Palestinian Territories post 1948 (red areas)
The last paragraph of an article quoting Secretary of State John Kerry in his own assessment of progress in a recent trip to the Mideast (ended 1/5/14) is quite revealing. See what you think:
“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 and what the options are with respect to those choices,” he said.
“But I cannot tell you when particularly the last pieces may decide to fall into place or may fall on the floor and leave the puzzle unfinished.” (Read more) (Read more)
Bottom line — Kerry failed to establish a “framework” upon which to guide negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in a permanent peace treaty hoped to be concluded by April, 2014 (the process actually started in the 1994 Oslo Accords).
A “frame-work” is what you build before the design details are decided; sort of like the foot print of a house before the number of bathrooms, bedrooms, etc., are determined. According to the article, Netanyahu won’t agree to the right of Palestinians to return to their homes forfeited in 1948 (the “Palestinian right-to-return“)1 when Palestine was partitioned by the United Nations between Arab and Israeli land areas. In 1947, over 700,000 Arabs were displace from their homes when the United Nations adopted Resolution 181(II) which granted the Jews a homeland in
UN Partition Plan 1947
Palestine. Displaced Arabs (descendants) still live in refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and other areas of the Mideast. The article stated that Netanyahu will also not agree to dismantle Israeli settlements in the West Bank prior to any permanent agreement with the Palestinians (apparently, Israel tried that in 2005 and it didn’t quite play out the way it was supposed to). Lastly, the Palestinians won’t agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and since the West Bank and Israel share their borders, this makes for a pretty nasty, volatile neighborhood (not to mention HAMAS in the Gaza Strip). It looks like the only progress so far from Kerry’s trips is that the Saudi royals think its a great idea for Israel and Palestine to make peace! No wonder progress is so slow; if you won’t agree that “the occupier” (Israel) has a legal right to unify as a “state,” it is pretty hard to agree that it has the authority to execute a legal document as the Jewish state, peaceful in purpose or otherwise.
Perhaps you are wondering what this has to do with Bible prophecy. There is one really interesting passage that comes to mind. Notice the specific location of the “tents” of this coming antichrist leader:
Daniel 11:45 (NIV) 45 He will pitch his royal tents between the seas at the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.
Check the map out. The antichrist leader is prophesied to “pitch his royal tents” in Jerusalem. East Jerusalem (the location of the Temple Mount, the Western Wailing Wall) is the “crown jewel” of the Israeli – Palestinian peace process. Both Israel and Palestine both claim Jerusalem as their capital. Do you think the Lord is giving us a hint as to who will win the first round of the “peace process”? If his “royal tents” will be pitched in Jerusalem it looks like round 1 will go to the Palestinians.
Jesus come quickly.
Blessings.
Jack
- The “Palestinian right of return” is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories (formerly part of the British Mandate of Palestine), as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, a result of the 1948 Palestine war and due to the 1967 Six-Day War. (Read more) [↩]
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