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations.” She said it was “unwise for this Council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians.”
2. Resolution Fuels Palestinian Targeting of Israelis with BDS & International Prosecutions
The resolution’s appeal to all states to take action, in paragraph 5, is a clear call to escalate campaigns seeking to boycott Israeli products, companies and citizens. Certainly the UN Human Rights Council will feel empowered to continue preparing its blacklist of Israeli companies that do business over the green line, due in March. Meanwhile, the resolution’s mandated reports by the Secretary-General every three months will ensure constant activity.
3.Contrary to U.S. Claims, Resolution Fails to Condemn Palestinian Incitement
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said after the vote that the U.S. “would not have let this resolution pass had it not also addressed counterproductive actions by the Palestinians such as terrorism and incitement to violence.” Yet that is exactly what happened: the resolution that was adopted mentions terrorism and incitement only in the abstract; nowhere are these crimes attributed to Palestinians. Whereas Israel is named and shamed throughout the text, the Palestinians get a free pass.
4. Blames Israel as “Major Obstacle” to Peace, Yet Palestinians Evade Responsibility
Despite the fact that the Palestinians refuse to negotiate without preconditions, refused to negotiate even during Israel’s 2009-2010 settlement freeze, rejected the Kerry framework principles, and are inciting to terrorism at the highest levels, they are spared in the resolution from any blame. Instead, the resolution accuses Israel alone of creating, with the settlements, “a major obstacle” to just, lasting and comprehensive peace.
5. Failure to Distinguish Settlements Loses Israeli Mainstream
By ignoring the 2000 Clinton Parameters, the Obama Administration unwisely managed to alienate itself from the vast majority of the Israeli population and political parties, who regard the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall, and Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem such as Ramot and Gilo as an integral part of Israel—all of which are defined in the resolution as “occupied Palestinian territory”—and likewise, the Israeli Jewish communities in the large settlement blocs such as Gush Etzion have for years been considered part of the Israeli consensus. The U.S. failure to distinguish between these and isolated, remote settlements is what doomed the U.N. resolution to complete rejection by Israeli society as a whole.
The resolution is offensive to Jews worldwide by absurdly defining the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, and the holiest Jewish sites of the Temple Mount and Western Wall, as “occupied Palestinian territory.”
7.Seeks to Relitigate & Rewrite Cornerstone Resolution 242
By injecting new language enshrining “the 4 June 1967 lines,” the resolution seeks to relitigate and rewrite U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967, the cornerstone of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations over the past half-century—endorsed by the Palestinians at Oslo—which calls for the right of every state to live in peace within “secure and recognized boundaries” and for Israel to withdraw “from territories occupied.”
Arthur Goldberg, former Supreme Court Justice and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. when 242 was enacted, made clear that the text’s “notable omissions in language” on withdrawal are the words “the,” “all,” and the “June 5, 1967, lines.” The choice of language was clear, he explained: “there is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from the (or all the) territories occupied by it on and after June 5, 1967.”
Instead, the resolution “stipulates withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal.” And it “can be inferred from the incorporation of the words secure and recognized boundaries that the territorial adjustments to be made by the parties in their peace settlements could encompass less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories.”
8. Explanation of Vote Misstates Longstanding U.S. Policy
In explaining the US vote, UN ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, began by making reference to a 1982 quote from President Ronald Reagan opposing settlements, and you argued that “our vote today is fully in line with the bipartisan history” of how American presidents have approached the issue. In fact, your speech was selective, excluding material statements by U.S. leaders rejecting the notion of return to the 1949 armistice lines, what Israeli statesman Abba Eban once called “Auschwitz borders.”
For example, you failed to quote the rest of President Reagan’s statement, in which he said: “I have personally followed and supported Israel’s heroic struggle for survival, ever since the founding of the State of Israel 34 years ago. In the pre-1967 borders Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel’s population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.”
Nor did you quote President Lyndon Johnson who said: “We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace. There must be secure, and there must be recognized, borders.”
Likewise, you omitted Secretary of State Schultz’s 1988 statement: “The territorial issue needs to be addressed realistically. Israel will never negotiate from or return to the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders.”
The Clinton parameters of December 2000, which contemplates Israeli annexation of large settlement blocs, are also ignored by the resolution.
9.U.S. Position Reneges on Commitments in 2004 Bush-Sharon Letters
By allowing the resolution’s new language enshrining “the 4 June 1967 lines,” which are the 1949 armistice lines, the U.S. position reneges on the 2004 exchange of letters negotiated between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush. The Bush letter stated: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.”
Prime Minister Sharon relied on the Bush commitments as part of negotiated package deal, being the consideration Israel received and relied upon in exchange for its total withdrawal from Gaza. When the U.S. ignores written commitments to allies, its international credibility is dangerously diminished. Moreover, the Bush letter severely undermines your claim that the U.S. vote was “fully in line” with prior history.
10.Resolution Lacks Legitimacy in U.S. Opinion
The resolution has been firmly rejected by the broad mainstream of American society, including by congressional leaders of President Obama’s own party:
Incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the U.S. vote “frustrating, disappointing and confounding” and said it will move the Middle East farther from peace.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was “deeply disappointed” that the administration “set aside longstanding U.S. policy to allow such a one-sided resolution to pass.”
The U.S. abstention on “such a flagrantly one-sided resolution,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Vt.), “is unconscionable.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he was “dismayed that the Administration departed from decades of U.S. policy by not vetoing the U.N. resolution.”
Even President Obama’s former Special Envoy for Middle East Peace opposed the decision. “President Obama would have been wise to veto this resolution,” said George Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader, “because of the timing and the circumstance that it leads to with respect to trying to get the parties together.”
The Washington Post called the U.S. decision a “dangerous parting shot at Israel,” likely to do more harm than good.
11.Reverses Decades of U.S. Practice
There has not been a resolution like this in a generation, not since the Carter years in 1979 and 1980, and even those resolutions did not take place during a time of extreme anti-Israeli BDS campaigns and in the context of global anti-Israeli lawfare prosecutions sought in the ICC and elsewhere. This reverses decades of practice by both Democratic and Republican presidents. Moreover, unlike with the few other U.S-backed resolutions in history that criticized Israel from time to time, the nature of the coordination and the careful timing of this maneuver against a close ally make it seem particularly deliberate and hostile.
12. Joining with Venezuela & Malaysia to Condemn Israel
Whom you align with at the U.N. matters. I cannot think of another time in modern history when the U.S. endorsed a U.N. Security Council resolution co-sponsored by countries such as Venezuela, whose Maduro regime has thrown its opposition leaders in jail while causing mass starvation, and Malaysia, a hotbed of antisemitism.
Speaking of Venezuela, whose political prisoners we have championed, I have to note that while Secretary Kerry said repeatedly yesterday that the U.S. “cannot, in good conscience, do nothing, and say nothing” in regard to Israeli settlements, your Administration has said nothing every year when we have appealed to you to oppose the election of tyrannies such as Venezuela to the U.N. Human Rights Council. You said nothing to stop the Maduro regime being elected last year; you said nothing to stop Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba from getting elected this year; and you said nothing to stop Russia getting elected in 2013. Your Administration’s policy of speaking out when good conscience requires it ought to be less selective.
THE PROPHETIC PILATE (ESAU / USA) SAYS: ‘I AM INNOCENT IN MY DECISION’
KJV Matthew 27:24 When Pilate (Esau / USA) saw (the results of the anti-Israel UN Security Council settlement vote) … he took water, and washed his hands … saying, I am innocent of the blood (of the vote that I made) …
ESAU / USA: ‘I AM INNOCENT’:THE UNITED STATES SAID THAT THEY DIDN’T DECIDE HOW TO VOTE UNTIL HOURS BEFORE THE VOTE
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, held a round of consultations with Mideast officials, including Netanyahu, in the run-up to the draft resolution, US State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said. When Kerry talked with Netanyahu on December 22, Kerry refused to tell Netanyahu that the US was vetoing the resolution. Ben Rhodes, US deputy national security adviser said: “We did not draft this resolution; we did not introduce this resolution. we made this decision when it came up for a vote.”
An Obama administration official added: The US did not inform other Security Council members ahead of US Ambassador Samantha Power’s vote. The claim is as follows: After speaking with Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and UN Ambassador Samantha Power the night before the vote, Obama conveyed his final decision to National Security Adviser Susan Rice just hours before the vote, after the drama that unfolded, when Egypt – which originally pioneered the resolution – chose at the last minute to pull the draft, prompting New Zealand, Venezuela and Senegal to resubmit the same text. In addition, despite not using its veto, the US claimed that it was not involved with writing the text of the UN Security Council Resolution nor promoting it.
ESAU / USA: ‘I AM INNOCENT’: ‘ISRAEL MADE ME DO IT’
Ben Rhodes, US deputy national security adviser explained the US decision not to veto the anti-Israel UN Security Council settlement resolution by saying: “Netanyahu had the opportunity to pursue policies that would have led to a different outcome today,” he said, after citing US governmental figures on settlement growth in the West Bank and mentioning the Israeli premier’s past statements on his government’s allegiance to the settlement movement. Rhodes said that settlement activity “accelerated considerably” since the US vetoed a similar UN resolution in 2011, leading the US to believe that taking the same course of action — absent ongoing peace talks — would not yield different results. “In the absence of any meaningful peace process, as well as in the accelerated settlement activity,” he said, “we took the decision that we did today to abstain on the resolution.” Rhodes repeatedly referred to settlement growth as creating “trend lines” the US believed was “putting the very viability of a two-state solution at risk.” Rhodes added: “We’ve been warning for years that the trend line of settlement activity was increasing Israel’s international isolation.”
Asked what the president thought the motion, Security Council Resolution 2334, would accomplish, and whether the administration fears it is forcing the incoming Republican administration to react, Rhodes described the move as a “last resort” reached after years of struggling with an intractable Israeli government. “Where is the evidence that not doing this will slow the settlement construction? We’ve tried a different approach for years here,” Rhodes said, noting that the resolution – which states that Israeli settlements have no basis in law – also condemns incitement to violence by Palestinian leadership. “We have a body of evidence to assess how this Israeli government has responded to us not taking this kind of action, and that suggests that they will continue to accelerate the type of settlement construction that puts a two-state solution at risk,” he said. The reason for the change now, he said, was that the administration “exhausted every effort to pursue a two-state solution through negotiations,” alluding to the 2013-2014 push by US Secretary of State John Kerry to reach a final-status agreement in a nine-month time frame, as well as other efforts since 2009.
Therefore, the Obama administration “could not in good conscience” vote against a resolution brought before the UN Security Council condemning Israel for its settlement enterprise. He said: “Here we are at least trying to establish that the international community is on the record” for opposing building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While settlements, he acknowledged, were not the only issue obstructing the prospects of peace, the resolution also incorporated language critical of Palestinian incitement and violence, and because the rest of the text was narrowly focused enough on opposition to the enterprise, Obama was prepared to support it, he indicated. We would have vetoed any resolution that would impose a final-status issue or endorse a set of parameters,” Rhodes emphasized.
In addition, recent remarks from Israeli leaders, Ben Rhodes said, had exacerbated American concerns — enough for the USA to support the anti-Israel settlement resolution. “Absent this acceleration of settlement activity, absent the type of rhetoric we’ve seen out of the current Israeli government, I think the United States likely would have taken a different view,” he stated. Netanyahu’s statement earlier this month calling his cabinet “more committed than any other” to West Bank settlements was among the remarks the United States found troubling, he said. Rhodes also cited the head of the nationalist Jewish Home party, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, claiming “the era of the two-state solution is over.”
Regarding the US decision to not veto the anti-Israel settlement resolution at the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that Israel’s “unprecedented” effort to build Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has spawned terrorism and violence that jeopardizes lasting peace in the region. As a result, Kerry said the US chose to act with one primary goal in mind: preservation of a two-state solution. “That is why we cannot in good conscience stand in the way of a resolution at the United Nations that makes clear that both sides must act now to preserve the possibility of peace,” Kerry said. “While we do not agree with every aspect of this resolution, it rightly condemns violence and incitement and settlement activity and calls on both sides to take constructive steps to reverse current trends and advance the prospects for a two-state solution. And it does not seek to impose on the parties a solution to the conflict. It preserves the ability for the parties to negotiate the end of conflict. The United States acted with one primary objective in mind: to preserve the possibility of the two state solution, which every U.S. administration for decades has agreed is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” Kerry said. “Two states is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living in peace and security with its neighbors, and freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people.”
THE DISGUISE – MAKING THE WATERS MUDDY (WE MAYBE, MIGHT, WILL CONSIDER TO SUPPORT A UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION)
In the weeks leading up to the vote, the United States maintained ambiguity on everything related to the prospect that Obama would push for a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, despite making statements of ambiguity, Kerry has expressed interest in the past on advancing a UN Security Council resolution that would include the recommendations that appeared in the July 1 report of the Middle East Quartet, the grouping that includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The Quartet recommendations relate to negative steps on Israel’s part, such as settlement construction, the legalization of illegal West Bank settlement outposts and the demolition of Palestinian homes, but also deals with negative steps on the Palestinians’ part, such as incitement and violence. Kerry expressed his belief that he could support a resolution that would be balanced and that would also constitute a clear work plan for the international community and for the incoming Trump administration. In an address to the Saban Forum earlier in December, during which he castigated the Jewish settlements, Kerry left open the possibility that the US might not block a resolution if it was not deemed to be biased against Israel. In addition, prior to the settlement vote, the Obama administration also had discussed the idea of refraining from casting a veto on a resolution on West Bank settlements as long as it is not extremely biased against Israel and reflects the administration’s policy on the settlements.
ESAU / USA: ‘I AM INNOCENT’: US AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS, SAMANTHA POWER, EXPLAINS THE US ABSTENTION AGAINST ISRAEL
Today, the Security Council reaffirmed its established consensus that settlements have no legal validity. The United States has been sending the message that the settlements must stop – privately and publicly – for nearly five decades, through the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama. Indeed, since 1967, the only president who had not had at least one Israeli-Palestinian-related Security Council resolution pass during his tenure is Barack Obama. So our vote today is fully in line with the bipartisan history of how American Presidents have approached both the issue – and the role of this body … because this resolution reflects the facts on the ground – and is consistent with U.S. policy across Republican and Democratic administration throughout the history of the State of Israel – that the United States did not veto it.
The Israeli Prime Minister recently described his government as “more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history,” and one of his leading coalition partners recently declared that “the era of the two-state solution is over.” At the same time, the Prime Minister has said that he is still committed to pursuing a two-state solution. But these statements are irreconcilable. One cannot simultaneously champion expanding Israeli settlements and champion a viable two-state solution that would end the conflict. One has to make a choice between settlements and separation.
In 2011, the United States vetoed a resolution that focused exclusively on settlements, as if settlements were they only factor harming the prospects of a two-state solution. The circumstances have changed dramatically. Since 2011, settlement growth has only accelerated. Since 2011, multiple efforts to pursue peace through negotiations have failed. And since 2011, President Obama and Secretary Kerry have repeatedly warned – publically and privately – that the absence of progress toward peace and continued settlement expansion was going to put the two-state solution at risk, and threaten Israel’s stated objective to remain both a Jewish State and a democracy. Moreover, unlike in 2011, this resolution condemns violence, terrorism and incitement, which also poses an extremely grave risk to the two-state solution. This resolution reflects trends that will permanently destroy the hope of a two-state solution if they continue on their current course.
Some may cast the U.S. vote as a sign that we have finally given up on a two-state solution. Nothing could be further from the truth. None of us can give up on a two-state solution. We continue to believe that that solution is the only viable path to provide peace and security for the state of Israel, and freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people. And we continue to believe that the parties can still pursue this path, if both sides are honest about the choices, and have the courage to take steps that will be politically difficult. While we can encourage them, it is ultimately up to the parties to choose this path, as it always has been. We sincerely hope that they will begin making these choices before it is too late.
THE PROPHETIC IDENTIFICATION THAT JUDAS BETRAYED YESHUA
KJV John 13:21 When Jesus (Israel) had thus said, he was troubled in
spirit (from the passage of the anti-Israel Security Council resolution), and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
KJV John 13:26 Jesus (Israel) answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a
sop (the evidence to President-elect Donald Trump after January 20), when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot (Obama: Esau / Judas), the son of Simon.
ISRAEL (YESHUA)ACCUSES OBAMA(ESAU/JUDAS)OF BETRAYING ISRAEL IN SUPPORTING AND PASSING THE ANTI-ISRAEL SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, David Keyes, Israel has “rather ironclad information” that US President Barack Obama played an active role in both formulating and pushing for the UN Security Council resolution lambasting settlement construction. Keyes said: “We have rather ironclad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the resolution in the first place.”
In fact, an Egyptian paper published transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials which would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind the anti-Israel Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. In a meeting in early December between Kerry and top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, there was an agreement reached on the matter of a resolution against the settlements and that Kerry said the United States would not veto it quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper. Also present at the meeting were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service. Kerry and Rice said America’s UN Ambassador Samantha Power was prepared to meet with Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour to discuss the matter. Rice and Kerry are said to have asked Erekat and the other members of the delegation to keep the meeting top secret. Kerry and Rice said they wanted to avoid leaks of the meeting to the media because of the sensitivity of the transition to the Trump administration. In addition to these things, Britain helped to draft the resolution.
Because of these things, an Israeli official accused the Obama administration of a premeditated plan to betray Israel saying: “The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory.” Another Israeli official said that it is the “last sting of President Obama. It exposes the true face of the [Obama] administration. Now it’s easier to understand what we dealt with the past eight years.” They added: “the United States acted behind the back in composing and advancing the resolution against Israel. We knew about it through Arab and international sources.” The official added: “This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN and undermines the prospects of working with the next administration of advancing peace.”
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at Obama, accusing him of actively working against Israel at the UN saying, “Israel categorically rejects the despicable anti-Israeli resolution at the UN, and will not adhere to it. While the Security Council does nothing to prevent the massacre of half a million people in Syria, it is shamefully singling out Israel — the only democracy in the Middle East,” the PMO said. “The Obama administration not only failed to defend Israel from this harassment at the UN, it cooperated with it behind the scenes” saying that the Obama administration has carried out an “underhanded and an anti-Israel maneuver” at the UN Security Council. “We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated its versions and insisted upon its passage which is completely contrary to the traditional American policy of not seeking to impose final terms through the Security Council.”
Netanyahu added that it was surreal in that it determined that the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Western Wall were occupied territory. “There is nothing more ridiculous than to call the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter occupied territory,” he said. Furthermore, he said, the resolution represented an effort to impose the terms of a permanent Israeli-Palestinian accord. “It won’t work,” he said. The last person to attempt to do this, he said, was Carter — “a president deeply hostile to Israel,” and who recently said that Hamas is not a terrorist organization.” The US abstention came in “a complete contradiction” to a “specific commitment by President Obama in 2011,” he said. It was “a shameful anti-Israel ambush” by the administration, he said. Therefore, he said, invoking the spirit of the Hanukkah festival which began December 24, “the light will oust the darkness.”
Finally, Kerry suggested during the meeting with the Palestinians that he would give a speech presenting principles to resolve the core issues between the Palestinians and Israel. Kerry said he would do so only if the Palestinians supported the principles he put forward. The document stated that these were the same principles Kerry had outlined in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and which were presented to the sides in February and March 2014. The US officials advised the Palestinians to travel to Saudi Arabia to present the plan to Saudi leaders.
Because of this, Israel fears that Kerry will then lay out his comprehensive vision for two-state solution at a Paris peace conference planned for January. Israel has refused to attend. Israel further fears that this Kerry framework could be enshrined in another UN Security Council resolution.
ISAAC’S PROPHECY: “I FEEL THE HANDS OF ESAU”
KJV Genesis 27:22 And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father … and said … the hands are the hands of Esau.
THE HANDS ARE THE HANDS OF THE USA(OBAMA / ESAU)
Israel Minister of Environmental Protection Ze’ev Elkin, currently on a private visit to Ukraine which was his childhood home, claimed that Ukraine’s vote in favor of the recent UN resolution calling for a halt to Jewish building in the West Bank was not made of the country’s own volition. “[The hands] are American hands,” Elkin said, using a Biblical phrase (Genesis 27:22). “It was announced here in Ukraine that the Ukrainians really wanted to abstain, [but US Vice President Joe] Biden personally called the President of Ukraine and pressured the Ukrainians to vote in favor.” He added: “There is a good deal of hypocrisy here, because the Americans basically didn’t dare to vote in favor, but only abstained, while pressuring other countries to vote in favor.
THE PROPHETIC FRIEND JUDAS CAUSES YESHUA TO BE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY
KJV Matthew 26:50 And Jesus (Israel) said unto him, Friend (the USA / Judas), wherefore art thou come? (Why did you abstain from voting in an anti-Israel settlement Security Council resolution). Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus (Israel) and took him (the USA abstain from voting in an anti-Israel settlement Security Council resolution)
NETANYAHU: ‘FRIENDS DON’T TAKE FRIENDS TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL’
Netanyahu said: “Over decades, American administrations and Israeli governments have disagreed about settlements. But we agreed that the security Council was not the place to resolve this issue,” Netanyahu said. “We knew that going there would make negotiations harder and drive peace further away. As I told [US Secretary of State] John Kerry: Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council.”
Israel Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon accused the US of “turning its back” on Israel by abstaining from an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security. He said: “We’ve spoken a lot about the nature of the Security Council, but there is one thing we should pay attention to: how did our best friends at the UN turn their backs on us at the exact moment of truth?”
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said that the US abstention was “not how friends behave.”
Deputy Public Diplomacy Minister Michael Oren (Kulanu), who also served as Israel’s ambassador to the US between the years 2009-2013 said: “This is abandonment and betrayal. Betrayal of us – but not only of us. It’s a betrayal of all of Israel’s allies. Every country which considers itself an ally of the US must ask itself if it can continue to rely on the US. Because if the US is willing to abandon its only democratic ally in the Middle East, we need to wonder how it would act towards its allies in other parts of the world,” Oren said. “The US has violated its bipartisan policy of fifty years. The unambiguous policy is that there is no substitute for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. This is a policy which President Obama himself promised to abide by in 2011, when National Security Adviser Susan Rice was still serving as UN Ambassador. Rice herself said there is no substitute for direct negotiations, there was no place in the UN to hold those negotiations, and the US should not dictate a solution to Israel.”
Regarding his own reaction to the UN’s resolution, Oren said, “I feel great sadness when I think about the UN Security Council’s decision. I also see it as a severe and grave decision. This is a decision which defines half a million Israeli citizens as international criminals and the Western Wall as ‘occupied territory.’ It opens the door to sanctions against Israel. As a nation and as a country, we need to stand united against this decision, BDS, and delegitimization of all types.
When asked if he believed the US had taken an active role in ensuring the resolution would pass, Oren said, “I find it hard to believe otherwise. From my sources – and they are senior officials – that is exactly what happened. But even more, I know from about 40 years of experience in the field these processes don’t happen on their own. They happen when someone puts focused energy into bringing countries to vote. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to believe this happened without the aid of the US government.” Condemning settlements and blaming Israel for violating international law is no longer in the hands of the US – it’s in the hands of the UN. The UN can now use these accusations to sue Israel in the Hague International Court, and to sanction and boycott Israel.
THE PROPHETIC JUDAS: ‘IS IT I?’
KJV Matthew 26:25 Then Judas (the Obama administration), which betrayed him (Israel at the UN), answered and said, Master, is it I? (The US had no part in the writing and passing of the anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council resolution)
THE DENIAL(ESAU/JUDAS): THE USA DENIES ANY INVOLVEMENT IN WRITING AND SUPPORTING THE ANTI-ISRAEL SETTLEMENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION
A senior Obama administration official said that the US was not been behind a push for a resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Israel’s settlement enterprise. He said: “To be clear: from the start, this was an Egyptian resolution. The Egyptians authored it, circulated it, and submitted it before asking for a delay and subsequently removing their sponsorship. A group of other Security Council members, headed by New Zealand, which did not include the United States decided to move forward the Egyptian text. Contrary to some claims, the administration was not involved in formulating the resolution nor have we promoted it,” he added.
THE PALESTINIANS REACT TO THE VOTE WITH MUCH JOY
KJV Ezekiel 35:2 Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it
KJV Ezekiel 35:12 And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume.
KJV Ezekiel 35:13 Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.
KJV Ezekiel 36:1 Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:
KJV Ezekiel 36:2 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:
KJV Ezekiel 36:5 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.
In reaction to the vote, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the resolution “a slap in the face to Israeli policy” and an “absolute international condemnation to settlements and unanimous support for a two-state solution.” He added that the Security Council resolution “doesn’t solve the Palestinian problem, but it defines it.” According to Abbas, the UN’s decision is a “clear statement by the world according to which the settlement enterprise in the territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, are an illegitimate enterprise.” Finally, Abbas said: “The voting in favor of the resolution hasn’t resolved the Palestinian cause, but defined it. The resolution stressed the legal basics for a solution and reiterated that Israeli settlements are illegal.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said: “This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilized language and negotiation and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel. The international community has told the people of Israel that the way to security and peace is not going to be done through occupation … but rather through peace, ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state to live side by side with the state of Israel on the 1967 borders.”
THE TERRORIST GROUP HAMAS WELCOMES THE UN VOTE
Hamas, an Islamist terror group which runs the Gaza Strip responded positively to the resolution, saying, “Hamas welcomes the UN Security Council regarding the settlements. This decision confirms the world’s resistance to the Israeli occupation policy.” Islamic Jihad, the second-largest force in Gaza, also welcomed the UN vote, with that terror group’s spokesman saying it would lead to Israel’s “isolation” and “boycott” while opening it up to prosecution under international law.
REACTIONS BY VARIOUS ISRAELI LEADERS
Israel President Reuven Rivlin called the resolution “disgraceful, serious, and unfortunate” that “brings us no nearer to negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather makes such a prospect even more distant. We expected that the United States – our greatest ally and friend which has stood unwavering on the side of Israel’s security needs throughout the years – would stand by us at this time and not abandon us, leaving us in the hands of a cynical body driven by alien interests,” he said.
Israel Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said that the council had “voted no to negotiations, you have voted no to progress and a chance for better lives for Israelis and Palestinians, and you have voted no to the possibility of peace.” Holding a Bible in his hand, Danon said, “This book holds 3,000 years of Jewish history in Israel, and no one can dictate or change that fact. This decision will join the list of shameful and anti-Israel decisions made by this organization.”
Turning to the other ambassadors, he said, “Who gave you the right to condemn the Jewish nation for building homes in its eternal capital? Would you have dared to question the right to build in Paris? In Beijing? In London? In Washington?
“The Palestinian efforts to harm Israel through the UN will not help peace and will not advance any solutions. The Palestinians will gain nothing until they stop terror and incitement, and return to direct negotiations with Israel,” Danon concluded.
Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said the administration “can’t atone for its failure in Aleppo with the nasty resolution against the settlements.”
Likud MK Oren Hazan said that “deluded dream of a two-state solution brought out the Hussein in Obama, who refuses to accept the election results. Only massive construction will explain to the anti-Semites in the UN that we’re here to stay!” he said.
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid lambasted against the UN resolution, telling reporters it was “dangerous, unfair and Israel doesn’t accept it. The resolution was an act of hypocrisy,” he said. “When a murderous terrorist group like Hamas praises the decision of the Security Council, it’s clear whom it serves.”’
REACTION BY VARIOUS UNITED STATES LEADERS
US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said Obama’s abstention “has made us complicit in this outrageous attack” and added the abstention “emboldens” Israel’s enemies.
US House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that the decision to abstain in the UN Security Council vote was “absolutely shameful.” He added: “Today’s vote is a blow to peace that sets a dangerous precedent for further diplomatic efforts to isolate and demonize Israel. Our unified Republican government will work to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel,” Ryan said.
US Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz (R-TX) reacted to the anti-Israel settlement resolution by calling on the United States to withhold funding to the United Nations, until such time that the global body reverses the resolution condemning Israeli presence in the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem.
US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), announced that he will propose a measure to pull U.S. funding for the UN unless the UN Security Council repeals the resolution it passed condemning Israeli settlements. “It’s that important to me,” Graham told CNN. “This is a road we haven’t gone down before. If you can’t show the American people that international organizations can be more responsible, there is going to be a break. And I am going to lead that break.”
“I will do everything in my power, working with the new administration and Congress, to leave no doubt about where America stands when it comes to the peace process and where we stand with the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel,” Graham added, noting that American funding accounts for 22% of the UN’s budget.
On the second night of Hanukkah, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lit a Hanukkah candle at the Western Wall. In doing so, he said: “I was not planning on being here tonight.” Netanyahu said. “But in light of the UN resolution I do not believe that there is a better place to light a Hanukkah candle than here at the Western Wall”
The anti-Jewish settlement resolution just passed at the United Nations Security Council states that all so-called Jewish ‘settlements’ over the 1949 Armistice line are illegal including the Jewish Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem.
Netanyahu said that according to the UN, the Maccabees did not liberate Jerusalem, but rather “occupied Palestinian territory. According to the UN resolution, the villages that they left in Modiin [to fight the Greeks] and the surrounding areas, the villages and their surroundings, were all ‘occupied Palestinian territories.'” he said.
“Of course, we know that the Arabs came much later. We were in those places [when the Hanukkah story took place, a millenium before the Arabs arrived]. We returned to those places. I ask those nations wishing us a happy Hanukkah – how can they vote for a UN resolution which says that the places where we celebrate Hanukkah [and where the story took place] are ‘occupied territory?'” Netanyahu asked.
“The Western Wall is not occupied. The Jewish Quarter is not occupied. The other places are also not occupied. Therefore, we do not accept, nor can we accept, this resolution. We are confident in our future because we know our past. I ask to go and light a Hanukkah candle here on behalf of eternal Israel. Happy Hanukkah.”
Deputy Defense Minister Eli Dahan of the Jewish Home party said Israel likened the anti-Israel settlement resolution to the Hanukkah story, saying Israel will overcome the UN “just as the Hasmoneans defeated the Greek empire.”
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) reacted to the anti-Israel settlement resolution by saying: “The UN Security Council’s resolution, passed just before Hanukkah, reminds us of something in our history. There’s something very sad and pitiful about that moment when the Security Council votes for an anti-Israel resolution and the world cheers. But when it comes to harming the Jewish state, why not. Syria they protect. There are no resolutions against it. But against the only democratic country in the Middle East, there are dozens of resolutions. It’s just like David Ben Gurion said: “We survived Pharaoh, we’ll survive this, too,” Shaked concluded.
Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of the Bnei Akiva yeshivas, spoke about the anti-Israel settlement resolution passed at the UN Security Council and said that steps are needed now as a response from the Israeli government. Rabbi Druckman said that the resolution “has a special meaning on Hanukkah. It is written down in the Book of Maccabees that Antiochus sent Shimon the Hasmonean a message saying: ‘You captured Jaffa, and Gezer and the Citadel in Jerusalem that are part of my kingdom. Give me back these cities of mine that you’ve taken.’”
“Shimon responded, saying: ‘We took no foreign land. This land is an inheritance from our forefathers that our enemies unjustly occupied. We have simply restored this inheritance.’ This same answer must be given now.”
“I appeal to the Prime Minister to echo with pride the response of Shimon the Hasmonean and use his leadership to express this in practical terms by the immediate application of Israeli sovereignty over at least the whole of “Area C” of the West Bank just as former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin did over the Golan Heights. This act would be the greatest gift to the people of Israel on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of our return to these parts of our homeland. ” Rabbi Druckman continued, saying: “I appeal to the Prime Minister and I say to him – you can do it. Providence gave you this right. Be strong and courageous!” Rabbi Druckman said that a statement echoing the words of Simon the Maccabee, should be said first and foremost domestically, in light of the question marks within Israel over our right to the land.
THE ANTI-ISRAEL SETTLEMENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION WILL NOT BRING PEACE
KJV Joel 3:2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted/ divided my land.
KJV Joel 3:9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
Anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council resolution will bring war to the Middle East
Israel Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said that the council had “voted no to negotiations, you have voted no to progress and a chance for better lives for Israelis and Palestinians, and you have voted no to the possibility of peace.”
THE BIRTH PANGS OF THE BIRTH OF BIBLICAL ZION
What is the birth of Biblical Zion? It is an independent state in the West Bank from the present state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. It will be done by the “governors of Judah” at the start of the great tribulation (Isaiah 66:8, Revelation 12:1-2) when they will not be able to successfully annex the West Bank into present day Israel. This will begin the ‘greater exodus’ (Jeremiah 16:14-16, Jeremiah 23:7-8) and the uniting of the 12 tribes of Israel upon the ‘mountains of Israel’ (Ezekiel 37:15-22) by the Messiah (Jeremiah 23:5-6, Ezekiel 34:11-13).
KJV Zechariah 12:6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
KJV Isaiah 66:8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such
things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
KJV Isaiah 66:9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth?
saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.
KJV Isaiah 66:10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye
that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:
KJV Isaiah 66:14 And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.
HOW UNSCR 2334 CREATES THE CONDITION FOR THE BIRTH OF BIBLICAL ZION IN THE WEST BANK
A call for Sovereignty in the West Bank
UNSCR 2334 may have created the basis for legitimizing Israeli annexation and sovereignty in the West Bank.
The resolution changed the rules of the game: it abrogates the Oslo and interim agreements that divided the West Bank into Areas A and B, under the Palestinian Authority, and Area C, in which Jewish communities (“settlements”) were built under Israel control. The issue of settlements was left for final status agreements, along with the issues of return of Palestinian “refugees” to Israel, and the status of Jerusalem. By seeking to impose an Arab Palestinian state without negotiations, as a fait accompli, and declaring settlements to be illegal, the UNSC Resolution 2334 has wiped out all prior agreements.
The question is who should be the responsible authority in the disputed areas? If that goes back to 1967, it can’t be the Palestinian Authority, since it did not exist then. Moreover, the new UNSC Resolution seems to contradict 242 and 338, which recognized Israel’s legitimate claims.
Jordan cannot be considered the authority, since it renounced all claims to the West Bank, which it had acquired by force in 1948, and was never recognized as the legitimate sovereign in those areas. The only legitimate claimant of sovereignty in what was called Palestine by the international community according to the League of Nations and the British Mandate is the State of Israel, the “Jewish national home.”
The recent UNSC Resolution has made the issue even more complicated, by declaring that all Israeli settlements and buildings beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines (“the Green Line”) are “illegal according to international law,” which the International Criminal Court could declare a war crime. But, what is “the law”? The “law” is the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) as interpreted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Acting as judge and jury, the ICRC decided unilaterally and in secret that “Israeli settlements violated Article 49 of the FGC.” Although the FGC does not mention Israeli settlements, the ICRC decided that Israel has “illegally occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).”
According to the recent UNSC resolution, not only would individual Jews who live in the “occupied territories” be vulnerable to criminal charges, Israeli civilian and military officials who supported building settlements would be at risk. It gets worse. If Israeli building on land claimed by Arab Palestinians after 1967 is illegal and a war crime because it was acquired as the result of a war, then, logically, this should also apply to Israeli acquisitions of Arab land as a result of the war in 1948-9. Moreover, if Israel has committed the crime of allowing its citizens to live in “occupied territory,” it should apply to every Israeli citizen who has moved to the disputed areas, not only to Jews. This would include thousands of Bedouin and Israeli Arabs who moved into eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and built tens of thousands of illegal homes and businesses. If UNSC 2334 is enforced, it should also apply to non-Jews as well.
By abrogating the Oslo and interim agreements (1993) that divided the West Bank into Areas A and B, under the Palestinian Authority, and Area C, in which Jewish communities (“settlements”) were built under Israel control and wherein it was agreed in the 1993 Oslo Accords that the issue of settlements would be left to “final status negotiations”, it allows Israeli nationalists to reevaluate the entire situation. In doing so, they are advocating “annexing” and even declaring “sovereignty” in the West Bank. One such organization in Israel who is advocating sovereignty in the West Bank is “Women in Green”. They hold annual conferences on the subject and produce a magazine called, “Sovereignty”.
Ultimately, the Bible says that they will ultimately declare the West Bank and Jerusalem to be a sovereign state called Biblical “Zion” (Isaiah 66:8, Revelation 12:1-2).
Mike Huckabee at the Israeli Knesset: “Stand for the Land”
SHOULD ISRAEL ANNEX PARTS OF THE WEST BANK ???
The survey, commissioned by Israel Radio, 39% of Israeli’s said that they in favor of Israel annexing the entire West Bank.
31% of Israelis support the annexation of only the large settlement blocs in the West Bank with a Palestinian state being established in the remaining areas including East Jerusalem.
30% of Israelis support establishing a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with Israel retaining sovereignty over the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Palestinians sovereign on the Temple Mount.
The leader of the modern Orthodox nationalistic party, Jewish Home, – Naftali Bennett said: “Recently, members of the UN Security Council raised their hands in favor of a resolution that the entire Old City, the Mount of Olives, City of David, and the rest of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, are all occupied [Palestinian] territory and thus illegal [under international law]. In whose authority do people address a nation founded almost 4,000 years ago, and for 3,000 of which has had Jerusalem as its capital. Who appointed them to say that our house, our capital, is occupied? Jerusalem is ours forever and no Jew, in any generation, and even a whole generation of Jews, who seeks to forfeit it can [do so]. Because it belongs to the nation of Israel,” said Bennett.
“People wish us an Happy Hanukkah; when they wish Happy Hanukkah do they understand where Judah Maccabee fought? Did he fight in Tel Aviv or on the slopes that ascend from the Ayalon Valley towards Jerusalem, what they call ‘the occupied territories’? How can you wish Happy Hanukkah when the area is occupied?” Bennett wondered.
He said: “The world thinks that the Land of the Patriarchs is for us a folklore symbol. It is not a symbol, the land is real. Anyone who lives thousands of miles from here does not understand that we live Jerusalem, Ma’aleh Levonah, and Hebron. This is the reality.” Bennett utilized Hanukkah to clarify the point: “Let’s go back to read Matthias’ famous call. When he declared, ‘Who is with God, to me!’, he did not say, ‘Look, let’s concede and come to an agreement with the Greeks, we’ll jettison the Covenant’. He said: ‘Whoever is for God, to me!’. Only an unambiguous declaration will gain the respect of the world.”
“Whoever is willing to divide himself will only enjoy the world’s love momentary,” added Bennett. “Applause. A week of applause after we gave away and left Gush Katif. What did we get then? Leave aside the terror tunnels, the rockets, even the international scene: Does the world say ‘Wow you Israelis are so generous. You expelled the Jews, applause. Now we’re with you…’? … Only if we provide our own light. But concessions are not power but a great weakness,” said Bennett.
As a result, Bennett announced his intention to submit a bill in the Knesset to apply Israeli law to parts of the West Bank at a Jewish Home meeting in the city of Ma’ale Adumim. Bennett said: “We are continuing today in the footsteps of Levi Eshkol, who applied [Israeli] law to Jerusalem, of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who founded Ma’ale Adumim, and of Menachem Begin, who applied [Israeli] sovereignty to the Golan. Today we continue in Ma’ale Adumim and then to other parts of the country.” Bennett said.”Bennett called for an end to military rule and the application of full sovereignty in its place. “After 50 years, we are hear and it is time to end the military rule. So by the end of January, I will submit a bill to apply [Israeli] law to Ma’aleh Adumim, together with all coalition factions. I expect that all Cabinet members will lend a hand towards this path. The nationalist government has no other option. We have to overcome the obstacles to sovereignty.”
“Israeli citizens have paid with thousands of casualties, tens of thousands of rockets, and countless condemnations for that failed messianic policy of a Palestinian state. The [logical] conclusion is to stop buying into the folly of a Palestinian state and start applying Israeli law in Ma’ale Adumim, the Jordan Valley, Ariel, and all of Area C as soon as possible. That is how we’ll win.” he declared. “We need to understand that we have a small window of opportunity, this one final chance before the world imposes on us a terrorist state. It is sovereignty in the West Bank or Palestine. If there is no sovereignty, there will be Palestine. There is no other option.” Bennett stressed.
THE “HANUKKAH” REBELLION:‘ANNEXING PARTS OF THE WEST BANK’
In response to the passage of the anti-Israeli settlement resolution at the UN Security Council, several political leaders called for the Netanyahu government to annex parts of the West Bank.
Israel Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called on the government to react to the anti-Israel settlement resolution by saying: “We need to change our way of thinking, to get real. When we keep a low profile, it doesn’t help. We need to lift our heads. We need to do what is good for Israel. We need to talk about annexation.”
Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said, “The Obama administration will not be able to cover up its failure in Aleppo with its shameful decision regarding Israel. He who was unsuccessful in his fight against darker regimes, is now attempting to harm his only democratic ally in the Middle East. History will remember the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2334 as the one which brought about Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. No decision will cause Israel to stop building on its own land,” Hotovely concluded.
Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev said that Israel should respond by immediately annexing all of the West Bank.
Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) said that Israel should annex the so-called “settlement blocks” in response to the UN Security Council’s approval of a resolution calling on Israel to halt construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. In addition, he said that Israel must resume construction in all parts of the land,” added Erdan.
The leader of the Jewish Home political party, Naftali Bennett, said: “We’re about to go from retreat to sovereignty. The anti-Israel settlement resolution is a direct result of Oslo’s policy of surrender, retreat, and divisions. It’s a result of public agreement to create a Palestinian state in our country’s heartland. We have not gained honor and love by retreating, but shame and international pressure to surrender even more. This is the time to make a 180 degree turn. It’s time to go from retreat to sovereignty,” he emphasized.
“The conclusion needs to be that we will no longer agree to suicide through creating a Palestinian state, and we will work to apply Israeli law in Ma’ale Adumim, in the Jordan Valley, in Ofra, and in all of Area C of the West Bank as soon as possible. The Israeli government should annex the Jewish city of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank.” The city is 5 miles from Jerusalem at the northern edge of the Judean Desert and has 38,000 residents. Bennett said: “We have already tried the way of the Left; the time has come to try the path that we are suggesting – sovereignty over a maximum of area with a minimum of Palestinians. We will soon submit a ‘Ma’ale Adumim bill’ to the Knesset.” He continued: “In the near future we should impose sovereignty on the the whole of Area C (about 60%) of the West Bank.” He added: “It’s time for Israel to reevaluate its approach over the past 25 years, the approach where we adopted the Oslo Accords, the approach where we gave up territory in Gaza, the approach where we declared the need for a Palestinian state,” Bennett said. “We thought this approach would gain us sympathy from the world, but instead we got tens of thousands of missiles from Gaza, thousands of Israelis murdered on the streets and one condemnation after another. It’s time to decide between two alternatives: surrendering our land, and sovereignty. We’ve tried surrendering our land, it didn’t work; it is time for sovereignty.
In response, Netanyahu told his Likud lawmakers not to speak openly about annexing parts of the West Bank or building more settlements so long as Obama is still in office. He said: “Don’t come out now with statements about annexing territory and building in the settlements, because there may be another international move (against Israel) before the change in the US administration on January 20,” Netanyahu said.
THE “HANUKKAH REBELLION”: ‘LEGALIZE OUTPOSTS’
A controversial initiative to authorize West Bank outposts — previously postponed until after President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House on January 20 — is “back on the table” following the United States’s failure to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Fearing repercussions from the US administration, a final vote on the so-called Regulation Bill, which would legalize some 4,000 housing units in the West Bank built on privately owned Palestinian land, had been shelved until President Obama leaves office said coalition chairman David Bitan. But with the US abstention in the anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council vote, “We are done playing nice,” an Israeli official said. “It’s back on the table,” he said of the bill, signaling it could be brought to a vote in the Israeli Knesset in the coming weeks
THE “HANUKKAH” REBELLION: ‘CONTINUE BUILDING IN JERUSALEM’
In response to the anti-Israel settlement resolution at the UN Security Council, Israel’s government said that it would move ahead with thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s municipal government signaled that it would not back down: The city intends to approve 600 housing units in the predominantly Palestinian eastern section of town in what a top official called a first installment on 5,600 new homes.
The planning committee will approve 2,600 new housing units in the neighborhood of Gilo, another 2,600 units in Givat Hamatos, and 400 units in Ramat Shlomo – altogether 5,600 units in eastern Jerusalem. Acting and Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and Chairman of the Local Planning and Building committee Meir Turgeman, said that he is “not intimidated by the UN or by any other entity trying to dictate to us what to do in Jerusalem. I hope the new US Administration will give us a push to continue replenishing the housing stock which was reduced during the eight years of the Obama Administration.”
THE PROPHETIC SLAP IN THE FACE OF YESHUA
KJV Matthew 26:67 Then did they (the UN Security Council) spit in his (Israel’s) face (when they clapped after they passed the anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council resolution), and buffeted
him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands
NETANYAHU: ISRAEL WAS SLAPPED IN THE FACE
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved from an offensive to defensive posture after the passing of the anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council resolution rebuffing criticism that his angry response was too aggressive and saying that Israel will not “turn the other cheek.” “Israel is a country with national pride and we do not turn the other cheek,” he said. “This is a rational, aggressive and responsible response, the natural reaction of a healthy nation that is making clear to the nations of the world that what was done in the UN is unacceptable to it.”
ISRAEL’S DIPLOMATIC RESPONSE TO THE ANTI-ISRAEL SETTLEMENT VOTE
In response to the anti-Israel settlement vote, Netanyahu announced that Israel was re-evaluating all of its dealings with the United Nations, and that he had already instructed officials to cut off “30 million shekels ($7.8 million) of funding for five UN bodies that are particularly hostile to Israel.” More such action will follow, he promised.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) forbade senior IDF officials from contacting Palestinian Authority representatives. The new order does not include PA security officials.
Netanyahu summoned US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro for “clarifications,” after the US abstained in the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution demanding a halt to all Israeli settlement activity which enabled the resolution to pass. Netanyahu’s meeting with the US Ambassador lasted 40 minutes.
In addition, Netanyahu summoned the ambassadors of the states that supported an anti-settlement resolution at the UN Security Council for a diplomatic dressing-down as Netanyahu continued to seethe over passage of the anti-Israel settlement vote at the UN Security Council. In total, 10 envoys were called in on Christmas morning for scoldings from directors of the Foreign Ministry’s respective regional departments, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon said. In the case of Great Britain and Spain, the deputy ambassadors were summoned because their respective bosses are currently not in the country.
The ambassadors of China, Russia, France, Angola, Egypt, Japan, Ukraine and Uruguay were expected to arrive in Jerusalem on Christmas Day. Senegal and New Zealand do not have embassies in Israel. Venezuela and Malaysia do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Furthermore, Netayahu recalled Israel’s ambassadors from New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four countries that sponsored the resolution that have diplomatic relations with Israel. Netanyahu canceled the upcoming visit to Israel of the Senegalese foreign minister and instructed the Foreign Ministry to cancel all aid programs to the African country.
Netanyahu also announced that he has cancelled his visit with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who was scheduled to arrive in Israel next week, as a result of Ukraine’s vote in favor of the UN resolution.
US SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN KERRY, TO GIVE A SPEECH OUTLINING A PEACE AGREEMENT
US Secretary of State Kerry announced after the vote on December 23 that he would give a speech laying out his vision for a Middle East peace agreement and how future administrations may be able to take the issue forward, featuring “more detailed thoughts, drawn from the experience of the last several years, on the way ahead.” Frank Lowenstein, the State Department’s special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations said that Kerry’s speech will laying out his vision for what a negotiated two-state solution might look like and how it may be achieved.
US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY’S SPEECH ON THE FUTURE OF THE PEACE PROCESS
In recent months, there had been increasing speculation that either Kerry or Obama could deliver a speech laying out parameters for reaching a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, detailing how future administrations that are committed to the two-state outcome may be able to take the issue forward. As a result, recently, US Secretary of State, John Kerry gave a speech where he laid out his “comprehensive vision” for the future of Middle East peacemaking, saying that a two-state solution was the “only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.” In the speech that lasted well over an hour, Kerry described settlements as a central obstacle to achieving an agreement between the sides and declared that Israeli actions in the West Bank were putting the two-state solution, which he said was the sole path to peace, “in serious jeopardy.”
Kerry said “settlements” or “settlers” 62 times in his 72-minute speech, and “terror” or “terrorism” 14 times. As reflected by those numbers, the focus of the address was on the Jewish settlements which he said was a major obstacle to peace. Kerry argued that settlement construction in the West Bank was being “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible” and said the “the status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation.” Settlement expansion, he declared, “has nothing to do with Israel’s security.”
Castigating the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said it was “the most right-wing in Israel history with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements. The result is that policies of this government, which the prime minister himself just described as more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history, are leading … towards one state. In fact,” he added, “Israel has increasingly consolidated control over much of the West Bank for its own purposes.” Warned Kerry: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace.”
“The two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Kerry said. “It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors. It is the only way to ensure a future of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people and it is an important way of advancing United States interests in the region,” he added of the two-solution, which he said was “now in serious jeopardy.”
“The truth is that trends on the ground — violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation — are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides, and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want,” he said. Speaking directly to Israeli criticism of the US abstention, Kerry said: “It is not this resolution that is isolating Israel; it is the pernicious policy of settlement construction that is making peace impossible.”
“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right-wing in Israel’s history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements,” Kerry said. “Policies of this government, which the prime minister just described as more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history, are leading in the opposite direction. They’re leading to one state.”
If there is only one state, he warned, “you would have millions of Palestinians permanently living in segregated enclaves in the middle of the West Bank with no real political rights, separate legal education and transportation systems, vast income disparities, under a permanent military occupation that deprives them of the most basic freedoms. Separate and unequal is what you would have, and nobody can explain how that works.”
Kerry proposed six principles as the bases for negotiations:
1) Peace must provide for secure and recognized borders, based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed land swaps and a contiguous state for the Palestinians.
2) The fulfillment of UN General Assembly Resolution 181, (which calls for the dividing of the land of Israel and making Jerusalem an international city) which called for two state for two peoples the Jews and the Palestinians, with mutual recognition and full and equal rights for all their citizens.
3) Just, fair and agreed solution of the refugee problem with compensation, recognition of their suffering and their need for permanent homes that did not “affect the fundamental character of Israel”
4) Jerusalem as the capital of the two states with full protection for and accessibility to the shrines holy to the three monotheistic faiths.
5) Satisfying Israel’s security needs is critical. Its occupation must end with the rise of a sovereign, non-militarized Palestinian state.
6) A final end to the conflict and all outstanding claims along with the establishment of normalized relations.
If implemented, Kerry predicted that solving the Palestinian issue would lead to groundbreaking security partnerships between Israel and the Arab states of the region.
Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded almost immediately to the speech, and continued to voice his indignation toward the United States, arguing Kerry’s words were just as problematic as the actions his government took last week. “Like the Security Council resolution that Secretary Kerry advanced in the UN, his speech tonight was skewed against Israel,” Netanyahua said. “For over an hour, Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the root of the conflict — Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries.”
Branding Kerry’s speech “a big disappointment,” Netanyahu criticized the secretary for “attacking the only democracy in the Middle East,” while numerous other conflicts raged across the region. “Is that all he’s got?” he ridiculed the secretary. “A full hour, and that’s all he has,” Netanyahu said. “Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but Israel is only place in the Middle East where Christians can celebrate Christmas. All of this doesn’t interest the US secretary of state, unfortunately,” Netanyahu fumed.
Netanyahu said Kerry drew a “false moral equivalence” between construction in Jerusalem and Palestinian terrorism, and accused him of only “paying lip service” in his condemnation of terrorism. He noted that the controversial UN resolution, while condemning “incitement,” did not even attribute that incitement to the Palestinians. References to suicide bombers and millions of Israelis forced into bomb shelters by rocket attacks should not be “throwaway lines” in an address like this, he said. “Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by world leaders,” Netanyahu said. “No one wants peace more than the people of Israel.”
2008: Obama at the Western Wall
After Kerry’s speech, Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, posted a picture of US President Barack Obama at the Western Wall in Jerusalem with a caption saying, “2008: Presidential candidate Barack Obama at the Western Wall. 2016: UN calls the Western Wall ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ Seriously?”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon responded to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech by saying that Israel rejected Kerry’s claims that the administration of outgoing US President Barack Obama had “Israel’s back” vis-à-vis Israel’s standing in the world and the UN. Danon said: “Coordinating anti-Israeli moves with the Palestinians and making a unilateral decision in the Security Council is not supporting Israel, it’s the exact opposite. The Obama administration has acted against the State of Israel at the UN, and any statement saying otherwise is a distortion of reality.” He added that “Speeches, statements or unilateral decisions will not promote peace in our area, only the objection to terrorism, the ending of incitement and the return to direct negotiations. The Palestinians must realize this.”
Former Ambassador to Israel, Deputy Minister Michael Oren, said: “Kerry’s speech was very disturbing for so many reasons. It is disturbing that this is the point to which US foreign policy has fallen. It’s sad, tragic and dangerous. We don’t need this relationship. We don’t need this America.” He elaborated: “The US-Israel relationship is vital for us, for the region and I believe for the world, but we need an America whose strength and commitment to its allies is unquestioned.”
In his speech, Kerry drew a distinction between American and Israeli values and cast doubt to Israel’s commitment to democracy. In his lengthy address, Kerry insisted that the Obama administration “cannot be true to our own values — or even the stated democratic values of Israel — and we cannot properly defend and protect Israel, if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.” In response, Oren said: “Kerry he did not raise the raise the question of why those values doesn’t lead the US to do something to save hundreds of thousands of lives in our region.”
Oren added: “When Kerry talked about Palestinian terror and incitement he spoke with a more or less regulated voice. But when he addressed the settlements? Oh my God, he was impassioned, furious.” Oren said he was also deeply troubled by “the systematic distortion of the historical record” in Kerry’s presentation. “In the secretary’s records, there is no Second Intifada. There was the Oslo peace agreement, but he never stopped to think why Oslo wasn’t implemented.”
Kerry also failed to acknowledge Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and wide-reaching peace offers extended by Israeli leaders in 2000 and 2006, Oren said. Furthermore, the secretary did not sufficiently address the Palestinians’ strategy to shun bilateral talks and to internationalize the conflict instead. Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 and 2013, said that the Obama administration often promised him one thing and then did something else. “It was one broken promise after the other,” he said.
Obama is guided by an ideologically rooted disdain for Israeli settlements, including the settlement blocs and Jerusalem neighborhoods outside the 1967-lines, Oren indicated. No Israeli leader — even a sworn leftist willing to dismantle most settlements — would have been able to change the president’s hostile policies vis-a-vis Israel, he postulated. “It is the most deeply held conviction I have: that with any other (Israeli) leader, from whatever party, the result would have been the same,” Oren said. “There’s nothing we could have done changing that outcome.”
Obama was determined to combat Israel’s settlement movement from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office in early 2009, Oren continued. As ambassador to the United States, Oren advised the Israeli government “to roll with the punches” and silently accept the US’s criticism about settlement expansions. But ultimately that school of thought failed to produce results, because the president was unwilling to change his mind on any issue regarding Israel. Since quiet diplomacy failed to achieve anything, Netanyahu is right to publicly confront the president over policies he deems detrimental to Israel’s security, Oren argued.
“We were on a collision course to the anti-Israel settlement UN Security Council resolution on December 23rd starting in 2009,” Oren said. It is any president’s prerogative to have a worldview different from that of the Israeli government, Oren said, but Obama’s strategic decision to put “daylight” between the United States and Israel made it impossible to have an “intimate” relationship, which led to an inevitable series of crises. It was impossible to frankly and productively discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because Obama was utterly unwilling to consider points of view other than his own, Oren charged.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, said he had no intention of allowing Palestinians to set up a “terror state” alongside Israel. He said: “Kerry quoted me three times anonymously [in his speech] to show that we are opposed to a Palestinian state,” Bennett wrote on his Twitter account. “So let me state it explicitly:” Bennett said. “Yes. If it depends on me, we will not establish another terror state in the heart of our country. The citizens of Israel have paid with thousands of victims, tens of thousands of rockets and innumerable condemnations for the utopian idea of a Palestinian state. It’s time for a new policy and we will lead the way.” Bennett concluded.
Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said Kerry’s proposed solutions were unrealistic. “For 25 years we tried similar methods, and instead of peace we got islands of terror,” she said.
Tourism Minister Yariv Levin stated that the speech included “a lot of words and very little understanding of reality.” He added: “Kerry is trying to force on us, in his last days on the job, a worldview that is a prize for Palestinian terror and that completely ignores our rights to the country.”
A number of prominent American-Jewish groups harshly criticized US Secretary of State, John Kerry, for his speech. The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply disappointed” with certain parts of of the speech, adding that certain concerns about policies and dynamics expressed in Kerry’s address were “disconnected from the reality” that there were two parties to the conflict — Israelis and Palestinians. The speech and the resolution, said the ADL, “will strengthen the belief among Israelis – even those most supportive of negotiations – that the Palestinian leadership would prefer symbolic protest and unilateral measures rather than the hard work and difficult choices associated with direct negotiations with Israel. Further, they reinforce the unhelpful perception that the international community is dictating terms to Israel with the demands of the Palestinians.”
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee took the criticism of Kerry and of the US abstention at the Security Council a step further, calling the move a betrayal and abandonment of an important ally. AIPAC said the resolution was “unfair, unbalanced and represented a profound departure from the policies of previous Democratic and Republican administrations for nearly the past forty years.” While blasting Kerry for placing “overwhelming, disproportionate blame for the failure to advance peace” on Israel, the lobby added that “any potential positive contribution” from the speech was “foreclosed by the Obama Administration’s shameful refusal to veto the destructive, anti-Israel UNSC resolution.”
AIPAC said, “By abstaining, and thereby allowing the resolution to pass, the outgoing administration not only betrayed a democratic ally and abandoned a forty-year understanding, but it also made the goal of peace more elusive by undermining direct talks, reinterpreting UN Security Council Resolution 242, and providing the recalcitrant Palestinian leadership with further incentive not to compromise or negotiate. The intransigence of the Palestinian leadership is now being rewarded by the administration and others through destructive resolutions and counterproductive attempts to internationalize the conflict.”
B’nai B’rith International said Kerry’s speech was “unlikely to be helpful,” considering that it immediately followed the US abstention, and urged no further action on the US’s part.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center slammed what it termed a “draconian foreign policy shift” on the part of the Obama administration and said it was confident that Trump team’s “will restore – in tone and deeds – the relationship behooving two great friends who share a common heritage and democratic values.”
MIKE HUCKABEE: KERRY’S SPEECH IS A ‘BETRAYAL’ OF ISRAEL
US SENATOR, MARCO RUBIO, REACTION TO JOHN KERRY’S SPEECH
Meanwhile, US Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, accused Secretary of State John Kerry of undermining America’s moral standing in the world following Kerry’s speech in which he blasted Israel’s construction in Jewish neighborhoods in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. Rubio released a statement saying: “Secretary Kerry today once again decided to cater to the demands of freedom’s enemies and devote an entire speech to disparaging a country that is one of our closest allies. This administration’s shameful undermining of our moral standing in the world should be a warning to administrations for decades to come about the consequences of America abandoning our values. When we fail to take a stand against those that seek to deny Israel’s right to exist or try to question the Jewish history of Jerusalem, we hurt not just Israel but our own credibility.”
The statement continued: “The greatest immediate threat to the future of Israel is not a stalled peace process, or settlements, but the abandonment of the Jewish state by the current U.S. administration at a time when it needs America’s support more than ever. This shameful episode in American foreign policy cannot end soon enough.” Rubio concluded.
AN EFFORT TO MOVE THE US EMBASSY FROM TEL AVIV TO JERUSALEM
Three US senators have introduced legislation that would commit the United States to moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move US presidents have opposed for decades but which President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled he is willing to do.
On January 3, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller (R) proposed the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act which calls for the moving of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The measure is similar to a 1995 resolution, led by former House speaker and current Trump confidant Newt Gingrich, that called to move the embassy. It was immediately dismissed by then-president, Bill Clinton, who wanted the future status of Jerusalem settled in final negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Clinton and his two successors — presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have repeatedly used the prerogative granted them to delay implementation of a Congressional demand, passed in a 1995 law, to move the embassy. But with an incoming president who has indicated he will break with these practices, those pushing for the relocation believe the White House may no longer be an obstacle.
Supporters of relocation were also given a boost last month when Trump selected his longtime friend and attorney David Friedman to be his administration’s ambassador to Israel. In a statement announcing the selection, Friedman, a vocal supporter and even donor to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, said he expected to carry out his duties in “Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” It was a further indication of the president-elect’s apparent resolve to follow through on a campaign pledge he repeatedly made to Jewish audiences. According to reports, Trump’s advisers are already in the process of planning the relocation. Campaign manager and soon-to-be White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said it was “a very big priority for him.”
In supporting the proposed legislation, US Senator, Ted Cruz (R-TX) said in a statement: “It is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel.”
FRANCE SUPPORTSKERRY’S SPEECH
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Kerry’s speech “clear, courageous and committed” adding that France shares Kerry’s belief in a two-state solution that envisions Israel and the new nation of Palestine “living side by side in peace and security.” He further said that Kerry’s speech reinforced “the necessity and the urgency to implement this two-state solution.”
France is scheduled to hold a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 15. Since a preliminary peace summit in June in Paris officially kicked off the 2016 French peace initiative, three groups have been tasked with examining avenues to propel the peace process forward, according to a French newspaper. One group has looked at building the institutions needed for the establishment of a Palestinian state; another has studied the economic incentives peace would bring for those involved, in particular for the European Union; while a third group worked on enhancing the participation of civil society in the process. The proposals of the three groups will be examined during the summit, the report said.
THE ‘TRIAL’ OF ISRAEL: A FRENCH INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE ON JANUARY 15th
KJV John 19:13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat …
Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the Middle East peace conference planned by the French for January 15 will be a “tribunal against the State of Israel” similar to the antisemitic trial of French Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus in 1894. Liberman said UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was “awful, unnecessary and harms any chance to reach dialogue with the Palestinians” and that he was worried that such misguided international efforts would continue with the French conference. Liberman added: “This is a convention whose sole aim is to harm the security of the State of Israel and its good name. We are talking about the modern version of the Dreyfus trial, except that this time instead of one Jew in the defendant’s chair, the whole nation of Israel is there. Look at how all of France has been voting against us. We know the direction and the goal of the conference.” he said.
Alfred Dreyfuss
In 1894, French officers learned that a high-ranking staff member had been slipping secrets to the German military, and they pointed the finger at Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French artillery officer, who was convicted, stripped of his uniform, and sent to Devil’s Island, an isolated penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. Theodor Herzl is said to have been spurred into writing his great treatise on Zionism, “The Jewish State,” after covering Dreyfus’s trial as a newspaper correspondent and hearing the crowd scream out “Death to the Jews!”
Israel has refused to attend the January 15 gathering, with officials insisting that only bilateral negotiations will lead to a peace arrangement. The Palestinians support the French initiative.
THE PALESTINIANS HOPE THAT THE FRENCH CONFERENCE WILL DEFINE PARAMETERS FOR A FUTURE PALESTINIAN STATE
Foreign ministers and officials from some 70 countries and representatives of multiple international organizations are expected to attend an international conference hosted by France on January 15 to attempt to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Majdi al-Khalidi, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s adviser for diplomatic affairs said: “The Paris conference could be the last opportunity to save the two-state solution.” The Palestinian leadership has lobbied vigorously for the conference for more than 18 months.
Regarding the expected results of the conference, Khalidi said that the Palestinian leadership hopes the participating countries will create an international mechanism to resolve the conflict. Khalidi said: “We want the conference to create an international mechanism for the peace process, which includes a time frame for implementing an agreement with Israel.” In addition, Khalidi said that the Palestinian leadership “wants the conference to reaffirm everything in the recent UN Security Council resolution.” UN Security Council resolution 2334, which was passed on December 23, states that settlements “have no legal validity,” condemns terrorism and incitement, and calls for the establishment of two independent states.
Khalidi, however, said that if Israel rejects the results of the conference, the Palestinian leadership will not give up on its aims. He said: “We will continue our efforts to convince the world and Israeli government to allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Khalidi stated.
THE UNITED STATES IS MAKING PLANS TO OUTLINE PRINCIPLES FOR A PALESTINIAN STATE
Multiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that would ultimately recognize a Palestinian state based upon 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. According to the Palestinian al-Quds newspaper, United States Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing a document to be presented in January before President Barack Obama leaves office. This document would form the basis for final negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. The principles of the document would set out requirements for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, and Israel’s required recognition of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
This revelation comes following the UN Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2334 which declares Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as living in “occupied Palestinian territories.” If this document ends up becoming a UN Security Council resolution that officially establishes a Palestinian state prior to January 20th, there will be no question that it will represent “the dividing of the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.” (Joel 3:2, Zechariah 14:2).
NETANYAHU FEARS THAT THE US WILL SUPPORT ANOTHER UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONDEFINING THE PARAMETERS FOR A TWO-STATE SOLUTION
After Kerry’s speech, Netanyahu fears that the US will seek another vote at the UN to seal some of Kerry’s suggested parameters for a peace agreement. He said: “I wish I could be comforted” by Kerry’s promise not to seek further UN action, but the US said the same thing before the resolution passed,” the prime minister noted. Netanyahu speculated that other countries could advance another UN resolution while the US directed from behind the scenes. France might take it up, he suggested. Or Sweden, which he described as no friend of Israel. Netanyahu said: “The issue is still hot, and we haven’t heard the end of this yet.”
Netanyahu expects Kerry to attend that conference and that the Middle East Quartet — the US, UN, Russia and EU — will coordinate their positions at that summit, and that they will then turn to the Security Council in the very last days of the Obama presidency to support a resolution outlining the parameters for a Palestinian state. An Israeli government officials said they are “working under the assumption that there will be another anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations Security Council before the end of Obama’s term,”
Based on his concern, Netanyahu is attempting to “recruit” the incoming Trump administration and the US Congress to block a feared bid by the outgoing Obama administration to have the Security Council approve principles for a Palestinian state. His aim is for the Trump team to make plain that his administration will “economically hurt” those countries that voted against Israel in the UN and that continue to do so in the future.
In a meeting of Israel’s ambassadors and chiefs of missions in Europe, Netanyahu said that there are currently efforts underway to bring another resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue to the UN Security Council after the Paris conference on January 15th but before US President Barack Obama leaves office on January 20. Netanyahu called the planned peace summit in Paris on January 15 “empty,” but there “are signs that they will try to turn the decisions made there into another resolution in the Security Council, and that is already [something that is] not empty.” And these signs, he said, “are not a few.”
As a result, “[The major effort] we are engaged in now is to prevent another UN resolution, and also to prevent a Quartet decision. We are investing a great deal of diplomatic efforts in this, and this also has to be your main efforts in the coming days, “ he said. “This will not take much time, but it will occupy us in the next two weeks, and we need to succeed.”
REACTION TO PLANNED MIDDLE EAST SUMMIT IN PARIS BY JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS
The Jewish organization, B’nai B’rith International, protests plans for the upcoming Middle East peace conference on January 15th saying that the conference, “figures to be a one-sided farce and an impediment to peace.” B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman said: “This conference will provide the international community an opportunity to gratuitously gang up on Israel. The past two weeks have already seen Secretary of State John Kerry deliver a speech unfairly blaming Israel for the current impasse and the United Nations Security Council pass a resolution broadly condemning the Jewish state. The Paris summit should not take place, as it will only further embolden the Palestinians and give them no reason to negotiate a two-state solution.” B’nai B’rith insists that their organization “has long-maintained that peace can be achieved only by direct bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Gatherings like the Paris conference effectively negate Israel’s role in discussions about its own security. This feeds the Palestinian strategy of hindering the peace process by hiding behind the international community and using the United Nations system to advance the Palestinians’ goal of demonizing and isolating Israel.”
B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin added: “The Paris summit may set the stage for yet another one-sided U.N. Security Council resolution, which would continue to cloud the prospect of a negotiated peace. By prejudging the outcome of future negotiations, repeatedly castigating Israel, and pressuring the Jewish state to make unilateral concessions, the international community continues to encourages [the Palestinians to never enter into serious negotiations with Israel].”
ISRAEL CHIEF RABBI: US HAS FORSAKEN ISRAEL, WE CAN TRUST ONLY IN THE LORD
Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said: “The US has forsaken Israel, and the Jewish state can now place its trust only in God. Sometimes, we need to be reminded from above that we can count on no one but our Father who art in heaven.”
He added: “We mustn’t forget that the hearts of kings and captains are in the hands of the Lord, and we can count on no one but (the Lord).”
DANON: IT IS A SENSITIVE DIPLOMATIC TIME FOR ISRAEL AT THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL BEFORE OBAMA LEAVES OFFICE ON JANUARY 20th
Recently, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, spoke at the annual Zionist Organization of America’s conference, warning foreign diplomats looking to force through one-sided resolutions at the United Nations between now and January 20th when Obama leaves office. He said: “Just recently,” said Danon, “senior diplomats from various countries told me that they plan on taking advantage of the transition period to advance a one-sided resolution against Israel. “There are three international initiatives before us. The first is the French conference. There is New Zealand’s initiative calling for negotiations and condemning construction in Judea and Samaria. And there is also a proposal which focuses on Palestinian construction in Judea and Samaria. All of this [is taking place] at the end of Obama’s term in office to take advantage of the transition period. We are in a very sensitive period.” Danon said.
So, will Obama take advantage of the transition to the Trump Presidency that began after election day and ends on Jan. 20 to push through a UN Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process and the prospects that US President Barack Obama will support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a Palestinian state between December and January
In early November, Pierre Vimont, the French government’s special envoy to the Middle East peace process, visited Israel and spoke with representatives from the Palestinian Authority regarding a French plan to host an international peace conference by the end of December. In doing so, Israel informed France that it will not participate in such a conference. Israeli officials told France, in “a unambiguous and unequivocal fashion” that real progress and a lasting peace agreement could only emerge through direct bilateral negotiations between Israel and the PA, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “Any other initiatives only distance the region from such a process,” the statement continued. “It was explained to the French envoy that Israel will not participate in any international conference convened in opposition to its position.” The French initiative “greatly harms the possibilities for advancing the peace process,” the statement said, arguing that it would allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas to avoid returning to direct bilateral negotiations without preconditions.
The goal of a conference would be to push the peace process forward. Should it be approved, the conference’s conclusion could be put forward in the form of a UN Security Council resolution. The conference and the conclusions it would reach would operate in conjunction with other initiatives that are on the table and could even fold them into its large umbrella of options, Vimont said. This includes efforts by Russia, which has called for a meeting between Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Vimont, said that past proposals such as the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative could also be part of the French initiative and would most certainly compliment it. The process is open to all the interested parties, he said. “We are working with the European Union, the Quartet, the Arab League and whomever wants to be involved,” said Vimont.
Vimont did not rule out the possibility that other parties could work on a UN resolution separate from the peace conference. “We have no problem if anyone comes forward with a draft resolution, be it on parameters and settlements,” Vimont said. “We [would] look at the value of the draft itself. The idea has never been ‘well, the French initiative is going on, everyone should shut up and stay put and wait to see what happens. This is why, precisely as I speak, we are in very close contact with our colleagues in the outgoing Obama Administration to assure them that if ever they decide, after the 8th of November, to go forward with some initiative, it is working with good coordination with what we are trying to do,” he said.
Since the initial peace summit held in June in Paris which officially kicked off the French initiative, three working groups have been given the task with examining avenues to propel the peace process forward. One group has looked at building the institutions needed for the establishment of a Palestinian state; another has studied the economic incentives peace would bring for those involved, in particular for the European Union; while a third group worked on enhancing the participation of civil society in the process.
A French newspaper reported that French President Francois Hollande has invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet in Paris on the sidelines of a conference of foreign ministers on the peace process scheduled for December 21. The conference is expected to be attended by 70 states. Netanyahu said that he would be willing to meet with Abbas in Paris as long as there is no international conference. PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat confirmed the report saying that France will host an international conference on the peace process on December 21. The Palestinians have accepted the invitation,with PLO Executive Committee member Ahmad Majdalani saying: “President Abbas agreed to the French invitation and informed the French president of this.” Israel will not attend the conference. According to the report, France remains determined to go ahead with the conference, unfazed by the “icy reception” from Israel. The US has not yet confirmed their attendance. The recommendations of the three working groups to resolve various issues regarding the desire to establish a Palestinian state from the initial June conference will be examined during the December 21st meeting.
Former US president Jimmy Carter called on Obama to recognize a Palestinian state before he leaves office on January 20. “I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents but time is very short,” he said. “The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on January 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership,” he wrote. Carter argued that a US recognition of “Palestine” would make it easier for other countries to do the same, and would “clear the way for a Security Council resolution on the future of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.” He said the Security Council should pass a resolution laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict, “reaffirming the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications.” Such a resolution should include security guarantees for both Israel and a Palestinian state, the demilitarization of the Palestinian state, and a “”possible peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations.” “The combined weight of United States recognition, United Nations membership and a Security Council resolution solidly grounded in international law would lay the foundation for future diplomacy,” he said.
Meanwhile, some US officials are saying that President Barack Obama has nearly ruled out any major last-ditch effort to put pressure on Israel over stalled peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Discussions about the US taking potential action at the UN Security Council, underway before the US election, have fallen off since Donald Trump’s surprise victory, officials said. Obama is now highly unlikely to approve either of those options presented to him by US diplomats, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
For years, the US has officially opposed any attempts by Palestinians to seek recognition for statehood or allow multi-country groups like the UN to impose solutions. US State Department spokesman John Kirby said: “Our view hasn’t changed, that we believe that the preferred path for the Palestinians to achieve statehood is through direct negotiations that will lead to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution.”
At the Israel Saban Forum conference, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said the following about the peace process and Jewish settlement building: “There is no status quo. It is getting worse. It is moving in the wrong direction. So there is a fundamental choice that comes to this question of two states. And that is: Are there going to be continued settlements? Is there going to be a continued implementation of settlement policy, or is there going to be separation and the creation of two states? There are 129 settlements. There are about 100 outposts, and outposts, as you all know, are illegal. They believe it’s the greater Israel. They are pursuing a policy of greater Judea-Samaria building out into the West Bank because they believe it belongs to them. And they want it to block the peace because they want those places to belong to Israel.”
Kerry was asked by reporter Jeffrey Goldberg: “Have we not passed the tipping point already?” Kerry replied: “No.” Goldberg said: “Why have we not passed the tipping point?” Kerry answered: “Because this is a function of leadership. It’s a function of belief. Where is the United States in that? Our position has been 1967 lines plus swaps. So the question is: How do you resolve with the Palestinians their aspirations? I think you have to do that by negotiating.”
MR GOLDBERG: There’s a lot of talk about laying down of new parameters possibly action in the Security Council. Can you give us any insight about where your thinking is on that, or has the election of Donald Trump changed this so radically that we’re not going to see any further action on this file from the Obama Administration?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me make it clear at the outset that, as I said earlier, we have always stood against any imposition of a, quote, “final status solution,” and against any resolution that is unfair and biased against Israel, and we will continue. We don’t support that. And there’s been no decision made about any kind of step that may or may not be taken in that regard.
There are, however, other people out there who, because of this building frustration, you need to know they are any number of countries talking about bringing resolutions to the United Nations.
MR GOLDBERG: Will you try to stop the French if they do it?
SECRETARY KERRY: If it’s a biased and unfair and a resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel, we’ll oppose it.
Meanwhile, a high-level Palestinian delegation is scheduled to arrive in the United States, led by senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the head of the Palestinian general intelligence service. The delegation also includes the future Palestinian ambassador in the United States as well as a number of high-level officials from Abbas’ Fatah party and from the Palestine Liberation Organization. The delegation will be coming to the United States to participate in a strategic American-Palestinian dialogue session, the first of its kind ever to be held. The more important meeting, however, will be with members of the Palestinian delegation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The main item on the agenda is expected to be a UN Security Council Resolution which the Palestinians are currently discussing with members of the UN Security Council.
The Palestinian Authority is interested in coming to an understanding with the outgoing administration of U.S. President Barack Obama that would avoid an American veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution that the Palestinians intend to introduce in January. The resolution would be critical of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Senior Palestinian officials have said that the Palestinian Authority intends to introduce its Security Council resolution in early January, before Trump takes office on January 20. For the month of January, the rotating presidency of the Security Council will be filled by Sweden, which is the most recent major country to recognize the State of Palestine, and which is also interested in advancing a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the course of the month.
The Palestinians have already shared a non-final draft of their resolution on settlements with several UN Security Council members in New York. Western diplomats who have read it said its major provisions are as follows:
A. The draft states that the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace. A separate clause says the settlements endanger the prospects of a two-state solution to the conflict based on the 1967 borders.
B. The draft demands that Israel put a total halt to settlement construction and any other activity related to the settlements.
C. Section 5 of the draft states that members of the United Nations must avoid providing Israel any assistance that can be used directly for activity related to the settlements.
D. The new draft resolution calls for a halt to any acts of violence against civilians, including terrorism, as well as provocative acts and incitement, and calls for those responsible for such acts to be put on trial.
E. Section 8 calls upon all countries to act to revive direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians based on clear terms of reference to last for a year.
A senior official in President Abbas’ office said that the Palestinian Authority senses that the Obama administration will not accept the existing draft resolution, portions of which will have to be amended in an effort to avoid an American veto in the Security Council. “The key question will be the position of the outgoing [U.S.] administration. We are hoping that Obama will take one real decision on behalf of the Palestinians before he leaves the White House,” he said.
A senior Western diplomat who is involved in contacts on the Security Council resolution noted that talks between the Palestinians and Kerry in the coming week could have a significant impact on the capacity to get the resolution passed in the time remaining before Obama leaves office. The most problematic clause, the Western diplomat said, is section 5, which calls on sanctions against Israel by implication. It provides a timetable for negotiations and mentions the 1967 borders without mentioning any readiness for land swaps between Israel and a future Palestinian state. If the Palestinians are prepared, in contrast to the past, to be pragmatic and to soften some sections of the draft, there is a more than a small prospect that Obama will refrain from casting a veto of the resolution, the diplomat said. “If the Palestinians act wisely and rationally they have a chance,” he said.
White House officials are maintaining ambiguity on everything related to the prospect that Obama would push for a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. High-ranking administration officials said Kerry had made it clear in his address to the U.S.-Israeli Saban Forum that no decision had been taken on the matter and that all options remain on the table. “We will carefully consider our future engagement if and when we reach that point, and determine how to most effectively advance the objective we all share in achieving a negotiated two-state solution,” a senior administration official said.
Kerry is interested in advancing a UN Security Council resolution that would include the recommendations that appeared in the July 1 report of the Middle East Quartet, the grouping that includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The recommendations relate to negative steps on Israel’s part, such as settlement construction, the legalization of illegal West Bank settlement outposts and the demolition of Palestinian homes, but also deal with negative steps on the Palestinians’ part, such as incitement and violence. Kerry has expressed the belief that such a resolution would be balanced and would also constitute a clear work plan for the international community and for the incoming Trump administration.
One of the alternate ideas that is being considered at the White House is refraining from casting a veto on a resolution on West Bank settlements as long as it is not extremely biased against Israel and reflects the administration’s policy on the settlements.
A senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said on condition of anonymity that Israel fears that Obama will want to leave a practical legacy to his successor in the form of a Security Council resolution rejecting the settlements in the West Bank. He said, “Obama is obsessed by an objection to the settlements and by his criticism of Netanyahu.”
This view was confirmed by a senior US diplomat in Tel Aviv. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry consider the Israeli settlement policy the main reason for the failure of Kerry’s 2014-15 mission and the main obstacle to a two-state solution. Obama believes that if the Israeli settlement policies are allowed to continue undisturbed until the next administration has a Middle East team and clear Middle East policy in place, the situation on the ground could become irreversible in terms of denying a viable Palestinian state.
This is the reason White House spokesman Josh Earnest has used very strong language lately when criticizing the Netanyahu government on its settlement policy. On Oct. 6, Earnest accused the Israeli government of betraying the administration, saying, “We did receive public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict the announcement [of constructing 300 housing units on land that is] far closer to Jordan than it is to Israel.” Earnest warned that Israel’s decision to relocate — considered by settlers as a necessary compensation for dismantling Amona — jeopardizes the already distant prospect of Middle East peace as well as Israel’s own security.
An Obama administration official said that the Obama administration is concerned with the situation on the ground. “The two-state solution is dying, this trend is not good. There’s a de facto annexation. We, the Americans, can only rebuke the sides. We’ve searched in the dictionary for a thousand different ways to condemn the settlement construction, and it’s not helping. A condemnation has no bite, and the Israelis know this.” As a result, Obama is feeling the need to do something before he leaves office.
Recently, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, spoke at the annual Zionist Organization of America’s conference, warning foreign diplomats looking to force through one-sided resolutions at the United Nations between now and January 20th when Obama leaves office. He said: “Just recently,” said Danon, “senior diplomats from various countries told me that they plan on taking advantage of the transition period to advance a one-sided resolution against Israel. One thing is clear: Such a resolution will be dangerous for Israel. We will not be pressured to make concessions that will endanger our people.”
“We are in a very sensitive period.” Danon said. “There are three international initiatives before us. The first is the French conference on the 21st of the month. There is New Zealand’s initiative calling for negotiations and condemning construction in Judea and Samaria. And there is also a proposal which focuses on Palestinian construction in Judea and Samaria. All of this [is taking place] at the end of Obama’s term in office to take advantage of the transition period. We are working behind the scenes [with US officials] and hope that American policy [of vetoing one-sided anti-Israel resolutions] will not change. Right now American [officials] say that they will not support a resolution that is ‘unbalanced.’ As for what ‘unbalanced’ means – it is open to interpretation. It is clear that the resolution of the Palestinian Authority is not balanced, but we fear that a cosmetic change with [be enough for Obama] to call it balanced.” he added.
So, will Obama take advantage of the transition to the Trump Presidency that began after election day and ends on Jan. 20 to push through a UN Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process and the prospects that US President Barack Obama will support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a Palestinian state between November and January
In early November, Pierre Vimont, the French government’s special envoy to the Middle East peace process, visited Israel and spoke with representatives from the Palestinian Authority regarding a French plan to host an international peace conference by the end of December. In doing so, Israel informed France that it will not participate in such a conference. Israeli officials told France, in “a unambiguous and unequivocal fashion” that real progress and a lasting peace agreement could only emerge through direct bilateral negotiations between Israel and the PA, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “Any other initiatives only distance the region from such a process,” the statement continued. “It was explained to the French envoy that Israel will not participate in any international conference convened in opposition to its position.” The French initiative “greatly harms the possibilities for advancing the peace process,” the statement said, arguing that it would allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas to avoid returning to direct bilateral negotiations without preconditions.
Vimont said that while he understands that Israel is opposed to the French initiative, it would send a positive signal if Netanyahu were to attend nonetheless. He said: “If at the end of the day, the Israeli government would decide to participate in the Paris conference, it will show genuine, sincere commitment to the two-state solution. The time is not right for direct talks. In the interim, he said, work can be done to ensure that such talks are fruitful when they do occur. As a first step, he said, “it is important for all those ready to endorse the two state solution, to say so publicly.”
The goal of a conference would be to push the peace process forward. Should it be approved, the conference’s conclusion could be put forward in the form of a UN Security Council resolution. The conference and the conclusions it would reach would operate in conjunction with other initiatives that are on the table and could even fold them into its large umbrella of options, he said. This includes efforts by Russia, which has called for a meeting between Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Vimont, said that past proposals such as the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative could also be part of the French initiative and would most certainly compliment it. The process is open to all the interested parties, he said. “We are working with the European Union, the Quartet, the Arab League and whomever wants to be involved,” said Vimont.
This also includes, the United States, said Vimont adding that his initiative could have inspired renewed American involvement. US Secretary of State John Kerry “is back on track with some of his ideas for regional initiatives,” Vimont said. He also did not rule out the possibility that other parties could work on a UN resolution separate from the peace conference. “We have no problem if anyone comes forward with a draft resolution, be it on parameters and settlements,” Vimont said. “We [would] look at the value of the draft itself. The idea has never been ‘well, the French initiative is going on, everyone should shut up and stay put and wait to see what happens. This is why, precisely as I speak, we are in very close contact with our colleagues in the outgoing Obama Administration to assure them that if ever they decide, after the 8th of November, to go forward with some initiative, it is working with good coordination with what we are trying to do,” he said. For this reason, Vimont added that he plans to go to the U.S. immediately after the US Presidential elections to coordinate possible steps over the next two months with the outgoing Obama administration. The Israeli government has been nervous about what actions Obama might take regarding the two-state solution prior to his departure from office. Among the possible steps would be US support for a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlement activity or even one that dictates the terms of a peace deal.
After meeting with Vimont, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians were asking France to push ahead with the plan.“We have encouraged France to go ahead with its initiative and supported its efforts to have a conference before the end of the year,” he said in a statement. “Israel should not be given the chance to sabotage such an international initiative.” Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, told a Palestinian newspaper that French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault would soon travel to the region in preparation for the summit, as part of France’s peace initiative. The conference, he added, will take place “whether the Israeli government consents or not.”
Furthermore, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas affirmed his commitment to a French-led international peace conference saying that he plans on sending a delegation to proposed peace talks set to be hosted in France in December.
Regarding the US election results, PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said: “We will work with any president the American people elect to achieve peace in the Middle East on the basis of the two-state solution along 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.”
Jason Greenblatt, a close legal advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, described a US Trump policy with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is 180 degrees different from that of past administrations, either Democrat or Republican. Greenblatt said: “Mr. Trump does not view the settlements as being an obstacle for peace.” He added that Trump does not condemn Jewish building over the pre-1967 lines, nor does he believe in dictating the terms of any peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinian. Trump’s views, he said, come from the past example of the 2005 Israeli demolition of 21 settlements in Gaza and four in northern Samaria. That withdrawal did not bring peace but rather was a precursor to a Hamas takeover of Gaza and three wars with Israel. Greenbatt said: “Trump is not going to impose any solution on Israel. He thinks that the peace has to come from the parties themselves. Any meaningful contribution he can offer up, he is there to do, it is not his goal, nor should it be anyone else’s goal, to impose peace on the parties.” With regard to Israel’s larger security issues, Greenblatt said that the newly elected president “thinks that Israel is in a very tough situation and needs to defend itself as it needs to defend itself.” Trump won’t be like his predecessors, Greenblatt said. “He is different for Israel than any recent president has been.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office made a request in the beginning of November to postpone the December 25th evacuation of the court ordered outpost settlement of Amona to allow time to examine alternative solutions for its residents. Two years ago, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) ruled that the outpost must be evacuated and demolished after determining it was built on privately-owned Palestinian lands. In its petition, the state claims it is seeking to carry out the evacuation peacefully and without incident but that it is unable to provide alternative living solutions for residents within the next two months. The state emphasized that if the court rejects the request, it will be prepared to carry out the evacuation by the date set in its ruling—December 25.
The High Court of Justice rejected the request submitted by the Israeli government to extend the December 25th deadline for the evacuation of the Amona outpost. “In this case, as in other cases in the past, we were asked to extend the deadline set in the ruling for the evacuation at the last minute. We can see that any time frame given, as long as it may be, would not be enough,” Supreme Court judge Miriam Naor wrote in the court’s ruling. “We must be careful; otherwise deadlines set by the court will become a recommendation. The state’s request, which is based mostly on considerations that have already been ‘taken into consideration’ in the original ruling, constitutes in effect an attempt to change the decision made. This we cannot accept,” Naor added. Naor noted that she remains unconvinced that “extending the deadline will bring to an agreed resolution of the matter. It appears an approval of the request will only be used as an opening to submit additional extension requests, with the claim ‘we didn’t have enough time.’ Such a result will render the ruling worthless and cannot be accepted. Even though we do not dismiss the consideration of a peaceful resolution, this consideration is not the most important thing.”
In September, 25 of the 30 Knesset members of Netanyahu’s Likud political party, signed a petition against the Amona evacuation calling for the passing of a bill that would give the outpost of Amona legal standing. Such a move would allow the residents of Amona to keep their homes. At the time, the petition was not supported by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The petition reads: “The bill is meant to regulate the homes of residents in a legal manner and prevent a moral, humane, and social distortion that would be created by the evacuation of hundreds and thousands of families who have built their homes with the support and assistance of various Israeli governments. The petition’s signatories have committed to act in pushing this important and moral legislation.” The Knesset “regulation bill” has relevance beyond Amona. It seeks to retroactively legalize any Jewish structures built on privately-owned Palestinian lands—as long as they were built with no intention of breaking the law—while offering generous compensation to those who prove they are the lands’ owners.
In an effort to prevent the evacuation of their outpost, the residents of Amona sent a letter of protest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to legalize their homes. “Amona has become a symbol of the settlement enterprise. Then again, we have nothing to lose,” they wrote. “Any alternative that is not Amona is out of the question. We won’t be bought with futile promises, budgets or other inducements.” The settlers noted that they intend to mount a “public popular struggle, respectable and difficult, that would unite all of our supporters, both within the outpost and without. This will be the fight of our lives for our home.”
After the ruling by the High Court of Justice, Amona residents called an emergency gathering during which they appealed directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the courts rejection of a request submitted by the government to extend the December 25th deadline for the evacuation of the outpost. “We, residents of Amona turn directly and personally to you prime minister. The lives of the residents of Amona, 42 families, (including) young children are in your hands. The hand which will evacuate Amona on the first night of Hanukkah is yours,” said Avichai Boaron, who is heading the struggle against the evacuation, in reference to the date in December on which the evacuation is set to commence.
Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Amona residents and protesters must avoid confrontation with Israeli soldiers when the court-ordered evacuation of the West Bank outpost of Amona takes place. In response, Amona residents said that they would build a tent city housing “thousands” of people to fight the court-ordered evacuation.
The request for eviction postponement by the government comes after a flurry of activity surrounding Amona in recent weeks that was punctuated by a meeting between Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu), Prime Minister Netanyahu and officials from the modern Orthodox party, Jewish Home. Legislators on the right-wing are pushing a so-called “regulations bill” that would legalize Amona and other disputed outposts in the West Bank.
On November 16, the Israeli Parliament gave preliminary approval to the “regulation bill” which would legalize Jewish outpost settlements. To become law, the proposal must pass three more votes in parliament. The so-called Regulation Bill designed to legalize outposts in the West Bank was recently approved in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation following heated discussions between the ministers present. The bill was brought to a vote mainly by the efforts of the Jewish Home political party leader, Naftali Bennett.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) called Jewish settlers living in disputed outposts in the West Bank “a virus that drags Israel to approve laws (that legalize) theft.” Prime Minister Netanyahu took to social media to express his outrage at Herzog’s comments. “I can’t believe Herzog used the term ‘virus’ in relation to settlers. They are our own flesh and blood, they serve in the IDF, and they contribute to the country. Buji, apologize immediately,” Netanyahu wrote, using Herzog’s nickname. Herzog responded to Netanyahu with his own post on social media, using the prime minister’s nickname: “No, Bibi, this time it won’t work. The ‘regulation bill’ is the virus. A virus that is dangerous to the Israeli democracy and justice system. The settlers are my brothers. My own flesh and blood. And I’ll take care of them more than you lie to them.”
Israel Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit opposes the proposed “regulation bill” saying it is unconstitutional. However, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked from the Jewish Home political party determined that “the attorney general has no power of veto over laws,” asserting that only the public’s elected representatives should make decisions on legislation. The justice minister contended that the attorney general’s role “is to be an advisor, not a decision-maker” like the prime minister, the government and the members of Knesset. “We at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation will make the decision in a professional manner.” Shaked explained that “when it comes to legislation, there is no such thing as veto power, because the Knesset is the authority that should make the decision.”
In response to the initial approval of the “regulation bill”, the US State Department said that it was “deeply concerned” by the possibility of Israeli legislation to legalize outposts in the West Bank. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters that the US was “deeply concerned about the advancement of legislation that would allow for the legalization of illegal Israeli outposts located on private Palestinian land.
“If this law were enacted it would pave the way for the legalization of dozens of illegal outposts deep in the West Bank,” Trudeau said. “This would represent an unprecedented and troubling step that is inconsistent with prior Israeli legal opinion and also break longstanding Israeli policy of not building on private Palestinian land. This legislation would be a dramatic advancement of the settlement enterprise, which is already gravely endangering the prospects for a two-state solution,” she added.
With regard to Trump’s pre-election promise that he would relocate the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Greenblatt said he expected that the pledge would be fulfilled. “I think he said it, he is going to do it. He is a man who keeps his word.” President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, a convert to Judaism told a Florida synagogue that her dad would “100 percent” move the US embassy to Jerusalem if he is elected president. Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism in 2010 and is married to a Jewish man, called her father, an “unbelievable champion” for the State of Israel and for the Jewish people. “You won’t be dissapointed,” she told the audience. Congress passed a law in 1995 mandating the move of the embassy to Jerusalem but allowed the president a waiver. Each president since then has routinely exercised the waiver citing the national security interests of the United States.
In response, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said that the Palestinian Arabs will “make life miserable” for the United States at the United Nations, if US President-elect, Donald Trump, moves the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He said: “If people attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions, it is a violation of resolution 181 of the UN general assembly that was drafted by the U.S. … it means they are showing belligerency towards us … If they do that nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves and we have a lot of weapons in the UN.”
Meanwhile, Russia called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue on the basis of a two-state solution, stressing its support for the Palestinian cause. Speaking during a visit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said: “This initiative is still on the table,” in reference to peace talks being held in Moscow without preconditions. “Russia has always clung to its consistent position which is that the solution of the Palestinian issue is a priority and a prerequisite for the settlement of a fair and inclusive Middle East based on the resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations.” During their meeting, Abbas told Medvedev: “We welcomed the invitation of President Putin to hold a tripartite meeting in Moscow but the Israeli side requested a postponement.” Abbas added that they had also discussed the issue of holding peace talks, including one in Moscow and another to be held by year-end in France.
In other news, Walid Phares, a foreign policy advisor to Presidential-elect Donald Trump, said that Trump will work to pass legislation designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Phares said the legislation, which was already approved by the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year and referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was held up due to the Obama administration’s support of the group.
In November of 2015, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the bill, which identifies three Brotherhood entities in the U.S. including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Cruz said: “We have to stop pretending that the Brotherhood are not responsible for the terrorism they advocate and finance … We have to see it for what it is: a key international organization dedicated to waging violent jihad.”
The bill included is an unprecedented opportunity to educate members of Congress about the Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in terrorism. It reviews the Brotherhood’s terrorist history and how it is banned by the governments of Egypt, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Syria. Egypt released videos showing the Brotherhood’s involvement in terrorism and the Egyptian government’s website warns about the Brotherhood lobby in the United States. The bill also outlines how the Brotherhood is linked to CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). The U.S. designated the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing—Hamas— in 1997, a terrorist organization, but the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole is allowed to operate in the U.S.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told West Bank Amona settlers (whom the Israeli High Court of Justice decided need to relocate) that US President Barack Obama still constitutes “an existential danger’’ to the Israeli settlements. In speaking these words, Netanyahu was referring to a possible UN Security Council resolution declaring the settlements illegal and asking Israel to avoid all settlement expansion. Sometime between now and Jan. 20, the US administration might agree for such a proposal to be voted on.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu said he expects US President Barack Obama to continue America’s “longstanding policy” of promoting direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians – and not pursue parameters for Middle East peace through international bodies before he leaves office. He said: “I very much hope that President Obama will continue the policy that he enunciated,” Netanyahu said, referring to comments made by the outgoing president at the beginning of his first term. “The only way you get a workable and enduring peace is to have the parties agree to it. This is what has happened with our peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. We’ve had convulsions in the Middle East, and yet these peace treaties hold because they were directly agreed to by the parties,” he added. “The reason we’ll object to any such effort is because it will hard the Palestinian position, and because it will harden the Palestinian position, it will push peace back.”
A senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said on condition of anonymity that Israel fears that Obama will want to leave a practical legacy to his successor in the form of a Security Council resolution rejecting the settlements in the West Bank. He said, “Obama is obsessed by an objection to the settlements and by his criticism of Netanyahu.”
This view was confirmed by a senior US diplomat in Tel Aviv. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry consider the Israeli settlement policy the main reason for the failure of Kerry’s 2014-15 mission and the main obstacle to a two-state solution. Obama believes that if the Israeli settlement policies are allowed to continue undisturbed until the next administration has a Middle East team and clear Middle East policy in place, the situation on the ground could become irreversible in terms of denying a viable Palestinian state.
This is the reason White House spokesman Josh Earnest has used very strong language lately when criticizing the Netanyahu government on its settlement policy. On Oct. 6, Earnest accused the Israeli government of betraying the administration, saying, “We did receive public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict the announcement [of constructing 300 housing units on land that is] far closer to Jordan than it is to Israel.” Earnest warned that Israel’s decision to relocate — considered by settlers as a necessary compensation for dismantling Amona — jeopardizes the already distant prospect of Middle East peace as well as Israel’s own security.
On Oct. 21, the issue of a Security Council resolution in the months to come was raised at the European Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels. A senior official close to Federica Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy said that the European Union is conveying to Kerry the importance and urgency of a concrete policy move against Israeli settlement expansion. Such a resolution would, according to the EU official, include strong wording on the settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution (taken from the July 2016 Quartet report), as well as a demand that Israel stop all settlement expansion and a call to the parties to immediately renew negotiations on a two-state solution based on previous Security Council resolutions. France and Egypt would likely advance such a UN Security Council Resolution before the end of 2016. The Palestinian leadership is welcoming this possible development. A senior PLO official said that the Palestinian Authority is in close contact with the French and Egyptian foreign ministers on this issue.
An Obama administration official said that US President Barack Obama is considering a last minute move regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Several options suggested by his advisors at the National Security Council are being considered. One option would be giving the US’s support to a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements or on the two-state solution. Alternatively, the outgoing president could settle for only a declarative act, like a speech presenting the main points of his administration’s stance on the conflict. A third option would be to do nothing.
According to the official, the Obama administration is concerned with the situation on the ground. “The two-state solution is dying, this trend is not good. There’s a de facto annexation. We, the Americans, can only rebuke the sides. We’ve searched in the dictionary for a thousand different ways to condemn the settlement construction, and it’s not helping. A condemnation has no bite, and the Israelis know this.” As a result, Obama is feeling the need to do something before he leaves office.
Recently, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, spoke at the annual Zionist Organization of America’s conference, warning foreign diplomats looking to force through one-sided resolutions at the United Nations between now and January 20th when Obama leaves office. He said: “Just recently,” said Danon, “senior diplomats from various countries told me that they plan on taking advantage of the transition period to advance a one-sided resolution against Israel. One thing is clear: Such a resolution will be dangerous for Israel. We will not be pressured to make concessions that will endanger our people.”
So, will Obama take advantage of the transition to the Trump Presidency that began after election day and ends on Jan. 20 to push through a UN Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process and the prospects that US President Barack Obama will support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a Palestinian state between November and January
Recently, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Several Palestinian officials joined in the meeting, including PLO Executive Committee Secretary General Saeb Erakat, Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, among others. After the meeting, the US State Department spokesman John Kirby said the two men discussed “constructive ideas” to advance a two-state solution with Israel. Kirby said Kerry and Abbas would “work with key partners to advance the prospects for peace while opposing all efforts that would undermine that goal.”
Meanwhile, the international Quartet of Middle East peacemakers consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, again warned Israel that its Israel’s settlement policy was harming the chances of a peace agreement and urged both sides to show restraint in the face of a renewal of violent Palestinian attacks against Israelis. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini issued the following statement after meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York: “The Quartet emphasizes its strong opposition to ongoing settlement activity, which is an obstacle to peace, and expressed its grave concern that the acceleration of settlement construction and expansion in Area C [parts of the West Bank under Israeli civilian and security control] and East Jerusalem.”
The Quartet were joined for the latter part of their discussion by the foreign ministers of Egypt and France, whose countries have each proposed ideas to restart talks. According to the Quartet, “All agreed on the importance of close and continuing coordination of all efforts to achieve the common goal of the two-state solution.” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, whose country plans to hold a peace conference by the end of the year, warned that the path to peace was narrowing, but did still exist. He said: “Our goal is still the same: It’s to organize an international conference before the end of the year with both parties present.”
While in New York, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had harsh words to say about Israeli settlement building in a private meeting of countries representing those who have provided financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority. At the meeting, Kerry took Israel to task and was agitated over its policy in the West Bank. Kerry did criticize the Palestinians for their increased number of Palestinian terror attacks and incitement against Israel. However, the thrust of his remarks constituted criticism of the unprecedented rate of construction in the settlements in particular and Israel’s policies in the West Bank in general. Kerry presented figures indicating that since Obama took office in 2009, the number of Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has increased by 95,000, and that 15,000 of that increase has come in the past year alone. “How does increasing the number of settlers indicate an attempt to create a Palestinian state?” Kerry asked, raising his voice. “The status quo is not sustainable. So either we mean it and we act on it, or we should shut up.”
In response, a senior member of the Netanyahu government said: “to come and say that settlement activity is the root of this conflict is simply nonsense. We are ready to meet the Palestinian Authority but it must give up the right of return and recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”
While still in New York, Kerry also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kerry said, “There are things we believe we could achieve in the next months and there are serious concerns that we all have about the security of the region, the need for stability, the need to protect the two-state solution. And our hope is obviously that we can find a way to utilize the friendship of our countries to advance, what we believe is not only in the highest priority for Israel to provide for its long-term security, but also to create a new relationship within the region that can be powerful in reinforcing that long-term security interest.”
Kerry also spoke with anger, cynicism and frustration about the steps Israel was purportedly taking on the ground to ease the lives of the Palestinians. However, many of the measures have not been implemented at all and remain in the nature of declarations or remain simply on paper. He said: “If we really want to get serious about a two-state solution, we need much more than just one-time agreements and improvements. We need to fundamentally change the dynamic by resuming the transition to greater Palestinian civil authority in Area C, which was called for in prior agreements.” Area C is the designation for the areas of the West Bank under full Israeli control.
Kerry concluded by saying that Israelis and Palestinians are at a crossroads. “Either we reverse course and take serious steps on the path to a two-state solution, or the momentum of existing actions will carry us further toward an intractable one-state reality that nobody wants and nobody really thinks can work. The consequences of the current trends reverberate far beyond the immediate damage the destruction and displacement may cause. What’s happening today destroys hope. It empowers extremists,” he added.
The Western diplomats noted that Kerry’s comments presented the despair on both sides, but also the understanding emerging not only on Kerry’s part but also among an increasing number of senior White House officials that they need to seriously consider the possibility of promoting a resolution at the United Nations Security Council or at another international forum. This would be immediately after the U.S. presidential election in November, and would deal with the Israeli-Palestinian issue and preserving the option of a two-state solution in the future.
In an interview with Israel Channel 10, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, hinted at this, noting that the U.S. administration is considering a series of options, including a UN Security Council resolution. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, U.S. President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said Obama does not rule out such a process but no specific proposal has been presented to him yet.
Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli media that he hopes U.S. President Barack Obama would not force a one-sided political solution on Israel before he leaves office, and that the next American president will maintain the longstanding policy of vetoing UN Security Council resolutions on Israel. His remarks came amid Israeli concerns that Obama will try and push a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the elections in November and before he leaves office on January 20. Netanyahu admitted that the issue was not raised during his meeting with the president, but he said that he hoped Obama’s conduct over the years would continue until the end of his term. “I even quoted him (Obama) at the UN when I said that peace isn’t reached through UN resolutions,” Netanyahu said, referring to Obama’s speech at the General Assembly in 2011. “That’s true. It’s done by hard but vital negotiations between the parties,” he added.
US Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, met with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. At the meeting, Netanyahu thanked Trump for his continued support for Israel, his commitment to continued pressuring of Iran and for his opposition to efforts at the United Nations to impose terms of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Under a Trump presidency, the United States will “finally accept the longstanding congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel,” according to his campaign’s description of the meeting, which was closed to the press. Israeli officials said that Netanyahu thanked Trump for his friendship and support of the Jewish state.
Due to the concern that the international community will support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to get the opposition party, Zionist Union, to join his government coalition. According to Israel Channel 10, substantial progress has reportedly been made in talks to form a unity government. According to the report, the center-left Zionist Union party will join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government in exchange for eight portfolios including the highly coveted Foreign Ministry.
However, chairman of the opposition and head of the Zionist Union, Isaac Herzog, denied it. In a message sent out to party members, Herzog called the report “baseless,” stating there have been no contacts with Netanyahu’s political party, Likud. as the report claimed. Likud also officially denied the report.
According to a source privy to the talks, Herzog has met with lawmakers and officials from his party recently to try to convince them to join Netanyahu’s government. Herzog told the lawmakers that there is currently an unprecedented opportunity to lead a diplomatic process in the Middle East and it cannot be missed. According to a senior official in the Zionist Union, opposition to the move within the party has weakened, and the new government could form within a month when the Knesset returns from its summer recess.
Sources in the Likud noted that Netanyahu needs the Zionist Union and a diplomatic process to stave off attempts by Palestinians to push through a resolution in the UN Security Council after the elections in the U.S. in November, but before U.S. President Obama leaves office in January 2017. Netanyahu does not want Israel to go into any international summit on peace without Herzog in the government as he fears his right-wing partners will quit, sending Israel to a snap election.
Meanwhile, Palestinian elections originally scheduled for October 8 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been postponed until the beginning of 2017. In a dispute over the elections between Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s Supreme Court ruled that local elections will take place but only in the West Bank and not the Gaza Strip. In an earlier decision, the court froze the local elections in the West Bank and Gaza slated for October due to what it described as serious irregularities – chiefly a court ruling in Gaza to remove candidate slates identified with Fatah in Gaza and the exclusion of East Jerusalem from the election process. Hamas, who rules in the Gaza Strip, blasted the decision labeling it an attempt to renege democratic responsibilities and avoid a negative outcome for Fatah. The Palestinian Authority court said it could not accept the Gaza court’s ruling or a situation in which there were two separate legal systems.
In wake of the ruling, the Palestinian Authority’s Central Election Committee recommended to postpone the elections by six months so a compromise could be found to permit the local elections to go ahead in Gaza. The committee noted that they respect the top court’s ruling, but said that “de facto, in the current environment, it is impossible to hold a vote and to remove Gaza from the equation.” The Palestinian Authority accepted their recommendation and decided to move the vote by four months to February.
In September 2014 after a protracted legal battle, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli government to dismantle the unauthorized outpost of Amona by December 2016 because the court said it was built illegally on private Palestinian land and must be returned to its original owners. Established in 1997, Amona is the largest of about 100 unauthorized outposts — built without permission but generally tolerated by the government — that exist in the West Bank. In order to resolve the problem, Israel has approved the construction of 98 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh to compensate homeowners of the nearby outpost of Amona ahead of the December court-ordered evacuation and demolition of Jewish homes. The 40 families that live in the Amona outpost have rejected the Shiloh plan and have called for the Israeli government to authorize their small hilltop community in spite of the High Court of Justice ruling that their homes must be razed by December.
The US State Department issued a stern rebuke of Israel’s decision to relocate the citizens of Amona to Shiloh saying: “We strongly condemn the Israeli government’s recent decision to advance a plan that would create a significant new settlement deep in the West Bank,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “The retroactive authorization of nearby illegal outposts, or redrawing of local settlement boundaries, does not change the fact that this approval contradicts previous public statements by the Government of Israel that it had no intention of creating new settlements,” Toner said. “And this settlement’s location deep in the West Bank, far closer to Jordan than Israel, would link a string of outposts that effectively divide the West Bank and make the possibility of a viable Palestinian state more remote.” Toner added: “Proceeding with this new settlement, which could include up to 300 units, would further damage the prospects for a two state solution.”
The US State Department called Israel’s decision “deeply troubling…that Israel would take a decision so contrary to its long-term security interest in a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians,” particularly as it came “in the wake of Israel and the US concluding an unprecedented agreement on military assistance designed to further strengthen Israel’s security.”
Furthermore, the US State Department openly warned the move would “distance Israel from many of its partners. Israelis must ultimately decide between expanding settlements and preserving the possibility of a peaceful two state solution. Since the recent Quartet report this summer called on both sides to take affirmative steps to reverse current trends and advance the two-state solution on the ground, we have unfortunately seen just the opposite,” the statement said. “Proceeding with this new settlement is another step towards cementing a one-state reality of perpetual occupation that is fundamentally inconsistent with Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. Such moves will only draw condemnation from the international community, distance Israel from many of its partners, and further call into question Israel’s commitment to achieving a negotiated peace.”
The White House joined in the State Department’s criticism of Israel saying: “We did receive public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict this announcement,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “I guess when we’re talking about how good friends treat one another that’s a source of serious concern as well.”
The European Union also condemned the Shiloh project saying that “continued settlement expansion also calls into question Israel’s commitment towards reaching a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians. This decision continues the accelerating trend of new settlement announcements since the start of 2016, and risks further separating Ramallah from Nablus and thus further undermining the contiguity of a future Palestinian state,” the EU said. “The decision to continue settlement building and expansion goes directly against the recommendations of the Quartet Report, weakens rather than strengthens the prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East peace process, and makes the possibility of a viable Palestinian state more remote,” it added.
Israel rejected the harsh criticism from the United States for the new construction in the West Bank city of Shiloh saying that the newly authorized construction is not a new settlement. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said: “The 98 housing units approved in Shiloh do not constitute a ‘new settlement’. This housing will be built on state land in the existing settlement of Shiloh and will not change its municipal boundary or geographic footprint.” A Senior Israeli official said that the building plans breached no commitments, did not constitute a new settlement, and would not bring more settlers into the West Bank, since the construction was for new homes for settlers who are to be evicted from the Amona outpost. The Israeli Foreign Ministry also reiterated Israel’s stance that the settlements are not the main cause of the stalled peace process with the Palestinians. “The real obstacle to peace is not the settlements – a final status issue that can and must be resolved in negotiations between the parties — but the persistent Palestinian rejection of a Jewish state in any boundaries,” the statement said.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted US Secretary of State, John Kerry to ease the concern of the new Shiloh construction plans saying: “… the construction [in Shiloh] was to provide an alternative for the Amona residents if no other solution is found.”
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner hinted that the US could take action on the peace process before Obama leaves office saying: “We’re going to carefully consider our future engagement, if and when we reach that point, and determine how to most effectively pursue and advance the objective that we all at least claim to share, which is that of achieving a negotiated two-state solution.”
Israel’s fear is that Obama could now act at the United Nations, after the US elections in November but before the next president is inaugurated in January. This could mean backing a UN Security Council resolution that could seek to impose parameters for negotiations for a two-state solution on Israel and the Palestinians, or a similar UN resolution. A Senior Israel official called the latest dispute with the Obama administration over settlement-building “disproportionate criticism” from the United States over the latest construction plans is “an alibi” to cover plans by President Barack Obama to take anti-Israel actions in the final two months of his presidency. He said: The “disproportionate” US criticism “is an alibi for one-sided actions being planned by Obama even though Obama pledged to Netanyahu that he won’t take any one-sided actions concerning Israel” in the final two months of his presidency.
A recent NY Times editorial suggested Obama do the following: “The best idea under discussion now would be to have the United Nations Security Council, in an official resolution, lay down guidelines for a peace agreement covering such issues as Israel’s security, the future of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and borders for both states. Obama should lead the Security Council to put its authority behind a resolution to support a two-state solution and offer the outlines of what that could be.”
Will Obama support a UN Security Council Resolution after the US elections and prior to when he leaves office on January 20th recognizing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process and an analysis of the $ 38 billion dollar military aid agreement which the United States will be giving Israel over the next 10 years. In doing so, we ask the question, ‘Will Obama support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a Palestinian state between November and January ?’
Recently, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video calling it ‘outrageous’ that the international community supports the Palestinian position that there should be ‘no Jews’ living in a potential Palestinian state. Let’s hear Netanyahu in his own words:
The Obama administration was fuming over Netanyahu’s remarks. US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters the administration is “engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli government” about the video. “We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful. We share the view of every past US administration, and the strong consensus of the international community, that ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution,” Trudeau said. “Let’s be clear,” she added. “The undisputed fact is that already this year, thousands of settlement units have been advanced for Israelis in the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units have been retroactively legalized, more West Bank land has been seized for exclusive Israeli use, and there has been a dramatic escalation of demolitions resulting in over 700 Palestinian structures destroyed, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians. As we’ve said many times before, this does raise real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.”
The PMO, not wanting to get into a tit-for-tat with the US State Department had no response to the sharp reaction by the United States. An Israeli official said that Netanyahu’s video was “one step” in the direction of getting the world to pay attention to the Palestinian demand that there not be any Jews in a Palestinian state. In fact, Palestinian leaders have on a number of occasions stressed that all settlements would have to be completely removed from a future Palestinian state. For instance, in July of 2013, just prior to the start of US-led Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian journalists in Cairo that “in a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands.” And at a dinner in 2010 with Jewish leaders in the US hosted by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, he said, “If we want an independent state, I will not accept any single Israeli in our territories. We are not against the Jews. We are against the Israeli occupation.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon slammed Netanyahu’s video comments as “unacceptable and outrageous” in which Netanyahu insisted that Palestinians were seeking the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in the West Bank. Ban Ki-Moon said: “I am disturbed by a recent statement by Israel’s Prime Minister portraying those who oppose settlement expansion as supporters of ethnic cleansing. This is unacceptable and outrageous,” Ban told the UN Security Council. “Let me be absolutely clear: settlements are illegal under international law. The occupation, stifling and oppressive, must end.”
In response, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon responded that Ban had a “distorted view of the situation in Israel.” Danon said: “Instead of directly condemning Hamas for building tunnels and a terrorist infrastructure, instead of investing resources in stopping Palestinian incitement and terrorism, the secretary-general has chosen to regularly condemn Israel,” he added.
Ban Ki-Moon used the opening of the UN General Assembly’s 71st session to criticize Israel saying: “As a friend of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, it pains me that this past decade has been ten years lost to peace. Ten years lost to illegal settlement expansion. Ten years lost to intra-Palestinian divide, growing polarization and hopelessness. This is madness.” The UN Secretary General mentioned that “the occupation grinds into its 50th year” and added that “replacing a two-state solution with a one-state construct would spell doom: denying Palestinians their freedom and rightful future, and pushing Israel further from its vision of a Jewish democracy towards greater global isolation.”
Israel Ambassador Danon reacted to the UN chief’s speech and said that “the real madness belongs to the UN. Instead of focusing on Palestinian terror and incitement, and instead of compelling Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, the Secretary General chose to criticize Israel once again,” he continued. “This is an obsession with Israel and it must end. At a time when Palestinian terror is on the rise in Israel, the Secretary General chose to criticize us and ignore the direct responsibility of Abbas and the Palestinian leadership who continue to incite towards terror.”
US President Barack Obama spoke at the United Nations General Assembly regarding the Israeli – Palestinian conflict saying that Israel must recognize that it cannot “permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.” Obama said: “Surely Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel. But Israel must recognize that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land. We all have to do better,” the US president said.
At the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he plans to soon present the UN Security Council with a resolution against the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians will “continue to exert all efforts” for a UN Security Council resolution against Israel, adding that he was “in intensive consultations with Arab countries” regarding the resolution. Abbas said he hoped no country would veto the resolution.
In other news, the United States and Israel signed a military defense aid agreement that promises Israel $38 billion over 10 years. It terms have been being negotiated since November, 2015. Following the agreement, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement thanking U.S. President Barack Obama, his administration, Israel’s friends in Congress and the American people for their bipartisan support of the aid agreement. He noted that the signing of the deal demonstrates the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is strong and stable. “This doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements from time to time, but those disagreements are within the family,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu said the disagreements have “no effect whatsoever on the great friendship” between Israel and the U.S., adding that the friendship expressed in the agreement will greatly help Israel continue to fortify its strength over the next decade. The prime minister said that support for Israel crosses party lines in the U.S., adding that many in the U.S. understand that investment in Israel’s security strengthens stability in the unstable Middle East, serving both Israeli and U.S. security.
One of the most significant disputes during the bilateral negotiations related to the America demand to stop the arrangement that allowed Israel to spend some 40 percent of the American aid to buy equipment from Israeli defense industries and to buy fuel for the IDF. The highlights of the agreement are as follows:
− Israel will get $3.8 billion dollars annually, $500 million of which will be allocated to developing missile defense systems.
− Israel commits not to approach Congress for additional budgets for missile defense systems. In the event of an emergency, Israel can request additional budgets for missile defense systems but only if the administration agrees to it.
− The agreement does not prevent Israel from asking Congress for additional aid on security issues such as the fight against tunnels or the development of cyber defense systems.
− Once the agreement goes into effect, there will be a gradual phasing out of Israel’s right to use 26 percent of the American aid to buy equipment from Israel defense industries.
− When the agreement goes into effect, Israel will immediately stop using 14 percent of the American aid to buy fuel for the Israel Defense Forces.
The big question is does this agreement give Obama “political cover” to argue that he is a supporter of the security of Israel while possibly supporting a United Nations Security Council Resolution specifying the parameters of a two-state solution and recognize a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital between November and January?
Upon signing the agreement, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement about the deal stressing that it demonstrated the U.S.’s commitment to Israel’s security in word and deed. Obama said: “Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are confident that the new MOU will make a significant contribution to Israel’s security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood,” Obama said. “The continued supply of the world’s most advanced weapons technology will ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself from all manner of threats. It is because of this same commitment to Israel and its long-term security that we will also continue to press for a two-state solution to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal,” Obama continued. “As I have emphasized previously, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine. Ultimately, both this MOU and efforts to advance the two-state solution are motivated by the same core U.S. objective of ensuring that Israelis can live alongside their neighbors in peace and security.”
Netanyahu flew to New York to speak at the 71st session of the UN General Assembly. In coming to the United States, Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama. In meeting with Netanyahu, Obama said that he wants to ensure that efforts for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be kept alive beyond his presidency.
A senior Israeli official who is familiar with the details of the conversation between the two told journalists at a briefing that the disagreement about the settlement issue came up but was not the main topic of discussion. The senior official noted that Netanyahu did not raise the possibility that Obama might make a move in the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian issue during the period between the American elections in November and the end of his term on January 20. “The issue didn’t come up and they didn’t talk about it,” the senior official said. “There’s an elephant in the room. Netanyahu knows there’s an elephant and Obama knows there’s an elephant and both know that the other knows that there’s an elephant in the room.”
At the outset of the meeting, Obama told reporters that he will be interested in hearing Netanyahu’s assessment about the conditions in Israel and the West Bank. “There is great danger of terrorism and flair ups of violence and we also have concerns about settlement activity. We want to see how Israel sees the next few years… because we want to make sure that we keep alive this possibility of a stable secure Israel at peace with its neighbors and a Palestinian homeland that meets the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” said Obama.
Obama’s comments reflected the view of the American administration that the two-state solution is in real danger of becoming irrelevant in the near future, mostly because of the construction in the settlements and the diplomatic freeze between Israel and the Palestinians. The Americans think the situation on the West Bank and the present trends are leading to a reality of a single bi-national state.
The U.S. administration has been holding discussions over the past few months about the possibility of advancing a move in the UN Security Council on the Israel-Palestinian issue, after the U.S. presidential elections in November and before Obama leaves office. Political advisors to Obama say he might wait until after the November election to possibly give a speech outlining his ideas for a two-state solution and the parameters for a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians or even encapsulate these ideas in a resolution before the United Nations Security Council between November and January. However, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said in a press briefing before the meeting that he does not rule out the possibility that Obama will decide to carry out such a step before the end of his term, Rhodes made it clear that for now he has no such plan.
US diplomat, Dennis Ross, who worked on Israeli-Palestinian issues for decades, including a two-year stint as special assistant to Obama and a year as special adviser to Hillary Clinton, said that the current president “would like to do something, leave some kind of legacy.” regarding the Israeli / Palestinian peace process. He said that if Donald Trump won the US Presidential elections that it would make it more likely that Obama would support a UN Security Council Resolution against Israel between November and January. “I suspect that if Trump wins, the president would be more inclined to go for a Security Council resolution to try to do something that binds, creates standards for the future that the next president couldn’t undo,” Dennis Ross said at a conference on the future of Zionism and the US-Israel relationship.
Once the dust has settled following elections on November 8, Obama may use the opportunity as a lame duck to deliver a speech laying out parameters for a peace arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians, or even suggest a Security Council resolution defining those parameters, either to be proposed by the US or another country, Ross speculated. The president’s speech, were he to make one, would very likely be balanced, Ross added, by equally addressing Palestinian concerns — borders and Jerusalem — and Israeli demands regarding security and the question of Palestinian refugees.
But any Security Council resolution introduced by another country would very likely emphasize the Palestinian demands over Israeli concerns, he said. “Then the question becomes: if someone else introduces this as a resolution and it waters down the essence of what the president has offered, which would have been balanced between the two, does the US then veto it? That is going to be heavily influenced by the outcome of the election,” Ross said. “I’m guessing he would be much more inclined to try to be proactive in terms of presenting something that could create standards for the future that the next president couldn’t undo,” he continued.
Because of the concern that US President Barack Obama may support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters for a Palestinian state between November and January, 88 US senators submitted a bipartisan letter calling for President Barack Obama to uphold US policy that calls for a veto of any one-sided United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The letter quotes Obama’s UN speech to the General Assembly in 2011, in which he said, “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations.”
The letter warned that the international community should “avoid taking action that would harm the prospects for meaningful progress,” noting, “Even well-intentioned initiatives at the United Nations risk locking the parties into positions that will make it more difficult to return to the negotiating table and make the compromises necessary for peace. The United States remains an indispensable trusted mediator between the parties, and we must continue to insist that neither we nor any other outside substitute for the parties to the conflict.”
The letter also emphasizes the senators’ hope for a two-state solution, saying, “The only way to resolve the conflicts between the two is through direct negotiations that lead to a sustainable two-state solution with a future sate of Palestine living in peace and security with Israel. This outcome would provide Israel with greater security and strengthen regional stability. We remain optimistic that, under the right circumstances, Israelis and Palestinians can successfully resume productive negotiations toward this goal.”
One US Senator who did not sign the letter was Ted Cruz (R)(TX). He stated his reason as follows: “I support the spirit of the letter to President Obama, which is to urge him to oppose any anti-Israel activities at the United Nations Security Council,” the Texas senator said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the language in the opening paragraph declaring the ‘two-state solution’ as the ‘only’ resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians undermines this well-intentioned effort, and makes it impossible for me to sign. This matter is an internal one for Israel to decide, and it is not the place of the United States—or the United Nations—to impose a solution on a sovereign nation.”
As the letter from the 88 US Senators confirms, there is significant bipartisan concern in Washington DC that US President Barack Obama “won’t have Israel’s back” at the United Nations Security Council following the US elections in November. Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said a day after 88 US senators sent a letter to Obama urging him to veto any one-sided resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the remainder of his time in office. The letter, which was organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), made “very telling points,” May said. “A one-sided UN Security Council resolution would be damaging not just to Israel, but to any possibility of peace in the near future,” May warned. He further explained, “I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that the UN is egregiously prejudiced against Israel. And what you don’t want to see is something like what the French have been discussing — mandated negotiations, and if those negotiations fail to produce fruit, the Palestinians would be rewarded. That would assure that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas would not make any concessions.”
In comment to Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly where he said that “Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.” May noted that those words would “probably feed into the concern that exists that after the election Obama will take actions that will tie the hands of the next president. People in this town who are in favor of a productive peace process — those who want to see the Israelis and the Palestinians living side by side in peace — are worried and I think the idea is that if President Obama is contemplating such a move now that needs to be discouraged,” May concluded.
So, will Obama support a UN Security Council Resolution between November and January which outlines the parameters for a mandated solution to the Israeli – Palestinian conflict and endorse support for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its captital? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current status of the Israeli / Palestinian peace process and the announcement by the Temple Institute in Jerusalem of the establishment of a school for Jewish priests to perform the Temple service and the selection of a High Priest by the nascent Sanhedrin
Recently, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a meeting with a blue-ribbon, bipartisan delegation of high-ranking former national security officials. One of the issues discussed was the possibility of US President Barack Obama supporting the parameters of a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council between November and January. Speculation is high in Israel that Obama will want to leave some kind of legacy regarding the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians before he leaves office on January 20, 2017. His options include delivering a speech laying down what he believes should be the parameters of any final peace deal, to either supporting or not vetoing a new UN resolution on the Mideast that would supplant UN Security Council Resolution 242 that has underpinned all peace efforts since 1967.
Israel’s concern is that any of these moves might be used to try and impose a solution on the conflict from the outside. In order to discourage this from happening, Israeli government officials have in recent days highlighted Obama’s 2011 speech to the UN General Assembly which at the time was debating the issue of Palestinian statehood.
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations – if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now,” Obama said. “Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem.” One Israeli official said that this speech was Israel’s “reference point” regarding possible Obama moves in the coming months. “That speech was clear and unequivocal, and hopefully there will not be any surprises,” the official said.
The United States and the European Union wants the UN Security Council to endorse some kind of parameters to support a two-state solution and an eventual Palestinian state. This was revealed after the Middle East Quartet consisting of the UN, EU, Russia and the US, who are mediators of the Israel / Palestinian peace process issued a report on July 1 on the current status of the peace process while providing specific recommendations that could contribute to an eventual peace agreement. As expected, the Quartet report was highly critical of Israeli settlement building. However, the report also highlighted Palestinian incitement to violence against Israel. This part of the report infuriated the Palestinian Authority. Nevertheless, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the UN Security Council to support the Quartet’s findings despite the strong opposition from both Israel and the Palestinians.
Negotiations on a draft presidential statement — a non-binding document issued by the president of the council — began shortly after the report was presented to the UN on July 1, and, according to diplomats, the EU and the US were also exploring the possibility of drafting a full-fledged UN Security Council Resolution calling on the two sides to embrace the report. However, Egypt, which is a non-permanent member of the council, successfully stopped that effort. Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, explained that Arab diplomats agreed during a meeting to try to block any move by the UN Security Council to adopt a US-drafted statement backing the recommendations contained in the Quartet report. Egypt, which represents the Arab group on the council, was told “not to allow a statement to be adopted welcoming and endorsing the recommendations because of its rebuke of Palestinian incitement and terrorism” Mansour said.
The Palestinian envoy suggested that the recommendations by the Quartet concerning Israeli settlements were watered down in the final draft of the report by a “very powerful” member of the quartet, in a reference to the United States. The Palestinians want the Security Council to “take note” of the report and welcome the current French and Egyptian initiatives to revive peace talks but the UN Security Council must not endorse the recommendations of the report, Mansour said. The French initiative would ensure that there is a collective approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon stressed that direct negotiations were the only path to achieve peace. “Plans for international initiative which seeks to impose a solution on the two sides send exactly the wrong message, said Danon. “It tells the Palestinians they can achieve all the goals while continuing to encourage terror and refuse to even talk to Israel.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal said that Foreign ministers from nearly 30 countries will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian issue on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September and announce the date of the French sponsored international conference on the Israeli / Palestinian conflict adding that the participating nations have already initiated preparatory work for the French conference in subcommittees. Nofal said: “By the end of meeting, if all parties agree, France may announce that the final conference is likely to convene during the first week of October or, if there are any complications, in December.” The 71st Regular Session of the UN General Assembly will begin at UN Headquarters on September 13, 2016.
On August 31, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank approved the construction of 466 new housing units. Construction in the settlements was approved by the Civil Administration’s High Planning Committee, which had been convened at the insistence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, Israel Army Radio reported.
United States spokesman Josh Earnest called the “significant expansion of the settlement activity” a “serious and growing threat to the viability of a two state solution.” He said the US was “particularly troubled by the policy of retroactively approving illegal outposts and unauthorized settlements. These policies have effectively given the government’s green light for the pervasive advancement of settlement activity in a new and potentially unlimited way. As the Quartet report highlights, we are concerned about a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalizations,” he said. This, the official warned, “fundamentally undermines the prospects for a two-state solution and risks entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.”
The European Union issued a statement condemning Israel’s decision calling it “a serious concern.” The EU statement added: “The Quartet’s report published in July identified such action as undermining the prospects for peace and steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution and recommended that any expansion of settlements be frozen. The EU reiterates its strong opposition to Israel’s settlement policy and all actions taken in this context.”
Nickolay Mladenov, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that Israeli settlement expansion has surged in the two months since the diplomatic Quartet called for a halt to the construction of Jewish outposts on Palestinian land. Since July 1, Israeli has advanced plans for over 1,000 housing units in occupied east Jerusalem and 735 units in the West Bank, Mladenov said. “The Quartet’s recommendations continues to be ignored, including by a surge in Israeli settlement-related announcements and continuing demolitions,” Mladenov told the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council declared Israeli settlements in occupied territory to be illegal in a resolution adopted in 1979. The UN envoy declared that according to UN Resolution 446 of March, 1979, Israeli settlements in occupied territory have no legal validity and have since then constituted an obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the Middle East. “No legal acrobatics can change the fact that all outposts, whether ‘legalized’ under Israeli law or not, whether located on state land, absentee land, or private land, just like all settlements in Area C and in East Jerusalem, remain illegal under international law,” Mladenov insisted.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected calls for a halt to settlement expansion arguing that the residential projects are not an obstacle to peace saying, “The UN envoy to the Middle East’s remarks to the Security Council distort history and international law and drive peace even further away. Jews have been in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria for thousands of years and their presence there is not an obstacle to peace,” the prime minister stated. “The obstacle to peace is the unending attempt to deny the Jewish people’s connection to parts of their historic land and the obdurate refusal to recognize that they are not foreigners there. The claim that Jewish construction in Jerusalem is illegal is as absurd as the claim that American construction in Washington or French construction in Paris is illegal,” Netanyahu continued. “The Palestinian demand that a future Palestinian state be ethnically cleansed of Jews is outrageous, and the UN must condemn it instead of adopting it.”
According to Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, Mladenov’s remarks hindered the peace process while further validating the UN’s hypocritical attitude towards Israel.
“His words are in complete isolation from the facts on the ground,” said Danon. “Israel will continue to build the eternal capital of Jerusalem, just as the nations of the world will continue to build capitals without checking in with the United Nations. The UN should concentrate on solving the main obstacle in the area, which is the Palestinian refusal to condemn terrorism and to return to the negotiating table,” he concluded. Danon added that Mladenov’s statements are a “prize to the Palestinians,” in fact distance the chances of reaching a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs and illustrate the hypocrisy of the UN regarding Israel.
In other news, the Temple Institute has brought the Third Temple one step closer by establishing a school for Jewish priests (kohanim) to learn how to perform the Temple Service. A group of students, certified as being from the priestly class, stands ready to learn all of the details of these complicated tasks. At the end of March, the Temple Institute established a registry of Kohanim, a list of men who have a clear patriarchal heritage from the priestly class. The Kohanim must fit certain criteria, in addition to having priestly heritage: they must have been born and raised in Israel and have observed the laws of purity incumbent upon priests. This excludes anyone who has come into proximity with the dead, so priests who were born in hospitals, have visited hospitals, or have entered cemeteries are not eligible.
The Temple Institute established The Nezer HaKodesh Institute for Kohanic Studies to instruct Jews from the priestly caste in the Temple service. This comes after four years of extensive pilot programs. In the new program, students will learn the halacha (Torah law) relevant to the Temple service.
THE NEZER HAKODESH INSTITUTE FOR KOHANIC STUDIES
Furthermore, a significant step was recently taken towards reinstating the Temple service when the nascent Sanhedrin selected Rabbi Baruch Kahane as the next Kohen Gadol (high priest). Rabbi Kahane is a prominent scholar, knowledgeable in the complicated laws pertaining to the subject of the Temple Service. He is part of the Halacha Berurah Institute, established by Rabbi Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, which deals with the elucidation of Jewish law from its Talmudic sources (Oral Law) and commentaries. He has played a prominent role in all the reenactments of the Temple services performed to date.
The Sanhedrin selection was made as a precaution for Yom Kippur. However, it should be noted that while the Nascent Sanhedrin recommended Rabbi Baruch Kahane as the Kohen Gadol, it did not officially appoint him as he made it clear he would be unwilling to accept such an appointment at this time. The Sanhedrin recommended him for the position of “Rosh Kohanim” (head of the priests), a role with Biblical precedent which is often but not always synonymous with that of the High Priest. The court recognized and blessed Rabbi Kahane’s invaluable efforts in the past to advance the issue of reinstating the Temple Service, which include participating in reenactments and establishing a school for educating kohanim.
Rabbi Baruch Kahane
Rabbi Kahane was reluctant to discuss the Sanhedrin’s decision. “This may not be the time to choose a Kohen Gadol. There are no sacrifices required,” he said. However, he added, “That could change overnight. In any case, it is clear that we need to be prepared, to prepare the priests, to have everything ready.”
When asked how long it would take to begin sacrifices if it suddenly became permissible, he considered carefully before answering. “If the government decided to permit it, it would only take a few weeks to make preparations, even to do the Yom Kippur service,” he said. “The structures can be temporary and prepared almost overnight. The biggest obstacle is educating the kohanim, which we are taking care of already. Once the priests are thoroughly educated, choosing a Kohen Gadol and teaching him what he needs to know for the Yom Kippur service is relatively simple and will take one week. The Temple Service performed by the Kohen Gadol is very demanding, but for an educated kohen, it is not overly difficult to learn to serve as the Kohen Gadol.”
Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the nascent Sanhedrin, explained the necessity for choosing a High Priest, even in the absence of a Temple. “We do not need a miraculous occurrence like the sudden appearance of a Temple descending from heaven onto the Temple Mount to make this decision relevant,” explained Rabbi Weiss. “The only obstacle preventing the Temple service today is the political issue. If that should suddenly change, as it very well could, we would be required to begin the Temple service immediately. It is therefore necessary that we have a candidate prepared to fill the role of the High Priest, especially now that we have kohanim prepared to serve in the Temple.”
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder and and head of the Temple Institute, is a member of the Sanhedrin but did not rule in this decision. He told Breaking Israel News that it was necessary for the Sanhedrin to choose a Kohen Gadol. “This is certainly something we should do now as religious Jews. Choosing a high priest and all of the preparations for the Temple Service are mitzvot (commandments) that are incumbent upon us according to the Torah,” said Rabbi Ariel.
“It is not a matter of opinion. It is written explicitly in the Torah and, just like any of the other mitzvot written in the Torah, we have to choose a Kohen Gadol, and make all the preparations, regardless of whether there is a Temple standing right now.”
The Temple Institute was founded in 1987 to fulfill the mission of bringing about the Third Temple. It has recreated over 70 vessels that are ready to be used in the Temple, is breeding the Red Heifer in order to purify the Nation of Israel and has produced the special garment the Bible requires the Kohanim to wear while performing the Temple service.
The Institute has also reconstructed the High Priest’s breastplate featuring the twelve precious stones of the tribes of Israel, the half-ton golden menorah that will stand inside the Temple, and the musical instruments of the Levitical choir. In addition, it has made significant advances in preparing the architectural plans for the building of the Temple.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The condemnation by the US and the international community of Israel for building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and whether there is a possibility that the US will support a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital at the UN Security Council later this year
In the last week of July, Israel announced plans to build 770 Jewish homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo. They are part of a larger plan for around 1,200 units approved about three years ago. Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said: “The plans in question are not new construction and were approved three years ago.” In addition, Israel announced plans to build 323 Jewish homes in four Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians and many in the international community view the new housing that Israel builds in East Jerusalem as illegal settlements. Most Israelis see the area, where about 200,000 Jews now live, as regular suburbs of a united Jerusalem.
The announcement drew strong condemnation from the Palestinians, the United Nations, the European Union and the United States. Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in the peace process said that the decision “further reflects the failure of the international community to stop Israel’s settlement expansion.” The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that he was “increasingly concerned by the near-daily advancement of the illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said: “The [Gilo] decision raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions. The new housing units contribute to “the establishment of a ring of Israeli settlements around the city, thus further cutting East Jerusalem off from the southern West Bank,” the statement said. “The EU calls on Israel to reverse this decision and to cease its settlement activity,” it added.
Furthermore, the United States strongly rebuked Israel for its announcement to build more Jewish homes in East Jerusalem. In a press release, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said: “We are deeply concerned by reports today that the Government of Israel has published tenders for 323 units in East Jerusalem settlements. This follows the recent announcement of plans for 770 units in the settlement of Gilo. We strongly oppose settlement activity, which is corrosive to the cause of peace. These steps by Israeli authorities are the latest examples of what appears to be a steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two- state solution … As the recent Quartet Report highlighted, this is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development that risk entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict,” Mr. Kirby said in the statement. “We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.”
The Quartet refers to the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. They are regarded as mediators in the peace process. The quartet issued a report on July 1 calling on Israel to halt settlement construction and expansion and to stop designating land for exclusive Israeli use.
Jamal Dajani, director of communications for Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. said: “We support the State Department’s statement. It is about time we hear this from the U.S. The whole international community is condemning these Israeli actions. They are a violation of the Geneva convention, which specifically prohibits the occupying power from transferring people in the areas it is occupying.”
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Emanuel Nachshon said that the building in Gilo “was done with the full knowledge that the neighborhood of Gilo in Jerusalem will be part of Israel in any conceivable agreement reached through negotiations. The argument that building in Gilo undermines the two-state solution is factually baseless and distracts from the real obstacle to peace — the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, under any borders.” Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and a member of the current Israeli government said: “By [the United States] condemning building in Gilo, the administration repeats its initial mistake in the peace process. It is creating a demand that no Israeli government can meet and no Palestinian leader can ignore. Nobody in Israel views Gilo as a settlement, but once the US administration demands a freeze in Gilo then no Palestinian leader can demand anything less,” he said. “Gilo is a dealbreaker.”
In the first part of August, Israel demolished five Palestinian buildings in the West Bank constructed without permits including three paid for by the European Union. These buildings were located in Area C in the West Bank which is under full Israel control. This area in the West Bank was established in the 1993 Oslo Accords. The European Union tries to supply money to build Palestinian structures in Area C without building permits from Israel. The European Union wants to build Palestinians structures in Area C to help create “facts on the ground” prior to a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians as outlined in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen said that around 70 percent of Area C has been taken exclusively for Israeli use and that the remaining land is effectively off limits for Palestinian development. Faaborg-Andersen pointed out that between 2009 and 2013 Israel had provided only 44 building permits to Palestinians in response to about 2,000 requests. “EU assistance is provided in situations where Israel is not fulfilling its duty as the occupying power,” he said. “That is according to the international law, universal norms and the Oslo accords.” The envoy added that “in the first 6 months of 2016 alone, 91 EU-sponsored structures in Area C have been demolished. This is more than all of 2015. Since 2009, approximately 170 EU-backed structures have been demolished.”
In response, US State Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Trudeau, said that the United States is aware that the government of Israel has demolished several EU-funded Palestinian homes in the West Bank. More than 650 Palestinian structures have been demolished this year, with more Palestinian structures demolished in the West Bank and East Jerusalem thus far than in all of 2015. As a result, the United States remains concerned about the increased demolition of Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The United States believes that this is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansions, legalization of outpost, denial of Palestinian development. We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
In addition, the United States has warned it will respond harshly if Israel demolishes the Palestinian village of Sussia in the southern Hebron Hills of the West Bank. Israeli and American officials said that recently U.S. administration officials has informed Israel that a severe American reaction would result if Israel destroys the houses in the village. Israeli officials said similar messages were conveyed by the European Union, the British government and other international bodies. For example, the British government said that it would find it difficult to continue assisting Israel in international forums in the event the Arab village of Sussia were demolished.
The Israeli officials said international pressure over the matter came after the Palestinian Authority turned to the United States and a number of other Western countries, claiming that Israel intends to destroy the village in a few weeks. According to the Israeli officials, the Prime Minister’s office told the Americans and Europeans that at this stage there is no plan to destroy Sussia, and that the Israeli government would act in accordance with rulings by the High Court of Justice which is now hearing a petition on the matter. The petition was submitted by a right-wing Regavim association which claims the village was built illegally and thus should be demolished by the Israel Civil Administration.
The villagers of Sussia, which is in Area C, under full Israeli military and civilian control, are among the poorest people in the West Bank. Over the past 30 years, they have been moved out of their houses a few times. In 1986, Sussia was declared a national park and its residents removed to their adjacent farmland. In 2001, they were once again removed by the army, and the caves and tin shacks they lived in were demolished.
The High Court at one point ordered the cessation of the demolitions and allowed the residents to remain on the site. However, the court did not instruct the Civil Administration to issue construction permits. As a result, all of the houses in the village have been built without permits. In recent years the Civil Administration has proposed to the residents of Sussia that they move to an area bordering on Area A – formally under full Palestinian control – closer to the village of Yatta. However, they declined.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the nearby Jewish settlement of Susya and the Regavim association have been pressuring the Civil Administration to carry out the demolition orders. Negotiations between the villagers and the Civil Administration began again early this year to try to regulate the village and issue construction permits for the houses. The parties held three rounds of talks and progress was made. However, they suddenly stopped in June without explanation. According to people involved in the negotiations, the round of talks that had been set for last month was canceled. These developments have led the Palestinian residents to fear that Israel has decided to demolish the village.
The High Court held another hearing on August 1 on the petition to implement the demolition order, with court President Miriam Naor leading the bench. At the end of the hearing, the court ordered Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to submit his position on the evacuation of Sussia by August 15. Naor also ordered that the 30 houses in immediate danger of demolition were not to be destroyed before that time. The defense minister’s office responded that no directive had been issued by Lieberman regarding Sussia, and that he was still studying the matter.
Regarding the peace process, US Secretary of State, John Kerry met recently with Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas in France. US State Department spokesman, John Kirby said: Kerry spoke with “Abbas about prospects for a two-state solution, and trying to make meaningful progress to create the conditions…where that solution can be more successfully pursued,” Kirby explained. “You’ve seen the travel that he has made to the region. This remains an area of prime focus for him.”
Regarding the talks, Abbas said that any reboot of peace talks with Israel should happen within a clear time frame and under international supervision. Abbas made his comments after meeting with John Kerry. Abbas also held talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on the prospects of achieving a two-state solution. Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat described the talks with the US and France as “very constructive.” At the meetings, Erekat said that Abbas “reiterated our full support to the French initiative that aims to convene an international conference before the end of the year.” Erekat added that there was “no contradiction” between the French, U.S. and more recently Egyptian efforts to break the deadlock and move the peace talks forward. “All these efforts aim to revive the peace process, to achieve the two-state solution (based) on the 1967 lines. They are complementary,” he said. “We need a timeline for the negotiations, we need a timeline for the implementation, and we need an international framework that will ensure the implementation of any agreement reached.”
Is the harsh language that the US is now using toward the building of Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as removing illegal Palestinians structures in Area C of the West Bank an indication that the Obama administration is so angry at Israel that it is willing to support parameters for a PLO state with East Jerusalem as its capital at the UN Security Council by the end of 2016 based upon the recommendations made by those attending an international peace conference sponsored by France anticipated at the end of the year?
The US State Department’s position regarding Israeli settlements has evolved over the years. While previous administrations described them as an “obstacle to peace,” the Obama administration have degraded them to being “illegitimate.” However, to describe the building of Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “corrosive to the cause of peace,” as “systematically undermining the prospects for a two-state solution,” as “entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict” and as “provocative and counterproductive” – is very harsh language and does it suggest a change in US policy toward Israel?
In a recent Newsweek article, it was stated: “The French government is driving an initiative to convene an international conference in 2016—a tent for organizing consensus toward a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to revive peace talks. If the conference can achieve the support of nine out of 15 Security Council members for its suggested draft-resolution, with the U.S. agreeing not to exercise its veto, [the parameters for a] two state solution will be outlined.” Given the strong language used by the US State Department condemning Israel for building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US “can now leverage the impact of its declaration by joining with Europe and other forces around the globe, including some moderate Arab states, to outline the parameters for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” as a UN Security Council Resolution.
In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration “is working on plans for reviving long-stalled Middle East negotiations before President Barack Obama leaves office, including a possible United Nations Security Council resolution that would outline steps toward a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to senior U.S. officials. The internal discussions are aimed at offering a blueprint for future Israeli-Palestinian talks in a bid to advance a critical foreign-policy initiative that has made little progress during Mr. Obama’s two terms in the White House, the officials said. The strongest element on the list of options under consideration would be U.S. support for a Security Council resolution calling on both sides to compromise on key issues. The timing of any new move by Obama officials said it would be later in 2016.”
“U.S. officials said the president wants to put the issue on a more promising trajectory before his successor takes office in January, 2017. In one scenario, [the official said that] the U.S. would push Israel to halt construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories and recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians would in turn be asked to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end claims on a right of return for Palestinian refugees. Under that scenario, the administration also would recommend the establishment of two states based on the 1949 armistice line between the armies of Israel and its Arab neighbors. Like proposals in previous rounds of negotiations, the approach would recommend land swaps to account for Israeli settlements built since 1967.”
At the beginning of this year, France has said that if it’s intended efforts this year to outline the parameters of a two-state solution fails that it will unilaterally recognize a PLO state. Therefore, we know that France is in favor of a UN Security Council Resolution that calls for a PLO state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In fact, in December 2014, France supported a UN security council resolution creating a framework for a final resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Those efforts failed due to opposition from Israel and the US on one hand, and an unwillingness by the Palestinians on the other to compromise on the wording of the decision.
Has the US changed its position from December, 2014? Will Obama now be willing to support a UN Security Council Resolution outlining the parameters of a PLO state with East Jerusalem as its capital by the end of 2016? Does the latest harsh language by the Obama administration against building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem an indication that Obama is so angry at Israel that he is willing to change his policy before he leaves office in January, 2017? What will Obama do regarding the peace process? Only time will tell.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The July 1 Middle East Quartet Report on the peace process and reaction to it by Israel, the Palestinians and the European Union
On July 1, the Middle East peace Quartet (UN, EU, US and Russia) released a report on the current status of the peace process. A summary of the report is as follows:
The Quartet reiterates that a negotiated two-state outcome is the only way to achieve an enduring peace that meets Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues.
The Quartet recalls its previous statements and relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and pledges its active support for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). In this regard, the Quartet reiterates its commitment to continue working in coordination with key stakeholders, including regional countries and the UN Security Council, to restore hope in a political solution.
While the majority of people on both sides and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas express their support for the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, the Quartet remains seriously concerned that continuing on the current course will make this prospect increasingly remote. In particular, each of the following trends is severely undermining hopes for peace:
Continuing violence, terrorist attacks against civilians, and incitement to violence are greatly exacerbating mistrust and are fundamentally incompatible with a peaceful resolution;
The continuing policy of settlement construction and expansion, designation of land for exclusive Israeli use, and denial of Palestinian development is steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution; and
The illicit arms build-up and militant activity, continuing absence of Palestinian unity, and dire humanitarian situation in Gaza feed instability and ultimately impede efforts to achieve a negotiated solution.
The Quartet stresses the urgent need for affirmative steps to reverse each of these trends in order to prevent entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict that is incompatible with realizing the national aspirations of both peoples.
The Quartet reiterates that unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community.
The Quartet stresses that while a permanent status agreement that ends the conflict can only be achieved through direct bilateral negotiations, important progress can be made now towards advancing the two-state solution on the ground.
The Quartet calls on each side to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution.
To that end, the Quartet emphasizes the importance of both parties complying with their basic commitments under existing agreements in order to promote this two-state reality and lay the groundwork for successful negotiations.
Recommendations
The Quartet calls on each side to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations. The Quartet emphasizes the importance of both parties complying with their basic commitments in order to advance a peaceful two state reality on the ground and create the conditions for successful final status negotiations. The Quartet has the following specific recommendations:
Both sides should work to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint and refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric.
Both sides should take all necessary steps to prevent violence and protect the lives and property of all civilians, including through continuing security coordination and strengthening the capacity, capability and authority of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces.
The Palestinian Authority should act decisively and take all steps within its capacity to cease incitement to violence and strengthen ongoing efforts to combat terrorism, including by clearly condemning all acts of terrorism.
Israel should cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and denying Palestinian development.
Israel should implement positive and significant policy shifts, including transferring powers and responsibilities in Area C, consistent with the transition to greater Palestinian civil authority contemplated by prior agreements. Progress in the areas of housing, water, energy, communications, agriculture, and natural resources, along with significantly easing Palestinian movement restrictions, can be made while respecting Israel’s legitimate security needs.
The Palestinian leadership should continue their efforts to strengthen institutions, improve governance, and develop a sustainable economy. Israel should take all necessary steps to enable this process, in line with the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee recommendations.
All sides must continue to respect the ceasefire in Gaza, and the illicit arms buildup and militant activities must be terminated.
Israel should accelerate the lifting of movement and access restrictions to and from Gaza, with due consideration of its need to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks.
Gaza and the West Bank should be reunified under a single, legitimate and democratic Palestinian authority on the basis of the PLO platform and Quartet principles and the rule of law, including control over all armed personnel and weapons in accordance with existing agreements.
10. Both parties should foster a climate of tolerance, including through increasing interaction and cooperation in a variety of fields – economic, professional, educational, cultural – that strengthen the foundations for peace and countering extremism.
The Quartet stresses the urgent need for such affirmative steps to reverse current trends and advance the two-state solution on the ground.
The Quartet stresses the significance of the Arab Peace Initiative (API), with its vision for comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and, in that context, the opportunity for building a regional security framework, and encourages further dialogue on that basis. In this regard, the Quartet welcomes the call by the Egyptian President to Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab leaders to follow the historic path towards peace taken by Israel and Egypt 37 years ago.
The Quartet also welcomes the Joint Communique issued in Paris on June 3 and its support for a negotiated two-state solution.
The Quartet encourages the international community to accelerate its efforts to address the dire humanitarian, reconstruction, and recovery needs of the people in Gaza, including expediting the disbursement of assistance pledges.
The Quartet invites the parties to engage with it on implementing the recommendations of this report and creating the conditions for the resumption of meaningful negotiations that resolve all final status issues.
The Prime Minister’s office of Israel responded to the Quartet report by saying:
Israel welcomes the Quartet’s recognition of the centrality of Palestinian incitement and violence to the perpetuation of the conflict. This culture of hatred poisons minds and destroys lives and stands as the single greatest obstacle to progress towards peace. The report unfortunately says nothing about the payments made by the Palestinian leadership to terrorists and their families. The graver the violence, the greater the payment. This Palestinian practice must stop.
Israel shares the Quartet’s historical commitment to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace through direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions. In previous agreements, Israel and the Palestinians committed to discuss every difficult issue exclusively through direct, bilateral negotiations. Nevertheless, the record shows a history of repeated Palestinian rejection of offers to negotiate and compromise from Israeli governments across the political spectrum. Israel cannot negotiate peace with itself.
We regret the failure of the Quartet to address the real core of the conflict: the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people in any boundaries. The report also perpetuates the myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace. When Israel froze settlements, it did not get peace. When Israel uprooted every settlement in Gaza, it did not get peace. It got war.
Israel will continue to strive for a genuine, negotiated peace based on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vision of two states for two peoples. While the report includes numerous factual and policy assertions with which we take issue, Israel will discuss with the Quartet envoys ways to explore moving toward this end.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians had hoped that similarly to the June 3 Paris summit declaration, the Quartet report would include terms of reference for the permanent status negotiations. They expected the report to specifically highlight the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as the main basis for negotiations leading to a state along the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinians had even asked the EU and the United States for a binding timeline for negotiations followed by a UN Security Council resolution.
A senior Palestine Liberation Organization official close to President Mahmoud Abbas said that Abbas is severely critical of US Secretary of State John Kerry for pressuring the EU to not to make the Quartet report a policy platform for future negotiations. The senior official assessed that the United States will publish guidelines for future negotiations as a platform for the next administration possibly via a presidential policy speech. He also expressed concern that the US policy statement will allude to the need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. According to this source, the Palestinians are committed to working with Egypt and France on a binding UN Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood referring in detail to settlement expansion, the 1967 lines, East Jerusalem and a two-year timeline. As the official put it, “For us the Quartet report is a non-paper; our sole basis is the Arab Peace Initiative.” US diplomatic sources in Israel affirmed that Kerry convinced the EU to refrain from setting a new basis for future negotiations.
From the viewpoint of the European Union, though the Palestinians and Israel have both made their positions clear to the US, the EU has not lost hope, nor has it retracted its commitment to continuing the path toward a policy platform for a two-state solution and an international conference before the end of 2016.
A senior official close to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said that in the aftermath of endorsing the French initiative and the publication of the Quartet report, EU officials are preparing a tentative road map for progress in the diplomatic process. The EU’s premise, he explained, is that Europe will have to act independently this year because of the US presidential elections. This road map will include several stages, beginning with talking to the parties about curbing Israeli settlement expansion and Palestinian incitement to violence, together with economic confidence-building measures in Area C for the Palestinian agricultural sector. Thereafter, the European Union, in coordination with the French, will start preparing for a possible international peace conference with the parties before the end of 2016.
European capitals are busy with the organization of an international conference on the two-state solution which would elaborate on the French Middle East Peace Initiative. Israel and the Palestinians were not invited to the preparative conference in Paris June 3. European leaders, including more Israel-leaning countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, agree that the next phase would include both. According to a senior European Union official, all EU foreign ministers decided to support the French initiative in order to challenge the parties and bolster the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
EU officials believe that not much can come out of a future international conference without the United States playing an active role. Therefore, if the United States remains passive, the conference can be only of preliminary nature, to set a policy platform for future negotiations. And so if the conference eventually takes place before a new US president is sworn in (with a lame-duck administration in Washington) — with the United States effectively playing a passive role — the European Union will probably take the lead to avoid a diplomatic vacuum.
The EU official said: “Europe has decided to play a more independent role regarding the two-state solution process, especially given the election in the United States and the uncertainty about who will be the next president. Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution is a key strategic interest of most European countries. Hence we would like to formulate the terms of reference and the structure for future negotiations.”
According to this source, EU headquarters’ officials — under the guidance of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini — are coordinating content and moderation of such a conference mainly vis-a-vis French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is fully in the know.
The conference is planned to take place in Paris toward the end of the year possibly after the US presidential election Nov. 8. The Quartet (United States, EU, United Nations and Russia) would be the one inviting the parties to the international peace conference, which would be based on the Quartet report published July 1. All participants of the Paris conference of June 3 will be invited, including the Arab League, in addition to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The terms of reference of the conference will be the Quartet report. The parties will not be asked to adopt the report but to negotiate on its basis.
The structure of the conference is already taking shape: Quartet representatives at the level of foreign ministers and the UN secretary-general will chair it; the opening plenary session will include speeches by all parties. It will also delineate a structure of negotiations, according to the following guidelines: a plenary session for reporting about and monitoring the negotiations; a bilateral committee of Israel and the PA only, to negotiate on the basis of the Quartet report all permanent status issues; and a multilateral track with Israel, the PA, the Arab League, Egypt, Jordan and Quartet representatives.
Concerning the bilateral Israel-Palestinian committee, it will work on core issues, starting with borders between the two states and security measures, including anti-terror cooperation. The two parties will establish subcommittees of negotiations on the following issues: settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, water and other infrastructure issues, future bilateral relations between the two states and mutual recognition.
With these issues to be discussed bilaterally, the multilateral track will negotiate the normalization of relations between the Arab states and Israel based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative; the construction of economic regional cooperation in the fields of tourism, trade, the environment and water (resembling the multilateral negotiations started by the Madrid conference of 1992; and the launch of regional security cooperation, mainly in the fields of anti-terror and curbing the dissemination of non-conventional arms.
In any event, the EU seems determined to go ahead with such plans despite US hesitance and Israeli opposition.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
1) The current situation with the French peace initiative
On June 3, France held a conference of foreign ministers to discuss the current situation with the Israeli / Palestinian peace process. After the conference, they made the following statement:
The participants met in Paris on June 3, 2016 to reaffirm their support for a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They reaffirmed that a negotiated two-state solution is the only way to achieve an enduring peace, with two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. They are alarmed that actions on the ground, in particular continued acts of violence and ongoing settlement activity are dangerously imperiling the prospects for a two-state solution.
The participants underscored that the status quo is not sustainable and stressed the importance of both sides demonstrating, with policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution in order to rebuild trust and create the conditions for fully ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resolving all permanent status issues through direct negotiations based on resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), and also recalling relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and highlighting the importance of the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.
The participants discussed possible ways in which the international community could help advance the prospects for peace including by providing meaningful incentives to the parties to make peace. The participants also highlighted the potential for regional peace and security as envisioned by the Arab Peace Initiative.
The participants highlighted the key role of the Quartet and key regional stakeholders. They welcomed the interested countries’ offer to contribute to this effort. They also welcomed France’s offer to coordinate it and the prospect of convening before the end of the year an international conference.
In response, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the multilateral French peace initiative. Instead, Netanyahu offered to hold direct talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris. Netanyahu said: “It can still be called the French initiative because you would host this genuine effort for peace. But here’s the difference: I will sit alone, directly, with president Abbas in the French presidential palace or anywhere else that you choose. Every difficult issue will be on the table.”
Netanyahu continued: “Peace just does not get achieved through international conferences, UN-style. It doesn’t get to fruition through international diktats or committees from countries around the world who are sitting and seeking to decide our fate and our security when they have no direct stake in it. The French initiative will not encourage peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” he added. “This initiative could harm regional efforts that have the potential to succeed. The State of Israel, and no one else, is the one that worries about its own security,” Netanyahu said.
Israel Foreign Ministry director- general Dore Gold said that “despite the fact that the final statement has been considerably diluted through a number of diplomatic efforts, the whole effort to have a conference without Israel and the Palestinians at the event is a distraction from what should be the main effort, and that is to persuade Mahmood Abbas to sit down with Israel.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the French summit was a “missed opportunity.” The statement said that instead of urging Abbas to “answer the prime minister’s repeated calls to immediately begin direct negotiations without preconditions,” the international community is enabling him to continue avoiding negotiations. “In the annals of history, the French conference will go down as only having hardened Palestinian positions and made peace more distant,” the statement said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected an Israeli offer for direct negotiations instead of the French multilateral peace initiative. In any event, the Arab League has backed France’s Middle East peace initiative and all international efforts to outline the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
France has said it intends to push ahead with its peace initiative despite Israel’s objections. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I know that I haven’t persuaded you but the train has already left the station.” The message was relayed via diplomatic cable from the French to Israeli foreign ministries after Netanyahu and Ayrault spoke with each other following the June 3 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris about efforts to sidestep a diplomatic freeze to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
During that conversation Netanyahu strongly criticized the French initiative and expressed strong objections to all its components. A senior official in Israel said the cable, also based on talks with senior French foreign ministry officials, showed that French Foreign Minister was not impressed by Netanyahu’s comments and intends to carry out further steps to advance the initiative this month.
The cable said that senior French foreign ministry officials told Israeli diplomats they view the statement issued at the end of the Paris meeting and the fact that more than 20 foreign ministers attended as a diplomatic statement that France has an international mandate to advance the peace initiative.
The senior Israeli official said members of the French Foreign Ministry told their Israeli colleagues they are interested in setting up working groups to continue the process launched at the Paris meeting in the coming weeks. The French want these groups to put together a package of confidence building steps for Israelis and Palestinians, a list of economic incentives the international community could offer both sides and regional security arrangements that might support an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. “The French told us they want to organize working groups by the end of the month,” the senior Israeli official said.
In his conversation with the French Foreign Minister, Netanyahu said he opposes setting up working groups especially for dealing with security issues. Recently, the Foreign Ministry received several messages from European capitals about setting up the working groups. The ministry was surprised to discover that two countries that hastened to volunteer in Paris to help organize these groups were Germany and the Czech Republic, seen as Israel’s two closest friends in Europe.
A few days ago, the Israeli Foreign Ministry instructed Israeli ambassadors in Europe to inform their local foreign ministries of Israel’s objections to setting up the working groups. The senior Israeli official said the French want to take two further steps to advance their initiative. Firstly, they want to take advantage of their status as rotating president of the UN Security Council and hold a debate about their peace initiative at a monthly session on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The official added that the French may try during the meeting, which will apparently be held in the last week of June, to put together a presidential statement for the United Nations Security Council that would express support for their initiative.
The second step they are expected to take will be at the monthly meeting of the 28 European Union foreign ministers taking place on June 20. The French want the meeting to pass a resolution expressing support for their initiative.
In parallel, toward the end of June the Quartet’s report about the diplomatic freeze in the peace process is due for publication. The EU’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini told the UN Security Council that the Quartet’s report would soon be published. She said the report would describe the immediate obstacles to renewing direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and policies both sides are taking that threaten the possibility of achieving a two-state solution. Mogherini said the report would include clear recommendations regarding how to advance and create confidence on both sides that would permit a resumption of peace talks.
The report is likely to provide the basis for any potential American diplomatic process in the coming months, Obama’s last chance to leave a legacy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The assumption in Israel is that if the Americans do indeed launch such a move, it will only happen after the presidential elections in November. That, at least, is the thinking in the PM’s bureau.
US House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce expressed concern that the Obama administration is preparing to support an initiative at the United Nations on the Middle East peace process. Royce (R-California) said he did not believe that parameters for peace outlined at the United Nations– an initiative led by the French government– would include a “demand for security” for Israel. Royce said: “My concern is that the administration might… allow this French initiative to go forward.” The Paris-led initiative would have the Security Council outline parameters of a two-state solution. The Obama administration said last year it was willing to review its policy toward the Israeli / Palestinian conflict in the United Nations and it has yet to explicitly rule out a UN Security Council Resolution which outlines the parameters for a two-state solution.
As a result, word is going around diplomatic circles that the Obama administration is planning a November surprise for Israel. The view is as follows:
The French peace initiative held on June 3 which Israel and the Palestinians were not even invited will end up exerting enormous pressure on Israel to create a Palestinian state. This renewed pressure will come despite evidence that a Palestinian state in the West Bank will quickly be dominated by genocidal Hamas which is a threat to Israel and a disaster for the Palestinians. This will lead, in all likelihood, to a United Nations Security Council Resolution either condemning Israel for not creating that state or for not withdrawing from Judea and Samaria in the West Bank despite the fact that it would irreversibly compromise Israel’s security.
Israeli officials and Jewish communal leaders are saying that they expect the Obama administration will not veto the resolution at the UN Security Council — that Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, will not exercise the American veto. This would mean that the resolution/condemnation goes through. President Obama will not worry about how this will affect presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, because the UN resolution will be brought after the November election.
And that’s how the Obama administration will wrap up things with a UN vote against Israel and the United States, for almost the first time, not vetoing a harmful resolution against Israel. Israel will be powerless to stop it.
What gives credence to this speculation, first and foremost, is the French peace initiative itself. If it were a serious conference about the prospects for peace, why were the Israelis and Palestinians not invited? Israel has insisted on direct, bilateral talks without preconditions. The French talks, therefore, seem to be a complete waste of time, unless their purpose was to lead to a resolution at the UN Security Council regardless of Israeli objections.
What further gives this credence is the fact that last June, in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Power would not commit to exercising an American veto at the UN for a resolution condemning Israel. “I really am going to resist making blanket declarations on hypothetical resolutions. Our position, again, I think has been very clear for some time. I have said, again, we would oppose anything that was designed to punish Israel or undermine Israel’s security. But I think, again, it’s perilous. There’s no resolution in front of us.”
Now, if a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing a timetable for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state is resisted by Israel and not vetoed by the United States, there exists the possibility of economic sanctions being levied against Israel especially by the European Union.
Finally, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly scheduled to meet in the coming week with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Israel’s Channel 2 said the meeting would take place in a European capital.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
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).
