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Israeli forces are scheduled to be completely withdrawn from the Gaza Strip by August.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).

Read the full article at www.wnponline.org/wnp/wnp0506/index.htm

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