Updates From The Epicenter: Israel Being Forced Into Indefensible Borders By 'The Nations'

Of course we know from the prophet Zechariah that Israel will stand alone in the last days of this generation and indeed they are. The U.S., the EU and Russia are all  involved and all parties are desperately attempting to force Israel into the pre-1967 borders, which most military experts agree is indefensible. 

Exactly as biblical prophecy would dictate. What 'the nations' don't understand, is that God is watching these developments and God Himself will protect Israel. Too bad Gog doesn't recognize that fact because it will be his undoing. As it will be for any nation attempting to divide Jerusalem - which is a big part of this effort and the so-called 'pre-1967 borders' arrangement. We know directly from biblical prophecy that anyone or any nation that attempts to divide Jerusalem will be "cut into pieces' - and that list is all inclusive. The U.S. is no exception to that rule. We also know from Genesis 12:3 what happens to those who 'curse' Israel. Good luck with this effort - to the EU and the U.S. 

Netanyahu Denies Agreeing To Peace Talks Based On '67 borders

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu denied on Tuesday an official's remarks that Israel had agreed to resume peace talks based on the borders of a Palestinian state being drawn along lines from before a 1967 Middle East war, and agreed land swaps.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said "the report is untrue," calling Reuters with the statement after initially declining to comment on what the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official had said that, were the Palestinians to accept the formula, it would be announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry now in Jordan, who would also describe the future Palestine as existing alongside a "Jewish state" of Israel.

Asked about Reuters' initial report that Israel had agreed to the 1967 formula, a US official cautioned that "there is a great deal of inaccurate information out there right now and our focus is continuing to work through details with both parties".

Speculation has been rife that Kerry, now in the region for his sixth time since March in an effort to revive peace talks that deadlocked in 2010, may be close to a breakthrough.

Israeli PM Rejects EU 'Dictate' On Borders

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has said outsiders cannot tell him where his country begins or ends in reaction to new EU guidelines on settlements.

Speaking in a 40-second-long TV clip in Hebrew on Tuesday (16 July), he noted: "I will not let anybody harm Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, the Golan and Jerusalem … We will not accept any external dictates regarding borders."

He added the EU should focus on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme and Syria's civil war instead of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"I expect those who want peace in the region to deal with settlements after they solve the Syria crisis and the Iranian threat," he said.

Obama Uses EU To Confront Israel With Tough Interlinked Choices: Borders Or Nuclear-Armed Iran

It doesn’t take a political genius to see how US Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival in Amman Tuesday, July 16, for his sixth bid to bring Israelis and the Palestinians to the table, ties in with the new EU anti-Israel funding guidelines published on the same day. To avoid a head-on clash with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US president has loosed the Europeans in full cry against Jerusalem and its policies. European Union foreign affairs executive Catherine Ashton chairs the international negotiating forum with Iran. And so, the EU has given Tehran a broad wink that it is worth its while to come to a fresh round of nuclear diplomacy while Israel is kept on the run in the settlements-cum-borders dispute.

There is nothing new about this determination. The European Union has for years boycotted goods manufactured in settlements and demanded that Israel exporters label their products with the source of manufacture. Ever since 1967, the UK has withheld pensions and allowances from British expatriates living outside the Green Line until they relocate to addresses London deems kosher.
And that is only one of many examples.

However, the new guidelines have exacerbated the rift between Brussels and Jerusalem and signal a further deterioration.

Israel’s prime minister responded fast and hard to the new EU guidelines with a bitter broadside for what he sees as outside interference in the definition of Israel’s borders, in a manner which compromises direct Israel negotiations with the Palestinians. Direct negotiations are the only way to define those borders, he stressed, and the EU measure had the effect of tilting them in the Palestinians’ favor.

By pulling the wires behind the European campaign, the Obama administration is after three goals:

1. Persuading Tehran to return to international diplomacy on its nuclear program by diminishing Israel’s leverage.
2.  Confronting Israel with diplomatic isolation on an issue of prime importance to its security, i.e., the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, unless the Netanyahu government agrees to concessions to the Palestinians on final borders.
3. Warning Netanyahu that his failure to toe the Obama line on the Syrian conflict and the Egyptian army coup will cost Israel dear. Instead of lining up with what is seen in the region as an ineffectual Washington, Israel struck out on its own to play ball with regional forces on the move, the Arab rulers of the Gulf and the Egyptian army. The US president has used the European Union to make sure Jerusalem understands that he too will pursue his own game - and it will be at the expense of Israel’s interests.

EU Directive To Humiliate Israel On East Jerusalem And Settlements

Two enemies of Jewish life beyond the "green line," Israeli President Shimon Peres and EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, shaking hands. The EU, in collaboration with the likes of Peres, have come up with an ingeniously evil plan to divide the Jews of Israel.

Some antisemitic expressions are visceral and spontaneous, and so make it easier to regard them as part of the antisemite’s disturbed personality and move on. But some, very much including the subject of this story, are obviously the brainchildren of a committee, in this case a collaboration between Israeli leftists and the most repugnant elements inside the European Union.

The new directive, disseminated by the European Commission—the executive arm of the European Union—sets the parameters of cooperation between the EU and its member countries and Israeli private and governmental entities in the years 2014 through 2020. It is expected to take effect this Friday, July 18.

A senior official in Jerusalem who spoke anonymously to Ha’aretz said the new directive is dramatic and constitutes “an earthquake.” The most significant part of the directive is the “territorial item” which appears for the first time as a compulsory component in all deals between Israel and the EU. The new item determines which areas inside Israel are eligible to receive cooperation from the EU and which are not. It determines that deals would pertain only to areas within the EU-recognized, pre-1967 Israeli borders.

EU Sources: Settlement Guidelines Will Be Published As Planned

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres failed to convince the EU to freeze the publication on Friday of new guidelines restricting interaction with Israeli entities beyond the 1967 guidelines, EU sources said Thursday.

But, the sources added, the EU will hold discussion about implementation of the guidelines with Israel. The sources noted that the guidelines themselves will not come into effect until January 1, 2014.

The EU Commission issued a statement Thursday saying Barroso "explained the context and the objective of the guidelines." Barroso said that the guidelines did not represent a shift in the EU position, and he said the intention was to continue EU-Israel cooperation "within its internationally recognized borders."

Lapid: EU Boycott 'Bad Decision For Everyone Pro-Peace'

“It’s a bad decision for everyone who is pro-peace,” Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid told Arutz Sheva in response to the European Union’s announcement on Tuesday forbidding its member states from cooperating, transferring funds, givingscholarships or research grants to bodies in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem , and even the Golan Heights.
The new instruction, promulgated by the European Commission, which is the operative arm of the EU, sets parameters for cooperation between the EU and its members states, on the one hand, and Israeli governmental and private elements on the other. The instructions are for the years 2014 – 2020 and will go into force on Friday, July 18.

The decision also states that any future agreement signed with Israel must include a section that says the “settlements” are not part of sovereign Israel and therefore not included in the agreement.

“I know their thinking was that they’re supporting the peace process, but in fact they are harming the peace process,” he said.

“The European Union is giving full support to those extremists,” he added.

Meanwhile Economics Minister Naftali Bennett and Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin have warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanayhu that if he fails to bring about the cancellation of the new EU sanctions on Israel, they may opt to sabotage U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts at jumpstarting negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israeli daily Maariv reported Wednesday.

The EU's Broken Mideast Compass

If this is how the EU chooses to spend its limited diplomatic and political resources “to help” the Middle East, then its moral compass is badly broken. The EU still hasn’t even mustered the clarity or courage to join the USA, Canada, and six Gulf states (led by Bahrain) in designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization, even though Hezbollah has committed terrorist acts on EU soil that have killed an EU citizen, and has supported Basher Assad’s butchery in Syria. The EU has also failed to take any decisive action to address the urgent crises in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran (which marches ever closer to nukes and imports ore — for armor and missile production — from Germany and France). And where is the EU’s boycott of Mideast governments that persecute women, execute homosexuals, and condone the slaughter of Christians?

If the EU wants to wield its economic clout to impose peace on disputing parties, why not boycott China for its brutal occupation of Tibet? Clearly that occupation doesn’t matter because the EU is China’s largest trading partner. And why isn’t the EU boycotting Northern Cyprus, which is under foreign military occupation by Turkey (against the wishes of the EU)?

The hypocrisy is even more flagrant because some EU states are themselves occupying disputed territories on various continents. One of the most notorious examples is the Falkland Islands. What exactly is the UK’s burning security interest in occupying a Latin American island nearly 8,000 miles away? Maybe the EU should boycott the UK as well.

In the end, an EU boycott of Israel is just a cheap way to score political points with the oil-producing Arab states and the growing Muslim population on European soil.

...the EU shamelessly targets the only country in the Middle East that actually shares the EU’s democratic values, respect for human rights, pluralism, and the rule of law (not to mention shared interests like curbing Iranian nukes, developing natural gas resources in the Mediterranean Sea, and seeing moderates prevail in the volatile Middle East).

It’s also worth noting that the real obstacle to peace — Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism — existed before any of Israel’s settlement-building. Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism from Gaza also continued despite the removal of Israeli settlements (from Gaza in 2005). So Israeli settlements did not create Palestinian extremism and their removal doesn’t necessarily end it.

Moreover, the EU seems to have forgotten that Jews have a historical and legal right to be in the West Bank. The “Mandate for Palestine” confirmed by the League of Nations recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting their National Home in that country.” Under Article 6, the Mandate encouraged “close settlement by Jews, on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” The EU’s boycott falsely implies that Jews have no right to live in the West Bank, and is thus disturbingly reminiscent of the “Judenrein” policies of Nazi Germany, which banned Jews from certain spheres of life only because they were Jews.

If the EU wants to ignore international law and history, the many more pressing Mideast issues, and its own hypocrisy, all for the sake of promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace, then it should at least recognize that unilateral pressure on Israel has only reinforced Palestinian inflexibility. Indeed, it is only the Palestinians who have refused to negotiate peace without preconditions. The EU has pressured the wrong party because its Mideast compass is badly broken.

Also see:

Second Civil War Brewing In Syria

WHO Imposes No Travel Restrictions On Middle East Despite Deadly Virus

Putin Orders Russia To COnduct Biggest War Games Since Soviet Era

Muslim Brotherhood Threatens Civil War In Egypt