Jerusalem Watchman

From their White House meeting Tuesday we learned that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush see eye-to-eye in their delusion about how Hamas’ takeover of Gaza has made it possible to proceed with the “two-state-solution” by giving Abbas and his Fatah a state in Samaria and Judea (from where I am posting this).

As many right-thinking and clear-sighted people as possible need to shout from the rooftops the warnings of the terrible danger this approach poses to Israel and to the United States.

I am therefore also posting the following three items:

1. A letter sent to a former US presidential candidate who is fighting to keep his country on the right road.

2. A commentary by local Israeli Jerry Golden, and

3. A commentary by award-winning Romanian journalist Manuela Paraipan.

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LETTER TO A FORMER US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE - by Stan Goodenough
Sir

Shalom from Jerusalem, where we have returned after a busy month in the United States. We are so thankful for the time we were able to be with you - it was definitely the highlight of our week of meetings in and around Washington DC. Thank you again for your courtesy and graciousness in hosting us.

As we prayed in your office, and have prayed since - including today:  May the Lord continue to use you mightily for His purposes for your nation, and may He bind us together as, like you, we seek to stand on His Word concerning this crucial relationship between Israel and the United States.

We would like to share the following points regarding the recent developments in Gaza, and in the light of tomorrow’s meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Bush. I know you have a great deal of insight into these issues already, but if our perspective from “closer to the ground” can add to yours as you seek to alert your countrymen to what is happening in the Middle East, then we’d certainly want to send you some pointers as critical issues develop.

We believe Israel and America’s apparently instinctive reaction to Hamas’ coup in Gaza - to rush to the aid of Abbas and his emergency PA government in order to bolster them against a Hamas takeover in the “West Bank” - is the wrong move. The following reasons show why it is short-sighted and extremely dangerous for Israel.

The Palestinian Arabs in the PA areas in Judea and Samaria will not have been repulsed by what Hamas did – they will be impressed. This is the traditional Arab response to those who demonstrate strength, even brutality. This means that Hamas will now enjoy even greater support on the “West Bank” (we believe this will be shown to be true in the coming months), and it is a support base into which the Islamist group will tap when the time is right, in order that Hamas can do in Judea-Samaria precisely what it did in Gaza.

Olmert and Bush may believe they will be bolstering Abbas, but it is Hamas that will finally benefit – as it did in Gaza – from the weapons and other equipment that will now be sent to flood the “West Bank.”

If this flood of aid to Abbas includes a fast track towards handing him the entire “West Bank” in order to jumpstart the “peace process” because Israel “now has a partner” – which is how Olmert and US administration officials have indicated they see this – then that vital territory will soon be lost to Israel, in political terms – forever. The high ground overlooking Israel’s populated coastal plain will be in the hands of the Palestinian Arabs who will then have de facto achieved every goal in this phase of the PLO’s multi-stage plan to destroy Israel- whether “Hamastan” in Gaza and “Fatahstan” in the “West Bank,” or “Hamastan” in all those areas.

The United States will then have played an active and direct role in “dividing up God’s land” and gravely endangering Israel – the consequences of which, we know as Bible believers, will be fearful for the nation you – and we – love so much.

As we watched the Gaza Strip implode last week, our thought was that God was fighting for Israel by allowing that situation to unfold. From where we stand, it certainly does seem as if He is giving Israel reason after reason for fully justifying its need to abandon the whole land-for-peace process.
 
Israeli leaders can already point to the failure of the unilateral withdrawal approach – last summer’s war with “Hizballahstan” in southern Lebanon, and the incessant Kassam attacks from “Hamastan” in Gaza. Now the Hamas coup has provided an extremely sound reason for halting all cooperation with the implementation of President Bush’s “two-state solution.”

We need to strengthen the hands of Binyamin Netanyahu and any US senators or congressmen who have recognized the bankruptcy of this whole approach and who can see that it is gambling with the very existence of Israel.

May God help us

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ONLY IN THE SPIRIT CAN THIS BE UNDERSTOOD - by Jerry Golden

Many have asked why I’ve been silent for over a week about the insanity here in Israel.  I am still shaking my head in total unbelief.  Please keep in mind that what you are about to read is my very simplistic evaluation, knowing that there are many complications not mentioned here.

First we pull out of Gaza under pressure from the Bush White House, knowing that it would become a terrorist stronghold.  I like most Israelis sat in total unbelief and watched Ariel Sharon who we all had trusted completely taken over by George W. Bush.  We watched Sharon go against his country and even his own party and use words that no other Prime Minister ever used, like occupation, and a Palestinian State to mention a couple.  We watched Sharon bring Olmert from the 33rd position in the Likud Party all the way to the position of his number one in the Government.

It seems now with 20/20 hind sight that is how far back Sharon had to reach into the Likud ranks to find someone who would continue the planned destruction of Israel.  And once again we sat still without protest like sheep being led to the slaughter once again.  I have asked God many times if He has placed something in the minds of us Jews that allows us to be intelligent in many ways and yet stupid in others, or how a people who have suffered the horrors of the Holocaust can once again sit still and allow someone like Sharon and Olmert lead us into yet another Holocaust?  But like you when I read the prophetic Word of God I find all my answers of what is to come and what will be.

Then we sit still and allow Egypt (our peace partner) to open its border for tons of weapons moving into Gaza preparing Hamas for an all out war. To add insult to injury we allow these same Hamas terrorists to shell our cities and towns in the western Negev, causing death and destruction to our Jewish citizens and we do little to nothing about it, because Bush says we must show restraint to help his efforts in Iraq.

Now Hamas has completely taken over the entire Gaza Strip, turning it into another Taliban state living under Islamic Sharia Law.  And as everyone knew would happen all the weapons supplied by the US to Abbas in Gaza are now in the hands of those who have sworn to destroy Israel and kill every Jew.  And the weapons continue to flow into Gaza in preparation for all out war.

The world is now being told that the good news is Abbas can now be dealt with in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) that he is a moderate terrorist.  When it has only been a few weeks ago when he made the statement that both and Hamas and Fatah should be turning their guns on Israel and not on each other.  The fact that he is a Holocaust denier and sworn enemy of Israel seems to be forgotten.  Or is it that everyone has forgotten that Fatah is a terrorist organization, and the PLO is headed by Abbas.  That the Aksa Martyrs Brigade has killed more Jews with suicide bombers than Hamas has and it too is under the control of Abbas and Fatah.  Or that the reason the average “Palestinian” voted for Hamas in their election was they were fed up with all the corruption in the Abbas government.  That while the average “Palestinian” lived on a $1,000 or less a year, all of the Government officials lived in mansions and drove new high dollar Mercedes with money giving by the US and EU.

But now we hear Rice say we must now support Abbas and give him millions of dollars to rearm his terrorists with.  Front Page Jerusalem Post today says, “US RESUMES FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL TIES WITH PA. It’s not enough that because of the Bush pressure on Sharon we now have a Taliban State on our southern borders that has sworn to destroy the State of Israel and kill every Jew, he wants to now finish the job and turn the heart land of Israel into a terrorist state as well, and his spin doctors are very quick to start their propaganda to the whole world.

We now have Barak back as our Defense Minister with his eye squarely on the Prime Ministers job; we all know that he will give it all to the Arabs even the Old City and the Temple Mount.

We now have Shimon Peres the epitome of total evil as our next President. While Netanyahu who so many believe to be the best man for the job of PM sits still with his mouth shut and seems to have no fight left in him.  So to say things look bad here in Israel would be a very fair statement.

As terrible as the above may seem it is pale in comparison to what Iran and Syria have in store for Israel.

For months now Iran has been shipping convoys of weapons into Lebanon to rearm Hezbollah with longer range missiles under the ever watchful eye of the UN.  Russia, North Korea and China have been arming Syria with Iranian financial backing. And Iran has hundreds of long range missile aimed at Israel of which anyone of them could be carrying a nuclear warhead purchased from any number of the old USSR countries.

While Egypt sits unnoticed allowing Hamas in Gaza to rearm and they too have a very large and dangerous army thanks to the US.  Egypt has a long memory and they want revenge for 1967 and 1973 wars.

All this only means that if Israel just sits here and waits it will be destroyed or nearly destroyed and only God can then save her.  But then that sounds Scriptural doesn’t it!

But don’t think it is only Israel that will be destroyed, the United States is the main target and with Israel out of the way look out USA the terrorists cells in the US will begin their planned destruction of that country as well.  In the meantime God is showing the US His displeasure of the back stabbing that the US is doing to Israel…

Excerpted from ‘The Golden Report’ by Jerry Golden - Jerry@thegoldenreport.com
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REALITY CHECK by Manuela Paraipan

Those who hoped that once Hamas will lead the government it would be a new period of tahydya (calm) and prosperity for the Palestinians have now the proof that they were deadly wrong.

Hamas slogans were powerful and correct to a certain extent. Fatah is the personification of corruption. But Hamas is the incarnation of nihilism.

They do not want a state, two states or three states solution. They want to keep killing Jews and apparently they have no problem in killing their own kind either.

The difference between Fatah and Hamas is not their objectives but rather their tactics.
President Abbas sacked the Hamas led government. But that does not change a thing on the ground. Hamas has taken Gaza. Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians.

What more can be said? Except that the Palestinians have what they wanted all along.
Outside Israel people often excuse Palestinian violence by saying it is a reaction to the pressure, but hostile Arabs surround Israel, Hezbollah’s missiles threaten it, Iran threatens it with a a nuclear attack and Palestinian Qassams land weekly in Israel’s towns and villages.

This is the cult of violence and death preached by Hamas. Racism, hate and murder seem to be a national obsession. It is a deeply troubling fact but that is the reality and we have to call a spade a spade.

In the past few years Iran and Syria have been constantly undermining any chance for a Palestinian coalition. They have been paying Hamas not to negotiate or recognize Israel, not to release the kidnapped soldier, not to form a unity government with Abbas. Hezbollah trained Hamas and Syria offered safe heaven to individuals such as Khaled Meshal.

What the Palestinians as a people failed to see or admit is that their interests are being used by Arab Muslims and by Muslims for decades. No one cares about them period. They are and always were proxies in the war of others to gain regional preeminence, to escape isolation, justice, to gain better deals from the West etc.

Hamas is leading the Palestinians into more despair and misery. Palestinians do not need a savior. They never needed one. They need to stand united, end terror, negotiate with Israel a lasting peace, not a hudna and start building a nation. If they want to be recognized as a people and not as a bunch of criminals they need to start acting like one.

When the Iranian money and support ends, and it eventually will, the Palestinians will be even further from having their own state than they are now. The world has spent 59 years giving Palestinian Arabs a chance. And what has it gotten the world?  For that matter, what has it gotten Palestinian Arabs? They used all this time trying to kill as many Jews as possible and obliterate Israel instead of building lives for themselves.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas and those who elected it had a chance to prove that they are indeed capable of running it, that they can deliver what they promised. Has anyone seen what the Palestinians have done with Gaza? State-of-the-art greenhouses that used to provide food and products that were high on demand on the international market have now been turned into tunnel openings.

The terror groups will never allow Palestine to be a separate entity because they do not benefit from it. They do not want to work for themselves and for their own people; they simply want to keep on stealing the money the international community is sending and terrorize the Jews.

The Palestinians should accept written agreements, end all acts of terror, violence and the incitement to terror. If and when they will do it only then the international community should help them financially. Meanwhile let their Iranian and Syrian sponsors pay. Let the oil rich Arab states send money to them if they want, but the US, Israel and EU money should not be used to support and enhance a terrorist, lawlessness entity. It is illogical and it will cause more deaths and destruction in Israel, Gaza and West Bank on the long term.

Terrorist actions have terrible consequences for all involved parties. The only way to get away from the vicious cycle of violence is for the Palestinians to get out of the Islamic propaganda box and be responsible.