Are these Two Events Connected? Are we finally headed for the Brief False Peace before Israel is driven into the Negev?
April 18, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
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.
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.
There are numerous terrorist factions among the Palestinians, such as Fatah,
Hamas, and al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, but there is one group that the Palestinians have never been able to stop launching Qassam rockets against Israel out of the Gaza Strip, namely the Islamic Jihad. So it was naturally a shocker to me when the Palestinian Authority had limited success in getting Islamic Jihad to stop launching for the next three weeks, as reported by the following extract from yesterday.
Hopefully, this event is tied to Event Number 2, and finally, this might be the initial stage of a brief false peace between Israelis and the PA.
EVENT NUMBER 1
THIS IS A SHOCKER!
Abbas reaches agreement with Islamic Jihad to halt Qassams
April 17, 2007
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has reached an agreement in principle with senior Islamic Jihad officials, whereby the organization would stop firing Qassam rockets at Israel for three weeks.
Israel Defense Forces sources confirmed there has been a sharp drop in rocket fire as a result of the agreement. Other attacks, however, such as sniper fire along the Gaza Strip security fence, have continued on a small scale.
Abbas and other senior Fatah officials have conducted an intensive effort to bring the Islamic Jihad into an agreement on renewing the tahadiyeh (calm) with Israel along the Gaza border. This is an internal Palestinian agreement, and not an accord with Israel.
Islamic Jihad has been the main perpetrator of rocket fire in recent months, and in many cases Hamas militants have given Islamic Jihad their rockets to fire at Israel.
The issue of restoring the tahadiyeh was also discussed in a Damascus meeting this week between former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia of Fatah and Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Salah.
It appears that while senior Fatah and Islamic Jihad officials have agreed to halt the rocket fire, Islamic Jihad militants have fired at least one rocket in recent days without tak
ing responsibility for the attack.
In addition, Abbas will apparently turn a blind eye to “low profile” attacks such as Hamas sniper fire and mortar fire on IDF outposts along the Gaza Strip.
In recent months, an average of 10 rockets were fired per week from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Last week, only three rockets were fired, according to the YeshaNews Web site, which tracks the number of rocket launches. This week, only two rockets have been fired.
There are two primary reasons behind Abbas’ initiative. One is an attempt to convince Israel to carry out a number of confidence-building measures in the West Bank, first and foremost the easing of restrictions on Palestinian travel between West Bank cities.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Abbas during their meeting this week that he would be willing in principle to discuss the issue in two weeks, should Abbas succeed in achieving quiet along the Gaza border.
The second reason behind Abbas’ push is that the PA chairman intends to depart shortly for an extended visit to Europe, and the renewed calm would help him convince European leaders that the Palestinians are doing their part and that it is up to Israel to reciprocate with steps of its own.
A senior Islamic Jihad official in the Gaza Strip, Nafez Azzam, told Haaretz Tuesday that he has no information confirming
the agreement with Fatah.
Meanwhile, a delegation of European ambassadors to Israel toured the Gaza Strip crossings on Tuesday in order to assess their performance. Olmert’s diplomatic advisor Shalom Turjeman and his chief of staff Yoram Turbowicz also visited the Karni crossing on Tuesday.
End Haaretz Article
EVENT NUMBER 2
Egypt, Jordan chosen to promote Saudi plan to Israel
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST
April 18, 2007
The Arab League on Wednesday picked Egypt and Jordan to take the lead in approaching Israel to promote the Saudi-drafted peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel has praised the broad land-for peace offer but has said it will not accept the plan without some changes. However, Arab countries are hoping to pitch the plan as a basis for resuming Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.
Washington has also welcomed the Arab initiative, which calls for Israel to withdraw from lands taken in the Six Day War and negotiate a fair solution to the refugee issue in return for a full recognition of Israel by all Arab countries. The plan was introduced by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and revived during an Arab summit in Riyadh last month.
At the end of a meeting Wednesday at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, 12 Arab nations’ foreign ministers and their Palestinian counterpart selected Egypt and Jordan to approach Israel and push for the plan.
The two would try to “initiate direct talks” with Israel, “call on the Israeli government and all Israelis to accept the Arab peace initiative and to take this chance to resume the direct and serious talks on all levels,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a press conference.
The meeting Wednesday was attended by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as the Palestinian envoy.
It also set up working groups to “explain the Arab vision” and drum up support for the initiative with the United States, United Nations and the European Union, “so that a peaceful settlement (with Israel) can be achieved within a limited time frame,” al-Faisal said.
Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively, and regained territory lost in wars. Most Arab states insisted on a solution to the Palestinian problem before recognition of Israel.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the Arab plan’s full recognition of Israel would be a major breakthrough in Arab relations with the Jewish state but has flatly rejected the plan’s demand for the return of Palestinian refugees displaced in wars.
Also Wednesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II urged Olmert during a phone conversation to “maintain the peace momentum” with the Palestinians and said that a timetable must be set to implement the Arab initiative, the Jordanian official Petra news agency reported.
A key US ally in the region and an advocate of a peaceful Arab-Israeli settlement, Abdullah has been pushing for reviving the peace process. In separate meetings this week with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as well as US and Palestinian peace activists, Abdullah said the Arab plan offers a “rare opportunity” for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
Jordanian foreign minister, Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib, who is expected to visit Israel soon, also rallied support for the plan in talks with Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, during her visit to Jordan on Sunday.
Well-informed Jordan-based diplomats, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that Livni expressed a preference that the Arab League not make direct contact with the Jewish state but that the contacts come through Jordan or Egypt.
End of Jerusalem Post Article
Knowing that, according to Scripture, a brief false peace must come to Israel before the final war of this age begins, and then trying to watch peace efforts in the Middle East offer a variety of ways, such as a false peace by negotiations, force, or Hudna (truce), is certainly the most difficult task I have encountered in my 53 years as a synoptic analyst. My guesstimate of a false peace coming into place at some point in time between 2008 and 2012 is, as the word guesstimate implies, is strictly a guess based on observation of the pre-events that seem to be leading to the event Scriptures indicate MUST eventually occur.
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