WHEN WILL THEY SAY “PEACE AND SAFETY”
THEY ARE “SO TIRED OF LONGING FOR IT”
JEWISH “SO TIRED OF DREAMING OF IT”
A PEOPLE ANXIOUS FOR IT TO COME!
April 23, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Remember the lyrics from the love song which went something like this: “So tired of longing for you – So tired of dreaming of you.” I use to think about this song when I was separated from Emogine and the kids on the different assignments I have been given by God and Uncle Sam. The longest assignment I had was in Vietnam, and on the darkest days, this was a nice set of lyrics to sing to one’s self. Israel
has been longing for the joy of her Messiah and peace for a very, very long time.
Right now she is longing for a peace from the multiplicity of terrorist actions sent her way daily. Any peace she finally gets from this will only be of a very temporary nature, and will be followed by a time of travail like she has never known, which will precede her time of real peace with the arrival of her true Messiah at his Second Advent.
For those of you who can remember the song from which our two lyric quotes came, it is the way I feel about peace in the Middle East. Why so? Because once some form of peace comes that will meet the criteria implied in I Thessalonians 5:3, to a degree of “peace and safety” that satisfies what God said Israel would say just before she was attacked, then I will know the Second Advent will follow the attack some three and one-half years later.
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.
In the 1990’s I really thought Israel would be saying “peace and safety” at some point in time between 2004 and 2008, but I was quite wrong. I said repeatedly: Well, if I wake up January 1, 2008, and peace has not arrived, then I will simply continue to say it must come soon. And I am now doing as I said.
The first article is from the Middle East On-Line. It is the most current and perhaps the most encouraging.
The second article following our heading is from the Associated Press. It discusses peace possibilities in the northern part of Israel.
The third article is from the Jerusalem Post and it discusses a possibility of a hudna in the southern part of Israel.
I have conversed in Hebrew with Israeli guards at the security wall near Hebron, Israeli Sinai border
guards, and Israeli guards near the Gaza Strip On one occasion an Israeli Captain was kind enough to give us two jeeps full of Israeli soldiers to act as a protective escort to visit the place where great Hebrews in the Bible were buried at Hebron. And on all these occasions I have longed for the millennial days when there will be no guards or security walls in all these places, and peace will reign continually until the Devil is released from the bottomless pit.
I have conversed with UN Canadian guards at the Quneitra checkpoint mentioned in the Associated Press Article which follows, and looked at the Syrian
s and their military radar on their high peak across from the Israel peak of Mount Herman, at the very top of its ski lift. I have many times surveyed the western valleys at the base of Mount Herman, and longed for the day the Islamic forces would fill them, moving south to drive Israel into the Negev for some three and one-half years.
Revelation 12:6 – And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
“Two thirds” of the Israelis will perish in the Islamic drive to the south, but one third “shall be left therein” the land of Israel in the Negev for 1260 days.
Please do not think I do not love Israel, but what is written must be, and I am very anxious to have it behind Israel, and see them brought to a greatness by their Messiah they have never known. I long for the day when they will call on the name of Jesus in the Negev to save them!
My heart’s desire will be fulfilled when Jesus says “It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.”
Zechariah 13:8,9 – And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. [9] And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
Every time an article like the one that follows appears, my heart raises in hope this might be the one that would lead to the degree of “Peace and safety” required to fulfill I Thessalonians 5:3.
Begin Middle East On-Line Article
Turkey reassures Syria on Israel peace feelers
Turkish PM tell Damascus that Tel Aviv ready to give back Syrian Golan Heights.
April 23, 2008
DAMASCUS – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has assured Syria that Israel is ready to return all of the Golan Heights, reports said on Wednesday amid renewed peace feelers between the bitter foes.
“Mr Erdogan telephoned President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday morning to tell him of the readiness of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to withdraw completely from the occupied Syrian Golan in return for peace,” reported the Al-Watan daily, which, like all the Syrian press, reflects the official line.
Damascus has consistently demanded as its price for peace the return of the whole of the strategic Syrian territory right down to the shores of the Sea of Galilee – which Israel is using as its main water source after capturing the Syrian Golan.
Israel baulked at the demand in the last peace talks which broke off in 2000 but Israeli media reported last year that the government was considering accepting it in return for Syrian agreement to end its longstanding alliance with Iran and its support for Lebanese and Palestinian liberation and resistance groups.
Last June two Israeli ministers confirmed that peace feelers had been made to Syria through third party governments, one of which was widely identified as Turkey.
But the same month Syria’s ruling coalition, the National Progressive Front, rejected the reported Israeli proposals, dismissing them as an “effort to impose conditions which have nothing to do with the principles of peace.”
In November Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the Israeli daily Maariv that there had been “many missed opportunities recently to begin peace negotiations” between Israel and Syria.
But this month both sides have again spoken of their desire for peace.
On Sunday, the Syrian president told his Baath party which leads the ruling coalition that “friendly parties were making efforts to organise contacts between Syria and Israel.”
“Syria is in favour of a just and lasting peace. Syria rejects any secret negotiatons or contacts with Israel. Any action taken by Syria in this area will be revealed to the public,” official media quoted Assad as saying.
Last Thursday Olmert told Israel’s Channel 10 television: “Very clearly we want peace with the Syrians and we are taking all manner of actions to this end.
“President Bashar al-Assad knows precisely what our expectations are and we know his. I won’t say more.”
Israeli government spokesman David Baker reiterated the point on Wednesday. “Israel wants peace with Syria. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reaffirmed that in numerous recent interviews and he hasn’t changed his opinion since,” Baker said in occupied Jerusalem.
Despite a 1974 armistice, the two sides remain technically in a state of war. As recently as last October Israel launched an air strike against a site in northeastern Syria.
Damascus reacted furiously to the raid.
Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move condemned by the international community.
Begin Excerpt from Associated Press via Yahoo News
AP (Associated Press)
Israeli-Syrian peace talks broached, but border tension high
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer
April 21, 2008
Only 200 yards separate Syrian soldiers from Israeli troops in the Golan Heights.
Like mismatched bookends, a black, white and red Syrian flag flutters at a checkpoint in the town of Quneitra while a blue-and-white flag flies at the Israeli military post lying across the mined zone that separates them. Barbed wire cordons off the two sides joined by a narrow road that only U.N. peacekeepers can travel.
Every day, soldiers on the Syrian side see Israeli jeeps monitoring the frontier road.
A soldier positioned there said they are under strict orders not to open fire unless “a moving body approaches us.”
“They are our enemy, they occupy our land,” the soldier said, refusing to disclose any details about himself in conformance with Syrian military rules. “One day, we will liberate the Golan Heights. It is our land, it will return to us, by war or by peace.”
Israel captured the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Today, mixed messages are emanating from both sides of the border, with the foes professing to seek peace while boasting of their military prowess and readiness to defeat the other side.
The Syrian regime recently offered a group of 20 foreign reporters a rare glimpse of its front positions at the checkpoint in Quneitra. Israel captured the town in 1967, then returned it to Syria when it disengaged after their 1973 war.
The Golan Heights is home to 17,000 Syrian Druse and 15,000 Israeli settlers. Syria has said a peace deal would require Israel to return the Golan — something Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has signaled he is ready to do.
But tension between the two countries remains high after a mysterious Israeli airstrike on a Syrian military facility in September, the assassination of a Lebanese terror mastermind in Damascus and a five-day Israeli civil defense drill.
Syria announced recently that it would hold its own nationwide drill to prepare for “natural disasters and other emergencies,” in an apparent response to the Israeli exercise.
Olmert sent a message to Syria in an effort to lower tensions along their shared border.
“I want to make it clear that this is an exercise and nothing but an exercise,” Olmert said of the Israeli drill.
“Israel is not seeking violent conflict in the north.
We have said more than once that we are interested in peace talks with the Syrians.”
The two countries have exchanged messages through a third party to explore the possibility of resuming talks, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday, according to the country’s official news agency.
The report follows a similar one last week in which the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot quoted Olmert as saying, “They know what we want from them, and I know full well what they want from us.”
Assad echoed those comments on Sunday, saying Israel “knows well what is accepted and not accepted by Syria.”
In the 1990s, the countries held peace talks, but they broke down in 2000. Damascus rejected Israel’s offer to return the Golan and Israel refused to pull back to the pre-1967 war border along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Israeli-Syrian peace talks also were a centerpiece of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s political agenda when he was prime minister in 1999 and 2000. A political ally of Barak’s said recently that the defense minister is involved in current behind-the-scenes efforts to renew talks with Damascus.
Syrian leaders have repeatedly said in recent months that they want to renew peace talks, though they have said they don’t believe Israel is ready to make peace. Syria joined a U.S.-brokered Mideast peace conference in November in hopes it would help relaunch negotiations w
ith Israel, but the track has so far gone nowhere.
In an interview published recently by Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine, Barak said Israel “can beat the Syrians” and Hezbollah, their proxy militia in Lebanon, which dueled Israel to a draw in a monthlong war in 2006.
“But that is not the issue,” he said. “We have tried a few times with the Syrians. We should always keep our left hand extended in peace, and our right hand on the trigger.”
At this point, though, “I don’t see at the moment that the Syrians really want it,” he added.
In Quneitra, Governor Nawaf Fares said Syria was ready to resist any offensive from Israel. The Jewish state does not pose the same kind of threat it once did, he said.
“Arabs no longer fear that Israel will occupy more of their land,” Fares said. “The wars after 1967 … proved that we can resist Israel.”
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Hamas calls for Gaza-only ceasefire
JPost.com Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST
April 22, 2008
Hamas has softened its demands for a ceasefire with Israel, said Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad Tuesday.
The group is now prepared for a partial truce that would only include the Gaza Strip.
In return, Hamas wants Israel and Egypt to open their trade and passenger crossings with Gaza, which have been sealed since Hamas seized control of the territory last June.
The proposal has been relayed to Egyptian mediators, said Hamad, and they are now waiting for Israel’s response
Earlier Tuesday, government officials denied reports in the Arab press that a ceasefire agreement, in which the blockade on the Gaza Strip would be lifted and Palestinian attacks halted, was reached between Israel and Hamas.
“Hamas always was and remains a terrorist organization responsible for the latest attacks on the border crossings with the Gaza Strip, amongst others,” said senior officials in Jerusalem.
These comments came in response to Egyptian daily Al-Ahram’s claim that Egypt and Hamas had brokered a ceasefire deal and that Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman was due in Jerusalem to receive Israel’s approval for the agreement.
Also Tuesday, the Kuwaiti newspaper Mishkat Al-Ray reported that the signing of the agreement was imminent. Further reports suggested that the prisoner exchange deal in which captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit would be released would be postponed until a later date.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making Fsuch material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.