JERUSALEM—On the last leg of his race to become Israel’s next prime minister, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu visited two East Jerusalem sites this week that feature prominently in the pages of Bible prophecy—the Mount of Olives and the City of David.

According to the Prophet Zechariah, when the Messiah sets foot on the Mount of Olives, the mountain will split in two (Zechariah 14:4). This obviously did not happen two millennia ago at Jesus Christ’s first coming. But the resurrected Jesus did ascend to heaven from the Mount of Olives at the end of His earthly ministry in a.d. 31. When that happened, notice what God asked the awestruck onlookers who witnessed the ascension: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Jesus Christ is coming back in the same way and to the very same spot He left from 2,000 years ago—on the Mount of Olives!

After that, we are informed from Scripture, Christ will then establish His world headquarters across the Kidron Valley, immediately south of the present-day Old City, at the City of David—the original Jerusalem established by King David 3,000 years ago. The Messiah, the Prophet Zechariah foretold, “shall choose Jerusalem again” (Zechariah 2:12). He chooses the city again because that’s where His throne will be. Jesus Christ will rule from David’s throne (Luke 1:32-33).

But before the coming Messiah establishes God’s earthly headquarters in Jerusalem—before He sets foot on the Mount of Olives—Zechariah 14:2 says the city will be violently divided, which is why Netanyahu’s campaign stops on Monday are revealing.

Last week, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, Ehud Olmert, briefed President Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, on the status of negotiations with Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. According to Yediot Aharonot, Olmert tabled a comprehensive offer to Abbas for Palestinian statehood just a few months ago.

It was a stunning proposal—not unlike the package Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat in 2000. Olmert agreed to hand over most of the West Bank and to uproot 60,000 Jewish settlers from the region—more than five times the number Israel evacuated from Gaza four years ago. In exchange for Israel’s largest settlements in the West Bank, Olmert offered Abbas a commensurate strip of land in the Negev desert and a 30-mile-long corridor that would join the Gaza Strip (controlled by Hamas) to the West Bank.

As for the thornier dispute over Jerusalem, Olmert agreed to turn over Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. While Israel would retain formal sovereignty over Jerusalem’s holiest sites, an international body would be responsible for administering the attractions and ensuring uninterrupted access for Jewish, Christian and Muslim worshipers.

Not surprisingly, just like Arafat did in 2000, Abbas rejected the offer.

That Israel keeps submitting proposals for peacefully relinquishing half of Jerusalem is no surprise either. It has been offering the Palestinians half of Jerusalem, in some form or another, for almost nine years now—and with popular support from Israelis. As recently as 2007, a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Institute for Israeli Studies found that 57 percent of Israelis were willing to make concessions on Jerusalem in order to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

This widespread support for cutting the capital in half, however, has subsided dramatically in recent months—as evinced by the groundswell of support for right-wing parties headed by Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.

It seems a majority of Israelis are finally waking to the fact that the peace process has failed. “Peace is not a popular word in Israel right now,” a retired army officer running for parliament with Kadima told the Los Angeles Times. “Parties running on an all-out peace platform are bound to lose.”

The more popular platform appears to be strength and security. If Israel gave up half of Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu has often said, there would be an Iranian base in Israel’s capital city. “[T]his election is about whether our capital will be given to our enemies,” Netanyahu told a throng of reporters while touring the City of David on Monday. “We did not unite the city in order to divide it, and my government will maintain a united Jerusalem.”

This is not the only hard-line promise Netanyahu has made during his campaign. “If we want to remove the threat of the missiles coming from Gaza,” he said in a speech on Wednesday night, “we have no choice but to topple the rule of Hamas in Gaza” (emphasis mine).

During that same address, which theTrumpet.com attended, Netanyahu singled out Iran as the primary source and sponsor of international terrorism. Iran is the greatest threat facing Israel today, he said. Everywhere Israel evacuates, Iran moves in.

“Time is running out—and it is running out very fast,” Netanyahu warned. “If I’m elected, my most important mission is to put off this Iranian threat in all its facets.”

Israel is unaccustomed to having a government that would seemingly be this strong on security and defense. “In a few days,” Netanyahu predicted on Wednesday night, “the citizens of Israel will decide to end the era of weakness and start an era of strength.”

The question is, assuming Israel does swing to the right next week, at this stage, will a new era of “strength” be far too little and way too late?

Bible prophecy provides the answer.

Earlier this week, a popular televangelist said he was “adamantly opposed” to the division of Jerusalem. “Jews are not going to give up Jerusalem,” he predicted.

He’s right about them not giving it away. Even Israel’s weakest governments haven’t been able to divide the city, though they’ve tried and tried. But what he doesn’t understand is that half of the city will be taken. Prophecy is sure on that, whether Israel gives up on the peace process and swings to the right or continues its present course of appeasement and retreat. A swing to the right, however, means we will undoubtedly see the Zechariah 14:2 crisis sooner, rather than later.

That same televangelist also said Armageddon would be a battle for Jerusalem, when “the forces of all nations come together and try to take Jerusalem away from the Jews.”

This is not what the Bible says. The dispute over Jerusalem, it is true, will soon trigger a series of events that will violently jolt the entire world with one upheaval after another. The Bible calls this cataclysmic end to the era of human government the Great Tribulation.

Armageddon is a gathering place in Megiddo (Revelation 16:16), located about 55 miles northwest of Jerusalem, where mankind’s armies will assemble at the end of the Great Tribulation for one final, all-or-nothing confrontation. The Bible says this battle for global supremacy would actually result in the nuclear extinction of all human life were it not for Jesus Christ’s supernatural intervention in the affairs of mankind (Matthew 24:22).

When Jesus intervenes, upon His return to the Mount of Olives, these gathering forces from Europe and Asia will unite and march southward to Jerusalem—not to take Jerusalem away from the Jews—but to attempt to destroy the armies of the Messiah! Revelation 19 describes how Jesus Christ will triumph over these evil forces.

This victory will then usher in the wonderful World Tomorrow, when Jesus Christ will rule this Earth along with His saints from His throne located in the City of David!