‘Post-truth’ WORLD
Hitler published a ‘Jew-free’ Bible. The UN has just given the Middle East 3000 years of ‘Jewfree history’ . Chuck and Karen Cohen reveal how “truth is fallen in the street”…
UN Security Council resolution 2334, passed on Dec. 23, 2016, said all the land Israel liberated in 1967, including Jerusalem and the Western Wall, is illegally occupied “Palestinian Territory,” and demanded Israel to halt all “settlement” activity. The Obama administration betrayed Israel by abstaining, thus letting it pass. Yet these verses aided us in prayer in the face of this anti-God, anti-Israel global decree.
“YHWH brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He breaks the plans of the people. The counsel of YHWH stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.” (Ps. 33:6-11) In Isaiah, God the Creator declares, “Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the scales… All nations before Him are as nothing; and to Him they are seen to be less than nothing, vanity.” (Isa. 40:15, 17; see also 21-23) So the arrogance of the United Nothings is to think they decide what happens with God’s land and people. Great judgment will come because of this resolution. When it does, we need to declare, “This is that which was spoken…”
Danny Danon, Israel’s UN ambassador, told the UNSC it was a “dark day for this council,” as they hypocritically condemned Israel “for building homes in the historic homeland of the Jewish people,” while thousands of Muslims are massacring and being massacred in neighboring Syria.
He chastised the UNSC, holding up a Bible as witness to the thousands of years of Jewish history in the land of Israel, asking, “What right did its members have…to try
to prevent the Jewish people from building homes in their own land? …We have full confidence in the justice of our cause… We will continue to be a Jewish state reclaiming the land of our forefathers…” (“‘We will overcome this evil decree’, Israel tells UNSC…,” TOI, 23 Dec. 2016)
Dr. Guy Millière, University of Paris professor, wrote that UNSC 2334 “sets the boundaries of a future Palestinian state” decreeing “all of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem” as “occupied Palestinian territory,” thus nullifying all further negotiations. It gives them everything for “not even an insincere promise of peace.” (“Obama’s Betrayal of Israel,” Guy Millière, Gatestone Institute, 13 Jan. 2017)
UNSC 2334 – reactions
Netanyahu: “Israel rejects this shameful resolution” which calls Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall “occupied territory… It hurts justice. It hurts the truth.” With the entire ME ablaze, Obama and the UN “gang up” on its only democracy. (“PM Netanyahu: Israel will overcome shameful SCR,” Israel Hayom, 25 Dec. 2016)
Yoram Ettinger said while Obama greeted the Jewish people on Hanukkah, commemorating the victory of the Maccabees in battles in Judea and Samaria, then he called these places “occupied.” Hanukkah hero Simon the Maccabee, confronted in the same way replied “We have not occupied a foreign land; we have not ruled a foreign land; we have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation.”
In 1977, when US President Carter asked PM Begin to freeze Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, Begin replied, “Why is it permitted for a Jew to …live in Bethel or Shiloh in the US, towns named after places in Judea and Samaria, but it is forbidden to build his home in the original Shiloh or Beth El?” (“Obama’s self-defeating settlements policy,” Y. Ettinger, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 26 Dec. 2016)
History Prof. Gil Troy said UNSC 2334 supports “the ‘Big Palestinian Lie’ that their territory is somehow the only clear, undisputed, perfectly defined, piece of real estate in the mottled, muddled, messy ME.” (“Joining the jackals,” G. Troy, JP Op-ed, 27 Dec. 2016)
Netanyahu pointed out “that the League of Nations in 1922 ratified the Balfour Declaration that ‘awarded national rights to the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, in the Land of Israel’.” This was adopted later by the UN and “is a binding document under international law that defines the international legal status of the Land of Israel.” UNSC 2334 is illegal. (“…Arabs ‘ethnically cleansed’ Jews from West Bank,” JP, 28 Dec. 2016)
Rabbi Aryeh Spero said, “Something very unusual happened after the SC voted to declare Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria Arab/ Islamic land.” The nations’ delegates gave themselves a standing ovation. “It was a celebration by too many of the nations of the world against the history of the Jewish People and their Covenant to the Holy Land.” (“They Clapped while They Took away Jerusalem from the Jews,” A. Spero, American Thinker, 4 Jan. ’17) (cp. with Zech. 12:2-3)
Islamic Reaction to UNSC 2334
Dr. Ephraim Herrera said that as soon as this passed, the PA said “actions must be taken to isolate Israel in the international arena,” with their foreign minister asking the world to “put an end to the ‘Judaization’ of Judea and Samaria.” Others called for legal action against Israelis for war crimes.
Islam’s goal is to end Israel. Using “lawfare”, it aims to portray Israel “as an immoral, apartheid, ‘illegal’ country that must be denounced…The issue is not territories but the very existence of the State of Israel.” (“The issue is Israel’s existence,” Dr. E. Herrera, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 27 Dec. 2016)
PA head Abbas’ response to this resolution exposes their plan: “The minute the Israeli government agrees to cease all settlement activities, including in and around Occupied East Jerusalem, and agrees to implement the signed agreements on the basis of mutual reciprocity, the Palestinian leadership stands ready to resume permanentstatus negotiations on the basis of international law and relevant international legality resolutions, including UNSC2334, under a specified time frame.”
He did not cite UNSC 242, the foundation of all diplomatic efforts since ’67, but he cited UNSC 2334, the difference being “that any Israeli presence beyond the ’67 lines lacks legal validity and must be… actively opposed by the international community.”
So Israel “will not be seen as compromising if it leaves any of Judea and Samaria,” because “it is no compromise to give up what is not rightfully yours in the first place.” Israeli rage over UNSC 2334’s passage was because it is now the new starting point “for dealing with the conflict and from Jerusalem’s standpoint” it’s a no-win situation. Israel is trapped. (“Netanyahu’s tactical rage against the UNSC conspirators,” Herb Keinon, JP, 30 Dec. 2016) Micah 4:11-13 shows who gets the last laugh.
Warnings, peace and security
What will happen to nations who resist what God is doing? As per His warning in Isaiah 60:12, “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you [Israel, at the time of your restoration] shall perish; yes, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) wants to use 2017, the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, to change “the false paradigm” of the world seeing Israel as an illegal occupier. That false view was promoted by the losers after the ’67 war, as Israel legally remained in Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, the Golan, and, until 2005, Gaza.
The idea that “everything starts and ends with ‘the occupation’,” is not legally or logically correct. “We can’t be occupiers in our own land…You can’t say we belong in Tel Aviv, but not in Judea and Samaria…People say we’re barely 70 years old, but we have a 3,000-year-old connection to this land.”
When diplomats try to convince Hotovely that the two-state solution is the only way, she asks them what would replace Israel’s presence in the West Bank – Hamas or ISIS? “I haven’t met one” that, when alone, “doesn’t admit that there is no chance of a democratic entity on our border.” (“Deputy FM hopes to break the international West Bank paradigm,” JP, 22 Nov. 2016)
Sorbonne University Prof. Shmuel Trigano, a leading scholar on anti-Semitism, noted that in all “attempts by global powers to forge a diplomatic arrangement,” there is not a single plan which “strategically assures Israel’s existence. All of Israel’s resounding victories in all the wars forced on it by the enemy are discounted … despite the accepted norm that after a war
the victor dictates the new order and determines conditions for peace. However, what has pertained to every other country throughout history does not apply when it comes to Israel and its history.” (“The many faces of anti-Semitism,” Prof. S. Trigano, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 16 Jan. 2017)
The war over Jerusalem
For over “…three millennia, Jerusalem has been the capital of three native Jewish states – Judah, Judea and Israel.” Jews have constituted the majority of its “residents since the pre-Zionist 19th century. In contrast, Palestinian Arabs have not ruled Jerusalem for a single day…”
Fifty years since “Israel reunited its bitterly divided capital city – divided, like Berlin once was, by war – the media ignorantly parrot the Palestinian narrative that claims East Jerusalem as its future capital, as if the section of the city that the invading Arab Legion captured and which Jordan occupied for 19 years had been an historic entity.” They even capitalize “East Jerusalem” as if it were a historical fact, like “East Berlin”. Yet it is “an ideology-driven, but geographically impossible term.” For example, Gilo, Jerusalem’s southernmost community, was bought by “the Jewish National Fund during the 1930s,” It was once occupied territory, as Jordan occupied it from 1949 to 1967 when Israel liberated it. (“Hands off Gilo,” JP Editorial, 5 Nov. 2016)
Post-truth
The JP’s Liat Collins wrote, “While the world obsessed over an ever-lengthening list of cultural icons that died in 2016… we might have missed the most significant casualty: The truth…
“2016 can be fittingly summed up in the hyphenated term ‘post-truth’, chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as their Word of the Year. It is defined as an adjective: ‘Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief ‘…”
Oxford added, “The compound word posttruth exemplifies an expansion in the meaning of the prefix post- that has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Rather than simply referring to the time after a specified situation or event – as in post-war or post-match – the prefix in post-truth has a meaning more like ‘belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant’.”
The president of Oxford Dictionaries said, “Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time,” adding ominously, “Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I would not be surprised if posttruth becomes one of the defining words of our time.” (cp. 2 Thess. 2:8-13)
Collins adds, “To demonstrate post-truth’s dangers, consider the rise of its ugly stepsister, fake news.” In a post-truth world “there can be no universal home truths…” (“The truth, the ‘hole’ truth and the posttruth,” L. Collins, JP Op-ed, 5 Jan. 2017)
“Prepare the ship”
Karen received these three words at our home fellowship. Her impression was that many believers are not yet prepared to sail though these chaotic days – although many warnings are found in scripture. For example, “But of the times and the seasons…you have no need that I write to you. For you know accurately that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety’, then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But you…are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You are all the children of light, the children of the day… Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thess. 5:1-6)
May God show us that which is lacking in our preparation as we see the final act before Messiah’s return being played out before our eyes. After all, the specific timeframe of His return is defined in Psalm 102: “When YHWH shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.” (102:16)