Peace - A Divided Jerusalem?

"For I will gather all nations to battle against Jerusalem: The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle." Zechariah 14:2-3(KJV)

In Annapolis, Maryland, President Bush showed his commitment to a plan that would create a separate Jewish and Palestinian state, peacefully coexisting side-by-side. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who represents the Palestinian claim for Eastern Jerusalem as their future capital. This is but a small piece of real estate which was acquired during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, yet many nations refuse to recognize Israel's right of sovereignty. Now like a commodity, 44 nations, like investors, hope that these negotiations will successfully trade for peace in the region.

Truly, tension in the Middle East has been building for some time now. September 11, 2001 was a direct attack on American foreign policy and our support of Israel. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stands defiantly against the US and the United Nations declaring that his country has 3,000 working uranium enriching centrifuges. He claims this technology will only be used to generate electricity. However, Russia and China are also helping to create a nuclear Iran, and Korea has offered to help build underground bunkers to create enriched weapons-grade uranium.

Israel will not tolerate Iran becoming a nuclear threat. According to a November 8, 2007 TIMESONLINE article, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said "Talks never did, never will, stop rockets."

Ahmadinejad hatefully demonizes Israel calling her the Zionist regime - "the most detested people in all humanity." On June 3, 2007, Fars News Agency reported him saying, "With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine . . . By God's will, we will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future."

Islamic radicals long to see the day that the wrath of Allah will bring the great mushroom cloud to hang over Israel (the little Satan) and the Unites States (the great Satan).

America, beware as we foolishly try to mediate peace in the Middle East by putting Jerusalem on the bargaining table. Zechariah 12:3 prophecies, "And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." And in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 it says, "For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape."