Abbas Between Rock & Hard Place After Israeli Elections - By Yoni Ben Menachem -
The top ranks of the Palestinian Authority are greatly disappointed by the results of the general elections on April 9. The hope of P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah leadership that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be defeated by Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party, was dashed and ended in disappointment.
Senior PLO official Saeb Erekat expressed this view when the final results of the elections were announced by stating, "The Israelis have voted 'no to peace' to preserve the current situation. They have said 'no to peace and yes to the occupation.' "
The P.A. leadership was careful throughout the election campaign not to issue statements that could have been interpreted as interference in the elections in Israel and helpful to Netanyahu. However, every child in the West Bank and Gaza knows that the Palestinian leadership wished for Benjamin Netanyahu's downfall.
On April 9, Abbas played the supposedly "neutral" game when he said during a tour of a Ramallah hospital, "We are watching what's happening with our neighbor, and we hope they will take the right path towards peace."
At the moment, what concerns the P.A. leadership is the strengthening of the right-wing bloc in Israel and the expected publication of U.S. President Donald Trump's "deal of the century." But what worries them the most is Netanyahu's announcement on April 8 that he had informed Trump of his intention to annex territories in the West Bank "gradually and in coordination with the United States."
Senior Fatah officials say that the P.A. is powerless against any intention to annex the settlements and additional territories in the West Bank, and it doesn't have any diplomatic options to prevent it. Abbas announced on April 8 that the P.A. rejected Trump's deal--"whatever will be, will be," he stated. He continues to boycott the U.S. administration and is worried about the weakened stance of the Arab countries toward Trump's policy in the Middle East.
The Arab countries displayed this weakness when the Trump administration recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and declared Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and it only reinforced the heavy frustration of the Palestinian leadership. The Arab leaders have shown that they are strong in their condemnations, but do nothing when it comes to taking action.
The P.A. is concerned about the annexation of large settlement blocs in the West Bank and parts of Area C. P.A. sources state that Israel is not interested in annulling the Oslo accords because it does not want to manage the lives of 3 million Palestinians. Israel wants the actual territory, and the P.A. will be left with the burden of taking care of the daily lives of the residents of the West Bank.
Abbas has failed miserably in his determined efforts to create opposition in the international arena to the policies of Trump regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Senior Fatah sources have tried over the past year to persuade him to open a secret channel of communication with the U.S. Administration to soften the clashes between the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government. However, Abbas stubbornly refused, and he continues to boycott the Trump administration.
The result of Abbas's policy toward the Trump administration will only be further harm to Palestinian interests. There is a deep division within Palestinian society, and a rift between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Abbas is in a difficult situation; he is opposed to an armed intifada against Israel, but his strategy of "popular resistance through peaceful means" has been a resounding failure in the West Bank territories.
Fatah sources fear that Netanyahu's election victory and the growth of the right-wing bloc in the Knesset will give Netanyahu the impetus to advance the process of imposing Israeli sovereignty over lands in the West Bank and evacuating the Bedouin settlement of Khan al-Ahmar on the road to the Jordan Valley.
Abbas's stubbornness forces the Palestinians to get used to any new situation imposed upon them by the Trump administration and Israel. Abbas does not have the political courage to "hang up his hat" and resign from his position.
He continues to stick to his seat, and take care of his and his two sons' sizable economic interests. The P.A. leadership is afraid of him, and senior Fatah officials prefer to avoid disputes with him because of the battle for the succession. Abbas is an obstinate politician who does not appreciate criticism. Anyone who argues with his policies will find himself isolated and outside the political game.
The Palestinians themselves, rather than their leadership, are paying the price for this.
Hamas's Honesty and the Deal of the Century - by Khaled Abu Toameh - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14081/hamas-honesty-peace-deal
April 15 marked the 18th anniversary of the firing of the first Hamas rocket toward Israel. On this day, 18 years ago, Hamas's military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, launched its first rocket attack at Israeli population centers near their border with the Gaza Strip.
On the eve of this occasion, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader of the Gaza Strip, threatened that his movement will continue to fire rockets at Israel. The rockets, he said, will be fired at Israeli "settlements" not only near the border with the Gaza Strip, but also at supposed "settlements" in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv.
Sinwar said that the recent Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire understandings between Hamas and Israel are not a peace agreement. The understandings, he explained, do not require Hamas to disarm or halt, near the border with Israel, the weekly demonstrations, also known as the "Great March of Return."
"The understandings do not have any political dimension," the Hamas leader said. "I promise that if a war is imposed on us, the occupation will have to evacuate its settlements, not only near the Gaza Strip, but also in Ashdod, Ashkelon, the Negev and even Tel Aviv. Remember this promise."
Sinwar's threats serve as a reminder that Hamas and other Palestinian terror group consider Israel one big settlement that needs to be annihilated. Hamas and the other terror groups do not see a difference between a Jew living in the West Bank and a Jew living in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon. To terror groups, all these Jews, regardless of whether they live in the West Bank or in Israel proper, are "settlers" and "colonists."
For them, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Ashdod and all Israeli cities are no different than Jewish communities and neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. That's why Hamas and the terror groups consider all "settlements" -- inside Israel and in the West Bank -- as legitimate targets for their rockets.
Contrary to claims by some Western political analysts and media outlets, Hamas has never recognized Israel's right to exist. Needless to say, Hamas has never renounced the "armed struggle" against Israel.
Above all, Hamas has never accepted the "two-state solution" or changed its charter, which explicitly states:
"When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad [holy war] becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. WE must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters."
Sinwar deserves credit for being honest about his movement's true goals. He also deserves credit for sticking to every word mentioned in the Hamas charter, which was published more than 30 years ago and remains as relevant as ever to this very day.
Jihad, according to the Hamas leader, should be waged not only against Jews living in West Bank settlements, but also against those residing in "settlements" in all of Israel, including Tel Aviv. He says he wants to see all Jews evacuated from their homes. He says he is hoping that the Hamas rockets will one day force Israel to "evacuate" all Jews from their homes.
In the past 18 years, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip have fired thousands of rockets and missiles at Israel.
A report by the IDF on Hamas's rocket arsenal notes that the terror group has about 6,000 rockets. They include more than 1,000 units of self-produced short-range rockets (15 km range), more than 2,500 units of smuggled short-range rockets (15 km range), approximately 200 units of self-produced Grad rockets (20 km range), approximately 200 units of smuggled Grad rockets (20 km range), approximately 200 units of self-produced improved Grad rockets (45 km range), approximately 1,000 units of smuggled improved Grad rockets (45 km range), more than 400 units of self-produced medium range rockets (up to 80 km range) and dozens of long-range rockets (100-200 km range).
The other terror groups in the Gaza Strip, the report says, have approximately another 5,500 short-range, medium-range and long-range rockets.
That is why Sinwar's threats to fire more rockets at Israel should be taken with deadly seriousness. He is also right when he says that the ceasefire understandings with Israel are not a political agreement with the "Zionist entity." Hamas cannot reach any political deal with Israel because it does not agree to Israel's right to exist. This is the message that Sinwar and leaders of all Palestinian terror groups want the world to hear. For the terrorist leaders, the only peace they will accept is one that results in the elimination of Israel and the evacuation of all Jews from their homes.
Hamas, of course, is strongly opposed to US President Donald Trump's upcoming plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the "Deal of the Century." How can Hamas accept any peace plan that recognizes Israel's right to exist? Hamas is opposed to the Deal of the Century not because the plan doesn't offer the Palestinians enough land. It is opposed to the plan because it doesn't offer the Palestinians all the land, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
Consider another phrase from the Hamas charter, one that explains why it cannot recognize Israel's right to exist:
"The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection; no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it."
Drafted more than three decades ago, the message the Hamas charter sends to the US, the Arab world, Palestinians and the rest of the international community sounds as if it was issued yesterday. It is a straightforward, unambiguous message that says:
"[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion. There is no solution to the Palestinian problem expect by Jihad."
Hamas is not a small group whose threats can be brushed aside as "irrelevant." It is a terror groups that possesses thousands of rockets and controls the entire Gaza Strip, where nearly two million Palestinian live. It is a terror group that won the Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It is a terror group whose supporters have won a number of university student council elections not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has undoubtedly read the Hamas charter. He knows that, as a Muslim, if he accepts any peace plan that does not include the expulsion of all Jews from their homes, he will be denounced by his rivals in Hamas as a traitor. Abbas is also aware of Hamas's threats to shower Israel with rockets. He knows that at the same time as Hamas attacks Israel, it will seek to flatten him for "betraying" Arabs and Muslims in "allowing" Jews to continue living in "their" state. This is the Palestinian reality that the Deal of the Century is about to be dealt.
Is Trump's Mideast "Deal of the Century" Peace Plan Biblical? - by Bill Salus -
Since Israel became a nation in 1948, the international community has been unsuccessful in all of its bids to bring a lasting peace to the Middle East. US Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all failed in their successive plans to trade land for peace.
President Trump is about to introduce his peace plan called, "The Deal of the Century." If his plan ends the Arab-Israeli conflict then this grandiose title will be justified. However, if it fails it will just be another flop of the century.
The simple explanation for the past peace plan failures is that the only successful method to achieve this illusive peace is to follow the blueprint model provided in the Holy Scriptures. The Arab-Israeli conflict is deeply rooted in an ancient hatred. The Bible identifies it as a perpetual enmity and it is integrated into the geo-political and religious complexities existing in the region today. It's a spiritual matter and it cannot be satisfied through secular solutions. This means that the Lord must be the essential part of the final equation.
Fortunately, the Bible provides a specific plan for Mideast peace and the Arabs will be glad to know that it does include a land for peace clause. This article provides the biblical basis for the successful manner to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East. The important question is, "Will President Donald Trump's Deal of the Century peace plan be in alignment with God's plan?"
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE BIBLE'S MIDEAST PEACE PLAN
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The plan inscribed below, which was presented by the prophet Jeremiah approximately 2600 years ago, was to be fully implemented when Israel became a nation on May 14, 1948. Failure to do so has caused over six decades of conflict in the Middle East!
"Thus says the LORD: "Against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit-behold, I will pluck them [the Arabs] out of their [the Jews] land [Israel] and pluck out the house of Judah from among them [the surrounding Arab nations]. Then it shall be, after I have plucked them out, that I will return and have compassion on them and bring them back, everyone to his heritage and everyone [Jew and Arab] to his [respective] land. And it shall be, if they [the resettled Arabs] will learn carefully the ways of My people, to swear by My name, 'As the LORD lives,' as they taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be established in the midst of My people. But if they do not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation," says the LORD. (Jeremiah 12:14-17, NKJV; emphasis added)
This plan represents the compassionate, peaceful, political and spiritual solutions to the regional problems of the return of the Jew into the Holy Land. Jeremiah suggests that his God would cause the corridors to open for the Arabs to leave the land destined to become the Jewish state and return to the lands of their ancestry. In addition, He would resettle the Jews out of the surrounding Arab nations, and bring them back into their homeland Israel. As each ethnic group migrated, they would vacate homes and jobs enabling economic opportunities for the returning peoples and in some cases, already existing communities to inhabit. These Jeremiah passages represent the ancient blueprints, divinely designed to insure the successful return of the Jewish people back to the land of their heritage.
This plan was put into sovereign place after World War I when the Arab countries gained their statehoods. Jeremiah 12:15 says, "I will return and have compassion on them and bring them back, everyone to his heritage and everyone [Jew and Arab] to his [respective] land." How's that for a land for peace solution? The remapping of the atlases after World War I makes the political land for peace deals of our time pale in comparison.
The Middle East conflict that confounds the politicians today has not caught God off guard. The biblical peace plan took into consideration that there would be "evil neighbors" homesteading the holy land. He foreknew they would need to be relocated to make way for the return of the Jewish people. Provisions were included in Jeremiah's prophecy for their future as well. They would be "plucked out" and resettled in their former homelands. A fertile future awaited them, if they entreated their affections to Jehovah, Jeremiah's God.
In an apparent fulfillment of the Jeremiah 12:14-17 prophecy, millions of Arabs have been "plucked out" from the territory formerly recognized as Palestine. For over seventy years, these uprooted Arabs have been unable to relocate into an alternative homeland. These Arabs from Palestine have been reduced to a refugee status because their historic Arab relatives have mostly shut their national doors on them. These Palestinian Refugees are in the Gaza, West Bank, and in several of the neighboring Arab nations. These refugees serve as a buffer between Israel and the surrounding Arab states.
These Arab nations have cleverly managed to shift the burden of responsibility for the relocation of these refugees into the lap of the international community, the same community that legislated the re-establishment of the nation Israel as the Jewish State, implemented in 1948. UNRWA the (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), was established May 1, 1950, to find a solution to this refugee problem.
By not taking responsibility to absorb the Palestinian Refugees into their societies, these Arab nations are in a substantial breach of God's Middle East peace plan. Regardless of the breach, God still stated through Jeremiah that if these Arabs would "swear by My name," that they would "be established in the midst of My [Jewish] people." However, on the flip side, "if they do not obey," God "will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation."
The fact that Jeremiah described the affected Arabs as "evil neighbors", who would be "plucked out", indicates that in the foreknowledge of God, the return of the Jew into the holy land, would not be a smooth process. Otherwise, he would have used substitute terms like, "good neighbors", and "escorted out". Hence the world now has an explosive Middle East conflict on its hands.
At this point, it should be duly noted that there is no Jewish Refugee crisis, since they have been welcomed and assimilated into Israeli society. The absence of any such crises is one less burden upon the United Nations, and also evidences that the Jewish people are operating in compliance with the biblically endorsed peace plan.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
IT'S TIME TO FACE THE INEVITABLE
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The time to have implemented the Lord's Mideast peace plan is rapidly passing. The golden opportunities after World War I and World War II will be missed. The British Empire missed the first opportunity by failing to execute the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
This official document was designed to create a Jewish state after World War I. The creation of Israel prior to World War II would have spared many Jews from the genocidal campaign of the Germans.
The failure of the British Empire to act has led in its downfall. Around the end of the 18th century, the second rise of the British Empire began. At its height, it was the largest empire in history. No other nation in history created as many colonies. The empire grew so rapidly that it was described by the phrase, "the empire on which the sun never set." By 1922, the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world's population. Moreover, the empire covered more than 13,000,000 square miles, almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. (i)
Today, Great Britain is only a fragment of what it once was! In seventy years, between 1920 and 1990, in the midst of Israel's rebirthing process, Britain collapsed as a world superpower. Now the sun always sets on the British Empire. Today the UK only spans 94,058 square miles and has a population of only about 64 million.
As the British Empire declined, America emerged as the world's superpower nation. We were then called to put the Lord's Mideast peace plan into effect. The USA played an instrumental role in the recreation of Israel. However, America did not seize the chance to enforce the biblical plan for peace at the time. This failure has resulted in US Presidents over the past several decades attempting to recreate this missed opportunity.
Unfortunately, these US Presidents have been and are currently pushing Israel to forfeit land for peace, which is not biblically endorsed, rather than utilizing the Bible's roadmap plan for Mideast peace. This is why their political efforts toward peace continue to fail. It is also one of the reasons that America began to decline as a superpower. President Trump's campaign promise was to, "Make America Great Again." This pledge was because America was rapidly falling from greatness. American exceptionalism was departing. The Lord lifted up America as the sovereign tool to implement His Middle East peace plan, but the USA has failed and now mankind must face the inevitable.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE FINAL ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
It's doubtful at this point in time that any influential world leader will embrace the Bible's Mideast peace plan. Even if one did, the Arabs won't! Therefore, Jeremiah 12:17 will be the result. "But if they do not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation," says the LORD."
The Arab states that refuse to worship the God of the Bible, rather than the false god Allah, will never embrace this Mideast peace plan. The Lord foreknew this would be the case and instituted the "pluck up and destroy" clause in His Mideast peace plan. The destruction of an Arab state will facilitate the implementation of the Lord's peace plan. That state will no longer exist to oppose this plan.
The destruction of the opposing Arab state is predicted in several Bible prophecies. To learn more about these prophecies and what will be the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you are invited to read my book entitled; Psalm 83: The Missing Prophecy Revealed, How Israel Becomes the Next Mideast Superpower. The book and related DVD's are available HERE.
..........................................
(i) Quote taken from Wikipedia website at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/British_Empire on 12/16/15.
Palestinians 'definitely' going to reject Trump's Mideast peace plan - By Ariel Ben Solomon -
Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch sees the conflict as continuing until the Palestinians change their culture of hate and education system, saying "until that happens, talk of land for peace is a recipe for more tragedy."
The Mideast peace plan soon to be presented by the U.S. administration is likely not going to get very far upon its initial presentation, but it could provide Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump with an opportunity to alter the dynamics of the conflict.
Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS in an exclusive interview that the Palestinian Authority "will definitely reject" the upcoming U.S. backed peace plan, and that past Palestinian behavior does not lend support to any chance of compromise. The plan offered by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was, according to PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, extremely generous by offering P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas 100 percent of the land area he demanded, the division of Jerusalem and the acceptance into Israel of 150,000 "refugees," yet Abbas rejected it.
The Trump plan is bound to offer the Palestinians much less, so rejection is certain.
PMW monitors and reports on the activities and statements of the Palestinian leadership daily. It continues to warn about the P.A.'s ongoing hate and terror incitement, especially in the education of Palestinian youth, and the P.A.'s continued denial of Israel's right to exist and anticipation of its destruction.
"The root of the conflict is not merely territorial. A poll by ADL in 2014 found that Palestinians 'showed the highest levels of anti-Semitism in the world,' and PMW was not at all surprised by this finding. The anti-Semitism taught through official P.A. structures promote the worst hatred imaginable, including the message that the Jews are the fundamental evil force in the world and therefore need to be eliminated for the benefit of all humanity," said Marcus.
For example, a P.A. preacher on official P.A. TV said in December that Jews pass on evil in their genes: "Humanity will never be able to live with them ... count them and kill them one by one."
Marcus sees the conflict as continuing until the Palestinians change their culture of hate. "Until that happens, talk of land for peace is a recipe for more tragedy. Israel has paid with many deaths every time we followed the 'land for peace' formula since the signing of the Oslo Accords."
P.A. will change only if it's 'forced to change'
Marcus spends much of his time traveling and speaking to world parliaments and government officials in order to educate them about what is really going on inside Palestinian society under direction of the its leaders. He recently visited parliaments in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Canada. "They have heard of Palestinian incitement, but until they actually meet with me, they don't realize the full extent and danger of P.A. indoctrination to hate and terror."
"I show them that the fundamental P.A. ideology regarding Israel is not that different from Hamas, including denying Israel's right to exist, rewarding terrorists and naming schools and sporting events after murderers. However, the P.A. leaders' policy of duplicity has been very successful, and much of the international community thinks they are peace-promoting," continued Marcus.
His goal is to reach and influence international decision-makers. "The only way the P.A. will ever change is if they lose international support and are forced to change."
Marcus cites PMW's main objectives: First, to stop Israel's isolation around the world and to convince governments to stop pressuring Israel to make concessions, which has proven to be detrimental. And second, which is more long-term, is to have real change in the Palestinian world. The only way this will happen is when the international community starts treating the P.A. like a terror-supporting entity and isolates them politically. Once the P.A. stops being artificially propped up by the international community, the Palestinian people may "eventually rise up against their corrupt leadership and replace them with better leaders."
Not only the Israeli government, but many governments and legislators around the world, including Trump's advisers, receive regular updates from PMW, and some of them tweet PMW findings to their followers.
'Peace will be built through people-to-people contacts'
Asked if Netanyahu and Trump are likely aware of the probable Palestinian rejection of the upcoming proposal and are planning to move forward with Netanyahu's campaign promise of extending sovereignty to the West Bank, Marcus replied that if this occurred, he predicts that Palestinian opposition would not be that explosive, despite likely attempts to incite violence by Abbas.
Abbas and his official P.A. media tried to incite violence when the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem, but it didn't succeed, said Marcus. The proposal to extend Israeli law to Israeli cities in Judea and Samaria "won't change daily life on the ground, and for most Palestinians will just be a technical issue that they read about," he argued.
On the other hand, if such a move could lead to more business cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, it would benefit everyone, he predicted. Such cooperation is already strong and growing, according to Marcus, who notes that these projects don't get the publicity they deserve.
Marcus has his own formula for peace: "Peace will be built through people-to-people contacts and not by politicians working over texts of peace agreements. In 1996, following 30 years of Israeli administration-and daily contact between Israelis and the Arab population-the most important Palestinian pollster found that Palestinians thought that Israel was the best in the world in democracy and human rights, compared to the U.S., France and the P.A. itself."
Marcus added "that was because from 1967 to 1994, borders were open, and there was no Palestinian Authority to poison the minds of the population."
"A peace plan that has a chance to work today must increase cooperation and contact between Palestinians and Israelis of all ages, and change all the fundamentals of P.A. education and public messaging."
Marcus went on to conclude: "Once the Palestinian population is no longer taught that Jews are 'monkeys, pigs and the enemies of Allah,' and this is replaced with belief in the value of peace with Israel and seeks the benefits cooperation with Israel, serious talk about political arrangements can begin. Until this happens, there's no point to politicians wasting their time drawing new lines on maps and participating in meaningless chatter about a future peace agreement that P.A. leaders have no plans to accept or implement."
THIS IS NOT SPAM...CHECK OUT MY BUSINESS.... THIS IS AMAZING!!!
I RELAX EVERY NIGHT WITH ESSENTIAL OILS. GO TO WWW.YOUNGLIVING.COM. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, CONTACT ME VIA THIS EMAIL, AND I WILL GIVE MORE DETAILS. I PROMISE YOU THAT YOU WILL ENJOY THIS AS MUCH AS I DO. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED.... CONTACT INFO:
TERRY SEEMAN - DISTRIBUTOR # 16084320
TERRY SEEMAN - DISTRIBUTOR # 16084320
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.