What matters is what God says…
By Henk Kamsteeg

With the official resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on September 21, the leading Kadima party is now headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has been appointed by President Shimon Peres to try to put together a coalition to run the government. If she cannot, new elections are on the horizon and opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu remains more popular than the Kadima candidate in most polls and may defeat her to become the next Prime Minister.

In the meantime, the embattled outgoing PM Olmert is accelerating negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, offering to give much of the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria (Westbank) to the PA, and to divide Jerusalem.

This in spite of recent Israeli polls showing only 28% of Israelis support the ‘land for peace’ formula. A July 2008 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll shows that nearly 73% of Jerusalem's residents (including Israeli Arabs) oppose the division of the city with physical barriers, as opposed to only 27% who would be willing to support it (Israeli Arabs comprise roughly 30% of Jerusalem's population), and an October 2007 poll showed that a clear majority of Jewish Israelis – 59 percent to 33 percent – oppose Israel handing over to the PA various Arab neighbourhoods in the eastern half of Jerusalem.

Other 2007 polls found 68 percent of Israelis oppose withdrawing from the Golan Heights, 53 percent oppose withdrawals from Judea and Samaria, in both cases, even in return for a 'real peace’, and 72 percent of Israelis oppose uprooting Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. It also showed only 28 percent of Israelis support the 'land for peace' formula, 58 percent oppose it.

Morton A. Klein, the National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), said, "Has Prime Minister Olmert learned nothing from the disastrous 2005 Gaza withdrawal or from any of the other negotiated withdrawals under Oslo, all of which led to the same thing: bringing Palestinian terrorism into the Israeli heartland, rendering Israelis more vulnerable and less secure than before? He does not appear to have realized that the conflict with the Palestinians is not over territory or resources, but over Israel 's existence, as it has always been. Giving up territory, therefore, will not solve the problem – it will worsen it.

"It is astonishing too that these moves can be undertaken by a government that is supposed to be transitional, in which its leader is imminently standing down and at a time when new elections are likely to be held.

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said it would be wrong to reach agreements with the Palestinians on the core issues of the conflict while Olmert’s government is teetering.
"At this time of change in the government, we must not reach agreements on the core issues in negotiations with the Palestinians," Mofaz said. "Anything that is decided now is very problematic, because it is happening before the change in the government and against the background of instability on the Palestinian side."

Recently Ehud Olmert said “The vision of a greater Israel no longer exists,” referring to the Bible prophecies that indicate the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has promised the holy land to the Jewish people and chosen the city of Jerusalem to be His own special city, the capital of the Jewish nation. Olmert dismisses Bible believers as “delusional.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promptly predicted Israel won’t survive for long, saying, “while some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of a Lesser Israel has expired, too.”

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah said Hizbullah was responsible for “pounding the last nail in the coffin of ‘Greater israel’… The victories of 2000 and 2006 destroyed the dream of a vast Israeli power,” he said, referring to Israel’s retreats from Southeren Lebanon. “Today, we face ‘Mediocre Israel.’”

The question now is whether Tzipi Livni shares Olmert’s ideological and emotional exhaustion and the policies that emanate from such fatigue now that she has (narrowly) won the Kadima primaries and is in position to perhaps become Israel’s next Prime Minister.

Best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg says in his article ‘Heading to the Epicenter’: “Does Livni shares Olmert’s opinion? Does she believe Jews and Christians who believe the God of Israel gave Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to the Jewish people are “delusional”? Does she believe the prophetic vision of a “Greater Israel” is dead? Will Livni thus try to give away Judea and Samaria? Will she try to divide Jerusalem? Will she try to give away the strategically Golan Heights? Will she try to appease Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas? Or will she confront Israel’s enemies and do everything necessary to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat? It is too soon to say.”

Christian Arab-American journalist Joseph Farah, a former Middle East correspondent, gives his perspective on the “land-for-peace deal” in his article ‘Israel tries to divide God’s miracle land’: “It’s not Israel’s land to give away. It’s God’s holy land. Just because most Israelis, and perhaps even most Jews worldwide, are secular-minded souls, self-conscious about being “God’s chosen people,” doesn’t mean you can take the land that you were given miraculously and throw it away. The land can’t be divided. It can’t even be sold or exchanged (Ezekiel 48:14). But worse, the Israelis are giving it away to their enemies – and, quite frankly, the enemies of God.
God did not have Moses part the Red Sea for this. He did not bring His people out of Egypt for this. And He certainly did not perform His biggest miracle of all – regathering the Jews 2,000 years after their dispersion and recreating the forgotten land of Israel – to see it frittered away like this.
Who says the rebirth of Israel is bigger than the Exodus? God does. This is a miracle that took place 60 years ago – and it was bigger, in God’s eyes, than the parting of the Red Sea, than the manna from heaven, than the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, than the walls tumbling down at Jericho.
It is God’s land (Jeremiah 3:18). It wasn’t the United Nations that gave Israel the land. It wasn’t Israel’s military prowess that delivered the land. It wasn’t the hard work of the Zionists that made it happen. It was foreordained. It was God’s work. And He didn’t entrust His land because He wanted to give it away to non-believers.
Do I disagree with what Israel is doing? Yes.
Do I believe Israel is performing a great evil? Yes.
Do I believe Israel will face dire consequences as a result? Yes.
But it doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters is what God says.”

While we see all these things happening with God’s land and even with Jerusalem – the capital city of God’s chosen people, the ancestral home of David, the location of the temple, and above all the earthly dwelling place of God.
The only thing we can do is to love and support Israel and the Jews, even as the leader of the nation(s) hurry to try to make a name for themselves at the expense of God’s people. There is nothing we can do to change things but pray, pray, pray. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for the coming again of the Messiah.

No matter what, God is in control of history and in His appointed time His glory is coming back to Israel. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her broodss under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matthew 23:37-39)

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What matters is what God says… By Henk Kamsteeg

What matters is what God says…
By Henk Kamsteeg