Watchman of Zion

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

US President Barack Obama has decided to take a more “active role” in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. When Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the US on March 3, Obama will make an “urgent appeal” to Netanyahu to accept US Secretary of State, John Kerry’s framework peace plan. Obama is expected to apply the same pressure to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas when Abbas comes to the US on March 17. Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian intelligence chief, Majed Faraj, will travel to the US in the next week to meet American officials in preparation for the Abbas visit to the US on March 17. Erekat and Faraj are expected to meet Secretary of State Kerry and Middle East Envoy Martin Indyk.

According to Palestinian sources, “Obama will intervene forcefully and directly, and will apply pressure to Netanyahu and Abbas so that they agree to a framework agreement.” According to these sources, the framework agreement will determine that the capital of the Palestinian state will be eastern Jerusalem, and in exchange, there will be Palestinian concessions in other matters, including borders and refugees. Senior Palestinian sources said that the way to resolve the crisis of the peace negotiations would be to announce that Jerusalem was the capital of both states, with an indication to Israel’s right to acquire international recognition as a Jewish state which would implicitly also mean the recognition of the state of Palestine. The issues of borders, refugees, settlements and water resources are expected to be included in appendices to the agreement which will be discussed by joint committees. The issue of the Jewish identity of Israel, which Netanyahu’s government insists must be recognized, is categorically rejected by the Palestinians, according to the sources. If “Obama succeeds in convincing Netanyahu and Abbas to agree to concessions on the framework agreement, he will announce a date for signing the agreement in Washington, with himself taking part in person.”

Israeli sources revealed that Obama will ask Netanyahu and Abbas about their future plans in case of the failure of the negotiations, and will give them the option to cooperate with the American plan, or face isolation and live with the difficult reality which awaits them if the US abandoned the peace process. If the US is unable to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a framework deal, the Obama administration is debating whether they should go forward and publicly present the framework plan. US Secretary of State John Kerry is determined to present a proposal by no later than March 28 – the day when a fourth phase release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons is scheduled to take place. According to Israeli sources, “There is a serious debate taking place within the White House over whether a framework agreement should be presented now, at any price, or whether to wait.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that there would not be a “final status agreement” between Israel and the Palestinians by April 29. He said: “We’re using the current deadline to help shape this,” he added, noting he  was prepared to continue the talks “for whatever period of time might be appropriate. Right now, he said: “For months we’ve been saying we’re trying to get a framework” by the April 29 deadline. “We’re trying to get the framework, which is a huge deal if we’ve used these seven months thus far to get an understanding of where the parties are and to be able to shape the final negotiations,” said Kerry. However, a senior Palestinian official said that the Palestinians reject US moves to extend an April deadline for nine months of hard-won talks with Israel to culminate in a framework peace deal. “There is no meaning to prolonging the negotiation, even for one more additional hour, if Israel, represented by its current government, continues to disregard international law,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said. Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas said that he will not extend negotiations with Israel past April 29 if the framework agreement doesn’t deal with the core issues. The PA leader stressed that the Palestinians will only agree to an extension of the peace talks “if Netanyahu declares a construction freeze in the settlements and a further release of prisoners after the next round,” referring to the third and final wave of prisoners set to be released by Israel – the good-will gesture which brought the Palestinians back to the negotiations table. Otherwise he said that he will terminate the peace process and look to join various UN international organizations.

Meanwhile, it is being reported that the Israeli government has unofficially and quietly frozen settlement construction outside the major blocs for the past few months in an apparent acquiescence to American pressure. Jordan Valley regional council members were asked why construction was being held up in the settlements that he administers, even in projects that had received approval from the defense minister. He was told that the order had come from on high not to advance construction plans in settlements outside the major blocs. “We received instruction from policy makers not to advance plans outside what’s found in the settlement blocs,” they said. “Let’s wait patiently until we return from the United States and then we’ll talk” more about the issue.

DEBKA, an Israeli intelligence and news gathering website reports that Netanyahu has accepted the US framework proposal for continued talks with reservations. However, after an 8 hour meeting with Abbas in Paris, France, the Palestinians have rejected the US plan. Abbas accused Kerry of being biased towards Israel and reiterated his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The head of the PA also raised objections to proposed security arrangements and a recommendation for final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Abbas also called Kerry to task on the proposed agreement’s vaguely worded fate of Jerusalem. PA chief Mahmoud Abbas called ideas that Kerry presented to him as “madness.” According to reports in PA newspapers, Kerry proposed lopping off Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and placing them under PA sovereignty, enabling the PA to declare Jerusalem its capital. In their meeting, Kerry offered that the Beit Hanina neighborhood be declared as the Palestinian capital instead of the entire east Jerusalem area. He also raised the possibility that the Jordan Valley would remain under Israeli sovereignty. In addition, the PA would annex ten Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and be responsible for their security. Most other communities would remain under Israeli sovereignty, based on land swaps. In response, the report said, a furious Abbas practically threw Kerry out of his office, telling the Secretary of State that if he did not back down on his ideas, Abbas would return to demanding that all descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 be repatriated in Israel, rolling back the “flexibility” he had promised to show on that demand. Abbas also reiterated that he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Israel Knesset members from the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox political party, Shas, Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox political party, United Torah Judaim, and the left wing parties Meretz, and Labor all signed on to a letter of support sent by Labor Party MK Eitan Cabel to US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro. The letter expresses support for the efforts of the U.S. to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, Israel Knesset members from the Land of Israel Caucus accused the US of being biased toward the Palestinians in negotiations in a meeting with US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro. Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud Beytenu) stressed that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was “acting in a political arena. Any framework agreement that talks about 1967 lines or that includes evacuating towns or giving up sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem can bring down the current government.” According to a source in the meeting, which was closed to press, Shapiro rejected claims the US was taking the Palestinians’ side and was hurting Israel. “The US is taking part in the negotiations because Israel is our ally,” he stated. “A good peace treaty will protect Israel’s security and won’t hurt Israel.”

Hatnua Knesset political party member Meir Sheetrit said that he “hoped” that the United States would force Israel to accept the peace deal that Secretary of State John Kerry was putting together. Being backed into a corner and heavily pressured by the U.S., Sheetrit said, was the only way Israel and the Palestinian Authority would “swallow their medicine” and enter into a deal that would benefit them both.

Meanwhile, as Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was getting ready to leave for the US on March 3, the organization, Women In Green and the Sovereignty Forum sent a letter to the Prime Minister, telling him that precisely now was the time to declare Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The letter said:

Honored Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

Today you are your starting out on your complex mission to the United States and may you have Heaven’s support and the support of the Land of Israel. We are at a decisive time in which it is possible to strengthen our position. As you leave Jerusalem, the Women in Green movement and the Forum for Sovereignty are with you and will accompany you with a very large poster that will be placed at the exit from Jerusalem for the coming weeks. It reads: “YES to Sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley”.

In a discussion on the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria that was held in Ariel a few days ago, public relations expert Eyal Arad claimed that the Right failed because it did not present an alternative. This is not true. There is an alternative! A realistic, Zionist plan does exist – application of Israeli sovereignty. This plan is indeed accompanied by difficulties, but the difficulties associated with sovereignty are preferable to the physical and spiritual destruction entailed in the establishment of a terrorist Palestinian state in the heart of our Land, a stone-throw away from Ben Gurion Airport. And we must think not only in terms of survival, we must aspire to realize our hold on the Land and our sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

In a recent poll, 3/4 Three quarters of Hebrew-speaking Israelis would support a peace agreement with the Palestinians based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and more than half would vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to leave the Likud and create a new party. According to the survey, 76 percent of respondents said they are “sure” or “think” that they would be willing to support an agreement after they were told about nine different elements of the deal, all based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, presented to them in a way that made them seem beneficial to Israel. More than 60 percent of respondents said they would likely support a regional peace treaty even before any components of it were discussed. According to the authors of the poll, “The significance of this poll shows that

a) Israelis indeed hold right-wing views
b) they don’t believe the Palestinians
c) they will accept a far-reaching deal based on the Arab Peace Initiative if presented properly to them and
d) that they will support Bibi Netanyahu if he does make such a heroic decision

In a visit to Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed support for Israel’s security requirements and its demand to be recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish state. Merkel also stated her opposition to Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements saying they make a positive outcome of the talks less likely. She said that her German government supports “a two-state solution – a Palestinian state and a Jewish state of Israel. We also support Israel’s security requirements to be able to finally live in secure borders. But for a two-state solution we need territorial integrity,” she said. “Thus we treat the settlement question with concern, in which we are not always of one opinion,” she said. “We hope that we can overcome the problems and that the two-state solution can be implemented with an agreement.” Merkel also said that she did not support a boycott or labeling of Israel settlement goods. Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, thanked her for this position saying, such sanctions against the Middle East’s only true democracy are “neither moral nor correct nor productive” but only serve to strengthen Palestinian intransigence, he said. “There can be criticism of Israel — that’s legitimate,” Netanyahu said. “But it’s hard not to notice that those who call for boycott of Israel do not call for boycott of any other state… A boycott on the Jewish people, and the country of the Jewish people?”

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Report: Obama to Press PM to Take Kerry Deal
2) ‘Obama to press Netanyahu, Abbas to accept framework’
3) Obama will Pressure Israel ‘Forcefully’ over Framework
4) Germany’s Merkel backs main Israeli stances in peace talks
5) Report: U.S. May Unveil Framework Peace Deal Without Agreement of Israel or Palestinian Authority
6) Kerry allows more time for final Israel-Palestinian deal
7) Palestinian sources say framework agreement to be signed in Washington
8.) MKs Tell Dan Shapiro They’re Behind Kerry Plan
9) MKs to Shapiro: US taking side of Palestinians in peace talks
10) Sheetrit: US Should Force PA, Israel to ‘Swallow their Medicine’
11) Groups: Fantastic Opportunity for Israeli Sovereignty
12) Kerry: Peace Talks will Continue Beyond April
13) Palestinians reject US push for peace talks beyond April
14) Report: Kerry offered Beit Hanina as Palestinian capital
15) Abbas ‘exploded with rage’ at Kerry over ‘insane’ framework proposals
16) PA Report: Abbas Angry at Kerry, Threatened to End Talks
17) Obama to meet with Abbas on March 17 over peace process
18.) Abbas threatens a turn to ‘international organizations’
19) Official said to confirm informal settlement freeze
20) Poll: Three quarters of Israeli Jews would accept peace deal

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

A senior Palestinian negotiator said that the Palestinians have received a pledge from the US that by the end of 2014, the Obama administration will issue an official written declaration presenting general highlights for a future Palestinian state. The negotiator said that the goal is to have a general framework for a peace agreement by the end of April. As part of the written declaration, the U.S. is set to officially recognize Palestinian rights in eastern sections of Jerusalem, without defining the exact territories that would be eventually handed to the PA. The U.S. will declare on paper that the Jordan Valley as well as the West Bank is “occupied” by Israel and that Palestinians have rights there, the negotiator said.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said that the US framework for peace will have “real, significant content in the document. It doesn’t mean that each side will agree with each word and there will still be many subjects to deal with in the negotiations for a final agreement. I think we have a good chance to reach a framework agreement before the end of the nine-month period we allotted before we entered negotiations,” he said. “The framework will allow the talks to continue.” Furthermore, according to Shapiro, the US framework agreement will obligate the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “[The PA] recognizing Israel as Jewish state is a key sign that the conflict is ending,” Shapiro said. “The United States has always believed that Israel is a Jewish state and that it should stay that way.” He said the two sides will have to make significant decisions including the fate of Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank. Shapiro said that “there are several options we can take on the issue.” In order to find out the degree of objection to a framework peace agreement, Shapiro had meetings with Israel Knesset members who oppose a PLO state. The US wishes to know in advance what the reaction from the right side of the political map to Kerry’s proposal will be. As part of this effort, Shapiro has met in the past several weeks with several MKs from the Likud Beytenu and Jewish Home factions, including Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and coalition chairman Yariv Levin. In two weeks, Shapiro plans to meet with MKs who head the Knesset’s Land of Israel Lobby and are against any Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank as part of a peace agreement.

Regarding recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, a senior PLO official, Nabil Amaro, said that Abbas was prepared to recognize Israel — this time, for real. However, PLO Executive Committee Secretary General Yasser Abed Rabbo said that the Palestinians would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He said that the Palestinian position “on this issue is well-known and firm,” adding that acceding to Israel’s demand “represents a serious threat to the Palestinian cause as a whole.” Any favourable response to the demand for recognition, he warned, would mean recognition of the Greater Israel, including the occupied Palestinian territories, as the national homeland of the Jewish people. He also said Palestinians and Arab world in general are unanimous in their rejection of any demand to recognise Israel as a Jewish state in any peace formula.

In order to show their opposition to any Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank or Jordan Valley, about 3,000 people, including Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Coalition Chairman Knesset Member Yariv Levin, took part in a protest march in the Jordan Valley. Minister Sa’ar declared to the participants of the march: “We are here with a simple and clear message – the Jordan Valley is Israeli.” The march was initiated by the chairs of the Land of Israel Lobby in the Knesset. The interior minister added that the marchers have come to support the settlers of the Jordan Valley, who “are on a mission for the entire Israeli people. (Israel) needs to know that the (Jordan) Valley settlement will remain and prosper for ages,” the minister stressed. “The security of Israel required a strategic depth, it is unthinkable for the border to not be in the Jordan Valley.”

In contrast, Israel Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) made a passionate plea for a peace agreement with the Palestinians by saying that his country must do everything in its power to reach an accord with the Palestinians since the current situation posed a “threat to the future of the state of Israel.” Lapid said that if current peace talks collapse it will be “nothing less than devastating” to the welfare of Israeli citizens. But beyond risks to the economy, he said failure to establish a Palestinian state would leave Israel facing a demographic threat that could undermine its Jewish and democratic nature. “Every moment in which we do not separate from the Palestinians is a downright threat to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state,” he said. “This is not a marriage that we seek with the Palestinians. This is a divorce.” If we do not reach peace, “The options we will have is to refuse, and stop being a democracy, or to agree, and stop being a Jewish state,” he warned. “These are two bad options. These are two options that need to be prevented. The state of Israel does not need to a rule another nation or another people. This is against Jewish morals. This is against the core idea of building here an exemplary society.” According to Lapid, “If the Israeli left and the Israeli right keep saying that ‘nothing will come of [the talks],’ then a self-fulfilling prophecy will result and instead of approaching the talks wholeheartedly, both sides will continue to sit and gain points for the blame game that will be conducted after everything collapses,” Lapid predicted. “I will not let anyone ruin the chance of an agreement,” Lapid said. Lapid blamed the PA primarily for the failure in talks but he also stressed the importance of taking responsibility for Israel’s role in how events proceed. “We must make every effort to reach an agreement because the current situation endangers Israel’s future,” he insisted. “It endangers us because Israel is unable to, and cannot, absorb four million Palestinians. If we want to remain a Jewish state, we must separate from them. The agenda of this coalition is very clear,” Lapid said. “The Prime Minister sat down on the first day of the coalition [. . .] and said that we are going to start the peace process according to the two-state solution. Then, he repeated that in the Knesset, he repeated that in the UN, he repeated that in the White House, he actually repeated that almost every time he saw a microphone,” Lapid continued. “Yesh Atid is…an Israeli political party that is protecting this agenda.”

Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians, said that just as Israel will need to make compromises, so too will the Palestinians. Furthermore, she said, the Palestinians need “to understand that the only option for creating a state runs through the negotiating room.” Livni was full of praise for US Secretary of State John Kerry. She called him a “game changer” who has listened carefully to both sides and tried to discern from Israel “what is the deal maker, and what is the deal breaker” before presenting his paper that is to form the basis for continued negotiations. “Frankly I don’t think that we are going to be in love with this paper, but I hope that we can live with this paper, and I’m sure this also applies to the Palestinian side,” she said. Livni said Kerry already performed two important tasks. The first was to gain the trust of the international community, and get the Russians, Europeans and the Arab world to stay outside the “tent” and not disturb those negotiating inside. Second, she said, the international community got another important message from Kerry: Keep the Palestinians in the negotiation room, and don’t let them think that if they say no to a deal the world will step in and impose a better deal from their perspective on Israel.

A fellow member of Netanyahu’s Likud political party, Danny Danon, petitioned an Israeli court to allow the Likud central committee to debate Kerry’s framework plan with the intent to block Netanyahu from conceding on issues in the deal. The court’s ruling means Danon can convene Likud’s central committee to hold votes on issues Netanyahu is against. Some of the votes would likely include issues relating to territorial concessions which is at the heart of peace negotiations Kerry is moderating.

Speaking to those entities who have threatened to boycott Israel if Israel fails to agree to a peace agreement with the Palestinians, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that those who boycott Israel are anti-Semites. He said that it was time for Israel to “fight back” and “delegitimize the delegitimizers.” There are increasing concerns in Israel over a Palestinian-led movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). The boycott has been growing recently, mainly in Europe, where some businesses and pension funds have cut investments or trade with Israeli firms they say are connected to West Bank settlements. “In the past anti-Semites boycotted Jewish businesses and today they call for the boycott of the Jewish state, and by the way, only the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said. “I think that it is important that the boycotters be exposed for what they are, they are classical anti-Semites in modern garb,” Netanyahu said.

Ahmed Qurei, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee said that the ambiguous language in the text of an American framework agreement to be presented to Israel and the Palestinians may lead to the collapse of peace talks by saying that the current American positions on a number of core negotiating issues including borders, Jerusalem and the settlements do not satisfy the Palestinian need for clarity. “Trying to put ambiguity in the text will not help the parties. I don’t want to continue discussing what this or that [phrase] means … this would be a waste of time.” He said that the US proposals for a framework agreement are more favorable to Israel than the Palestinians. For example, the US framework calls for “a Palestinian right to a capital in Jerusalem. This we cannot accept,” Qurei said. “We want [explicit mention of] East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.” He said that reference to Jerusalem with no distinction between east and west tacitly acknowledges Israel’s annexation of the eastern part of the city occupied in 1967. With regards to the borders, Kerry proposed a Palestinian state “on the basis of the 1967 borders,” with modifications based on “changes on the ground,” a reference to Israeli settlements, Qurei said. The phrase “changes on the ground” is also too vague for Palestinians, Qurei said. “What changes? This is occupied territory. All changes should be unacceptable, but the parties can discuss [land] swaps. They should be minimal and not affect Palestinians’ lives and territorial contiguity.” With regards to settlements, the US should insert a clause specifically acknowledging their illegality under international law. The United States itself, Qurei noted, has voted in the UN against settlement construction. “If this is not recognized, I think it will be difficult to reach any kind of agreement,” Qurei said. Another discrepancy between the American and Palestinian positions concerns the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The Americans reject the notion of a Palestinian right of return, while the Palestinians insist on the Arab Peace Initiative’s formula of a “just and agreed upon” solution, based on UN Resolution 194.

The Palestinians said that they would gladly accept the US framework for peace with Israel — but only if it was outlined on the PA’s own terms. “[The PA] will not agree to any agreement, whether it is a framework agreement or a permanent arrangement, if they do not include the Palestinian and Arab positions which are in line with international law,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh. “The strong and consistent position of the Palestinian Authority is the same as the position of President Mahmoud Abbas, that there will not be a (Palestinian) state without East Jerusalem as the capital city, that we will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, that settlements are illegal, that the Palestinian state will be along 1967 lines, that we must find a just solution to the refugee problem and that Israel must release the prisoners.”

Senior Palestinian official, Hanan Ashrawi, said that ”the way things stand right now, the deal Kerry is going to present to the two sides, as we know it, will most probably fail”. While Kerry’s efforts are ”sincere and praiseworthy” both sides have already said why they might not accept the plan, Ashrawi said. ”The Israelis because of their security issues, which could lead to NATO presence in the Jordan Valley for five years until Israeli troops withdraw. The Palestinians because they want the right of return for refugees, and Jerusalem as the capital of their future State”. Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat said that if US-brokered peace talks fail to result in an accord, then the Palestinian will call for an economic boycott of Israel. “Turning to international tribunals, to UN bodies, and joining a call for economic sanctions – all that will come if Kerry’s initiative fails,” Erekat said. According to Erekat, the Palestinians promised not to attempt to try Israel in international courts, and in return secured the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners. Therefore, he explained, no suits would be filed until the fourth and final round of prisoners are released. Erekat said that the PA is preparing for a “blitz” of lawsuits against Israel in The Hague, claiming the Palestinians have more than 50 petitions signed and ready, should talks fail. Regarding the possibility of extending the nine-month timeframe set for the talks, Erekat said “We will not extend the negotiations for one minute beyond 29th April.”

In response, US government officials expressed concern Saeb Erekat’s comments. “We are of course concerned about the recent comments by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. “We’ve said all along that it’s important to create a positive atmosphere around these discussions. The personal attacks, quite frankly, are unhelpful, and the secretary will make clear that these kinds of comments are disappointing, that they are unhelpful, especially coming from someone involved in the negotiations, indeed the lead negotiator,” Harf added.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the US negotiating team has demanded that Israel agree to an “informal” freeze of settlement activity outside the large settlement blocs. The freeze would go into effect immediately after the signing of a framework agreement. As a result, Israel would have to commit not to approve plans for housing, or market housing units, outside the large Jewish population concentrations in the West Bank. In response, Israel Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) sharply criticized the US over these reports by saying, “[A building freeze] is a redundant, deluded idea,” Ariel said. Ariel pointed out that the last building freeze – which Netanyahu declared in 2009 – not only did not advance peace with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in any way but may have worsened the situation.  In addition, 21 Knesset Members, seven of them deputy ministers, wrote a letter to Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu saying that a building freeze is definitely out of the quesiton. The Knesset members are also members of the Land of Israel Caucus Lobby. The Caucus members – headed by Coalition Chairman MK Yariv Levin (Likud-Beytenu) and MK Orit Struk (Jewish Home) stressed that they “streuously oppose a freeze of any kind, including a freeze ‘outside the [large settlement] blocs,’ and we will see an Israeli commitment along these lines as a serious game changer.”

Finally, MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) ascended to the Temple Mount after 10 months in which security forces refused to let him set foot there. Feiglin reported afterward that he had toured “all corners” of the Temple Mount, including the Ramah – where the Temple building and inner courtyard were located, according to Jewish sages. Feiglin said that he had also prayed on the Mount. Feiglin had toured the Mount every month, for years, but in April of 2013, the Commander of the Israel Police’s David Precinct called him and informed him that he was no longer allowed to enter the site. “I see my ascent this morning as the beginning of the return of full Jewish sovereignty to the Temple Mount, MK Feiglin said. “The Israel Police proved that when they receive the correct orders, they can carry them out in the best possible way.” Feiglin’s visit was preceded by a protracted process of negotiation between him and the police, which was assisted by the Knesset Speaker and unspecified legal elements in the Knesset. Rabbi Chaim Richman, speaking on behalf of the Temple Institute, congratulated MK Feiglin on returning to the Temple Mount “after being banned from the holy site by Prime Minister Netanyahu for the past year. This is a great step forward in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty — which is synonymous with Jewish prayer — on the Temple Mount. Knesset member Feiglin’s ascent to the Temple Mount is a positive step towards the building of the Holy Temple and gives hope to all of Israel,” he said

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Obama’s ‘big breakthrough’ coming by end of year
2) US envoy: Framework deal will have ‘real, significant content’
3) US Framework to Demand that PA Recognize Israel as Jewish State
4) Shapiro Meeting with Nationalist MKs About Framework
5) Minister Sa’ar: Jordan Valley will prosper for ages under Israeli sovereignty
6) Lapid warns failure of peace talks poses demographic threat
7) Lapid: ‘We are a Legion of 19 Spears’ Protecting Peace Agenda
8.) Livni: Disengagement from Gaza should not be reason for no more compromise
9) Israeli court’s move could dampen peace prospects with Palestinians
10) Netanyahu: Those who boycott Israel are anti-Semites
11) US framework draft is too vague, says top PLO official
12) PA Official: Abbas Ready for Israel as a Jewish State
13) PLO official: No recognition of Israel as Jewish state
14) Mideast: I’m afraid Kerry peace plan will probably fail, says Ashrawi (PLO)
15) Fatah Insists: Interim Agreement Only On Our Terms
16) Palestinian chief negotiator: If talks fail, PA will collapse
17) US: Saeb Erekat’s comments against Israel harmful to negotiations
18.) Report: US Demands Settlement Freeze
19) ‘US to demand partial Israeli settlement freeze’
20) Minister Hits Out over Reports US Pushing for Building Freeze
21) MKs to Prime Minister: Building Freeze? Forget about It!
22) MK Feiglin Ascends Temple Mount for First Time Since Police Ban

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

According to DEBKA, which is an Israeli intelligence and news website, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has informed US Secretary of State, John Kerry, of his acceptance in principle of the US framework document – subject to the reservations he has raised with US Special Envoy Martin Indyk.  A high-ranking US official said: “We all know that the die is cast in Jerusalem and that Netanyahu has accepted Kerry’s guidelines. They are now working on the reservations he needs to submit for his government coalition to survive the expected storm of protest and resistance and for the talks with the Palestinians to carry on. Netanyahu will also try presenting the Kerry paper to the public as an American proposal which is not binding either on Israel or the Palestinians, except for the attached reservations. US officials predict that those reservations will eventually find their way to the dustbin. In 2004, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appended 16 reservations to President George W. Bush’s letter defining the American position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Sharon’s reservations had dropped by the wayside by the time the US Congress came to approve the Bush letter in its original form. Informed sources in the US forecast a similar fate for the Kerry framework document. The prime minister’s office and Israel’s embassy have asked the White House and State Department to delay publication of the Kerry document to mid-April during the Knesset’s Passover recess. This will help Netanyahu to stay clear of the rowdy debates and heated special sessions he expects to erupt over his acceptance of the paper. As a result, Kerry may therefore add a few weeks to the three-way negotiating time table and release his framework accord at the end of April or early May.

According to various sources, Kerry’s framework proposal will call for recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians are expected to reject this element of the framework. The US may present a copy of Kerry’s framework to Netanyahu when Netanyahu visits the US the first week of March. Kerry’s framework will call Israel the “nations state of the Jewish people” and Palestine the “nations state of the Palestinian people”. “When you talk about a Jewish state, you are talking about the end of the end of any solution for Palestinian refugees – do you think any Palestinian can accept this,” Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official. “If Mr Kerry thinks this is the sum of his brilliant intelligence, the document will go nowhere. It’s impossible for the Palestinians to sign such an agreement with Israel.” In addition, Kerry’s framework will propose a peace agreement based upon 1967 borders with land swaps that take into account “demographic changes” on the ground. This is a phrase meant to enable Israel to keep settlement blocs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem – a sector that includes the biblical city’s holy sites – as their capital. Netanyahu is insisting that a Palestinian capital be sited in an unspecified area termed “Greater Jerusalem” – possibly meaning the city’s outer lying suburbs. He also wants reference to the Palestinian demand to be referred to as merely an “aspiration”. Palestinian official, Nabil Abu Rdeineh warned that the framework document should not cross Palestinian “red lines” which is a Palestinian state based upon 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and calling Israeli settlements “illegal” instead of “illegitimate.” Kerry is suggesting that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders be permitted to “express reservations” regarding the US plan. However, the US framework proposal will be the basis for the continuation of peace talks. Kerry said that he believed that these conditions provide “the only way for Israel and the Palestinians to politically be able to keep the negotiations moving… For them as leaders to be able to embrace an endgame, they need to have the right to be able to have some objection.” In response, Abu Rdeineh said that the “Use of the word ‘reservations’ bogs down the peace process and the use of this concept in the past has got the process stuck. It is doomed to fail.”

So, the Palestinians have informed US Secretary of State, John Kerry that it will not accept his framework peace proposal as it currently stands. According to Palestinian officials, the central clauses in Kerry’s framework proposal which is being rejected by the Palestinians is as follows:

Borders: The peace agreement is to be based on pre-1967 lines but will take into consideration changes on the ground in the decades since.

Settlements: There will be no massive evacuation of “residents.”

Refugees: Palestinian refugees will be able to return to Palestine or remain where they currently live. In addition, it is possible that a limited number of refugees could be allowed into pre-1967 Israel as a humanitarian gesture and only with Israeli acquiescence. Nowhere is it written that Israel bears responsibility for suffering caused to the refugees.

Capital: The Palestinian capital will be in Jerusalem.

Security: Israel has the right to defend itself, by itself.

The Jordan Valley: The IDF will retain a presence in the Jordan Valley. The length of time the IDF will remain will depend on the abilities of the Palestinian security forces.

Border crossings: Israel will continue to control border crossings into Jordan.

Definition of the countries: Two states will result, “a national state of the Jewish people and a national state of the Palestinian people.”

Senior Palestinian officials say that these clauses are unacceptable to the Palestinians for several reasons:

For a start, the references to the borders and settlements leave too much room for Israeli interpretation. “What does ‘There will be no widespread evacuation of residents’ mean?” asked one official. “This means that Israel will want to keep a bigger percentage of the West Bank and this point is not acceptable to us. What does ‘Taking into consideration changes on the ground since then’ mean? I mean, Israel continues to build settlements.”

The official continued: “The same with the refugee issue; there is no recognition of Palestinian suffering. We want an expression of regret, an Israeli admission of the suffering caused to us. Where did it disappear to? And the humanitarian gesture [for a limited entry of Palestinian refugees into Israel] that depends on Israel’s consent doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” the official said, indicating that Israel would not likely be generous on this issue.

The official added that a still more problematic issue for the PA is Jerusalem. “When the Palestinian capital is defined as ‘in Jerusalem,’ what does it mean? In Shuafat? In Issawiya? We demanded that the Palestinian capital would be al-Quds a-Sharqiya (East Jerusalem). But Netanyahu refused firmly and the US administration accepted his position.

“What about security and the Jordan Valley? What does it mean that Israel has the right to defend itself, by itself? We will not agree to the entry of Israeli troops into the PA territory. And as for the ongoing presence of the army in the Jordan Valley, it’s ridiculous to set the timeline [for the IDF’s exit] according to ‘the abilities of the PA security forces.’ Who will determine that ability? And who will say, ‘That’s it, the PA is ready to assume responsibility for the Valley’?”

For its part, Israel would likely have significant objections to the Kerry framework terms if they are drafted according to Palestinian demands. Israel has indicated that the relatively minor alterations to the pre-1967 lines envisaged by the PA are inadequate, and that there will have to be larger land swaps to accommodate most of the settlers. Netanyahu further wants any Jews whose settlements are on the Palestinian side of an agreed border to be given the option of staying on under Palestinian rule — a stance rejected by Abbas. Israel is adamantly opposed to any “return” for any Palestinian refugees to today’s Israel. Netanyahu has reportedly insisted that there be no suggestion of legitimate Palestinian claims to Jerusalem in the framework document. And he has insisted that the IDF secure the West Bank-Jordan border even after Palestinian statehood.

A senior Palestinian administrator said: “We said ‘No’ to Kerry in the past, and we will say it again in the future,” Asked how events would play out if the PA rejects the framework proposal when Kerry presents it, the official said, “All options are open to us, whether contacting international institutions [to seek to advance Palestinian statehood unilaterally] or in other ways. But, he warned, “I have no doubt that the situation on the ground will get worse. For both sides. The stability we have grown used to will start to crack.”

The PA is also having trouble digesting the Israeli insistence on the Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, he noted. “We have no intention of dragging this conflict in a religious direction. Every sensible person in the Middle East is trying to keep religion away from the various conflicts, except for you. What’s in it for you? The conflict between us is not religious. So why do you need our recognition that your state is Jewish? In your ID cards, your nationality is listed as ‘Israeli’ and not as ‘Jewish.’ You never asked such a thing of Egypt or Jordan. What is your concern? We are telling you outright: the peace agreement will bring about the end of the conflict and the end of all claims. So what is all this nonsense you are saying that this proves we won’t accept the state of Israel? The whole world recognizes you. These are not the days of the founding, when the world didn’t accept you. But you’re still stuck in that mindset.”

Israel Foreign Minister Israel Avigdor Lieberman wants to sign a peace deal with the Palestinians but not at the cost of Israel’s security. “There are those who say, ‘Don’t give up any land.’ There are those who say, ‘A deal with the Palestinians at any price.’ I say yes to a deal with the Palestinians but not at any price.” Liberman said. “We’ve already had a deal with more holes than Swiss cheese,” the foreign minister added, a likely reference to the 1993 Oslo Accords which failed to produce a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lieberman’s comments came after praising US Secretary of State John Kerry as a “friend of Israel” which drew criticism from Jewish Home political leader Naftali Bennett who wrote on his Facebook page that “our children’s future is more important than our friends’ compliments.”

EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faarborg-Andersen said that Israel-European ties depend on outcome of peace talks. “Israel is an important partner of the European Union and the Middle East peace process is one of the EU`s foreign policy priorities and therefore a visit to Israel is almost a must for every European Parliament president,” Faarborg-Andersen said. He said that the EU is “very keen” to strengthen ties with Israel and bring them to the same level as European non-EU countries like Norway or Switzerland but that “because of the vital importance that the international community attaches to [negotiations with the Palestinians], this depends to a large degree on the success of that process.”

Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, reiterated the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Erekat said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made it clear to the US that the Palestinians will not recognize Israel a Jewish state. In addition, Abbas  will not agree that any Israeli civilians or military officials remaining in the future Palestinian state. Furthermore, Erekat said that the Palestinians demand that Israel compensates the so-called “Palestinian refugees” whether they decide to stay in their own countries, move to the Palestinian state, or return to Israel. Finally,  Eraket said that the direct negotiations have stalled and would not be extended beyond April. He described the current state of the talks as being “negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his team, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his team, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ said that his red lines in any framework peace agreement with Israel include East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territories within four years. He said that the Palestinians would categorically not recognize Israel as the Jewish state,on the grounds that the PLO had recognized Israel in a 1993 mutual step. The Palestinians have made their red lines known to US President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators which includes the US, EU, Russia and the UN. The Palestinian principles for a framework agreement is based upon the following items:

1) An end to the conflict be based on the Arab peace initiative and relevant UN resolutions
2) The borders of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines
3) Israel must gradually withdraw from all Palestinian territories within three or four years
4) East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital
5) Resolution to the refugee issue based on “international legitimacy”, the Arab peace plan and UN resolution 194
6) All Palestinian prisoners must be freed by Israel with its final withdrawal from Palestinian territory

“These are the red lines of the Palestinian position, since without these principles there can be no just and comprehensive peace in the region,” Abu Rudeineh said. In any event, senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath was doubtful that negotiations with Israel would continue beyond their original April deadline, due to American support for Israel’s demand to recognize it as a Jewish state and to maintain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley. “Negotiations will not be extended [beyond their original nine-month time frame] if these conditions persist,” Shaath said. He warned, however, that Palestinians should be prepared for the eventuality that refusal to accept the American conditions would bring about a “cutting of the foreign aid which the PA relies on to fulfill its needs.”

Finally, Fatah and Hamas have made significant progress in reconciliation talks held in Gaza and are now on the verge of implementing previously signed agreements, according to Palestinian media. “Things are completely ready for ending the divide, and [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas is very optimistic that the reconciliation will soon be implemented,” said Nabil Shaath, a senior Fatah member sent by Abbas to Gaza late last week at the head of a delegation from Fatah’s Central Committee to hold talks with Hamas. The two rival movements have been at loggerheads since Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, a year after winning a landslide victory in national elections. A series of signed reconciliation agreements have not been implemented amid ongoing persecution of opposition members both by Hamas in Gaza and by Fatah in the West Bank.

Speaking to journalists in Gaza, Shaath said that Hamas has agreed to the immediate formation of a “national consensus” government headed by Abbas, followed by legislative and presidential elections in six months. Elections are also to be held for the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, in which Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora will take part. Abbas is expected to send Azzam Al-Ahmad, the Fatah official responsible for talks with Hamas, to Gaza to discuss the implementation of the agreement, Shaath said.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Netanyahu accepts Kerry’s “framework” in principle, seeks publication delayed to Knesset recess
2) John Kerry peace plan “to recognise Israel as a Jewish state”
3) Liberman: I want a Palestinian deal, but not at any price
4) EU envoy: Relations with Israel depend on outcome of peace talks
5) Abbas aide calls Kerry peace formula a recipe for failure
6) Erekat: No to Recognition, No to Israeli Presence in ‘Palestine’
7) PA’s Erekat: Peace Talks Will Not Be Extended, PA Recognition of Jewish State ‘Will Not Happen’
8.) PA tells Kerry no to framework deal in current form
9) Aide: Abbas’ red lines include East Jerusalem, Israeli withdrawal and refugees
10) Abbas’s new red line: Israeli withdrawal within 4 years
11) Fatah-Hamas reconciliation almost final, reports say

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

US Secretary of State John Kerry is still working to finalize a framework peace proposal expected to be presented to Israel and the Palestinians in the near future. Because the US framework will require both Israel and the Palestinians to make tough decision and make major compromises from their original positions, Kerry is suggesting that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders be permitted to “express reservations” regarding the US plan. However, the US framework proposal will be the basis for the continuation of peace talks. Kerry said that he believed that these conditions provide “the only way for Israel and the Palestinians to politically be able to keep the negotiations moving… For them as leaders to be able to embrace an endgame, they need to have the right to be able to have some objection.” In any peace deal, Kerry said: “Everybody understands that it’s going to take some period of time for a transition. That’s why it is phased,” he said. “What is critical, I think, is to give people a sense that there can be an end of the conflict and an end of claims and that there is a framework within which it is all contained.”

Because of the challenges to agree on the terms of a peace deal, US officials acknowledged that more time will needed past the original deadline of April 29 to reach a peace agreement. The US now views the April 29 date as “artificial” and suggested that even a framework agreement might need more time given some important gaps still remain. One of these gaps is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland. In an interview with the New York Times, Abbas said that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is “out of the question”. Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Nasser Judeh, also rejected the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. He also rejected the idea of Jordan being an alternative home for Palestinian Arabs. Judeh stressed that Jordan is not absent from the peace negotiations and will not accept any solution that contradicts with the country’s interests and national security. “Jordan will not negotiate on behalf of Palestinians regarding their envisioned state’s borders with Israel,” Judeh added. He reiterated Jordan’s stance which calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders with eastern Jerusalem as its capital. This, he said, is a top Jordanian national interest. However, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by the Palestinians is a precondition for a two-state solution. Netanyahu dismissed as “absurd” the notion that Israel would sign an agreement recognizing a nation-state for the Palestinian people without mutual recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.

According to various reports, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has offered to give the Palestinian Authority full control over 90% of the West Bank. However, the Palestinians want at least 97%. If Netanyahu’s offer would be accepted, it would mean that between 72,000 and 108,000 Jews would need to be expelled from their homes. When vacating the Gaza Strip in 2005, only 10,000 Jews were expelled from their homes. Under Netanyahu’s proposal, Israel would keep the major “settlement bloc” areas with a majority-Israeli population, including the Ariel bloc, Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim, and the towns of Beit El and Karnei Shomron along with surrounding communities. The Palestinians are demanding 97% of the West Bank, full control over eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, the release of all terrorist prisoners, the ability to arm the PA police, and implementation of the so-called “right of return,” which would give millions of descendants of Arabs who left pre-state Israel during the War of Independence the freedom to “return” to Israel.

At the moment, Kerry is pressuring Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas to submit in writing their views and reservations on the US positions he put before them in private, one-on-one conversations. He proposes to embody their comments in a non-binding paper to be the framework for further negotiations. That paper has two-against-one support in the top Israeli threesome of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

Netanyahu accepts it as a basis for negotiations but wants changes with reference to Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and less clarity on the extent of swaps for the settlement blocs remaining on the West Bank in a Palestinian state as well as Jerusalem. These issues should be left vague according to Netanyahu. However, it is also being reported that Netanyahu promised senior officials in the Jewish Home political party that the US framework for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will not be allowed to become reality. A senior official from the Jewish Home political party said: “We made it clear that we will not stand by this [the US framework] and this was promised to us.” The Jewish Home political party has threatened to leave the government coalition in the event that Netanyahu agrees to accept an interim agreement that would require Israel give away land for a Palestinian state. When the US framework proposal has been revealed, Jewish Home political leader, Naftali Bennett said: “If this thing is not consistent with our principles, we won’t remain in the government. And if it is consistent with our principles, we’ll be [in the coalition] and we’ll strengthen the prime minister.” He said there are many questions with regard to how events will unfold after Kerry’s framework is made public. There is the issue of whether Netanyahu would say “yes to the framework [or] no to the framework,” said Bennett. Then, he asked, do ministers vote “yes to a cabinet decision [or] no to a cabinet decision?” He added the questions, would Netanyahu say “yes to a signature [or] no to a signature?” and “What is written on [the document]?” Only once he has the answer to all these questions, Bennett said, would he know how to proceed. “I have no objective to be in or out,” he said. “I think we are serving Israel exceptionally well in this government. It is a good government. The State of Israel was not created because of the Holocaust. It was created because of the Bible. Our role is to transform it into a real Jewish nation,” Bennett said. “Israel has been paying for decades for US’s policy mistakes in the Middle East – and that Israel should not have to pay any more for them. The US insisted on instituting elections for the Palestinians and they elected Hamas. The US insisted that Israel withdraw from Gaza, and in return we got tens of thousands of rockets on southern Israel, after democratically elected Hamas took over Gaza.”

Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman urges full acceptance of the Kerry framework. He said: “there is a rhetoric battle for who is blunter, who is more litigious. Kerry is a true friend of Israel. I don’t see what is wise about taking friends and turning them into enemies.” Lieberman added: “I support an agreement but not at any price.” According to him, “the unity of the people is more important than the unity of the land.” He further added that “Kerry is leading the process correctly. Israel is conducting talks with the Americans and the Palestinians are also conducting the talks with the Americans. We are now talking about the principles so that we could later directly negotiate with the Palestinians without any mediators.” Lieberman reiterated that he supports a land swap in the framework of a future agreement with the Palestinians. Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon rejects the Kerry plan mostly because of security concerns.

Israel Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon criticized Kerry and the US framework peace plan by saying: “We cannot negotiate with the Palestinians when Secretary Kerry is pressuring Israel, threatening Israel, that we must sign the deal ‘today, now.’ That is not the way to support an ally. That is not the way to support Israel.” Danon further said: “Israel want to negotiate but we will not do it under the pressure coming from Secretary of State Kerry. Israel will not go back to the 1967 lines,” Danon emphasized. “We will not divide Jerusalem. I expect Prime Minister Netanyahu to tell Secretary Kerry – we appreciate your efforts, but we can not do what you expect us to do.” Regarding his efforts to push forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Kerry said:  “I’m not going to be intimidated and back down.”

Israel Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians, rebuked her fellow ministers for comments criticizing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to reach an agreement between the two sides. She said that some members of the governing coalition were opposed to any kind of peace agreement and that the recent verbal attacks on Kerry were “shocking.”

Meanwhile, a group of rabbis wrote in an open to letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry that through his current mediation efforts between Israel and Palestinian negotiators he had declared war against God. The rabbis warned that the secretary must cease such activities, to avoid divine punishment. The letter was sent by the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel – an activist group opposed to any political accords with the Palestinians involving territorial concessions – founded by Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, who also founded the Our Land of Israel party. The letter reads: “Your incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang, amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe! For G-d awarded the entire Land of Israel to our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order that they bequeath it, as an everlasting inheritance, to their descendants, the Jewish people, until the end of all time.” The rabbis argue that Kerry’s plan endangers Israeli Jews by bringing them within close range of potential rocket and missile fire from the West Bank should it be ceded by Israel to the Palestinians. “If you continue on this destructive path, you will ensure your everlasting disgrace in Jewish history for bringing calamity upon the Jewish people,” continued the rabbis, comparing Kerry to Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II and Roman commander and future emperor Titus, the two enemies of the ancient Jewish kingdoms who destroyed the temples in Jerusalem and Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel along with them. “By the power of our Holy Torah, we admonish you to cease immediately all efforts to achieve these disastrous agreements – in order to avoid severe heavenly punishment for everyone involved,” they threatened. The letter was signed by Rabbi Wolpo, along with four other rabbis including Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, the founder and chairman of the Temple Institute.

Regarding the issue of the Jordan Valley, Abbas said that he would agree to let Israeli troops remain in the Palestinian state for a transitional period of five years to work with Palestinian and Jordanian security forces and reassure the Israeli public that it is not going to get hit with thousands of rockets, as was the case after the “Disengagement” from Gaza. After the five-year transitional period, Abbas said that the Israeli forces could be replaced indefinitely by an American-led NATO force, with troops throughout the territory, at every crossing and within Arab eastern Jerusalem, along with Palestinian Arab police and security units. The NATO forces could stay “for a long time, and wherever they want, not only on the eastern borders but also on the western borders, everywhere … For a long time, for the time they wish. NATO can be everywhere, why not?” said Abbas. Such a force, he said, “can stay to reassure the Israelis, and to protect us. We will be demilitarized. … Do you think we have any illusion that we can have any security if the Israelis do not feel they have security?” Abbas further said that he could not possibly accept a lengthy Israeli military presence in a sovereign Palestinian state, saying, “At the end of five years my country will be clean of occupation. The Israelis do not want the third party,” he said. “[Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert, welcomed this idea. However, Netanyahu told me directly, when we were in his house, ‘I cannot rely on anybody to protect my security except my army. …’ He doesn’t want to leave the borders to the Palestinians.

Jewish Home political party leader Naftali Bennett dismissed Abbas’s NATO idea, saying they would prove ineffective in a real crisis. Bennett said that Israel should learn from prior experience with international forces. “When everything’s quiet they’re there. The moment you need them they run away,” he quipped. “International forces will be the last thing to help us sleep in peace. The Israeli army alone will protect our children” he said. “To any other solution we say: No thanks.”

Abbas also emphasized that if talks fail, he would resort to what the Palestinians consider their foremost diplomatic asset: pursuing membership in international agencies and courts. Abbas said that he had been resisting pressure to join the United Nations agencies from the Palestinian street and leadership — including unanimous votes by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee and the central committee of his own Fatah Party — and that his staff had presented 63 applications ready for his signature.

US Secretary of State John Kerry recently threatened PA President Mahmoud Abbas that he would meet the same fate as his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, if he turned down the US proposal for peace with Israel according to Palestinian sources. Jamal Muhaissen, a senior Fatah official in the West Bank, said that if the report is true, “this shows that Israel assassinated Yasser Arafat after receiving a green light from the US administration. If true, Kerry’s threat paves the way for bringing him before the International Criminal Court for threatening the life of an elected Palestinian president,” Muhaissen said. Kerry’s proposals were met with shock and rejection by Abbas, he said. A Palestinian source said that Kerry’s proposals do not meet the minimum of Palestinian aspirations and Abbas’s promises to his people. “Abbas wants future generations to remember him as a hero who managed to achieve for his people what the largest Arab powers and parties failed to obtain in all their wars with Israel,” the source explained. As for the issue of the refugees, the source said, Kerry wants to establish an international fund for settling Palestinians in Australia and anywhere else they wish. Only a small number of refugees would be permitted to enter Israel in the context of “family reunion.”

In addition, US Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Israel that a failure in the peace talks would lead to global boycotts of Israel. Last November, Kerry threatened that Israel would face a “Third Intifada” – or violent uprising – if talks did not end with a “Palestinian state” in the West Bank. A senior Palestinian negotiator said that Kerry is coordinating with the European Union regarding its boycott of Israeli settlements. Speaking at a security conference in Germany, Kerry seemed to warn that if negotiations to create a Palestinian state fail, Israel could face growing international boycotts. “You see for Israel there is an increasing deligitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it,” said Kerry. “There are talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better with all of that? The risks are very high for Israel,” Kerry continued. “People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure.” Israeli leaders took issue with Kerry’s statements and his failure to condemn what many here see as an anti-Semitic boycott. Israel Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel will not negotiate with “a gun pointed at its head,” especially regarding “matters which are most critical to our national interests. The things Kerry said are hurtful, they are unfair and they are intolerable,” Steinitz continued. Israeli Industry Minister Naftali Bennett said: “We expect of our friends in the world to stand by our side against the attempts to impose an anti-Semitic boycott on Israel and not to be their mouthpiece.”

In response, the US State Department issued a statement explaining that Kerry’s remarks were taken out of context, clarifying Kerry opposes boycotts against Israel. However, the senior Palestinian negotiator said that the US agreed to a ‘good cop, bad cop’ attitude. The negotiator further claimed that if Israel does not collaborate with Palestinian talks being brokered by Kerry, the EU financial sanctions could become tougher. The threat has been communicated to Israeli officials, according to the Palestinian negotiator. Possible further boycotts being considered, the negotiator stated, include an official statement from EU that settlements are illegal; a full financial boycott; and sanctions on all trade, universities and Jewish entities in the settlements. Another possibility is an EU dictate requiring special visas for settlers. On the other hand, if Israel goes along with Kerry’s peace plan, the EU will reconsider its future settlement boycott, the Palestinian negotiator stated.

In response, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Efforts to boycott Israel are neither moral nor justified.” Furthermore, he said that these efforts will not achieve their aims. “First of all, they cause the Palestinians to become entrenched behind their obstinate positions and push peace farther away, and secondly, no pressure will cause me to give up Israeli vital interests, first and foremost the security of Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu said.

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a letter slamming the boycott threats against Israel from US Secretary of State John Kerry. The full text reads:

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We are writing to you at this moment with great respect for the exemplary and devoted efforts you are putting in to try to move peace forward between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

We have all witnessed the suffering and loss on all sides as the conflict continues year after year, decade after decade. We welcome your perseverance and optimism in trying to accomplish something that has eluded others time and again.

It is with this perspective in mind that we regretfully read of your comments this past weekend in Munich. In speaking about the price Israel will pay if the peace talks break down and Israel is blamed, you may have thought you were merely describing reality. But as the key player in the process, the impact of your comments was to create a reality of its own.

Describing the potential for expanded boycotts of Israel makes it more, not less, likely that the talks will not succeed; makes it more, not less, likely that Israel will be blamed if the talks fail; and more, not less, likely that boycotts will ensue. Your comments, irrespective of your intentions, will inevitably be seen by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists as an incentive not to reach an agreement; as an indicator that if things fall apart, Israel will be blamed; and as legitimizing boycott activity.

What is particularly troubling about your comments is the absence of similar tough talk about the consequences for Palestinians should the talks fail. We make this comment not in search of some theoretical balance. Rather, its absence suggests a historical amnesia about why there has been no peace and no solution all these years. Israel always must be willing to compromise for peace and at different times it is not unreasonable to ask Israel to do more.

But the core of the conflict was and remains Palestinian unwillingness to accept Israel’s legitimacy and permanence as a Jewish state. That is why the Palestinians rejected the 1947 partition, that is why they rejected recognizing Israel after the 1967 war, and that is why Israeli offers at Camp David in 2000 and Annapolis in 2008 were rejected or allowed to go unanswered.  It is Palestinians who must hear the message that not only has their rejectionism been the major obstacle to peace, but it has also been the main source of their suffering and misery over the years. It is time for them to make the qualitative leap toward peace and acceptance of the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

It is encouraging that reportedly in the talks you are raising these matters with the Palestinians. Your comments in Munich, however, threaten to undo all this by ignoring the historic compulsion of the Palestinians to look for ever new reasons and incentives to reject the Jewish state. Concerns of the kind you expressed therefore would have been better left unsaid or at most discussed in private conversations with Israeli representatives.

We wish you continued success in moving this process forward. We urge you to understand, however, that those who are most against peace are the ones who will benefit the most from the unintended encouragement in the comments you expressed in Munich.

Abraham D. Foxman, ADL National Director.

In response to sharp Israeli criticism of US Secretary of State suggesting that there could be economic boycotts against Israel if peace talks fail, the US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said: “Secretary Kerry has a proud record of over three decades of steadfast support for Israel’s security and well-being, including staunch opposition to boycotts. Any rhetoric that is inaccurate and critical as this is is unhelpful,” she said. “These kind of attacks are unacceptable. They not only distort his record but they distract from the key issues at hand.”

Pope Francis plans to visit the Middle East in May. Apparently, the Pope plans to use his upcoming visit to Israel as a propaganda move for the Palestine Authority (PA) against Israel. The pope plans to have “mass” prayer services in the PA-controlled city of Bethlehem rather than in Jerusalem. The move is slightly ironic, as most Christians have reportedly been driven out of the city by Muslims, while Abbas has claimed “Jesus was Palestinian.”

In other news regarding the peace process, Israeli planners gave final approval for 558 new apartments in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the 1967 borders. A Jerusalem municipal spokesman issued a statement. “The municipality strongly opposes any effort to stifle the legitimate right of every resident to receive building permits and continue building in all neighborhoods of the city according to the master plan for Jew and Arabs as one, regardless of race, religion or gender.” Brachie Sprung, a municipality spokeswoman, said the building projects received initial approval a few years ago. European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs Commissioner Catherine Ashton demanded that Israel take back its plan to build these homes. She said: “These plans endanger the chances of turning Jerusalem into the capital of two countries,” claimed Ashton, referencing the US plan to establish an Arab capital in Jerusalem. “I call on the government of Israel to weigh this step again, and take back its decision.” The US State Department also condemned the announcement to build more homes in Jerusalem by saying: “The US position on Jerusalem is clear. We oppose any unilateral actions by either party that attempt to prejudge final status issues, including the status of Jerusalem,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “We’ve called on both sides to take steps to create a positive atmosphere for the negotiations.” Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called the moves a “deliberate provocation of the Palestinians to drive them to leave the negotiations.”

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) US expects delay on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Kerry framework rollout
2) Kerry: Netanyahu, Abbas can express objections to framework deal
3) So where does the US-Israeli-Palestinian peace process go from here?
4) Report: Netanyahu Willing to Concede 90% of Judea, Samaria
5) Report: Netanyahu Promised to Stop US Framework from Passing
6) Lieberman: Unity of people more important than unity of land
7) Danon: We Won’t Buckle Under Kerry’s Pressure
8.) ‘Kerry has declared a war on God,’ write hard-line rabbis in letter
9) Bennett: We will leave coalition if framework deal inconsistent with our principles
10) Abbas to NYT: NATO troops, not IDF, can remain in West Bank
11) Abbas Suggests NATO Presence in Palestinian State
12) Abbas: IDF can remain in future Palestine for 5 years
13) Jordan’s FM Rejects Recognizing Israel as Jewish State
14) Pope Coming To Israel As ‘Che Guevera of Palestinians’
15) Fatah wants Kerry prosecuted before ICC for ‘threatening’ Abbas
16) John Kerry Threatens Israel With Boycotts if Talks Fail
17) Kerry ‘coordinating boycott blackmail against Israel’
18) Boycott of Israel ‘amoral, unjustified,’ Netanyahu says
19) ADL To Kerry: ‘Your Threats Destroy Peace Talks’
20) Livni blasts Israeli ministers for comments on Kerry
21) Kerry rebuffs criticism over ‘boycott’ comment
22) Kerry: I won’t be intimidated by Israeli attacks against me
23) US: Israeli attacks on Kerry ‘show the heat is on’
24) Israel issues 558 permits for East Jerusalem housing
25) Ashton: ‘For PA Capital Cancel Jerusalem Building’
26) US condemns east Jerusalem building plan as Kerry downplays Israeli critics

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to present his framework peace proposal in the near future. According to various sources, his proposal is expected to include land swaps based on the 1967 lines, security arrangements in the Jordan Valley and no “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.It will include an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank except for certain settlement blocs. Israel would compensate the Palestinians for the land upon which are the settlement blocs for land within Israel proper. In addition, it will include Jerusalem being the shared capital of both Israel and the Palestinians and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is a key demand of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the negotiations.

Kerry expects and hopes that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will declare that despite their reservations about one or another element in the U.S. framework, they will use it as the basis of further negotiations.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said a full and final Israeli military withdrawal from Palestinian territory should take place within a three-year period under any final Middle East peace deal. “We say that in a reasonable time frame, no longer than three years, Israel can withdraw gradually,” he said. “We have no problem with there being a third party present after or during the withdrawal, to reassure Israel and to reassure us that the process will be completed,” Abbas said.

“We think NATO is the appropriate party to undertake this mission. “The Palestinian borders must, in the end, be held (controlled) by Palestinians and not by the Israeli army,” he added. Abbas reiterated Palestinian demands that a two-state solution be based on the lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, and stressed the importance of having annexed East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

U.S. and Israeli officials in close contact with Netanyahu describe him as being torn between realizing that some kind of two-state solution is necessary for Israel’s integrity as a Jewish democratic state and to eliminate the threat of an economic boycott from Europe and skeptical about Palestinian intentions. Netanyahu said: “I do not want a binational state. But we also don’t want another state that will start attacking us.”

Which is why — although Netanyahu has started to prepare the ground here for the U.S. plan — if he proceeds on its basis, even with reservations, his coalition will likely collapse. He will lose a major part of his own Likud Party and all his other right-wing allies. In short, for Netanyahu to move forward, he will have to build a new political base around centrist parties. To do that, Netanyahu would have to become, to some degree, a new leader — overcoming his own innate ambivalence about any deal with the Palestinians to become Israel’s most vocal and enthusiastic salesman for a two-state deal, otherwise it would never pass.

Netanyahu described what he believes to be the core issues of the conflict with the Palestinians. He said: “We stand on two basic principles [that we require of the Palestinians]. The first is recognition of the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. This is the root of the conflict. The conflict is not about the settlements, its not about the settlers, and it’s not about a Palestinian state. The Zionist movement agreed to recognize a Palestinian state. “The conflict is over the Jewish state… We are asked to recognize a national Palestinian state, so can we not also demand [that they] recognize a national Jewish state?” he said.

The second principle, Netanyahu said, was demilitarization. Elaborating, he said, constant incitement against Israel among the Palestinians had created a climate in which Israel required a substantial “security presence” in order to protect itself. That included a “long-term” presence in the Jordan Valley and other areas.

Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that the Kerry framework proposal reflecte “American positions.” He said: “I would like to emphasize that they are not Israeli positions but rather American ones. Israel does not have to agree to anything the Americans present.” However, US Ambassador Dan Shapiro said that the Kerry framework peace proposal is not solely composed of American ideas but is drawn from ideas which the Israelis and Palestinians themselves have presented. He said: “As we continue our work at this stage to shape a framework proposal, it is very much drawn from ideas the parties have put on the table themselves.” Very little of it will be purely American authorship; there will certainly be a role for America to try and bridge some gaps but much of what will emerge from that emerges from discussions between Israel and the Palestinians.” Shapiro said that this framework, if it is going to be successful in giving more time to negotiate a full agreement, “is going to need to contain real decisions on all the core issues.”

Rabbi Chaim Druckman, head of the network of Bnei Akiva yeshivas, had harsh words for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent suggestion that Israel concede most of Judea and Samaria (Shomron) to the Palestinian Authority.Speaking in advance of a planned prayer rally at the Kotel (Western Wall), Rabbi Druckman said, “I don’t believe my ears. Who is it they want to give parts of our land to? “One does not give one’s homeland even to friends, let alone to mortal enemies,” he told Israel radio. “We’ve lost our senses,” he lamented.

Rabbi Druckman said he does not oppose the creation of a state of “Palestine” – as long as it is not in Israel’s heartland. “The land of Israel is the land of the people of Israel,” he said. “I am completely against any agreement like this,” he continued. “We will not give any part of our land to foreign rule. No normal nation would do such a thing.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the idea that those settlers who live outside the large settlement blocs could choose to live inside a Palestinian state. Israel Government officials made clear that Netanyahu never talked about physically uprooting settlements and their inhabitants from the West Bank, as was done in Gaza in 2005. Rather, he has spoken of the possibility of Jews wanting to live in those settlements being able to do so if they wish. This idea caused a great deal of outcry from the Jewish Home political party and members of Netanyahu’s own Likud political party.

Jewish Home political party leader, Naftali Bennett, called upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to rule out letting Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) come under Palestinian control. “The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian sovereignty, as was suggested by someone in the Prime Minister’s Office, is very dangerous and reflects a loss of marbles and values,” Bennett said. “We did not return to the Land of Israel, after 2,000 years to live under the government of [President] Mahmoud Abbas.

The Prime Minister’s office responded to Bennett by saying: “Bennett is irresponsibly harming national interests and diplomatic procedures intended to expose the true face of the Palestinian Authority in exchange for media coverage.” These sources went on to say that Bennett is undermining Netanyahu’s efforts in proving to the international community that it is the Palestinian Authority who pose an obstacle to peace.

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon vowed not to abandon the Jews who live over the Green Line to Israel’s enemies. “I would not wish for my worst enemy to live under Palestinian sovereignty,” Danon said. “Whoever thinks Jews can live under Palestinian control should visit the Gaza Strip. There cannot be security for Jews in areas that are not under IDF control.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin said that “only someone deluded enough to believe the lion is ready to lie with the lamb could abandon hundreds of thousands of people to the mercy of those who enabled the lynching in Ramallah.”

Sources in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office shot back at comments made by Likud MKs, criticizing Netanyahu’s proposal to have Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria live under the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Likud opponents to Netanyahu’s plan include Deputy Minister of Transportation Tzipi Hotovely, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, and Deputy Minister Ofir Akunis. The source in Netanyahu’s office remarked that “no one is forcing Deputy Ministers Danon, Hotovely, Elkin and Akunis to stay in their posts, they can leave them any time they want.” According to the same source, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, who was slammed for similarly criticizing the proposal, also has the “alternative to leave the government.”

The clash highlights a growing schism in the Likud, as several MKs including those mentioned by the source are reportedly planning a “rebellion” in the party over Netanyahu’s willingness to make irresponsible concessions to the PA. Netanyahu’s proposal, which was phrased earlier in a positive light as “not uprooting any settlements anywhere,” was opposed by Hotovely, who said that “a diplomatic plan that relegates the Jewish settlement enterprise to Palestinian sovereignty will not receive political backing in Likud.” Bennett called the proposal “a very grave matter” that “reflects a panicked loss of values.” Akunis said that the proposal to leave Israelis under the PA “can be defined in one word: hallucinatory.” Elkin slammed the proposals as well, saying they “are diametrically opposed to the Zionist concept. Whoever is pulling the prime minister in such delusional directions wants to cause a schism between him and Likud, and the entire national camp.”

In a speech associated with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel’s future is linked with reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians. She said: “Israel was not established because of the Holocaust but rather because of Zionism, the Jewish people’s connection to the land and its desire to establish itself as a Jewish nation. Israel today is a strong and independent nation,” Livni said. “We should not only think about the Jewish people in the past, but of the direction our nation is taking in the future [. . .] a Jewish and Democratic state – and for that we need to give away part of our land.”

“I have heard several different officials say in the past several days that the Jews did not dream of returning to their land over the past 2000 years just to give away part of it,” Livni continued. “But they also did not envision a land which exerted control over another nation.” Livni also threatened both sides with consequences if an agreement falls through, stating that both will “have a price to pay” if negotiations fail. “Both sides have to understand that,” she explained. “It’s the decision of both leaders, not only one, to make – and both we and the Palestinian people will have to pay if peace is not reached.”

Labor political party leader Shelly Yacimovich said that she had discussed the possibility of Jewish settlers who did not wish to leave their West Bank communities staying in a Palestinian state as citizens with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who had had accepted the proposal in a meeting between herself and Abbas in May, 2013. However, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that not a single settler would be permitted to stay in the future state of Palestine. He said: “Anyone who says he wants to keep the settlers in a Palestinian state is really saying he does not want a Palestinian state,” Erekat declared. “No settler will be permitted to stay in a Palestinian state, not one, because the settlements are illegal and the presence of settlers on occupied lands is illegal.”

Israel responded by saying that “Nothing reveals more the Palestinian Authority’s unwillingness to reach an agreement with the State of Israel than its radical and reckless reaction to refusing to allow Jewish settlers to become citizens of a Palestinian state. They added: “An agreement will only be reached when the Palestinians recognize the Jewish state and only when Israel’s vital security needs are guaranteed.”

According to Dani Dayan, the chief foreign envoy for the Yesha Council – a Judea and Samaria leadership forum – MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) rejected Netanyahu’s suggested solution – explaining that Jewish settlers who live inside “Palestine” will not be loyal citizens in the new Arab state. Dayan calls Zahalka’s statement “the definition of hypocrisy.”

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) ‘Kerry Plan’ said to include shared Jerusalem, Jewish state recognition
2) Why Kerry Is Scary
3) Rabbi’s Shock at PM’s Proposal: ‘Have We Lost Our Senses?’
4) Ambassador Shapiro clarifies: Kerry paper drawn from Israeli, Palestinian proposals
5) Brief cabinet crisis averted by pro-settlement minister’s apology for criticizing Netanyahu
6) Netanyahu: Israel not obligated by US peace plan
7) Yacimovich: Abbas agreed to Jewish settlers in a future Palestinian state
8.) Sources in PMO slam PA for saying no settlers can stay in ‘Palestine’
9) Livni: ‘Negotiations Not to Expose Faults of Other Side’
10) ‘Likud MKs Critical of Netanyahu Can Leave Govt.’
11) Abbas allows for 3-year IDF presence in Palestinian state
12) Arab MK Warns: ‘Palestine’ Jews ‘Won’t be Loyal Citizens’
13) Sources in Prime Minister’s Office slam Bennett for ‘harming national interests’
14) The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian rule is ‘dangerous,’ says Bennett
15) Will Jews be able to live in future Palestine?

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

Israeli’s top two negotiators with the Palestinians will travel to the United States to have talks with US Secretary of State, John Kerry, about the parameters for a framework agreement between Israel and the Palestinians to continue peace negotiations. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s envoy Yitzhak Molcho are to meet with Kerry and his staff members, including the US special envoy Martin Indyk. Furthermore, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said that he would meet with Kerry in the US in the coming week. The Palestinians are expecting Kerry to present them with a written document outlining the US position on the peace process, Erekat said. Kerry has been working for months to reach a framework agreement between Israel and the Palestinians whose goal would be an establishment of a Palestinian state. A senior Palestinian officical, Abed Rabbo said “the plan proposes Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the establishment of the Palestinian capital in a part of East Jerusalem and solving the refugees problem in accordance with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s vision. However, Abed Rabbo said there are considerable gaps between the positions of the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership. Netanyahu ”is refusing to open the file on Jerusalem,” he said, while the Palestinian side is adamant in rejecting Israel’s demand that it be formally recognized as the Jewish state. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that the goal of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would be the “mutual recognition of the nation-state of the Palestinian people and the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

According to Kerry’s plan, settlement blocs would remain under Israeli control as would border crossings and air space, though American and Jordanian troops would be present as well, Abed Rabbo said. Israel, he added, would retain the right to enter Palestinian territory in hot pursuit. In addition, Israeli negotiators are discussing a series of limited withdrawals linked to progress by the Palestinian Authority in maintaining security, a senior Palestinian official said. “There are talks on long-term security arrangements and standards [that would be] subject to so-called improved performance on security by the Palestinians, overseen by Israel,” said Abed Rabbo, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israel would determine “in the end, whether the desired level had been reached or not, although the Americans say they will be present and involved in evaluating this performance so that Israel will evacuate some areas, especially from the Jordan Valley.” US Secretary of State, John Kerry affirmed this view by stating that the end of the Israeli-Arab conflict would involve “a phased but complete withdrawal of Israeli forces” from the West Bank. “The Palestinians need to know that at the end of the day, their territory is going to be free of Israeli troops; that occupation ends,” Kerry said. “But the Israelis, rightfully, will not withdraw unless they know that the West Bank will not become a new Gaza. Nobody can blame any leader of Israel for being concerned about that reality,” he added. In his meeting with Kerry, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he has no intention of evacuating any Israeli settlements from the Jordan Valley or uprooting any Israelis who live there.

Netanyahu said the principles of a future potential agreement with the Palestinians would become clear in the next few days. Once those principles were made clear, Netanyahu said, it would be possible to assess whether the Palestinian leadership is truly seeking a breakthrough.

According to DEBKA, which is an Israeli intelligence and news gathering website, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas launched his “diplomatic intifada” against Israel on January 23 from Moscow. His meetings with President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Abbas distanced himself from the efforts of US Secretary of State, John Kerry’s efforts to reach a framework agreement between the Palestinians and Israel and instead asked Russia to take a more active role in supporting a Palestinian state. DEBKA said that the efforts of Abbas to dump the US and solicit the support of Russia caught the US and Israel unprepared – and surprised their intelligence agencies. Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official bluntly stated that it was time to “end the American monopoly on peacemaking, after the US has proven incapable of imposing a peace agreement upon Israel.” Meanwhile, a former member of the Palestinian negotiating team, Muhammad Shtayyeh, called on the Palestinian Authority to endorse “resistance” against Israel. He said that the Palestinian leadership was planning to seek membership in the UN after the failure of the talks so as to prosecute Israel for “war crimes.” He called for an international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict similar to the Geneva conference on Syria. The Palestinian goal, Shtayyeh said, was to internationalize the Palestinian issue.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that despite efforts by Secretary of State John Kerry, the PA has so far gotten nothing out of the ongoing peace negotiations with Israel. As he usually does, Abbas blamed Israel for the lack of progress in the peace talks. “The problem is with the Israeli side and not with us,” Abbas said. He referred to Israeli residents in the West Bank as “invaders” with “no right to Palestinian land”. Abbas also stressed that Palestinian Arabs living inside what is now Israel “were on the land 1,500 years before Israel was established.” “This is why Palestine can never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Abbas said. “We demand what was given to us by the international community” in 1967, while acknowledging that limited land swaps would be acceptable. Also, he said that “There can be no peace without stability, nor agreement without occupied east Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of the Palestinian state.” Finally, Abbas rejected the idea of extending the peace talks with Israel beyond the nine-month timeline set to expire at the end of April. Abbas said, “It was agreed that the negotiations would continue for nine months. We have had a large number of negotiation sessions, during which we discussed major issues. There is not talk about an extension. We need to focus on the remaining time and not think about pro-longing the talks.”

Israel’s chief negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, lashed out at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, saying in an uncharacteristic critique that if he stuck to his “unacceptable positions” the Palestinians would suffer the consequences. Livni said Abbas’s positions were “not only unacceptable to us but to the whole world, and if he continues to stick to them, then the Palestinians will be the ones to pay the price. Abbas has recently stated that no peace agreement would be possible without all of East Jerusalem [including the Old City] as the Palestinian capital, has staunchly refused to recognize Israel’s self-definition as the state of the Jewish people, and has demanded the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel proper, saying nobody but the refugees themselves could negotiate away that right. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, also warned the Palestinians saying that they need to take advantage of the present opportunity to reach a framework agreement with Israel. The Palestinians, he said, must understand that the current round of talks could be their last chance at a negotiated resolution for the foreseeable future. “If (the Palestinians) fail to achieve statehood now, there is no guarantee they will any time soon.” He added: “If talks fail, Palestinians will be no closer to being masters of their own fate, and no closer to resolving their refugee crisis.” After delivering those stern warnings, Kerry pivoted to positive arguments for peace: “Imagine this time next year if Palestinian businessman and government leaders from the state of Palestine are able to pitch the world’s largest investors (at Davos).”

The European Union warned both Israel and the Palestinians of the high price of losing European Union trade and aid if negotiations collapse, the EU ambassador to Israel said. “We have made it clear to the parties that there will be a price to pay if these negotiations falter,” ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen said. “If Israel were to go down the road of continued settlement expansion and were there not to be any result in the current talks, I am afraid that what will transpire is a situation where Israel finds itself increasingly isolated,” he said. In addition, Germany announced that continued grants to Israeli high-tech companies, as well as the renewal of a scientific cooperation agreement, will not be allowed for Israeli companies that are located in West Bank settlements or East Jerusalem will not be eligible for funding. A senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official expressed his fear that the German move will lead other European Union member states to follow suit, adding that this decision represents a significant escalation in European measures against the settlements. As a result, the boycott against the settlements has now spread from EU institutions in Brussels to individual EU members. In response, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he isn’t ignoring the spreading boycott against Israel but economic pressure will not advance the peace process but will only harden Palestinian rejection of it.

If Netanyahu does agree to a framework agreement with the Palestinians, the leader of the Jewish Home political party, Naftali Bennett intends to get the support of enough MKs to block Netanyahu from adopting any of its proposals. In doing so, Bennett is trying to get support against a Palestinian state from members of Netanyahu’s Likud Beytanu political party.  “An alliance with the Right in Likud is an important mutual interest,” Bennett said. “The goal is to torpedo any agreement and prevent deterioration to pre-1967 lines.” While no MKs have signed any written commitment, Bennett is confident he will receive enough support from Likud Beytenu MKs to reject any possible agreement with the Palestinians by making it clear to Netanyahu that he would be left without a government. In doing so, “Netanyahu will realize he has no choice,” a source close to Bennett said. More than 200 right-wing activists met with the Likud Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely and other MKs to strategize how to prevent concessions to the Palestinians. The activists vowed to pressure MKs not to support any steps that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. “All indications are that the Americans intend to force an agreement on Israel that would endanger its security and its values,” Hotovely warned at the event. “Talk of keeping only settlement blocs is adopting the path of [former Meretz leader] Yossi Beilin and is a sin against the Right. The way to stop such destructive plans is via the Likud and the coalition. The prime minister must understand that he will have no coalition and he will have no party if he accedes to a diplomatic agreement.”

So, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set to present his “framework” for a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the coming days, Land of Israel activists will hold a special emergency convention. The event will discuss alternatives to the Kerry plan, which the government of Israel seems ready to accept, even though details are still sketchy. What is known about the plan, say activists, is that it entails significant Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, and/or relinquishing of territory inside the 1948 armistice lines in exchange for the so-called “settlement blocs” in the West Bank. However, they said that there are other options – specifically, the extension of Israeli sovereignty to the entire Land of Israel. The theme of the convention will be “A single state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean – the State of Israel.” Participating in the event will be leaders and activists of various parties, including Jewish Home and the Likud. In addition, the event will be attended by numerous activist groups, including Women in Green, Kommemiyut, Regavim, the Judea and Samaria Council, and others.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) ‘Kerry plan envisages phased Israeli withdrawals, depending on security’
2) Kerry promises Palestinians an IDF-free state
3) Kerry: Israel’s Security Must be Ensured in Peace Deal
4) Livni lambastes Abbas’s ‘unacceptable positions’
5) Livni, Molcho head for Washington to confer with Kerry on peace talks
6) Netanyahu meets Kerry, says no Jordan Valley settlements will go
7) Netanyahu: Iran has spent $160 billion on nuclear weapons drive
8.) Palestinian leader turns to Putin for Palestinian state, dumps US and Israel as peace partners
9) Former PLO negotiator calls on PA to endorse ‘resistance’ against Israel
10) Abbas: There’s No Progress, and It’s All Israel’s Fault
11) Haaretz: Germany Conditions High-Tech, Science Grants on Settlement Funding Ban
12) EU warns Israel, Palestinians of the cost of peace failure
13) Abbas rejects extending peace talks beyond nine-month timeline
14) Bennett says his goal is to ‘torpedo’ any agreement with the Palestinians
15) Emergency Conference to Discuss ‘Imminent’ Kerry Plan

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
2) The death of former Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

The Israel housing ministry announced approval for 1,400 new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The US, the EU and the Palestinians warned Israel that its announcement was harmful to the peace process. US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, said: “It is never helpful to have steps taken that are not conducive to our efforts in moving forward on peace. We’ve called on both sides, as you know, many, many times to create a positive atmosphere for negotiations. So anything that doesn’t do that is unhelpful. We consider now and have always considered the settlements to be illegitimate, and we express that, of course, on a regular basis, as needed,” Psaki said. “But the reality is both sides remain committed to discussing the framework, committed to moving forward, and we’ll keep working with them,” she said. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton responded to the announcement, saying that “the settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make the two-state solution impossible.”Furthermore, Britain, France, Spain and Italy summoned the Israeli ambassadors from these countries to protect plans for the new settlement construction.

Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that claiming settlements were an obstacle to peace was “bogus.” “The real issue is not the settlements, is not the Palestinian state. The real issue was and always has been the Jewish state. The persistent refusal to accept a nation-state for the Jewish people by our adversaries, whom we want to turn to peace partners,” he said. In his comments, Netanyahu took specific aim at the European Union, which has been outspoken in its criticism of settlement construction. Netanyahu questioned why the EU protested the construction of “a few houses,” but did not summon Palestinian diplomats over Palestinian misdeeds. “When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors to complain about the incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction?” he said. “I think it is time to stop this hypocrisy. I think it is time to inject some balance and fairness to this discussion. Because I think this imbalance and this bias against Israel doesn’t advance peace,” he added. “I think it pushed peace further away because it tells the Palestinians, ‘Basically you can do anything you want, say anything you want and you won’t be held accountable.'”

After Netanyahu accused the EU of “hypocrisy” in condemning settlement construction, Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman summoned the ambassadors of Britain, France, Spain and Italy and rebuked them for their “one-sided position they constantly take against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians.” This position is “unacceptable and creates a feeling that they are only looking to place blame on Israel,” Liberman said. In addition, Liberman insisted that the constant criticisms that the Israeli representatives in Europe receive “may have the opposite effect.” “Israel is making great effort to allow the dialogue with the Palestinians to continue and the position these states are taking, beyond it being biased and unbalanced, is significantly harming the chances of reaching an accord.” the foreign minister said.

In any event, US Secretary of State John Kerry plans to present a framework deal between Israel and the Palestinians at the end of January at a conference in the Jordanian city of Aqaba hosted by Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Jordan will have a hand in finalizing the terms of an agreement but also that “control over the border and natural resources will effectively remain in Israel’s hands.”Palestinian sources said that it will only include a general outline with vague and flexible demands which will allow both Palestinians and Israelis to interpret the outline as they see fit. It will include a statement supporting Palestinian aspirations for Jerusalem as their capital. Israel Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said that Kerry would return to the Middle East in the coming week to promote a meeting between Netanyahu and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas under Jordanian sponsorship. Danon said that if Netanyahu agrees to withdraw to the 1967 lines or make any concessions regarding Jerusalem that it would be opposed by members of Netanyahu’s Likud political party.

Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon expressed great skepticism of a possible peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians especially the US security plan for the Jordan Valley. He expressed these thoughts both in private conversations in Israel and in the US. In particular, Ya’alon has harsh words to say about Secretary of State John Kerry. “The American security plan presented to us is not worth the paper it’s written on,” Ya’alon said. “It contains no peace and no security. Only our continued presence in the West Bank Judea and the Jordan River will endure our protection against rockets from every direction. . Ya’alon said that Kerry is acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor. Kerry cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians. Ya’alon, who sits beside Netanyahu during the talks with Kerry, has during the months of negotiations become a bitter and tough enemy of the American team. “I’m a tough nut to crack,” he claims. “There are no actual negotiations with the Palestinians. The Americans are holding negotiations with us and in parallel with the Palestinians. So far, we are the only side to have given anything – the release of murderers – and the Palestinians have given nothing.”

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian official accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of succumbing to Israeli demands to advance two central issues in the peace talks — the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and a continued Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley. “Israel has succeeded in really persuading Mr. Kerry to change the agenda of the discussions,” Fatah Central Committee Member Nabil Shaath said. “Today, you will see Mr. Kerry going back and forth, discussing nothing but two issues. The two issues have never been in our agenda: the Jewishness of the state [of Israel] and the Jordan [Valley].” These two sticking points, Shaath maintained, will never be agreed upon by the Palestinians and are likely to result in the dissolution of talks. “You think any Palestinian leader in his right mind can ever accept this?” Shaath remarked regarding the Jewish status of Israel. “Or is this simply instated to make it impossible for any Palestinian leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel?” Instead, the Palestinians have decided to launch a global diplomatic and legal assault on Israel. The Palestinian Authority is currently setting up teams to wage diplomatic war against Israel in “every conceivable” forum, including pushing for boycotts of Israel and seeking legal rulings against Israel via international courts in The Hague according to Israel’s Channel 2 TV station. Unless Kerry significantly changes the current formulation of his framework proposals, the Palestinians will reject his overtures, confident that much of the international community will consider them to be the injured party and hold Israel responsible for the failure of peace efforts. The Palestinians are furious that Kerry is offering them a state “with no borders, no capital, no [control over] border crossings… and without Jerusalem.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that “there will be no peace” without a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem and that he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “Without east Jerusalem as a capital of the state of Palestine, there will be no peace between us and Israel,” Abbas said. Abbas also reiterated that he will not recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. “We will not recognize it,” Abbas said. “We will not accept and it’s our right not to recognize the Jewish state.” “Let them say whatever they say. Unless it is mentioned clearly and marked in big fonts that it is the capital of the state of Palestine, there will be no peace with them and I want them to hear this,” declared Abbas. In addition, Arab foreign ministers have notified US Secretary of State John Kerry that they will not accept Israel as a Jewish state nor compromise on Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki said that nine Arab foreign ministers, comprising the followup committee for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, had agreed during a meeting in Paris to present to Kerry a unified Arab position on core Palestinian demands. “A clear and unified Arab and Palestinian position was presented [to Kerry] rejecting the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state,” Malki said. “The American secretary heard this position from me and from other Arab foreign ministers, who also consider East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state.” Al-Malki also said that Kerry still had “hard work” with the Israeli side, in order to reach agreements that will “satisfy the needs of the Palestinians.” He further noted that there is still no progress in the ongoing peace talks and that large gaps remain between the parties. According to Malki, Kerry told the Arab ministers that if negotiations failed he would not hesitate to publicly name the side “which provided concessions and cooperated with his efforts and the side which refused to cooperate.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent a defiant message to Israel’s leadership and US mediators recently telling cheering supporters that the Palestinians “won’t kneel” and won’t drop demands for a capital in east Jerusalem.

Regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that he could not negotiate away the absolute right of Palestinian refugees and their descendents to return to sovereign Israel. Finally, Abbas suggested he would not continue negotiations beyond a US-set target date of the end of April and instead will resume his quest for broader international recognition of a state of Palestine by the United Nations and its various agencies.

Next, Israel Finance Minister Yair Lapid said his Yesh Atid party would leave the coalition government if negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) did not progress.”I remain part of the government so that we can advance the peace process,” Lapid said. “I have no reason to remain part of a government that will not advance negotiations.”

In other news, Israel’s 11th Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, died on January 11 at the age of 85. He suffered a stroke in 2006. Since that time, he has been in a coma. Sharon was one of Israel’s most celebrated, victorious and innovative generals – and a maverick. Sharon was considered the greatest field commander in Israel’s history and one of the country’s greatest military strategists. He served the Israeli army from its inception in 1948, founding some of its elite units and leading key operations in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. He emerged from the assault on Sinai in the Six-Day war of 1967 as a brilliant military strategist. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he led a force that encircled the Egyptian Third Army and crossed the Suez, cutting short its massive advance through Sinai to the Israeli frontier. Sharon saved the country by acting in defiance of orders.

He first joined the Likud political paryy and was assigned various ministerial portfolios under Prime Minister Menahem Begin in 1977-92 and in Binyamin Netanyahu’s first administration in 1996-99. As defense minister, he led the IDF to victory against the Palestinians in the 1982 Lebanon War, forcing Yasser Arafat and PLO leaders to abandon their South Lebanese strongholds on the Israeli border and go into exile in Tunisia. He became the leader of the Likud in 2000 and served as Israel’s prime minister from 2001 to 2006. In 2001, Israel was desperate to find a solution to the non-stop Palestinian suicide bombing and bus burnings. As a result, Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel. As Prime Minister, Sharon launched a four-month operation that soundly defeated the Palestinian front against Israel. Later, Sharon constructed a defense wall along the Green Line as a barrier between the West Bank. He isolated Palestinian intifada leader, Yasser Arafat, and caused him to flee to Paris where he died in 2005.

From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, as Prime Minister, in 2004–05 Sharon orchestrated Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip kicking nearly 9,000 Jews out of their homes in August, 2005, along with every Israeli soldier. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within his own Likud political party, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party called, Kadima. He had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on “clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank”, in a new series of unilateral withdrawals. However, Sharon suffered a stroke on January 4, 2006 and was left in a permanent vegetative state until his death eight years later on January 11, 2014.

Could Sharon’s death be a sign of the coming of the Messiah ? A few months before he died at the age of 108, one of Israel’s nation’s most prominent rabbis, Yitzhak Kaduri, said that he wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note which he requested would remain sealed until one year after his death. When the note was unsealed, it revealed what many have known for centuries: Yehoshua, or Yeshua (Jesus), is the Messiah. The note described the Messiah using six words and hinting that the initial letters form the name of the Messiah.

The secret note said:

The Hebrew sentence (translated above in bold) with the hidden name of the Messiah reads:

Yarim Ha’Am Veyokhiakh Shedvaro Vetorato Omdim

The initials spell the Hebrew name of Jesus which is Yehoshua or Yeshua which are effectively the same name, derived from the same Hebrew root of the word “salvation”. A few months before Kaduri died at the age of 108, he surprised his followers when he told them that he met the Messiah. Kaduri gave a message in his synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, teaching how to recognize the Messiah. He also mentioned that the Messiah would appear to Israel after Ariel Sharon’s death. Sharon is now dead. How long will it be until we see the return of the Messiah ?

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Israel approves 1,400 new housing units over Green Line
2) US, EU, Palestinians: Tenders for homes harmful to peace
3) Netanyahu slams EU settlement critics as hypocrites
4) Liberman summons European envoys to reprimand them over anti-Israel ‘bias’
5) John Kerry to Present Framework Deal at End of January
6) Report: Kerry to present interim peace agreement at end of January
7) Ya’alon: Kerry should win his Nobel and leave us alone
8.) Palestinian official says Kerry bowed to Israel’s agenda
9) ‘Palestinians to reject Kerry peace plan, launch diplomatic war on Israel’
10) Arab ministers back Abbas in rejecting ‘Jewish’ Israel
11) Hard-line speech from Abbas marks turn from position in talks
12) Abbas says he won’t make concessions on Jerusalem
13) ‘Arab States Will Never Recognize a Jewish State’
14) Yesh Atid ‘Will Leave Government if Peace Talks Don’t Progress’
15) Ariel Sharon, brilliant general, divisive politician
16) Ariel Sharon: Wikipedia Encyclopedia
17) The Rabbi, the Note and the Messiah

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

Recently, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, made his 10th trip to the Middle East in an effort to try to achieve a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Following meetings with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas, Kerry said: “the two sides are not there yet but we are making progress and we are beginning to have dialogue on the toughest hurdles yet to be overcome. This is hard work. There have been many years of mistrust that have been built up, all of which has to be worked through and undone, and a pathway has to be laid down on which the parties can have confidence that they know what is happening, and the road ahead is real, and not illusory. However, the path is becoming clearer. The puzzle is becoming more defined, and it is becoming much more apparent to everybody what the remaining tough choices are,” he said.  Kerry said all of the major issues in the conflict – borders, security, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem – were under discussion and that any US Middle East peace plan would be “fair and balanced”.

A US official said that one of the main obstacles holding up the framework deal is each side’s demand that their reservations over the framework appear as a separate appendix in the final text, rather than as part of the main text which details the areas of common ground in the talks. “It is essential that if there are reservations, they will be part of the framework, not a separate part. Otherwise, it would damage the agreement. For example, if the framework includes a clause stating that the negotiations will be based on the 1967 borders, we cannot agree to a reservation stating that one of the sides opposes this,” the official said. Any agreed framework would not be a signed document, but would address all core issues, including the borders between Israel and a future Palestine, security, Palestinian refugees, and conflicting claims to Jerusalem, the official said. The official also said if the parties agreed on a framework for negotiating a final peace deal, it might not be made public to avoid exposing the leaders to political pressures at home. The US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said that a US framework proposal will be presented to both sides soon within the next several weeks.

Israel Knesset member, Amir Peretz said that the two sides were attempting not get to a “framework agreement,” but rather to a “framework” for future negotiations. He explained that a framework agreement would be a document that both sides would have to sign, something that does not seem possible at present. Instead, he said, Kerry would present a framework that would form the basis for further negotiations and to which each side could append its reservations. This type of framework would enable the negotiations to continue past their late-April deadline.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his Likud political party that “there is no American framework document yet,” and that even if it could be agreed, it would not be binding on the sides. Netanyahu said there would be elements in the non-binding paper that he and his party colleagues wouldn’t like and elements that the Palestinians wouldn’t like. US Secretary of State John Kerry is working on a document spelling out America’s basic principles for a peace agreement that both sides – with reservations – are to agree to follow as a framework for continuing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel officials said that if this particular track toward extending the negotiations beyond the late April deadline bears fruit, then both Israel and the Palestinians are expected to say that the positions reflected in the document are American positions – not necessarily ones they accept – but that they will continue to negotiate based on the American document. Among the issues expected to be difficult for Israel to swallow is a declaration that the endgame is a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, with minor land swaps. And among the bitter pills for the Palestinians is expected to be a formula recognizing Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and making clear that the Palestinian refugees are to be absorbed in the future Palestinian state. He also assured the Likud MKs that he had not given in to American pressure for more flexible positions regarding the fate of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, and said he was only too aware of the consequences of dismantling West Bank settlements in the absence of a viable peace accord. Furthermore, Netanyahu said that the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the Palestinian Authorities’ encouragement of incitement against Israel and the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “This incitement, unfortunately, continues,” Netanyahu said, adding that “We have seen aspects of this recently.  We are not foreigners in Jerusalem, we are not foreigners in Beit El, we are not foreigners in Hebron. I repeat that this is the root of the conflict as well as the root of incitement that does not recognize this basic fact” to have a Jewish state.

Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said: “I want to clarify that we are now engaged in an attempt to reach the framework of the continued negotiations for a period beyond the nine months [given for a deal]. We are not engaged in negotiating a framework for a [permanent] agreement, but the framework for further negotiations,” Yaalon continued. “It is clear to us that there are large gaps [between us] – and this is not new – but it is certainly in our interest to continue negotiations and to continue to work to stabilize the situation in the relationship between us and the Palestinians. We stand to defend the security interests of Israel and I have made my opinion heard several times. The heart of the conflict is the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel as a sovereign state; and regarding security issues relevant for the State of Israel, I will be a tough nut to crack.” In addition, Ya’along said that peace cannot be achieved until the PA stops its incitement against Israel and starts educating for peace instead. “A basic element in Israeli education is the aspiration for peace. In the Palestinian Authority, that doesn’t exist. The first stage of the road map, that obligates the PA to stop the incitement and to educate for peace, did not happen. [Former prime minister] Yitzhak Rabin demanded in Oslo that the Palestinian treaty is also changed, and it hasn’t been changed to this very day either,” Ya’alon said. “The Palestinians receive money from states that donate to educational institutes in the PA and still teach incitement and racism based on Adolf Hitler quotes. They claim there is no Jewish people,” he added. According to other senior Israel officials, there is no guarantee that either side would agree to a deal lengthening talks. The PA has stated that they would prefer to give an oral agreement to continue talks rather than sign a document – to evade responsibility, perhaps, in the event that talks fail.

If Israel accepts the US framework proposal, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is planning to have a national referendum on the issue. Netanyahu was quoted as saying that he needs the referendum to push back “domestic pressures from the right”, but in any case he believes it will be politically advantageous. He has confided to his closest circle that for the first time that he is in favor of the Kerry proposals and, although they don’t see eye to eye on many of the issues, he thinks the gaps between them can be bridged. Netanyahu is counting on the framework accord gaining an overwhelming popular majority in referendum. Netanyahu regards the Obama administration’s acceptance of Israel as the Jewish national state to be an historic achievement of unparalleled importance. He  was encouraged to learn that Kerry is working on a formula that avoids citing E. Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, only as a goal for their national aspirations. Intense exchanges are gong back and forth on the security arrangements for the Jordan Valley which runs along Israel’s eastern border, and the number and area of the Jewish settlements remaining under Israeli sovereignty. A number of settlements outside the main blocs are due for removal, despite reports to the contrary but the argument among the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians is over a timetable for their staged evacuation which is counted in years.

In order to pressure Israel into accepting a US framework agreement, Israel government sources are saying that US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is behind calling for a European boycott against Israeli products and companies operating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The EU published its guidelines last July, boycotting Israeli companies operating over the 1949 Armistice lines. At the moment, Kerry is making sure the threats stay in check, but as soon as the peace talks fail he intends to open the floodgates and spur on full-blown international boycotts on Israel, reports Israel radio.

Meanwhile,  Kerry has threatened to discontinue all US aid to the Palestinian Authority if the current round of negotiations does not result in a peace agreement according to a senior Palestinian official. Taysir Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said that the US had implied it would stop giving financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and would not be able to prevent Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements, if a framework for a long-lasting accord was not agreed upon. “So far, the negotiations have not lead to a significant breakthrough on core issues,” Khaled said. ”The Palestinian side cannot sign a framework agreement because it does not comply with our minimum requirements and with rights of the Palestinians. We will not give up on the Palestinian cause for money.” Another Palestinian official said that Kerry and the Palestinian leadership, “talked about everything but without agreement on anything” The Palestinians say that they have presented their positions on all the issues to Kerry.

Palestinian spokesman Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Kerry’s conversations with Abbas “was very tough indeed”, in particular when it came to the US wish for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “The Americans have made it very clear that [recognition of Israel as a Jewish state] is their position. They talk about it in meetings with our side and make an issue out of it. We have made it very clear that we are not going to sign any agreement that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Palestinians’ refusal to formally acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state has become the key topic in his discussions with Kerry.

After meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas, Kerry went to Saudi Arabia to try to convince Saudi Arabia to change the language in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to include recognition of Israel as a Jewish State should the country reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. The changed language would also include the stipulation that Israel’s Arab citizens not be affected by recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The current language in the Arab Peace initiative calls for the Arab world to offer comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for a full pullout from all territories it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians have not given permission for any changes to the Arab League initiative. Kerry is expected to meet in Paris soon with Arab League foreign ministers who sit on the monitoring committee of the Arab Peace Initiative and may present the idea to them.  After that meeting, he is expected to return to the Middle East for another round of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians.

Regarding the issue of Jerusalem, US Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed designating “greater Jerusalem” as the capital of both Israel and the Palestinian state. Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee said that Kerry was “elusive” when speaking of the exclusion of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. “An ambiguous term such as ‘greater Jerusalem’ in [Kerry’s] proposal could reach the Dead Sea, and could [equally] not include [the Palestinian village of] Abu Dis,” Al-Ahmad said. ”This [ambiguity] destroys all American efforts to reach a peace agreement.” A senior Palestinian source said that Abbas had demanded a clear and unequivocal reference to the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, out of concern that a more general reference would be interpreted as Palestinian willingness to establish their capital in one of the city’s outlying suburbs.

Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers that he would not accept any reference to Jerusalem in the framework agreement being drafted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. One senior official said Netanyahu stressed that he would not agree to a document that mentions, even in a general way, the establishment of a Palestinian capital anywhere in Jerusalem. Netanyahu made it clear he would insist on this, even at the cost of the failure of the talks on the framework agreement.

With regards to the Jordan Valley, Al-Ahmad said the Palestinians rejected any Israeli presence under a final status agreement but agreed to international forces patrolling the border. He added that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had already agreed to forgo the Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley during talks with Abbas. However, Israel rejects any US-proposed security concessions for the Jordan Valley. “Security must remain in our hands. Anyone who proposes a solution in the Jordan Valley by deploying an international force, Palestinian police or technological means … does not understand the Middle East,” said Israel Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz.

Regarding Palestinian refugees, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas the “return” of 80, 000 Palestinian “refugees” to Israel according to a senior Palestinian official. He added: “Kerry’s proposal on the return of refugees is the same proposal offered by former U.S. President Bill Clinton during Camp David peace talks held in the United States in 2000.” He added that during their meetings with Kerry, Abbas wanted to increase the number of Arabs “returning” to Israel to 200,000.

However, Israel officials said that accepting the principle of a Palestinian “right of return” is a complete non-starter for Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. “In the framework of two states for two peoples, those Palestinians who want to return to the Palestinian state will be able to do so, but the idea that Israel will take in any of the grandchildren of people who fled the fighting in 1948 is simply a non-starter,” the official said. Netanyahu would not agree to even “a symbolic acceptance of the so-call right of return.”

If Benjamin Netanyahu decides to support the US framework agreement and it calls for a Palestinian state based upon 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital then the Jewish Home political party said that it will not be part of a government that negotiates the 1967 borders. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett said: “No more word games: the 1967 lines mean dividing Jerusalem and giving up the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the Old City. In what way will our history remember a leader that agrees to give up Jerusalem? We won’t sit in such a government.” In addition, the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish party, Shas, and its leader Aryeh Deri said that his party would not give Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government a “safety net,” refusing to form a new coalition to enable a peace deal loaded with Israeli withdrawals and stressed that he would oppose any agreement that harms the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria or the West Bank. Deri said that it was his impression that the talks are seriously advancing towards an agreement.

However, the opposition party, Labor, and its leader Yitzchak Herzog said that despite his party’s strong antipathy to the current government, Labor will do everything necessary to ensure that any peace proposals or frameworks offered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be adopted by the Knesset. Labor, he said, would step in to bolster coalition partners supporting the proposals, casting their votes in favor to make up for the ones that would be cast against it by rightwing parties. “We will provide a safety net for the government” in the event of a vote on a peace proposal, said Herzog. “We must ensure that Israel remain a Jewish and democratic state, living peacefully alongside a Palestinian state, with recognized borders that ensure our security.” However, Herzog said that in any agreement with the Palestinians that they must give up the “right of return” which is the demand that the descendants of Arabs who fled the newly-established state in 1948 return to their family’s property. Labor would not support a deal that included that demand. “That is outside the consensus,” Herzog said.

Finally, a new academic research institute will be founded to explore the issue of declaring Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria or the West Bank. The decision to start the institute was made at the Forum for Application of Sovereignty which met under the initiative of the Women in Green organization. Among various topics, the institute intends to investigate economic implications of sovereignty in terms of real estate and industry. Similarly, the international legal framework of sovereignty will be researched, along with the media outreach efforts necessary. The central goal of the institute will be to present the Israeli public and government with the conclusions of solid research by leading academics within a few months. The decision to found the institute comes as an outgrowth of previous large conferences calling for sovereignty, as well as the journal Sovereignty published by Women in Green. The second issue of the publication was released last week.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Kerry: Israel, Palestinians progressing toward framework peace deal
2) Kerry praises ‘intensive’ talks, to return Sunday night
3) Abbas aide: Palestinian President had ‘tough talk’ with Kerry
4) US ambassador: Draft on Israel-Palestinian deal ready soon
5) Netanyahu: Palestinian incitement spurs Mideast conflict
6) Report: Kerry is Behind European Boycotts
7) ‘Kerry threatens to cut PA aid if no peace deal signed’
8.) US said to seek adding ‘Jewish state’ language to Arab Peace Initiative
9) Kerry asks Saudis, Jordan to support Palestinian recognition of Israel as Jewish state
10) John Kerry frustrated by Palestinians’ refusal to recognise ‘Jewish’ Israel
11) Fatah official: We demand clarity on Jerusalem
12) Netanyahu rejects inclusion of Jerusalem in Kerry’s framework deal
13) Israel rejects US proposals on Jordan Valley
14) Kerry Proposes: 80,000 Arabs to Flood Israel
15) Officials: PM won’t agree to even symbolic acceptance of Palestinian ‘right of return’
16) US framework for peace talks will have elements ‘both sides will dislike,’ says Netanyahu
17) ‘Interim Deal? It Just Means We’ll Keep Talking’
18) Ya’alon says Israel, PA working to extend talks beyond 9-month period
19) Netanyahu wants to say ‘yes’ to Kerry, but without anyone noticing
20) Netanyahu plans a national referendum on US peace framework to extend negotiations for another year
21) Bennett on peace talks: ’67 lines not up for negotiation
22) Shaked: We Won’t be in a Government that Accepts ’67 Borders’
23) Deri: Shas Not a ‘Safety Net’ For Kerry Deal
24) Deri: No to An Agreement that Hurts Judea and Samaria
25) Herzog: Opposition Will Vote With Govt. On PA Deal
26) Watch: Conference on Israeli Annexation of Judea, Samaria
27) New Institute To Research Sovereignty over Biblical Heartland

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

Israel released the 3rd round of Palestinian terrorists who killed Israelis that Israel pledged to release as a “goodwill gesture” in July to restart direct peace talks. A total of 104 terrorists are scheduled to be released by the end of April. They were driven to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ headquarters for an official welcome ceremony attended by hundreds of relatives singing, dancing and waving Palestinian flags. “It is a happy day for all of us and for our heroic prisoners who have come out today to live as free people,” said Abbas, surrounded by the prisoners and making a victory sign. Abbas told the crowd that he would not sign a peace agreement with Israel without the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, who currently number almost 5000. The United States saw the prisoner release as a “positive step forward” in ongoing peace negotiations, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rebuked the Palestinian Authority ‘s celebrations over Israel’s release of convicted terrorists. “The essential difference between us and our neighbors can be seen in a single picture,” Netanyahu said. “While we are willing to take extremely painful steps with the goal of reaching an agreement that will put an end to the conflict, they, along with their most senior leaders, are celebrating.” The PA’s celebration sends a terrible message, he continued. “Murderers are not heroes. This is not how you educate people to peace. This is not how you make peace,” he warned. “Peace can exist only when the education to incitement and to destruction of Israel is stopped,” he declared. “Peace will come only when our interests are protected, regarding defense at settlements,” he continued. “Peace will only happen if we can defend ourselves, by ourselves, against any threat.”

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, arrived in Israel on New Year’s Day to further peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The US State Department said: “In these meetings, he will discuss the ongoing final status negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, among other issues.” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Kerry will discuss with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a proposed framework to serve as a guideline for addressing all core issues in the decades-long dispute. The core issues include the borders between Israel and a future Palestine, security arrangements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem.

In response to Kerry’s visit, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said: “An accord is feasibly only if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish national home, give up their dream of restoring all the refugees and their other demands on Israeli territory, and above all only if Israeli can defend itself by its own means against any threat,” he said. Any accord, he promised, will be brought to national referendum for ratification. In a joint press conference with John Kerry, Netanyahu said that doubts about the Palestinians’s commitment to peace are mounting in Israel. “There is growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace.” The Palestinians “need to be prepared to truly end the conflict.” Netanyahu criticized Abbas’s actions, saying the Palestinian president embraced terrorists as heroes when he welcomed Palestinian prisoners’ release from Israeli detention. “To glorify the murderers of innocent women and men as heroes is an outrage,” Netanyahu said. “How can he say he stands against terrorism when he embraces the perpetrators of terrorism and glorifies them as heroes?” Netanyahu continued, “I’m wondering what a young Palestinian would think when he sees the leader of the Palestinian people embrace people who axed innocent men and women, axed their heads or blew them up or riddled them with bullets. What’s a young Palestinian supposed to think about the future?”

Addressing the peace process, Kerry said: “This is not mission impossible.” Kerry insisted the peace process is still on track and said he plans to work intensely with both sides over the next couple of days to narrow differences on a framework that will outline a final peace accord. Kerry said he knows there is a lot of skepticism about whether the two parties can achieve peace, but he said “the time is soon arriving when leaders are going to have to make difficult decisions. We’re close to that point, or at it,” Kerry said. “In the weeks and months ahead, both sides are going to need to make tough choices to ensure that peace is not just a possibility but is a reality. It is hard work, but with a determined effort, I’m convinced that we can get there,” Kerry said.

Meanwhile, PLO Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo said that the Palestinians wouldn’t pay attention to a “worthless” framework agreement presented by the US. He said that the Palestinians have already spent the past few months negotiating with Israel, and there’s no need to start new talks about the implementation of a new framework agreement. Abed Rabbo said that Kerry was now asking the Palestinians to agree to negotiations with Israel over a new accord, which, he claimed, gives the Israelis control over the Jordan Valley and restricts Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian territories. Abed Rabbo said that the only way to achieve a breakthrough is by drawing full borders between a Palestinian state and Israel, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines – including east Jerusalem. He also called for a timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. The PLO official dismissed the idea of a land swap that would place Israeli Arabs in the Triangle area under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state in return for annexing settlements to Israel. “The settlers are the ones who should get out of the Palestinian territories because they are violating international law,” he said. “No Palestinian state will be created without Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.”

Palestinian sources revealed that Kerry would present the Israelis and Palestinians with a “blueprint” for a declaration of principles. The sources said that the “blueprint” calls for an extension of the peace talks beyond the nine-month deadline set by Kerry and that expires in April 2014. The sources told the Palestinian daily Al-Quds that the “most dangerous” part of the “blueprint” is Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state. According to reports, US Secretary of State John Kerry will offer Israeli and Palestinian negotiators a political trade-off: Israeli recognition of the 1967 lines as a basis for the future Palestinian state, in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, Palestinian sources said.  “The coming weeks will be difficult for the Palestinian and Israeli sides since they will need to make tough decisions regarding these issues,” a Palestinian source told a Saudi Arabian newspaper. The goal of the United States is for mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinians which will constitute the core of a framework agreement to be signed by the end of January and negotiated in greater detail during the following months,

According to DEBKA, the details of Kerry’s proposed framework agreement consists of the 9 key points:

1. Israel hands over 92.8 pc of West Bank to Palestinians. Nearly all its content draws on the proposal Ehud Olmert, then Prime Minister, submitted to Abbas on Aug. 31, 2008, which he never accepted; nor was it approved by any Israeli authority.

2. Territory:  Israel will annex 6.8% of the West Bank including the four main settlement blocs of Gush Etzion with Efrata; Maale Adummim; Givat Zeev; and Ariel, as well as all of the “settlements” of East Jerusalem and Har Homa – in exchange for the equivalent of 5.5% of Israeli territory.

3. The Safe Passage:  The territorial link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would cut through southern Israel and remain under Israeli sovereignty and Palestinian control. Out of all other options, the American sponsors of the accord prefer to build an express railway line from Gaza to Hebron, without stops, which would be paid for by the United States. Abbas has already informed John Kerry that he wants the train to go all the way to Ramallah. There will be a special road connecting Bethlehem with Ramallah that bypasses East Jerusalem. This is mostly likely the same route currently planned to go around Maaleh Adummim. Since the safe passage will cross through Israeli land, accounting for 1% of its territory, this area will be deducted from the land Israel concedes, leaving 4.54% for the land swap with the Palestinians.

4. Jerusalem:  East Jerusalem will be divided territorially along the lines of the Clinton Parameters with the exception of the “Holy Basin,” which comprises 0.04% of the West Bank. Sovereignty over this ancient heart of Jerusalem, with its unique and historic concentration of Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines, will pass to an international commission comprised of the US, Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

5. Refugees:  This issue will be addressed according to guidelines proposed by President Bill Clinton at Camp David in the year 2000 – and rejected by Yasser Arafat. An International Foundation will be established to resettle the bulk of the Palestinian refugees in Canada and Australia, except for a small portion to be accepted in Israel in the framework of family reunification.

6. Security:  The Olmert package made no mention of security. However the Kerry draft deals extensively with this issue and Israel’s concerns. It calls for the evacuation of all 10,000 Jewish settlers from the Jordan Valley leaving behind a chain of posts along the Jordan River. Security corridors cutting through the West Bank will maintain their land and operational links with Israel. Border crossings will be set up between Palestine and Jordan with an Israeli security presence. The security section of the draft assigns the use of West Bank and Gaza airspace by Israel and the Palestinians. There will be no Israeli military presence inside the Palestinian state.

7. Taxes: The present arrangement for Israel to collect customs levies and distribute the revenues to the Palestinians will continue. (debkafile: That is about the only clause which the Palestinians accept.) Israel will carry out security checks on goods bound for Palestinian that are unloaded at Haifa and Ashdod ports, and levy customs at rates fixed by the Palestinians to be disbursed in the Palestinian state.

8. Settlements:  Eighty percent of all Jewish settlers on the West Bank will be confined to the major settlement blocs. The remaining 20% amounting, according to American calculations to 80,000 people, will have to decide on their own whether they prefer to stay where they are under Palestinian rule or move to Israel. US Secretary Kerry advised the Israeli Prime Minister bluntly that he need not promise to force settlers to leave their homes – as the Ariel Sharon government did when he executed the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Netanyahu replied that it was unacceptable for Israel to abandon the settlers to their fate. He therefore proposed that instead of forcing them to cross back into Israel, they would be absorbed in the larger settlement blocs remaining under Israeli sovereignty.

9. Timelines:  Different timetables are proposed in the US framework for implementing different sections: The Palestinian leader says he is willing to give Israel three years as a transition period for relocating settlers.

When Kerry submitted the US Framework ideas to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in December, he told them that he saw no point in the two negotiating teams holding meetings consumed by interminable debates on one point or another. He therefore asked both parties to henceforth send him their comments in writing.

In Kerry’s visit to Israel, he told reporters that the sides would have to make some difficult choices over the next few weeks. “We know what the issues are and the parameters,” he added. “The time is soon arriving when leaders will have to make tough decisions. In the weeks ahead both sides will have to make tough choices.” During his meetings with Netanyahu and Abbas, Kerry said, he planned “to work with both sides to narrow differences on a framework that will set guidelines for negotiations.” The framework agreement would cover all of the core issues, he said, including borders, security, Jerusalem, refugee, mutual recognition, an end to the conflict and to legal claims. The secretary of state emphasized that the framework agreement would be drafted in coordination with the ideas and positions both sides have raised in the 20 rounds of talks held over the last five months. “The framework will address all core issues. My role is not to impose U.S. ideas but to facilitate the ideas of both parties,” Kerry said. “We are 5 months into the peace talks. It’s a long process but it is not mission impossible.” The secretary of state said that “the framework will provide agreed guidelines for final status negotiations. It will take compromise from both sides,” he added “but an agreed framework will be a significant breakthrough. It will create the fixed defined parameters by which the parties will then know where they are going and what the end result could be,” Kerry said. “An agreed framework will clarify and bridge the gaps between the parties so they can move forward towards a final peace treaty.”

A senior US State Department official said that Kerry did not expect a breakthrough during his visit but is pushing for the sides to agree on a framework of core principles, such as security, the future of Jerusalem and fate of refugees, as soon as possible. “The framework is a basis upon which one could negotiate a final peace treaty because the outlines or the guidelines for what the final deal would look like would be agreed up, and then you would work intensively to fill out the details,” the official said. The official said the framework would act as a guideline for reaching a full peace treaty between the Israelis and Palestinians in April, in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state. “We want to have a detailed consultation with them about these ideas that have been generated as a result of the negotiations between the parties themselves, and see whether they can serve as gap bridges which could lead to this agreement on the framework for permanent status negotiations,” the official added. “It is a two-stage process in our minds, agreement on a framework for negotiations and then a permanent status agreement or a peace treaty” by April, the official said.

In order to further encouragement a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are to visit Israel in February as an expression of solidarity and encouragement for Israel and the Palestinians during the ongoing US-brokered peace process. Cameron will arrive in the middle of February on his first official visit since taking office in 2010. Merkel will land a week later, accompanied by German government ministers, for a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet.

The Israel Defense Ministry has rejected the expected US Framework proposal for the Jordan Valley. Israel has told US officials that the Jordan Valley security arrangement is unacceptable for Israel’s security needs. In an effort to prevent Israel from agreeing to give the Palestinians the Jordan Valley, senior members of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party showed their opposition to Israel giving up the Jordan Valley with a tour to the area. “The place in which we stand highlights the dilemma of where the eastern border of Israel will run,” declared Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar at the start of the tour. “Will it be the Jordan River, or, God forbid, next to Netanya or Kfar Saba?” If Israel did not stand firm on the issue of the Jordan Valley, he added, it would be left without “strategic depth”. Sa’ar also touched on the security provisions proposed by the US for Israel and the Palestinians as part of efforts to drive forward the peace process, saying that no organization but the Israeli army could guard the border. “Where there is no settlement, there will be no Israeli army. Where there is no Israeli army, there will be terrorism. Our stance is clear: The Jordan Valley is Israeli and will remain Israeli. When we placed our trust in others we saw that this was an illusion. It’s wrong to differentiate between security and settlement.” Sa’ar was accompanied on the tour by other members of Netanyahu’s Likud party as well as member of the nationalistic party, Jewish Home.

The leader of the Jewish Home political party, Naftali Bennett, said that Jewish Home will not remain in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government if it officially adopts peace proposals presented by US Secretary of State John Kerry which would include Israel giving up the Jordan Valley. Bennett insisted on receiving as much information as possible about America’s framework proposal immediately after Kerry meets with Netanyahu. “Bennett is up to speed on the current developments of the peace process and has done his homework,” a source close to him said. “He will not present the red lines of Jewish Home publicly but those who need to know know.” One of Bennett’s main goals has been to coordinate strategy regarding the opposition of a peace agreement with the Palestinians with members of Netanyahu’s Likud political party. Jewish Home political party, MK Orit Struck, received commitments from most of the Likud faction to help prevent diplomatic proposals from being advanced. Bennett and Struck intend to make sure that Netanyahu will not be able to replace Jewish Home in the coalition with Labor due to opposition from Likud ministers and MKs who would join in partnership with Jewish Home.

The future of the Jordan Valley has always been a major issue in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. In 2007, the Israeli army’s Planning Directorate drew up Israel’s security overview ahead of a possible peace treaty with the Palestinians. This overview specified the need for an ongoing Israeli army presence in the Jordan Valley for a lengthy but undefined period. On the basis of that overview, Israel defense minister Ehud Barak drew up a document, which became known as the “Eight Points,” which he had translated into English and which he detailed to George Bush when the president visited in January 2008. Barak stressed to Bush the imperative for Israeli troops to remain in the Jordan Valley for the long term — a generation, according to some Israeli sources — to ensure no influx of terrorists, weaponry, and other unwanted imports. In taking this position, Barak was merely reiterating the stance that had prevailed since the Yitzhak Rabin era in the early 1990s. And it holds today: A senior Israeli official told this reporter, this week, that if there is no Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, “there will be rivers of blood.”

Where there has been something of a change is, first, in Israel’s apparent readiness to relinquish the idea of Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley. And second, in a certain readiness for a smaller security contingent than the major deployments previously demanded. But Israel has given no indication of when it might be prepared to reduce its deployment, and no hint of a timetable for withdrawing altogether. What other points were in Barak’s Eight Point paper? Well, it dealt with the specifics of a demilitarized Palestinian state, including monitoring and enforcement — via security arrangements not only at the borders, but also inside the state-to-be (including oversight by international forces); the positioning of early-warning stations in the West Bank; details of the IDF’s permissible movements in emergency situations; operational control of air space, and more. Israel did not seek — in the Eight Point document, or in other discussions with the Americans — the right to carry out arrests inside Palestinian sovereign territory, as Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is demanding now. It was clear to all sides at the time, this reporter was told this week, that such a demand would not be accepted. As a result, US General Jones was dispatched by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to try to bridge the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians on the issue of the Jordan Valley. Then, as now, the Palestinians said, ‘no’ to an ongoing Israeli presence.

Jones’s attempt at a compromise was that, after three to five years, the Israeli army would be replaced by a NATO-based international force, led by the US. Jones added a host of high-tech security measures — just like the security “envelope” General Allen is proposing now — aimed at somewhat calming Israeli concerns. Jones presented his ideas to Abbas, who understood that Israel had accepted them, even though the Israeli security establishment had not given its assent. Olmert, however, did subsequently support the plan and asked the Americans to present it to the security establishment. This did not happen. And the peace offer that Olmert made to Abbas in September 2008 provided for an Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley after three years. That dramatic Olmert offer was never formally presented to Abbas, so it can be argued that the idea of a full Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley was not officially agreed by Israel. Yet Abbas, apparently with some justification, regards Olmert’s offer as having shown Israeli readiness to leave the Jordan Valley. But Olmert is long gone, of course. Netanyahu holds to very different positions. And given that there was no official Israeli offer, Netanyahu has justification in saying Israel never agreed to leave the Jordan Valley. So, now as in the past, Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked over security arrangements among other issues which Kerry is trying to resolve with his framework proposal.

Finally, nationalistic Jewish activists are preparing to take action based upon the outcome of the talks. The Women in Green movement is taking the initiative with its “Sovereignty” program, which would see Israel officially become a sovereign entity in Judea and Samaria or the West Bank. Activists with the group say a political journal published for the first time in October was so popular that they plan to issue another 150,000 copies – 100,000 in Hebrew, and 50,000 in English. “We need to be ready for the day of the expected unilateral UN declaration accepting a Palestinian state” they continued. “We need to declare already now that there is a realistic alternative to the mind games of the ‘two state solution.’” Currently, there are an estimated 650,000 Israeli Jews living in Judea, Samaria, the Golan, and eastern Jerusalem, they noted. However, those hundreds of thousands of Israelis all remain under military rule due to the government’s decision not to declare sovereignty. As a result, we need to prepare for declaring sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in opposition to the “two state” solution.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Palestinians celebrate as Israel completes third stage of release prisoners
2) Netanyahu Slams PA Celebration: ‘Murderers Are Not Heroes’
3) Kerry set for New Year bid to push forward Mideast peace talks
4) Kerry’s ‘framework’ to address all core issues
5) Netanyahu: Palestinians must recognize Israel for an accord
6) PM tells Kerry PA not devoted to negotiations
7) We’ll ignore a ‘worthless’ framework deal, says PLO
8.) US deal will trade off ‘Jewish’ Israel for 1967 lines — report
9) Exclusive: US “framework” calls for 80,000 Israeli West Bank evacuations to the big settlement blocs
10) Kerry: Netanyahu and Abbas will have to make difficult choices in coming weeks
11) US official: Kerry to push for permanent peace agreement by April
12) Cameron, Merkel to visit Israel in February
13) Report: Defense Ministry Rejects US Plan for Jordan Valley
14) Rightist MKs take firm stance with trip to Jordan Valley
15) Just like his predecessors, Kerry finds trouble crossing the Jordan
16) Bennett threatens to bolt if Kerry proposals are accepted
17) Israeli Right ‘Preparing for Talks to Explode’

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

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process

On December 29, the third round of Palestinian terrorists are expected to be released by Israel. In conjunction with the release of the Palestinian terrorists, Israel has announced that it will build about 1,400 more homes. About 600 new Jewish homes will be announced for the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem. About 800 more homes will be built in the West Bank. Palestinian president Mahmood Abbas has appealed to the US to block plans by Israel to announce the new construction of the 1,400 homes. In addition, chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, threatened Israel that if they announce the new construction that the Palestinians will take Israel to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for “war crimes” and will seek membership in 63 international organizations.

Meanwhile, a senior European Union (EU) official told Israel that they will not tolerate new construction in the West Bank saying: “There will be very little understanding on the part of European governments regarding any announcement of construction in the territories now under negotiations. Israel should expect a strong reaction on the part of European governments if it is going to go in that direction.” The EU said that if the peace talks collapse following an Israeli announcement the building of new homes that Israel would be held responsible for the failure of the talks. Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said: “They keep telling us that the reason that we don’t have peace is due to our construction efforts and due to our presence in the West Bank. This is wrong,” Netanyahu stated. “The real reason is the PLO ongoing opposition to a Jewish state under any borders,” he continued. “We have the right to have a state like any other nation – or perhaps even more than any other nation.”

So far, the Israel and Palestinian peace talk negotiating teams have met more than 20 times. However, chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said that Israel and the Palestinians have not had direct peace talks with each other for weeks. While both sides haven’t been talking to each other, they have been talking to the US. “There have not been talks for some time,” said Erekat. “The meetings currently taking place are between the American leadership and us on the one hand and between Israel and the American leadership on the other hand.” As a result, Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter directly to US President Barack Obama about his concerns over stalled peace talks with Israel. In the letter, Abbas revealed to Obama the core Palestinian positions on the various issues with Israel. In the letter, Abbas wrote that the Palestinians and Israelis had come to agreement on a plan during Ehud Olmert’s term as prime minister that would place an international force, not the Israeli army on the Israeli-Jordanian border. The Palestinians, he said, would be agreeable to a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Jordan Valley but would not tolerate an indefinite Israeli presence there. According to reports, Israel chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, supports the introduction of international forces in the Jordan Valley. Netanyahu, however, adamantly opposes international forces, insisting on an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley even within the framework of a Palestinian state. Recently, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli government to begin construction on a major upgrade of the existing security fence along the Jordanian border including the section of the border inside the West Bank.

According to Israeli government sources, US Secretary of State, John Kerry arrived in his last visit to talk with Mahmood Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu about a US proposal for a framework peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu asked Kerry not to put any US plan on the table out of concern that a U.S. proposal could be turned into indisputable fact and potentially become another obstacle to negotiations. Therefore, Netanyahu asked Kerry not to formally present the plan but to propose its main points instead. Israeli government officials say the Palestinians will refuse to sign a framework agreement which would at the end of negotiations require them to recognize Israel as the Jewish state and require Israel to recognize the Palestinians’ need to form a nation. As long as the Palestinians refuse, Netanyahu will refuse to draw out a future Palestinian state on a map. The Israeli demand is that the framework agreement include an extension to the negotiations to mark borders and recognize the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Sbeih, secretary-general of Palestinian affairs at the Arab League, said that US Secretary of State, John Kerry will present a US plan for a framework peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on December 31. Sbeih called the US plan an “over-arching draft for all the core issues leading to a permanent accord.” Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas said: “The Americans are determined to present an agreement by the end of December and have already chosen a location for the signing ceremony for the framework agreement.” Abbas informed the Arab League about the upcoming proposal saying it would contain US suggestions regarding the borders of the future Palestinian state. Abbas has stressed that he will refuse any temporary solution regarding core national issues, such as the status of east Jerusalem and recognizing Israel as the nation of the Jewish people. Abbas said that he would not respond to the Kerry proposal immediately but would instead present it first to Arab countries in order to come to a joint decision.

Given that April 29 is the end of the 9 month period agreed upon for the duration of the peace talks, Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat said: “If we reach a framework agreement that specifies the borders, the percentage of swaps, the security arrangements, the Jerusalem status, refugees and then that is the skeleton. We are not talking about a peace treaty on the 29th of April. We are talking about a framework agreement,” he said. He described a framework deal as a comprehensive agreement that could be turned into a detailed peace treaty in six to 12 months. According to Sbeih, Abbas told an Arab League meeting in Cairo, Egypt the PLO position on any peace agreement with Israel. It is as follows:

– Abbas would accept a Palestinian state with the entirety of eastern Jerusalem as its capital, with limited land swaps as long as the lands being traded were of equal value.

– He would accept an incremental withdrawal of Israeli troops from land that will be part of the future Palestinian state, allowing them up to three years to leave.

– He would reject the idea of any permanent Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, but would welcome an international peacekeeping presence.

– He would refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

– He would reject any interim agreement, calling instead for a final solution.

– He would reject any proposal that required the future Palestinian state to be demilitarized, but said he would not get involved in an “arms race.”

The PA sources claim that Abbas’s official refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state stems from “concerns” that Israeli Arabs enjoying citizenship in Israel will be included as part of a Palestinian state. Abbas has already declared no Jews will be allowed in a future “Palestine.” The proposed agreement would reportedly force Israel to obligate itself through guarantees that it will not compromise the status of Israeli Arabs, and in doing so begin “earning” PA recognition of Israel as the state of the Jews.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiating team has revealed some of contents of the secretive peace talks it has been holding with Israel through the United States. Talks are advancing with the goal of a framework peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in January. Under the US plan, there would be a long term Israel phased withdrawal from the West Bank and the Jordan Valley over a five to ten year period. The Arab League rejected the US proposal that Israeli soldiers would remain in the Jordan Valley for a 10 year period as part of peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Nabil Al-Arabi, secretary of the Arab League said that any peace agreement leaving an Israeli presence in the “Palestinian state” would not succeed.

Regarding Jerusalem, the Old City and the Temple Mount would under international management including Israeli and PA representatives. The aids for US Secretary of State, John Kerry, have rented 50 rooms in a Jerusalem hotel for January from which they plan to mount a diplomatic “attack” on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and force him to accept the US diplomatic plan for a framework agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. In addition to the hotel rooms, the crew  reportedly will bring computerized equipment, maps and databases to aid their efforts in dictating outcomes of the talks. This January “offensive” is timed for after the Christian holidays and is reportedly hoped by the United States to succeed by the end of the month.

In response, Israel has asked the U.S. to extend the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by a year. If such an extension is not approved, Israel believes it is likely that the peace talks will fail. Because US Secretary of State, John Kerry wants Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a framework peace agreement, Israel has offered to sign a document stating that the two sides agree to extend the negotiations for another year to find a solution to the conflict.

It has been suggested that if Kerry outlines a US framework agreement and both Israel and the Palestinians reject it (i.e., say they cannot accept all of it), the European Union will introduce the text of the US framework agreement as a UN resolution.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Israel to build new West Bank homes, Palestinians urge US to intervene
2) PA: ‘If You Build, We’ll Sue At The Hague’
3) EU Official Warns Israel Over Planned Construction
4) Erekat: There Haven’t Been Direct Talks in Weeks
5) Abbas sends letter to Obama complaining about Kerry
6) Secret Peace Talk Contents Revealed By PA Sources
7) Abbas expects Kerry’s framework deal next week, has tough demands of his own
8.) Report: U.S. Will Present Framework Israel-PA Peace Agreement by End of Month
9) Official: Kerry to present framework peace agreement by Dec. 31
10) U.S. plan gives Jerusalem holy sites to Vatican
11) Kerry to Force Security Plan on Netanyahu
12) For first time, Palestinians back framework peace agreement
13) Arab League Rejects Israeli Jordan Valley Presence
14) PA Negotiator Rejects Any Extension of Talks
15) Israel seeks to extend peace talks by a year
16) EU warns Israel over settlement construction
17) The Kerry Negotiations
18) Abu Mazen is opposed to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state

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