Abbas and Sharon: Showdown Over Jerusalem

How to resolve the opposing claims over the world's most controversial city, Jerusalem, was to be part of the international efforts to bring peace to the Middle East this year. The Sharon administration yanked it out of the end of the "Roadmap for Peace" and is making it an issue now. Barely established in office, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has to get help from the Bush administration, or else Abbas' ability to lead—and his ability to make peace—will end before it begins.

by Cecil E. Maranville

"This is 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 spirit of man within him, declares: 'I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 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'" (Zechariah 12:1-3, New International Version).

So begins a sobering end-time prophecy about the city of Jerusalem. While the world hasn't yet arrived at the brink of that crisis, many is the nation that has attempted to reposition Jerusalem ("to move it" in the language of the oracle).

The nations of the world—a "Quartet" of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States—are poised to attempt to reposition Jerusalem yet again. It was to be part of Phase III of the "Roadmap for Peace," drawn up by the Quartet, when they would convene a conference that "leads to a final, permanent status resolution on borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements" (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs document).

The conference on Jerusalem was to have begun sometime this year. Israel may be preempting that discussion.

Israeli forces are scheduled to be completely withdrawn from the Gaza Strip by August. Pulling out of the West Bank would follow, which includes East Jerusalem. However, citing security needs, Israel is in the process of encircling East Jerusalem with a 25-foot-high concrete barrier, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank (and seizing Palestinian territory on which to build the wall).

The Palestinians are furious, claiming that by doing so, Israel is establishing a de facto border for Jerusalem even before the permanent status talks begin. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adamantly stated before an audience of New York's Jewish community just a day before Abbas met with President George W. Bush that the Sharon administration would not negotiate on Jerusalem.

Circumventing the "Roadmap"

Abbas angrily points out that this yanks one of the most crucial points needing resolution off the table. And, he adds, the action further breaks the "Roadmap" agreement by denying a contiguous Palestinian territory. The Gaza territory would be joined by a peace corridor with the West Bank territory, which is about 25 miles away at its closest point. But the West Bank would be cut off from its principal city, Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem is mostly Palestinian Arab. The emerging Palestinian state is set on making East Jerusalem its capital. How could they have a capital in Jerusalem, if it isn't even within their borders? In fact, Palestinian Authority law states that the entirety of Jerusalem is its capital, a perspective that greatly upsets the Israelis.

Israelis are uneasy about Palestinian rule over East Jerusalem, fearing that the Palestinian Authority might deny them access to two of their holiest sites, the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall, both of which are in that area.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA or PA), was invited to the White House in late May where, in his words, he demanded the strong political and financial support of the United States for the Palestinian cause.

That seems an audacious if not arrogant approach for the leader of a not-yet constituted nation to take before the world's most powerful nation. But he has to show himself strong to the Palestinians, and talking tough to the leader of the free world is as strong as you can get.

Yet what could he give the United States in return for what he demands from it?

Ostensibly, he could establish peace with Israel, helping to diffuse Arab anger against the Jews. He could also continue to promote a democratic government within the PA, and the promotion of democracy in the Middle East is a top priority of the second Bush administration.

Perhaps this is the reason that his election was heralded as a victory for democracy by the White House, in spite of the fact that the election was far from democratic by Western standards.

Palestine was to drop the hate rhetoric

The Abbas administration has passed the first-100-days mark. How is it doing for its part of the "Roadmap" obligations? The beginning of Phase I was to be: "Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate end to all acts of violence anywhere" (ibid.).

Abbas would have to change the way of thinking drummed into the consciousness of Palestinian youths from their earliest years—that their highest and happiest purpose in life would be to slaughter Jews.

Yasser Arafat ordered the PA press and schools to promote propaganda that calls Israel and everything it has built since 1948 "illegal." "The state of Israel... is consistently portrayed [in PA history books] as 'occupied Palestine'" (Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems for Tenth Grade, part 2, p. 95, cited by Kenneth R. Timmerman, Preachers of Hate, 2003, p. 157).

The Reader and Literary Texts for Eighth Grade of Palestinian schools requires the memorization of a poem titled, "Palestine." It calls for a battle to the death against Israel. "My brothers! The oppressors [Israelis] have overstepped the boundary. Therefore jihad and sacrifice are a duty... are we to let them steal its Arab nature?... Draw your sword... let us gather for war with red blood and blazing fire... Death shall call and the sword shall be crazed from much slaughter... Oh Palestine, the youth will redeem your land" (ibid., p. 158).

On goes the message throughout the school years. It is small wonder that the youths of Palestine are eager recruits for Hamas and Islamic Jihad's suicide missions against Israeli soldiers and civilians. After 100 days in office, Abbas has not ordered any change in the textbooks.

Nor has Abbas done anything to change the tenor of PATV. On the first Friday after his government announced it would control and vet all sermons delivered in the West Bank and Gaza, a PA-employed cleric, with Abbas in the audience, celebrated International Women's Day by encouraging mothers to send their children to their deaths on suicide missions against Israel (Joel Mowbray, "The Real Mahmoud Abbas," April 4, 2005, www.townhall.com).

"Arafat in Western clothing"

Mowbray calls Abbas "Yasser Arafat in Western clothing." Abbas is an educator by profession, and he advocates a more genteel approach to overthrowing Israel than did Arafat. First the PA should establish a Palestinian state, and then it should revert "to violence to wipe out all of Israel." Mowbray says that Abbas' criticism of terror "is based on his belief that slaughtering innocent civilians is merely strategically unhelpful" (ibid.)

Abbas is an effective fund-raiser for the PA cause. Nothing has been said publicly about the billions in international aid that Arafat siphoned off and squirreled away in private bank accounts.

But apart from past aid, Abbas has secured promises of $12 million from China, $15 million from India and $100 million from Japan (on top of $60 million given since the death of Arafat). Additionally, the EU gives 10 million euros per month (about $13 million U.S. dollars). The U.S. Congress recently approved a $200-million aid package, and it is considering another $160 million in aid next year. Burned by the larceny of Arafat's crowd, Congress is attaching many restrictions on its grants.

Many are clamoring for reforms in the PA, but making changes isn't easy. In "The 100 Days of Abu Mazen [another name for Abbas]," Uri Avnery warns that the Palestinians are watching Abbas too (Counterpunch, April 20, 2005). They are waiting to see if there is any benefit to his trusting in American promises to ensure a fair and even pursuit of the "Roadmap."

Abbas secured a ceasefire from Palestinian militants against Israeli settlements in Gaza. Palestinians are watching Abbas to see if his way works. Avnery points out that the hamulah ("extended family") is important in all Arab societies, especially so in the Palestinian. Abbas, he says, must move cautiously, building consent as he does so, lest he lose the ability to govern.

PA preparing for war

There are voices of warning from people who are watching Abbas from outside Palestine, people who doubt that he wants to make a lasting peace with Israel. Clearly, Joel Mowbray's is one such voice. Caroline Glick's is another. She is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

She warns that both the United States and Israel are wrong to trust Abbas, noting that the PA is greatly increasing its capacity to make war by acquiring SA-7 Strella antiaircraft missiles from Russia. The Palestinians are reorganizing, not disbanding their "military-terrorist forces in a way that will prepare them for the next round of terror war against Israel."

Further, she notes that "Abbas' offer [in mid-March] to the Palestinian terror groups outside the PA umbrella to move their headquarters from Damascus to Gaza after Israel's evacuation of the area shows that in his strategic thinking, the territory, once empty of Israeli presence, will be transformed into a center for global terror" ("The Palestine Problem," April 4, 2005, emphasis added).

Equally chilling is Kenneth Timmerman's warning that when Palestine is a legitimately constituted state, it could sign a mutual defense pact with Iran, each pledging to defend the other if either comes under threat of attack. Obviously, Palestinians could do nothing to help Iran, but imagine the scene of the Iranian navy anchored off Palestine's seaport, and Iranian air force jets landing at Palestine's airport.

Has Washington thought through the consequences of its present course of sponsoring a Palestinian state and its backing of Mahmoud Abbas?

On her recent commendable good will tour of the Middle East, Mrs. Bush was heckled by protestors in Jerusalem. She told them, "We're reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us prays for. What we all want is peace."

Indeed, we do. But peace sought through complex politics and entangling alliances is an illusion of the genuine article. As the prophet Zechariah warned, the consequences of "repositioning" Jerusalem will be injurious to all parties.

In John 14:27, Jesus contrasted His peace with the peace that the world gives. The United Church of God looks for His peace that will only come when the Prince of Peace returns to Jerusalem and establishes an entirely different form of government than any created by men. Only that government, the Kingdom of God, will be able to bring peace to this weary city.

For additional insight into end-time prophecy about this region, see our booklet The Middle East in Bible Prophecy. And, for the biblical vision of the one government that can and that will bring peace, see our booklet The Gospel of the Kingdom. —WNP

Abbas and Sharon: Showdown Over Jerusalem

by Cecil E. Maranville

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