MIDEAST UPDATE: 7.9.22 - The 'Two-State Solution' to Destroy Israel

 The 'Two-State Solution' to Destroy Israel - by Khaled Abu Toameh - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18680/the-two-state-solution-to-destroy-israel While the Biden administration continues to talk about its commitment to the "two-state solution," a majority of the Palestinians are saying that they support the IslamistHamas terror group and want to see more terrorist attacks against Jews. The Biden administration is living under the illusion that the "two-state solution," which would see the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state alongsideIsrael, is the only way to achieve peace, security and stability in the Middle East. The vast majority of the Palestinians, however, make it abundantly clear that they do not believe in the "two-state solution" and would rather see Hamas, the Iranian-backedterror group whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel, replace the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas. On June 30, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Abbas to discuss President Joe Biden's upcoming trip to the Middle East. "Secretary Blinken stressed the US commitment to improving the quality of life of the Palestinian people in tangible ways and the Administration's support for a negotiatedtwo-state solution," said State Department Spokesperson Ned Price. On the eve of Biden's visit to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, a public opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicated asignificant drop in support among the Palestinians for the "two-state solution" and a rise in support for a return to an armed intifada (uprising) and terrorist attacks inside Israel. According to the results of the poll, opposition to the concept of the "two-state solution" stands at 69%. Another 75% of respondents also expressed opposition to the ideaof a one-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians would live together and enjoy equal rights. The poll found that 55% of the Palestinians support a return to armed confrontations and an intifada, an increase from 51% who supported a return to violence three monthsago. In addition, a majority of 59% said that they supported terrorist attacks carried out inside Israel by Palestinians during the past few months. The vast majority of the Palestinians (69%) are also opposed to an unconditional resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. Another 65% are opposed to dialoguewith the Biden administration. The poll found that a majority of the Palestinians do not have confidence in Abbas, with whom the Biden administration is dealing with. If new presidential elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 55% of the votes, while Abbas would get only 33%, the poll showed. Seventy-three percent of the Palestinians expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of Abbas, while another 77% said that they want him to resign. Most Palestinians said that Hamas is the most deserving to represent and lead the Palestinian people. Hamas's rising popularity among the Palestinians means that the Palestinian state the Biden administration is seeking to establish next to Israel would soon be ruled by anIslamist group whose covenant states that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as Islam obliterated others before it." As a majority of the Palestinians want to replace Abbas with a Hamas leader, it means that the proposed Palestinian state will be committed to the covenant of the terror group,which does not believe in Israel's right to exist. In case the Biden administration and the rest of the international community are not aware of Hamas's agenda, they need to take a look at what the terror group's covenantsays. Article 11 of the covenant states: "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it,should not be squandered; it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king of president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian orArab, possess the right to do that." The covenant (article seven) reminds Muslims of the famous hadith (saying) attributed to the prophet Mohammed: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah,there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." The Palestinian state that the Biden administration is pushing for will undoubtedly be used by Hamas and its patrons in Iran as a launching pad to obliterate Israel. Hamas leaders have never been anything but clear and consistent about their intention to eliminate Israel and kill Jews. During a recent visit to Lebanon, Haniyeh, the Palestinians' preferred candidate for president, stated that there is "no future" for Israel on "the land of Palestine." Haniyeh announced that Hamas was preparing for a "strategic battle" with Israel. "The Zionist entity is facing a dark future because of the Islamic resistance," he said, praisingPalestinians who carry out terrorist attacks against Israel. Haniyeh said that in the event of a new military confrontation with Israel, Hamas will destroy the "Zionist entity" in a matter of minutes. "The Zionist entity will be struckwith 150 rockets in less than five minutes," he threatened. During his visit to Lebanon, the Hamas leader participated in a meeting of the so-called National Islamic Conference together with leaders of the Iranian-backed Hezbollahterror militia. The conference was also attended by representatives from several Arab countries, including Egypt, Libya, Kuwait, Syria, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, and Algeria. The conference expressed full support for Hamas and terrorism against Israel and lashed out at Arab countries that established normalization with Israel. "The conference notes the achievements and heroisms made by the Palestinian resistance in the against the Zionist enemy," read a statement issued by the participants at theend of the meeting. "The conference supports all forms of resistance in the face of the Zionist enemy." The conference condemned some Arab countries' efforts "to normalize with the Zionist enemy and open their countries to its army, economy, settlers and politicians." It furtherdenounced the efforts of Arab countries "to enter into military alliances with the Zionist enemy," and called for canceling the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 between Israel and the PLO. The conference said that it "affirms the right of the Palestinian peopleto their historical land from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea." This statement is a huge boost to Hamas because the conference actually endorsed the terror group's effort to destroy Israel and replace it with an Iranian-backed Islamiststate run by Haniyeh and the mullahs in Tehran. Hamas and its supporters do not believe in Biden's "two-state solution" or any peace process with Israel. The only solution they want is one that would see Israel and theJews vanish from this world. Sadly, a majority of the Palestinians (as evidenced by the latest poll) share the ideology of Hamas and want to see even more Jews killed. The Biden administration needs to understand that, under the current circumstances, advancing the idea of a "two-state solution" is tantamount to advocating bloodshed andviolence in the Middle East. The administration also needs to understand that Abbas, the Palestinian leader it is endeavoring to engage and relying on to make peace, utterly lacks the backing of a majorityof his people for any peace plan with Israel. -------------------------- Is the Ezekiel 38 Alliance Preparing to Plunder? � Amir Tsarfati - https://harbingersdaily.com/mideast-review-w-amir-tsarfati-is-the-ezekiel-38-alliance-preparing-to-plunder/ On the morning of Shabbat, I was awakened by a loud sound. I immediately knew what it was. F-16s were taking off from a nearby airbase. This was a very unusual occurrenceon a Shabbat, but it wasn�t altogether surprising. Of late, the times here in Israel have been quite interesting. In fact, they have been so uncommon and important that I am going to change the format of [my MIDEAST REVIEW] for just this week so that I canfully explain what is going on. For information on what else is going on in the world, including the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, please go to my Telegram channel. Those F-16 take-offs were soon followed by more in the afternoon. Then out in the Mediterranean, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles (SAM) werefired from the Israeli navy�s corvette warship, Eilat. The targets of each of these attacks? The morning fighters attacked targets in Syria. The others went after three drones flying from Lebanon toward Israel�s Karish gas field and its newly installed drillingrig. The SAMs took out two of the drones, while the jets destroyed the third. Why is the second event so significant? Because it is just one element of several that appear to be moving us ever closer to Ezekiel 38. What makes this event so distinctis the clear hand of Iran behind it. These drones were not from the Lebanese government. In fact, the Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib criticized the launching of the UAVs. There was certainly a time when the Lebanese government may have supported information gathering in the Karish gas field. There is a UN-established line demarking the internationalwaters between Israel and Lebanon. In 2010, about a decade after gas was found in Israeli Mediterranean waters, Lebanon bumped their international water border southwards. Then, eight years after the Karish gas field was discovered in 2013, Lebanon droppedtheir water border even farther south � far enough to now claim half of Karish as their own. Their claim was short-lived, and when even the anti-Israel UN wouldn�t back their new claim, the government dropped it. Hezbollah, however, did not. These intelligence gathering drones were sent by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that has infiltrated and, to an extent, taken over much of the Lebanese government. Tehranis pulling Hezbollah�s strings, looking to get back at Israel for all the setbacks Jerusalem has been causing them. Israel is the only nation that is taking consistent decisive action aimed at slowing down or stopping Iran�s nuclear program. Reports have leakedthat Iran now has enough enriched uranium to create five bombs. Currently, they are stalling the time before they have to turn back on the cameras at their facilities while they decide if they want to take that next critical weapons-making step. By attackingtheir nuclear facilities and their scientists, Israel is trying to remove Tehran�s ability to make that decision. A second area of attack by Israel is in Iran�s ability to supply their proxy militias. The Tehran regime of terror is supplying arms and rockets to militias in Iraq and Syria.They are funneling weapons to the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Just last week, Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz revealed that Iran has entrenched four warships in the Red Sea through which they are feeding weapons to Somali terrorists. Timeafter time, Israel has destroyed Iranian weapons in transport or once they arrived. Iran is fed up with Israel and would like nothing more than to see the Jewish nation destroyed. Not coincidentally, Iran is also building alliances � two in particular. While not best buddies yet, Iran and Turkey have been getting closer. Turkey�s economy is in a nosedive.Inflation in June reached 78%. Over the past year, energy costs have risen by 151%, transportation by 123%, food by 94%, and housing and utilities by 75%. President Erdogan has to figure something out to stabilize the country�s financial system. A second alliance is with Russia. Where Iran and Russia find common ground is not in Ukraine but in Syria. Russia continues to build up their presence in the war-torn nation,landing 500 paratroopers in northeastern Syria on Monday alone. They, along with Iranian-backed terrorist militias, are inching further and further south toward the Syrian-Israeli border. What interest does Russia have with Israel? It�s all about the money. The war in Ukraine changed everything. Suddenly, Russia is out of the world economic system, unable topay its debts because its creditors don�t want rubles. Europe, once wholly dependent upon Russian oil and gas, is turning elsewhere for its energy supplies. The problem is that turning elsewhere isn�t that easy, which is causing major shortages. In the lastyear alone, the price of natural gas in Europe has increased by 700 percent as it seeks to wean itself from Russian supplies. Russia is looking to strong-arm its customer base back, cutting gas flow through the Nordstream 1 pipeline by more than 50%. Germanyis in a near panic, worried that after a ten-day maintenance shutdown of the pipeline beginning July 11, Russia won�t turn the supplies back on. Europe is desperate for a dependable source of gas, and they believe they have found it in Israel. When in the past 2000 years has Israel been such a prize as it is now? There were times it was desired for its religious significance, but never for its monetary strength.Yet now this tiny country is the leading technological, agricultural, and energy powerhouse of the Middle East. It is a treasure that is just too precious for a pirate-like Putin to ignore. Read these words from Ezekiel 38 and see how clearly they describeIsrael and the plundering prize it is: Ezekiel 38:11-12 KJV � �And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling withoutwalls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in themidst of the land.� These words were directed to a series of nations, including Turkey, Iran, and chief among them, Russia. What is it that could bring Sunni Turkey, Shiite Iran, and Russia whohates them both, together in a working partnership? Again, follow the money. Ezekiel 38 is not about religion or land or people. It is all about the plunder. There are those who see this building of alliances as a preparation for the fulfillment of Psalm 83. However, the prophecies of that psalm were fulfilled in the aftermathof Israel becoming a nation. The enemies listed by the psalmist Asaph are Tier One � neighbors along Israel�s borders. The enemies of Ezekiel 38 are Tier Two � those that are not touching Israel. By all appearances, we very well might be watching the buildupof a coming massive assault on the Jewish nation. Sadly, Israel has opened the door for this attack. The country voted in a progressive, liberal, post-Zionist government and it is now paying the consequences. When BenjaminNetanyahu was prime minister, you could count on Israel hitting Syrian targets on a regular basis. Now the attacks are few and far between. With the �government of change� collapsing, some may be optimistic over Israel�s future. I am not. It is not the Israeligovernment that has changed; it is the Israelis themselves. The country�s left still remains left. But the country�s right that has shifted in the liberal direction. The enemy has breached the conservative fortress. Even Orthodox Jewsin the Knesset were willing to partner with the Muslim Brotherhood and pro-LGBT parties just so they could kick Netanyahu out of office. There are no standards anymore. There are no principles. The Jews are on a clear path toward progressive liberalism thatwill reach its peak with their acceptance of the antichrist. Is all of this pointing to a soon arrival of the Rapture and the Tribulation? I certainly believe so. There is nothing that I see right now that doesn�t fit biblical prophecy,and there is a whole lot that does. What should be your response? First, be about your Father�s business. You are on this earth to be a witness of His salvation through Jesus Christ. Do your job; share the truth. Second, rejoice and feel no fear. Whatever happens in the weeks and months ahead, it is all leading us closer to that moment when we will be in the presence of our Savior,seeing Him face-to-face.