Israel’s Dead End
The citizen of Israel stares out his window at his nation, a tear in his eye and a knot in his stomach. He knows Israel is in trouble.
It is true that for the whole of its 52 years, the country has existed without peace. But as this Jewish citizen watches Palestinian teenagers and Israeli soldiers tussling in the streets, as the multilingual shouting and popping of gunfire fills his ears, he knows that today the situation is worse than it has ever been. He fears Israel is changed forever.
In 1948, Palestinians attacked the one-day-old nation of Israel with force, and Israel fought back with stronger force. In 1967, with Arab armies threatening on several fronts, the Jews preemptively knocked them out and expanded Israel’s borders even further. In 1973, they captured more territory defending themselves against yet another united Arab onslaught.
These were plain military victories by an Israel committed to preserving its national security through strength. Strength was the only sound policy for this young country, still smaller than the state of New Jersey, sitting precariously among neighbors that clearly craved its demise.
But over time, that policy was compromised. Fighting for survival is tiring. Jews wanted to believe there was an easier way. Secularism increasingly swept a country that had been founded on religion.
It was then that Israel took a gamble—a crap-shoot that started in 1993 on the White House lawn with a handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. There Israel surrendered bits of that hard-won, strategically important land in hope that the Arabs could be simply bargained into giving up their goal of destroying Israel. The Jewish nation committed to protecting itself not by strength but through negotiation.
Seven years have passed—seven years of giving up land and seeing no appreciable drop in violence—seven years of Arafat telling politicians and media that he wants peaceful coexistence with Israel while simultaneously promising to his people Israel’s destruction. Still, through those seven years, weary hope for peace through negotiation persisted in the hearts of many Jews.
It was such hope that got Ehud Barak elected as Israel’s prime minister 18 months ago. He campaigned on promises of healing a hobbled peace process, of conceding more territory than the incumbent government would—or anyone before him ever had. Once in office he began to implement the politics of negotiation in full force: offering the prized Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a peace contract; pulling Israeli troops from the northern border with Lebanon. Neither situation ended prettily, but Barak continued with his mandate.
Time came to bargain with the Palestinians living in the heart of Israel itself. After months of essentially fruitless bantering with Yasser Arafat, in July U.S. President Clinton called the Camp David talks, forcing final-status-type discussion on the full range of issues. Barak entered the meeting with his neck resting on a bet that Arafat was a man of his word, someone Israel could have a peaceable relationship with if he was just offered a sweet enough deal. Thus came Barak’s terms: He would give up the Jordan Valley—a land strip buffering Israel from potential enemies to the east; He would hand over much of Jerusalem’s Old City—its most sought-after acreage; He would accept Israel’s obligation to resettle descendants of the Palestinians pushed out in the 1948 war (the “right of return”—a policy which would suddenly, or over time if it was carefully controlled, overwhelm Israel’s Jewish population).
Arafat coldly snubbed Barak’s offer. It wasn’t enough. And whereas Barak came home to jeers from his government and his people—the comprehensiveness of his giveaway had left them breathless with horror—Arafat, shortly after returning home, proclaimed to an audience in Gaza, “Jerusalem is ours, ours, ours.”
Today, one thing is clear: Arafat felt that what he couldn’t win through negotiation, he could seek to take by violence. And after seven years of gambling with its own soil, Israel finds itself depleted of property and will.
The citizen of Israel stares out his window at his nation, watching the bloody results of a seven-year-old policy that has publicized, for all to see, the fatal weariness of his tiny country. He stares at the dead end of a street and fears that the Arabs have backed him right into it.
Judah’s Wound
Avid Trumpet readers weren’t shocked at last month’s eruption of violence in Israel. They had just been admonished to “Watch Jerusalem!” in a six-page feature article by editor-in-chief Gerald Flurry in the September/October edition.
That article revealed the essential flaw in Israel that has brought down and emboldened the Palestinian intifada currently storming its streets. It is what Mr. Flurry since 1996 has been calling “Judah’s wound”—that is, the terribly misnamed peace process.
As Mr. Flurry explained, the Bible refers to the present nation of Israel as “Judah” (hence the name Jew.) It is in a prophecy in Hosea 5:13 that the interesting word wound can be found. Gesenius’ Lexicon defines it, “the pressing together, binding up of a wound; here used figuratively of a remedy applied to the wounds of the state.” In other words, the remedy is the wound!
Could a single word better describe Israel’s “peace” process? Is there any more grievous wound than the naïve, strength-sapping negotiation that has Israel virtually begging the Palestinians to stop their terrorism, giving up more and more land and resources along the way? This galling “remedy” has crushed Israel’s will. If anyone needed further proof that Judah’s wound is the peace process, the violence now engulfing Jerusalem is it.
It appeared that after more than three weeks of clashes and only idle promises from Arafat to call off the violence, Ehud Barak had had enough. He called an indefinite “timeout” in negotiation—the first official pause in the peace process for seven years—to reassess the policy. (Of course, the Palestinians immediately accused him of stonewalling. Arafat said anyone who poses an obstacle to an independent state for his people “can go to hell”; he then announced open alliances with two major terrorist groups, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.)
It is possible that Barak, faced with no other options, will toughen his strategy in the short term. But the fact is, Israel has already permanently handicapped itself in dealing with the Palestinians. For some years, in compliance with its “peace” contracts, it has been unable to control the flow of weapons into Palestinian-controlled land. The terrorists’ headquarters lie side by side with Israel’s own, making a serious and decisive war effort impossible.
Clearly, the Israel that struggled for its independence in 1948, the Israel that staved off through military might numerous assaults on its very existence for the next three decades, the Israel that won fear and respect from its neighbors—that Israel has been replaced by one which believes to its bones that, ultimately, negotiation is the only real solution.
It is that trait which will result in the death of the present nation of Israel—unless they turn to God!
The Picture in Prophecy
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy” wrote the Apostle Paul in ii Peter 1:19. It is only through understanding how events will end, using Bible prophecy, that we can decipher true significance in the steady stream of current news.
The Bible prophesies that soon, Israel will lose East Jerusalem to the Palestinians: “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zech. 14:1-2). Though this prophecy revolves around what the Bible calls the “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21) and the Day of the Lord, verses 1 and 2 talk about the time leading up to that period.
As Gerald Flurry wrote in last month’s Trumpet, the failure of the Camp David conference in July will culminate in the world’s greatest ever battle! Before that time, Jerusalem will be split in half. The violence today is part of the specifically prophesied chain of events which will lead to the sacking of East Jerusalem by the Arabs. The clamor and chaos currently reigning will escalate—even if there are more temporary periods of coolness to come—until it appears the state of Israel could be completely subsumed by its surrounding enemies and cease to exist altogether.
It is then that Israel’s deadly wound will bleed that embattled little nation to death.
Look again at Hosea 5:13: “When Ephraim [speaking of modern Britain] saw his sickness, and Judah [today’s Israel] saw his wound, then sent Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.” In a desperate diplomatic frenzy (involving Britain) Israel will cry out to the Assyrian—the presently uniting European power with Germany at its head—for protection as its last hope for survival as a nation. They will, for one last time, try to remedy their plight through a peace pact.
Catholic Europe has been waiting for years for just such a request (see sidebar, below). By then bristling with military might, it will respond to the call—ready to finally fulfill its ambition in the Holy Land. With anarchy reigning between Arab and Jew, Europe will intercede and impose “peace” on the region. “He [the European power] shall enter also into the glorious land [Jerusalem], and many countries shall be overthrown” (Dan. 11:41). Jesus Christ Himself prophesied that this intervention would be anything but peaceful: “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh” (Luke 21:20). What will appear to be a sincere effort to establish security in the Holy City will end up being a grisly repetition of the Crusades!
The stage is already being set. Watch for resentment over U.S. failures to mediate a Mideast peace to increase. Watch for the prophesied sacking of half of Jerusalem by the Palestinians. Watch for Europe and the Vatican to intensify their efforts to play the peacemaker role. Keep an eye on this situation in the news. What we see today is only the beginning—and its prophesied end is certain.