Jerusalem and Peace in the Middle East
Over the last few decades, Arabs have been offered a new Palestinian nation several times in what used to be the Western part of Jordan. It seems what they really want is an unending excuse to blame Israel for the problems in the Arab world, rather than recognition of yet another Arab nation. Of course, everything eventually comes to an end. Prophecy tells us how things will end in Jerusalem. And human nature tells us it will take a war to bring a conclusive end between sides that cannot peacefully coexist.
We could hope that the effort they put into raising their children to hate the Jews as an eternal enemy and scapegoat for their problems
could be refocused into programs for education and cooperation, but there are no signs of that on Palestinian childrens' shows...
[gallery ids="15781,15782,15783" type="rectangular"]
Trump may be as tired of their antics as the Israelis, Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians...
excerpts below from an article by Joshuapundit at beforeitsnews.com
"As I reported, Abbas actually got into a shouting match with Trump advisor Jared Kushner at their meeting in Ramallah, saying that rewarding the terrorists, or as he put it, holy martyrs was his ‘social responsibility.’
Abbas, of course, had heard requests for these basic things for years but he took them, correctly, for lip service that meant nothing. Except for President Trump, it meant quite a bit. There were quite a bit of other things going on for President Trump at that time, so he put the Mideast peace process on the back burner for awhile, choosing to see what would develop between then and December.. Abbas mistook this for once again literally getting away with murder.
And then decided to up the ante and act out accordingly. He did four things that openly showed his contempt for any peace process that didn’t involve him getting everything he wanted while not giving up a single concession.
The first thing he did was to manufacture a major outbreak of violence and incitement at the Temple Mount. This definitely influenced President Trump’s thinking on the matter.
Abbas then went to the ICC in what amounted to a futile attempt to indict Israel and Israelis for various ‘crimes.’ That was unsucessful, but the fact that Abbas did it after the U.S. asked him not to make things worse by doing so did not improve theoresident’s opinion of him.
Abbas also made a huge error in his unity agreement with Hamas, an officially designated terrorist group in America and the EU, although the EU seems to have forgotten that based on their approval of the pact. The original basis for the unity agreement was that Hamas would allow Abbas to control the crossings and most of the administration of Gaza in exchange for a lot more donor cash. The one huge hangup is that Abbas, like most dictators didn’t want anyone but his people armed…and Hamas refused to turn over its weapons or its missiles. There were also a number of disagreements about how much cash Hamas was going to get, various intra-clan disputes and who would get certain admin jobs. So the pact is now on life support.
Another factor was Abbas and the PLO shrugging their shoulders about being able to control Hamas terrorism against Israel, just like back in Arafat’s day. That got the Israeli government to announce they wouldn’t negotiate at all with any Palestinian government that contained Hamas.
Finally, Abbas and his minions refused to even consider a fairly reasonable peace plan advanced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that would have given them a state in parts of Judea and Samaria,Gaza, increased territory in northern Sinai and a capitol in Abu Dis, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem. It would have given ‘Palestine’ more territory than it now controls while for the most part, guaranteeing Israel’s security needs.
Given that the plan involves territory that now belongs to Israel and Egypt,it’s obvious that the Saudis ran this by them first. It’s also fairly obvious that President Trump was aware of it also, since this plan, if accepted, would have settled a sore point and have been an important step in building the coalition of Israel and the Sunni Arab states against Iran, Something definitely in the works and the president’s main goal. Abbas turning it down cold convinced all parties involved that he’s not serious about the real negotiations needed to make this work.
Contrary to popular belief and the spicy rhetoric that gets served up on occasion, most of the Sunni Arab states are sick and tired of the ‘Palestinians.’ Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan have tossed out and/or killed thousands of them as politically unreliable elements. Many Arab states only let them in on short term work visas. They simply aren’t an important issue anymore, especially no compared to Iran and the Shi’ite bloc.
President Trump decided to show Abbas, unlike any president in the last 20 years that the choices he made have as cost. And he chose very shrewdly, since Jerusalem is one issue a vast majority of Israelis agree on. They were never going to agree to redivide the city anyway…especially not the Old City with the Kotel and their holiest shrines. They remember all too well what kind of respect the Arabs and their British officers showed those holy shrines after 1948.
As the president pointed out, the ridiculous policy of not acknowledging Israel’s capitol never had any positive effect on the peace process, in fact, the reverse. President Trump has understood that for a while, and decided the time was right to honor a campaign promise he made that was also made by three previous presidents who weaseled out at the first opportunity once they got elected. President Trump is of a very different quality.
While President Trump was careful to give some lip service to the idea that part of Jerusalem might be up for grabs in a final settlement, he knows better. Anyone who thinks the Jews are willingly going to give up Jerusalem again ought to seek psychiatric care.
Israel is under G-d’s Divine protection, The City of David redeemed and united, and the Jews are home. They’re not going anywhere."