News from Israel and the Middle East looks more ominous each day. President Clinton returned from his visit to Gaza saying that the peace process is back on tack. However, he was no sooner back in the U.S. when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the Knesset. This led to the calling for elections which will probably take place in April, just before Yassar Arafat unilaterally proclaims a Palestinian state on May 4, 1999, which he has promised to do on numerous occasions. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has suspended further implementation of the Wye accord until after the elections. It now remains up to the Israeli citizens to decide whether they want the peace process to go forward or not.

~ Amending the PA Charter ~

      One of the major agreements made as part of the Oslo accords in 1993 was for the Palestinian National Council (PNC) to rescind the articles in their charter that call for the destruction of Israel. Now, after five long years have gone by, the PNC has still not fully lived up to this commitment. At Wye, Maryland, Arafat was once again pressured into agreeing to accomplish this task. He promised that it would be done during the very session at which President Clinton would attend when he visited them in December. A sham vote was taken to impress Clinton, but it would never hold up in court. Moshe Arens, writing in the 12-18-98 issue of The Jerusalem Post reveals the following:
      "Arafat, dressed as usual in olive-drab, after delivering a lengthy programmatic address, without further ado turned to the subject at hand. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘in the presence of President Clinton, our great guest, and in accordance with the Wye agreements, I turn to you, to all of you, to support the letter that I sent to Clinton, and to recognize the decisions that we have already taken for peace. Do you accept, are you ready, to raise your hands in support of the content of this letter?’
      "Many hands in the audience were raised in response. One of the Palestinians present afterward said sarcastically, ‘1 even raised both my feet.’
      "To any objective observer with a minimal acquaintance of parliamentary procedure, it is obvious that if it was the Israeli government’s aim to have the PNC revoke the offensive sections of the Palestinian Covenant, that objective was most certainly not accomplished at the Gaza meeting." (p. 12).
      The Clinton visit is now over and the articles still stand. Arafat says they have now been rescinded, yet their own charter says that the articles cannot be rescinded without a two thirds majority vote of the PNC on the articles themselves, not on some unknown letter. It seems clear that Arafat does not want a vote taken on the articles, because by doing so, all the world would know that the Arab position on the fate of the Jews has never changed.
      President Clinton’s visit to Gaza and the West Bank sets a very bad precedence. He has given the Palestinians what amounts to a state visit before a state even exists. This means that the power of the United States is now divided between the PA and our best friend in the Middle East, Israel. This being the case, even though the Moslem Arabs are absolutely committed to eliminating every last Jew from that region.

~ Where God Placed ~
~ His Name ~

      Several times in the book of Deuteronomy, God speaks to the children of Israel about the fact that once they were in the land lie would select a place in which to place His ‘Name.’

      "‘And it shall be, when you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it, and dwell in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide.’"
(Deut. 26:1-2)

      That place was none other than Jerusalem:

      "... in the house of which the LORD had said to David and to Solomon his son, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which 1 have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; ...’"
(II Kings 2 1:7)

      Jerusalem was not chosen by God to be the dwelling place for the descendants of Ishmael, Esau, Moab or Ammon. Nor was it to be the dwelling place for the Philistines or the Canaanites. It was given to the children of Israel to be their possession forever, It was set apart to be the capital of the world from which the Messiah would reign.

"Jerusalem is built
As a city that is compact together,
Where the tribes go up,
The tribes of the LORD,
To give thanks to the name of the LORD.
For thrones are set there for judgment,
The thrones of the house of David."
(Psalm 122:3-5)

"Thus says the LORD:
‘I will return to Zion,
And dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth,
The Mountain of the LORD of hosts,
The Holy Mountain.’
(Zech. 8:3)

      Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

            DEW

Back

Next