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Chapter  Six

NO DALLIANCE

ON JERUSALEM,

NO BENDING, AS YET, IN OBAMA -

Israel tells the Nations about Sovereignty

Ask Russia, she has a decided concept on it,

even in the Arctic!

Ask France, they protect theirs

with a Force de Frappe,
Atomically Speaking

News 420

The Australian May 23-24, 26, 2009

STATEMENT AND COUNTER-STATEMENT

"Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours,"

Benjamin Netanyahu is cited as saying (The Australian, May 26, 2009).

"No Israeli Government has ever agreed to limit sovereignty in Jerusalem,"

reports the same article, from the lips of Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli PM.

"Jerusalem is our capital," he stated.

DIVINE ORIENTATION AND HUMAN MISCARRIAGE

On the other hand, the American one, you see in The Australian May-23-24, 2009, large photograph of said PM Netanyahu and President Obama, the former holding forth with a look of clear-headed exposition upon his shoulders, while Obama is seen, hand to chin, with a look of one who perhaps could do with more sleep (a very low sleep time was once cited for him), and a look - if not of contrariety entirely, yet of aroused disquiet upon his face. Such is the appearance as he watches the Israeli PM. The Oval Office was the cited site for this meeting.

What then has Obama been saying, or is it organising or even ordering ? The tone is suggestive of the content, and the content of the tone. Indeed, we find it reported, from a US National Security Adviser (Newsweek, May 6, 2009),  that while the new administration does not intend to push Israel under a bus^*1 (thoughtful!), it does intend to be more forceful than did the Bush administration.

If we move back to Friday, May 22, we find in the news, this heading: "Obama to unveil peace plan in Cairo." However, announcements have come that the President will not announce his plan in Cairo, in early June.

Elements were found by some,  to be these:

1) Palestinians to be permitted to establish their capital in East Jerusalem

2) The walled Old City in Jerusalem's heart, with religious special sites of various orders, to be made international.

3) It would fly the UN flag (one remembers the protection of the UN in the days of Nasser, when their troops conveniently withdrew from the path of the oncoming ruler of Egypt, so that his troops could pursue their indulged quest).

4) Pre-1967  boundaries would not be exacted, but modifications would be by mutual agreement (in other words, in substance, Israel is shoved back into the pre-extermination hunt by the nations, of that date).

5) The Palestinian State would be demilitarised, while having a significant police force, in view of genuine Israeli security concerns. (In fact, since Israel 'gave' Gaza back to Palestinians and they have USED this GIFT OF GRACE to attack Israel, the bit not given, with thousands of rockets, the point is not amiss!).

Further points that have emerged include the concept that those wishing to return to Israel, refugees as they are sometimes called, would not have this concession, but that they should be absorbed into the country where they live, with right of return to the 'new' Palestinian State

Whatever of all this is to become formal US policy, and doubtless some elements have been clearly stated already, it is clear that nothing of this kind is adequate for Israel. There are continual questions of terminology. How many of those who left Israel in 1948 did so voluntarily, even with aspiration for early return in victorious Arab suppression of Israel altogether ? How many refugees would normally be received back, in any case, to the country they bombard ? This would raise questions of who has done what. Again, who on earth has given the 'international community' the right to occupy the capital of Israel ?

Is it a dream that a nation exists ? that it has a capital ? are we in the midst of a C.S. Lewis Narnia book, with massive transformations occurring to spur the imagination, or is there some touch of sober fact in all of this ?

Is a land to be exterminated as Jewish, and Jews accordingly treated as seems best, not once, but several times since 1948, and to be TOLD by those who stood by in 1948, and awaited doom for them, just what they are to do ? Having won by what biblically is STATED to be divine intervention, against many nations, as they faced adverse actions starting before they even became a nation, and armies prepared to delete them as a people in their own land, are they now to be subjected by international interventionists, to directors, as if this were e Board Meeting and the Israeli PM were the CEO ?

After all, in Zechariah 12, it is clear that here Israel (as in Ezekiel 38 incidentally) is BACK in its borders, though it had to ... leave as foretold in Leviticus 26, because of its rebellions against the true and living God, though it was through them that  the Christ was to come and has come^*2 . It is equally clear that there is to be a repentance following the triumphant wars then traced in Zechariah. This, it is NOT for those wars, in which God took certain action, but for the walking away from God in the first place, to the point of crucifying Him in His human format. Meanwhile there was to be (as there has been), as we find in Zechariah 12, a time in which Israel itself would constitute a 'heavy burden' to those who sought to intervene.

In fact, as to Israel itself, Zechariah here indicates that they will "look on Me whom they have pierced", and the prophet has much on the episodes of triumph, grace and salvation to come through this self-same Messiah, as does Isaiah and do others in the Bible. In this passage in Zechariah 12, we learn of God dominating wars in which amazing power will be given to Israel, against apparently hopeless odds.

So then, from an Old Testament approach, and after all, this is the religious standard which came through Israel, and it is an historically fulfilled one: what do we find ? That relating to the good and the bad which was to happen, did happen to Israel, in no small detail, and the Saviour who would come, no less, arrived on time, in place and for the works attributed to Him: hence His name. God has acted. Having done His foretold work for an Israel STILL (as a nation) not believing in Him as revealed in His Messiah (duly killed around AD 30 as foretold, as shown Highway of Holiness Ch. 4, in Daniel), He has taken the reins very directly. Israel has been brought back, had its amazing victories, become a source of contention, still does not as a nation believe in Christ.

This reality is to be ditched for the ideas of the nations ? Very well: the ideas of the nations will find otherwise, after they have had a time to express themselves in their various fighting corners, and to become categorically characterised. It is not only Israel which is being tested. In a test, you have time to write your paper, before it is to be assessed ...

Jews not yet believing in Him, can still see the comparison of prophecy and history.

Are they then to ignore the gift to Abraham^*3 (Genesis 17:7-8), to act as if God spoke in riddles and never meant at all what He definitively said, to ramble among ruins and become like other nations who do not know God; or are they going to find some semblance of interest in their own history and the God who made it, AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL ?

If the latter, then we can understand (at last!) that they are not about to surrender Jerusalem, THEIR ACTUAL CAPITAL CITY to the forces of alienation, submission, invasion, pompous pronouncement, from the USA, the Madrid Quartet, King Hussein of Jordan, as speech is made from such quarters about Jerusalem or the people to populate and statistically dominate Israel. Why should they be denuded; and why should they submit again, this time to a more picturesque Hitler, a composite one of several nations, telling them how to get lost.

It is useless to protest that this is a genuine peace endeavour: so was Chamberlain's in 1939, but it was not realistic. Does the US Secretary of State now advise that there is not to be any EXTENSION of Israeli settlements in the West Bank ? On what ground ? As Netanyahu imaginatively specified recently, what do you expect ? that the normal development of cities should occur, using the air as a basis for building!

WHO is this who dictates to a foreign country, as if the ravages of Hitler set the tone for more peaceable modes of Jewish disintegration! if not at all in intention, then fairly palpably in result. Is it to be harassed, as if the City Council were to give away surrounding land, as appears to have been done in Alice Springs, to a specific people ? Are the cities to be suppressed, to become clinics of containment, internationally sponsored ? Are people losing their heads, as if persecution and running of Israel from abroad were some kind of a mandate!

Perhaps, for when it comes to Israel there is an obvious case of divine action. It was given, and blessed and grew, and became great with Solomon and the Empire of the Maccabees, and was crushed by Babylon and Assyria in different ways, both foretold, yet was restored to become cradle for Christ, as foretold in Jeremiah in some part, and Micah for another. It was going to disbelieve in Him, and did so  as foretold (Isaiah 49:7) and killed Him slowly, piercing hands and feet (Psalm 22, Isaiah 52-53) ^*4, with considerable gall and gore. It duly lost its land (as foretold in Leviticus 26), while many Gentiles, including kings, believed in Him. This too was as foretold, as were the terms of a pre-announced Gospel which in fact spread, again as predicted, throughout the earth.

To be sure, the State of Israel is not believing in Him yet, as implied in Zechariah 12:10. You do not believe in someone such as Christ, BEFORE repenting and seeing what you have done to Him, and then going apart to mourn for your sins; but BY these actions you show it when it happens, and it will be confirmed when there is opened (as in Zech. 13:1) a fountain for cleansing from sin, and not an international city, in Jerusalem. That was the repentance foretold, and it was to come in the midst of the wars noted, and the burdensome time. Hence, the national event in view having not yet occurred, the implication is clear: at that time, the nation is not by any means at peace with God, and has not received this self-same Messiah, the one whom they pierced as Zechariah puts it.

Nevertheless, many are well aware in Israel, of such things, and their past, and their restoration as foretold, a matter too obvious to be excluded by even the most dedicated unbelief (as for example,  in Hosea, Ezekiel 36ff., implied in Luke 21:24 with Matthew 24:1ff.).

Is some secular body to prescribe for Israel what it will do, as if God did not exist, had never spoken, had no concern for such scriptures as Micah 7, forgot His word (in direct contradiction of Ezekiel 36:22), and although speaking expressly  to a nation which had been His, had moved away from covenant ?  Was Israel to be graciously returned to their land^*5, God Himself in His word clearly defining their identity, and must now God be corrected, so that they become a residual, like scraps for the gods ? Is this to be at the hand , or mouth, of the UN, the Madrid Quartet, President Obama if so be, King Hussein or various other interested parties who seem to want to manage their neighbour's (or distant relative's) affairs!

In vain, do you claim: we only want peace! Peace is an outcome; justice and truth are inputs. If you only want to eat well, when in dire debt, the aspiration may be normal; but means to its attainment need to be lawful!

It is here that all the international crusade to coerce, subdue and deal with the non-possessor of substantial oil, in the Middle East, the non-pusher with armies to take over other nations, namely with Israel, reaches its rock. Naturally, with such international motion and commotion, when that Rock is hit, the impact is to be considerable. It would be wise to consider before sending an extended invitation to heaven, advising of another opinion, to that of the Almighty.

Surely Israel has asked for it; but have they not, these others, done much the same, with their incredible histories of slaves and horrors of inhumanity, while in some cases, speaking of Christ! To be sure, England for one, turned from this particular horror, not least through the sacrificial service in Parliament of the notable Christian, Wilberforce; but there is no nation able to speak as a saint to the sinners, though some, in most cases decreasingly, have made real efforts at various times to move from immortality and heartlessness towards the Gospel of grace, or components of it.

It is moreover, God's affair. So is man. So are the rulers of the nations as you see in Psalm 2, where their continued endeavour to bypass God and not follow His Christ, but rather render Him irrelevant are met with a very contrary mode on the part of God, with predictable results. That too is predicted, and it is applicable not only, as already is the case, to the endeavour to delete Jesus Christ, but to the time when the Lord will personally rule on this earth, in that Psalm!

As to the results of braggadocio and assurance, defiance and determination to run Israel and indeed, for that matter, this world in its own way, on the part of mankind, free from all interference, God not excepted: no small part of the results will be, as it has been, an intense suffering. This always lurks, despite divine mercy often shown in prodigious degree, for when you are at odds with your Maker and Him who made the very world, there are simply no odds for success! The track of truth then lies outside your way, as its Maker likewise.

Success, moreover, would be failure, for when the Manufacturer of Man is in view, knowledge palls before omniscience, and rebellion is always against reality, of which our actual frames and world are part.

Suffering therefore, in the end, is for all who rout and riot and rebel and tell  God and others, precisely what is to be done; and then tell Israel, like those picking on one in trouble, and adding to the woes, kicking a prone form, if you will, just how it should move its legs.

It is not a prone form ? It is only by miraculous conformity to prophetic mercy that it is not so; and it is being treated by many, in their stultifying assurance, as if it were. The fact that many wealthy nations and Islamic,  with prodigious amounts of land over much of the earth, in general, and that part of it surrounding Israel, in particular, moreover with religious affinity in type with the Palestinians to a large extent, want yet more land! For whom is it desired ? why, it is for another Islamic body, Palestinian by name. It seems this is deemed a worthless triviality, almost a frivolity. What, find land for them in our wealthy midst, vast lands ? in the part of Palestine given to Jordan, most of it at the first ? You expect us to yield something ? THAT, it is for Israel.

To be sure, Jordan did try, but when the Palestinians used its land to war on Israel in various ways, and incited civil war, it felt hospitality being reduced. The land however was not reduced, that granted to this country FROM Palestine. It is, you see, in this, Palestinian land. How much should be yielded of it, by Jordan ?

But no. Israel, with a tiny and almost indefensibly strip, having already given back MUCH of its littleness in quest for peace, though some of it has then been used for war, must give more.

The little question, Why ? does occur, in some circles at least.

It is not what justice would indicate, but what convenience would allow, it seems, that is the mandate for this. You even hear talk of Israel having to give something, as well as take, for a good consultation now.

Give ? It gave back Sinai and the Gaza strip, which was then used to strip them of life and peace. Is this something that did not happen ? Is history irrelevant ? Is the PROCESS, is the PLAN to be this: ALWAYS make Israel less, and EVERY time ask for more in return for not doing something rather nasty, until it is so vulnerable as to be only divinely defensible!

Is it that the position for this world, a compendium of non-corresponding views, a fragmentation of the plate-glass window through which it should have been seeing God, in Christ Jesus! Is it saying 'eyes right' to what is acceptable,  passing in and out on an almost daily basis, and 'I's always right!' as the comic phrase has it, to the point it finds it hard, actually to think ? Is the who blinks first concept so ingrained that it is ocular and not oracular in its pronouncements ? 

Is it so pre-occupied with many things that it scarcely has time to repent at leisure from so many astounding wars, opium wars, slave wars, hegemony wars, racist wars, religious wars, economic wars, wars of bravado and for autonomy, and so is now bustling with internationally legislative ideas for Israel ? It would seem it would love to think so, apportioning land according to ... to what ? to oil and its servitors, suppliers, on a preferential basis ? to those who have most so that they can have more ? to those who have shown the most warlike spirit in INITIATING attack in the region ? It could almost seem so.

Righteousness ? justice ? If London, Paris  and Washington, not to say Moscow, were to have such apportionments made of them by other nations, it could be interesting, not to say provocative for many, and possibly not relished by most. In this case, it is even far more difficult. God is DIRECTLY in it.

Beware.

NOTES

*1

Melanie Philips, prominent British journalist,  in  Jewish World Review,  May 7, 2009 makes the accusation that this is what the Obama administration is trying to do, to throw Israel under the Islamic bus. The article, of great interest, is to be found at

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0509/phillips050709.php3

She cites a report from  Ha'aretz:

Jones is quoted in the telegram as saying that the United States, European Union and moderate Arab states must redefine ‘a satisfactory endgame solution.’ The U.S. national security adviser did not mention Israel as party to these consultations.

Of course, she pursues the point, if you are going to throw a country under a bus, you do not discuss the manner  of its destruction, with its assassins, who are co-ordinating the crime. She envisages any Palestinian State as being a modus operandi for Iran, via Hamas, so that it would be a virtual Iranian body. The State would be proxy for Iran, she states.

The statement of National Security Adviser, General James Jones that the US does not intend to push Israel under a bus makes the appearance of quite a fuss about a bus; but in former US eras, it would be hard to find anything in the direction of a push to Israel relative to any bus; and a denial would have seemed ludicrous, like telling a mother that she would not want her eldest son to starve to death. Some things appear too obvious to be cited; but here ... it is not so!

There is a reason for that. Extra pressure in the same monotonous direction of stripping Israel and gratifying its enemies, whom it has defeated, by an international stripping body, and now a US thrusting approach in the same direction, is bringing the confrontation with the Lord ever closer.

Those who know Him, have no concern, except for those who appear bent on fulfilling Micah 7, for example,  and Deuteronomy 32. There is an almost surreal seeming air about this mounting negativity to Israel. They manoeuvre and strengthen their utterances (Britain too is TELLING Israel that there has to be two state solution),  like someone not only pinching himself to see if he is awake, but using a screw-driver to make really sure. Can they go further ? Check I am awake. Yes. Try more ? Can I get away with this ? Yes... more still then.

They evidently are too sleepy to feel even the claws of the pincers. Nevertheless, the dreamy notoriousness of the surge of suppress-Israel feeling is so high, that any efforts to find whether they are dreaming would appear well worth it.

It is like Proverbs 23:33-35, where the drunken sailor is as if sleeping on the top of a mast. It cannot be, but it seems as if it is ... oh well, if the oceans have submerged the ship, it is at least interesting that it is still floating, sighs the intoxicated sailor, before swooning into the deep.

This water, it is very deep.

A word from Proverbs on inebriation, which is not limited to the alcoholic variety, may help:

THIS wine is philosophic, semitically misanthropic in effect, allotropy, existing in varied states and inducing a variety of results.

*2

See Joyful Jottings 22-25, SMR Ch. 9.

*3

See Galloping Events Ch. 4.

*4

As for *1. See Psalm 22, Zechariah 13:6.

*5

See SMR Appendix A, SMR Ch. 9, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10.