Thursday, November 15, 2007

The way to destruction, and the way to peace

For Israel, the US-backed, European-pushed "Road Map" may most likely result in:
1. The surrender of most of the Golan Heights, Gaza, Samaria and Judea.
2. Civil war among the Israelis.
3. Not true peace, but the arrival at the next stage towards the dismantling of the Jewish state.
4. No secure borders.
5. Judea and Samaria turned into terrorist bases like southern Lebanon and Gaza, with the resulting unnecessary bloodshed.
6. Not enough of the Land of Israel left for all those Jews who have not yet immigrated to return to.
7. A total unwillingness on the part of all Arab and Muslim nations to make peace with Israel unless Jerusalem becomes the Muslim Palestinian capital!
There is however another way - a road that would lead to a true peace in this region.
Here is how one passage in the Bible describes that way:

Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face, and said, "O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!" And Elisha said to him, "Take a bow and some arrows." So he took himself a bow and some arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, "Put your hand on the bow." So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king's hands. And he said, "Open the east window"; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, "Shoot"; and he shot. And he said, "The arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them." Then he said, "Take the arrows"; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground"; so he struck three times, and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, and said, "You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times." (2 Kings 13: 14-19)

Peace in history - also in biblical history - has often come only after complete victory.
Both the Bible and modern-day secular history are full of examples showing that when Israel made covenants with, or concessions to, her enemies, the result was not peace but continued resistance to and harassment of the people of Israel.
Therefore this is what I hold we, as believers, should pray for Israel at this time:
Complete victory so that there can be true peace.
As these Bible verses clearly show, peace will come to this region, not through endless discussions and negotiations with unwilling enemies, but through victory.
The notion, repeatedly verbalized by Israeli politicians and commentators across the political spectrum, that a solution with the Palestinians can only be found through the process of negotiations, is entirely false.
Precisely the opposite is true, and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's failure to achieve a political solution in spite of the far-reaching concessions he was ready to make, is just one of the proofs of this.
No political solution can be achieved through the negotiating process UNLESS an Israeli government was to arise which, for the sake of peace in the region, was prepared to change the nature of the country so that it would no longer be a sovereign Jewish state.
As the late Yitzhak Rabin said:
"Palestine will rise upon the ruins of the State of Israel" (Ma'ariv, 10 February, 1989).
The history of our world fields numerous examples demonstrating that conflicts initiated by aggressive regimes can generally be resolved through military might and resistance alone. To list just a few:
1. Soviet aggression against Berlin was undone by a massive US military airlift.
2. South Korea was preserved as a free democratic nation, not by negotiations, but by America's firm military resolve.
3. Europe was not freed from Islamic invasion and rule by Charles Martel negotiating with the Muslim forces; he beat them in the battles of Tours and Poitiers in France, thereby freeing Europe to pursue its own chosen destiny.
4. While Western Europe was liberated by the military victory of the Allied Forces over the Nazi's, Eastern Europe became enslaved by the Soviet Union for many decades as a result of the 'negotiations' held in Yalta by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.
Where nations were deceived into giving up the fruits of military prowess and opting for negotiated settlements it has nearly always been the aggressor which has won.
Vietnam is a most obvious example:
There, through the Kissinger-led negotiations with Hanoi, the massive military investment America had put into keeping at least South Vietnam a free country was lost; the north overran the south as a direct result of the negotiated settlement.
Neither the numerous treaties and conferences nor the years-long presence of UN peacekeeping troops led Lebanon into freedom and independence; instead, that nation remained largely ruled by its Syrian neighbor, which for years militarily occupied Lebanese soil.
Egypt and Jordan, which both received huge tracts of land and other benefits from Israel through the negotiating process, and as a result of these negotiations signed peace treaties with Israel, have already withdrawn their ambassadors from Tel Aviv and are under increasing pressure to join the rest of the Arab world in the next war against Israel.
Mr. Yossi Sarid and many others say: "In history, every dispute around the world was solved through negotiations."
But history proves that the opposite is true!
The process of negotiations has seldom solved conflicts satisfactorily.
You have to win a war in order to win a peace.
That is the nearly unanimous lesson of history!
One can cry at the blindness of the present Israeli leadership that runs to Annapolis to trade away its divine inheritance for nothing but empty words, words that will not change the basic intent of the Muslim mind to do away with an independent and sovereign Jewish state from their Muslim- as they claim it - midst!!
Yet, I fear that only after Israel has suffered even more violence and many more casualties will its leaders finally be willing to consider what I believe to be the only way out of this present, horrible predicament.

Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director

International Christian Zionist Center

Web-site: www.israelmybeloved.com

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Christian Zionists believe and support the fulfillment of the many prophecies that foretold the restoration of Jews from all over the world to the Promised Land of Israel.

Christian Zionists oppose those who would seek to undermine or destroy the Jewish Homeland for the myth of Palestine that is against the Word and Will of God.

Christian Zionists put many Jews and Israelis to shame, especially those who remain in a self-imposed exile contrary to the clear teachings of Judaism and those like Shimon Peres who are out in left field and would surrender Jerusalem to sworn enemies if the price is right.

Thankfully, the Two Witnesses (in the spirit of Elijah) will comfort captive Israel and Judah who will be humbled by the Time of Jacob's Trouble/the Great Tribulation (which includes Jerusalem's occupation for 3 1/2 years) and be prepared to receive Yeshua, Israel's King.

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