You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
2) The prospects for war with Syria and Iran
3) Greek debt and the prospects for the collapse of the Euro
Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas has made Israel building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem an issue in the peace process by saying that the Palestinians will not have direct negotiations with Israel if they continue building. The Netanyahu government announced that it plans to legalize 13 of the 18 settlement outposts of which petitions to the Israeli High Court of Justice has been filed because they are not built on privately-owned Palestinian land. The remaining 5 outposts will not be legalized because they are built on privately-owned Palestinian land. One of these 5 outposts is Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood which the court has ordered dismantled by July 1. As a result, Ulpana has become a source of contention within the Netanyahu government between those Knesset members who support building in the West Bank and those who want the building restricted or stopped. A bill was presented before the Israeli Knesset to ignore the court order and let the outpost remain. Netanyahu threatened to fire any government minister who voted to let the outpost remain. The Knesset rejected the Ulpana bill 69-22. Instead, Netanyahu has advocated that an additional 850 Jewish homes be built in settlements approved by the government. The US strongly criticized the decision to build these additional 850 Jewish homes saying that it is a violation of the 2003 Road Map and that the US does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity and opposes any effort to legalize settlement outposts. These developments creates the condition for a crisis over the settlement issues with the Obama administration after the November elections.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Israel plans to legalize 13 contentious West Bank outposts
2) Knesset rejects Ulpana bill 69-22
3) PM: Ministers who vote for Ulpana bills will be fired
4) Gov’t to approve 551 new housing units in West Bank
5) US: Settlement activity undermines peace efforts
6) Palestinian Abbas urges Israel to accept 2-state deal
The US says that the international community must unite to isolate Syrian leader Bashar Assad and that he must be removed from power and leave Syria. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the transition in Syria must include a fully representative interim government that would lead to free and fair elections. The US wants to work with Russia and China to accomplish this objective. However, Russia and China reiterated that they are opposed to outside military intervention to remove Assad from power. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition said that they are no longer committed to the peace plan proposed by UN envoy Kofi Annan several weeks ago. Kofi Annan is working on a new peace plan wherein a contact group would be established that would bring the UN Security Council members – Russia, China, the US, Britain, and France – together with critical regional players, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, who back the rebels, and Iran, which supports President Bashar al-Assad together to agree on a political deal to remove Assad from power. However, Iran says that it will not work with the contact group as long as the US demands that it stops nuclear enrichment at the upcoming P5 + 1 meeting with Iran over its nuclear program scheduled to take place on June 17-18 in Moscow. In retaliation for the mass expulsion by Western countries of Syrian diplomats from their countries in protest of the killings which took place in the Syrian city of Houla last week, Syria expelled 17 Western diplomats from its country. Concerned that the Syrian opposition would get control of Hizbullah’s Scud missiles located near Damascus, Hizbullah wants to move Scud D-type missiles and modern anti-aircraft equipment from Syria to Lebanon. Israel has said that they would not allow this transfer to Lebanon. Turkey has decided to abandon the Syrian opposition and work with Russia who supports Assad. Finally, Assad said that Syria is at war and must continue to fight the opposition. So, the situation in Syria is very fragile and serious. There does not seem to be any solution to the problem but continued war. As the result, the conditions are favorable to eventually see the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 wherein it is prophesied that Damascus will be destroyed.
A war with Syria where Damascus is destroyed (Isaiah 17) is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) US: Int’l community must unify to isolate Assad
2) Clinton tells Syria’s Assad to quit, leave country
3) Clinton sketches out ‘transition’ path for Syria
4) Syria rebels say they are no longer committed to Annan plan
5) Kofi Annan to propose role for Iran to revive Syria peace plan
6) New Annan proposal puts the Syrian crisis in Iranian and Russian hands
7) Russia and Iran back away from the Syrian conflict, dump it in America’s lap
8) Syria expels U.S. ambassador, 16 other western diplomats
9) ‘China, Russia united against Syria intervention’
10) Hizbullah Wants to Move Far-Reaching Scuds from Syria
11) Turkey ditches Syrian rebels. Will Israel attack Hizballah’s Scuds?
12) Assad: we are at war, and we will fight on
Iran insists that to their nuclear rights be recognized by the P5 + 1 powers (Russia, China, Britain, France, US and Germany) at the upcoming June 17-18 meeting in Moscow over Iran’s nuclear program. As a result, Iran says that it will never stop uranium enrichment and have accused the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) of spying. Therefore, the June 17-18 meeting is critical to determine if Iran will be willing to stop its nuclear program. Thus, it appears that we are reaching a significant cross-roads over the issue. In order to encourage Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear program, DEBKA reports that the Obama administration has promised an air-sea blockade of Iran this fall if Iran fails to agree to stop its nuclear program. This deal specifies that any national airline or international aircraft touching down in Iran will be barred from US and West European airports. The same rule will apply to private and government-owned vessels including oil tankers. Any country doing business at an Iranian port will automatically exclude them from entry to a US or European harbor. As a result, conditions are being created for war with Iran in the fall.
A US war with Iran is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) Iran urges powers to accept nuclear rights in talks
2) Iran Accuses IAEA of Spying, Says It Will Never Halt Enrichment
3) IAEA says no progress in nuclear talks with Iran
4) Iran Endgame Nears
5) Obama’s air-sea blockade plan for Iran delays Israeli strike. Hormuz at stake?
Ireland voted to accept European Union’s deficit-fighting treaty which would allow economic decisions in individual EU countries to be dictated by EU bureaucrats and thus eliminate the economic sovereignty of members EU states. Spain says that the EU must agree on an outline of a eurozone banking and fiscal union to save the euro. A “gang of four” – the European council president, the commission chief, the president of the European Central Bank and the head of the eurogroup of 17 finance ministers – has been charged with drafting the proposals for a deeper eurozone fiscal union, to be presented to an EU summit at the end of June. The plan could see vast national debt and banking liabilities pooled – and then backed by the financial strength of Germany – in return for eurozone governments surrendering sovereignty over their budgets and fiscal policies to a central eurozone authority. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that a political union needs to follow a fiscal union. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said that euro zone is likely to come up with a plan for deeper economic integration by the end of the year, after agreeing on what elements it should include and how to achieve it in June. The setting up of a EU political union with an EU President is an event of the tribulation.
Worldwide economic collapse resulting in a one world government with one-world currency is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Irish say yes to EU pact, now seek EU growth deal
2) Spain calls for new tax pact to save euro
3) Leaders plotting EU superstate: ‘Fiscal union’ looms… with the Germans in charge
4) Germany weighs up federal Europe plan to end debt crisis
5) Why George Soros thinks the euro will survive
6) Euro Zone Economic Integration Plan by Year-End: Van Rompuy
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l