“Fred” Olmert May Give Away the Store for a False Peace?
November 14, 2007
Introductory Heading By: http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Of course, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s first name is Ehud, not Fred, but Middle East and international journalists have been issuing articles over the last year indicating he may be prepared to give quite a number of concessions to the Palestinians. The major problem with the Arab mind is that the more concessions you offer them, the more they think that can get, and there is never an end to the process.
The current wave of a massive effort for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, about to break on our eastern shores at Annapolis, really began with an attitude swing by Israeli Prime Minister last Christmas, and was reported in a Jerusalem Post article on December 28, 2006, which follows our Archive Prophecy Update 12 from 2001 after our Introductory Heading.
Current news articles, like the one from “American Thinker,” which follows the aforementioned Jerusalem Post Article of Christmas 2006, and various intelligence reports out of the Middle East, are making me wonder if Israel, like the famous American store owner Fred, is about to “give away the store” as stated in the well known advertisement.
Secretary of State Rice is putting the squeeze on Prime Minister Olmert to make a variety of unreasonable concessions to the Palestinians to get some sort of peace agreement at the Annapolis Conference, which starts on November 27.
I cannot honestly be sure if it is her desire to leave her stay in office known as the woman who brought peace to the Middle East, or if the State Department is establishing a scenario of “well, we tried,” as a partial justification of a future air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by US and/or Israeli aircraft. I think by now it has become quite clear, even to most peaceniks that the Middle East situation is one of genuine hopelessness, and only a great war is going to settle the issue, and consequently bring peace to that part of the world. So any chance of
anything better that a false peace arrangement coming out of the great Annapolis Conference is an opium pipe dream.
The current situation in the Middle East is in the most confusing state I have ever witnessed. The statements coming out of Israel shift from one day to the next, and there seems to be more diversity of opinion among government leaders than I have witnessed in many years. The Islamic nations are shifting allegiances like wrestlers in a thirty man match in a gigantic ring, hoping to end up as part of the ten who survive to wrestle in five later matches.
The question in the minds of many, who believe the prophecies in God’s word, has never been IF Israel would begin to develop a mindset in which she finally had a feeling of some sort of “Peace and safety,” but HOW such a thing would come to pass. I have operated on the premise it MUST come to pass according to Scripture for more than fifty years, and have watched Middle East events since my first tour there in 1952 and 1953. Believe it or not, out of this maze of conflicting reports and shifting policies of both Israel and the Islamic nations, Israel is going to finally reach a mindset where she thinks that at least a brief period of “Peace and Safety” has been achieved for her people, regardless of how it comes to pass. The mindset has to be developed on the belief she can successfully defend herself and win the victory over all foes in any war. Once the maze of confusing smoke and mirrors begins to clear up as the security barrier is finally completed by 2010, and some sort of hudna or false peace comes into place, I do believe Israel will have the mindset of I Thessalonians 5:3.
I guesstimate the attack against Israel by ten Islamic nations is most likely to occur at some point in time between 2010 and the end of 2014.
I Thessalonians 5:3,4 – For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
[4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Begin Archive Prophecy Update 12
PROPHECY UPDATE 12
April, 2001
The Apostle Paul had a deep spiritual burden for his own people, the nation of Israel. His born again heart longed for them to forsake their unbelief by turning to Jesus as their Messiah. He expresses this desire in Romans 10:1 as he states: “Brethren, my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” There is no question that Paul saw Israel as being in unbelief. But he knew that some future day they would believe, and consequently be grafted back into God’s olive tree, from which they had been broken off because of their unbelief. He stated this principle in Romans 11:20, as he wrote: “Well, because of unbelief they were broken off.” But he goes on in verse 23 to indicate they will one day believe, and thereby restored to being part of God’s olive tree. He writes, “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.” I said all this to explain the words “they” and “them” in I Thessalonians 5:3, where Paul states: “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh on them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” Paul, in his use of “they” and “them,” is referring to the nation of Israel in unbelief. However, it would also in part apply to all unbelievers in the last days. So why have I given this discourse? The word translated as “safety” is “asphaleia,” which means “the security one experiences when standing on something that is firmly fixed. It gives the one standing on it a sense of “not falling.” The last four leaders of Israel have worn out the following expression: “We must have a peace with security.” We have heard it used hundreds of times on the media, and it has been printed over and over again in countless articles. Why is this importan
t? God indicates a time will come when Israel actually believes she has “a peace with security.” Why is it so important that we understand th
is prediction? Because we can know that the final war, involving Israel’s Islamic neighbors, will not occur until it is fulfilled! Israel must be lulled into a false sense of security before any united Islamic attack against her can be successful. Until this happens, and it will, I merely wa
it for it to come to pass. Then, when peace and security for Israel does appear to arrive in the Middle East, you can know that the final war of this age is about to occur. Don’t believe all these terrorist attacks will suddenly cause the final war of this age to begin.
It is only when they cease that you can know the last war, which finally produces Armageddon some 3 and ½ years after it begins, is imminent.
End Archive Prophecy Update 12
Begin 2006 Jerusalem Post Article
Olmert ready to respond to ‘any murmur of peace’
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST
December 28, 2006
In a gesture to Syria, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday said that he was open to “any murmur of peace” from Israel’s enemies.
Syria has recently signaled that it would like to reopen peace talks with Israel, which broke down seven years ago. Olmert has rejected the offers, citing Syria’s support for Hizbullah and Palestinian terror groups.
In a speech to graduates of an air force pilot’s course, Olmert indicated he was softening his opposition.
“The state of Israel is open to any murmur of peace from our neighbors and across our borders,” he said.
“If our enemies genuinely want peace, they will find in us a fair partner, determined to establish relations of peace, friendship and reciprocity,” he added.
Olmert’s spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, played down the comments.
“He has constantly said that if we see anything different, a glimpse of change, then that would be interesting and could make a difference,” she said.
However, Syria continues to support Israel’s staunchest enemies – including the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah, she added.
There was no immediate reaction from Syria, where government offices were closed at the beginning of an eight-day holiday.
In recent weeks, Syrian President Bashar Assad has offered to restart peace talks with Israel.
The offers came in different forms, including news interviews.
The recent report for the White House by the Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, urged Israel to reopen talks with Syria to help reduce tensions in the Middle East.
Israel has rejected the report’s conclusions.
In peace talks that broke down in 2000, Israel offered a return of all of the captured Golan Heights, but the negotiations foundered on Syrian demands for a foothold on the shore of the Sea of Galilee – a major source of Israeli drinking water – and conditions for peace it would give Israel.
End Jerusalem Post Article of 2006
Begin American Thinker Article of November 13, 2007
American Thinker
November 13, 2007
Auctioning Jerusalem Foretells Israeli PM’s Demise
By Jonathan Schanzer and Asaf Romirowsky
“Peace is achieved through concessions. We all know that,” said embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to crowd of businessmen last week, implying that parts of Jerusalem could be offered to the Palestinians in exchange for peace.
This is not the first time Olmert indicated that he was willing to split up Israel’s capital. Last month, he publicly pondered whether it was really “necessary to also add the Shuafat refugee camp, Sawakra, Walaje and other villages and define them as part of Jerusalem.”
Drawing from the history of other desperate Israeli prime ministers who have put Israel up on the auction block, Olmert’s time in office is probably near its end.
The prime minister’s recent statements can be seen only as a last gasp effort to revive his flatlining premiership. After demonstrating an utter lack of leadership during Israel’s confrontation with Hizbullah last summer in Lebanon, few Israelis have any confidence in their prime minister. Indeed, he has miserably low approval ratings (as low as 2% in recent polls), with political challengers circling for the right moment to pounce.
Olmert is now chasing peace with the Palestinians at all costs, in a desperate attempt to secure his place in world history, knowing full well that future Israeli history books will not be kind. This fits a sad but familiar trend of other sputtering Israeli prime ministers in recent history.
Take Israel’s current Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Under pressure from the Clinton administration during the July 2000 Camp David talks, he became the first Israeli Prime Minister to officially consider re-dividing Jerusalem.
Despite the fact that this infuriated a majority of the Israeli public, as demonstrated in popularity polls, the embattled Barak forged ahead. When the talks ultimately failed, thanks to Yasir Arafat’s intransigence, the Palestinians launched the al-Aqsa intifada. Barak was blamed for the violence, leading to an even steeper drop in his popularity. Ariel Sharon went on to win the 2001 elections by a landslide 63 percent.
Barak’s plummeting popularity even before the intifada was inextricably linked to the former Israeli commando’s willingness to violate Israel’s longstanding red lines: no division of Jerusalem, no return to the 1949 borders, no return of Arab refugees, and no foreign army west of the Jordan River. But, faced with a legacy of failure, Barak clung to the notion that a peace deal ceding parts of Jerusalem might ultimately secure his place in history.
In the end, it only ensured his defeat.
One can also argue that Shimon Peres, who became prime Minister by default in 1995 after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, also ensured his own demise
by dangling Jerusalem as a concession to the Palestinians. An architect of the Oslo process, Peres pushed tenaciously forward toward peace, even when Israel was bloodied by a brutal campaign of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bombings. Despite the fact that the PA never reigned in Hamas, Peres never stopped pushing for peace. And he never took the question of Jerusalem off the table. Instead, he allowed the Palestinians to hold elections in Jerusalem in 1996, which was largely viewed as a gesture of possible future concessions.
Thus, when Benjamin Netanyahu challenged Peres in the next election, he hammered Peres’ blind commitment to a failing peace process, and charged that Peres would even surrender control of Jerusalem. This, alone, may have cost Peres the election.
When Olmert, Barak, and Peres raised the specter of Jerusalem, their political shelf lives had all but expired. Indeed, when Israeli politicians discuss the fate of Jerusalem to please the U.S. State Department or Palestinian negotiators, they are indicating to the Israeli public that they have given up on popular support. Instead, they make a last ditch effort to secure their own place in history.
Olmert’s recent talk of dividing Jerusalem is a sign that new Israeli elections are almost assuredly around the corner. Refusing to go quietly, he is endangering the unity of Israel’s capital just as his moment in history comes to an end.
Jonathan Schanzer is director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center, and editor of inFocus Quarterly.
Asaf Romirowsky is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and Manager of Israel & Middle East Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
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