End the Hoax: There Are No Palestinians -
The "Palestinian people" is a propaganda fiction. It's time to stop playing along.
President Trump's "Deal of the Century" was a brilliant illustration of his mastery of the art of the deal. This extravagantly generous proposal, and the Palestinians' contemptuous rejection of it, severely damages the international Left's claim that the Israelis are the obstacles to peace, and exposes the Palestinian leadership for the genocidal warmongers they are. Now it is time to take one more crucial step: end the recognition of the "Palestinian people" altogether. There is no such nation, race, ethnicity, nationality, or culture, and never was. Returning to reality on this matter will pave the way to the adoption of sane policies for the region.
"The Palestinian people" was born in 1963, when the foes of Israel hit upon a new strategy that would turn the tide of international public opinion against Israel and give new impetus to the jihad against it. Before that, as The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process shows, amid all the drama surrounding Jewish settlement in Palestine, the rise of Zionism, and the establishment of the Jewish state, the Palestinians are nowhere to be seen. Palestine was the name of a region, like Staten Island or Dubuque, not the name of a people.
It is no accident that neither Mark Twain, nor any of the series of English travelers who visited the area, nor anyone else who traveled through desolate Palestine over the centuries ever mentioned the "Palestinian" people. They spoke of encountering Arabs, as well as Jews and Christians and others, but no one, among multitudes of people who wrote about Palestine, ever refers to any Palestinians. Nor do the many British White Papers and other documents the British government produced during the Mandate period ever mention the Palestinians. The opposing factions in those documents are the Jews and the Arabs.
There is a very simple reason for this: there were no Palestinians.
An uncomfortable fact for those who advance the claim that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the area is that they have no history: there was never a state of Palestine, never a King or President of Palestine, never (until quite recently) a Palestinian flag, and nothing that distinguishes the Palestinians culturally, linguistically, or otherwise from the other Arabs of the region.
During the Mandate period, the Arabs of Palestine generally considered themselves to be Syrians, and Palestine to be Southern Syria. Early in 1919, Arab Muslims in fourteen Palestinian municipalities, calling themselves the Muslim-Christian Association, presented a petition to the Paris Peace Conference, which was deliberating about the postwar fate of Syria, Palestine, and other former Ottoman possessions.
The petitioners insisted that Southern Syria, i.e., Palestine, be considered to be "inseparable from the independent Arab Syrian government," for it was "nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage." Arabs in Palestine, they said, had "national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bonds" with Syria, and therefore insisted that Palestine must be "undetached from the independent Arab Syrian Government." Palestine "should be part of Southern Syria, provided the latter is not under foreign control."
Those who were making these demands would all today be considered Palestinians. Yet they would be baffled beyond measure if they could be transported a century ahead and made to listen to today's rhetoric about the Palestinians, the indigenous people of Palestine. So would Musa Kazim al-Husayni, who as head of the Jerusalem Town Council declared in October 1919: "We demand no separation from Syria."
Even Ahmad Shukairy, who in the 1960s was President of the Palestine Liberation Organization, conceded that at the close of World War I, no one was talking about the rights of the Palestinian people; instead, what was in the air was union of the Arabs of Palestine with the Arabs in Syria: the slogan went "Unity, Unity, From the Taurus [Mountains] to Rafah [in Gaza], Unity, Unity."
In fact, the word "Palestinians" was more often applied to Jews than to Muslim Arabs. During the Mandate period, some Arabs rejected the term, explaining: "We are not Palestinians, we are Arabs. The Palestinians are the Jews."
Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, an Arab Muslim leader, regarded the term with the same disdain, telling the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country as Palestine! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
In 1946, the Arab-American historian Philip Hitti testified before the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: "There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not" - meaning that there had never been a nation bearing this name.
By the early 1960s, however, the situation had changed, and changed drastically. The 1963 draft constitution of the Palestine Liberation Organization refers matter-of-factly to "Palestinians," as if they were a distinct and readily identifiable people. "All the Palestinians," it states, "are natural members in the Liberation Organization exercising their duty in their liberation of their homeland in accordance with their abilities and efficiency."
In the early days of the existence of the Palestinians, the fact of their non-existence in history was much more widely know than it is today. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir stated that "there was no such thing as Palestinians....It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." In fact, she noted, an "independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian State" had never existed.
The Arab Muslims of Palestine knew this as well. Syrian President Hafez Assad once told Yasser Arafat: "You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people."
Prince Hassan of the Jordanian National Assembly put it simply on February 2, 1970: "Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is only one land, with one history and one and the same fate." PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein likewise acknowledged that the Palestinian people was a propaganda invention in a 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
Abdul Hamid Sharif, the Prime Minister of Jordan, would have agreed. He said in 1980: "The Palestinians and Jordanians do not belong to different nationalities. They hold the same Jordanian passports, are Arabs and have the same Jordanian culture."
King Hussein of Jordan put it most succinctly of all in 1981: "The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."
Nonetheless, the myth has taken hold, and it is now widely taken for granted, in our age that has little historical memory and scant interest in gaining more, that the Palestinians are a genuine nationality, and are the indigenous people of the land that Israel illegally occupies.
This is a propaganda success that Josef Goebbels and the editors of Pravda would have envied, and it became the foundation for more. Having established the Palestinians as a tiny indigenous people whose land was stolen by rapacious, well-heeled, and oppressive foreigners, it was time to return to the negotiating table - not in order to achieve any genuine accord with Israel, but to exploit the victimhood status of the new tiny people they had invented in order to win valuable concessions from the Israelis.
If all this were recognized, the onus would be on Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the other Arab states for not welcoming their Palestinian Arab brethren. The contention that the Palestinians are a people who must have a state would lose much of its force. Returning to reality and discarding propaganda fantasies can never have a downside. It's time to take that step.
President Trump's Peace Plan - By Jonathan Brentner -
Prophetic Significance of President Trump's Peace Plan
On January 28, 2020, President Trump announced his long-anticipated deal of the century, his plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I believe this initiative, even if it never gets to the place of full implementation, is quite significant in terms of biblical prophecy.
On a human level (not considering biblical promises to Israel), I believe the plan is by far the best one ever offered to Israel and the Palestinians. It meets Israel's security needs while at the same time it offers the other side huge economic incentives to accept the terms of the plan.
The deal includes other nations as contributors to the economic development of the Palestinians, and Jordan will ensure Muslim access to the temple mount. Ambassadors of the gulf countries of Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates were at the White House for the announcement indicating their support of it.
From a prophetic standpoint, it's highly significant because of so many signs pointing to the approach of the tribulation. If not for the abundance of indicators regarding the nearness of the coming New World Order and the appearance of the antichrist, Trump's plan would not be so noteworthy in terms of what lies ahead.
Daniel's description of the antichrist's covenant with Israel adds to the intrigue surrounding the Deal of the Century.
Daniel's Description of the Antichrist's Covenant with Israel
At a time in perhaps the not too distant future, the antichrist will initiate a peace deal with Israel that will appear much better to the nation than the Deal of the Century.
The prophet Daniel tells us that the coming antichrist will "make a strong covenant with many for one week . . ." (Dan. 9:27). We know this treaty includes Israel from the verse's context, but the word "many" suggests it includes other entities, likely additional nations.
The Hebrew for "make a strong covenant" suggests the antichrist will take an existing peace plan and make it better, perhaps more favorable to the nation of Israel. Nothing demands that this previous covenant be successful or fully implemented; the text only indicates that the antichrist improves the terms of a previous covenant.
I believe that one of the favorable aspects of this future deal offered by the antichrist will be the allowing of Israel to build its third temple. President Trump would not have gotten far placing this in his plan, but this would certainly make the antichrist's plan one Israel cannot refuse.
Please know that Trump is not the antichrist nor is his plan the one spoken of in Daniel 9. We are definitely not yet at that place in the timeline of biblical prophecy. The New World Order does not exist yet, and President Trump is wholeheartedly opposed to the globalism it represents.
However, this does not mean that the Deal of the Century is not relevant to biblical prophecy.
First, the antichrist will make his covenant with "the many" as noted earlier. Trump's plan involves the support of several surrounding Arab nations and the United States, as well. Some of them were at the announcement of the deal.
Second, President Trump stressed the detailed nature of his plan for peace in the Middle East in its 81 pages. This makes it all the more inviting for the antichrist to incorporate it into his future plan. Much of the hard work is already done.
Third, both the President and Netanyahu used the words "peace" and "security" frequently in their speeches today. I lost count after I heard the word "peace" 14 times. This also points to the lateness of the hour in which we live. In 1 Thessalonians 5:3, Paul described the beginning of the day of the Lord in this way, "While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape."
Fourth, given the fact that nations are aligning exactly as Ezekiel 38-39 said they would previous to the Gog-Magog War, it could happen in the not so distant future. If the New World Order springs to life from the ensuing chaos after this battle, the antichrist would be able to offer the temple as part of the deal given the devastating defeat God deals to radical Islam during this short war.
What Does the Plan Mean for Us?
The key for us is that we live in the last days of human history as we know it with the tribulation seemingly just around the corner, which makes Jesus' return for us even closer. Apart from the vast number of indicators pointing to the closeness of what we see in Revelation 6-16, President Trump's plan would likely be much less significant in terms of Bible prophecy than it appears to be at this moment.
It's important to remember that Jesus will come for His church before the antichrist initiates his covenant with Israel. I say this because in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10 the apostle tells us the rapture will happen before the unveiling of the antichrist's identity. We must be in heaven with Jesus before the antichrist initiates his treaty with Israel.
Personally, there are a couple things about President Trump's deal that concern me. I think it forces Israel to give up too much land. On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu seemed ecstatic over the deal and expressed his full support of it, which must mean it fulfilled all his security requirements for Israel.
Secondly, even though the deal gives the Palestinians a remote part of Jerusalem where only Arabs live, that concerns me as well. From what I hear, however, they wanted Old Jerusalem as their capital, not what they received in the deal, which may be adding to the fierceness of their rejection of the plan.
For now, the deal gives Israel control of the entire area in regards to security, and the Palestinians must meet many demanding requirements and jump through many rigorous hoops in the next four years before they achieve statehood and fully possess a piece of the Land God gave to Israel.
Much can and will happen before that time. The rapture or the Gog-Magog War or both could dramatically change the Middle East in the near future and make Trump's plan irrelevant, apart from its incorporation into the covenant that the antichrist will make with Israel. Could not these things happen before the end of the four years? I think it's likely, but the Lord is patient and desires as many to come to Him as possible before His wrath comes upon the world.
We also know that true and lasting peace will never come to the Middle East until Jesus returns to earth and sets up His kingdom based in Jerusalem.
Jonathan Brentner
Website: Our Journey Home
How Trump's Peace Plan Has Moved The Baseline - By Mitchell Bard/Algemeiner.com -
Almost every US administration has come up with a peace plan, and they all have one thing in common -- failure. The Trump plan will suffer the same fate. Still, it may be valuable by setting new baselines for negotiations that are in Israel's favor.
Why will the plan fail?
Besides the historical precedents, we know that the Palestinians have had nothing to do with the US administration and will reject the plan out of hand. We also know from history that no plan will satisfy the current Palestinian leadership and that Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction.
Many people insist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is equally to blame for the current stalemate. First, this ignores the Palestinians' history of rejectionism, which long predated Netanyahu, and second, people forget that the last Israeli leader to negotiate any withdrawal from the West Bank was Netanyahu during his first term.
The original foundation of peace negotiations was UN Security Council Resolution 242, which established the principle that Israel must concede territory it captured in the 1967 war. What many people leave out when they cite 242 is that it says nothing about the Palestinians, does not require a withdrawal from all the territory, does not mention Jerusalem, and makes any Israeli action contingent on peace. This "land for peace formula" was the basis for negotiations up until 2008.
Israel has already withdrawn from approximately 94 percent of the territory it captured (another fact ignored by Israel's detractors), and the argument can be made it has fulfilled its obligations, whereas the Arab states -- except for Egypt and Jordan -- have not.
Netanyahu's agreement to withdraw came during the Oslo process, during which Israel withdrew from more than 40 percent of the West Bank and handed over control of Gaza and Jericho to the Palestinians. Israel was prepared to withdraw from additional territory, but not to accept a Palestinian state (see Rabin's last speech) or divide Jerusalem. Oslo ultimately failed because the Palestinians continued to employ terrorism as their preferred means of trying to force Israeli concessions.
The baseline shifted when Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to the Clinton parameters and accepted the ideas of dividing Jerusalem, conceding most of the West Bank, and establishing a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert picked up on this plan, with minor variations, but in both instances, the Palestinians again rejected the offers.
In between, Ariel Sharon was elected in part because of the dissatisfaction with Barak's plan. Once Israelis saw that Yasser Arafat would not accept a deal that offered nearly everything he said he wanted (ignoring what he told his constituents in Arabic, namely that this was the first stage toward the liberation of Palestine and that Palestinians should engage in a jihad), they moved rightward.
Sharon could also point to the letter he received from President George W. Bush, which explicitly said what Resolution 242 implied, namely that any peace agreement would necessitate modifications from the 1949 armistice line to accommodate Israel's security needs and to reflect the growth of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria. Bush's Road Map to peace proved another failure, again largely because the Palestinians never fulfilled their obligation to end terrorism.
More of the Israeli population shifted rightward following the Gaza disengagement and the Palestinians' violent response. The shattering of the "land for peace" myth was reinforced by Olmert's failure to convince Mahmoud Abbas to accept his plan in 2008.
Barack Obama dramatically shifted the baseline of negotiations when he pressured Israel to accept a settlement freeze, something the Palestinians had never demanded, and -- like others -- endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians still refused to negotiate.
Meanwhile, the ongoing attacks from Gaza left fewer and fewer Israelis with a desire to give up more land or support the creation of a Palestinian state. Hence, the near disappearance of the "peace camp" and the left-leaning political parties.
Many apologists refuse to acknowledge that Obama killed the peace process. The Palestinians thought Obama would force Israel to capitulate to their demands. He would not and probably could not have done so. Regardless, Abbas refused to negotiate for both his terms and now has avoided face-to-face negotiations with Israel's prime minister for nearly 12 years.
Trump is re-calibrating expectations again. By recognizing Jerusalem, he has taken one of the most difficult final status issues off the table. By erasing the specious argument that settlements are illegal and refusing to condemn their expansion, he has created the expectation in Israel that there will be no forced removal of tens of thousands of Jews from Judea and Samaria.
This is the relevance of the ultimate deal. Regardless of its reception, Israelis will not expect to be pressured to accept the terms pushed by Clinton and Obama. The Palestinians will complain and demand their maximalist positions be accepted, but outside the UN and Europe, their protests will fall on deaf ears.
Even the Arab states have become fed up with their irredentism and no longer want their own interests to be held hostage by the "Palestinian issue."
Just as the baseline has changed over the last 50-plus years, it could change again in the unlikely possibility that Abbas will be succeeded by someone who does not want to see the Palestinians remain in limbo indefinitely. That leader will first have to vanquish Hamas, however, which he may be unable or unwilling to do.
Even then the possibility of creating a Palestinian state has largely become moot as the Palestinian public has soured on the idea and the number of settlements has made it nearly impossible, if not impossible, to create one.
Similarly, a new administration could alter the calculus. Nearly all the Democratic candidates have expressed a desire to return to a policy similar to Clinton/Obama that favors compromise on Jerusalem, opposes settlements, and favors a Palestinian state. Some have raised Palestinian hopes anew by saying they are prepared to use military aid as a lever to pressure Israel, though Congress is unlikely to go along.
A new president, however, is not going to change the Palestinians' unwillingness to accept a Jewish state coexisting with a Palestinian entity, nor will they alter Israelis' insistence on peace for security.
Iowa Caucus and Castro's funeral - Bill Wilson -
December 2016--The stage was set. There were thousands of people lining the streets, likely forced to be there, even to chant "Long Live Fidel"-and "The Caravan of Liberty," the same name Castro's rebels called their bloody march from Santiago to Havana during the "La Revolution" was rolling along carrying Castro's ashes in a glass encased box in the back of an olive green Soviet-made one-off of an American Jeep. At the crescendo of the funeral dirge, the vehicle broke down and the soldiers of the revolution, the comrades of a day past, were reminded of exactly what communism is all about-the "have-nots" pushing the "haves" to their destination. Power to the working class, right? So fitting.
Fast forward to today's Iowa Democratic Party Caucus. At the Miami airport last night while I was waiting on my flight home from a very successful Super Bowl presented by the NFL, every minute of the CNN newscasts at the airport was focused on the model of American democracy-the Democratic Party Caucus in Iowa. Oh, how the Democrats were so far advanced, so ahead of their time, to have voting by a phone app. These wonderful candidates who were standing up against the establishment and fighting the racist, bigoted US President and any American who would dare vote for him, where campaigning hard with their new technology and their new ideas (which are really worn out socialist schemes).
And like the socialist example in Cuba, the Iowa Caucus broke down. Breitbart News reported: "The Iowa Democrat Party has since reported the discovery of "inconsistencies" in its multiple sets of caucus results but downplayed it as "simply a reporting issue." "The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion," IDP Communications Director Mandy McClure said in a statement. "The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."" One commentator, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver said, "Getting past midnight Eastern (in 7 minutes) with 0 results officially reported kind of feels like the point of no return for the Iowa caucus."
These leftists cannot even hold their own election without a debacle. Truth be known, there has been so much voter manipulation behind the scenes that they can't agree on which thief stole the votes. How does anyone expect someone from this group to be able to run the country? It doesn't meet the straight face test. The Bible tells us in Galatians 5:!, "Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage." These leftist ply voters with powerful words of freedom like "rights" when, in reality, all of them have enriched themselves on the backs of the very people they honor with their lips. They are the standard bearers of tyranny who will not accept elections if they disagree with the results. In Iowa, they can't even agree on the "fix." Don't be deceived.
When a coup fails - Bill Wilson -
Millions of your tax dollars have been spent since before the inauguration of Donald Trump on removing him from office. The Democratic members of Congress, the previous White House, and many, many operatives in government agencies have been working together on a coup of an elected president-this is the real crime among many others that will likely go unpunished, unprosecuted and perhaps forgotten. In other countries around the world, a failed coup attempt usually results in the aggressors and their families being executed. In other countries, coup attempts are decided by blood, guns and bullets. In America, the weapon is a vote. And Republicans finally stood up to put down the coup.
I don't want to pick on one group of people, but the blame for this is squarely on the Democratic Party and their media minions and deep state accomplices. This didn't need to be done. Almost four years and millions of dollars have been wasted on this coup to remake America into a socialist state. It is disgraceful. There are challenges to be solved, but members of Congress have failed in their elected duty to address those challenges. All the while, trying to remove a president from office, ignoring the facts, ignoring their jobs, while exercising their hate and having you and me pay for it. Nancy Pelosi ripping up President Trump's State of the Union address is more than symbolic.
Meanwhile, the President has been working. His policies have provided jobs, reduced the number of people on welfare, increased the hiring of minorities, supported Israel, opposed abortion, and even reduced the trade deficit with China. He has protected the country from terrorist attacks by killing major leaders of the Islamic State and Iran's terrorist operation. He has reversed many of the policies that prevented America from prospering. And despite being called a bigot, a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, and a xenophobe, he has improved the quality of life through a good economy for so many people--All while the Democratic Party leadership has tried to disrupt and obstruct his every move.
This coup attempt has failed. But it is not over. There will be another one. The news media has covered the impeachment acquittal as a partisan rebuttal and continues to recount the Democratic Party narrative on the facts, as if they were ignored. This will only end if the coup-makers are voted out of office. This is an amazing time in America's history. We are in a fight over the soul of the nation. Unless we hold the coup-makers accountable, we cannot stand. As Christ said in Mark 3:24-25, "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." We are a nation divided. We need to stand firm against the evil that seeks to destroy AND show the love of Christ to heal and unify.
Temple Mount Tension Mounts - By Terry James -
This commentary is written as the Trump administration's long-awaited peace plan in the Middle East apparently is on its way. As a result, tensions on Mt. Moriah-the Temple Mount-are building.
President Trump said Thursday, January 23, 2020, that he will likely announce the plan before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz's visit to the US on Tuesday, January 28.
He told reporters while on a flight to Florida that the announcement would come "sometime prior to that...probably, we'll release it a little bit prior to [the Israelis' visit]."
He later walked back the statement, tweeting that the timeline was purely speculative at this point.
If those plans are ultimately carried through, however, it will be not only a significant event for what's going on politically in America, but, more importantly in terms of heaven's considerations, something that will rivet the attention of those who watch for prophetic stage-setting.
The Muslim world in particular is already up in arms, emotionally at least. Israel, of course, is at the center of rage and volatility.
Tensions were high on the Temple Mount amid calls for mass attendance at Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque and reports that the Trump Administration's Deal of the Century peace plan would be released within the week.
Israeli security forces arrested multiple Palestinian activists in Jerusalem and dispersed worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, as Palestinians continued to call for mass attendance at Friday dawn prayers at holy sites throughout the West Bank and Gaza. At least two people were injured on the Temple Mount as police used stun grenades and rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Quds news. One worshiper was arrested. ("Tensions High on Temple Mount Amid Peace Plan Reports," Jerusalem Post, Rapture Ready News, January 24, 2020)
The Deal of the Century, as it has become known, has long been on the Trump administration's agenda. The Israel-hating Muslim world and the overwhelmingly anti-Israel forces prevalent in the UN know that this president follows up on promises. This has doubly ratcheted up tensions surrounding Trump's comment to reporters.
Indications are strong that something is indeed in the making, because actions to prepare for probable troubles began well in advance of the president's remark.
Preparations for possible clashes began even before initial reports about the possible imminent release of the Deal of the Century. Israel Police signed orders to keep Palestinian activists from the site due to fears that clashes could break out similarly to last week, when similar calls were made for mass attendance for Friday prayers at the mosque. Police have been instructed to disperse any disturbances by force. (Ibid.)
Hamas called for the world of Islam to come to alert. In a press release, the organization declared:
The Israeli occupation's attempts to judaize Jerusalem and holy sites are an alarming sign that must prompt our Arab and Islamic Ummah (community), along with the free people of the world to intervene immediately. We call for similar Fajr prayers to be organized in all Arab and Islamic capitals for the sake of Al-Aqsa and holy places in Palestine.
As any Middle East observer knows, when it comes to the Muslim world, the actions taken rarely stay within the boundaries of "prayers." Any action by the president in conjunction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government will be met with elevated hostility. In the matter of laying out the areas surrounding the Temple Mount, there is a potential for war, bringing the millions of the Muslim world into the fray.
This is the fear of UN diplomats and the geopoliticians. However, it is not the fear of students of Bible prophecy. All-out war will not occur-at least, not in the sense of world-rending calamity.
A peace of sorts will be made, the "false peace" of Daniel 9:26-27. It will indeed bring on all-out war, the war called Armageddon.
And this is what we who are prophecy students and observers of world issues and events must caution: That "false peace" will initiate man's greatest of all wars.
Joel, the prophet, gave the lethal formula that will produce this final war of the age. We've looked at it many times:
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)
We who observe end-times issues and events in light of God's Word must urge President Trump about the deadly folly of "parting" God's chosen land to try to make peace in the region. We hope the president listens to voices like Dr. Robert Jefress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. These, we hope, will inform the president in explicit terms. Don't be complicit in setting the stage for producing the deadly "peace" predicted by Daniel the prophet.
'We Will Make History' - Netanyahu Heads To Washington For Trump Peace Plan - By Benjamin Kerstein/Algemeiner.com -
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he and President Donald Trump "will make history" on Tuesday when they meet to discuss the president's long-awaited peace plan for the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Speaking on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport just before he left for Washington, DC, Netanyahu referenced his high profile 2015 speech to Congress against then-president Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, saying, "Five years ago, I went to Congress in Washington because I had to face a plan brought by a US president that I believed would jeopardize the interests of the State of Israel."
"Today I am going to stand alongside a president who brings a plan that I believe promotes our vital interests," he asserted.
"Trump is a huge friend of Israel," Netanyahu added. "I talked to him countless times about our security and justness. Tomorrow I will meet with him, and Tuesday together with him we will make history."
Netanyahu's statement echoed a more elaborate statement he issued on social media on Saturday evening, in which he said of Trump's plan, "An opportunity such as this comes once in history and cannot be missed."
"Today, we have in the White House the greatest friend that Israel has ever had; therefore, we have the greatest opportunity that we have ever had," he said.
"For three years, I have spoken with President Donald Trump and his staff about our most vital national and security needs, which must be included in any diplomatic arrangement," Netanyahu noted. "I have found an attentive ear in the White House to these needs."
"Therefore, I am full of hope that we are on the verge of a historic moment in the annals of our state," he said. "I am leaving for Washington with a sense of great mission, of great responsibility and of great opportunity, which will not recur, to ensure the future of Israel."
Earlier in the day, Netanyahu's leading political rival, former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, also took off for Washington for a personal meeting with Trump on Monday.
Gantz was originally invited to meet with Trump on Tuesday together with Netanyahu, but fearing a political trap and also unwilling to snub the American president, he requested a one-on-one meeting, which the administration granted.
"The plan will go down in history as a significant milestone," Gantz said on Saturday, according to Israel's Channel 13.
"The proposal is going to cause major and painful internal disputes among us," Gantz warned, however. "I pledge to minimize the disagreement, and work to make the proposal a basis for progress toward an agreed settlement with the Palestinians and the countries of the region while continuing and deepening the strategic partnership with Jordan, Egypt, and other countries in the region."
"We are at a fateful hour to determine Israel's image and security and political borders," he asserted.
As did Netanyahu, Gantz thanked the Trump administration for standing at Israel's side and taking its security needs into consideration "out of friendship and deep commitment."
Reports in the Israeli media have claimed that the deal will be extremely generous toward the Jewish state, recognizing all of its settlements in the West Bank as sovereign Israeli territory and retaining a united Jerusalem under Israeli control, along with the strategic Jordan Valley border region.
Sources who have seen the map set to be presented to Netanyahu and Gantz have said, "There's never been anything like it."
One potential concession from Israel is rumored to be recognition of a Palestinian state. However, it is widely believed the Palestinians will reject the plan sight unseen, giving Israel a "green light" to annex parts of the West Bank without concessions.
Trump's plan the 'best deal' Israel's right will ever get, says US official - By Ariel Kahana - https://www.jns.org/trumps-plan-the-best-deal-israels-right-will-ever-get-us-official-says/
Senior religious Zionist rabbis that penned a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of the dangers of the Trump peace plan are "squandering the moment."
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Jan. 27, 2020, upon his arrival to the South Portico of the White House. Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian.
A senior U.S. official on Monday harshly criticized a letter written by a group of senior rabbis from Israel's religious Zionist camp to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan carries the risk of "creating a terror state."
The official said the rabbis "are squandering the moment and don't understand the immense advantages this plan entails in terms of their worldview. The [Israeli] right will not get anything better than this," according to Israel Hayom.
The official also addressed claims by some on the Israeli right that the Trump plan will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
"If you look at the dictionary, you'll understand this isn't the definition of a state. That is not what the plan allows, and so the resistance from the right and the rabbis is a mistake," the official said.
Among the signatories to the letter were Rabbi Haim Drukman, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon and Rabbi Eliyahu Zini, together with 50 other community rabbis.
The rabbis penned the letter after Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan announced he would depart for Washington to attend a series of emergency meetings with senior Republican officials and evangelical leaders, who comprise Trump's voter base, to present the settlement enterprise's red lines and to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state and the isolation of certain settlements within the plan's framework.
The letter was the brainchild of Dagan and Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, the head of the Association of Communal Rabbis. In the letter, the rabbis wrote that while they "recognize this historic moment for the Jewish people, and sincerely support you [Netanyahu] in applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria ... we understand that the plan comes with danger-the establishment of a terror state."
The rabbis presented their red lines to Netanyahu: "No to the creation of a 'Palestinian' state, partitioning the main settlement blocs, abandoning the settlements as an enclave inside a terror state, as happened with the community of Netzarim [in Gaza], and no to the transfer of Areas C to B, and no to additional [territorial] withdrawals."
Rabbi Eliyahu said with regard to the letter: "We are happy over the significant progress on the matter of applying sovereignty. In no way can [this development] facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state in the holy Land of Israel."
"On behalf of all the residents of Samaria, I am thankful to our rabbis, who stand at the head of the camp and lead the people of Israel and the State of Israel," said Dagan. "The rabbis' sentiment is a moral and principled one. There are red lines that the Israeli public will not cross."
According to Dagan, "The settlement enterprise won't sit idly by while its future is being played with. Alongside the joy over the great achievement of applying sovereignty to the communities in Judea and Samaria, we cannot ignore the initiative to surrender 70 percent of the area of Judea and Samaria."
US builds up Mid-East strength against rising tension over "Deal of the Century and Iran -
The USS Bataan strike group and the 2,400-strong 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit are being deployed to the Mid-East ready for unexpected trouble arising from spiraling tension with Iran and potential reactions to the release of Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century" - a plan for an Israel-Palestinian peace - early next week.
On Friday, Jan. 24, the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship, escorted by two other battleships, had reached the Red Sea opposite the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. They had taken part in a naval exercise with Morocco, which was interrupted for their new mission.
US intelligence watchers believe that Iran is getting ready to expand its assaults on US and allied targets, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, in escalating payback for the US assassination of Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3.
On Friday, the Pentagon revealed that 34 US servicemen had suffered "traumatic brain injury" from Iran's missile strikes on the US Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq on Jan. 8. Earlier, only 11 were reported injured, while President Trump had stated initially that no US troops had been hurt in the attack.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of the US Central Command in the Middle East, speaking from the deck of the Bataan, said, "Although the Soleimani killing was a deterrent, Iran continues to pose a very real threat."
DEBKAfile's military sources additionally attribute the latest American military movements to a reassessment of the tasks assigned to the US forces stationed in Iraq. Their new focus has moved to the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic (KRG) in northern Iraq. The three US airbases in other parts of the country, Ain al Asad, Balad and Taiji, will remain in place. However, three new American bases are under construction in Kurdistan.
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