Is Kushner Kosher?

The finally unveiled Trump Peace Plan (“Deal of the Century”) for Israel and the Palestinians is one of the most interesting of all time. On the one hand, the generous offers to Israel are far more than any U.S. president has ever offered.

On the other hand, it divides God’s land.

And there’s no way around that.

I’d love to enthusiastically endorse the plan, which calls for Israel to annex “settlement blocs” and take permanent control of the strategic Jordan River Valley.

More on that in a minute.

And yet, we must continue to lash ourselves to Scripture.

It’s tempting to just accept the deal. After all, there is precedent for it. In 1948, David Ben Gurion accepted a greatly shrunken Jewish state because…it was a Jewish state. For the first time in 2,000 years.

I once spoke with his chief of staff and he said that he had asked Ben Gurion why he’d accepted a tiny state, when the previously (British) promised state would have been far larger.

“Because,” the first Israeli premier said with some emotion, “I had to have the keys to Haifa.”

He meant that a port city in the Land of Israel gave the new Jewish state a toehold and would enable them to bring in millions of new Jewish immigrants.

Now however the situation is different.

The situation is extraordinarily complex now.

Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life and there is no guarantee on March 2 that the third round of elections will result in his win. This directly impacts how much territory Israel will retain. No one believes Benny Gantz would push for a Greater Israel.

So…word has leaked that presidential advisor Jared Kushner—who is largely responsible for the Plan—is now pressuring Netanyahu not to annex territory before the elections.

What if Gantz wins? Then don’t expect any real annexation.

We are standing poised on an historical moment. If the current Israeli government was bold enough, it would go ahead and annex everything. Then let the chips fall where they may.

The Palestinians have already predictably nixed the deal. The thug Abbas angrily rejected it. He’s a Muslim hack that hates Israel and America.

So it’s not as if Israel is actually waiting on further negotiations. There is some momentum for maximum annexation; even international observers know Israel has been beyond patient for 25 years while the Arabs chose terrorism over statehood.

Now, to the Jordan Valley. Israel is poised to take this territory permanently. Here’s why that’s important: according to the God-Magog narrative in Ezekiel, the coalition/invading army needs access to the Jordan Valley from the east to reach the peak of the mountains of Israel.

Next, should Israel annex any territory—much less full annexation—it will only inflame her many international enemies. Once an Israel-friendly administration leaves Washington, we will likely get a worse Israel-hating administration than Obama’s. What then?

What then is, we are nearing the fulfillment of Zechariah’s great end-times prophecies.

So we wait eagerly to see whether Jared Kushner can delay Israel’s annexation, or whether it will go ahead.

Momentous times!

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

 

Human effort

One can be forgiven the impulse to give President Trump (and Netanyahu, for that matter) the benefit of the doubt regarding the “Deal of the Century” for Israel and the Palestinians.

A quarter-century of mind-numbingly stupid diplomacy has only murdered more Jews in Israel and make no mistake: Bill Clinton, Saeb Erekat, Martin Indyk et al do not care. They only nurtured the “Oslo” process because it chipped away at Israel’s sovereignty.

Now comes an equally controversial plan from Trump. For us Bible prophecy purists, the plan—extremely generous to Israel in a human context—calls for some of the Land of Israel to be given to the Palestinians for a state.

This is a non-starter for hardcore Christian supporters of Israel.

(As an aside, I fell out of favor in the last five years in certain circles because I do not support the two-state solution.)

Now, it’s tempting to endorse this plan because it gives Israel several advantages, including control of the Jordan Valley. And as I said at the outset, one could be forgiven for forgiving Trump, in that no one expects the Palestinians to actually take the deal. Did you know that since 1947, they have rejected peace deals 17 times?

Number 18 is probably right ahead.

The thinking is, this is simply a clever ploy by Trump and Bibi, and after the Palestinians inevitably take a walk, Israel can then swoop in and annex the West Bank.

It’s doubtful they would annex the whole territory, but it’s a possibility that this is what the Americans and Israelis have had in mind. At worst, Trump’s team is comprised of realists who actually understand what’s been going on.

The problem is, giving the Palestinians literally an inch will ensure they will continue to take 10,000 miles. It’s in their DNA. A little-reported event last week illustrates why peace is impossible with the Palestinians.

During a Holocaust forum in Jerusalem, Israeli troops engaged three terrorists from Gaza, when the latter threw explosives at them. The IDF eliminated all three.

But the terrorists had gotten through the security fence near Kibbutz Kissufim and had gotten several hundred yards inside Israel proper before they were detected.

In one important way, the Palestinian terrorists are identical to leftists and today’s Democrat Party leadership in Washington: they never, ever give up.

Some insane numbers are being thrown around to jump-start a Palestinian economy, should they take the deal. Hundreds of billions of dollars!

The leadership will steal every dime, just as they have since 1993. Our tax dollars.

If they are given even a tiny state, they will have realized their goal of finding a sovereign toe-hold, and they will continue trying to eliminate the Jewish state.

Sometimes human effort approaches a noble effort, but in the end, human diplomacy will fall short of Scripture. God doesn’t want the land divided, and if it is, there will be cosmic consequences.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com