Israel’s endless search for peace
Wars of the generation
The year was 1967. Hopes for another decade of relative tranquility were dashed with the escalation of massive military build-ups by the neighboring Arab states, frequent Arab terrorist raids from Egypt and Jordan and Syrian persistent artillery bombardment of northern Galilee. Israel found itself faced by hostile Arab armies on all fronts. As Israel’s neighbors prepared to destroy the Jewish state, Israel invoked its inherent right of self-defense, launching a preemptive strike. The Six-Day War began. At the end of fighting, previous cease-fire lines were replaced by new ones, with Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights under Israel’s control. As a result, the northern villages were freed from 19 years of Syrian shelling, the Straits of Tiran was opened for Israel-bound ships and the reunification of Jerusalem under Israel’s authority took place─the first time since 1949.
On the Yom Kippur day in 1973, a three-year calm along Israel’s borders was shattered when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise assault against Israel, starting the Yom Kippur War. Israel was greatly out-numbered. Both Egypt and Syria made substantial gains at the start of the war. The Arab World’s purpose was to reverse the humiliation it suffered in the 1967 Six-Day war. Five years later, in 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, bringing to an end the 30-year state of war between the two countries. In the following years, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai Peninsula, leaving behind three airports, the Alma oil fields and also evacuating over 7,000 Jews. The peace treaty with Egypt has lasted 30 years, till the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in May 2011. Now the new Egyptian leadership wants to end it and return to hostilities against Israel.
From war to peace treaties
The 1977 Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) elections brought the right-wing Likud bloc to power. The new Prime Minister, Manachen Begin, reiterated the commitment of all previous prime ministers to strive for permanent peace in the region and called Arab leaders to the negotiating table. Egypt’s Anwar Sadat was the only Arab leader to respond, and thus the Camp David Accords were signed in 1978. It took twelve more years to bring Jordan’s King Hussein to the negotiation table at the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991. As a result, a declaration was signed between Jordan and Israel, ending their state of war of 46-years. At this point of history, Israel’s internationally recognized borders were established─forty-three years after Israel had gained independence. From then on, Israel has faced a struggle to control the territory inside her borders.
Peace Process begins
Along with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, the “Palestinians” were also represented in the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. The slow-paced Madrid talks were soon upstaged by a series of secret meetings in Norway between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
These meetings produced the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, outlining self-government arrangements of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip─in order to establish a future “Palestinian state.” The agreement was signed on the White House lawn in September 1993.
Peace Process begins
In the latter part of 1990s, Israel’s search for peace with the Palestinians continued with agreements such as the Hebron Agreement in 1997 and the Wye River Memorandum in 1998. These agreements dealt with Israel’s redeployments in Hebron but neither one brought peace or a break from Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel.
In 2000, President Clinton convened a peace summit between Arafat and Barak. Barak reportedly offered the Palestinian leader approximately 95 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip. Arafat rejected the offer. He had no counter-offer.
Clinton blamed Arafat for the failure of the Camp David Summit.
Road Map to…where?
In July 2002, the “quartet” of the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia outlined the principles of a “road map” for peace, including an independent Palestinian state. This plan called for independent actions by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. As required, Israel evacuated over 9,000 citizens from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, dismantling all 21 Jewish communities there. Also, the Israeli army withdrew completely from Gaza Strip and handed its control over to the Palestinians. However, Palestinians have not undertaken any of the responsibilities the Road Map calls for but have increased attacks in Israel.
The Egyptians brokered the 2008 Israel─Hamas Ceasefire, which lasted for six months. The collapse of it led to the Gaza War that started at the end of the same year.
In September 2010, the Obama Administration pushed to revive the stalled peace process with direct talks that were aimed to put the Israeli- Palestinian conflict to an official end by forming a two-state solution for both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people. The direct talks were also set to promote the idea of everlasting peace between parties, living side by side. As the Palestinian side has not even recognized Israel as a Jewish state, the Road Map has hit a serious bump on the road.
Palestinian Entity
On October 31, 2011, Palestine became a full member of the UN education, science and culture agency, UNESCO. “Today’s vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as member is regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. “The United States will refrain from making contributions to UNESCO,” she added. By this vote, the agency has lost the U.S. and also, Israel’s contributions, total of 25% of their annual budget. UNESCO’s director has expressed a concern for the organization’s financial stability. Now, as Palestine has been granted a full UNESCO membership, the Palestinian Authority plans to seek additional memberships in 16 other UN agencies!
We need to remember that this Palestine is not situated somewhere in Africa, Europe or even in our vast North American continent. It is in Israel, in the land that was designated for the Jewish people by a body of international leaders and by an internationally recognized agreement. It was the United Nations (frm. League of the Nations) itself that approved Israel’s independence and borders. By accepting Palestine as a member state at this time, the UN (UNESCO) has violated its own principles.
Give thanks, pray and intercede…
News on Gush Katif evacuees
More than six years after the expul-sion of Jews from Gaza, tens of more families are finally settling down in new homes. The homes are in the new towns of Naveh and Bnei Netzarim, both a short distance from Gaza. The towns remain unfinished; however, the situation is a step in the right direction for families that have spent years living in makeshift “caravilla” homes that were meant to be used for no more than a few months. “The State of Israel has a moral debt to pay toward those still living in caravans or other temporary housing,” said Liora Toshinsky of the Tnuva Administ-ration in Jerusalem.
Many families expelled from Gaza have faced difficulty moving to permanent housing after being forced to use their compensation money to meet day-to-day expenses in the years after the expulsion. Others were able to save their money and build new homes in what the state has promised will be their new communities, but found themselves without water or electricity as bureaucracy slowed the construction of vital infrastructure.
Israel’s right to build
On November 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Jewish people have a right to build in their eternal capital. “We must protect its [Jerusalem’s] unity, stop those who try to rewrite its history, and remind the world over and over again that Jerusalem was never the capital of any other nation. Over thousands of years in exile, the Jewish people prayed to return to Jerusalem,” Netanyahu recounted, quoting Psalm137:5 (NAS) “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill.”
“We must always remember that the work of strengthening and developing Jerusalem will never end. This is our historical and national responsibility. We have the right to build our eternal capital for this generation and for the next─not as a punishment, but as a basic right,” said Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s comments were widely seen as a response to criticism from officials in Washington and other Western capitals over his government’s decision to authorize new housing units in Jerusalem and elsewhere─partly due to Abbas’s unilateral request for statehood at the United Nations.
Civilians under Gaza attacks
Recently Gaza-based terrorism has increased significantly. An Israeli man was killed and many more were wounded in a hail of rockets and mortar fire. Militants are again bombarding Israeli civilian targets in Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Sderot, and Sha’ar HaNegev with Grad and Qassam rockets and mortar fire. The Israeli Army is hard at work trying to locate and end these unrelenting, senseless murders that the world is allowing to continue. Schools in the southern part of central Israel have been closed amid fears that missiles from the Gaza Strip could result in mass casualties among children.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), President Jimmy Carter and IsraeliPrime Minister Menachem Begin (right) after signing the Camp David Accords in 1978.
PM Yitzhak Rabin (left), President Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat (right)after signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. Rabin stated, “…enough of blood and tears… enough!”
King Hussein of Jordan (left), President Bill Clinton and Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin (right) at the signing of Israel- Jordan Treaty of Peace in 1994.
President George W. Bush (center), PM Ariel Sharon of Israel (left) andPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (right) in Aqaba, Jordan in 2003.
What will be next?
The twenty-year-process for peace with the Palestinians has produced little concrete peace dividends to Israel. The Palestinians, however, have gained valuable land and international prestige. Many of Judaism’s holy cities and sites in Judea and Samaria are under the Palestinian Authority’s control or jointly controlled with them. When Judea and Samaria came under Israel’s administration in 1967, Israel did not annex them into Israel proper. Danny Dannon (Member of Knesset) stated in December 2010, “Israel should annex Jewish Judea and Samaria if the Palestinian Authority declares a Unilateral Palestinian State.” And so it is that the Palestinian Authority plans to appeal for a state recognition at the UN Security Council, after they already gained the full membership with UNESCO.
Biblical perspective
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18). Later, beginning in the 19th century A.D., the LORD has miraculously gathered millions of Jews around the globe and resettled them in their own land. Amos 9:14 promises, “I will bring back the captives of My people Israel. They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them… I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them.” The promises or warnings we find in the Bible are seldom taken into account in political decisions. We should continue praying His Word for Israel, Jerusalem and His covenant people, because God has a promise for those who “…Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, may they prosper who love you” (Psalm 122:6). (Resources: Israeli Government sites, Israel Information Center and INN.)
CFI–USA Book store
The Tehran Initiative by Joel C. Rosenberg (Book 2011)
Is it fiction, or is it real? Joel’s new novel, The Tehran Initiative, is a political thriller that takes readers inside the Iranian threat and imagines a series of worst case scenarios, such as an Iranian terror plot unleashed inside the U.S. The world is on the brink of disaster and the clock is ticking. Iran has just conducted its first atomic weapons test. Millions of Muslims around the world are convinced their messiah─known as “the Twelfth Imam”─has just arrived on earth. Israeli leaders fear that under the new Imam’s spell, Tehran will soon launch a nuclear attack that could bring about a second holocaust and the annihilation of Israel. The White House fears Jerusalem will strike first, launching a pre-emptive attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities that could cause the entire Middle East to go up in flames, causing oil prices to skyrocket, and the global economy to collapse. With the stakes high and few viable options left, the President of the United States orders CIA operative David Shirazi and his team to track down and sabotage Iran’s nuclear warheads before Iran or Israel can launch a devastating first strike… The Tehran Initiative B47 $21.00
One New Man Worship (16-song CD with bonus DVD)
From the producer of the internationally acclaimed ADONAI comes a new series that brings together Jew and Gentile from the ends of the earth to worship as ONE NEW MAN. For the first time ever, this ambitious new series will seek to capture powerful, combined worship from every continent—Asia, Africa, North & South America, Europe, Australia, Antarctica—demonstrating God’s promise of peace. This set includes a bonus message, Two Olive Trees─One New Man, by Pastor David Davis of Carmel Assembly, Israel. CD/DVD set CD16 $18.00
October 2011 Middle East Update
Divine judgment of the nations And it shall come to pass that in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:1). The Lord bringeth the counsel of the nations to nought; He maketh the thoughts of the peoples to be of no effect (Psalm 33:10). There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD. The horse is prepared against the day of battle; Lance Lambert but victory is of the Lord (Prov. 21:30-31). In his October message, Lance shares about Gilad Shalit’s release and the prisoner exchange, uproar in the Middle East, the Lord on the battle field, divine judgment and prayer needs. Lance’s Update messages are always about God’s Word. What does God have to say about Israel and their situation? Lance is not just giving a news analysis. All his messages are delivered in the light of God’s Word.
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