How many times have we seen a similar article? Can anyone doubt the amazing accuracy and specificity of biblical prophecy?
A prophecy: The word of the Lord concerning Israel.
The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth,and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: 2 “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 3 On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. 4 On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness,” declares the Lord. “I will keep a watchful eye over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations. 5 Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the Lord Almighty is their God.’
(Zechariah 12)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday continued to rail against US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cautioning that actions taken in the city could spark a future war, while also advocating a “peaceful” path.
“Jerusalem is the gate of peace and war — Trump must choose,” said Abbas, who was at a conference in the Al Azhar University in Cairo on “global support for Jerusalem.”
While warning of war, the 82-year-old Palestinian leader also reiterated several times that the only way forward for Palestinians to oppose both American and Israeli policies involved peaceful means.
“A popular and peaceful resistance is the path that will succeed and that we will continue on,” Abbas said.
In contrast with a controversial speech Abbas gave on Sunday in Ramallah, in which he bitterly attacked the US president and other American officials, and issued a series of attacks on Israel, asserting that the Jewish state was a “colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism,” the Palestinian leader in Cairo was sober and measured.
“Whenever a new American administration comes, it curses its predecessor. How can we trust this great country to act as an arbitrator between us and Israel? We can’t trust it and won’t accept it as an arbitrator,” Abbas said.
After Trump’s December 6 speech recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Abbas declared that the US could no longer serve as a peacebroker, and instituted a boycott of the Trump administration. The US president initially said his decision merely recognized the reality that Jerusalem serves as Israel’s capital and was not meant to prejudge the final borders of the city, though later he said it had taken the city “off the table.”
“We are in the midst of major challenges and in the face of a major conspiracy aimed at Jerusalem,” Abbas told a crowd of Muslims and Christian clerics at al-Azhar.
He urged Muslims and Christian worldwide to “defend” Jerusalem, and encouraged members of the two faiths to travel to Jerusalem, stressing that such visits did not constitute “normalization” with Israel.
“We need your support, for you to stand by us,” Abbas said. “No honorable Jew would accept the violations against Jerusalem,” he added, while noting that “there are a lot of honorable Jews.” The PA leader didn’t specify what these “violations” were, but in the past has used to term to mean the “Judaizing” of Jerusalem and restricting of access to the Temple Mount.
Abbas said repeatedly that Jerusalem was a city for Muslims and Christian to live in, without mentioning Jews. At the same time, he said that should Palestinians attain rule over Jerusalem, it would be a city open to all religions, especially the Abrahamic faiths, including Judaism.
“We will resort to all the options but we will not resort to terrorism and violence,” he said. “We have other means, including returning to the masses of our nation to take their role in working for the sake of Jerusalem.”
Abbas highlighted as an example of nonviolent resistance Palestinian protests in Jerusalem last July over security measures placed around the Temple Mount by Israeli police in the wake of a terror attack there.
He also said the Palestinians would go to the International Criminal Court “to defend our right.”
Abbas praised the actions of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who has become a Palestinian icon after appearing in a video hitting and provoking Israeli soldiers.
“She attacked and struck an armed soldier and didn’t fear. Now she sits in prison,” Abbas said of Tamimi.
During his speech, he renewed his claim that the Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Canaanites mentioned in the Bible.
“We’ve remained here and we are not leaving our land,” Abbas said.
An Israeli TV report aired Tuesday night said Abbas had decided to give his earlier fiery address denouncing Israel and the US after Saudi officials informed him of the parameters of Trump’s peace plan, which were overwhelmingly favorable to the Jewish state.
A close associate of the PA president was summoned to Riyadh for an urgent meeting earlier this month. There, the details of Trump’s peace plan, which provides for a “state-minus,” were presented to the Palestinians for the first time, the Hadashot report said.
The plan’s main clauses were as follows: less-than-full statehood for the Palestinians, ongoing Israeli control over security matters, a permanent IDF presence in the Jordan Valley, land swaps not based on the pre-1967 lines, no settlement evacuations, and an Israeli veto regarding the final status of Jerusalem, which would be later negotiated by the parties, the report said.
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