Binyamin Netanyahu may yield to two-state solution after pressure from Obama

Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse a “two-state solution” in a much-heralded speech this weekend, but he may stall on American demands to freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Feeling the squeeze between the US Administration, which wants a moratorium on settlement growth and a commitment to a Palestinian state, and his national-religious coalition, which favours neither, the Israeli Prime Minister appears likely to try to steer a middle course.

Israeli newspapers were full of speculation about what Mr Netanyahu — who has so far refused openly to back a Palestinian state alongside Israel — might offer to deflect pressure from Washington. Ehud Barak, his Defence Minister, urged him this week to recognise a Palestinian state, but members of Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party have cautioned him against the move.

Haaretz, the centre-left newspaper, said that the Prime Minister was likely to mention a two-state solution and pledge to adhere to the “road map” — a US-brokered document that calls for an end to Israeli settlement building and a clampdown on militant groups by the Palestinian Authority. The road map was adopted in 2003 but both sides have accused each other of failing to meet their obligations.

The Israeli media have predicted that when he speaks at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv on Sunday night, Mr Netanyahu will recommend an immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but will also set out some demands, including that the Palestinians should recognise the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

While accepting the road map Mr Netanyahu is not thought to be planning to mention an explicit freeze on settlements, as demanded by President Obama in his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week.

In conceding to a two-state solution, he may even try to ask the US to relax its demands that all settlement expansions should be stopped — a move that is vehemently opposed by Mr Netanyahu’s national-religious constituency.

Such a compromise would in effect take the peace process back to where it was under the previous centre-left Government of Ehud Olmert, whose resignation amid repeated corruption allegations eventually brought the Israeli Right to power this year. Mr Olmert had pledged to take action against settlements but opponents said that the Jewish communities built on land conquered by Israel in the 1967 war still enjoyed an unprecedented growth spurt while he was in office.

The dilemma faced by Mr Netanyahu will raise uncomfortable memories of his first stint as Prime Minister in the late 1990s, when his fractious right-wing coalition toppled him after he yielded to American pressure to hand over tracts of the West Bank to the control of the Palestinian Authority as part of the now defunct Oslo peace accords.

Analysts noted that Mr Netanyahu appeared to have been taken by surprise by the strength of Mr Obama’s resolve to thwart the growth of settlements.

Members of the ruling coalition, wary of their leader caving in, have cautioned the Prime Minister against giving too much away before negotiations have even resumed. “The US pressure is mainly psychological. One should not forget that the President is not the only one in the United States. There’s the Congress and the Senate, which support Israel,” Miri Regev, a Likud MP, said.

Another powerful member of Mr Netanyahu’s party, Benny Begin, the son of Israel’s first right-wing Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, said that “if the only solution is two states for two peoples, then there is no solution”.

Mr Netanyahu has in the past opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, arguing that such an entity would soon fall under the control of the Iranian-backed Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip.

Article source here

My opinion: According to Scripture, the present Middle East confict will not end in a peace agreement, but in war. Any effort by Obama to force a peace treaty will not work. There are major issues that will never be agreed upon by all parties. This conflict has no lasting solution. I believe the Psalm 83/Isaiah 17/Obadiah/Jeremiah 49 prophecies are right around the corner.

Don

Radio Interview - Ps. 83 and Ezek. 38 & 39 Wars

Listen to this recent 28 minute radio interview with a well known prophecy author discussing unfolding current events involving Israel and Israel's neighbors - events which are rapidly leading toward the battles described in Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38 & 39.

This is a 'must listen' recording for all who are interested in Israel's prophetic future.

Note: Pause or mute the live Jerusalem Online broadcast.

Listen here


Don

Bozrah the Sheep Pen of the Messiah

The Location of the Coming of the Messiah According to the Hebrew Scriptures

The link below provides a study showing where the Second Coming of the Messiah will take place. This subject is often misunderstood by even the most noted scholars. There is much confusion concerning the timing of the Second Coming and the Rapture of the Church, and the term Battle of Armageddon is also an event that is often misunderstood. This will detail the scriptures indicating the return of the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus).

The main error about the Valley of Armageddon is that it is incorrectly named. From the Hebrew Har-Meggido or Mount Meggido. Meggido is an ancient city near the Valley of Jezreel. There is no battle here only a gathering of the Gentile armies of the Anti-Messiah against the nation of Israel. This gathering is very much like the gathering of the Allied Forces in Ryad, Saudi-Arabia in Operation Desert Storm 1 in the early 1990's. Bozrah is not the same Bosera in southern Iraq. (Both meaning sheep pen but are different locations.)

The armies are gathered, and Israel will learn of the passage:

Matthew 24:15-16, "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."

They heed this prophesy and flee to the mountainous wilderness in Southern Jordan (Edom) to a city called Bozrah. Bozrah is an Old Testament city in Edom whose name translates as sheep pen. The city that closely resembles a sheep pen in Southern Jordan is the ancient Roman city called Petra. A rock fortress that is highly defendable with the surrounding mountains. The remnant of Israel flees Jerusalem as foretold in Isaiah.

More at link...

full story here

The link will show a continuation of the story, photographs, Scriptures, history of Petra and so much more. This is a must read!

Don

Rice Urging Division of Jerusalem

by IsraelNN Staff
Last Update: 09/02/08

(IsraelNN.com) Aaron Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for WorldNetDaily.com, reveals that multiple reports on Thursday in official Palestinian Authority media outlets insist that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Israel in her visit here earlier this week to sign a document that would divide Jerusalem by the end of the year.

Interviewed by Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer, Klein stated that the proposed deal would offer the Arabs a state in Israel's capital city as well as in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza Strip.

More at link...

full story here



I have said that I believed Jerusalem was God's line drawn in the sand, so to speak - and that if it was crossed, He would bring swift judgment down on all who would seek to divide her. In light of the current situation there regarding relentless attempts to split Israel's God given land, this Scripture promise for Jerusalem may be significant for today: (Note the surveyor's line over Jerusalem)

Zechariah 1:16-17 NKJV
Therefore thus says the LORD:
"I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy;
My house shall be built in it," says the LORD of hosts,
"And a surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem."'
"Again proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts:
"My cities shall again spread out through prosperity;
The LORD will again comfort Zion,
And will again choose Jerusalem.'"

These Scriptures describe the judgment that will come for dividing the land:

Joel 3:2 NKJV
I will also gather all nations,
And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
And I will enter into judgment with them there
On account of My people, My heritage Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations;
They have also divided up My land.

Zechariah 14:2
For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem;
The city shall be taken,
The houses rifled,
And the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity,
But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

I believe if the land is divided as we are seeing today - crossing the line God has established, He will bring His swift judgment on all who tread on it as He has promised.

I also believe there's only just a few more grains of sand remaining yet to drop down into the bottom of the hour-glass of time as we know it.

Don

Promises

As often as I can, I am going to post one of God's promises to His chosen people, Israel, and to His chosen city, Jerusalem. Knowledge of the Word is a defense against error and deception. Too many churches today are resorting to the writings of men and changing or placing little importance on what God says, even to the point of abandoning it altogether.

(Isaiah 51:17, 22-23)
Awake, awake!
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
which has drunk at the hand of the LORD
The cup of His fury;
You have drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling,
And wrung it out.
...
Thus saith your Lord,
The LORD and your God,
that pleadeth the cause of His people:
"Behold, I have taken out of thine hand
The cup of trembling,
The dregs of the cup of My fury;
Thou shalt no more drink it again.
But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee,
Which have said to thy soul,
'Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body
as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.'"

This is a future promise to the nation of Israel that after she has endured God's fury against her people and her land, she is to awaken and stand up to see Him pour out His fury against those who have come against her and threatened to destroy her.