There is talk and serious debate in Israel to divide the Holy city of Jerusalem by the Israeli government. The vast majority of Christians who know Bible prophecy and follow the news about Israel realize that this would be a major mistake on the part of the Israeli government.
I had a brother in Church hand me a copy of an article about the talks and I explained why it would be counter productive not to say the least highly dangerous to the Jewish people and the United States.
According to prophecy the Jewish people will one day build their temple back as they have done in the past when it was destroyed. Rome completely destroyed the city in 70 AD just as Jesus had predicted it would happen in Matthew 24. They then carried many of the Jewish population off to Europe and farther Mideast leaving it to the few tribes which co existed with Israel at that time.
The following article confirms what I had told the brother the day he handed me the article concerning the division. Israel must not give up one inch more of her territory or she will face the harassment of her enemies who will perceive it as a weakness on the part of the Jewish people.This is the same mentality that we as Americans face in Iraq. The world scoffed and mocked us after we turned and ran from Vietnam.
The Bible says they would cry peace, peace but there will be no peace. That is not a prophet of doom scripture but the truth of the human heart and the hatred and antisemitism that is prevalent throughout the world. This is more than a war of flesh but a war of principalities and power between that which is right and that which is wrong. Between light and darkness and a fulfillment of God's word.
Ezekiel 38 and 39 warns that in the days of the Gentiles or last days, that the Northern countries would join forces with the Arabs and come against Israel. The recent visit of Russian president Putin to Iran was the first in over 60 years. These two countries have what the other needs. Oil for Russia and technology for Iran. The problem is. Israel is the only country in the Mid East with nuclear weapons and if America says that Iran cannot have them. Then Iran and Russia is going to say that Israel cannot have them either.
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Hamas Would Take Over Divided Jerusalem, Netanyahu Warns
Julie Stahl
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu -- a past and maybe future prime minister -- pledged that he would never divide Jerusalem. He also warned that the consequences of such a move would put Islamic radicals on the doorstep of Jewish neighborhoods.
"Jerusalem has been the pulsating heart of the Jewish people. Now there are those who come and say, let's divide this heart," Netanyahu said on Tuesday. "The prime minister wants to come and divide this city. If we leave any part of Jerusalem, militant Islam walks in. That is the reality of the Middle East."
__The opposition Likud Party picked a striking place to make its point -- atop the historic Mount of Olives in eastern Jerusalem, where a large Jewish cemetery is flanked by Arab villages and where Christian holy places dot the slope.
The view from the Mount of Olives takes in the Old City, the Temple Mount with its golden Dome of the Rock Islamic shrine, as well as the maze of Jerusalem's Arab and Jewish neighborhoods.
Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish people since time of the Biblical King David, 3,000 years ago. "Now there are those who are saying, 'Let's divide it,'" Netanyahu told a handful of reporters late Tuesday afternoon.
Ahead of a U.S.-hosted meeting that is supposed to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, next month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hinted that he would be willing to turn the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem over to P.A. rule as part of a final status agreement. One of Olmert's close confidants also called for security control of the Temple Mount to be turned over to the P.A.
If Israel abandons sovereignty over the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Hamas will gain a stronghold in those places, just as Hizballah did when Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000; and just as Hamas did in the Gaza Strip when Israel withdrew in 2005, Netanyahu said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Israel's departure from both Lebanon and Gaza resulted in rocket attacks on Israel from the Iranian-backed Hizballah most noticeably during the war in 2006 in the north and emboldened Palestinian groups in the south. In Jerusalem, Palestinians wouldn't need to launch rockets -- they would be close enough to fire on the Jewish neighborhoods with small arms, he said.
Calling the Temple Mount "the most explosive square kilometer in the world," Netanyahu said giving it up would be a tragedy for the Jewish people as well as for world peace.
The Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, is the site of two ancient Jewish Temples. The plateau currently hosts Islamic shrines, including the Al-Aksa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
The only time there has ever been peace in the Old City is when it was under Israeli sovereignty, (as it is now), Netanyahu said. Under Israeli sovereignty, the holy places are available to everyone, he said, noting that the Jewish Western (Wailing) Wall, the Al-Aksa Mosque, and Church of the Holy Sepulchre are within a few hundred yards of each other.
Removing the Old City from Israeli control would be like taking the lid off the pot, Netanyahu said. What is supposed to bring an end to the conflict would be the beginning of the conflict, he said.
Jerusalem is one of the most explosive topics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has long insisted that the city will be its undivided capital forever. Palestinians want the eastern section of the city -- where most Arab residents live -- to be turned over to the P.A. for the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu, a former prime minister, is one of two serious contenders for the post in the next general elections, which are expected to take place within about two years time.
(The other contender, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, also is a former prime minister who offered to divide Jerusalem in U.S.-sponsored talks with then P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000. Arafat refused.)
Netanyahu used the issue of a united Jerusalem in his successful campaign for prime minister in 1996. He obviously thinks the Jerusalem issue will work for him again, said political science expert Prof. Menachem Hofnung of the Hebrew University. Netanyahu is trying to unite right-leaning Israelis behind him, Hofnung told Cybercast News Service.
Former Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky, backing Netanyahu's position, also addressed the Israeli public at Tuesday's press conference on the Mount of Olives. Israel and the Jewish people cannot afford to bargain with their identity, he said.
Based on his past experience as a former Interior Minister, Sharansky said he is convinced that Arabs who live in Jerusalem (and thereby enjoy Israeli rights and privileges) would not want to trade the freedom of Israeli society to be part of a Palestinian state.
Jerusalem Arabs would leave the Palestinian areas and seek to live, even illegally, in the Jewish areas of Jerusalem as they do now, he said.
Twenty years ago, Sharansky was on trial in the Soviet Union for high treason, charged with spying for America. As he was waiting to be sentenced, he was asked to make a final statement.
"Next Year in Jerusalem," he said he told the court, echoing the cry of Jewish prayers for thousands of years. That phrase is the glue that has connected generations of Jewish people for thousands of years, Sharansky said.
Sharansky, a former Soviet prisoner, left politics last year and is currently a fellow at the Shalem Center, a research institute in Jerusalem.
His admirers include President Bush, who in 2004 invited Sharansky to the White House and praised Sharansky's book, "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror."
President Bush is now pressing the Israelis and Palestinians to lay the groundwork for a two-state solution to the long-running conflict.
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